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NUCLEAR
UK nuclear liability fund gets go-ahead
German nuclear waste convoy reaches storage depot
India Won't OK Missile - Control Deal
U.N. Official Faults Clause on Interviews of Scientists
Experts: Iraq Hid Vast Chemical - Biological Stocks
Iraq Urged Reveal Arms;
U.S. Allies Back N. Korea Penalties
Russia admits to nuclear theft
Russia: Nuclear Material Missing
FBI issues confidential terror alert
HP ascends supercomputer list
Telerobots Aid in Hazwaste Cleanup
White House tones down terror warning
House Passes Terrorism Insurance Bill
FBI Bulletin Warns of Attack
White House Denies Assertions on Preoccupation With Iraq
MILITARY
U.S. Fighter Planes Bomb Afghan Targets
U.S. Arms Pipeline Flows to Gulf Arabs
Officials cooperate in arms-sale probe
India, U.S. Discuss Sale of Sensors
Jittery Britain to Advise Public How to React to Terror Attacks
Lab-closings defense memo seen as breaking Bush pact
New Leader Chosen in China
China's Jiang Keeps Military Reigns
Iranians may aid U.S. war on Iraq
Baghdad increases range of surface-to-air missiles
Experts: Iraq Hid Vast Chemical-Biological Stocks
Several Jewish Settlers Killed in Attack on Hebron
A Palestinian Camp Mourns Its Slain Children
U.S. Still Trying to Unfold Mideast Road Map
NATO Readies Defense Against Mass Destruction Arms
U.S. headed for largest defense budget hike since Reagan buildup
Military Smallpox Vaccinations Planned
'Spectacular' Warning Confuses Some
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Intelligence Criticized as F.B.I. Issues New Alert
White House Yields on a 9/11 Inquiry Backed by Congress
Report Criticizes FBI Policy
Virginia Executes Pakistani Who Killed 2 at the C.I.A.
French Police Oust Migrants Who Took Refuge in Church
'A supersnoop's dream'
Poindexter's Laboratory
Ashcroft's Shadowy Disciple
FBI Warns 'Spectacular' Al Qaeda Attack Possible
U.S. Captures Senior Al Qaeda Leader
U.S. to Push Anti - Terror Initiative in Hemisphere
ENERGY AND OTHER
Sharp to set up first US solar power plant
Farm group wants ethanol to stay in US energy bill
U.N. Condemns Shooting of Afghan Students
ACTIVISTS
Italian Police Arrest 20 Anti - Globalists
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- britain
UK nuclear liability fund gets go-ahead
Story by Andrew Callus and Dominic Evans
REUTERS UK:
November 15, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18610/story.htm
LONDON - Britain said this week it would go ahead with plans to put its 48 billion pounds of state nuclear clean-up liabilities into a special fund, a move that could open the way for a new round of nuclear privatisation.
The plan is designed to bundle together the future costs of decommissioning and cleaning up nuclear plants and to make sure the state meets those costs.
It came as a surprise to some commentators, who had expected the government to avoid the issue of nuclear industry reform in the wake of recent events.
In September, British Energy Plc , a nuclear power firm privatised in 1996, was forced to crawl back under the state umbrella for a government loan to stop it going bust.
The British Energy crisis prompted protests from groups opposed to nuclear power and a widespread debate over the future of economic and environmental policy in the energy sector.
"Draft legislation will be published on the management of nuclear liabilities," Britain's Queen Elizabeth told parliament in a speech setting out Prime Minister Tony Blair's legislative programme for the next 12 months.
The plan to set up the Liabilities Management Authority (LMA) was first proposed a year ago. It is designed to assume the decommissioning and other costs of state-owned British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL), and a smaller set of liabilities of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). Together these amount to about 48 billion pounds ($76.22 billion).
BNFL runs the UK's older and more costly Magnox nuclear power stations that were not privatised with British Energy, and the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in northwest England.
UKAEA manages the decommissioning of reactors and other radioactive facilities. It is responsible for the Dounreay plant in Scotland, where 20 workers were exposed to radioactive particles this week.
Analysts and critics see the LMA scheme as likely to help BNFL with its plans to join the private sector, making the business more attractive to investors by keeping the liabilities with the taxpayer.
Some industry sources have suggested the LMA could end up as the vehicle for a rehabilitation of British Energy itself - taking on the privatised firm's liabilities as well and leaving a restructured company that has more investor appeal.
The draft bill, which may be held up by lengthy consultation before being taken forward for legislation, sets out goals to clean up the "nuclear legacy" safely and cost effectively, according to a Department of Trade and Industry document accompanying the Queen's speech.
Commercial contracts will remain with BNFL and will be unchanged by the proposals.
BNFL Chief Executive Norman Askew, who hopes to get the company privatised within the next three or four years, welcomed the plan, though he said he had initially hoped it might happen sooner.
"It's good news," he said. "Initially the intention was to get this in place by April 2004. That probably has slipped six months, but in the scheme of things that's not fatal."
Anti-nuclear group Greenpeace, which has been campaigning for British Energy to be put into administration, said the move raised the spectre of new nuclear plants being built.
"The new nuclear liability legislation will pass the industry's huge clean-up cost on to the taxpayer and so clear the way for dangerous new plants across the country," said a Greenpeace spokesman.
"People living near the sites earmarked for new nuclear stations should today be worried. All this when we have huge untapped reserves of renewable energy in this country."
(Additional reporting by F. Brinley Bruton).
-------- germany
German nuclear waste convoy reaches storage depot
Story by Claudia Doerries
REUTERS GERMANY:
November 15, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18601/story.htm
GORLEBEN, Germany - The largest transport of nuclear waste in German history arrived at a storage depot yesterday after a massive police force escorted the freight train past thousands of demonstrators.
The convoy of 12 containers filled with 1,300 tonnes of reprocessed nuclear waste was the target of anti-nuclear activists for three days. They repeatedly delayed the train by chaining themselves to tracks and disrupting the transport.
The containers had been loaded onto trucks for the final 20 km (12 mile) segment of the journey to Gorleben, north of Hanover, where they arrived at 0621 GMT. The transport began at the French reprocessing plant of La Hague on Monday.
More than 1,000 demonstrators had delayed the convoy by about five hours during the final segment by sitting on the road leading to Gorleben. But police carried the protesters away. Earlier protesters had set tyres on fire on tracks.
"There were some scuffles between police and demonstrators, but there were no major confrontations," said police spokeswoman Michelle Rolof.
Wolfgang Ehmke, spokesman for the demonstrators, said the opponents had nevertheless succeeded in showing the world that the anti-nuclear movement in Germany was still going strong.
"We scored a number of important blows all week," he said. "The resistance to nuclear waste in Germany won't go away."
This week a high-speed train carrying 150 passengers screeched to a halt in Lueneburg, north of Hanover, only 150 metres (yards) from two dozen demonstrators blocking the tracks after two policemen ran towards it waving at it to stop. The train was running at 110 km an hour (70 mph) at the time.
Nuclear power is a controversial issue in Germany, where government and industry agreed in 2000 to phase out all reactors by around 2025.
There are now a total of 32 "castor" containers with nuclear waste in Gorleben. Another 12 containers will be brought to Gorleben each year from France through 2010. From 2005 another five containers will arrive each year from a British reprocessing plant in Sellafield.
The shipments to the Gorleben site have become the object of a ritual confrontation between police and anti-nuclear activists. Some 15,000 police were needed to guard the route last year in the largest peacetime security operation in post-war German history.
Security costs have reached $23 million in past years.
-------- india / pakistan
India Won't OK Missile - Control Deal
November 15, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-India-Missile-Code.html
NEW DELHI (AP) -- India won't take part in an international agreement to curb the spread of ballistic missiles, the foreign ministry said Friday.
Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said India supports missile curbs, but takes issue with the agreement because it ``refers to ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles without a proper distinction.''
India is the second major country to oppose the code. China said earlier this month that it won't take part. The code calls on nations to curb proliferation and share information about testing ballistic missiles.
It was proposed by French President Jacques Chirac in 2000 and then drawn up by the Missile Technology Control Regime, an international pact that tries to discourage the export of weapons of mass destruction.
Representatives from about 78 countries met in Paris in February to help produce the guidelines.
Conference participants included the five original nuclear powers -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China -- and three more nations that have tested nuclear weapons or are believed to be capable of doing so -- India, Pakistan and Israel.
The agreement defines a ballistic missile as one capable of delivering a 1,100-pound payload farther than 190 miles. It can carry nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
India's ballistic missile arsenal includes the Prithvi, with a range of 95 to 220 miles, and the intermediate range Agni, which can reach up to 1,500 miles and is capable of delivering a 2,205-pound warhead.
India conducted five nuclear tests in 1998, causing international concern and provoking economic sanctions by the United States and other Western nations. Those tests were followed by nuclear tests by rival Pakistan.
-------- inspections
INSPECTORS
U.N. Official Faults Clause on Interviews of Scientists
November 15, 2002
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/15/international/middleeast/15INSP.html
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 14 - A clause in the Iraq resolution that lets United Nations inspectors take Iraqi scientists and their families out of the country for interviews may backfire and make access to the scientists more difficult, a senior United Nations official said today.
Hundreds of Iraqi scientists are thought to know about programs to develop biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, and interviewing them is considered vital to uncovering Iraq's hidden arms. The clause to let them be interviewed outside the country was meant to make them more forthcoming, since they would be away from the customary Iraqi minders, informers and censors.
The problem with the new provision, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, is that the Iraqis may worry about defections, and thus may be more guarded about the identities of those who work on scientific programs that could produce weapons of mass destruction.
A week ago Friday, the day the Security Council voted unanimously to disarm Iraq with a new inspection regime, euphoric Bush administration officials promoted the idea of Iraqi scientists' defecting. Although today the United Nations official did not mention the administration's comments, he was clearly worried that the prospect of defections would make interviewing more difficult.
The official said it was important to get names of Iraqi scientists who joined the programs since the inspectors left four years ago. Such individuals are now largely unknown, the official said, and discovering their identities will take much work or unusual Iraqi cooperation.
The resolution said inspectors "shall have the right to be provided by Iraq the names of all personnel currently and formerly associated with Iraq's chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missile programs and the associated research, development, and production facilities."
It also says that the inspectors may "conduct interviews inside or outside of Iraq and may facilitate the travel of those interviewed and family members outside of Iraq."
It is unclear who was behind the clause allowing interviews outside Iraq. But Bush administration officials praised the resolution and suggested that Iraqi scientists willing to testify about secret weapons programs would be assured that they would not have to return to Iraq under the current government.
The administration officials said defector knowledge about the location of hidden weapons and installations could provide Washington with detailed evidence to challenge Saddam Hussein.
Today, the senior United Nations official expressed doubt about the potential effectiveness of the interviewing provisions, predicting that the discovery of the identities of relatively new scientific recruits would now become one of the hardest aspects of the inspection job.
"The authority to take them out," he said, "will make things more difficult." The official added that under the old inspection regime, from 1991 to 1998, Iraqi officials were often reluctant but nevertheless identified scientists and let them be interviewed, though usually in highly controlled circumstances.
--------
Experts: Iraq Hid Vast Chemical - Biological Stocks
November 15, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-usa-weapons.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite Iraqi denials, Western experts believe Baghdad has produced and concealed vast amounts of chemical and biological agents and may have rebuilt part of its illegal nuclear program.
In its letter this week to the United Nations accepting the return of weapons inspectors to its soil after a four-year absence, Iraq said it ``has not developed weapons of mass destruction, whether nuclear, chemical or biological, as claimed by evil people.''
Western analysts, building on what was discovered by the previous U.N. inspection regime known as UNSCOM, which lasted from 1991 to 1998, and what was strongly suspected but could not be proved, believe Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is still concealing a deadly arsenal.
One 1998 assessment by the U.S. House of Representatives task force on terrorism and unconventional warfare concluded, ``Despite Baghdad's protestations, Iraq does have small but very lethal operational arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and platforms capable of delivering them.''
When the UNSCOM inspectors left Iraq in 1998, they said they still did not know the full extent of Iraq's chemical and biological programs but had collected both hard and circumstantial evidence suggesting that the programs were far more advanced and wider in scope than previously believed.
Possibly the most terrifying and least known area concerns Iraqi biological warfare capabilities. After repeatedly denying the existence of such programs, Iraq was forced to admit in 1995 that it had produced anthrax, aflatoxins and botulinum toxin and that it had filled missile warheads and aerial bombs with biological agents.
Iraq said it destroyed all these agents but UNSCOM suspected it had produced and hidden large amounts of all three.
Aflatoxins, a carcinogen naturally found in many nuts and some grains, causes cancer and other diseases and may have been developed for possible use as a slow agent of genocide, perhaps for use against Iraq's Kurdish minority. Botulinum toxin is one of the most toxic substances known to man.
``There was a vast discrepancy between the amount of germ cultures the Iraqis imported and what they said they used for legitimate industrial purposes. They could have hidden enough to produce four tons of germ warfare agents,'' said Jonathan Tucker, who worked on U.N. biological weapons inspection teams in Iraq in the 1990s.
There was also some circumstantial evidence that Iraq was working to develop and weaponize smallpox. There was a natural outbreak of the disease in Iraq in 1971 and scientists could have collected and stored samples.
It is known that Iraq was experimenting with camel pox, a close relative which usually attacks animals but could also harm humans. It might have also been used for experimentation because its chemistry is very close to that of smallpox.
SMALLPOX IS 'SCARIEST UNKNOWN'
``The biggest and scariest unknown is whether Iraq has access to smallpox and whether its scientists have produced a weaponized and militarized version,'' said Michael Barletta of the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
An assessment from the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies concluded, ``Iraq has probably retained substantial growth media and biological weapons agent (perhaps thousands of liters of anthrax) from pre-1991 stocks. The regime is capable of resuming biological weapons agent production in weeks from existing civilian facilities. It could have produced thousands of liters of anthrax, botulinum toxin and other agents since 1998.''
Rod Barton, a former Australian defense official who worked on UNSCOM biological inspections in Iraq, wrote in an analysis in 2001 that he believed Baghdad may have perfected a way of freeze drying anthrax so that it would retain its potency for many years.
In the chemical weapons field, most concern centers on VX, a deadly nerve agent where a single droplet can kill. When they were ejected from Iraq in 1998, U.N. inspectors had uncovered evidence that Baghdad had imported precursors sufficient to produce 200 tons of the agent.
Iraq admitted only to having produced 3.9 tons and said it had destroyed it all but inspectors found traces of a VX stabilizer and chemical byproducts of the deadly agent in samples of warhead pieces.
In the nuclear field, experts say Iraq has maintained its scientific and technical expertise and could produce a nuclear weapon within a few months if it could get its hands on weapons-grade fissile material.
CIA director George Tenet told the Senate intelligence committee last February, ``Iraq retains a significant number of nuclear scientists, program documentation and probably some dual-use manufacturing infrastructure that could support a reinvigorated nuclear weapons program.''
Most experts do not believe Iraq has managed to keep more than a couple of dozen ballistic missiles and it is unclear how many would actually work after being in secret storage for the past 11 years since the 1991 Gulf War.
But Iraq is known to have been developing small, unmanned aircraft which would be difficult to detect on radar because of their size, slow speed and lack of metal parts. Such aircraft could be guided to their targets using global positioning devices and used to deliver chemical or biological weapons.
--------
Iraq Urged Reveal Arms;
Inspections Start Nov 27
November 15, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-un.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Declaring spot inspections would begin on Nov. 27, chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix warned President Saddam Hussein on Friday to disclose all his weapons of mass destruction in a report next month.
``This offers a last opportunity for Iraq to declare what they have,'' Blix told a news conference on the eve of his trip to Baghdad. ``An omission can be very serious.''
Iraq, under a new Security Council resolution 1441, adopted Nov. 8, has to give a ``full, accurate and complete'' declaration of all its programs and materiel that can be used to develop chemical, biological and nuclear arms, and ballistic missiles. The declaration is due on Dec. 8.
Iraq has said repeatedly it has no weapons of mass destruction. But Blix said Baghdad had often changed its position in the past and now had time ``to examine their archives and their stores and their stocks and determine whether there is something or not.''
The resolution says any false information in the declaration and noncooperation with weapons inspectors would constitute a ``material breach'' -- legal terminology that could trigger a U.S. attack against Baghdad.
The measure, which gives inspectors new rights, says Blix has to report any serious violation to the council, which would assess it before anyone could take military action. But some U.S. officials would like to report violations themselves, without verification by Blix.
Blix, however, said that if the United States or any other country had evidence, it had to tell the council.
``If others have evidence, then that would be the time to present it ... put it on the table, he said.''
He said that when inspectors were last in Iraq, between 1992 and 1998, the concept was that Iraq would make a declaration and the inspectors would verify it. ``Some said this developed into 'they hide, we seek','' Blix said.
President Bush will seek solidarity from fellow NATO members to support firm action on Iraq during a Prague summit next week. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Bush wanted to hear from allies ``what they are prepared to do and what they can do.''
Washington had hoped Iraqi exiles could form an alternative government to replace Saddam, should it go ahead with plans to overthrow him. So far six opposition parties have failed to organize themselves and in London, representatives of rival Kurdish parties have set two different dates for meetings.
Blix and his counterpart from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, are going to Baghdad on Monday with a team of technicians. They will set up offices, communications and transport to ``make sure the pigeons that have broken through the windows have been cleaned out'' and ``to initiate this new chapter of inspections,'' Blix said.
TIMETABLE ACCELERATED
Blix has also accelerated his reporting timetable.
A week later, about Nov 25, an advance group of about a dozen arms experts go to Iraq and begin the first inspections two days later. Blix said the clock then ``starts ticking'' on the 60-day deadline, now Jan. 27 for his first required report to the Security Council, a month earlier than expected.
That resolution gives inspectors the right to go anywhere, any time, and warns Iraq that it will face ``serious consequences'' if it fails to comply.
But he also said inspector had to use their common sense and ``take into account whether you can read an intention into something.''
Asked about Arab League requests that more Arab inspectors be included, Blix said only Jordanians to date had submitted names. He said inspectors would include about 30 Americans, the largest group but that this number was close in size to a contingent of French or Russian arms experts.
The new resolution also allows Blix and ElBaradei to interview government officials, scientists and their families out of the country so they would not be intimated, in what Blix in the past has called an ``invitation to defect.''
He said again that interviews, without Iraqi minders, would be most helpful but there were ``practical problems'' in getting people out of the country without Baghdad's consent.
However, he said that interviewing people in Iraq may present problems also out of fear of later intimidation.
Blix, the executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission is in charge of biological, chemical and ballistic arms teams, while ElBaradei field nuclear weapons inspectors.
Two senior Russian officials warned Blix not to repeat the mistakes of his predecessor, Australian Richard Butler, who had been vilified by Moscow for presenting a report that trigged punitive U.S.-British air strikes in December 1998.
``Crude and arrogant methods were used which ignored the sovereignty and dignity of Iraq and its people,'' Russia U.N. Ambassador Sergei Lavrov told Moscow television in an apparent reference to U.S. agents among the inspectors.
And Yuri Fedotov, Lavrov's former U.N. deputy and now Russia's deputy foreign minister, said Butler, by withdrawing the inspectors unilaterally ``cleared the way for strikes against that country,'' according to the Interfax news agency.
Butler withdrew the inspectors on the eve of the bombing to prevent them from becoming hostages but Russia said the Security Council should have been informed first.
-------- korea
U.S. Allies Back N. Korea Penalties
November 15, 2002
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-North-Korea.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- Demanding the speedy elimination of North Korea's nuclear program, key allies backed the U.S. decision to suspend future oil deliveries to North Korea as punishment for its secret program to develop a uranium-based bomb.
South Korea, Japan, the European Union and the United States said in a joint statement Thursday after a daylong meeting that future shipments will depend on North Korea's ``concrete and credible actions'' to completely dismantle its highly enriched uranium program. This must be done ``in a visible and verifiable manner,'' it said.
The isolated communist nation is destitute and depends heavily on the U.S. oil shipments. The United States and its allies are hoping the prospect of a cold winter for millions of North Koreans will pressure Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
``We strongly ask North Korea to take our message seriously and scrap its plan to develop nuclear arms immediately,'' Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Friday.
Halting fuel oil shipments may force many factories in North Korea to shut down, analysts in Seoul said Friday. North Korea imports all its oil, with about 10 percent coming from the oil assistance program, South Korea says.
``So, it's not difficult to figure out how serious the impact would be,'' from the suspension, said Choi Su-young, a researcher at the Institute for National Unification, a government think tank.
The first to feel the impact could be the North's showcase capital, Pyongyang, the analysts said.
The three allies gave their support to the suspension a day after President Bush made a decision to stop oil shipments, accusing North Korea of violating a 1994 agreement with the United States in which it pledged to become a state free of nuclear weapons.
In exchange for the pledge, the United States had promised to provide more than 500,000 tons of heavy oil per year. In addition, South Korea and Japan offered to pay most of the cost for two light water nuclear reactors that are of limited use for a country intent on developing nuclear weapons. The fate of that project is unclear.
