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NUCLEAR
Carter calls for US to set example and disarm
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, Piketon, Ohio
NFS joint venture aims for pilot plant
Saddam Says Inspections Will Clear Iraq
Chief U.N. Inspector Expects Work in Iraq to Start Nov. 27
North Korea Steps Up Threats of Missile Tests
China May Chip in as N.Korea Food Aid Slumps -UN
Bush Says N. Korea Must Dismantle Nuclear Program
FBI warns of 'spectacular attacks'
U.S. ponders resumption of nuclear weapons tests
Report: Nuke Plant Upkeep Criticized
Indian Point Nuclear Reactor Shuts After Equipment Fails
Authors defend homeland bill's privacy provisions
MILITARY
U.S., India Discussing Military Sale
Our Countries Are Not 'Rogue Merchants'
Biological Blame Game
Coming Soon on British Walls, Lessons on Makeshift Gas Masks
Chinese Leader Gives Up a Job but Not Power
Saddam: Acceptance of UN Weapons Inspections Helped Avoid US War
Libya denies story on exile plan for Saddam family
U.S. Fighter Jets Patrol Yemen
Nato strike force to bypass states in hunt for terrorists
Belarusan Barred From Summit
Tiny Baltic states have big hopes for NATO
CIA's Cash Toppled Taliban
Turks wary of U.N.'s plan for unification
Navy OKs Temporary Sonar Test Limit
Takeover of City Police Inflames Venezuela Conflict
Disclosure Curbs in Homeland Bill Decried
Pentagon Schools Reporters for Possible Iraq War
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Doctors: Bill allows forced vaccinations
Who will protect the whistleblowers?
Officials at FBI probed, rewarded
Terror Alert Brings New Steps to Prevent Attacks, U.S. Says
Homeland Secrecy Measures Worry Some
Bush Aides Consider Domestic Spy Agency
White House Seeks Spy Improvements
Information Awareness Office
ACTIVISTS
Kyrgyz Police Stop Mass Protest, Govt. Sees Trouble
Thousands Expected For Ga. Protest
Fifty Women Pose Nude to Protest War
-------- NUCLEAR
Carter calls for US to set example and disarm
Sat, 16 Nov 2002
Australian Broadcasting
http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsnat-16nov2002-69.htm
Former US president Jimmy Carter, this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, called Friday for disarmament by the United States, which has taken the lead in urging such countries as North Korea and Iraq to destroy their weapons of mass destruction.
"One of the things that the United States Government has not done is to try to comply with and enforce international efforts targeted to prohibit the arsenals of biological weapons that we ourselves have," Mr Carter said on CNN's Larry King Live program broadcast late Friday.
He also called for more stringent efforts by Washington "to reduce and enforce the agreement to eliminate chemical weapons, and the same way with nuclear weapons."
"The major powers need to set an example," Mr Carter said, as the United States confronts Iraq over its possession of such banned weapons.
"Quite often the big countries that are responsible for the peace of the world set a very poor example for those who might hunger for the esteem or the power or the threats that they can develop from nuclear weapons themselves," the former US president continued.
"I don't have any doubt that it's that kind of atmosphere that has led to the nuclearisation, you might say, of India and Pakistan."
Mr Carter, who will receive the Nobel prize on December 10 in Oslo, Norway for his efforts in seeking negotiated settlements to head off violent conflict, also noted that the United States gives only one one-thousandth of its gross national product for international assistance, while the average European country gives four times as much.
"For every time an American gives a dollar, a citizen of Norway gives $17," he said.
"Foreign aid in this country has a bad name, but in other countries, it's a right thing for the government to do. And that's where we at the Carter Centre quite often have to turn," the former president said, referring to the Atlanta-based centre he founded some 20 years ago, and which now operates humanitarian projects in 65 countries.
Mr Carter also said the United States has given many nations around the world cause for resentment and scorn.
"There is a sense that the United States has become too arrogant, too dominant, too self-centred, proud of our wealth, believing that we deserve to be the richest and most powerful and influential nation in the world," the 78-year-old said.
"I think they feel that we don't really care about them, which is quite often true."
-------- accidents and safety
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, Piketon, Ohio
From: "Vina K Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002
Mike Tulloh asked to post:
I was a uranium materials handler for ten years at the Portsmouth Plant. It was in our department that we transfered and sampled UF6 into customer and government cylinders. This included 97% enriched weapons grade material. The contamination and radiation problems were so bad, that the contractor removed radiation monitoring devices that notified workers of unacceptable levels of radiation and contamination. This was testified to by Jack Crawford, Superintendant of Operations in my intentional tort trial in 1992.
I was also a member of the emergency respose team on March 13, 1978 when a heated cylinder was dropped and over 22,000 lbs of material enveloped into a mushroom cloud. No surrounding residents were notified, no surrounding towns or cities were ever notified. Now we know that this material contained more than just uranium hexaflouride.
I could go on and on about the atrocities I witnessed during my employment; the twelve tumors that were removed from me, the death of co-workers, and the actions of the contractors that can be only be described as criminal.
When you expose workers to deadly materials on a daily basis without their knowledge, deny them benefits when they become sick, lie about working conditions, and then pass half-assed legislation that just a few workers might qualify for, then what you have in legal terms is an "intentional tort."
After waiting seven years to get into court with several causes of action, that is all I had left after Judge Wray Bevens dismissed my case twice until he was ordered by the Ohio Supreme Court to hear the case.
In the legal arena when you are up against defendants with no souls and an endless supply of money, there is no action quite like "class action." That is what clearly needs to happen. There has been no action taken on behalf of nuclear workers because there has been no media attention. That is the sad reality. I read most all the information posted on this site, written by intelligent people, but nothing will change until there is organization. With organization, goals are defined, strategy is decided, and a plan of action is initiated. This comes from an employee who has spent eleven years of litigation involving two cases against D.O.E. contractors and won jury decisions both cases.
Let us learn from our past mistakes or we are doomed to repeat them.
Mike Tulloh, Portsmouth Plant, 1975-1986
-------- depleted uranium
NFS joint venture aims for pilot plant
By Chris Garland Erwin Bureau
Johnson City Press
11/16/2002
http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/PrintPage.asp?Cat=HOMEPAGE&ID=17335
ERWIN, TN - Nuclear Fuel Services has joined with a Denver-based company to pursue funding for a pilot facility here to blend uranium to produce a natural uranium ore.
NFS and International Uranium Corp. announced Thursday they have formed a joint-venture company, Urizon Recovery Systems LLC. IUC President Ron F. Hochstein said the company and NFS are pursuing funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to cover the cost of the design of a pilot facility and other costs of pursuing the project.
"Application testing funded by the DOE has been ongoing for the past two years," Hochstein said. "The success of the program will depend on securing funding and DOE's support of the program as a means to (disposal of) orphan nuclear materials within the DOE complex."
IUC processes uranium-bearing materials to recover the uranium and other metals as an alternative to the direct disposal of these materials.
NFS said Friday that limited quantities of uranium material would be converted at the Erwin plant from uranium-235 enrichment of less than 5 percent (most will be less than 1 percent) to 0.71 percent, which is the level of naturally occurring uranium.
The material would then be shipped to IUC's White Mesa uranium mill in Utah for recovery of the contained uranium. The resulting product would be sold as a feedstock on the commercial uranium market.
"The venture would produce DOE stockpiled low-enriched material and provide a recycle alternative other than continued storage or burial of the stored DOE material," Frank Hahne, NFS vice president of new business development said. "No foreseeable processing activities are expected until funding for the pilot-scale testing is secured from the DOE."
Hochstein said the first phase of the project would be the preparation and submittal of a request for approvals from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other agencies.
"This critical phase is under way," an IUC report said. "Assuming receipt of regulatory approvals, construction of a pilot plant at NFS' site in Erwin . . . could be completed by late 2004. The operation of the pilot facility and processing of the (ore) at the company's White Mesa Mill is expected to last for a year and will result in some production of commercially saleable yellowcake.
Yellowcake is the refined chemical compound of uranium and the form in which uranium is usually shipped from the mine to the nuclear fuel manufacturer.
"Upon successful completion of the pilot test and a positive feasibility study, the pilot facility will be converted to a commercial facility. Commercial production is expected to last six to 10 years or longer depending on the amount of DOE materials that are available," IUC said.
Hochstein said blending low-enriched uranium with depleted uranium to make a reconstituted natural uranium ore that can be returned to the nuclear fuel cycle as yellowcake has never been accomplished before.
"This program will allow DOE to deal with its orphaned low-enriched uranium and depleted uranium in a cost-effective manner, while providing for the recovery of valuable energy resources that would be lost through direct disposal of the materials . . . ," Hochstein said.
(Contact Chris Garland at cgarland@johnsoncitypress.com).
-------- inspections
Saddam Says Inspections Will Clear Iraq
November 16, 2002
By Haitham Haddadin
Reuters
http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=worldnews&StoryID=1752673
BAGHDAD - President Saddam Hussein told Iraq's parliament in a message broadcast on Saturday that he had decided to accept the terms of a harsh U.N. resolution to disarm to avert a U.S. attack.
The Iraqi leader said he hoped this decision would prove that Baghdad was not concealing any weapons of mass destruction.
In a letter addressed to parliament, Saddam said he had mulled the MPs' recommendation that Baghdad reject the resolution, but had chosen to allow the weapons inspectors back to undermine the United States and foil its plans for war.
"We hope that the method we have used will achieve the stated aim of those with no evil intentions in the Security Council, and that is that they know the truth as it is: Iraq is devoid of weapons of mass destruction, and they can now work on ending the embargo and the tyrannical sanctions."
Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said in Paris on Saturday that the inspections will begin on November 27, and warned Saddam to disclose all his weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam's letter, dated November 12, was read out by the National Assembly speaker at Saturday's parliamentary session. It was also broadcast on Iraqi TV and carried by the state-run Iraqi news agency INA.
In it, Saddam told MPs he had decided to allow the inspectors to return because "your enemy, the Zionist coalition with the American administration, and all those devils that follow them, have chosen this time, after sabre rattling...to fight our heroic and struggling people."
The Iraqi parliament had recommended Saddam reject the U.N. resolution but left the final say to him. Many Iraqis, weary from two wars in two decades, were relieved Saddam accepted the resolution ordering Iraq to disarm, saying it could avert a war.
U.N. resolution 1441, adopted on November 8, gives Baghdad one last chance to disarm and cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors or face "serious consequences."
Saddam said in his letter he hoped his actions would lead to "ending all kinds of interference in Iraq's affairs, respecting its sovereignty, independence and security."
Iraq, he said, will continue to adhere to both its rights and commitments according to the U.N. declaration and international law.
But he sounded a warning that "if the tyrants continue their tyranny, then all of you know that we have enough revolutionary capabilities against tyranny and tyrants that will make them be disappointed, God willing."
Iraq, once a leading oil exporter, is reeling under a harsh sanctions regime imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Iraq's official media on Saturday said that the U.N. weapons inspections will prove once and for all that Baghdad has no weapons of mass destruction.
The papers, which reflect official thinking, also heaped scorn on President Bush's administration, accusing it of wanting to strike Iraq under any pretext.
The media praised Saddam for averting an imminent showdown by accepting the resolution to submit to new arms inspections that were broken off four years ago.
TRIGGER FOR ATTACK
The Security Council will also have to ensure that the rest of the Middle East should have no weapons of mass destruction, the papers said. This applied in particular to Israel, as laid down by U.N. resolution 687 on the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire.
The latest U.N. resolution on Iraq says any false information in Baghdad's declaration and non-cooperation with weapons inspectors would constitute a "material breach" -- legal terminology that could trigger a U.S. attack against Baghdad.
The actions of the new inspection teams will be the test of their credibility, "which dictates they should be professional and precise," said al-Jumhouriya daily, adding that the truth of Iraq's insistence that it has absolutely no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons will then be clear.
But the Iraqi newspapers accused Washington of racing against time to launch military action against Iraq. "America wants war at any price and under any pretext," al-Iraq said.
--------
THE U.N. TEAM
Chief U.N. Inspector Expects Work in Iraq to Start Nov. 27
November 16, 2002
New York Times
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/16/international/middleeast/16IRAQ.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 - Stepping up international pressure on Saddam Hussein, the chief United Nations arms inspector said today that his team would be ready to start looking at suspected weapons sites in Iraq by Nov. 27, 10 days before Baghdad must give its accounting of its secret weapons programs.
Inspectors armed with American, British and other Western intelligence on Iraqi weapons sites plan to be in place well before the United Nations deadline, said the inspection chief, Hans Blix.
The Security Council voted last week to give Iraq until Dec. 8 to submit a "full, accurate and complete" declaration of any programs it had to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them.
The early start puts pressure on Iraq to give an honest accounting. The United States has indicated that it will consider proof that Iraq has lied sufficient reason to go to war to disarm the government.
United States military spokesmen said Iraqi antiaircraft batteries and surface-to-air missiles fired on American warplanes patrolling the "no-flight zone" in Iraq today, the second time they had done so since last week's Security Council vote. The United States has warned that such attacks could be construed as a violation of the new resolution.
In response, American warplanes dropped precision-guided weapons at an air-defense communications installation about 85 miles southeast of Baghdad, the United States Central Command said. Today's strike, near An Najaf, followed one on Sunday against two surface-to-air missile sites near Tallil.
In New York today, Mr. Blix said: "It's certainly a very significant job that we have. If we can do it in such a way that the war is avoided, we would be very happy. However, war and peace is not really in our hand."
That issue, he said, was up to the Security Council.
He said that whether Iraq was willing to be open to the international inspections and how the Security Council judged its performance would determine whether war will come.
In Washington, Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, reiterated the Bush administration's determination to disarm Mr. Hussein, and she spoke of Iraq as a regional rival to United States power in the Persian Gulf.
Calling Mr. Hussein a "homicidal dictator," Ms. Rice said it was not just that Iraq might someday link up with terrorist organizations to attack the United States. "Terrorism is a piece of it," she said. "But so is the ambition and behavior of Saddam Hussein, because sooner or later, the ambitions of Saddam Hussein and the interests of the United States are going to clash."
In what seemed an important assertion of neutrality by the United Nations team going into Iraq, Mr. Blix, a 74-year-old Swedish diplomat, said, "We are not on our side contending that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction." President Bush, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and Western intelligence officials have repeatedly asserted that Iraq possesses hidden stocks of chemical weapons ingredients, biological warfare agents and illicit missiles.
"We have a great many questions," Mr. Blix said, adding that "we cannot exclude" the possibility that Iraq has such weapons, "and we are not saying that all the intelligence is wrong - it may be right - but we are not also confirming it."
Mr. Blix's comments were significant because it has become more apparent in the wake of the unanimous Security Council vote last Friday that the convergence of goals to disarm Iraq masks a great deal of underlying concern by France, Russia and China that the United States would not give the inspection process a reasonable period of time to succeed.
The Security Council resolution gives the inspection team unprecedented powers of national intrusion to disarm Iraq - even if that means entering mosques and other sensitive sites without notice. The team will arrive in Baghdad on Monday and reclaim its offices, helicopters, jeeps and buses used to transport their experts around the country; the last inspectors left Iraq in 1998.
Mr. Blix said he expected a quick set-up in Baghdad, requiring only some fresh paint on the walls of the abandoned United Nations compound, and "we will have to make sure that the pigeons that have broken through the windows will be chased out."
Mr. Blix's news conference was dominated by questions of what Iraqi act of obstruction might prompt the onset of war. He used a "flat tire" analogy to explain his view, saying, "If it is with the Iraqi escorts, having one flat tire is one thing; if they have four flat tires on the way out, delaying us much more, then it may be a different thing."
Mr. Blix said the crucial issue for him in determining whether to return to the Security Council to report on an act of resistance or obstruction by Iraq would be where "you can read an intention" into it.
"If you have a denial of access somewhere, even if it is for a relatively short time," he continued, such a delay "could be a very significant matter."
His remarks were supported by Mohamed ElBaradei, who will accompany Mr. Blix as the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"Hans Blix and I have been saying we are going to use a common-sense approach," Mr. ElBaradei said Thursday during a Washington conference on nonproliferation.
When Iraq makes its formal declaration of its secret programs, "we have to look at the declaration," Mr. ElBaradei said. adding: "If there is a minor omission, and this is clearly not intentional, we are not rushing to the Security Council to say, `This is a material breach.' If we see a pattern of lack of cooperation, then we obviously have to report to the Security Council, and the Security Council will decide if that is a material breach."
Mr. Blix praised the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, for traveling to Washington this week to admonish the Bush administration to give the inspectors time to work with the tough new powers the Security Council approved in its resolution.
Still, Mr. Blix also did not quarrel with President Bush's unrelenting public pressure.
"I think the United States government is determined that there should be no cat-and-mouse play," he said, adding, "and this is how I also understood the Security Council."
Mr. Blix said he would not carry out "provocative" inspections that would the risk of war. Mr. ElBaradei on Thursday criticized past infiltrations of United Nations inspection work by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Mr. Blix said today, "We always stress the importance of being proper," and added: "That doesn't mean timid - not at all. But yes, they must be respectful in all their work."
Most of the inspectors, who could number more than 200, will come from the United States, France, Russia and China. Jordan was the only Arab country that put forward inspectors. Mr. Blix said he would like to have more specialists from Arab countries and would endeavor to increase the number in January.
-------- korea
North Korea Steps Up Threats of Missile Tests
Reuters
Saturday, November 16, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63047-2002Nov16?language=printer
TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea on Saturday stepped up threats to resume missile tests, accusing Japan of breaking its own promises in an accord reached last month.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had won the pledge to refrain from test-firing missiles from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il at September 17 summit where Kim also apologized for the abductions of Japanese citizens decades ago.
Tokyo and Pyongyang resumed talks on normalizing ties late last month, but initial negotiations left the two sides far apart on the key issues of Pyongyang's nuclear arms program and Tokyo's demand that the children of five Japanese abductees now visiting Japan be allowed to join them.
"There is no reason for the DPRK (North Korea) to show any longer magnanimity as regards the issue of missile test-fire as the Japanese side first backpedaled its commitment to redeem its past, a core point of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang declaration, over the issue of kidnapping," the state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.
Tensions in one of the last Cold War flash points have mounted since U.S. officials said last month that North Korea had admitted pursuing a nuclear arms development program in violation of a landmark 1994 agreement with Washington.
The United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union agreed on Thursday to suspend vital fuel oil shipments to North Korea from December in response to its nuclear confession.
North Korea shocked Japan and other neighbors in August 1998 when it test-fired a missile that flew over Japan's main island of Honshu. It later said it would not carry out further testing until 2003 at the earliest.
Earlier this month, Pyongyang said it would reconsider the moratorium if talks with Tokyo failed to make progress.
EMOTIONAL MATTERS
Koizumi apologized for Japan's actions during its harsh 1910-1945 colonial rule at his summit with Kim Jong-il and the two sides agreed to discuss financial aid for North Korea's struggling economy at a future date.
But Tokyo insists that the nuclear arms and abductions issues must be settled first. Japan also angered Pyongyang by deciding not to send the five surviving abductees back to North Korea.
"The Japanese side created complication...by breaking the promise it made to the DPRK from the outset," the foreign ministry spokesman said in the KCNA dispatch, monitored in Tokyo.
"This has caused the institution concerned and the people of the DPRK to strongly assert that it is necessary to reconsider a moratorium on the missile test-fire," the spokesman added.
"The promise made between the countries should be kept on the basis of reciprocity under any circumstances. 'People's feelings' do not exist in Japan only," the spokesman added.
The issue of the abductees, snatched from their homeland in the 1970s and 1980s and taken to North Korea to train its spies, is a highly emotional one in Japan.
Tokyo is pressing Pyongyang to send the children of the five abductees to Japan to discuss their future and is seeking more information on another eight abductees whom Pyongyang says died from accident, illness or suicide. Many Japanese believe the eight are either still alive or were the victims of foul play.
----
China May Chip in as N.Korea Food Aid Slumps -UN
Reuters
Saturday, November 16, 2002
By Jonathan Ansfield
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62501-2002Nov16?language=printer
BEIJING (Reuters) - China, embarrassed by hungry North Koreans fleeing their homes, could route surplus grain over the border with the help of the United Nations to ease a crisis threatening 6.4 million lives, the U.N. food chief said Saturday.
James Morris, Executive Director of the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), said there was hope China would begin giving to its Communist ally through the depleted WFP pipeline, not just bilaterally, for reasons both humanitarian and political.
"Countries generally have an interest in keeping countries on their border as healthy economically as they can, to keep refugees from crossing country borders," Morris told reporters.
He had just returned from a four-day trip to North Korea, where the WFP aims to feed the neediest third of the isolated country's 23 million citizens, including nursing and pregnant mothers, the elderly and some four million children.
But the program says it has halted aid to three million of those people in the country's west over the past two months and will be forced to cut off another 1.6 million by early 2003 after a slump in backing from major donors, particularly Japan.
Morris said he had explained the size of the donor shortfall to Chinese agriculture minister Du Qinglin in a meeting early this week after asking Vice Premier Wen Jiabao, tipped to become premier in 2003, for help earlier in the year.
"The Vice Premier suggested they were interested in pursuing that," he said. "I'm very hopeful, very hopeful that China will help."
Beijing has been dogged all year by North Korean asylum seekers hopping fences of foreign diplomatic missions. It has also taken flack from the international community for refusing to recognize people escaping famine and possible persecution as refugees and unleashing a border crackdown on them.
AID VACUUM
North Korea, branded part of an "axis of evil" by President Bush, has been ravaged by years of natural disasters, chronic food and energy shortages and economic mismanagement.
The WFP estimates China gave around 200,000 metric tons of cereals to North Korea on its own this year. The WFP planned to donate 611,000 tons but now expects to come up 200,000 tons short, its Beijing office said.
In a news release this week, the WFP described China's surplus as "substantial" and WFP officials said they planned to phase out aid to more than five million Chinese in poor pockets of that country by 2005.