The European Union, the United States, Japan and South Korea are members of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, known as KEDO, which operates the 8-year-old oil assistance program.
The KEDO statement said the suspension would begin with the December shipment. In light of the suspension, ``other KEDO activities with North Korea will be reviewed,'' it said. Such programs include economic aid and construction projects.
The allies said North Korea's nuclear program threatens regional and international security and undermines the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Bush decided to suspend the oil shipments following North Korea's acknowledgment of its uranium bomb program on Oct. 4 during a meeting with U.S. officials in Pyongyang. His only concession was to agree to allow a vessel already en route to North Korea to deliver a final oil shipment.
Before the suspension was announced, Secretary of State Colin Powell told a news conference in Ottawa, Canada: ``We cannot continue to provide fuel in this manner, in light of North Korean violation of the understanding.''
In late October, North Korea offered to negotiate a non-aggression pact with the United States, but Powell has said there can be no discussion until Pyongyang dismantles its nuclear program.
The CIA believes North Korea has at least one plutonium-based bomb from an earlier nuclear program. Powell said last week that the North's nuclear weapons arsenal could be increased in a matter of months if Pyongyang decides to reprocess the plutonium now under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Associated Press reporter Dilshika Jayamaha in New York contributed to this report.
-------- russia
Russia admits to nuclear theft
AFP
Friday November 15, 3:28 AM
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/021114/afp/021114192839top.html
MOSCOW (AFP) - Several kilograms (pounds) of low-enriched uranium and a few grams (ounces) of weapons-grade material have been stolen from various Russian nuclear sites over the past decade.
The head of the federal nuclear and radioactive security oversight agency said massive new investments were needed to strengthen safeguards at Russia's nuclear sites and keep the dangerous material out of the wrong hands.
"There have been cases of leakage" over the past decade, said Yury Vishnyevsky, using a slang term for material being stolen by thieves.
"We are talking about grams (ounces) of weapons-grade materials, and kilograms of low-grade uranium used as fuel by nuclear power plants," the official said, according to Russian news agencies.
He said the losses were most frequently recorded at secretive industrial plants like Electroplate, near Moscow, and the Novosibirsk chemical plant.
Both of these sites are believed to be used for both civilian and military purposes.
Vishnyevsky said Russia needs to invest some six billion rubles (190 million dollars) to make these and other sites safe from thieves.
The investment is needed "to modernize technical defense equipment, as well as for preparing and arming the security services at nuclear sites."
Russian officials have in the past denied a series of Western press reports alleging that radioactive material has been stolen from Russian nuclear sites.
Several of these thefts have been pinned by the Western media to people linked to rebels in separatist Chechnya.
Vishnyevsky said the Russian government began to focus its attention on nuclear safety issues following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, and that it recently conducted a full inspection of all nuclear facilities.
"After last September 11, the situation turned for the better quite significantly, but it is still not perfect," the nuclear official said.
"Two months ago, we inspected 100 percent of our nuclear facilities, and the findings have been handed over to the Russian security council" for study, he said.
Vishnyevsky said he assessed the chances of terrorist attack against one of Russia's nuclear facilities as virtually nonexistent.
----
Russia: Nuclear Material Missing
November 15, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Nuclear.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- The head of Russia nuclear regulatory agency says small amounts of weapons- and reactor-grade nuclear materials have disappeared from the country's atomic facilities.
``Instances of the loss of nuclear materials have been recorded, but what the quantity is is another question,'' Yuri Vishnyevsky, head of Gosatomnadzor, said Thursday. ``Of those situations that we can talk about in actuality, they involve either grams of weapons-grade or kilograms of the usual uranium used in atomic power plants.''
``Most often, these instances are connected with factories preparing fuel: Elektrostal in the Moscow region and Novosibirsk'' in Siberia, Vishnyevsky said.
He did not give further details on when the losses were discovered or how the material might have gone missing.
The International Atomic Energy Agency lists two known thefts of uranium from Elektrostal, in 1994 and 1995. In both cases, the uranium was seized by Russian police.
The agency also lists the 1994 seizure in Germany of 400 grams of plutonium brought in from Moscow.
A few grams of Uranium-235, the most common weapons-grade nuclear material, would not be sufficient to make a bomb. But reactor-grade uranium can be enriched to weapons-grade through a complicated process believed to be possessed by some countries trying to develop nuclear weapons, such as Iraq.
Russia's nuclear security has been a high concern in the decade since the Soviet Union's collapse brought financial troubles that reduced funding for state facilities and induced poverty that could motivate nuclear workers to sell atomic materials.
Worries have risen in the wake of increasing terrorism, including last month's attack on a Moscow theater by Chechen gunmen who held hundreds of hostages to press their demand that Russia withdraw troops from Chechnya.
``After Sept. 11 of last year, the situation with regard to security at all Russian nuclear facilities changed for the better, but it still has not reached perfection,'' Vishnyevsky said.
He estimated that bringing security to its ideal level at Russian nuclear operations would require about 6 billion rubles, or $200 million.
Vishnyevsky made his statements while criticizing a proposed law on technological regulation now being considered by the Duma, the lower house of parliament.
He presented a letter to the Duma from a number of prominent scientists criticizing the proposed law for calling for ``the minimal necessary demands for security at the same time that in the whole world and in our country the demands for security in using atomic energy should be the maximum.''
It also was reported Friday that a Russian scientific expedition located a Soviet nuclear submarine and 237 containers of radioactive waste in the northern Kara Sea.
The K-27 submarine was dumped in the Kara Sea in 1981, 13 years after one of its reactors released radiation and it was taken out of service, according to the Norway-based environmental group Bellona.
Expedition members also examined what is believed to be the burial site of the reactor section of another nuclear submarine -- the K-254, Russian Deputy Emergency Situations Minister Mikhail Faleyev told the Interfax-Military news agency.
Preliminary tests of water, sediment and sea life found that radiation levels are ``stable'' at both sites, Faleyev said.
Environmental groups say the Soviet Union routinely dumped radioactive waste and nuclear reactors from decommissioned submarines into Arctic waters off the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, a former nuclear testing site.
-------- terrorism
FBI issues confidential terror alert
November 15, 2002
By DAVID JOHNSTON And ERIC LICHTBLAU
The New York Times
http://timesargus.nybor.com/Story/56245.html
WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence agencies came under renewed attack in Congress on Thursday for failing to find Osama bin Laden, with the increasing certainty that he is still alive prompting senior Democratic senators to brand the effort to dismantle al-Qaida as a failure.
As even Bush administration officials took the FBI to task for a warning issued on Wednesday about possible attacks on hospitals, the FBI on Thursday issued a vague and alarming alert to state and local law enforcement agencies warning that this week's message from bin Laden, intelligence reports and recent overseas strikes by al-Qaida had raised the threat of "spectacular attacks" in the United States.
"In selecting its next targets," the FBI alert said, "sources suggest al-Qaida may favor spectacular attacks that meet several criteria: high symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the U.S. economy, and maximum psychological trauma. The highest priority targets remain within the aviation, petroleum, and nuclear sectors as well as significant national landmarks."
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, charged that the Bush administration has been distracted from the fight against terrorism by the preparation for a possible invasion of Iraq.
"They are so focused on Iraq that they aren't paying adequate attention to the war on terror," he said in an interview.
Graham added that U.S. intelligence should undertake a crash program to identify and take action against terrorist threats in advance of any military action in Iraq "before the threat level truly does spike when we don't have enough time."
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday underscored concerns that the United States could face increased dangers of terrorist attack if President Bush orders military action against Iraq.
In an hour-long radio interview with Infinity Broadcasting, Rumsfeld said President Saddam Hussein of Iraq might try and organize terrorist strikes against American targets if a U.S.-led coalition moves to disarm him by force.
"I have do doubt that if he's able, he would like to see that terrorist attacks occur in the event that military action was taken," Rumsfeld said.
Graham said that American intelligence agencies have failed to determine the extent of the terrorist threat even as the country prepares for war. If bin Laden is alive, he suggested, then the threat to the United States has increased. "If he is still alive and still in charge, that means al-Qaida continues to have a highly capable and venomous leader."
The FBI warning was sent on Thursday as a confidential alert to 18,000 law enforcement agencies throughout the country, but it was not issued to the public. Government officials said that the threat warning level would remain at the current level of Code Yellow. That was because, the officials said, that the threats were serious enough to warn state and local authorities, but not specific enough to warrant a general alert.
In the past, some lawmakers have criticized the Bush administration for spreading fear by issuing public alerts without providing any information about how to respond as a politically motivated effort to insulate the government from eventual criticism that it failed to act.
But several officials said that Thursday's warning was genuine, although they added that there was no intelligence about the time, place or method of any such attack. They acknowledged that the language of this alert was more extreme than similar alerts issued in the past; earlier alerts have seldom made reference to the expectation of large scale attacks or possible casualties.
At the same time, however, Thursday's two-page warning also urged law enforcement officials to be on guard against smaller attacks with cruder materials such as simple explosives.
One official said that language was a response to the bin Laden tape played on al-Jazeera television on Tuesday, which is increasingly being viewed as authentic, and to other events, including attacks on American Marines in Kuwait and possible reprisal for the killing of an al-Qaida leader in Yemen in an American missile strike. On Thursday night, Mir Aimal Kansi, the Pakistani convicted of killing two CIA employees outside the agency's headquarters in 1993, was executed, adding to concerns about reprisals.
Thomas Daschle, the Senate Democratic leader from South Dakota, said the inability to find bin Laden was a sign of deeper problems in the war on terror. "We can't find bin Laden, we haven't made real progress in finding key elements of al-Qaida. They continue to be as great a threat today as they were one and a half years ago. So by what measure can we claim to be successful so far?"
Answering reporters' questions, Daschle said that intelligence agencies should do a lot more to find where bin Laden's message was sent. "It seems he has the ability to move at will," Daschle said. "It's been a long time. 9/11 was more than year ago, and we have yet to find him."
Thursday's warning was the clearest sign yet of the near certainty in intelligence circles that the audiotaped message broadcast by an Arab television channel earlier this week, praising terror attacks in Bali and Kuwait, was an authentic recording by bin Laden.
A CIA technical analysis of the tape continued on Thursday, but without a final determination about whether the voice was bin Laden's.
The tape is part of the swirl of chatter of intercepted communications and informant reports that American officials said had spiked in recent days. The officials said that the warnings of attacks seemed linked to the Bush administration's preparations for war with Iraq.
Law enforcement officials dismissed the attacks from Senate Democrats as political grandstanding, and insisted that major strides have been made against terrorism.
"We've busted up cells in Buffalo, Detroit and Portland, we've caught several of bin Laden's chief lieutenants, we have driven the Taliban and al-Qaida from Afghanistan, and we haven't had another attack here since 9/11," said a law enforcement official who asked not to be identified. "I would say all in all, were doing an excellent job."
However, not everyone exuded such confidence. "The anxiety level is probably as high as it has been since the anthrax attacks," said one FBI supervisor who asked not to be identified. "We've gone through rises and falls in tension in the last 14 months, but the collective feeling right now seems pretty grim."
The dissatisfaction over the performance of U.S. intelligence agencies, particularly the FBI, appeared to have deepened in recent days. On Thursday a group headed by James S. Gilmore III, a former Republican governor of Virginia, concluded that a new domestic intelligence agency should be established.
"We've got to gather this kind of information so we can disrupt the enemy before they attack us," Gilmore said in an interview after testifying to a House military subcommittee. "We've got to do it. The only real question is do we let the FBI do it, or do we do it in a separate agency, and in our commission the separate agency theory won out." The FBI was under fire on Thursday from some Bush administration officials for sending out a confidential alert on Wednesday warning of possible attacks at hospitals in Washington, Chicago, Houston and San Francisco.
"There are some raised eyebrows here as to why they would put out something like this," said an administration official. "This was a report that didn't have a lot of credibility, then it goes out and now you really have anxiety levels raised in these cities. It was unnecessary."
The FBI has been criticized from many sides in recent weeks, and more bad news is expected on Friday. The Justice Department's Inspector General is expected to issue a report critical of the bureau's disciplinary procedures. The report is expected to highlight a double standard in which senior executives had been given lighter punishments for wrongdoing than rank-and-file agents, according to government officials.
Administration officials voiced concern over the bin Laden tape, in part because an audiotape message last month that was attributed to bin Laden, but never authenticated, seemed to fuel anti-western violence. Unlike earlier tapes, the new tape referred by name to Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, raising concerns about the security of senior officeholders.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
HP ascends supercomputer list
November 15, 2002
Stephen Shankland, Staff Writer,
CNET News.com, News.com
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1001-965923.html
A supercomputer for simulating nuclear explosions has advanced Hewlett-Packard's position in a ranking to be released Thursday night of the 500 fastest supercomputers.
Two segments of HP's ASCI Q system, built as part of the Energy Department's Advanced Simulation and Computing program to substitute computer calculations for full-fledged nuclear tests, took the second and third spots in the ranking.
The new systems, being built at Los Alamos National Laboratory, bumped IBM's ASCI White two spots down the list. NEC's Earth Simulator remains No. 1, with nearly five times the total computing power of each ASCI Q segment.
While HP also maintained its lead over IBM in the sheer number of computers on the list--138 altogether--Big Blue extended its lead in the fraction of the total processing power of the 500 machines. In other words, IBM built fewer systems, but those 134 machines are collectively more powerful.
IBM computers accounted for 33 percent of the total processing power in the June 2002 list and 39 percent in the November 2002 list, continuing a steady increase. HP's position stayed level at 22 percent.
The list is compiled by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and Germany's University of Mannheim, and is updated twice a year.
The number of "terascale" computers--those that can perform more than a trillion calculations per second--more than doubled since June, increasing from 23 to 47.
The supercomputing industry has entered a frenzy of activity in anticipation of the beginning of the SC2002 supercomputer show in Baltimore on Monday.
Cray announced a 4,096-processor behemoth Thursday. SGI improved its top-end systems with the release of the Origin 3900 on Monday. Advanced Micro Devices, known mostly for building processors that are popular with consumers, is building a system at Sandia National Laboratories.
HP's top-end Superdome Unix server starting showing a presence on the list in June 2001. Now individual Superdomes aren't powerful enough, but there now dozens of "hyperplex" configurations, small clusters of Superdomes linked with a high-speed network.
Sun Microsystems also has dramatically increased its presence with its Sun Fire 15K "Starcat" server. Sun had 37 systems in the June 2002 list, but wider adoption of the Sun Fire 15K system has given Sun 88 places on the November 2002 list. None of those systems, however, ranks very high. The first Sun Fire 15K appears at No. 173; almost all of the rest swept places 379 through 460.
The Top 500 list is based on a performance yardstick called Linpack, a calculation that represents some aspects of supercomputer capability. In an effort to create a better benchmark, though, market research firm IDC, along with the Top 500 organizers and supercomputer sellers, has created a different measurement called the IDC Balanced Rating intended to reflect real-world performance more accurately.
-------- us nuc waste
Telerobots Aid in Hazwaste Cleanup
November 15, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-15-09.asp#anchor7
OAK RIDGE, Tennessee, Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are developing robotics technology that can aid in the cleanup of hazardous waste sites.
The telerobotic manipulation system enables cleanup efforts to be conducted remotely from a distant location, performing chores that would have to otherwise be done on site by humans.
Developed by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Robotics Crosscutting program, the system may be used in the future to clean up hazardous waste sites under DOE jurisdiction, and may have additional future uses for various cleanup tasks.
The compact remote control console, which is the front end of the system, provides the operator with the ability to manipulate the telerobot that performs the actual cleanup work.
It includes four monitors for remote task viewing, two touch screen based graphical user interface computers, a telerobotic control computer and hand controllers to command the robot manipulator to complete cleanup tasks.
The compact console was developed by DOE to control the costs of deploying remote systems while maintaining a high level of control. Several compact consoles have been used around the United States for various cleanup tasks.
The compact console component of the telerobotic manipulation system is now available commercially from Agile Engineering of Knoxville.
The telerobotics part of the system combines human input and robotics automation to complete cleanup tasks. The current focus is plasma arc cutting of metal structures to dismantle contaminated equipment.
The testing of the equipment comes during a time when there is an increasing need for remote systems and robotics for cleanup of DOE facilities. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a multiprogram science and technology laboratory managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy.
-------- us politics
White House tones down terror warning
By Nicholas M. Horrock
UPI Chief White House Correspondent
From the Washington Politics & Policy Desk Published
11/15/2002
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021115-025849-9656r
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- The White House and the FBI Friday began back-peddling from a warning the bureau issued saying al Qaida was plotting "spectacular" attacks against the United States, after critics latched on to it to show progress in the war on terror was faltering.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said at a White House briefing that the FBI's warnings this week are "really are a summary of intelligence, not a new warning. This is a summary of intelligence as we know it."
Her statement came as the Bush administration rushed to offset the FBI's startling language and refute charges by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle that the war on terror was faltering and an attack on Iraq would distract the nation from the more pressing danger posed by al Qaida.
Deputy Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that although the terrorism risk level remained unchanged, the FBI report showed, "we are taking additional precautions to meet the threat." He said the intelligence behind the reports was unspecific and did not lend itself to clear warnings.
He said that the bureau's warning, sent to local law enforcement agencies Thursday and then published Friday on the National Infrastructure Protection Center's Web site, had been reviewed by the White House and other agencies, before it was issued.
But the bureau warning came in a week in which world attention turned once again to al Qaida, the shadowy terror organization blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
An audio recording -- apparently the voice of al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden -- was broadcast by the Arab language Al Jazeera news network earlier this week. Although U.S. intelligence agencies have not completed a final analysis of the tape, the recording is the first piece of evidence that bin Laden survived the U.S.-led assault on his Afghan sanctuary last year.
Following the broadcast, United Press International reported unnamed senior government officials as saying that "chatter" -- intercepted communications between al Qaida operatives -- was at its highest level.
Two other warnings preceded Thursday's alert.
On Wednesday, FBI told officials in Houston, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington to be alert for threats against hospitals. And the State Department warned Americans abroad, particularly in Pakistan, that the execution Thursday night of a Pakistan citizen for a shooting rampage at CIA's headquarters 1993 might be avenged with attacks.
By Friday, the FBI itself was throwing cold water on its own alert. A spokesman said that "nothing (in the warning) is corroborated, its done out of an abundance of caution."
Rice said that the Bush administration issued these warnings -- which have often in the past been criticized as alarmist and unspecific -- because "it is important that Americans know when this sort of thing comes to the attention of the administration."
Without mentioning Daschle's name, Rice refuted his charge about the progress of the war on terror, saying the United States had eliminated several key al Qaida leaders, eradicated training camps in Afghanistan, destroyed terror command and control and hardened up many of its own defenses. Rice said the 60 nation terror war coalition shared intelligence and that movement for al Qaida was much more difficult.
(With reporting by Michael Kirkland, UPI Legal Affairs Correspondent)
----
House Passes Terrorism Insurance Bill
Senate to Take Up Measure Called Vital to Economy
By Edward Walsh
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 15, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57228-2002Nov14?language=printer
The House passed legislation last night to provide up to $100 billion to help the insurance industry cover claims from future terrorist attacks, sending the measure to the Senate, where Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) has promised prompt action.
The voice vote was a victory for President Bush, who made the legislation's passage a priority in recent weeks, and for the insurance industry and developers of major, high-profile real estate projects. They have said the difficulty in obtaining affordable terrorism insurance has threatened many of their projects and undermined the overall economy.
Racing to wind up its lame-duck session after the Nov. 5 midterm elections, the House derailed another major bill, to overhaul the nation's bankruptcy laws. On a procedural vote, lawmakers blocked consideration of the measure, effectively killing it for this Congress.
Early today, in a parliamentary maneuver that critics likened to "the legislative equivalent of a fraternity stunt," the House reversed itself, dropped a controversial provision dealing with abortion clinics and sent the bill to the Senate, where foes said it would die.
The House agreed to a five-week extension of unemployment benefits for laid-off workers, over protests from Democrats that it was too little in light of high jobless rates in many areas. The Senate last night passed a more generous unemployment package that would extend benefits through March, raising the possibility of an end-of-the-session snag between the two houses.
Meanwhile last night, White House and Senate negotiators agreed on legislation to create an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But an effort to revive a scaled-back version of Bush's proposal to bolster faith-based charities fizzled in the Senate when Democrats tried to add provisions, prompting a partisan deadlock.
The key issue in the terrorism insurance debate centered not on the bill's insurance provisions but on Republicans' longstanding efforts to curb large jury awards in liability lawsuits. The House earlier passed a version of the bill that would have prohibited victims of terrorist attacks from seeking punitive damages from companies and real estate owners.
Courts sometimes assess punitive damages -- on top of awards for monetary loss or pain and suffering -- to punish a company, manufacturer or other party deemed to have recklessly caused injuries or death. The Senate omitted the proposed ban, and the White House last month backed down from insisting on a ban on punitive damages.
But the compromise bill that House and Senate negotiators agreed to did not satisfy House Republican leaders, who strongly supported the ban on punitive damages. They held up consideration of the measure by the full House until last night. But in the end, virtually all opposition to the compromise bill evaporated as the House passed the measure by voice vote.