Morris said the WFP had yet to propose a figure for aid from China and was vague about how much difference Beijing might make.
He branded "critical" the vacuum left by Japan, which was responsible for 45 percent of the donations to the DPRK last year and was traditionally second behind the United States but had not given any food this year.
He said he would take up the matter next week with officials in Tokyo, which insists issues involving North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens and refusal to scrap its nuclear arms program be settled before it grants aid to Pyongyang.
Aid from the United States and South Korea, the third highest donor, has held steady. Morris said humanitarian efforts were not hampered by the "axis of evil" speech.
He said he had pressed DPRK officials on the nagging matters of transparency, accountability and access in North Korea, where the WFP can only enter 163 of 206 counties, cannot adequately monitor distribution and lacks a list of its beneficiaries.
"We were assured we would receive that list sometime quite soon," he said.
But in reference to donors, he added, "I'm not sure it's enough progress to convince them to be generous."
----
Bush Says N. Korea Must Dismantle Nuclear Program
Reuters
Friday, November 15, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60817-2002Nov15?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Friday demanded that North Korea completely and visibly scrap its nuclear weapons program in the wake of an allied decision to cut off fuel oil shipments to the communist state.
But in a written statement issued by the White House, Bush took pains not to inflame the situation further.
He reiterated that the United States has no intention of invading the North, expressed hope for a "different future" between the two countries and did not rule out reviving a U.S. initiative, now on hold, "to improve the lives of the North Korean people."
Pyongyang, apparently anxious about a growing new conflict over its recently-acknowledged nuclear weapons program, has signaled a desire for security assurances from Washington.
Although Bush made no mention of holding talks with the North, his comments seemed aimed at calming some of Pyongyang's worst fears. "We are united in our desire for a peaceful resolution of this situation," Bush said.
"We are also united in our resolve that the only option for addressing this situation is for North Korea to completely and visibly eliminate its nuclear weapons program," he added.
The decision to cut off the shipments starting in December in response to North Korea's violation of a 1994 nuclear agreement came in New York on Thursday by diplomats from the United States, European Union, South Korea and Japan.
The group, meeting as the executive board of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), said this month's shipment of oil, already on the high seas, would be delivered to North Korea but it would be the last for now.
The controversy erupted on Oct. 16 when it was first reported that North Korea had acknowledged a program to produce highly enriched uranium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons.
The program violates a deal that Pyongyang signed with Washington in 1994 agreeing to freeze its nuclear weapon activities. In return, the North was promised a $5 billion package administered by KEDO that includes construction of two light water nuclear power reactors and annual deliveries of 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.
Bush welcomed the organization's move to suspend fuel oil shipments to Pyongyang.
"North's Korea's clear violation of its international commitments will not be ignored," he said.
To the chagrin of some experts, administration officials have said they have no plans for a dialogue with Pyongyang at least until after the nuclear program is dismantled.
But Sen. Chuck Hagel, an influential Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told a non-proliferation conference on Friday he endorsed engagement with the North.
"We certainly don't want to elevate this into some kind of crisis," said Hagel, urging that it be resolved diplomatically using economic, geopolitical, strategic and humanitarian tools.
Hagel confirmed reports that Pakistan has assisted in the development of Pyongyang's nuclear program. "When we talk of Pakistan, what you have referred to -- intelligence reports coming out -- from what we do know there is, I suspect, some legitimacy to some of those reports," he told a questioner at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace conference.
But he argued life's choices are seldom black and white and in the case of Pakistan, Washington must balance this nuclear assistance with "the other side of the ledger," namely President Pervez Musharraf's crucial support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism. "I'm not sure we would have been able to accomplish as much as we have been able to accomplish without Musharraf," he said.
Isolationist North Korea, a country in severe economic decline whose 22 million people face a bitter winter, admitted to U.S. officials in October that it was enriching uranium to support a weapons program.
Bush has declared North Korea to be part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran. But while Bush has threatened military action against Iraq, he has emphasized a desire for a peaceful outcome in North Korea.
In his statement, Bush recalled how he said on a visit to Seoul last February that the "United States has no intention of invading North Korea. This remains the case today."
He also noted how in June 2001 he had offered a "comprehensive dialogue" with the North as part of a "bold approach" in which "if the North addressed our long-standing concerns, the United States was prepared to take important steps that would have significantly improved the lives of the North Korean people."
He said that "now that North Korea's covert nuclear weapons program has come to light, we are unable to pursue this approach," but did not say it could never be revived, something administration hard-liners are loath to do.
-------- terrorism
FBI warns of 'spectacular attacks'
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 16, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021116-25598492.htm
The FBI says al Qaeda terrorists might be planning "spectacular attacks" against landmarks, and aviation, petroleum and nuclear targets in this country in a bid to damage the economy, cause mass casualties and inflict "maximum psychological trauma."
In an unusually dire warning issued late Thursday night, the FBI said the al Qaeda network, weakened by months of war in Afghanistan and the death of several key leaders, could also engage in small-scale terrorist operations against softer targets, using "sleeper cells" already in this country to attack with truck bombs, commercial or private aircraft, small boats, or "explosives easily concealed and planted by terrorist operatives."
At the White House, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice described the warning as a "summary of intelligence" gathered by U.S. officials and said the Bush administration believed it was "important that Americans know when this sort of thing" is uncovered.
"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," Miss Rice said during a press briefing. "There have been many cases in which Americans who were alert to suspicious circumstances around them have been able to tip law enforcement officials."
She also said efforts were under way to bring additional protective measures, particularly to critical infrastructure locations around the country, working with both public and private entities, and at the federal, state and local levels. She did not elaborate, noting that the terrorist threats were not specific.
"One of the reasons we have different sources of information that we did not have is that we have some of those people in custody, who are informing us about how al Qaeda operates, about what various things might mean," she said. "This is a war on terrorism that is going to be ongoing for a long time, but that it is being fought very aggressively and will continue to be fought very aggressively."
The warning came as U.S. authorities captured one of al Qaeda's top operatives, believed to have been involved in the September 11 attacks. The terrorist was not identified, although authorities said it was not Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, operational leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed or bin Laden's son, Saad.
Other senior al Qaeda leaders already in U.S. custody are Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh, who were caught in separate operations in Pakistan earlier this year. They are being interrogated at an undisclosed location.
Despite the FBI warning, the White House opted yesterday to keep the nation's official terrorist-threat level at "Code Yellow," citing a lack of specific information about the time, date, location or method of any terrorist attack.
"We continue to be on high levels of alert. We continue to take additional precautions," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
The FBI warning was issued after the broadcast Tuesday by the Al Jazeera satellite-television network of an audiotaped message purported to be from bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda network.
On the tape, the speaker praised the recent attacks against U.S. interests worldwide, including firearms attacks against U.S. Marines in Kuwait, the fatal shooting of an American diplomat in Jordan, the bombing of a nightclub district in Bali, the attempted sinking of the French oil tanker Limburg and the taking of hostages by Chechen guerrillas at a Moscow theater.
The speaker, whom most intelligence analysts believe was bin Laden, also threatened further attacks against the United States and its allies should the United States invade Iraq. The tape is being analyzed by U.S. intelligence officials to determine its authenticity.
The newest FBI warning follows several others in the past few months, including one issued earlier this week regarding terrorist attacks at hospitals in Chicago, San Francisco, Houston and Washington.
But the level of concern has been ratcheted up in the past few days because of an increase in the "chatter" being monitored on various intelligence channels and the United States' focus on Iraq.
Last week, the State Department also warned that the execution Thursday night of Pakistani Aimal Khan Kasi in Virginia for killing two persons outside the CIA's Langley headquarters could lead to reprisals against U.S. targets. Four U.S. oil workers were killed in 1997 in Karachi, Pakistan, after Kasi's conviction.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
U.S. ponders resumption of nuclear weapons tests
By Dan Stober and Jonathan S. Landay
San Jose Mercury News
Sat, Nov. 16, 2002
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/4534514.htm
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is laying the groundwork for the resumption of nuclear testing and the development of new nuclear weapons, according to a memo obtained by the Mercury News.
The memorandum circulated recently to members of the Nuclear Weapons Council, a high-level government body that sets policy for nuclear weapons. The two-page memo urges the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories to assess the technical risks associated with maintaining the U.S. arsenal without nuclear testing, which President Bush's father halted in 1992. In addition, the memo suggests that the United States take another look at conducting small nuclear tests, a policy rejected by the Clinton administration.
``We will need to refurbish several aging weapons systems,'' writes council chairman E.C. Aldridge Jr., undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. ``We must also be prepared to respond to new nuclear weapons requirements in the future'' -- a reference to a push to develop ``earth penetrating'' weapons that might destroy buried stocks of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons in countries such as Iraq.
``It's recognizing that the stockpile that we designed 25 or 30 years ago for the Cold War really might not be the stockpile for the war on terrorism,'' a senior Pentagon official said Friday. ``The rest of the world realized after Desert Storm that if you could be seen, you could be killed.''
The memo is backed up by little-noticed language in the defense authorization bill that Congress approved this week. The bill suggests that the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories -- Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia -- should be ready to resume testing with as little as six months' notice.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said the memorandum demonstrates the Bush administration's intention to end the testing moratorium.
``The administration is chipping away at the barriers to a resumption of testing,'' Kimball said. ``They are doing their best to establish a rationale to resume testing, either for reliability problems or for new weapons. The reality is that there is no scientific nor military basis for a resumption of testing, and to do so would be an enormous strategic blunder that would invite a wave of proliferation that could swamp the entire non-proliferation regime.''
New testing could prompt the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians and the Pakistanis to do likewise, or harden North Korea's refusal to abandon its nuclear program, he warned.
`Collect our thoughts'
But a Pentagon official said there is no movement afoot to resume testing.
``It was just time to go back and collect our thoughts'' after 10 years of maintaining the nuclear stockpile without tests conducted beneath the Nevada desert, said Frederick Celec, the deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for nuclear matters. ``Let's take stock and see where we are. What are the risks involved in not testing?''
Democrats in Congress say the interest in resumed testing comes not from the uniformed generals or the physicists in the weapons labs, but primarily from conservative civilian officials, such as Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and advisers such as Richard Perle and John Foster, a former defense official and nuclear weapons designer.
Since 1992, weapons scientists in California and New Mexico have used a multibillion-dollar system of supercomputers and large-scale technology to understand the underlying physics of bombs and missile warheads. The Aldridge memo suggests that this Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship program may not be enough. It requests studies ``to assess the potential benefits that could be obtained from a return to nuclear testing with regard to weapons safety, security and reliability.''
The memo suggests another look at the potential benefits of a ``low yield'' testing program, which might produce a nuclear explosion equivalent to only a few hundred pounds of conventional explosives. Such tests might involve small amounts of plutonium -- not in bomb form -- at the Nevada Test Site, according to a well-placed defense official. So-called subcritical tests are now designed to produce no nuclear yield at all.
Portions of the defense authorization bill passed Wednesday require nuclear weapons scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and elsewhere to report whether nuclear explosions beneath the Nevada desert might be ``helpful'' in resolving reliability questions about existing nuclear weapons, even if the tests are technically ``unnecessary.''