The bill would provide as much as $100 billion over three years to cover 90 percent of future terrorism-related insurance claims. Government aid would kick in when terrorism-related losses exceed minimum levels of an insurance company's premiums. The threshold levels to qualify for the aid would be 7 percent of premiums in the first year, 10 percent in the second year and 15 percent in the third year.
The measure would consolidate civil lawsuits stemming from a terrorist attack in a single federal court for trial under the laws of the state where the attack took place. That provision, supported by Republicans, is designed to prevent defendants such as property owners and insurance companies from facing multiple claims in several jurisdictions from the same event.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael G. Oxley (R-Ohio) portrayed the bill as vital for economic development. He said a recent survey estimated that real estate projects worth more than $15 billion have been canceled or are being delayed because of a lack of terrorism insurance coverage.
"This bill is absolutely necessary to the well-being of the American economy," Oxley said. "We need this backstop now."
The only criticism of the bill was voiced by House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), reflecting disappointment that the punitive-damages provision had been dropped.
He said the measure will provide "no protection from predatory trial lawyers." He said Bush agreed that this was a shortcoming in the bill and had promised to work to correct it.
"We're going to lock the door to the federal treasury against trial lawyers," said DeLay, who will be House majority leader in the next Congress.
There has been considerable debate over the need for the government to intervene in the insurance market to help companies and real estate developers obtain coverage for acts of terrorism. After last year's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, many insurance companies stopped offering such coverage, while others steeply increased premiums.
But in recent months, more terrorism coverage has become available. Some consumer groups charged that the federal legislation was little more than an insurance industry bailout.
"It's a handout and it's way too generous," J. Robert Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, said when House and Senate negotiators announced a compromise.
Earlier this week, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. issued a report detailing a steep increase in insurance premiums and a sharp drop in the availability of insurance coverage there after the Sept. 11 attacks. He said premiums on some expensive Manhattan properties rose by 73 percent.
"Insurance companies are taking advantage of New Yorkers," Thompson said. "They are not helping the city right now, and this is undermining our ability to retain and attract new business. Once again, New Yorkers are being penalized."
In other congressional action yesterday, the Senate approved a bill meant to deter terrorism at the nation's 361 seaports. The House extended a law to prevent automatic cuts in Medicare and other entitlement programs and extended the 1996 welfare law through March.
Staff writers Helen Dewar and Dana Milbank contributed to this report.
----
FBI Bulletin Warns of Attack
Rice: Latest Warning is 'Summary of Intelligence'
Staff and Wire Reports
Friday, November 15, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58969-2002Nov15?language=printer
White House officials said Friday that American should remain vigilant in light of a new warning by the FBI, but the nation's threat level remained unchanged.
With the threat level at yellow or "elevated," meaning a significant risk of terror attacks, the FBI said in an information bulletin dated Nov. 14 that the Muslim extremist network may seek to inflict massive casualties, psychological trauma and severe damage to the U.S. economy.
The bulletin cited the Nov. 12 release of an audiotaped message supposedly by bin Laden. The voice on the tape praised recent attacks against Western interests around the world and threatens further attacks against the United States and its allies if the United States takes military steps against Iraq.
"The American people are in many ways the first line of defense," said national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. She said the latest warning contained no new information, calling it instead a "summary of intelligence as we know it."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan cited the lack of any intelligence about specific time, date, location or method of possible attack as the reason for keeping the nation's official terrorist threat level at code yellow, the middle of a five-level scale of risk developed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"We continue to be on high levels of alert, we continue to take additional precautions," McClellan said.
Rice, briefing reporters at the White House on President Bush's trip next week to Europe to attend a NATO summit, said a lot is being done by the administration behind the scenes to protect "critical infrastructure" around the country from possible attacks.
Safeguarding the nation against terrorism "is a central focus of this administration," she said. The campaign against terrorism is "a war that is many times being fought in the shadows, so it's not always on television screens," Rice added.
"The warnings that have gone out recently really are a summary of intelligence, not a new warning," she said.
Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House Office of Homeland Security, said that the new threats build on ones that the FBI and the White House have been making public since last month.
"Sources suggest al-Qaeda may favor spectacular attacks that meet several criteria: High symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the U.S. economy and maximum psychological trauma," says the alert, which was posted on the FBI's Web site early Friday.
The highest priority targets remain within the aviation, petroleum and nuclear sectors, as well as significant national landmarks, the warning says.
"Target vulnerability and likelihood of success may be as important to a weakened al-Qaeda as the target's prominence," according to the warning.
"Thus, al-Qaeda's next attack may rely on conventional explosives and low-technology platforms such as truck bombs, commercial or private aircraft, small watercraft, or explosives easily concealed and planted by terrorist operatives," it said.
The White House is sensitive to criticism from Democrats that the focus on Iraq is distracting Bush's attention from the broader war on terrorism. "He does not start his day on Iraq. He begins his day on the threat level ... and the war on terrorism," Rice told reporters.
Yet she acknowledged the war against al-Qaeda is far from over.
"I don't think we can be certain of what role Osama bin Laden is or is not playing" in the re-emergence of al-Qaeda, Rice said. She walked through a long list of victories the United States and its allies have had in the war on terrorism, including the victory in its home base of Afghanistan and the disruption of cells in Buffalo, N.Y., and Germany.
Federal authorities previously have issued warnings for specific industries and national landmarks in general. But there is clearly worry that the danger of an attack is growing because of increased "chatter" picked up through intelligence channels, the continuing U.S. showdown with Iraq and the recently revealed audiotaped warnings believed to be from al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The government's additional precautions include unspecified "additional steps to ramp up our protection and prevention measures" within federal agencies, he said. The FBI and other agencies also are communicating possible threats and assessments of risk to state and local law enforcement agencies and specific industries that could be targeted.
In recent weeks, the FBI has issued warnings about possible attacks on U.S. railroads and on the energy industry, as well as a more general warning about heightened risk during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which started Wednesday and ends Dec. 5.
"We're especially sensitive to timeframes which might be thought by the enemy to be a time when they might want to make a statement," Attorney General John Ashcroft said.
On Wednesday, the FBI told authorities in Houston, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington to be aware of threats against hospitals. Even though that threat was assigned low credibility by senior law enforcement officials, the FBI is preferring to err on the side of caution in terms of giving out information, officials said.
The idea is to increase vigilance among local police and people working in industries that are potential targets.
Last week, the State Department warned that Thursday's execution of Pakistani Aimal Khan Kasi in Virginia could lead to reprisals against Americans. Two days after his November 1997 conviction, assailants shot and killed four American oil company workers in Karachi, Pakistan. Kasi was executed for killing two CIA employees in a 1993 shooting outside the agency's headquarters.
----
White House Denies Assertions on Preoccupation With Iraq
November 15, 2002
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/15/politics/15CND-TERR.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 - The White House disagreed sharply today with assertions by senior Democratic senators that the campaign against terrorism is lagging and that a preoccupation with Iraq is one of the reasons.
"We have locked up or detained or eliminated important Al Qaeda leaders," Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, said at a news briefing.
"We have eliminated their base in Afghanistan, so they cannot operate in the way that they have in the past. We have strengthened the resolve and the capacity of countries like Yemen and the Philippines and countries in Africa to deal with this threat. A lot has been done."
Dr. Rice noted that Mr. Bush has said repeatedly that the campaign will be a long one. "It took a while for them to lodge themselves in 60 countries around the world, including the United States," she said. "It's going to take a while to break them up."
The presidential adviser said the administration's focus on Iraq is not a distraction from the campaign against terrorism but an integral part of it.
"He does not begin his day on Iraq," Dr. Rice said of the President. "He begins his day on the war on terrorism and the threat levels and the threat information that we have about the United States."
At the United Nations today, the chief arms inspector, Hans Blix, said some members of his team were scheduled to arrive in Baghdad on Monday, after setting up a field office in Cyprus, and hoped to start work in Iraq by Nov. 27. The inspectors will then have 60 days to report back to the Security Council.
Under the Council resolution, Iraq has to present a declaration of what weapons it possesses on Dec. 8. In accepting the resolution last week, Baghdad denied that had any weapons of mass destruction.
Asked how the inspectors might determine if a "serious violation" of the Council resolution had occurred, in the declaration or in cooperating with the inspectors, he said it was an important question because it might involve something that could lead to war. But he added that any "intention" on the part of Iraq might also have to be taken into account.
"We still have to use our common sense in judging whether something is a way of preventing us, or hindering us in the inspections, or if it is not," he said.
He stressed that any judgment of a violation would be for Security Council members to decide, after the inspectors reported to them, and for the Council to determine what action it might take.
Dr. Rice spoke at a session whose main purpose was to brief journalists on next week's NATO summit meeting in Prague, which President Bush will attend. But with increasing speculation that Osama bin Laden is still alive, and with a new alert from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, much of the question-answer session was devoted to terrorism.
"The warnings that have gone out recently really are a summary of intelligence, not a new warning," Dr. Rice said. "We would ask Americans to do what the president has asked them a number of times to do, which is remain vigilant, because the American people are in many ways the first line of defense."
As for Saddam Hussein, whom she labeled "a homicidal dictator," Dr. Rice emphasized that no one is accusing the Iraqi leader of controlling Al Qaeda terrorists or having a role in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But, she said, "We know one thing about bad guys: they tend to travel in packs."
Dr. Rice's remarks came a day after American intelligence agencies came under renewed attack in Congress for failing to find Mr. bin Laden.
Even as Bush administration officials took the F.B.I. to task for a warning issued on Wednesday about possible attacks on hospitals, the F.B.I. issued a vague and alarming alert to state and local law enforcement agencies on Thursday. The alert warned that this week's audiotaped message, apparently from Mr. bin Laden, plus intelligence reports and recent overseas strikes by Al Qaeda, had raised the threat of attacks.
The alert was not made public because there was no specific information about a target, officials said.
"In selecting its next targets," the F.B.I. alert said, "sources suggest Al Qaeda may favor spectacular attacks that meet several criteria: High symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the U.S. economy, and maximum psychological trauma. The highest priority targets remain within the aviation, petroleum, and nuclear sectors as well as significant national landmarks."
Senator Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, charged Thursday that the Bush administration had been distracted from the fight against terrorism by the preparation for a possible invasion of Iraq.
"They are so focused on Iraq that they aren't paying adequate attention to the war on terror," he said in an interview.
Mr. Graham added that American intelligence should undertake a crash program to identify and take action against terrorist threats in advance of any military action in Iraq.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld underscored concerns that the United States could face increased dangers of terrorist attacks if President Bush orders military action against Iraq.
In a radio interview with Infinity Broadcasting, Mr. Rumsfeld said on Thursday that Saddam Hussein, might try to organize terrorist strikes against American targets if a United States-led coalition moves to disarm him by force. "I have no doubt that if he's able, he would like to see that terrorist attacks occur in the event that military action was taken," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Mr. Graham said that American intelligence agencies had failed to determine the extent of the terrorist threat even as the country prepared for war. If Mr. bin Laden is alive, he suggested, then the threat to the United States has increased. "If he is still alive and still in charge, that means Al Qaeda continues to have a highly capable and venomous leader."
The F.B.I. warning was sent as a confidential alert to 18,000 law enforcement agencies throughout the country, but it was not issued to the public. Government officials said the threat warning level would remain at the current level of Code Yellow. That was because, the officials said, that the threats were serious enough to warn state and local authorities, but not specific enough to warrant a general alert. Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been sent to an undisclosed location under previous alerts, remained in town.
In the past, some lawmakers have criticized the Bush Administration for spreading fear by issuing public alerts without providing information about how to respond as a politically motivated effort to insulate the government from eventual criticism that it failed to act in case of attack.
But several officials said the warning was valid, although they added that there was no intelligence about the time, place or method of any such attack. They acknowledged that the language of this alert was more extreme than similar alerts issued in the past; earlier alerts have seldom made reference to the expectation of large-scale attacks or possible casualties.
At the same time, however, the warning also urged law enforcement officials to be on guard against smaller attacks with cruder materials like simple explosives.
One official said that that language was a response to the tape attributed to Mr. bin Laden played on Al Jazeera television on Tuesday, which is increasingly being viewed as authentic, and to other events, including attacks on American marines in Kuwait, and the possibility of reprisals for the killing of a Qaeda leader in Yemen by an American missile.
Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Senate Democratic leader, said the inability to find Mr. bin Laden was a sign of deeper problems in the war on terror. "We can't find bin Laden, we haven't made real progress in finding key elements of Al Qaeda. They continue to be as great a threat today as they were one and a half years ago. So by what measure can we claim to be successful so far?" The F.B.I. warning was the clearest sign yet of the near certainty in intelligence circles that the audiotaped message broadcast earlier this week, praising terror attacks in Bali and Kuwait, was an authentic recording by Mr. bin Laden.
A C.I.A. technical analysis of the tape continued, but without a final determination whether the voice on it was Mr. bin Laden's.
American officials said that the number of intercepted communications and informant reports had increased in recent days.
The language of the alert was considered by representatives of several executive branch agencies before it was distributed to law enforcement. "This document was coordinated through an interagency process," a White House official said. "It was decided that given the current threat situation it was appropriate that it go out in its present form."
Law enforcement officials dismissed the attacks from Senate Democrats as political grandstanding. "We've busted up cells in Buffalo, Detroit and Portland, we've caught several of bin Laden's chief lieutenants, we have driven the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, and we haven't had another attack here since 9/11," said a law enforcement official who asked not to be identified. "I would say all in all, were doing an excellent job."
However, not everyone exuded such confidence. "The anxiety level is probably as high as it has been since the anthrax attacks," said one F.B.I. supervisor who asked not to be identified. '
The dissatisfaction over the performance of American intelligence agencies, particularly the F.B.I., appeared to have deepened in recent days. A group headed by James S. Gilmore III, a former Republican governor of Virginia, concluded on Thursday that a new domestic intelligence agency should be established.
"We've got to gather this kind of information so we can disrupt the enemy before they attack us," Mr. Gilmore said in an interview after testifying before a House military subcommittee.
The F.B.I. was under fire from some Bush administration officials for sending out a confidential alert warning of possible attacks at hospitals in Washington, Chicago, Houston and San Francisco. "There are some raised eyebrows here as to why they would put out something like this," said an administration official. "This was a report that didn't have a lot of credibility, then it goes out and now you really have anxiety levels raised in these cities. It was unnecessary."
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
U.S. Fighter Planes Bomb Afghan Targets
November 15, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-Bases-Attacked.html
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- American fighter jets pounded suspected enemy positions in Afghanistan after two U.S. bases came under rocket fire in the east of the country, the U.S. military said in a statement.
In the first attack Thursday evening, nine 107mm rockets were fired at a U.S. military base near Gardez, in eastern Afghanistan. The rockets landed near the base but did not cause any casualties, the military said in a statement from its headquarters at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul.
The military called in A-10 fighter planes, which dropped several bombs and fired about 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Special forces troops found a suspected enemy vehicle and destroyed a rocket that had not been fired.
Several hours later, a U.S. base in Lwara, 110 miles southwest of Kabul, came under rocket and mortar fire, and at least one round exploded inside the compound, the military said. Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne division moved on the launch site, trading small arms and mortar fire with the suspected attackers.
An A-10 plane fired rockets at the launch site and dropped a 500-pound bomb after three suspected enemy fighters were detected moving, and another aircraft dropped a 1,000-pound bomb shortly afterward, the military said.
There were no coalition casualties. The military said it believes at least two of the suspected attackers were killed.
Attackers have been firing crude rockets near U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan for months, but they rarely hit their targets.
U.S. troops regularly conduct patrols along Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan, hunting for senior Taliban leaders and al-Qaida terrorists.
-------- arms sales
U.S. Arms Pipeline Flows to Gulf Arabs
Bush administration policy for securing allies in the region ahead of a possible war on Iraq includes facilitating high-tech weapons sales, analysts say.
By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 15 2002
http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-arms15nov15,0,1403277.story
MUSCAT, Oman -- A strong if silent supporter of the United States for three decades, the sultan who rules this Persian Gulf nation has become a major beneficiary of a Bush administration policy to let friendly nations in the region buy billions of dollars of high-tech American weaponry.
As the U.S. shops for allies willing to assist in its war on terrorism -- including a possible attack on Iraq -- the administration is employing a time-honored strategy of using weapons sales as an inducement, analysts say.
Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- all countries where the U.S. has military forces -- have been given approval for major arms purchases. In some cases, the purchase requests had been stalled for years.
Qatar, where the U.S. bases refueling and transport planes and has built a command-and-control center for a possible air war against Iraq, is developing a "shopping list."
As an unspoken quid pro quo, Persian Gulf "host" nations are expected by most analysts -- and many U.S. officials -- to permit the American military continued use of bases within their boundaries even if the U.S. strikes a fellow Arab country such as Iraq.
In Oman, a Kansas-sized nation of 2.5 million people wedged into the Arabian Peninsula, Sultan Kaboos ibn Said has long allowed the U.S. to base P-3 surveillance planes and AC-130 gunships at three airfields. The U.S. Air Force stores tons of gear at bases here, ready to be immediately sent into a war zone.
One thing the sultan does not do is speak publicly of his long and close ties to Washington.
The sultan's reticence, while more extreme than most, is in keeping with a general policy among Gulf nations to barely acknowledge the presence of U.S. forces.
"The higher the profile of U.S. troops, the easier it is for domestic Islamic activists, as well as Iran and Iraq, to challenge local governments by exploiting nationalistic and religious resentments over what is interpreted by some as foreign encroachment," said Joseph Moynihan, formerly a Middle East expert at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates.
Although it has been U.S. policy since the 1991 Persian Gulf War to help countries in the region upgrade their military, the program kicked into high gear after the Sept. 11 attacks. A fast-track process has been established to consider such purchases.
Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, is buying upgraded radar and advanced missiles. Bush has declared the island nation a "major non-NATO ally," which will speed further purchases.
Kuwait, from which the U.S. could launch a ground offensive against Iraq, is buying 400 Hellfire missiles and 16 Apache Longbow attack helicopters. The Apache purchase has been pending since 1994 amid concern in Washington about whether the Kuwaitis needed such advanced firepower. Now it is expected to be completed around year's end.
The United Arab Emirates, which allows U.S. warplanes to use its airfields, is buying 80 Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon jet fighters to be fitted with electronic gear to jam enemy radar.
Oman is buying 12 Fighting Falcons for its small air force; laser-guided bombs; Harpoon, Maverick and HARM missiles; and technology that can turn a "dumb" bomb into a precision-guided weapon. The deal is expected to top $1 billion.
Rachel Stohl, senior analyst with the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, which is often critical of military spending, has warned that "these sales are just the tip of the iceberg. After the Gulf War, arms sales to the Middle East skyrocketed."
Scholars who study such sales and their impact on regional conflicts are divided about whether the U.S. policy will increase stability in the Gulf or make future wars virtually inevitable.
Joyce Neu, executive director of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego, said the policy is shortsighted and makes the U.S. vulnerable to wars in which it could face an adversary armed with American weapons.
"The reason Iraq has the ability to fight us now is because we furnished weapons to it to fight Iran in the 1980s," Neu said. "We need to reward coalition partners, but there are other, more benign ways to do it: trade partnerships, economic enticements and such things as educational, cultural and technical exchanges."
Peter Cowhey, dean of the graduate school of international relations and Pacific studies at UC San Diego, disagrees. Arms sales give the U.S. more influence over the purchaser's foreign policy because modern military hardware requires upgrades, repairs and maintenance, and that means continued contact with the sellers, he argues.
"The nature of international security relations is that benefits rarely come without risks," Cowhey said. "Of course, one could say that we should simply encourage regions to abstain from new armaments. But the problem here is that there are other major suppliers of military technology" from which Gulf nations could buy.
Sultan Kaboos is known in diplomatic and military planning circles as one of the United States' strongest and least demanding friends.
After deposing his father in 1970, the sultan launched a slow but steady modernization drive with U.S. backing aimed at erasing his father's legacy of isolation and bankruptcy.
Kaboos backed the 1979 Camp David accord between Egypt and Israel, brokered by President Carter. The sultan has spoken of the need for rapprochement with Israel.
Grateful for his support, the U.S. has an informal agreement to protect Oman.
With Washington urging Gulf nations to think cooperatively about security matters and drop their go-it-alone approach, the sultan took a lead in urging the 1981 formation of the Gulf Cooperation Council. He pressed the council to form a joint military unit to help rein in Iran and Iraq. Oman stares at Iran across the Strait of Hormuz, through which tankers carrying much of the world's oil must pass.
Although treaties and diplomacy have brought it peace, Oman has had past conflicts with most of its neighbors and fought a war with Marxist rebels in a remote province.
Concern about security runs deep in Omani society. The nation built hundreds of forts to repel invaders from the sea during centuries of trade wars with European powers.
"The sultan is wise times 1,000," said one Omani when asked about the purchase of advanced U.S. military hardware. "His majesty knows that Oman will have security only if we are strong."
But this is also a nation attempting to fund social programs to avoid political unrest among the poor. Although it is trying to diversify its economy, Oman is still dependent on its relatively small reserves of oil and natural gas.
After watching U.S. success in Afghanistan, the Omani shopping list was clear. Reluctant to increase the size of its 45,000-member armed forces, it wanted only the best weapons.
"There is a philosophy by his majesty that it is not important the quantity, but rather the quality that matters," said Abdullah ibn Shuwain al Hosni, undersecretary in the Ministry of Information. "It does not matter how many thousands are in your army, but the quality of those armies."
----
Officials cooperate in arms-sale probe
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 15, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021115-948049.htm
The United States said yesterday it is working with the Bulgarian government on an investigation of an illegal transfer of military equipment to Syria that might have been destined for Iraq.
The state-owned company, Terem, had sold spare parts for armored personnel carriers to a Syrian-based company, and the parts were discovered at the Turkey-Syria border, Bulgarian officials said. The deal was not authorized by the Bulgarian government, the officials said.
The State Department said authorities in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, are "actively investigating" the case and "looking closer into allegations that the equipment may have been intended for subsequent transfer to Iraq."
"We are working with Bulgaria to establish effective safeguards to prevent reoccurrence of illegal arms transfers," a State Department official said.
"The Bulgarian authorities are taking vigorous action against the contractor, including the head of the company and other relevant personnel," the official said. "The Bulgarian police have also detained several individuals for questioning."
In Sofia, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy told reporters his country's chances of winning an invitation to join NATO at the alliance's Prague summit next week had been threatened by the revelations.
Syria and Iraq are on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism.
"We are in trouble," Mr. Passy said. "This arms scandal pushes Bulgaria's membership chances back. We have a serious problem and even if we manage to win an invitation, we will have problems with the ratification by the U.S. Senate."
Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and President Georgi Parvanov agreed with the foreign minister, but they said they still hope their nation will receive an invitation from NATO.
The State Department official, asked whether the recent developments would affect Washington's decision on Bulgaria's candidacy, said there are a number of factors the United States is considering in its evaluation of the applicant countries.
"We have raised concerns about proliferation, along with other issues, with all NATO aspirants," the official said.
--------
India, U.S. Discuss Sale of Sensors
November 15, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-India-US-Military.html
NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- The United States has removed some legal hurdles delaying military sales to India and now is discussing selling electronic ground sensors to New Delhi for use along the Pakistan border, officials said Friday.
India has said it wants such sensors to monitor infiltration of Islamic militants from Pakistani territory.
``We are in discussion with the (Indian) Ministry of Defense right now,'' a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
The Indian military is studying using the sensors in ``terrain from the desert to the jungles,'' the U.S. official said.
Two U.S. government teams and a group of American defense contractors visited India this week. American military manufacturers are seeking a place in the Indian market, where Russia is the No. 1 military supplier.
India's border extends from the Himalayan slopes in northernmost Kashmir to scorching deserts in Rajasthan. All those areas, which include thick forests, are prone to infiltration by militants, smugglers and illegal immigrants, military officials say.
Relations between New Delhi and Washington were strained during the Cold War, when India was a Soviet ally, and hampered by economic sanctions imposed on India after it conducted underground nuclear tests in 1998.
Most of the sanctions were lifted in October 2001 after New Delhi supported the U.S.-led war on terror. A contract for eight radars was the first deal between the two sides after that.
The condition of mandatory U.S. congressional approval, which India considered another obstacle, also was removed for weapons sales of less than $14 million, the U.S. official said.
India's defense minister and senior officials met with U.S. delegations three times this week to discuss contracts for American military hardware. These included meetings with officials from the U.S. Security Cooperation Group, the Air Force Executive Steering Group and American defense contractors.
-------- britain
Jittery Britain to Advise Public How to React to Terror Attacks
November 15, 2002
New York Times
By SARAH LYALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/15/international/15CND-BRIT.html
LONDON, Nov. 15 - Britain will start an education campaign using posters, mock-emergency drills and other devices to advise the public about how to respond to a biological or chemical attack, the government's chief medical officer said today.
A report by the National Audit Office published on Thursday found that many of Britain's state-run hospitals and ambulance services do not have adequate plans or sufficient equipment in place to deal with an assault involving chemical, nuclear, biological or radiological weapons, or one with casualties of 500 people or more.
"However disturbing it may be for some, we must take up the challenge and the unprecedented step of giving the public more `protect and serve' information," said Sir Liam Donaldson, the medical officer. "It is impossible to guard against all the potential risks but simple procedural advice could save lives."
The posters, which are likely to be distributed next year, might contain advice about what to do in a poison-gas attack, such as the advisability of getting away from the gas while leaving other casualties in the hands of emergency workers; not breathing too deeply, or using handkerchiefs as improvised gas masks, Sir Liam said.
In a series of interviews with British news organizations, Sir Liam has sought to allay concerns about Britain's possible lack of preparedness for a large-scale terrorist attack.
The report on Thursday said that the situation is particularly acute in London, where more than 20 percent of the hospitals surveyed for the report said they were unprepared for a large-scale biological attack.
A third of the hospitals surveyed, and half of the ambulance services, said they did not have proper protective equipment or decontamination facilities for health-care workers who might be caught up in such an emergency.
John Lister, director of London Health Emergency, a lobbying group, said the city would find itself helpless in the face of an attack like the recent siege on a theater in Moscow, which left hundreds of people needing intensive medical treatment to counter the effects of the poison gas used to end the standoff.
"The authorities needed hundreds of intensive-care beds to cope with the victims of the gas," Mr. Lister told The Evening Standard. "If something like that happened in London, we simply wouldn't have those beds in place, or the facilities or the training to cope."
Prime Minister Tony Blair added to the general jitteriness here by warning earlier this week that Britain should be on heightened alert for a terrorist attack. Nor did the recent audiotape featuring the probable voice of Osama bin Laden, and carrying a raft of warnings for Britain and other countries allied with the United States, help matters much in a country nervous, however obliquely, that it might be the next target.
All this has left the government trying to negotiate a tricky path between raising people's concerns and not inciting panic. Among other things, Britain has amassed millions of doses of smallpox vaccine, which could be distributed in the event of an attack, first to health-care workers and then to civilians in the area of any outbreak. It has also begun storing antibiotics that could be used to treat people infected with anthrax and the plague.
The health department is also planning to organize simulated terrorist attacks, complete with large numbers of mock casualties, to test the readiness of the country's emergency services.
"It will be alarming for people to see exercises in which pretend casualties are carried away by people in protective equipment and decontaminated, but they will get used to it," Sir Liam said.
-------- business
Lab-closings defense memo seen as breaking Bush pact
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 15, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021115-16818244.htm
A senior Pentagon official is moving to close down "out of favor" defense facilities, according to an internal memo that some congressional sources say violates an agreement with President Bush on base closings.
After hard-fought negotiations, members of Congress agreed last year to Mr. Bush's demand to close bases and facilities. The final decisions on closings will rest with an independent commission, which begins work in 2005.
But Michael Wynne, the Pentagon's No. 2 acquisition official, has ordered the creation of an internal committee to identify weapons and science laboratories for closure, according to his Oct. 29 memorandum, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.
Mr. Wynne wrote that after a discussion with a defense advisory committee, "the conclusion that I drew is that labs are out of favor and no longer have a constituency within parent organizations. Their budgets are cut, people are discouraged and their overall utility is in question."
The memo from Mr. Wynne, the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, went to the Pentagon's director of defense research and engineering.
Mr. Wynne ordered the creation of a committee to identify "those laboratories that are imperative for defense to retain" and proposed that "remnants of the service laboratories" be combined into one "Defense Research Laboratory."
Some functions could be given to the private sector, he stated.
Mr. Wynne is taking aim at a network of more than 100 labs, employing thousands of workers across the country. The Army, for example, operates labs in Aberdeen and Adelphi, Md., Natick, Mass., Redstone Arsenal, Ala., and Yuma, Ariz., among other locations.
Said a Capitol Hill source, "It looks like the Pentagon is jumping the gun on base closings. The deal was 2005."
Mr. Bush wanted to start the politically painful process in 2003, and threatened to veto the 2002 defense bill unless it authorized base closings.
A Pentagon official, who asked not to be named, said it would be "premature" to publicly comment on the memo because its details are still being "clarified."
The official said a meeting is scheduled next week among senior acquisition officials. "Everybody is looking to straighten it out," the official said.
But the Wynne proposal is already meeting resistance inside the Defense Department from lab proponents.
They are citing recent studies that state the importance of retaining in-house technicians to conduct research and development as the labs produce breakthroughs in sensors and other surveillance tools.
A study done during the Clinton administration stated, "The technical capability of responding rapidly to emergency situations and trouble-shooting requirements is essential in solving operational problems."
The study added, "A cadre of highly skilled in-house specialists can best respond to situations of this nature."
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has argued that the armed forces can save $3.5 billion annually, beginning later this decade, by closing 25 percent of its facilities and bases.
Congressional opponents argued that the early stage of the war on terrorism was not the time to start closing bases. They also say the defense labs can be an incubator for new technologies needed to fight terrorists.
-------- china
New Leader Chosen in China
Vice President Hu Ascends to Top Post in Broad Transfer of Power
By Philip P. Pan and John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 15, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56817-2002Nov14?language=printer
BEIJING, Nov. 15 (Friday) -- Vice President Hu Jintao, who by exercising extreme caution has survived a decade as heir apparent to the Chinese Communist leadership, rose to the pinnacle of power in Beijing today in the most orderly and peaceful transition in the history of modern China.
In a ceremony rich with Communist pageantry, the 59-year-old hydrologist, known for his powerful memory and colorless personality, was appointed general secretary of the Communist Party. But President Jiang Zemin, 76, who formally stepped down Thursday as party chief after 13 years in power, is expected to continue to exert influence in retirement.
Hu's rise to China's top post, which was sealed at the week-long 16th National Congress of the Communist Party, was part of a broad transfer of power, ushering in a new generation of leaders as the country undergoes enormous social and economic change, and leaves behind the doctrinaire communism upon which Mao Zedong founded the party's rule in 1949.
Hu, dressed in a blue suit and red tie, and his eight new colleagues on the Standing Committee emerged from behind a screen emblazoned with two cranes, a Chinese symbol of longevity, in the cavernous Great Hall of the People just off Tiananmen Square. The committee's new makeup was a testimony to the enduring political strength of Hu's predecessor, Jiang, who succeeded in placing six of his closest allies onto the body and expanding it by two seats.
Surrounded by Jiang's men, Hu will probably need years to secure his position as the most powerful man in China, if he does at all.
"The meeting was very successful," Hu said. "The congress was one of unity, victory and endeavor. It has built on the past and will carry our cause into the future. . . . We won't let the Chinese people down."
State-run television showed delegates to the congress voting for the party's new Central Committee, which then was said to have voted for the Politburo and its all-powerful Standing Committee. But in fact, all decisions were made in secret by a handful of men and revealed officially only this morning as the winners filed onto a stage to address journalists.
Hu is relatively young for China's senior-most office. He will complete his assumption of leadership next March during a session of the National People's Congress, or parliament, when Jiang is to resign as president and make way for Hu to succeed him in that job as well. However, the party announced today that Jiang was reelected chairman of the party's Central Military Commission, a powerful platform from which he can continue to wield influence.
All six of Hu's former Standing Committee colleagues retired yesterday, as did seven other aging members of the 22-member policy-making Politburo. In addition, more than half the 356 voting and alternate members of the Central Committee departed. Generals of the People's Liberation Army over the age of 70 on the Central Committee stepped down as well, presaging a reshuffle at the top of the world's largest army. And several senior ministers left the committee, signaling important changes in the Chinese cabinet when the legislature meets next March.
The men who won the top party jobs are all engineers, men in their fifties or sixties who came of age in Mao's destructive Cultural Revolution and rose to powerful positions in Beijing and the provinces after the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. They appear committed to the capitalist-style economic reforms that have brought unprecedented prosperity to the world's most populous nation, and to maintaining good relations with the United States.
They also appear determined to preserve the Communist Party's tight grip on all aspects of political life in China. But at least one corporate executive, Zhang Ruimin, president of the Haier appliance company, which owns a building in Manhattan and is listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, won a seat as an alternate on the Central Committee. That was seen as another sign of the party's increasing tilt toward business and away from promoting the interests of China's dispossessed.
Chinese sources and analysts said Hu will face serious challenges as he attempts to exert control over the party in the coming years. Jiang completely dominated the congress; Hu made no major speeches.
Among Jiang's six allies on the Standing Committee is his top aide, Zeng Qinghong, 63, a skillful political operative and the official most responsible for helping Jiang defeat his enemies and hold on to power over the past decade. Analysts said Zeng is Hu's only potential rival in the new leadership; some believe Jiang may eventually attempt to install him in the top job.
Hu is described as a talented and intelligent leader with a photographic memory. But it was Deng Xiaoping, Jiang's predecessor, who made him the Standing Committee's youngest member in 1992 and set him up as Jiang's natural successor. Hu has been so careful not to offend Jiang or make mistakes in the years since that few know where he might lead the nation.
Before joining the Standing Committee, Hu served as the party secretary in Tibet, where he approved the imposition of martial law to crush a wave of protests in March 1989.
"What happens to this leadership depends on what kind of relationship emerges between Hu and Zeng," said Cheng Li, a political scientist at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., who has studied the new generation of leaders. "Their relationship has been both competitive and cooperative up to now, and for the next few years, they will be trying to consolidate their bases of power."
As a result, few changes in the party's basic policies are expected in Hu's first years.
Among other winners in the senior leadership were conservatives such as Luo Gan, 67, the security chief best known for leading a nationwide crackdown on crime that has relied heavily on executions, and Wu Guanzheng, 64, a Jiang ally and party chief of eastern Shandong province, where a violent campaign to suppress the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement has resulted in scores of deaths.
Still, some in the government and state-run media hope Hu and other Standing Committee members, including Zeng and the man expected to be named premier, Wen Jiabao, 60, may be willing to experiment with limited political reforms as the influence of the older generation fades.
Jiang's departure marked the end of an era in Chinese politics that began with his promotion to party chief after the Tiananmen Square crackdown. During his tenure, China moved from 10th in the world in gross domestic product to sixth, and many Chinese enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and personal freedom. The country's international profile rose enormously. Last year it joined the World Trade Organization and Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympic Games.
But the Jiang era was also characterized by successive crackdowns on political dissent and religion, a widening gap between rich and poor, and corruption that rivals that of the Nationalist government that ruled China before the 1949 Communist Revolution.
To the dismay of some Chinese, one man who won a seat on the Standing Committee is Jia Qinglin, 62, an old friend of Jiang's who served as party chief in Fujian province in the mid-1990s when a multibillion-dollar smuggling ring flourished there. In November 1999, as that scandal was being uncovered, Chinese officials in Beijing contacted Western journalists and accused Jia and his wife, Lin Youfang, who ran Fujian's main state-run import-export corporation, of being involved. A month later, however, Jiang moved to protect Jia.
Three other Jiang loyalists on the Standing Committee are Li Changchun, 58, the party official who governed in freewheeling Guangdong province in the south; Wu Bangguo, 61, a deputy premier and longtime aide to the former general secretary; and Huang Ju, 64, the former party chief of Shanghai.
In addition to ushering in a new generation, this week's congress set out a new goal for the Communist Party: building a middle-class nation with a per-capita income of $3,000 by 2020. In a sign of the waning appeal of Marxist ideology, Jiang used terminology from the country's 2,500-year-old "Book of Songs" to describe the mission, saying the party would build a society reflecting the Confucian ideal of a prosperous, peaceful community.
The congress also enshrined Jiang's political philosophy in the party constitution, adding a reference to the "Three Represents." The theory argues that the party should represent China's businessmen, entrepreneurs and other "advanced productive forces," not just workers and farmers. The party constitution was rewritten to allow them to become members.
----
China's Jiang Keeps Military Reigns
Fri Nov 15, 2002
By ELAINE KURTENBACH,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=516&u=/ap/20021115/ap_on_re_as/china_military_3&printer=1
BEIJING (AP) - Fifty-three years after they won a civil war and claimed China as their own, members of the Communist Party's old revolutionary guard are finally retiring from politics. But President Jiang Zemin (news - web sites), who is just as old but never fought a battle, isn't leaving just yet.
As the party's congress closed, none of the men who earned their political clout on the battlefields of World War II and the civil war against Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists were seated on the new Central Committee, the pool from which top leadership is chosen.
Neither Defense Minister Chi Haotian, 73, nor Gen. Zhang Wannian, 74, both of whom joined the army as teenagers and fought against the Nationalists during the civil war, retained party posts.
Four other top generals also retired and were replaced by commanders in their early 60s and late 50s, young by the typically geriatric standards of Chinese politics. They represent a broad range of military constituencies, a move designed to ensure stability.
Jiang, the old guard's civilian contemporary, is staying on as head of the world's largest military even as he relinquishes command of the Communist Party after 13 years in power. The maneuver allows him to retain an official role in China's future.
On Friday, party leaders re-elected Jiang, 76, to head their Central Military Commission, which is technically outside the government but charged by law to oversee the People's Liberation Army's 2.5 million soldiers, sailors and fliers. It wields its power through a body with the same name within the actual government.
Vice President Hu Jintao, who took over from Jiang as party general secretary, was re-elected vice chairman of the military commission as the party ended its national congress, held once every five years.
Though both Jiang and 59-year-old Hu are lifelong civilians, the dual role of party and military leader gives the army substantial influence in China's politics, particularly in defense and foreign affairs.
"This way, the military gets a much stronger voice. It would be hard for Hu to go against the views of the military," said Ellis Joffe, an expert on the Chinese military and a visiting professor at the University of Michigan.
The congress marked the end of an era for both China's military and civilian leaders.
Jiang was the first party leader to lack military experience. Mao Zedong helped lead the Red Army to victory in 1949; Deng Xiaoping, who rose to power after Mao's death in 1976, also distinguished himself on the revolutionary battlefield, as had many other senior leaders.
During the decade-long tumult of the Cultural Revolution, which Mao set off in 1966, a number of commanders were appointed to the Central Committee. Direct military involvement in politics declined after the death of Lin Biao, another revolutionary hero, in a 1971 plane crash following an abortive coup attempt.
Jiang was chosen party leader by Deng in the chaos following the military suppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.
Though he is not considered a hawk, by necessity Jiang has cultivated the military. He backed double-digit increases in the defense budget for each of the 13 years he was in power, approved major purchases of weapons and aircraft, purged generals he believed were disloyal and appointed supporters to key positions.
Among those elected as vice chairmen of the military commission is Gen. Cao Gangchuan, 67, who has handled major weapons purchases and took charge of the huge task of divesting the military of its commercial enterprises.
China is spending heavily on modernizing the army, developing several kinds of missiles and buying supersonic jet fighters and other advanced weaponry from Russia - moves considered a strategic concern by the U.S. government.
-------- iran
Iranians may aid U.S. war on Iraq
By Barbara Slavin,
USA TODAY
11/15/2002
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-11-14-iran-usat_x.htm
WASHINGTON - Despite a campaign of mutual vilification, the Bush administration and Iran are moving toward quiet cooperation in any war against Iraq.
A Pentagon official on Thursday acknowledged "preliminary feelers" between the two countries dealing with military emergencies such as downed pilots or naval accidents in the Persian Gulf. A similar arrangement was reached for the Afghan war a year ago. The talks are taking place through Arab intermediaries in a small gulf nation, the official said.
Iran's Islamic regime has also approved letting a dissident group of Iraqi Shiite Muslims based in Tehran work with the U.S. military to oust Saddam Hussein, Tehran-based diplomats say. The group has several thousand armed followers in southern Iraq.
Iranian acquiescence to a U.S.-led war is important because Iran and Iraq share a 730-mile border. Iran sat out the 1991 Gulf War but could be more accommodating to U.S. interests this time. Iran has already stepped up efforts to help the U.S. Navy catch Iraqi oil smugglers in the Persian Gulf by chasing the smugglers out of Iranian waters, Pentagon officials say.
Tehran has motives beyond a deep-seated hatred of Saddam, who ordered an invasion of Iran in 1980, setting off a war that killed or wounded more than a half-million Iranians. Iran's leaders seek:
- To gain leverage in a post-Saddam Iraq.
- To ensure that Iran, which the Bush administration accuses of supporting Middle East militants and trying to develop nuclear weapons, is not the next target of the U.S. war on terrorism.
- To score domestic political points in a growing feud between conservatives and reformers. Conservative clerics who have the upper hand in the Iranian government still chant "Death to America" in public but would want to get credit for any improvement in relations, analysts say. The United States broke off diplomatic ties in 1980 during a crisis over the seizure of hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. According to a recent poll, three-fourths of Iranians want such relations restored.
U.S. motives also are complex. Both countries backed the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But in January, when most of the Afghan fighting was over and Israel intercepted a Palestinian ship laden with Iranian arms, President Bush labeled Iran a member of an "axis of evil," along with Iraq and North Korea. In July, Bush issued a statement that appeared to call on Iranians to overthrow the clerical regime.
On Friday, the Bush administration gave permission for a senior Iranian diplomat to visit Washington for the first time in a year. Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Javad Zarif, was scheduled to meet with a group of senators and congressmen at a lunch on Monday. But Zarif decided not to come when he was told he could not give a speech at a reception Monday night at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.