``I don't know of any reason why we can't'' maintain the stockpile without testing, Bruce Goodwin, the head of the nuclear weapons program in Livermore, told the Mercury News. Testing might be required ``if somebody came along and said we needed a completely new, ultra-lightweight weapon,'' he said. ``But I don't see anything like that on the horizon.''
Although some nuclear weapons scientists unsuccessfully sought permission to conduct low-yield nuclear tests after the testing moratorium began in 1992, Goodwin said he sees no need for it now. ``I don't think I would ask for that today. We know a lot more, we're a lot more capable,'' he said.
New design
Congress this week authorized the three nuclear weapons labs to create preliminary designs for a weapon known as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, designed for underground targets. The project involves strengthening existing hydrogen bombs, rather than creating new designs. Livermore weapons designers say they don't expect the project to require nuclear tests.
But critics fear that development of such weapons could increase pressure to resume nuclear testing. The defense bill includes language, inserted by Democrats opposed to the earth penetrator, such as Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, that specifically prohibits the scientists from beginning work until a list of written questions is answered, involving the bomb's purpose and targets, and an assessment of whether such targets could be destroyed using non-nuclear weapons.
The authorization bill tasks the labs with studying the costs and benefits of reducing the time required to prepare for a nuclear test to six months, 12 months, 18 months or 24 months. The current ``readiness'' time is two to three years. In March, an influential Pentagon advisory panel chaired by Foster, a former Lawrence Livermore director, recommended a lead time of ``no more than three months to a year.''
A veteran nuclear weapons physicist said a test deployed in only six months would be a ``political test'' rather than a science test. ``Historically, in order to do a test in six months you pretty much had to have the device picked out already and have preliminary plans on what to do. How can you predict a problem in advance?'' Contact Dan Stober at dstober@sjmercury.com or (650) 688-7536 and Jonathan Landay at jlanday@ krwashington.com.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- minnesota
Report: Nuke Plant Upkeep Criticized
November 16, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Plant-Problems.html
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Inspections of two nuclear power plants in Minnesota revealed ongoing problems with maintenance, failure to identify potential problems and slow repairs, a newspaper reported Sunday.
An examination of Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspection records by the St. Paul Pioneer Press also showed inadequate monitoring of critical safety equipment, poor communication among employees and problems in assessing risk factors at Xcel Energy's Monticello and Prairie Island plants.
In one incident cited by the newspaper, workers at the Monticello plant were performing a ``hot shutdown'' of the reactor when they used the procedure for a ``cold shutdown'' instead, opening some valves and venting pressure from the cooling water that protects the reactor from a meltdown.
Unless kept at the proper pressure, the water boils away and exposes the reactor's uranium fuel rods, which would then overheat. In the Oct. 24, 2001 case, the problem was discovered in about 15 minutes, workers closed the valves, the pressure stabilized and then climbed.
The NRC said the plant's operators downplayed the incident and failed to report it in a timely manner.
The incident involved some of the same elements as the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979 and the Chernobyl explosion in 1986, nuclear experts told the newspaper for the report in Sunday editions.
However, Michael Wadley, senior vice president of Nuclear Management Co., the Hudson, Wis.-based company set up by Xcel to run the plants, said the NRC didn't follow up on the event because of the low safety significance of the issue.
Xcel also said it reviewed the NRC report and noted that, although some areas for improvement were identified, at no time was reactor safety jeopardized.
No one claims the plants are unsafe. From a reliability standpoint, the two plants are considered about average among the country's nuclear plants.
``There are clearly some much worse, and there are also some that are much better,'' said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who monitors atomic power issues for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent nonprofit group.
-------- new york
Indian Point Nuclear Reactor Shuts After Equipment Fails
November 16, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/16/nyregion/16NUKE.html
BUCHANAN, N.Y., Nov. 15 (AP) - The Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant shut down automatically this morning when a breaker failed in a nearby switchyard, the plant's owner said.
There was no sign of sabotage or terrorism, and no danger, said Jim Steets, a spokesman for the Entergy Corporation, the plant's owner. He said the reactor was cooling safely. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreed; a spokesman, Neil Sheehan, said the shutdown went "without complications."
The shutdown, which Mr. Steets said would probably last a few days, means that Indian Point is entirely off the electricity-generating grid. The other plant at the site, Indian Point 2, has been shut down since late October for refueling and is not expected to be operating until the end of this month.
Mike Clendenin, a spokesman for Con Edison, Westchester's major distributor of electricity, said that when Indian Point 3 went down, there was a brief interruption in the area's power flow, "possibly a small dip," before other plants took up the load. He said there were no power failures and none are expected.
"It's winter; demand is low," he said. "There's adequate supply."
Mr. Steets said today's shutdown occurred automatically when the breaker failed about 10 a.m. and the main generator disconnected. "The shutdown is instantaneous," he said. "The nuclear reaction stops, and then the reactor itself cools."
He said the cause of the breaker failure was unknown. "It's a relatively simple piece of equipment, and it might be just a hollow steel bar that weakened or something," he said. "It doesn't appear to be anything other than equipment failure."
The Indian Point plants' safety and security have been a major issue in the northern suburbs of New York City since last year's terrorist attack.
Indian Point 3 had been running for 540 days and would have been shut down next spring for refueling, Mr. Steets said. He said the last time both plants were out was Dec. 18-21, 2000.
Mr. Steets said there was a second breaker in the switchyard, and the plant needed only one to operate, so operators would make sure that the second breaker was undamaged, then restart the reactor.
-------- us politics
Authors defend homeland bill's privacy provisions
By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 16, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021116-49755.htm
The authors of the homeland-security bill pending in Congress defended their legislation yesterday against spirited protests that it would enable the government to snoop on American citizens. They said the bill contains adequate provisions to protect privacy rights.
Sponsors of the legislation, which will be taken up in the Senate for final passage next week, said it contains specific provisions that the proposed department may not gather information in contravention of constitutional and statutory privacy protections.
"No other department in the United States government has a statutorily created privacy officer, as this Homeland Security agency would have," said Leslie Phillips, spokeswoman for Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat and chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. "We created a stronger privacy officer than would exist anywhere else in government, with strong new powers to ensure that technologies are used to sustain and not to erode privacy protections."
Nevertheless, some critics were not convinced. Rep. Bob Barr, Georgia Republican and a former U.S. attorney, said he still believes the bill, combined with fears of terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks, could lead to abuse.
"It may very well be technically correct that the homeland-security bill does not explicitly authorize such a move," he said. "My fear is that government has become so proactive in this regard that they will use some of the general language in this bill to accelerate the process under the guise of homeland security."
Richard Diamond, spokesman for House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Texas Republican and the chairman of the special committee that wrote the House version of the bill, and Miss Phillips said the bill has specific protections for privacy, including a privacy officer whose job will be to monitor the new department and make sure it doesn't intrude on privacy rights. The officer reports to Congress, which has final oversight.
Mr. Diamond said sponsorship of the legislation otherwise would have contradicted Mr. Armey's long record on privacy. "Mr. Armey has been praised by both people on the left and on the right for the privacy provisions in the homeland-security bill, and that includes groups like the [American Civil Liberties Union] and the incoming minority leader, [Rep.] Nancy Pelosi, on the House floor, congratulating Mr. Armey for these privacy provisions."
He noted that Mr. Armey was responsible for language in the bill eliminating Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System), proposed by the Bush administration, that would have enlisted mail carriers, utility meter-readers and others with access to private homes to report suspicious activities of their neighbors and clients. He also put in language to prohibit the government from requiring Americans to carry national identification cards.
However, language such as Mr. Armey wrote eliminating TIPS is apparently not included in the homeland-security legislation.
The defense of the legislation yesterday followed objections by a considerable number of privacy advocates who say the bill opens the way for government snooping and, in particular, would lead to an agency tasked with compiling an electronic profile of foreigners and American citizens alike, based on existing information from driver's licenses, e-mail, Internet purchases, telephone and bank records, passport applications and other surveillance data, even including toll-road payments.
The homeland-security legislation passed the House earlier this week with broad bipartisan support. But the bill still has privacy advocates worried about what powers the federal government may try to construe from the bill's language.
In particular, they fear the creation of a Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency - or HSARPA, in the alphabet-soup language of the bureaucracy. The program is designed to administer a grant program for research and development of homeland-security technology, such as sensors, to detect a chemical-weapons attack and methods to make computers more secure from cyber-attacks.
HSARPA's structure is modeled on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a part of the Defense Department that has generally won approval for its efficiency and success in promoting research and development. DARPA was instrumental in creating the groundwork for the Internet. But one project apparently funded by DARPA, is the Total Information Awareness project, which critics say could create a computerized profile of the intimate details of a citizen's private life. This program would be under the supervision of Adm. John Poindexter, the national-security director under President Reagan who was convicted of lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra episode.
Privacy advocates worry that something similar - and aimed at Americans - could emerge from the legislation under the guise of homeland security.
Mr. Lieberman's spokeswoman discounts this prospect. She said there is "absolutely nothing in this legislation that ties it to DARPA's Total Information Awareness project." David Goldston, chief of staff for the House Science Committee, which helped write the HSARPA part of the bill, said it deals entirely with the "nuts-and-bolts" operation of funding technological research and would be placed in a different directorate from the information-gathering parts of the bill.
Mr. Diamond said Mr. Armey is concerned about the Total Information Awareness project and even though Mr. Armey is retiring this year, he will urge the next Congress to look closely at it. "Mr. Armey will encourage the next Congress to look into this Department of Defense program," Mr. Diamond said. "If it indeed does raise the same privacy problems that Operation TIPS does, Congress should deal with it in the same way - by banning it."
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms sales
U.S., India Discussing Military Sale
From Associated Press
November 16 2002
http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-india16nov16,0,4854886.story
NEW DELHI -- The United States has removed some legal hurdles delaying military sales to India and now is discussing selling it electronic ground sensors for use along the Pakistani 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.
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 with Pakistan extends from Himalayan slopes in Kashmir to scorching deserts in Rajasthan. Many areas include thick forests and 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 the New Delhi government after it conducted underground nuclear tests in 1998.
Most sanctions were lifted in 2001 after India supported the U.S.-led war on terror.
----
Our Countries Are Not 'Rogue Merchants'
Saturday, November 16, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61695-2002Nov15?language=printer
The Nov. 8 editorial "Rogue Merchants" said Yugoslavia has been supplying weapons and military training to Iraq in violation of a U.N. embargo.
True, a Yugoslav company, Jugoimport, had a role in reconditioning old engines for Iraq's fighter jets. However, the Yugoslav government's reaction on learning about this was to fire the company's CEO and sack the federal assistant defense minister. A commission set up by the government is investigating all arms deals, and legislation is under discussion to put an end to shady business practices in the arms trade. The Yugoslav government has promised to share information in this matter fully and has not ignored its international commitments or responsibilities.