Because the two countries have no diplomatic relations, permission is required for the ambassador to travel outside New York.
The State Department restricted Zarif's itinerary to protest Iran's recent sentencing of an academic to a death sentence for criticizing the country's clerical rule.
In an interview on Friday, Secretary of State Colin Powell called the death sentence "outrageous" and voiced support for thousands of Iranian students who have been holding protest demonstrations this week. "Sooner or later we will have better relations with Iran," Powell said. But he added, "We believe that this government had better start listening to its people."
-------- iraq
Baghdad increases range of surface-to-air missiles
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 15, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021115-77865076.htm
Iraq has boosted the range of some surface-to-air missiles as part of its ongoing efforts to shoot down patrolling U.S. and British warplanes, The Washington Times has learned.
Iraqi military forces in charge of air defenses recently were found to have added booster rockets to anti-aircraft missiles, in a makeshift effort to extend their range by several miles, defense and intelligence officials said.
Meanwhile, an advance party of U.N. technicians will reach Baghdad on Monday to pave the way for inspection teams that will search for weapons of mass destruction. It will be the first round of inspections since 1998.
A group headed by chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will arrive in Iraq for the first inspection in a week or so, U.N. spokesmen said.
U.S. officials continued warning Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein yesterday that he must comply with the latest U.N. disarmament resolution.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld disputed Iraq's latest claim that it does not have any nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
"I'll simply say that they do have weapons of mass destruction, and the purpose of the U.N. resolution, of course, is for them to agree to allow inspectors in and to allow the inspectors to make some conclusions," Mr. Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon.
Noted Secretary of State Colin L. Powell during a visit to Canada: "If the Iraqis do not comply, there will be consequences. Those consequences will involve use of military force to disarm them, to change the regime."
Regarding the missile activity, the Iraqis used booster rockets from two-stage Russian-made SA-2 missiles and attached them to SA-3 missiles in an effort to increase the latter's range, the officials said.
Iraq's SA-2 missiles have a maximum range of about 21 miles, and its SA-3s can hit targets up to 15 miles away. Both systems were first deployed in the late 1950s.
"Any time Iraq uses missiles against us or coalition forces, it's a concern," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. He declined to comment on specific efforts by Iraq to increase surface-to-air missile (SAM) ranges.
A military official said intelligence on the SAM range increases was reported within the past several weeks. "There has been no assessment of how effective it has been," the official said. "But they are trying to get better range and [adding boosters] appears to have had that effect."
The extended-range missiles do not appear to be accurate and probably are being fired "ballistically" by the Iraqis without the full benefit of sensors and related guidance systems, the official said.
A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of U.S. forces that patrol the skies over Iraq, declined to comment.
Iraq's air defenses continue to fire regularly at U.S. and British warplanes that are patrolling large areas of Iraqi territory over the northern and southern parts of the country.
Iraq has about 1,500 surface-to-air missile launchers, according to military specialist Anthony Cordesman.
It is not clear whether last week's U.N. resolution, which Iraq has said it accepts, will affect Baghdad's continuous efforts to shoot down patrolling jets.
The resolution states that Iraq cannot threaten or take hostile action against any U.N. representative or member state "taking action to uphold any Council resolutions."
"That could be a trigger" for U.S. action, if Iraq continues firing at patrolling jets, the military official said.
The patrols have been in place since the 1991 Persian Gulf war and are designed to prevent Iraq from attacking opposition forces in those parts of the country.
Since the end of the Gulf war, Iraq has been trying to improve its Soviet-era air-defense forces with new equipment acquired covertly from outside the country. All military equipment is embargoed under U.N. resolutions.
U.S. officials said a Chinese high-technology company provided Iraq with a fiber-optic communications system that was used to enhance the air-defense radar network. The fiber-optic system was bombed by U.S. aircraft last year.
Iraq also has converted commercial trucks imported under the U.N. oil-for-food humanitarian program for use as mobile anti-aircraft missile systems, which are more difficult to detect.
Any U.S. military operation against Iraq would begin with massive attacks on all elements of Iraq's air-defense system, which includes mobile and fixed missile sites, anti-aircraft artillery and a nationwide command-and-control system for targeting and attacking jets.
In addition to SA-2 and SA-3 missiles, Iraq also has mobile SA-6 missiles.
According to the private group Global Security.org, Iraqi air-defense systems have been improved in recent years. They have become "amalgams of Western, old East European and Far Eastern technologies that behave in nonstandard ways."
"That makes them less predictable for the U.S. and British planes that are their targets and increasingly difficult to counter," the group said in a report posted on its Web site.
U.S. and allied warplanes have been conducting attacks on Iraqi air-defense sites, both missile batteries and anti-aircraft artillery sites, on a weekly basis.
The last strikes occurred last week, when U.S. and allied jets bombed two surface-to-air missile sites near Tallil, southeast of Baghdad.
The raid was carried out after Iraq moved the two missile systems into an area that violated the air-exclusion zone over southern Iraq.
The U.S. Central Command stated Sunday that the missiles were "deemed a threat" to patrolling aircraft.
On Nov. 7, Iraq fired surface-to-air missiles and artillery guns at patrolling jets, prompting the bombing of an air-defense operations center and integrated air-defense site near Al Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad.
Mr. Rumsfeld announced in September that military forces in Iraq several months earlier abandoned a policy of conducting limited strikes on attacking Iraqi air defenses in favor of bigger attacks on Iraq's overall air-defense network.
"We decided after a great deal of talk that it really didn't make an awful lot of sense to be flying patterns that we were getting shot at, if in response we were not doing any real damage that would make it worth putting our pilots at risk," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
----
Experts: Iraq Hid Vast Chemical-Biological Stocks
Reuters
Friday, November 15, 2002
By Alan Elsner, National Correspondent
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59216-2002Nov15?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite Iraqi denials, Western experts believe Baghdad has produced and concealed vast amounts of chemical and biological agents and may have rebuilt part of its illegal nuclear program.
In its letter this week to the United Nations accepting the return of weapons inspectors to its soil after a four-year absence, Iraq said it "has not developed weapons of mass destruction, whether nuclear, chemical or biological, as claimed by evil people."
Western analysts, building on what was discovered by the previous U.N. inspection regime known as UNSCOM, which lasted from 1991 to 1998, and what was strongly suspected but could not be proved, believe Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is still concealing a deadly arsenal.
One 1998 assessment by the U.S. House of Representatives task force on terrorism and unconventional warfare concluded, "Despite Baghdad's protestations, Iraq does have small but very lethal operational arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and platforms capable of delivering them."
When the UNSCOM inspectors left Iraq in 1998, they said they still did not know the full extent of Iraq's chemical and biological programs but had collected both hard and circumstantial evidence suggesting that the programs were far more advanced and wider in scope than previously believed.
Possibly the most terrifying and least known area concerns Iraqi biological warfare capabilities. After repeatedly denying the existence of such programs, Iraq was forced to admit in 1995 that it had produced anthrax, aflatoxins and botulinum toxin and that it had filled missile warheads and aerial bombs with biological agents.
Iraq said it destroyed all these agents but UNSCOM suspected it had produced and hidden large amounts of all three.
Aflatoxins, a carcinogen naturally found in many nuts and some grains, causes cancer and other diseases and may have been developed for possible use as a slow agent of genocide, perhaps for use against Iraq's Kurdish minority. Botulinum toxin is one of the most toxic substances known to man.
"There was a vast discrepancy between the amount of germ cultures the Iraqis imported and what they said they used for legitimate industrial purposes. They could have hidden enough to produce four tons of germ warfare agents," said Jonathan Tucker, who worked on U.N. biological weapons inspection teams in Iraq in the 1990s.
There was also some circumstantial evidence that Iraq was working to develop and weaponize smallpox. There was a natural outbreak of the disease in Iraq in 1971 and scientists could have collected and stored samples.
It is known that Iraq was experimenting with camel pox, a close relative which usually attacks animals but could also harm humans. It might have also been used for experimentation because its chemistry is very close to that of smallpox.
SMALLPOX IS 'SCARIEST UNKNOWN'
"The biggest and scariest unknown is whether Iraq has access to smallpox and whether its scientists have produced a weaponized and militarized version," said Michael Barletta of the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
An assessment from the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies concluded, "Iraq has probably retained substantial growth media and biological weapons agent (perhaps thousands of liters of anthrax) from pre-1991 stocks. The regime is capable of resuming biological weapons agent production in weeks from existing civilian facilities. It could have produced thousands of liters of anthrax, botulinum toxin and other agents since 1998."
Rod Barton, a former Australian defense official who worked on UNSCOM biological inspections in Iraq, wrote in an analysis in 2001 that he believed Baghdad may have perfected a way of freeze drying anthrax so that it would retain its potency for many years.
In the chemical weapons field, most concern centers on VX, a deadly nerve agent where a single droplet can kill. When they were ejected from Iraq in 1998, U.N. inspectors had uncovered evidence that Baghdad had imported precursors sufficient to produce 200 tons of the agent.
Iraq admitted only to having produced 3.9 tons and said it had destroyed it all but inspectors found traces of a VX stabilizer and chemical byproducts of the deadly agent in samples of warhead pieces.
In the nuclear field, experts say Iraq has maintained its scientific and technical expertise and could produce a nuclear weapon within a few months if it could get its hands on weapons-grade fissile material.
CIA director George Tenet told the Senate intelligence committee last February, "Iraq retains a significant number of nuclear scientists, program documentation and probably some dual-use manufacturing infrastructure that could support a reinvigorated nuclear weapons program."
Most experts do not believe Iraq has managed to keep more than a couple of dozen ballistic missiles and it is unclear how many would actually work after being in secret storage for the past 11 years since the 1991 Gulf War.
But Iraq is known to have been developing small, unmanned aircraft which would be difficult to detect on radar because of their size, slow speed and lack of metal parts. Such aircraft could be guided to their targets using global positioning devices and used to deliver chemical or biological weapons.
-------- israel / palestine
Several Jewish Settlers Killed in Attack on Hebron
November 15, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Shooting.html
HEBRON, West Bank (AP) -- Palestinian militants opened fire on Jewish worshippers as they walked toward a disputed shrine after sundown Friday, killing at least 10 people and wounding 15 others, the Israeli military said.
Israeli settlers and soldiers came under fire as they wound their way into the West Bank city of Hebron to mark the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a shrine revered by both Muslims and Jews.
The militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the shooting attack, Israeli TV reported.
An army official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the group had been caught in a well-planned ambush after the start of the Sabbath. Exchanges of fire were continuing in the area, he said.
Israeli media reported that soldiers attempting to assist civilians under fire were caught in an ambush that included sniper fire from the hilltop suburb of Abu Sneineh.
Most of Hebron is controlled by the Palestinian Authority, but the Israeli army patrols the center of the city, where about 450 Jewish settlers live in three enclaves, surrounded by 130,000 Palestinians. The 30,000 Palestinians living near the enclaves are also under Israeli control and are subjected to frequent curfews.
Hebron had been quiet in recent weeks, and Israeli troops had withdrawn from most of the Palestinian-controlled sector of the city.
Nearly all the Jews in Hebron and many living in the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba walk to the Tomb of the Patriarchs every Friday evening, and the route is heavily guarded by Israeli security forces. The site is the burial place of the biblical Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who are revered by both faiths.
Both Israelis and Palestinians draw on past suffering to fuel their current grievances in the city, 25 miles south of Jerusalem.
After living in Hebron for centuries, Jews were driven out during Arab riots in 1929. Dozens were massacred.
When Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war, settlers began moving back into what had been Hebron's Jewish quarter. Kiryat Arba, one of the West Bank's largest settlements, was established in 1972, and is home to thousands of Israelis today.
Relations with Palestinians, rarely friendly, deteriorated sharply in 1994, when Baruch Goldstein, a New York-born settler who lived in Kiryat Arba, gunned down 29 Muslim worshippers inside the mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. He was beaten to death by the survivors.
That massacre led to calls within Israel -- where many people oppose the Hebron settlement and the high price of defending it -- that the settlers to be evacuated. The settlers, among the most ideological in the West Bank, have also had an occasionally rocky relationship with the Israeli soldiers defending them.
--------
A Palestinian Camp Mourns Its Slain Children
November 15, 2002
New York Times
By JOEL GREENBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/15/international/middleeast/15ISRA.html
RAFAH, Gaza Strip, Nov. 14 - Posters of children killed by Israeli Army gunfire covered the walls of the alleys among the bullet-scarred buildings of this refugee camp today, a reminder that two 2-year-olds were shot dead there in three days this week. An 8-year-old boy died of wounds received last month in the daily violence here, along the border with Egypt.
Groups of grieving men sat in three condolence tents today, receiving visitors paying their respects. This evening, another camp resident was killed.
Khaled Abu Hilal, 37, was fatally shot in his home near an Israeli Army position on the border, residents said. The army said troops had returned fired when attacked several times with gunfire and grenades.
In more than two years of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, the Rafah refugee camp, an impoverished community of 90,000 people at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, has become one of the most volatile and deadly fronts of the conflict.
Israeli troops in fortified positions, armored vehicles and tanks along the frontier with Egypt clash daily with Palestinian gunmen. The soldiers fire machine guns and occasionally tank cannons at the camp in what the army says are responses to assaults with small-arms fire, grenades and antitank rockets by local militants.
On the second day of a large-scale sweep against militants in the West Bank town of Nablus today, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian in street clashes. Residents said that the troops had fired at stone-throwing youths, but the army said soldiers had shot an attacker who hurled a gasoline bomb.
The operation in Nablus began after a Palestinian gunman killed five people, including a mother and her two small children, in an attack on an Israeli kibbutz on Sunday. A man accused by the Israelis of masterminding the attack gave himself up in Tulkarm today after a house he was in was surrounded by troops.
The fighting in Rafah has exacted a heavy toll.
In one incident on Oct. 17, six people were killed and dozens were wounded when an Israeli tank fired shells into a crowded neighborhood. The army said it was replying to an attack in which an army bulldozer had been hit by an antitank rocket. The 8-year-old boy who died this week became the seventh fatality.
Near the border fence in Rafah, the army has demolished scores of refugee dwellings during searches for tunnels it says have been used to smuggle weapons from Egypt. Hundreds of people have been made homeless.
Today, residents buried the latest child to die here, 2-year-old Hamed al-Masri. Residents said he was killed on Wednesday as his family fled Israeli gunfire near their house a few dozen yards from the border fence.
His father, Asad al-Masri, 36, said that after a bullet flew into the house, he and his wife picked up their smallest children and fled, with Hamed and his 6-year-old brother trailing on foot. Shrapnel from a tank shell tore into Hamed, killing him instantly, Mr. Masri said. The boy's mother was wounded.
The army said that troops were returning fire, but Mr. Masri insisted today that there had been no fighting at the time and that the streets were empty as residents prepared for the evening meal breaking a daylong fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Mr. Masri used to work as a construction laborer in Israel, but said he had been out of work because of Israeli border closings during the past two years of violence. He said that he could not afford to move out of his house in what has become a battle zone, even though the dwelling has been partly demolished. The homes of seven of his brothers have been destroyed, he said, and there is no money to pay rent anywhere else.
"I worked my whole life to buy this land and to build the house," he said. "We got used to the situation despite the shelling every day."
In the Rafah camp today, boys gathered around a sandlot to watch a local soccer team practice. People stocked up on food for the evening Ramadan meal, hurrying by graffiti-covered walls bearing images of crossed rifles and an exploding Israeli bus.
The army has said repeatedly that its forces in Rafah shoot only when fired upon and at the sources of attack. It accuses the militants of using the population as a human shield. Residents asserted today that much of the Israeli gunfire was scattershot often fired without provocation.
Khaled Mashal, whose 2-year-old son, Nafez, was killed on Monday, said he had been sitting outside with him after the evening meal when a shot fired from a distance hit the boy as he chased a balloon. Relatives said the fatal bullet came from a tank guarding the Israeli settlement of Rafiah Yam a few hundred yards away.
The army said it had been returning fire.
"We're caught here between the border, the settlement and the sea, so where can we go?" said Talal Mashal, a relative.
Another man added, "Shooting could break out here at any time." He said that when the bullets start flying, residents in upper rooms take shelter on ground floors.
Mr. Mashal, who is also unemployed, said his family survived on food coupons distributed by the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees. Still stunned by his son's death, he spoke little.
"Innocent children should not be killed," he said, "from both sides."
-------- mideast
U.S. Still Trying to Unfold Mideast Road Map
November 15, 2002
New York Times
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/15/international/middleeast/15MIDE.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 - For weeks, even as it has talked of a possible war with Iraq that could inflame the Middle East, the Bush administration has been pressing Israel and the Palestinian leadership to embrace an ambitious plan for reciprocal steps toward creating a Palestinian state.
Painstakingly negotiated with the United Nations, the European Union and Russia, the administration's so-called road map was thought by those who conceived it to have a better chance of success than the administration's previous forays into the Middle East arena.
But hopes of securing any agreement this year on the plan have now evaporated in the talk of war in Iraq, in the impending elections in Israel caused by the collapse of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's broad coalition and in the increasingly dire living conditions of many Palestinians.
"I am not sure there is anything anybody can do between now and the Israeli elections" in late January, said Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general. "But if we can keep talking, refining the road map and then be ready to move when the time comes, I think it will make a difference."
The Bush administration is also concerned to keep the plan alive - at least in part to allay Arab fears that Washington is fixated on Iraq at the expense of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. David Satterfield, a deputy assistant secretary of state, has been in the region this week to press Prime Minister Sharon to ease some of the curfews and travel restrictions Israel has imposed on the Palestinians while trying to persuade the Palestinians to stop attacks on Israeli citizens and to undertake reforms.
The road map, which outlines a step-by-step timetable of actions intended to create a Palestinian state, represents a departure in many ways from previous positions of Mr. Bush and his aides, and a significant departure from the approach of the Clinton administration.
First, the Bush administration has more assertively involved the Europeans, the Russians and the United Nations in forging a common approach, a a step that may help persuade Yasir Arafat to accept the plan, but one that has concerned Israeli officials, who regard these other parties as long unsympathetic to Israeli concerns.
In his first year of office, Mr. Bush belittled what he felt was the overinvolvement of the Clinton administration in the Middle East. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said repeatedly then that the United States had no intention of putting forward a peace plan.
Now, the situation is too urgent for the United States to stand aloof.
"The administration has come to realize that nothing will happen in the Middle East without active American involvement," said former Senator George Mitchell, who led a fact-finding mission in early 2001 that called for a Palestinian crackdown on terrorism and an Israeli freeze on settlements.
"The reality is that the only way back to the table is through a series of reciprocal steps by both sides," he said.
The road map calls for a first phase to last three months, during which the Palestinian Authority would resume security cooperation with the United States and Israel, call again for an end to armed attacks on Israelis and install a new cabinet and a prime minister to take over from Mr. Arafat.
In return, in the same three months, Israel would be required to end its attacks in Palestinian civilian areas, ease its curbs on the travel of Palestinian officials, lift curfews and unfreeze at least some tax revenues collected from the Palestinians.
The core of the road map is its call for eventual replacement of Mr. Arafat as the leader with whom the United States, Israel and other countries must negotiate. This was the objective outlined by Mr. Bush in his speech on the Middle East in the summer.
Complicating the situation now, according to Bush administration officials, is a new strain in the previously cordial ties between President Bush and Mr. Sharon.
Although Mr. Sharon visited the White House last month and proclaimed that ties between Israel and Washington had rarely been so close or harmonious, associates on both sides say that these tensions were most palpable in early October when Mr. Bush demanded that Israel end its 10-day siege of Mr. Arafat's compound in Ramallah. That siege, which largely destroyed the already battered compound, only increased the embattled Palestinian's popularity among his people, American officials said.
The officials said Mr. Bush was angry that Mr. Sharon had thus, in effect, undercut attempts to get the Palestinians to turn away from Mr. Arafat, and made it harder to rally Arab support for the president's campaign against Iraq.
A major cause for concern inside and outside the administration is what most experts say are the worst conditions among Palestinians they have ever seen. This week, for example, Mr. Annan gave a speech in Washington in which he deplored what he called an "atmosphere of gloom and defeatism" in the Middle East that could explode at any time.
Administration officials and outside observers speak of a frightened and despairing Israeli population, as well as what one called "horrific" conditions among the Palestinian people. These include pervasive malnutrition, families selling off their belongings, destroyed communities and a growing sense of isolation because of travel restrictions.
"We are facing a situation where all those years of progress in the Middle East are essentially going down the tubes," said a diplomat involved in the discussions with European leaders.
European officials say they fear a war in Iraq could further inflame the Arab world and jeopardize Israel's security even more. As a result, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, America's closest ally in Europe, has parted company with the administration and called for a full Middle East peace conference by the end of this year.
Administration officials dismiss suggestions from Europe and elsewhere that the United States is not doing all it can to promote the plan.
"It's great to say that with U.S. pressure, there can be progress," said an official. "It's always, if only the U.S. did this, or did that, everything would be O.K. It's not that easy."
In Israel, Mr. Sharon has said only that he accepts the idea of the road map, but that he is studying the details and has some concerns about it. Benjamin Netanyahu, the new foreign minister who is challenging Mr. Sharon for leadership of the Likud coalition, said last week that he too is studying it.
The main concern in Israel is that the road map calls for too many irrevocable Israeli actions, such as withdrawal from territories, before the Palestinians are required to disarm militants.
In response, administration officials note that the timetable is actually "performance-based," and cannot go forward without real progress in curbing Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians. Palestinians, meanwhile, view it as too lenient on the Israelis.
"It is obvious that there is a very serious effort by the United States to accommodate Mr. Sharon," said Hassan Abdul Rahman, the Palestinian envoy in Washington. "Over the last two years, this administration has shown a policy of great leniency toward Israel."
Administration officials say that the whole point of the road map is that it is a work in progress. "We are listening to the criticism," said an administration official. "Please understand that this is a document in a constant state of being perfected. That effort will go forward."
-------- nato
NATO Readies Defense Against Mass Destruction Arms
Reuters
Friday, November 15, 2002
By Mark Bentley
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58691-2002Nov15?language=printer
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - NATO head George Robertson said on Friday the alliance was poised to improve its ability to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction and urged members new and old to adopt the same approach.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is expected to invite up to seven Central European states to join the alliance at a summit in Prague later this month.
Robertson told a meeting of the alliance's Parliamentary Assembly in the Turkish city of Istanbul that the Prague summit would also mark an increased NATO commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear and biological weapons.
"At Prague, NATO will unveil a major package of measures to combat terrorism," Robertson said.
"We will take decisions to broaden our range of tools to cope with this threat. Developing vaccine stockpiles or mobile detection labs are not the stuff of headline news but the strategic importance of these developments is beyond doubt," he said.
He made no reference to Iraq, to which U.N. weapons inspectors will shortly return after a four-year absence, following President Saddam Hussein's acceptance of a tough U.N. Security Council calling for Iraq's disarmament.
The wording of the U.N. resolution on Iraq followed much argument between Security Council members, but Robertson said the new NATO decisions would show there was no difference of approach between the United States and its European allies.
"(The steps) signal that allies are fostering a common transatlantic approach to deal with this challenge," he said.
"When it comes to coping with weapons of mass destruction there will be just one approach and that will be the NATO approach," he said.
But Rafael Estrella, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly, expressed concern at apparent divisions between the United States and its European NATO allies.
"There is a growing list of specific issues where there is disagreement between Europe and the United States. If it is real, such a divergence could have serious consequences for the relations between Americans and Europeans," he said, without going into detail.
-------- us
U.S. headed for largest defense budget hike since Reagan buildup
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, November 15, 2002
http://216.26.163.62/2002/ss_military_11_15.html
WASHINGTON - House and Senate conferees have reached agreement on the $393 billion defense budget for fiscal 2003 that places new emphasis on missile defense and marks the largest overall increase since the early years of the Reagan administration.
House Armed Services Committee chairman Bob Stump, a Republican from Arizona, said the $7.8 billion authorized for missile defense - $814.3 million of which is allocated for the Defense Department for counterterrorism - marks the fifth straight year of real increases in defense spending.
Stump said the fiscal 2003 defense budget is the largest increase in nearly 20 years.
"Rogue nations such as North Korea, Iran, and Iraq are actively seeking or testing ballistic missiles capable of striking the U.S. homeland, and U.S. allies and U.S. forward deployed troops already face a growing threat from shorter range ballistic missiles," the conference report of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003 said.
"The proliferation of ballistic missile technologies, and the dangers of an intentional, accidental, or unauthorized launch of a ballistic missile are serious risks to U.S. national security."
The House and Senate conferees authorized $1.1 billion for Theater High Altitude Air Defense System [THAAD] and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 [PAC-3] engineering and manufacturing development. Under the agreement the U.S. Army would receive $507.3 million for procurement of PAC-3 missiles.
The PAC-3 has been offered to U.S. allies in the Middle East.
The PAC-3 allocation approved by the conferees is $35.6 million more than the president's request. So far, PAC-3 missiles are in low rate initial production, and only limited quantities are available for deployment.
On Thursday, the Pentagon announced a $9 million contract to Raytheon, the manufacturer of the PAC-3. Under the award, the Bedford, Mass.-based company will provide engineering services for older-line Patriot systems until February 2003.
The House and Senate conferees agreed to allocate $247.7 million for terminal defense system research and development. This ensures funding for the joint U.S.-Israeli Arrow-2 missile program as well as the Medium Extended Air Defense System project, including Italy and Germany. The allocation is $40 million less than the president's request.
The conferees also authorized $755.6 million for boost defense systems, including hit-to-kill and directed energy boost phase intercept programs. This is $41.3 million less than the president's request.
The largest allocation went to mid-course defense programs. The conferees authorized $3.2 billion - $5 million more than the president's request - for the 2004 Pacific Test Bed, ground-based defense, formerly known as National Missile Defense, and cooperative development with Japan of sea-based high altitude missile defenses.
Another $1.1 billion was approved for battle management command, control and communication, system engineering, and system-wide test and evaluation efforts. The conferees also authorized $136.8 million to develop advanced technological components necessary to maintain pace with constantly evolving missile threats.
"This conference report places a priority on improving our homeland defenses against terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, supporting the needs of our military personnel, and preparing for an extended war against terrorism," Stump said. "The resulting legislation will make America more secure and ensure the continued revitalization of the United States military."
----
Military Smallpox Vaccinations Planned
Bush to Order Pentagon Action, but Safety Concerns Delay Civilian Inoculations
By Bradley Graham and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 15, 2002; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56710-2002Nov14?language=printer
Senior administration officials said yesterday they expect President Bush will order the inoculation of hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops against smallpox but delay action on vaccinating civilians to review safety concerns.
An administration official said that although Bush has not made a final decision, his top advisers have endorsed the plan, which was recommended by the Pentagon. An announcement could come within days but certainly within two weeks, the official said.
"The military is most likely to come into contact with the disease," the official said. "The odds of exposure are highest abroad, and it wouldn't need to be use of it by an enemy. It could be during inspection and confiscation of weapons stocks."
Questions of whether and how to proceed with vaccinating U.S. troops and civilians have confronted Bush for weeks. Driving the argument for a renewed national effort to protect Americans against smallpox have been heightened concerns about biological warfare and intelligence reports about covert stocks of the smallpox pathogen in at least four nations -- Iraq, North Korea, Russia and France.
But worries about the vaccine's safety have prompted Bush to hesitate over approving the resumption of routine vaccinations, which stopped in the United States in 1972. Use of the vaccine has led to serious -- and occasionally fatal -- complications in a small percentage of recipients.
"This decision hasn't been easy because this isn't a benign vaccine," another administration official said.
Officials said the White House sees serious risks to ordering civilian vaccination, especially with the oldest and youngest vaccine recipients. "The arguments are much more complex than with the military," an official said. "With civilians, you have to consider the possibility of vaccinating people after the fact."
Because soldiers are generally younger and healthier than the general population, Bush is said to have fewer reservations about authorizing the Pentagon to proceed with its inoculation program.
"With the military, you have fewer risky cases. And you also have extensive health and medical records that make it easier to screen out anybody who might be vulnerable to adverse effects from the vaccine," an official said.
Pentagon officials have developed a plan for inoculating as many as 500,000 troops out of the 1.4 million soldiers on active duty. The first shots are earmarked for medical specialists and other emergency support troops. Next in line would be troops designated for deployment in the Middle East and other areas in which the risk of combat is considered high, defense officials said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld strongly favors the inoculation program, considering it critical to ensuring the protection of U.S. forces, according to aides. Given the prospect of a war with Iraq as early as next year, Pentagon officials are eager to begin the vaccinations. Although there is no conclusive evidence that Iraq would be willing to use smallpox in a war with the United States, there are no reliable devices for detecting the release of the virus, so delaying inoculations until after an attack is not much of an option, officials said.
Senior federal health officials also have urged making the vaccine available in stages to U.S. civilians, beginning with about 500,000 people who work in hospital emergency rooms, then inoculating an estimated 10 million other health care workers, police, firefighters and paramedics. Ultimately, the vaccine would be offered to the public on a voluntary basis.
But the probability that some people would die of the vaccine's side effects has remained a major stumbling block for Bush and some senior advisers, officials said. The vaccine has caused lift-threatening complications for 15 out of every 1 million people who have been inoculated for the first time.
Smallpox is one of the deadliest and most contagious diseases in history, killing about 3 out of 10 people who contract it. But the World Health Organization declared the disease eradicated in 1980.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for maintaining U.S. vaccine stockpiles, has set aside for the military about 1 million of the 2.7 million doses licensed for use by the Food and Drug Administration.
-------- propaganda wars
'Spectacular' Warning Confuses Some
November 15, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Spectacular-Threat.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI's warning about a ``spectacular'' terrorist attack could mean something bigger than Bali, where nearly 200 people died, says a former agency analyst. A psychologist who monitors law enforcement says it may be intended as a jarring caution not to be complacent.
Others say it may simply be a nod to critics who thought the FBI was too cagey about earlier threats.
The FBI bulletin warns: ``In selecting its next targets, sources suggest al-Qaida may favor spectacular attacks that meet several criteria: high symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the US economy, and maximum psychological trauma.''
The sweeping language leaves people wondering exactly what they're supposed to do.
``This is a difficult issue to deal with. What do they want people to accomplish?'' asked Robert Litt, a principal associate deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration.
Before the Sept. 11 attacks, Litt said, the bureau tended to keep secret the information gathered from ``chatter'' -- a mix of first and secondhand information and gossip unfiltered by analysts -- in order not to compromise sources or create panic.
Since then, with intelligence agencies sensitive to complaints that they missed signs of pending attacks, the pendulum may have swung the other way. ``They're not going to make that mistake again, not sharing with local law enforcement,'' Litt said.
Some people have gotten numb to the repeated warnings.
``I guess I'll just be a little more cautious, but I won't really alter my lifestyle,'' said Valerie Dulk, 36, of Silver Spring, Md. ``I don't want to live in fear because of something unpredictable.''
In downtown Washington, where people took note of the FBI's caution that national landmarks might be targets, legal secretary Cheryl Kragnes, 47, said it was important to her that the national terror alert had not been raised from code yellow.
``It's very distressing because, to me, it makes it even more obvious how hopeless the war on terrorism really is,'' she said. ``But you just refuse to let things like that stop you from living your life.''
Matthew Levitt, a former counterterror analyst with the FBI, said ``spectacular'' suggested something larger than last month's attack in Bali that killed almost 200 people -- most of them Australian tourists.
``To me, `spectacular' indicates a very serious attack against a very serious target, near term,'' said Levitt. ``It's more of a when than an if.''
Levitt said a recently broadcast audiotape attributed to Osama bin Laden that threatened U.S. allies in the war on terror suggests a possible European target.
``It's not just the FBI, it's Interpol, the British Home Office, the German interior ministry seeing a real increase in the chatter,'' said Levitt, who now monitors terrorism for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The FBI warning says the likeliest targets could be aviation, petroleum and nuclear sectors, as well as significant national landmarks.
``Al-Qaida's next attack may rely on conventional explosives and low-technology platforms such as truck bombs, commercial or private aircraft, small watercraft, or explosives easily concealed and planted by terrorist operatives,'' it says. An Oct. 24 FBI alert also warned of possible attacks on U.S. railways.
The language could help prepare Americans for the shock of another Sept. 11-level attack -- a consideration that outweighs the panic a baseless warning might engender, said Joan Deppa, a communications specialist at Syracuse University who studies mass reaction to terror.
``If we have another big event and the public is not forewarned, they are likely to be in a greater position of shock than if this statement goes out and turns out not to be true,'' she said.
Such warnings might also shake Americans who haven't paid much attention to the recent wave of attacks far from American shores -- in Bali, Kuwait, Pakistan and Yemen.
``For better or worse, Americans don't look beyond our borders, and we're lulled into a sense of complacency,'' said Curtis Hsia, a professor of psychology at Azusa Pacific University in California who studies law enforcement. ``Thinking in terms of prevention, if you want to make sure you get your information out quickly, you use language that's a little strong.''
Shaking people out of their complacency is one thing, but too much of that could create a ``cry wolf'' feeling, President Carter said Thursday night on CNN's ``Larry King Live.'' Carter also dealt with terror warnings during his 1977-81 term.
On the Net:
FBI warning: http://www.nipc.gov/publications/infobulletins/2002/ib02-010.htm
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
ANTITERRORISM
Intelligence Criticized as F.B.I. Issues New Alert
November 15, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID JOHNSTON and ERIC LICHTBLAU
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/15/politics/15TERR.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 - American intelligence agencies came under renewed attack in Congress today for failing to find Osama bin Laden, with the increasing certainty that he is still alive prompting senior Democratic senators to brand the effort to dismantle Al Qaeda as a failure.
Even as Bush administration officials took the F.B.I. to task for a warning issued on Wednesday about possible attacks on hospitals, the F.B.I. today issued a vague and alarming alert to state and local law enforcement agencies. The alert warned that this week's message, apparently from Mr. bin Laden, plus intelligence reports and recent overseas strikes by Al Qaeda, had raised the threat of attacks.
The alert was not made public because there was no specific information about a target, officials said. "In selecting its next targets," the F.B.I. alert said, "sources suggest Al Qaeda may favor spectacular attacks that meet several criteria: high symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the American economy and maximum psychological trauma. The highest-priority targets remain within the aviation, petroleum and nuclear sectors, as well as significant national landmarks."
Senator Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, charged that the Bush administration had been distracted from the fight against terrorism by the preparation for a possible invasion of Iraq.
"They are so focused on Iraq that they aren't paying adequate attention to the war on terror," he said in an interview.
Mr. Graham added that American intelligence agencies should undertake a crash program to identify and take action against terrorist threats in advance of any military action in Iraq.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld underscored today concerns that the United States could face increased dangers of terrorist attacks if President Bush orders military action against Iraq.
In a radio interview with Infinity Broadcasting, Mr. Rumsfeld said that Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, might try to organize terrorist strikes against American targets if a United States-led coalition moves to disarm him by force. "I have no doubt that if he's able, he would like to see that terrorist attacks occur in the event that military action was taken," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Mr. Graham said that American intelligence agencies had failed to determine the extent of the terrorist threat even as the country prepared for war. If Mr. bin Laden is alive, he suggested, then the threat to the United States has increased. "If he is still alive and still in charge, that means Al Qaeda continues to have a highly capable and venomous leader."
The F.B.I. warning was sent today as a confidential alert to 18,000 law enforcement agencies throughout the country, but it was not issued to the public. Government officials said the threat warning would remain at the current level of Code Yellow, the middle range on the five-level terror code index. That was because, the officials said, that the threats were serious enough to warn state and local authorities, but not specific enough to warrant a general alert. Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been sent to an undisclosed location under previous alerts, remained in town tonight.
In the past some lawmakers have criticized the Bush administration for spreading fear by issuing public alerts without providing information about how to respond as a politically motivated effort to insulate the government from eventual criticism that it failed to act in case of attack.
But several officials said that today's warning was genuine, although they added that there was no intelligence about the time, place or method of any such attack. They acknowledged that the language of this alert was more extreme than similar alerts issued in the past; earlier alerts have seldom made reference to the expectation of large-scale attacks or possible casualties.
At the same time, however, today's warning also urged law enforcement officials to be on guard against smaller attacks with cruder materials like simple explosives.
One official said that that language was a response to the tape attributed to Mr. bin Laden played on Al Jazeera television on Tuesday, which is increasingly being viewed as authentic, and to other events, including attacks on American marines in Kuwait, and the possibility of reprisals for the killing of a Qaeda leader in Yemen by an American missile.
Tonight, Mir Aimal Kansi, the Pakistani convicted of killing two C.I.A. employees outside the agency's headquarters in 1993, was executed, adding to concerns about reprisals.
Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader from South Dakota, said the inability to find Mr. bin Laden was a sign of deeper problems in the war on terror. "We can't find bin Laden, we haven't made real progress in finding key elements of Al Qaeda. They continue to be as great a threat today as they were one and a half years ago. So by what measure can we claim to be successful so far?"
Today's warning was the clearest sign yet of the near certainty in intelligence circles that the audiotaped message broadcast earlier this week, praising terror attacks in Bali and Kuwait, was an authentic recording by Mr. bin Laden.
A C.I.A. technical analysis of the tape continued today, but without a final determination whether the voice on it was Mr. bin Laden's.
American officials said that the number of intercepted communications and informant reports had increased in recent days.
The language of the alert was considered by representatives of several executive branch agencies before it was distributed to law enforcement. "This document was coordinated through an interagency process," a White House official said tonight. "It was decided that given the current threat situation it was appropriate that it go out in its present form."
Law enforcement officials dismissed the attacks from Senate Democrats as political grandstanding. "We've busted up cells in Buffalo, Detroit and Portland, we've caught several of bin Laden's chief lieutenants, we have driven the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, and we haven't had another attack here since 9/11," a law enforcement official said. "I would say, all in all, were doing an excellent job."
However, not everyone exuded such confidence. "The anxiety level is probably as high as it has been since the anthrax attacks," said one F.B.I. supervisor.
The dissatisfaction over the performance of American intelligence agencies, particularly the F.B.I., appeared to have deepened in recent days. Today a group headed by James S. Gilmore III, a former Republican governor of Virginia, concluded that a new domestic intelligence agency should be established.
"We've got to gather this kind of information so we can disrupt the enemy before they attack us," Mr. Gilmore said in an interview after testifying before a House military subcommittee.
The F.B.I. was under fire today from some Bush administration officials for sending out a confidential alert on Wednesday warning of possible attacks at hospitals in Washington, Chicago, Houston and San Francisco. "There are some raised eyebrows here as to why they would put out something like this," said an administration official. "This was a report that didn't have a lot of credibility, then it goes out and now you really have anxiety levels raised in these cities. It was unnecessary."
The F.B.I. has been criticized from many sides in recent weeks, and more bad news is expected on Friday. The Justice Department's inspector general is expected to issue a report critical of the bureau's disciplinary procedures. The report is expected to highlight a double standard in which senior executives have been given lighter punishments for wrongdoing than rank-and-file agents, according to government officials.
--------
White House Yields on a 9/11 Inquiry Backed by Congress
November 15, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID FIRESTONE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/15/politics/15COMM.html
WASHINGTON, Friday, Nov. 15 - Yielding to intense pressure from families of Sept. 11 victims, the White House agreed last night to a Congressional compromise that would create an independent commission to investigate the terrorist attacks. The House immediately approved a bill to establish the commission on a 366-to-3 vote before adjourning for the year early this morning. The Senate was expected to pass it later today.
The 10-member commission will be charged with providing the nation the most comprehensive examination of the vulnerabilities that made the attacks possible. It will have up to 18 months to hold hearings and prepare a report on topics that include intelligence agencies, diplomacy and immigration controls, and is intended to be unflinching in assigning blame for specific government failures.
The agreement puts an end to several months of wrangling between Congress and the Bush administration, which had objected to details of the commission's makeup. Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, said earlier Friday that the administration was stalling on the plan because it could not control the commission's eventual findings.
But the White House had said for a month that Mr. Bush supported a commission, and after intense pressure from victims' families, the administration agreed to a plan tonight that is similar to the one originally proposed by members of Congress and family representatives.
The panel of private citizens will be evenly divided between appointees of Republicans and Democrats. Congressional negotiators conceded two points to the administration, allowing it to choose the chairman and agreeing that any subpoenas would have to be issued by at least six commission members. The White House had feared that the five Democrats on the panel could turn it into a political witchhunt.
The key to the compromise was allowing Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, to appoint one of the Republican slots. Mr. McCain had fought zealously for the commission for months, leveling bitter criticism at the White House as stalling it, and family representatives as well as Democrats said he would appoint someone who would be aggressive in questioning public officials. At the same time, the White House was satisfied that Mr. McCain's appointment would not be partisan in nature.
"Our agreement protects the principles we and the families of Sept. 11 have pursued in calling for such a commission since last November," Mr. McCain said tonight. "Equal bipartisan membership, a broad mandate to review policies and responses related to the terrorist attacks across the range of government agencies, and the subpoena power to dig deep to find out what went wrong."
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the leading advocate for the commission among Senate Democrats, said the panel would finally provide a "clear, clean picture" of which government agencies failed and why, in order to prevent a similar attack in the future. The panel's inquiry, he said, will be similar to investigations of the Pearl Harbor attack and the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, both of which won national attention for their unsparing accounting of responsibility.
Members of the panel, which will be known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, are intended to be nationally recognized American citizens, none currently holding office, with broad experience in national security affairs and law enforcement. Former cabinet members and elected officials have been mentioned for the positions. The commission will issue a report to the president and to Congress 18 months after it begins, which could provide an embarrassing political issue in the middle of the 2004 election campaign.
But White House officials said they were content with the creation of the commission. "We have worked closely with Congressional leaders involved with the issue to resolve the remaining issues," said Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, "and Congress appears ready to move forward on the strong bipartisan commission that will look at a broad range of issues."