The editorial also said that President Vojislav Kostunica has refused to purge hard-core nationalists and war criminals from the military. Today our army includes no indicted war criminals or hard-core nationalists. Top officers from the Milosevic era have been discharged; some of them are now in The Hague, answering charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia and NATO have cooperated in fighting terrorism in southern Serbia. Yugoslavia and the United States have jointly removed dangerous radioactive materials from Yugoslav research facilities, ensuring that these materials stay out of reach of terrorists. President Bush thanked President Kostunica for his country's contribution to fighting terrorism.
As to the political appeal of Mr. Kostunica, the Yugoslav president is a staunch democrat. He led Yugoslavia into a transition to democracy and a market economy. For this, the EastWest Institute named him statesman of the year.
Yugoslavia's young democracy faces many challenges. Disregarding its achievements only harms the forces of democracy the United States purports to support.
DRAGANA ALEKSIC
Press Counselor
Embassy of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Washington
•The Nov. 8 editorial "Rogue Merchants" incorrectly named Ukraine as one of the countries that have been "supplying weapons and military training to Iraq."
Neither Kolchuga (a passive detection system) nor any arms were ever sold by Ukraine to Iraq. American and British experts were given unprecedented opportunity to examine every Kolchuga system in Ukraine and had full access to documents related to its production and deliveries. Their report concluded: "It is assessed that Kolchuga has not been directly transferred to Iraq." This could hardly be called stonewalling by Ukraine.
Ukraine has nothing to hide and is willing to work transparently with the international community to clear its name.
KOSTYANTYN GRYSHCHENKO
Ambassador Embassy of Ukraine Washington
-------- biological weapons
Biological Blame Game:
USA in First Place
PRAVDA,
16 Nov 2002
http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=5554&TagID=2#
The politics of biological weapons
The 21st century has inherited a number of unsettled problems from the 20th century: terrorism, which has already gained an incredible scale; the countless number of hot spots on the planet; and the threat of a biological war. The world isn't ready for a biological attack, and the anthrax scare in America was an obvious confirmation of this. The mass media were so focused on the problem, which in its turn caused a mass psychosis among the population. A biological weapon is an instrument for big-scale politics, and the USA openly demonstrates it (Washington thinks that the notorious "axis of evil" countries hold biological weapons.)
No evidence is required; accusations are hurled at a country, and then its up to this country to prove its innocence. This is happening to Iraq, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba. This phobia is actively exploited not only by the political establishment, as Hollywood is also playing the game. You've probably also heard about the new fashion trends: people have started wearing ties with the biological cultures of anthrax, smallpox, plague, etc.
The threat (or pseudo-threat) of a biological war is actively discussed on the top level. Talks designed to protect the world from the supposed increasing threat of biological war are to be recommenced in Geneva. About a year ago, consultations on the problem were suspended because Americans refused to participate in them. The countries that signed the 1972 Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention have been trying for several years already to make the convention prohibiting development and production of biological weapons work. The convention signed during the cold war was a mere declaration in fact: no measures for the realization of the convention were mentioned in the document at all. In December 2001, after many efforts spend on making the convention effective, Americans abandoned the negotiations, which shocked the world community. The USA says that the system suggested by the convention for control over enterprises in the biological sphere is ineffective and may entail violations, and these violations in their turn will endanger America's national security, the BBC reports.
The USA won't sign the convention because it would have to open its laboratories to inspection, which very undesirable for America. Instead, Washington follows the trite principle that the best defense is an offense and accuses other countries of holding biological weapons. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday with reference to sources in the US special services that Iraq, North Korea, Russia, and France hold secret smallpox viruses.
The American military is developing new-generation bacteriological weapons, which is a serious violation of international agreements on the prohibition of these kind of weapons. The Guardian informs that the statement was made by respected experts on both sides of the Atlantic. Professor Malcolm Dando, from the University of Bradford, and microbiologist Mark Wheelis, from the University of California, are sure that the USA is continuing to develop cluster bombs with biological components, with anthrax cultures for instance. The Guardian reports that the scientists point out the obvious contradictions in the domestic and foreign policies of the USA, which is ready to wage a war with Iraq with the supposed goal of stopping the production of the very same kinds of weapons that it is developing itself. Professor Dando says that secret military laboratories are working on the following.
1. Attempts are being made to develop a bacteriological weapon using bacteriological materials open to all; this is being done to prove that terrorists might also do this as well.
2. Research projects are be conducted with the goal of genetically engineering dangerous cultures, including an anthrax resistant to modern antibiotics.
3. These laboratories are also working on the production of dry anthrax spores. However, the scale of these research projects disagrees with the declared goals; it is impossible to find out how the spore surplus is being used.
Specialists in biological and chemical weapons also say that the USA is developing so-called "non-deadly" kinds of weapons, similar to the narcotic gas used during the storm of the theater in Moscow occupied by Chechen terrorists. The American military is also developing new generation biological weapons, which is a serious violation of international agreements prohibiting the production of these kind of weapons.
The US's double-dealing in the production and usage of biological weapons brings to nothing to all the efforts of the world community to gain control over the usage of such deadly weapons. Moreover, currently, members of the 1972 convention don't speak in support of international inspections. They just hope that countries that had signed the document 30 years ago will agree to hold annual, non-committal discussions. The main objective they pursue is to constantly remind the world about the necessity to be on the look-out. Isn't this funny? It's obvious that the USA is laughing at the whole of the world: Washington wants to postpone the talks on the 1972 convention until 2006. Observers say that new suggestions are ineffective and are unlikely to be approved of by the White House. The principle often used by the USA, " Quod liced Jovi non liced bovi," is still in force.
-------- britain
PREPAREDNESS
Coming Soon on British Walls, Lessons on Makeshift Gas Masks
November 16, 2002
New York Times
By SARAH LYALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/16/international/europe/16BRIT.html
LONDON, Nov. 15 - Britain will start an education campaign, including posters and mock-emergency drills, 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 to deal with an assault involving chemical, nuclear, biological or radiological weapons, or with any attack involving 500 casualties 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 sometime next year, could, for example, contain advice for surviving a poison gas attack, like urging people to run away from the gas while leaving other casualties in the hands of emergency workers, or telling them to use handkerchiefs as improvised gas masks or not to breathe deeply, Sir Liam said.
The national report said that a lack of preparedness was particularly acute in London, where more than 20 percent of the hospitals surveyed for the report said that 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 or decontamination equipment for workers who might be caught 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 the 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 nervousness here by warning this week that Britain should be on heightened alert for a terrorist attack. And the recent audiotape in which a voice thought to be Osama bin Laden's threatened Britain and other American allies did not help matters in a country worried that it might be the next target.
All this has left the government trying to negotiate a tricky path, raising public awareness while at the same time not inciting panic. Among other things, Britain has amassed millions of doses of smallpox vaccine that 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 or the plague.
The Department of Health is also planning to organize simulated terrorist attacks, complete with large numbers of mock casualties, to test the readiness of 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.
-------- china
Chinese Leader Gives Up a Job but Not Power
November 16, 2002
New York Times
By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/16/international/asia/16CHIN.html
BEIJING, Nov. 15 - Jiang Zemin may have relinquished the top position in the ruling Communist party today, but his reappointment as head of the Central Military Commission immediately raised questions about the real extent of the power held by his successor, Hu Jintao.
As a weeklong meeting of the Chinese Communist party leadership wound to a conclusion, the talk here was more about Mr. Jiang's apparent victory in nominal retirement than about Mr. Hu's ascension.
The Standing Committee of the Politburo, the top council that was expanded today to nine members from seven, was clearly packed with Jiang loyalists who could prevent any major departures in policy - although it is unclear what if any changes Mr. Hu might have in mind. With his reappointment as head of the military today, Mr. Jiang - who spent 13 years as party leader - also seemed intent on keeping one critical position for himself.
Mr. Hu could be a "figurehead" on the Standing Committee, said Cheng Li, an expert in Chinese politics at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y.
Joseph Fewsmith of Boston University, an expert on the Chinese leadership, said, only half jokingly, "It seems that Jiang is stronger today than he was yesterday."
"Hu Jintao has to wait another five years and then try again for dominance," Mr. Fewsmith added.
By various counts, five and perhaps six of the nine Standing Committee members are close to Mr. Jiang. Those known to be Jiang loyalists include Wu Bangguo, who has been an economic official; Zeng Qinghong, Mr. Jiang's longtime aide and strategist; Jia Qingling, former party secretary of Beijing; Huang Ju, former secretary of Shanghai; and Li Changchun, former secretary of Guangzhou.
Tonight's news programs featured Mr. Jiang at an event in the Great Hall, greeting the retired and promoted military brass and warning them of the stiff challenges they face in a changing world.
Even as all generals over 70 were swept off the Central Military Commission, Mr. Jiang was reappointed chairman, evoking memories of the late Deng Xiaoping, who virtually ran the country for a time from that perch. Mr. Jiang is not nearly so venerated, but the post guarantees him a strong voice on security and foreign policy matters, and he appears to enjoy personal support from the military.
Some experts think Mr. Jiang might still resign from the military post next March, during the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, when he must give up the state presidency at the end of his two legal terms. Others think he is planning to stay on longer, at the possible risk of fostering divisions at the top during a military crisis.
News programs also showed a moment of political theater at an unusually emotional reception in the Great Hall of the People this afternoon. Thousands of delegates to the disbanded Communist Party congress assembled in a huge circle to exchange greetings with the retiring and the newly chosen leaders.
Somewhat woodenly, Mr. Hu praised the achievements of Mr. Jiang and his "third generation leadership" and pledged to carry on his work and thoughts.
What seemed clear today was that, in the near term, at least, Mr. Hu might have little choice. Still, the changes made this week will create a new political chemistry. Mr. Jiang appears to have protected his interests this week, but an older generation of leaders in major party councils is now gone and the rise of younger, more educated officials will change the atmosphere and lead to unexpected alliances, a party official said, speaking anonymously.
Considerable speculation has centered on the ambitions of Mr. Zeng, 63, regarded as the mastermind of Mr. Jiang's success. Among other tasks, he has been placed in charge of the party secretariat, a position formerly held by Mr. Hu that gives him influence over important personnel decisions and other matters.
The competition between Mr. Hu and Mr. Zeng may be the one to watch, say some experts who predict that the tough and wily Mr. Zeng could lead Mr. Jiang's well-placed "Shanghai faction" - loyalists to Mr. Jiang brought by him to Beijing from Shanghai - and eventually challenge Mr. Hu for the top spot. His relations with Mr. Hu are a mystery.
Despite the obstacles he faces, no one should underestimate Mr. Hu, said Mr. Li, the Hamilton professor. Though he may be surrounded by Jiang protégés, he has been more successful at bringing his own allies, younger technocrats from his years in the Communist Youth League and in three remote provinces, into the Central Committee. Now he can foster his own networks of influence.
"Hu has the most important position in China, and he can build on that if he is smart," Mr. Li said.
At the videotaped reception this afternoon, Mr. Hu toasted Mr. Jiang with words that some interpreted as indicative.
"Now, for the sake of continuing to advance the party's cause, many comrades have taken the initiative of retiring from their central leadership positions," he said of Mr. Jiang and others of the "third generation." In doing so, they are "demonstrating a broad-mindedness and the sterling integrity of a Communist."