Leaders of the family groups, who had threatened a campaign of criticism against the Bush administration if it rejected the panel, said they were satisfied by the agreement.
"We're not crazy about the president appointing the chairman, but our greatest concern was the subpoena power," said Stephen Push, whose wife, Lisa Raines, died in the plane that struck the Pentagon. "As long as Senator McCain has one of the picks, and the others are people of integrity, then we're guardedly optimistic about this investigation."
The ability to subpoena government records and officials will be crucial to the panel's ability to ferret out facts and failures that remain undisclosed. Representative Tim Roemer, an Indiana Democrat who is an advocate of the commission, said subpoenas would make the commission "a real threat" to pry information out of reluctant government agencies, which are likely to include the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and other intelligence departments.
One of the inquiry's targets is likely to be Congress itself. Representative Porter J. Goss, Republican of Florida, who leads the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said he expected his committee's oversight role to be examined fully.
The agreement calls for two commission members each to be appointed by the Senate Republican leader, the Senate Democratic leader, the House Republican leader and the House Democratic leader. (Mr. McCain's choice will be one of the Senate Republican leader's two appointments.) The president will choose the chairman, and Congressional Democrats the vice chairman. Subpoenas can be issued by either the chairman and vice chairman together, or by any six members.
The commission had originally been included in the bill to create a Homeland Security Department, but at the direction of House Republican leaders, the House voted Wednesday night not to include it. Representative Dick Armey, the majority leader, said the panel was not properly structured. After last night's agreement won White House consent, the bill was included in the spending bill for intelligence agencies.
One of the few voices of dissent on the bill came from Representative Ray LaHood, Republican of Illinois, who said the commission would raise false hopes among victims' family members and would pointlessly seek to blame innocent government offi
--------
Report Criticizes FBI Policy
November 15, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-FBI-Discipline.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI has an uneven punishment system for employees, with senior managers receiving slaps on the wrist for misconduct that would bring stronger penalties for lower-level workers, the Justice Department inspector general said Friday.
Among the examples cited in a report: Several FBI officials under investigation for their part in the fatal shooting at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, received promotions or bonuses, and seven senior officials who submitted false travel vouchers went unpunished.
``We believe that in these cases, FBI senior managers were afforded different and more favorable treatment than less senior FBI employees would have received,'' Inspector General Glenn Fine said in the report. ``These cases, which were well known within the FBI, fed the perception that senior managers were treated more favorably than subordinate employees.''
The findings track allegations made by John Roberts, unit chief of the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility. Roberts made those charges in congressional testimony and repeated them last month on CBS' ``60 Minutes.'' Lawmakers said Roberts' superiors retaliated against him after he went on TV.
The incidents occurred before the FBI changed its disciplinary process in August 2000, and the new procedures would help dispel concerns about a double standard, the inspector general said. In addition, Attorney General John Ashcroft said in July 2001 that the inspector general, not the FBI, would investigate allegations of misconduct leveled against the bureau's senior officials.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, renewed his criticism of how the FBI punishes senior employees for wrongdoing. ``Because of the double standard, too many top officials got away with lying, cover-ups, obstruction, negligence and using taxpayer money for personal pleasure,'' he said.
The FBI said in a statement that it has overhauled its procedures.
``These reforms seek to achieve the FBI's goal of giving all employees and the American public complete confidence in the FBI's disciplinary system,'' the agency said. ``The mission of the (Office of Professional Responsibility) is to fairly and expeditiously identify misconduct wherever it occurs within the organization, and to appropriately punish the involved persons without fear or favor to anyone.''
The report found that seven senior FBI officials who came to Washington in October 1997 to attend a retirement dinner for then-Deputy Director Larry Potts later asked the FBI to pay their travel expenses, claiming they had gone to the nation's capital on official business.
To make it easier for the officials to seek reimbursement, a conference was held the day after the dinner. The conference lasted only 90 minutes and drew only five people, the report said.
The report said one top FBI official -- Van Harp, now assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington field office but then based in Cleveland -- submitted a voucher saying he had gone to attend a conference. But Harp did not show up, the inspector general said. Harp later said he held meetings with 11 officials in Washington, but he had no appointments scheduled and at least one person was out of the office, the report said.
``In the face of what was perceived as a flagrant abuse of FBI travel vouchers, the punishment was only a letter of censure for a few of the FBI managers involved,'' the report said. ``We believe, based on our review of the facts and the FBI precedent, that this result was too lenient.''
The inspector general also discussed the 1992 Ruby Ridge incident, where white supremacist Randy Weaver's wife was killed by an agency sharpshooter. Vicki Weaver died on the second day of an 11-day siege at the couple's northern Idaho cabin, which began with a shootout in which the Weavers' teenage son and a deputy U.S. marshal were killed.
The government later paid Weaver $3.1 million. The standoff prompted a nationwide debate on the use of force by federal agencies.
Six FBI officials who were involved in the incident received promotions or bonuses while their actions were under investigation. Harp, part of an FBI team helping the investigation, was later promoted to head the Cleveland office and received two cash awards totaling more than $22,000.
A Justice Department investigation found Harp failed to interview key witnesses and drafted performance evaluations ``that appeared to reward agents for 'correctly' concluding that FBI officials had acted properly,'' the report said.
No action was taken against Harp. The inspector general's report said he should have been punished.
A phone call to the Washington field office, where Harp now works, was not immediately returned Friday.
Potts, one of the six FBI officials involved, sat on a committee that decided whether to promote four of the others.
``The appearance of a conflict should have been obvious,'' the inspector general wrote. ``Such conflicts at minimum feed the appearance of favoritism.''
On the Net:
Justice Department inspector general: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig
-------- death penalty
AN EARLIER KILLING
Virginia Executes Pakistani Who Killed 2 at the C.I.A.
November 15, 2002
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/15/national/15EXEC.html
JARRATT, Va., Nov. 14 - Mir Aimal Kasi, the Pakistani extremist convicted of fatally shooting two C.I.A. employees in 1993 while they were stopped in traffic outside the agency's headquarters, was put to death tonight by lethal injection.
Mr. Kasi's hopes for a stay of execution ended at 5 this afternoon, when Gov. Mark R. Warner denied a request for clemency. Earlier in the afternoon, the United States Supreme Court rejected an appeal.
Shortly before the execution at 9, Mr. Kasi, 38, and his spiritual adviser entered the death chamber of the Greensville Correctional Center, chanting in their native tongue. Mr. Kasi and his adviser had a 15- to 20-second exchange, the adviser left, and Mr. Kasi continued chanting softly.
He stopped only to give his last statement, which was, "There is no god but Allah." Afterward, he resumed chanting until he lost consciousness. Death was pronounced at 9:07 p.m.
A news media witness, Guy Taylor of The Washington Times, said that after Mr. Kasi was strapped down, he made a "V" with the first two fingers of his right hand.
"At the same time," Mr. Taylor said, "he moved his right foot back and forth like a boy going to sleep."
On Jan. 23, 1993, Mr. Kasi used an assault rifle to kill Frank A. Darling, 28, and Lansing H. Bennett, 66, as they sat in their cars at a stoplight in McLean, Va., near the Central Intelligence Agency's headquarters. After the shootings, in which three others were wounded, Mr. Kasi got back in his car and drove away. He eluded prosecution for more than four years by hiding in Pakistan, but F.B.I. agents traced him to a hotel there and arrested him in 1997. The agents said he gave a detailed confession on the return flight, saying he was enraged by C.I.A. activity in Pakistan and other Islamic nations.
Later that year, in a two-week trial in Fairfax County marked by extraordinarily high security, he was found guilty and sentenced to death.
Mr. Kasi's pen pal, Ann McBride, was one of several dozen protesters against the death penalty who held a vigil in the field outside the prison, 60 miles south of Richmond.
"He didn't think of himself as a terrorist," Ms. McBride said. She said that Mr. Kasi loved animals, particularly cats, and that he loved Pakistan.
"He wanted to live," she said, "but to die in Ramadan is a great honor. He said he was lucky to die during Ramadan."
Although Mr. Kasi and his family asked that there be no reprisals for his execution, fears of a retaliatory attack persist. A warning from the State Department to Americans abroad, as well as remarks by Mr. Kasi characterizing his actions as retaliation against Americans, prompted law enforcement agencies in Virginia to be on heightened alert. Four Americans were killed in Pakistan during Mr. Kasi's 1997 trial.
In Pakistan, the police increased security as protesters in the southern town of Multan continued today to demonstrate against Mr. Kasi's pending execution. The United States Embassy advised Americans living in Pakistan to take extra care with security and stay at home for the next few days.
More than 500 students demonstrated in Multan on Wednesday, calling for Mr. Kasi's extradition to Pakistan. About 80 lawyers protested his death sentence in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province and Mr. Kasi's hometown.
"The U.S. should review its policies that are creating anti-U.S. feelings among the oppressed nations in the world," Ali Ahmed Kurd, president of the Baluchistan Bar Association, told the rally, according to Agence France-Presse. "Executions or use of force against people will further fuel anti-U.S. feelings."
Shortly after the court denied a stay, Mr. Kasi's brothers and the spiritual adviser left the prison.
Governor Warner, a Democrat, said: "Mr. Kasi has admitted to the crimes for which he was convicted and shown absolutely no remorse for his actions. After a thorough review of Mr. Kasi's petition for clemency and the judicial opinion regarding this case, I have concluded that the death penalty is appropriate in the instance. I will not intervene."
-------- immigration
French Police Oust Migrants Who Took Refuge in Church
November 15, 2002
New York Times
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/15/international/europe/15FRAN.html
CALAIS, France, Nov. 14 - The tensions over immigration in France burst into the open today as police raided a Catholic church in this windswept port city, taking away in buses nearly 100 Iraqi Kurd and Afghan migrants who had taken refuge there.
Nine days ago, bowing to pressure from Britain, the French government decreed that an overcrowded refugee camp set up by the Red Cross three years ago in nearby Sangatte would no longer accept new arrivals. The goal was to stop thousands of migrants from risking their lives trying to get into Britain either by jumping on high-speed trains through the Channel Tunnel or as stowaways on ferries.
The effect of the decision was twofold. It underscored the ongoing problem Nicolas Sarkozy, France's tough law-and-order minister of the interior, is facing in trying to crack down on illegal migrants and the people-smuggling networks behind them. And it has suddenly trapped in Calais asylum seekers who wander the streets, sleep on the sidewalks and don't speak French.
At the popular Café de Paris in downtown Calais, where a white metal Eiffel Tower bedecked with white lights graces the entrance, all the talk today was about foreigners.
"We're a port city and the people of Calais always support foreigners," said Marie-Claude Raffoux, a widow who works as an administrator at an ice skating rink. "But we're afraid now. I don't feel safe walking in the streets. I fear that Islamic extremists have mixed in with them. There's a mosque here. Why didn't they go to the mosque for help?"
"Look, look," said Liliane Leger, her luncheon companion who is also a widow, pointing her finger at three poorly dressed young men walking past. "There they are."
It was the lack of food and shelter that led many of the migrants, all of them young men, to seek refuge, first in the home of the pastor of St. Pierre-St. Paul Church. As their numbers swelled, they moved to one municipal sports center and then another. Finally, they settled in the church itself, an unexceptional structure built in the 1960's that was closed last January so that its asbestos-lined walls can be replaced.
Many of the migrants had threatened to resist with force or commit suicide rather than turn themselves over to France. But after a five-day standoff, dozens of elite anti-riot police, dressed in their signature leather boots and pointed berets and armed only with clubs, roused the men from deep sleep before dawn today. With the church's pastor urging them to cooperate, they allowed themselves to be escorted into buses and driven to police centers in nearby cities.
The police were immediately followed into the church by a cleaning crew of men dressed in white one-piece jumpsuits with hoods, white masks covering their noses and mouths.
Local officials congratulated themselves on a job well done. Just hours after the migrants were told that they could either apply for asylum in France or be sent home, 76 of the 99 men decided to seek asylum, another 13 asked for five days of emergency housing to decide, and an Afghan asked to go home, according to the government's regional office in Nord-Pas de Calais. Most of the others rejected the government proposals and were issued documents asking them to leave French territory. Two minors were released.
"We managed to liberate this church in the best possible conditions, the most humane conditions," said Cyrille Schott, the government's representative of the Nord-Pas de Calais region.
The problem of immigration was one of the main issues of this year's presidential campaign. In the first round of the election in April, the Calais region put in first place Jean-Marie Le Pen, the right-wing nationalist who said that if he became president, he would "charter a special train" and ship immigrants residing in Sangatte to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain.
But today's police operation is not expected to reduce the flow of would-be refugees to Calais or assuage a local population that is both suspicious and weary of the strangers.
"These people are not terrorists, they're not bandits," said Abbé Jean-Pierre Boutoille, pastor of the St. Pierre-St. Paul Church that was used as the temporary shelter. "We have asked the politicians, `So what is your plan?' They make great speeches about great measures. But we are waiting for the answers."
One step the government plans to take is to make good on the campaign promise to close the Sangatte refugee camp, a move that is now scheduled for April. As an incentive, France is offering many of the camp's 1,800 inhabitants $2,000 each to go home.
According to the mayor's office, 40 new would-be refugees arrive in town each day. Despite the fact that most of the new immigrants are Iraqi Kurds and Afghans, local Calaisians call them "Kosovars," a reference to the immigrants from Kosovo who poured into Calais during the war there three years ago.
One visible sign of the ongoing problem was the scene at the end of the afternoon in the square outside Calais City Hall. About 40 young men, most of them Iraqi Kurds, waited for a meal of fruit, bread and water dispensed by a soup kitchen.
Abbas Majid, a 20-year-old Iraqi Kurd from Kirkuk, said that it had taken him 26 days to get to France via Turkey, a journey that requires about $7,000 to be paid to a middleman. "There are so many problems in Iraq," Mr. Majid said in broken German. "Saddam is so bad. I'm sleeping on the street until I can go to England. I have relatives there."
-------- spies
'A supersnoop's dream'
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 15, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021115-70231.htm
Language tucked inside the Homeland Security bill will allow the federal government to track the e-mail, Internet use, travel, credit-card purchases, phone and bank records of foreigners and U.S. citizens in its hunt for terrorists.
In what one critic has called "a supersnoop's dream," the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness program would be authorized to collect every type of available public and private data in what the Pentagon describes as one "centralized grand database."
Computers and analysts are supposed to use all this available information to determine patterns of people's behavior in order to detect and identify terrorists, decipher plans and enable the United States to pre-empt terrorist acts.
The project first appeared in the Senate Democratic proposal for the new Homeland Security Department, which was defeated Wednesday in a 50-47 vote. However it was included in the Republican-brokered agreement that passed the House later that night in a 299-121 vote and is on the fast track to pass the Senate by next week.
The computer-generated project of raw data will "help identify promising technologies and quickly get them into the hands of people who need them," according to a congressional leadership memo outlining the legislation.
In a blistering op-ed piece in yesterday's New York Times titled "You Are A Suspect," columnist William Safire compared the database to George Orwell's Big Brother government in the novel "1984."
"To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you - passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the FBI, your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance - and you have the supersnoop's dream: a 'Total Information Awareness' about every U.S. citizen," Mr. Safire wrote.
"There is a great danger in this provision. It gives carte blanche to eavesdrop on Americans on the flimsiest of evidence, if any evidence at all," said Phil Kent, president of the Southeastern Legal Foundation.
Mr. Kent called the provision "an unprecedented electronic dragnet."
"I think it's the most sweeping threat to civil liberties since Japanese-American internment," Mr. Kent said.
Mr. Kent and outgoing Rep. Bob Barr, Georgia Republican, are lobbying the Senate to remove this and other provisions they say are a threat to civil liberties and restrict the public's right to know of government activities.
"In defense of members of Congress, many don't read the whole legislation and very few people read the fine print," said Mr. Barr. "You would think the Pentagon planning a system to peek at personal data would get a little more attention.
"It's outrageous, it really is outrageous," Mr. Barr said.
The bill establishes the Total Information Awareness program within a new agency - the Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (SARPA), which would be modeled on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the central research office for the Defense Department that pursues research and technology, and led to the creation of the Internet. DARPA and SARPA both would be under the supervision of Adm. John Poindexter.
Neither Adm. Poindexter nor a spokesman at his current agency, DARPA, could be reached for comment. The phone number listed for Adm. Poindexter in the government directory reaches a recording that says incoming calls are not accepted. A recording reached in the media relations office states that Adm. Poindexter is "not accepting any interview requests at this time."
Adm. Poindexter first hit the public eye as national security adviser for President Reagan during the Iran-Contra scandal. He was convicted in 1990 on five felonies including lying to Congress and destroying evidence.
At a DARPA conference in Anaheim, Calif., Adm. Poindexter made his first public appearance since taking the post in February.
"During the years I was in the White House, it was relatively simple to identify our intelligence collection targets," Adm. Poindexter was quoted as saying in Government Executive magazine.
However, the United States now faces "asymmetrical" threats that are loosely organized and difficult to find, and require new, technology-driven defenses, he said. The goal of his new office is to consider every source of information available worldwide to uncover terrorists, the magazine said.
Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the computer system would capture the data and analyze it to find patterns that match terrorist activity.
Authorizing the project would require amending the Privacy Act of 1974. The language contained in the homeland security bill does not address the act directly, but authorizes the creation of the agency.
Mr. Rotenberg said the database takes a convergence of various factors to a system of public surveillance.
"They think the technology is about catching terrorists and bad guys, but these systems can capture a lot of data at different levels without oversight, judicial review, public reporting or congressional investigations. I can't think of a good countermeasure that would be good to safeguard civil liberties in the United States," Mr. Rotenberg said.
----
Poindexter's Laboratory
The know-it-all plan to fight terrorism
November 15, 2002
Reason
By Jacob Sullum
http://reason.com/sullum/111502.shtml
"We're just as concerned as the next person with protecting privacy," John Poindexter recently told The Washington Post. Maybe, if the next person happens to be J. Edgar Hoover.
Poindexter, a former national security adviser, now heads the Information Awareness Office (IAO), a new division of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. This obscure little office with a blandly creepy name has a grand mission: Total Information Awareness-in a word, omniscience.
"The goal of the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program," the IAO's Web site explains, "is to revolutionize the ability of the United States to detect, classify and identify foreign terrorists-and decipher their plans-and thereby enable the U.S. to take timely action to successfully preempt and defeat terrorist acts." Accordingly, the IAO is developing hardware and software to look for suspicious patterns in vast collections of information, including travel itineraries, credit card purchases, bank accounts, e-mail messages, Web site visits, and medical records.
That's where you come in. You're probably not a terrorist, but the government can't be sure until it puts your information in a huge, centralized database, where Poindexter's computers can sniff it over. You haven't visited any terrorist havens, purchased books about weapons, read subversive online propaganda, or undergone plastic surgery lately, have you?
No need to answer-the government will know soon enough if Poindexter's vision is realized. As he put it in a speech he gave this year, "We must become much more efficient and more clever in the ways we find new sources of data, mine information from the new and old, generate information, make it available for analysis, convert it to knowledge, and create actionable options."
Given the amount of data Poindexter wants to collect, the government would be not just mining but strip mining, scooping up huge piles of information in the hope of finding a useful nugget. "By definition, they're going to send highly sensitive, personal data," noted a computer scientist interviewed by the Post. "How many innocent people are going to get falsely pinged? How many terrorists are going to slip through?"
Former Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.), a member of the U.S. Commission on National Security, said Poindexter's project, which has a $200 million annual budget, could be "a huge waste of money." He said it represented "total overkill of intelligence," based on "an Orwellian concept." Repeat after me: Total Awareness Is Total Security.
There are some obstacles to Poindexter's know-it-all plan. Several statutes, including the Privacy Act of 1974, the Right to Financial Privacy Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act, limit the government's authority to collect and share information.
Legislation establishing a Department of Homeland Security, which Congress is expected to pass soon, could loosen some of those restrictions. The language dealing with information collection in the original bill alarmed privacy advocates in the House, who added several reassuring provisions that may or may not be in the final bill.
Legal barriers aside, Americans can be awfully touchy about their privacy. They don't like the idea that so many details of their lives-the places they go, the things they buy, the magazines they read, the e-mail they send, the medicine they take-could be available for the government to peruse at will.
"We can develop the best technology in the world," Poindexter told the Post, "and unless there is public acceptance and understanding of the necessity, it will never be implemented." This is the perennial complaint of the technocrat, impatient with a public that fails to appreciate the brilliance of his plan. Why can't people learn to stop worrying and trust the experts?
Granted, Poindexter's last big scheme, which involved raising money for Nicaraguan rebels by selling weapons to Iran, did not work out so well. In 1990 the former Navy admiral was sentenced to six months in jail for trying to cover up the deal by lying to Congress, destroying documents, and otherwise interfering with a congressional investigation. An appeals court overturned the conviction after concluding that it was based on congressional testimony for which Poindexter had been granted immunity.
Maybe Poindexter has learned that sneakiness has its price. So far his office has been admirably up-front about its intentions. The IAO's ominous emblem features an eyeball scanning the globe from atop a pyramid. Below it is the motto "Scientia Est Potentia": "Knowledge Is Power." Hoover couldn't have put it better.