-------- iraq
Saddam: Acceptance of UN Weapons Inspections Helped Avoid US War
Voice of America,
by Tetiana Anderson
16 Nov 2002
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=48A79817-54CF-4B6B-85EAECD3304506F4
Cairo - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has told parliament he had to accept the U.N. Security Council's demand to disarm to avoid what he called, "a U.S. led war against his country." The statement came in a letter from the Iraqi leader.
In the letter, the president said he seriously considered the parliament's recommendation to reject the U.N. resolution. But he said he had to accept it to protect his people.
Mr. Hussein wrote to parliament that he agreed to the stringent terms of resolution 1441 because, "the alliance between Zionism and the American administration had decided to wage war unilaterally against Iraq."
The Iraqi leader warned that even though weapons inspectors are scheduled to return, Iraq could still face a U.S. led attack.
Mr. Hussein said that he hopes the return of inspectors will allow the Security Council to see that Iraq is completely free of weapons of mass destruction.
He said he hoped his acceptance would lift the sanctions imposed on Iraq by the U.N. in 1991.
-------- mideast
Libya denies story on exile plan for Saddam family
Reuters
16 Nov 2002 18:11
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L16479651
TUNIS, Nov 16 - Libya on Saturday said a British newspaper story saying Iraqi President Saddam Hussein offered Tripoli money to shelter his family and aides was fictitious.
Libyan Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassouna Chaouch said his government reserved the right to sue Britain's Times newspaper for the story which said Saddam offered Libya $3.5 billion to provide a safe-haven for his family and top Iraqi officials.
"These reports were totally unfounded and were simply fictitious and fabricated," Chaouch said in a statement carried by the official Libyan news agency Jana.
The Times said unnamed diplomats in Tripoli had provided evidence of the plan, which it described as the first sign Saddam was preparing for the prospect of being ousted by military strikes.
Iraq has agreed to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to search the country for weapons of mass destruction under a tough new U.N. resolution sponsored by the United States.
U.S. President George Bush, whose administration's official policy towards Iraq has been to seek a "regime change", and has threatened to use military force if Iraq fails to comply fully.
The Times article said Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi would not agree to provide refuge for Saddam or his eldest son Uday.
"Western intelligence services assume that Saddam will stay 'to the bitter end' if Iraq is attacked by a U.S.-led coalition," the paper wrote.
But the article said Libya would shelter senior Iraqi officials, possibly Saddam's other children and grandchildren.
The paper said Syria had agreed to provide an overland escape route, allowing the Iraqis to fly on to Libya.
It said Saddam loyalist General Ali Hasan al-Majid had travelled to Tripoli to negotiate the deal.
"Iraqi official Ali Hasan al-Majid's visit to Libya was part of his tour to a number of countries as envoy of the Iraqi president to explain the latest developments at the time," Chaouch said.
He said al-Majid had not discussed a plan of exile for Saddam's family and aides during his trip to Libya.
"Those who spread such reports aim to do harm and muddy (the) waters," Chaouch said, adding his government "reserves the right to take legal action against those who spread such lies and calumnies".
--------
U.S. Fighter Jets Patrol Yemen
November 16, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Yemen-US.html
SAN'A, Yemen (AP) -- U.S. fighter jets have patrolled Yemen's northern border with Saudi Arabia as Yemeni forces hunt for al-Qaida operatives, a security official said Saturday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. jets were patrolling the border provinces of Marib and Jawf, strongholds of Muslim militants where the al-Qaida terror group is believed to be active.
The official said operations were designed to ``tighten the grip on al-Qaida suspects who are believed to be relocating in these tribal strongholds in the wake of the latest U.S. attack.''
Tribal leaders in the region said Americans have also been seen on the ground aiding Yemenis special forces troops.
U.S. officials at the Pentagon and National Security Council did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.
Earlier this month, a Hellfire missile from a CIA unmanned Predator drone killed six men, including al-Qaida's alleged top operative in Yemen.
The missile strike also killed Kamal Derwish, the alleged leader of a terrorist cell based in Buffalo, N.Y. with links to al-Qaida.
An Interior Ministry official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press the other four men in the vehicle were members of the outlawed Adan-Abyan Islamic Army, a radical group of men who fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The group was blamed for the 1998 kidnapping and killing of four Western tourists and a series of bombings in 2001 targeting a church, the Aden offices of the official news agency, and other sites.
On Friday, tribesmen and officials reported that military patrols had been stopping passenger vehicles for identity checks and that new checkpoints had been established in Marib and Jawf.
One tribal leader said that Americans had been seen working along with Yemeni government special forces, especially in Marib province.
Yemeni government officials refused to confirm the reports on the record. However, another Interior Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military operations were part of new security arrangements, which the government approved at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday.
-------- nato
Nato strike force to bypass states in hunt for terrorists
Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday November 16, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,841189,00.html
A new Nato rapid response force would strike suspected terrorist bases anywhere in the world with or without the permission of the host nation, senior British sources said yesterday.
A US plan for an allied force capable of being deployed within five or 15 days, is expected to be agreed at next week's Nato summit in Prague where western leaders are also due to increase membership of the organisation from 19 to 26. The response force will be a "find and strike" unit targeting terrorist organisations such as al-Qaida who may be building up new bases.
"We know al-Qaida is trying to set up the kind of arrangements they had in Afghanistan," said a senior British official who referred to the presence of cells in Indonesia, Yemen, and Morocco. "A couple of hundred may be holed up in a failed state which may not be able to cope with it."
Under the plan, Nato could respond quickly to a request to disrupt camps or places where it was suspected that terrorists were hiding biological or chemical weapons, the sources said.
However, they made it clear that Nato would strike even without a request from the government of the country where the target was located.
In an attempt to breathe new life into the alliance, Nato foreign ministers earlier this year agreed that Nato "must be able to field forces that can move quickly to wherever they are needed".
The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, told his colleagues at a meeting in Warsaw in September that Nato must set up a rapid response force that would go "any time, anywhere, at very short notice", to attack the enemy.
The force would consist of some 20,000 troops, backed up by air and naval support.
It will be "up and running" within two to four years, British officials said yesterday.
Asked why the US wanted the European allies to join such a force since it could carry out such operations on its own, the British sources replied that it was preferable to have an "international campaign" with others sharing the burden.
"Military operations do not take place in a political vacuum", added a senior official, who suggested that the Europeans would stay behind and help to restore stability on the ground after a Nato strike.
The Prague summit will also streamline Nato's command structure, with a senior American officer heading all allied operations.
Nato had to get away from its structure of static headquarters in northern Europe, the sources said. Instead, it will set up a series of operational headquarters including new ones in Milan, Valencia, and Istanbul.
The summit will invite Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Slovenia to join the alliance.
----
Belarusan Barred From Summit
Czechs Deny Visa For NATO Meeting
By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, November 16, 2002; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61090-2002Nov15?language=printer
MOSCOW, Nov. 15 -- The Czech Republic today refused to issue a visa for Belarus's authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, disrupting his plans to crash next week's NATO summit in the Czech capital even as his government threatened to retaliate by breaking diplomatic relations.
Lukashenko on Wednesday had significantly escalated his rhetoric on the visa issue, warning that he was prepared to open Belarus's borders to allow a flood of illegal immigrants and drugs into a Europe unprepared to accept his presence.
Despite having criticized NATO as a "terrible monster" threatening all the states of the former Soviet Union, Lukashenko has been intent in recent weeks on attending the Prague summit. As many as 50 heads of state are expected to gather for the summit as NATO expands to include seven eastern European countries, including Belarus's neighbors in the Baltics.
NATO officials have suggested Lukashenko would be unwelcome at the meeting, and the Czech Republic appeared to decide the matter today by decreeing that Lukashenko's dictatorial style made him persona non grata there.
"We are convinced that the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms is not taking place in Belarus," Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda said in announcing the decision at a news conference. "Lukashenko would use this visit to legitimize his position at home."
By tonight, there was no official Belarusan response to the refusal. Earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Mikhail Khvostov threatened to break diplomatic relations and trade ties with the Czech Republic if the visa for Lukashenko were denied. "We will respond strongly," he told reporters in Minsk. "In diplomacy there are numerous examples when diplomatic ties have been broken."
Lukashenko, a self-professed admirer of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin and often called "Europe's last dictator," has been increasingly isolated since declaring himself the winner of a presidential election last year that European observers termed "neither free nor fair." He has been widely criticized in the West for human rights abuses against leaders of the democratic opposition in his country of 10 million, and has used the year since his reelection to crack down systematically on political opponents and the independent media.
Lukashenko's relations with Europe have been particularly tense in recent months as he has moved to expel officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
A NATO spokesman said today's decision by the Czechs was understandable in light of NATO members' "concerns about unacceptable violations of international democratic norms by President Lukashenko," but reiterated that the final call was made by the authorities in Prague.
Svoboda, the Czech foreign minister, said he expected Belarus would retaliate. "All those who value the basic human rights and liberties must be ready to face some repercussion," he said.
The move was condemned in Moscow by leading Russian politicians who at the same time recognized Lukashenko's own threats might have caused the diplomatic row. Russia has long been close to its western neighbor, but relations have soured in recent months as President Vladimir Putin of Russia has moved closer to the West and called Lukashenko's bluff on a proposed Russia-Belarus union that Lukashenko long said he supported but has now backed away from.
Still unresolved was a similar dispute about whether Ukraine's embattled president, Leonid Kuchma, would also try to force his way into the Prague summit. Kuchma, who has been accused by the United States and Britain of authorizing arms sales to Iraq in violation of a U.N. embargo and is facing mounting political opposition at home, is scheduled to decide at a meeting Saturday whether to press the issue of his attendance. NATO officials have said he, too, is unwelcome, revising plans for a foreign ministers' meeting between Ukraine and NATO scheduled for next week in hopes of dissuading Kuchma from coming.
----
Tiny Baltic states have big hopes for NATO
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 16, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021116-61860566.htm
TALLINN, Estonia - The Estonians take great pride in their small contribution to the multinational force in Afghanistan - five men and three dogs. Such gestures have helped them convince NATO that even countries as tiny as theirs can play a role in the global fight against terrorism.
Along with the other two Baltic states, Lithuania and Latvia, Estonia had serious concerns last year that the September 11 attacks might take NATO enlargement off the Bush administration's immediate agenda. The worries grew as Washington seemed more interested in new friends such as Pakistan than in the young democracies of Eastern Europe.
But the United States - in spite of its decision not to seek help from others, except Britain, in the anti-Taliban military campaign - soon realized that in the war against terrorism, there are no big or small nations.
"September 11 showed that even very small allies can be an asset, and even modest help like ours can be of great demand," Estonian Defense Minister Sven Mikser said in a recent interview.
Next week, 11 years after they regained their freedom from the Soviet Union, the Baltics and four other ex-communist states from Central and Eastern Europe are expected to receive invitations to join NATO during the alliance's summit in Prague.
Although Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are independent nations with many differences, the alliance sees a bigger asset in admitting all three because of their combined capabilities and territories, NATO officials said in interviews at the organization's Brussels headquarters.
The officials also noted that the three nations' joint effort toward membership in the last couple of years had improved their chances of receiving invitations.
Latvian Defense Minister Girts Valdis Kristovskis said the Baltics "made an effort to show NATO that taking only one state won't be effective."
President Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia said, "The point of alliance is unity, and we've proved that we can do it."
But only a year and a half ago, few were betting that the three states would make the alliance's next round of enlargement. The main obstacle was Russian objection, as the Baltics' accession would expand NATO to Moscow's doorstep.
Russia's opposition subsided, especially as its cooperation with the West increased in the battles against terrorism and weapons proliferation.
So, with the way cleared, "the Baltics will be the crown jewels of this round of NATO enlargement," said Juri Luik, former Estonian foreign and defense minister.
Toomas Hendrik Ilves, a member of the Estonian parliament and another ex-foreign minister, said the first indication that the Baltic states would probably be among the winners this year appeared in President Bush's Warsaw speech in June 2001. After September 11, the administration began talking about "robust expansion," from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.
"The waters have been tested," Mr. Ilves said. "I'm actually surprised how smoothly things have gone."
Estonia
With a peacetime military of only 5,000, this former Soviet republic of 1.4 million has an impressive record of participating in international peacekeeping operations. In addition to Afghanistan, over the past several years it has sent more than 900 troops to Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, Georgia and Lebanon.
The five soldiers in Afghanistan, who are engaged in explosives detection, have become heroes at home, and their families and friends have turned into media stars.
"We take our international responsibilities very seriously," Mr. Mikser said in the Estonian capital, Tallinn. "We never had any role outside the Baltic region before. We want to make our small country known to the world. Plus, we also may need help someday."
Prime Minister Siim Kallas, arguing that NATO membership is the best guarantee of Estonia's security, said his country is doing its best to earn an invitation in Prague rather than receive it as a gift. "If we want protection, we should offer cooperation," he said.
Public support for NATO membership is well over 60 percent, and Liis Klaar, another member of parliament, said Estonians favor joining the alliance "on the grass-roots level."
But the United States has linked one issue - Holocaust remembrance - to Estonia's NATO bid, for reasons that have nothing to do with military duties.
Washington was not satisfied by the weight the Holocaust was given in public commemorations and in history books.
The Estonians have now updated their textbooks and designated Jan. 27 as a day to remember the victims of the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity.
"We must remember not only the victims of the Holocaust, but also those of the Soviet crimes," said Toomas Sildam, senior editor at the daily newspaper Postimees.
Latvia
Unlike Estonia and Lithuania, Latvia has not yet sent troops to Afghanistan, although officials said during a recent visit by The Washington Times to the capital, Riga, that they are now considering doing so. The issue is sensitive for this nation of 2.4 million.
"Until not long ago, Latvian men were being drafted in the Soviet military," Mrs. Vike-Freiberga, the president, said. "Many of them went to fight in Afghanistan, and some are still crippled."
The difference now is that only professional soldiers can go on international missions and they know in advance "it's risky, just as firemen do" before they choose their profession, she said.
Mrs. Vike-Freiberga said the majority of Latvians support NATO membership, but it was difficult for the government to explain why it should spend 2 percent of the gross domestic product on defense, as the alliance demands. "We also had to secure money for pensions and other social programs," she said.
In their assessment of Latvia's readiness to join the alliance, U.S. officials cite widespread corruption as the country's most serious problem. Under pressure from Washington, the government has created a special bureau to fight corruption, said Maris Riekstins, state secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
But Mrs. Vike-Freiberga said the issue has been overblown. Corruption is said to occur frequently in privatization deals, she said, and Western companies also bear some responsibility because they are playing the game.
In addition, she said, when Western officials say they expect Latvia, as well as the other applicant nations, to show concrete results in battling corruption, "they are looking for commitment, not purity."
Another concern for NATO and the European Union is the treatment of the Russian minority in Latvia, which makes up nearly 30 percent of the population. Many of the problems related to citizenship, language restrictions and political participation have been solved, Latvian officials and foreign diplomats say.
Irina Yesina, a political reporter for Telegraph, a Russian-language daily newspaper, said those problems will disappear as generations change. The young Russians are very good at learning Latvian and assimilating in society, she said, but many of the older ones just refuse to do so.
Many Russians complain about what they call a complicated naturalization process. The state offers citizenship classes, but not language help, Miss Yesina said.
"This is the way the government thinks: If you want a good job, you need to speak Latvian. So go learn it, but we won't help you," she said.
Lithuania
Officials in all Baltic states recognize that Lithuania is ahead of the curve when it comes to readiness to join NATO. It began preparing a couple of years before the others. It also took the initiative in organizing the so-called Vilnius group of Prague hopefuls, which includes the seven nations expecting invitations next week, along with Albania, Macedonia and Croatia.
Lithuania is expected to be rewarded for its pro-American stance with a visit by President Bush immediately after next week's summit. Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus, who spent most of his life as a refugee in the United States, is a passionate defender of American foreign policy.
"How can the United States be accused of selfishness when it's spending so much money for various causes around the world?" he said during a recent interview in the capital, Vilnius.
On Wednesday, Lithuania purchased $31 million worth of American anti-aircraft missile systems - 60 missiles and eight launching devices.
But the image of the United States has suffered from another business deal that turned into a disaster and became a household topic.
In late 1999, the government signed a contract with Williams International, sharing Lithuania's oil assets with the U.S. company. The deal, viewed by many Lithuanians as disadvantageous for the country, coincided with a drop in support for NATO membership to its lowest level ever, 35 percent, said Vladas Gaidys, director of the Vilmorus marketing and opinion-research center in Vilnius.
But things did not work out for Williams, and this summer, the company, without informing the government, sold its stake to Yukos, Russia's second-largest oil producer.
"That led to distrust in the government and, to some extent, the West," Mr. Gaidys said. "People say that Russians now control our energy system."
-------- spy agencies
CIA's Cash Toppled Taliban
New Book Details Bush Advisers' Doubts and Rivalries
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 16, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61461-2002Nov15?language=printer
A new book says President Bush's advisers had grave doubts about the early course of the war in Afghanistan and suggests that the ultimate defeat of the Taliban was due largely to millions of dollars in hundred-dollar bills the CIA handed out to Afghan warlords to win their support.
"Bush at War," by Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward, draws on four hours of interviews with Bush and quotes 15,000 words from National Security Council and other White House meetings in reconstructing the internal debate that led to U.S. military action in Afghanistan and the decision to aggressively confront Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
In detailing tensions within Bush's war cabinet, the book describes Secretary of State Colin L. Powell as frequently at odds with Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and struggling to establish a relationship with Bush. But it depicts Powell as determined to make his case that military action against Iraq without the help of allies could have disastrous consequences, a chance he finally got at a dinner with Bush last Aug. 5.
While the dinner has been previously reported, the book describes in detail the case Powell made -- reading from an outline on loose-leaf paper -- that the United States has to have international support against Iraq. "It's nice to say we can do it unilaterally," Powell told the president bluntly, "except you can't."
The dinner persuaded Bush to seek a resolution from the United Nations over the objections of Cheney and Rumsfeld.
The book reports that despite their outward optimism, Bush's advisers had deep doubts about their strategy of bombing the Taliban while relying on ground forces from the Northern Alliance, the ragtag, factionalized opposition. At one point, the Pentagon developed plans to send in 50,000 U.S. troops. Bush, according to the book, hated what he saw as "hand-wringing" by his aides, but even he expressed doubts about the strategy, roaring at one point that he was "concerned about the fact that things aren't moving."
At a climactic meeting in the Situation Room two weeks into the campaign, Bush went around the table, demanding that his aides affirm their support for the strategy. They pledged allegiance to his plan, and his call for alternatives was met with unanimous "no's."
"Don't let the press panic us," Bush said.
According to "Bush at War," the CIA spent $70 million in direct cash outlays on the ground in Afghanistan, a figure that also included money for setting up field hospitals. "That's one bargain," the president said in an interview with Woodward last August. The money was handed out by about a half-dozen CIA teams spread through the country, starting with a 10-man paramilitary team code-named "Jawbreaker" that landed in Afghanistan on Sept. 27, 2001. The team leader carried $3 million in a single attache case.
In the interview, conducted at the president's ranch in Crawford, Tex., Bush was unusually reflective about his personal style and his ambitions as president. "Sometimes that's the way I am -- fiery," he said, describing his relationship with his aides, and added: "I can be an impatient person." He spoke about his "instincts" or his "instinctive" reactions a dozen times during the ranch interview. "I'm not a textbook player; I'm a gut player," he said.
Bush outlined a far-reaching moral mission for his presidency in the aftermath of the attacks.
"I will seize the opportunity to achieve big goals," Bush said. "There is nothing bigger than to achieve world peace." Bush, discussing his experiences as a troubleshooter during his father's presidency and campaigns, said, "The vision thing matters. That's another lesson I learned."
Describing his aspirations for an ambitious reordering of the world through preemptive and perhaps unilateral action, Bush turned first to Iraq but then to North Korea and its dictator Kim Jong Il. With the administration contemplating a response to North Korea's nuclear weapons program, Woodward reports that Bush shouted and waved his finger in the air as he vented about Kim.
"I loathe Kim Jong Il," Bush said. "I've got a visceral reaction to this guy, because he is starving his people. And I have seen intelligence of these prison camps -- they're huge -- that he uses to break up families, and to torture people."
During the interview Bush was joined by first lady Laura Bush, who said she had been nervous and anxious after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. "I woke up in the middle of the night," the first lady said, gesturing toward her husband. "I know you did. I mean, I'd wake up in the middle of the night and know he was awake."
"I don't remember that. Was I some?" Bush asked, looking at her.
Woodward recounts that she nodded a strong affirmative.
"Yes," the president conceded. "Yes. Right after the attacks, I mean, I was emotional."
Bush said security fears forced him to cancel two White House poker games with friends from East Texas. Bush also said he was "floored" to learn that 11 days after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, the FBI had interviewed 417 people as part of its terrorist sweep and that agents had put 331 people on their watch list, which consists of potential terrorists who might be in the United States or traveling to the country. Bush said he decided to keep the number secret because of the trauma that remained from the attacks.
In Bush's fractious war cabinet, previously unreported personal differences appear to be at least as pronounced as the widely known policy disputes: Cheney takes a swipe at Powell, Powell perhaps unintentionally denigrates the military, and Powell and Rumsfeld "had at times been almost glaring at each other across the table" over Afghanistan operations. Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bypasses Rumsfeld to give to Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, the military information they need and the gossip they crave.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, whose role has been something of a mystery to those outside the inner circle of the administration, emerges as a backstage broker among members of Bush's war council who absorbs Bush's frustration when deliberations or events peeve him. Bush described her as "a very thorough person, constantly mother-henning me."
Rumsfeld is portrayed as irascible and visibly unhappy that, during the early days of war planning, the dominant figure was CIA Director George J. Tenet, a holdover from the Clinton administration. "This is the CIA's strategy," Rumsfeld railed at an NSC meeting nine days after the invasion of Afghanistan. "They developed the strategy. We're just executing the strategy."