Jacob Sullum's weekly column is distributed by Creators Syndicate. If you'd like to see it in your local newspaper, write or call the editorial page editor.
--------
Ashcroft's Shadowy Disciple
Someone to Watch Over Us
Village Voice
November 15th, 2002
Nat Hentoff
http://villagevoice.com/issues/0247/hentoff.php
The government [under the USA Patriot Act] can use [its powers] on people who aren't suspected of committing a crime. Innocent people can be deprived of any clue that they are being watched and that they may need to defend themselves. -Lincoln Caplan, editor, Legal Affairs ("A Magazine of Yale Law School"), November-December 2002
In covering the highly visible and contentious midterm national elections, the press, in all its manifestations, totally ignored the Bush administration's ceaseless attacks on the Bill of Rights, orchestrated by Attorney General John Ashcroft. So did the candidates, editorial writers, and commentators.
This silence on the deterioration of the liberties we are fighting to protect gives Ashcroft all the more encouragement to pursue his plans, as reported in the October 21 Legal Times, to prepare "a second round of counterterrorism legislation. . . . Lawmakers could see a draft bill in January, after the new Congress convenes"-with the Republicans in control, and most Democratic leaders silent accomplices of Ashcroft.
Across the country, the 94 United States Attorneys were charged in an October 1 speech by the attorney general to vigorously enforce the USA Patriot Act and others of his sorties against civil liberties. In front of his troops, Ashcroft accused his critics of "capitulating before freedom's enemies-the terrorists." These dissenters, he added indignantly, have been subjecting his methods to "disdain and ridicule."
By contrast, a staunch patriot, by Ashcroft's definition, is George Pataki. How many New Yorkers know that on September 16, the governor took time from campaigning to announce, by executive order, the start of a new toll-free Statewide Public Security Tips Hot Line that, Pataki assures us, "will enable citizens from throughout the state to report information about suspected terrorist activity."
This is Pataki's version of John Ashcroft's Operation TIPS, which House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a conservative Republican libertarian, struck out of the still-pending bill to create a Department of Homeland Security. Armey insisted that the government should not be encouraging Americans to spy on one another.
Pataki, who has been tone-deaf to civil liberties throughout his terms as governor, has no such compunctions-a point Carl McCall might have mentioned. Because press coverage of this state's very own Operation Tips has been minimal, I am grateful to Bob Perry, legislative counsel for the New York Civil Liberties Union, for information on the scope of this dangerous Ashcroftean plan to create watch committees, in neighborhoods and elsewhere, that will report their suspicions not only to the state hot line but also to the New York Police Department's hot line.
Keep in mind that all these tips on "suspicious or unusual activity . . . will be cross-referenced through federal, state and local databases," says the Pataki press release. There is no indication that false tips will eventually be erased from those multiple, intersecting databases.
In 1984, George Orwell predicted the Ashcrofts and Patakis to come: "There of course was no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment."
The governor should tell us the definition of "suspected terrorist activity" and "unusual activities." The senior adviser to the governor on counterterrorism, James K. Kallstrom-of whom I expected better, because he commended my civil liberties concerns some months ago-says:
"We ask that the public use common sense and sound judgment when making reports to the hot line." Again, what do these terms mean-especially in the continuing climate of fear of "sleeper" terrorists among us? And does Kallstrom believe that everyone in the state adheres to what he may mean by "common sense" and "sound judgment"?
The governor's press release adds: "If a lead is meaningful and can be corroborated, the information will be given to the Joint Terrorism Task Force for investigation." A key element in that Joint Terrorism Task Force is the FBI-hardly a model of scrupulous care in investigating leads, as was evident during the decades of COINTELPRO, the FBI's disgraced program of infiltration and disruption of lawful activities by civil rights and anti-war groups-and in the shotgun investigations it has often conducted since then.
Ashcroft has restored the reckless spirit of COINTELPRO by again giving the FBI the power to conduct investigations under such loose guidelines that the Fourth Amendment might as well be obsolete.
But the Pataki press release-before it says that a lead has to be "meaningful" and "corroborated" to be turned over to the Joint Terrorism Task Force-first declares that all tips through the hot line "will be cross-referenced through federal, state, and local databases." Even if the leads are not "meaningful" and cannot be "corroborated" sufficiently to be turned over to the task force?
The hot line phone numbers have been in operation since September 17 and "are staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week by the New York State Police, working in conjunction with the New York State Office of Public Security and the Joint Terrorism Task Force."
Also, the release says that when giving a description of "a suspicious person, callers should make note of as many physical and behavioral descriptors as possible. If the person is driving a vehicle, callers should try to provide the vehicle's license plate, year, make, model, size and color."
What about the color or the "foreign" look of these suspicious persons? Pataki calls the hot line "a powerful new resource" against terrorism. I would suggest that he left out one crucial word in that phrase: "blunderbuss resource."
The United Federation of Teachers and other unions-"progressive" unions-enthusiastically endorsed Pataki, but I wonder how many of their innocent members may one day be ensnared in the dragnet of the governor's Statewide Public Security Tips Hot Line. Leaving office, George Washington warned that a government of overwhelming power "is not reason. . . . It is a force like fire, a dangerous servant and a terrible master."
But, of course, if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. Right?
-------- terrorism
FBI Warns 'Spectacular' Al Qaeda Attack Possible
November 15, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-attack-alert.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network may be plotting ``spectacular'' attacks inside the United States, with national landmarks or the aviation, oil and nuclear industries as possible targets, the FBI warned even as the nation's threat level remained unchanged.
With the threat level still at yellow or ``elevated,'' meaning a significant risk of terror attacks, the FBI said in a bulletin dated on Thursday that the Muslim extremist network may seek to inflict massive casualties, psychological trauma and severe damage to the U.S. economy.
Due to a lack of specific information about any planned attack, the FBI said the nation's overall threat level would not be raised.
The bulletin cited the release on Tuesday of an audiotaped message supposedly by bin Laden. The voice on the tape praised recent attacks against Western interests around the world and threatened further attacks against the United States and its allies if Washington took military action against Iraq.
In the latest of a series of warnings, the FBI said the audiotape foreshadowed potential attacks. Bin Laden and al Qaeda have been blamed by Washington for the hijacked aircraft attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, that killed about 3,000 people.
``In selecting its next targets, sources suggest al Qaeda may favor spectacular attacks that meet several criteria: high symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the U.S. economy and maximum psychological trauma,'' the FBI said.
``The highest priority targets remain within the aviation, petroleum, and nuclear sectors as well as significant national landmarks,'' it said.
``Sources also suggest that small-scale terrorist operations against softer targets would be easier for sleeper cells already in the U.S. to carry out and would minimize the need to communicate with central leadership, lowering the risks of detection,'' the FBI said.
TRUCK BOMBS OR EXPLOSIVES
``Thus, al Qaeda's next attack may rely on conventional explosives and low-technology platforms such as truck bombs, commercial or private aircraft, small watercraft or explosives easily concealed and planted by terrorist operatives,'' it said.
The vulnerability of a target and the likelihood of a successful attack might be as important as prominence in selecting a target, the FBI said.
In New York, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said, ``We've examined the warning. In our judgment, it is an accumulation of information that has been out there for some time.''
Other law enforcement officials in New York said the warning was general in nature and had no information that would cause them to redeploy any of their assets. They said the city remains on a high state of alert.
White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the recent warnings summarized recent intelligence and she urged the American people to remain vigilant.
``We are raising protective measures in a number of places around the country. But there are not specifics as to time, date or, for that matter, very much about how this might'' be carried out, she said of the possible attacks.
In Congress, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said: ``I think we have to be very concerned about these threats. We need to take them seriously. We shouldn't minimize the danger, the threat, that is now posed by al Qaeda. It's still there.''
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, said, ``I think it's better to be safe than sorry'' and added, ``We've got a long way to go before we can declare victory in the war on terrorism.''
The FBI said the U.S. government was still analyzing the tape to determine its authenticity and if it was bin Laden's voice. The FBI encouraged the public to report suspicious activity to the local FBI office, and told police agencies across the nation to be on the alert for acts of terror.
--------
U.S. Captures Senior Al Qaeda Leader
November 15, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-attack-qaeda.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A high-ranking al Qaeda leader sought by the United States in its war on terrorism was captured recently and is in American custody, U.S. government sources said on Friday.
The sources declined to name the operative for Osama bin Laden's network, caught in the past week or so, but said he was in the top dozen and ranked him similar to Abu Zubaydah who is one of the most senior members of al Qaeda in U.S. custody.
The captured al Qaeda leader was not as high-ranking as those in bin Laden's most inner circle, such as top lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri and operational leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who have not been found.
He also was not bin Laden's son Saad, sought by U.S. authorities who say he is active in al Qaeda, they said.
The United States has vowed to destroy bin Laden and his al Qaeda network in retaliation for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America that killed about 3,000 people.
Roughly half of the top two-dozen al Qaeda leaders have either been killed or captured since the United States started hunting them down after the Sept. 11 hijacked-plane attacks.
Earlier this month an unmanned CIA drone fired a missile at a car in Yemen and killed six suspected al Qaeda members.
Al Qaeda leaders Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh were caught in separate operations in Pakistan earlier this year. They are being interrogated at an undisclosed location.
Zubaydah was a top bin Laden deputy who officials say recruited al Qaeda members and coordinated their travels in and out of Afghan training camps. U.S. officials have said he has provided important information during interrogations.
PRIZE CATCH
The recently captured al Qaeda leader, who has not been identified, is considered a prize catch for U.S. authorities similar to Zubaydah.
But bin Laden has still not been found and apparently survived the U.S.-led bombing on Afghanistan. U.S. officials believe an audiotape broadcast earlier this week on the Qatar-based al-Jazeera television channel is bin Laden praising recent attacks and making fresh threats.
The U.S. military and intelligence agencies have scoured areas near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan for signs of bin Laden and his followers.
``There have been a number of -- numerous senior leaders of al Qaeda that have either been eliminated, incarcerated or detained someplace,'' U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said without elaborating.
U.S. authorities have been concerned this week that al Qaeda was planning new violence. The FBI said the network may favor ``spectacular attacks'' that result in mass casualties and severe damage to the U.S. economy.
The audiotape contributed to that concern. Past bin Laden tapes have sometimes been followed by attacks. Authorities have also noted an increased level of ``chatter,'' or communications between al Qaeda operatives picked up by intelligence agencies, as in the months before Sept. 11, 2001.
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U.S. to Push Anti - Terror Initiative in Hemisphere
November 15, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-latam-usa-defense.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will press Western Hemisphere nations at a meeting in Chile next week to close ranks in defense against terrorism, narcotics and arms trafficking, a senior military official said on Friday.
Rumsfeld will present plans for the new joint initiative on Tuesday at a meeting in Santiago of defense ministers from Latin America, the Caribbean, Canada and the United States, said the official, who asked not to be identified.
``It's pretty clear that terrorism, narcotics, arms trafficking -- a whole set of new issues -- provide a growing incentive for the inter-American system to adapt to these new threats and find ways of addressing them in common,'' the official told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.
No specifics were given, but other U.S. officials said they expected the plan to include closer watches on borders, exchanges of intelligence information on guerrilla groups and multilateral efforts to find and break links between terrorism and the money from narcotics.
``We need to do more,'' the senior Pentagon official told reporters, stressing that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States had been a wake-up call for the world and that no nation was immune.
He declined to provide details about Rumsfeld's ``substantive presentation'' at the Defense Ministerial of the Americas, but stressed that terrorism, illegal arms trafficking and the high-profit drug trade were increasingly linked.
Rumsfeld will fly to Santiago on Sunday for a two-day visit before proceeding to Prague for a NATO summit meeting. He will follow with brief stops in Slovakia and Slovenia -- expected to be among NATO's new members -- before returning to Washington on Nov. 23.
U.S. AID TO COLOMBIA
Rumsfeld plans to hold bilateral meetings in Santiago with several prominent hemisphere defense ministers, including Colombia's Marta Lucia Ramirez.
The United States has provided more than $1.5 billion in mainly military aid to Colombia in recent years. This has been principally directed at the country's massive drug industry, but the U.S. government recently decided to allow Colombia to use its supplies -- including Blackhawk helicopters -- against leftist rebels and far-right paramilitaries.
The U.S. defense official told reporters that it was ironic that Rumsfeld was attending meetings of Latin American and NATO leaders back-to-back because last year's Sept. 11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people signaled a growing and common theme within the two alliances.
``Both of these institutions are discovering in a new era that there are new threats and new issues that justify them, that make them very valuable,'' he said.
He noted that the so-called Rio Treaty binding signatory nations of the Western Hemisphere to protect the Americas from outside attack was invoked after last year's attack on America to stress that an assault on one nation in the hemisphere was an assault on all.
Rumsfeld, who had a prior commitment to attend the summit in Prague on Wednesday, will have to leave Santiago on Tuesday just as the defense ministerial begins.
But the defense official said that a number of senior Pentagon officials and Army Gen. James Hill, chief of the U.S. Southern Command, would remain in Santiago for the meeting to discuss the American proposals.
The relatively young Western Hemisphere defense organization began in 1995, but has grown steadily. While Mexico previously had attended only as an observer nation in order to stress its nonaligned status, the Mexican defense minister will take part in this year's gathering.
Cuba, the only nondemocratic country in the hemisphere, will not be represented.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Sharp to set up first US solar power plant
Story by Akiko Mori
REUTERS USA:
November 15, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18608/story.htm
MEMPHIS, Tennessee - The U.S. unit of Japanese electronics giant Sharp Corp. said this week it will open its first overseas solar product assembly plant in January at its facility in Memphis, Tennessee.
Sharp, the world's largest solar battery maker, wants to create a production base in the United States, which lags Japan and Germany in solar power usage, to tap the potentially large market, said Ron Kenedi, General Manager of Sharp's U.S. Solar Division.
Sharp has been shipping assembled solar products from Japan to the United States, where it holds 10 percent of the market.
"We expect more than double-digit sales growth (in the U.S.), especially (in states) where (the) utility rate is high and state incentives are offered (to promote use)," Kenedi told Reuter 536870913 1932397057
These states include California, New York and Massachusetts, he added.
Sharp initially plans to invest about $3 million in the plant to make solar batteries that use silicon to convert sunlight into energy.
"The power shortage in California (in 2000 to 2001) sparked demand (for solar power). Western state governors are concerned about green and reusable energy," Kenedi said.
Sharp, with total annual sales of about two trillion yen, ($16.6 billion) held the largest share - 19.2 percent - of the world solar battery market in 2001.
In August, the company said it expected global sales of solar batteries to surge to 49 billion yen this year from 31.5 billion last year.
Sharp kicked off the solar battery business in Japan in the late 1950s when sun power became popular because of Japan's high electricity costs and lack of natural resources, Kenedi said.
Some 45 new jobs will be created at the Memphis facility when it kicks off the assembly of solar modules as early as March next year.
Sharp, which generates around 20 percent of its total revenue in the United States, said in August that it hoped overseas solar power sales would make up half of total solar battery sales by 2003/04 from the current 30 percent.
Kenedi referred to a report backed by the U.S. Department of Energy projecting a more than 400 percent increase in the use of solar energy to some 80,000 households as an alternative to foreign oil.
The cost for solar power has also declined over the past three decades. The initial cost of setting up a solar unit for an average American home is roughly $8,000 to $9,000 before property exemptions and incentives, he said.
In August, Sharp declined to comment on the profitability of its solar battery business, but said the solar energy business had been helped by state subsidies.
Since 1994, the Japanese government has helped pay part of the cost of buying solar batteries to help promote their use, but growth could be put at risk if the country withdrew the subsidi 536870913 1702047242.
----
Farm group wants ethanol to stay in US energy bill
REUTERS USA:
November 15, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18606/story.htm
WASHINGTON - As time runs out on the current session of Congress and lawmakers mull a vote on a stripped down U.S. energy bill, farm group leaders say any such legislation should retain provisions for greater ethanol use.
Most U.S.-produced ethanol is distilled from corn and it has taken a prominent position as a fuel additive used to create a more environmentally friendly burn.
House and Senate lawmakers have been deadlocked for months over a comprehensive energy bill. With adjournment only days away, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin was gauging support for an "energy lite" bill dealing only with pipeline safety and nuclear power plant insurance.
Without agreement, the energy bill would die when Congress ends its two-year session shortly. The new Congress convenes in January.
Leaders of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) told reporters they were concerned that Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican, left the ethanol guarantee out of the bill they described as "energy micro."
Ethanol would be a prime component in any reusable fuels standard (RFS) section included in the bill, and an ethanol mandate would more than double the use of the fuel.
Farm leaders said senators have voted three times in favor of the RFS section of the bill, and House negotiators offered a somewhat similar provision. The White House supported a renewable fuels standard as well.
"What we need now is the political will to complete the energy bill, with an RFS," said NCGA Vice President Jon Doggett.
Other must-pass legislation was pending, he said, so "there may be many opportunities to get RFS passed."
Doggett and NCGA Chairman Tim Hume, a Colorado farmer, said support for an RFS remained strong. If Congress has to start work anew on an energy bill next year, ethanol will be in a strong position, they said.
"The groups that supported a renewable fuels standard are still in place," Hume said. "Just because Washington doesn't have its act together doesn't mean people will start walking away from it."
California lawmakers and a number of environmental groups oppose the ethanol guarantee for a variety of reasons. They say fuel prices will rise if ethanol is required as an ingredient and that ethanol is not a "clean" fuel. Proponents disagree.
While House and Senate negotiators were willing to agree on a 5 billion-gallon mandate for ethanol, they disagree on when. The Senate proposed that it take effect in 2012, the House in 2014.
House negotiators have also proposed sheltering all renewable fuels, including ethanol and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) from product liability lawsuits. The Senate wants to ban MTBE over concerns it is a health hazard and ground water contaminant.
-------- human rights
U.N. Condemns Shooting of Afghan Students
November 15, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/15/international/asia/15KABU.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 14 (Reuters) - The United Nations and a human rights group condemned the Afghan police today for clashes with Kabul University students in which at least two demonstrators died.
A United Nations spokesman, Manoel de Almeida e Silva, urged authorities to launch an investigation into the incidents on Monday and Tuesday at a Kabul University campus, in which the police fired into crowds after demonstrators threw rocks at them.
"The shooting of the students was in no way justified by considerations of either self-defense by the police or public safety," he said in a news conference.
The rights group, Human Rights Watch, said the police fired directly into the crowd on Tuesday, without any warning shots.
Hundreds of students were protesting dormitory conditions, saying they lacked heating, electricity and food for several days.
The students reported six dead but the United Nations confirmed only two. Another 15 to 20 protesters were injured in the two days of clashes. Afghan authorities said seven police officers were hurt.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Italian Police Arrest 20 Anti - Globalists
November 15, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-italy-arrests.html
NAPLES, Italy (Reuters) - Italian police arrested 20 anti-globalization activists early on Friday for alleged subversive activity, authorities said, sparking protests across the country.
The activists were accused of belonging to a subversive network that had conspired to undermine law and order by organizing protests like a march against the Group of Eight summit in Genoa in July of last year.
At that event, violent clashes between protesters and police left one demonstrator dead and hundreds injured.
Police pounced on the suspects in night-time raids across southern Italy. Among those detained was Naples activist Francesco Caruso, an organizer of a peace march in Florence last week which drew more than half a million demonstrators.
Investigating magistrates in Cosenza, Calabria, ordered the arrests, the prosecutor's office there said.
``I don't see any doubt...that we are looking at more than a pure and simple ideological movement, but at one with the capacity to threaten...state security and public order,'' the investigators' report said, according to ANSA news agency.
Caruso's lawyer denied the accusations.
The activists are leaders of the ``no global'' movement in southern Italy, which helped stage demonstrations across the country leading up to the Genoa summit. Some of those turned violent, as did a march in Naples in the spring of 2001.
In Naples, about 120 people were injured and 16 arrested during a meeting of business leaders. Police were later accused of excessive violence against detainees and earlier this year, eight policemen were arrested for alleged abuse.
MORE PROTESTS PLANNED
Friday's arrests of those who organized the peaceful march in Florence set off protests from Bologna to Rome and Naples.
Dozens of activists scuffled with guards as they barged into the Bologna prosecutor's office to object to the arrests, while others gathered outside government buildings in Rome and Naples.
Larger protests were planned for Rome, Palermo, Naples and other cities on Saturday.
Human rights groups, local religious leaders and center-left politicians denounced what they called the ``repressive'' and ``fascist'' police action. ``They are trying to criminalize the movement,'' said Luca Casarini, one of the leaders of Italy's anti-globalization movement. ``We're not the ones who subvert the state of law, they do with their violence.''
``The accusations are absurd,'' said Naples priest Don Vitaliano Della Sala, a sympathizer of the movement. ``I know Francesco...If he is a subversive then so am I.''
Investigators told ANSA they also suspected the activists of belonging to a more violent fringe group known as the Black Bloc, which was thought to be responsible for wreaking havoc at the Genoa summit.
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