The book's extensive portrait of Powell conveys his frustration with having to pretend that there was a policy consensus within the war cabinet on Iraq and the Middle East. He called it being "in the icebox" during periods when the White House banned him from television.
During the 2000 presidential campaign, according to the book, Karl Rove, Bush's chief political aide, "detected a subtle, subversive tendency, as if Powell were protecting his centrist credentials and his own political future at Bush's expense."
The ill will continued into the administration, when Rove "felt Powell was beyond political control and operating out of a sense of entitlement."
Powell's sense of isolation was so great that last March he began requesting private time with Bush in an effort to bond. Rice sat in on the meetings, held once a week for 20 or 30 minutes. "I think we're really making some headway in the relationship," Powell is quoted as telling Armitage, his best friend, after a summer conversation in the Oval Office.
Bush decided to take his case against Hussein to the United Nations in response to Powell and over the initial opposition of Cheney, who is described as "beyond hell-bent for action against Saddam." Cheney continued to argue against new resolutions giving Iraq one last chance, but Bush yielded to Powell's case for such an offer.
When Bush spoke to the U.N. General Assembly, however, the president realized that the addition to his speech had been left off the TelePrompTer. "With only mild awkwardness, he ad-libbed it," according to the book.
Bush said during a February visit to the North Korean border that he had no intention of invading North Korea, but made it clear in the interview with Woodward he is not content with the status quo. "They tell me, we don't need to move too fast, because the financial burdens on people will be so immense if we try to -- if this guy were to topple," Bush said. But, he went on, "Either you believe in freedom and want to -- and worry about the human condition, or you don't."
In another sign of how deeply the president personalizes international relations, the book describes how Bush's relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin flowered after the president heard that Putin had been given a cross by his mother. In his interview, Bush recalled saying to Putin: "That speaks volumes to me, Mr. President. May I call you Vladimir?"
During a meeting in New York with Pakistan's leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Bush bluntly denounced an article by investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh in the New Yorker magazine. The article, published in December, reported that the Pentagon had contingency plans to work with an Israeli special operations unit to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons if the country became unstable. "Seymour Hersh is a liar," Bush is quoted as telling Musharraf.
The president is shown to be preoccupied by public perceptions of the war, looking at polling data from Rove, now his senior adviser, even after pretending to have no interest.
Roger E. Ailes, a media coach for Bush's father and now chairman of the Fox News Channel, sent a confidential communication to the White House in the weeks after the terrorist attacks. Rove took the Ailes communication to the president. "His back-channel message: The American public would tolerate waiting and would be patient, but only as long as they were convinced that Bush was using the harshest measures possible," Woodward wrote. He added that Ailes, who has angrily challenged reports that his news channel has a conservative bias, added a warning: "Support would dissipate if the public did not see Bush acting harshly."
The book is based on interviews with more than 100 people involved in planning and executing the war. Woodward would not describe the records of NSC meetings he reviewed beyond saying that they were official and verbatim, and that in many cases he was able to check the accounts with multiple sources.
In a note to readers, Woodward said that most of the interviews were conducted on background, meaning that he could use the information but the sources would not be identified by name. The 378-page book includes copious instances of Woodward's hallmark of revealing the interior monologues of key newsmakers, including a description of Rice's thoughts as she watched television alone.
Since his Watergate collaboration with Carl Bernstein, Woodward has written a parade of bestsellers on subjects that include intrigue at the Pentagon, the Federal Reserve Board and the Supreme Court. Woodward, 59, shared in his second Pulitzer Prize this year as part of a team of reporters from The Post's national staff recognized for covering the war on terrorism.
-------- un
Turks wary of U.N.'s plan for unification
By Kenneth W. Hanner
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 16, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20021116-92364904.htm
NICOSIA, Cyprus - Turkish-Cypriot leaders are skeptical of territorial concessions required by a new U.N. plan that seeks to resolve a long-standing division of the island.
The plan, offered Monday by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, would require Turkish community in northern Cyprus to reduce its territorial control from 36 percent of the island to 28.5 percent, said Zaim M. Necatigil, legal adviser to the northern Cyprus government.
More problematic to the Turkish-controlled north is the proposed displacement under the U.N. plan of an estimated 50,000 people, or 25 percent of the population.
"It will be a potential stumbling block for going ahead," Hakki Muftuzade, an adviser to the president, said in an interview.
The island in the eastern Mediterranean has been divided since 1974, when the Turkish military invaded the northern regions after a coup by Greek Cypriots in the south who wanted to unite the island with Greece.
"The border will be meandering," Mr. Necatigil said of the U.N. plan. "Some inhabited towns, large towns and areas, will have to be handed over."
In return for territorial concessions to the Greek Cypriots, the Turkish side would receive a role in a united government.
The U.N. plan envisions a common state that would grant broad autonomy to both sides while placing foreign affairs and economic policy under control of a single government.
Any agreement will be hard to reach after decades of bitterness and violence.
"The feeling that they want to dominate us is still there," said Mr. Muftuzade.
Complicating a solution is the anticipated invitation later this year for Cyprus to join the European Union.
Unless both sides of the divided island agree on a plan to unify, the EU membership would apply to the wealthier Republic of Cyprus in the south, which is the island's internationally recognized government.
Only Turkey recognizes the north, formally known as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Mr. Annan, the U.N. secretary-general, has asked both sides to report back to him by Monday on whether the plan can serve as a basis for further negotiations.
-------- us
Navy OKs Temporary Sonar Test Limit
November 16, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Whales-Sonar.html
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The U.S. Navy agreed to temporarily scale back the testing of a new sonar system designed to detect enemy submarines, two weeks after a federal magistrate blocked the testing, citing concerns about marine life.
The Navy agreed to the move Friday under significant pressure from environmentalists.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte had blocked the Navy from experimenting with the system, which was to be routinely tested throughout the majority of the world's oceans.
The accord, a compromise between the government and the ecologists who filed a lawsuit, lasts seven months while the Navy's operating permit is being challenged in federal court.
The Navy had planned to use the system in about 14 million square miles of ocean. Under the agreement, the Navy will limit its experiments to about 1 million square miles of remote ocean surrounding the Mariana Islands but well off the coasts of Japan and the Philippines.
``It's the least sensitive area of ocean we could get,'' said Andrew Wetzler, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which says the Navy system can harass or kill marine mammals.
The sonar can send signals hundreds of miles. It can be as loud as 215 decibels, which is the same as standing next to a twin-engine F-15 fighter jet as it takes off.
The agreement does not preclude the Navy from using the system to detect modern, quiet submarines during wartime, and acknowledges that the Navy must be allowed to train with it beforehand.
Neither the Navy nor the Justice Department immediately returned calls seeking comment. The judge ordered all discussions between the NRDC and the Navy to remain confidential.
The Navy had previously agreed to exclude polar waters and areas within 12 miles of any coast, which are prime habitat for marine mammals.
In July, the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, gave the Navy the green light to train with the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System Low Frequency Active system. Environmentalists immediately sued.
The NRDC said a different Navy sonar used in March 2000 may have caused at least 16 whales and two dolphins to beach themselves on islands in the Bahamas. Eight whales died and scientists found hemorrhaging around their brains and ear bones, injuries consistent with exposure to loud noise.
In a separate case challenging sonar use, a San Francisco federal judge last month ordered the National Science Foundation to stop firing high-intensity sonic blasts into the Gulf of California because they harm whales.
On the Net:
Natural Resources Defense Council: http://www.nrdc.org/
National Science Foundation: http://www.nsf.gov/
National Marine Fisheries Service: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/
-------- venezuela
Takeover of City Police Inflames Venezuela Conflict
November 16, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-venezuela.html
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - The government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Saturday sent troops and armored vehicles to seize control of the Caracas city police from the capital's anti-Chavez mayor, drawing furious condemnation from political opponents.
Earlier, gunfights broke out between rival police factions before National Guard troops backed by personnel carriers armed with machine guns deployed to take over police headquarters and other major stations around the city.
The takeover inflamed the long-running political feud between the leftist Chavez and foes opposed to his self-proclaimed ``revolution'' in the world's No. 5 oil exporter.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello ordered the autonomous, 8,000-member city police to report directly to Chavez's government instead of to Caracas Mayor Alfredo Pena, a die-hard foe of the populist president.
Around police headquarters in Caracas' northern Cotiza neighborhood, officers loyal to Pena and opposed to the government takeover exchanged fire with colleagues inside the building who supported the move. Heavy gunfire echoed in the streets around the headquarters.
No injuries were immediately reported.
As the National Guard troops, carried by trucks, deployed later at police stations, residents outside one station beat pots and pans to protest against their presence.
The government said the ``exceptional and temporary'' takeover was necessary to guarantee law and order in the capital and the smooth running of the city's police, which had been hit by a strike by some officers.
The move followed several violent battles this month between the Caracas police under Pena and militant supporters of Chavez opposed to the mayor. Two people were killed and several dozen injured by gunfire in those clashes.
'A COUP D'ETAT BY THE GOVERNMENT'
Opposition leaders condemned the takeover of the city police as an illegal ``coup'' against the autonomous authority of Pena, the Caracas metropolitan mayor. They said it could disrupt ongoing peace talks between the opposition and the government.
``I'm the victim of a coup d'etat by the government,'' Pena said, refusing to accept the takeover of his police force.
Chavez, who was democratically elected in 1998 and survived a short-lived coup by rebel armed forces officers in April, is resisting intense opposition pressure to hold an immediate referendum on his rule.
Opposition leaders appealed to Ibero-American presidents meeting on Saturday in the Dominican Republic to condemn the takeover of the Caracas police, which they called an ``attack against the rule of law.'' Chavez was attending the summit.
Adding to the confusion, the new city police chief initially named by the government to take over the force abruptly resigned and declared his continued loyalty to Pena.
The government promptly named another chief, Gonzalo Sanchez, who urged all members of the force to lay down their arms and accept the government takeover. ``Now is the time for us to return to peace and tranquillity,'' Sanchez said.
But confusion reigned within the ranks, and it was not clear whether all officers would accept the command change. The previous commander, Henry Vivas, said he still was in charge.
Interior Minister Cabello said National Guard troops and military police, who were deployed this week after the recent clashes between police and Chavez supporters, would continue patrolling the streets up to and during Christmas.
'A SNUB TO THE NEGOTIATION PROCESS'
Chavez's foes accused him of assuming autocratic powers.
``This situation is a snub to the negotiation process,'' the opposition Coordinadora Democratica coalition said in a statement. It vowed to step up protests against the president.
Opposition leaders accuse Chavez of ruining the economy and of trying to impose Cuban-style communism. He says his reforms, including land redistribution, are aimed at helping the poor.
The opposition called on Organization of American States Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria, who is brokering the government-opposition peace talks, to oppose the takeover.
``The government is talking peace at the table and pushing the conflict on the streets,'' opposition negotiator Timoteo Zambrano said. He said, however, that the opposition would stay at the peace talks, which were due to resume on Monday.
Opposition leaders accused the government of seeking to block its initiative to call an immediate referendum on Chavez's rule. The president, who has refused to quit, says the constitution does not allow such a poll until next August.
-------- propaganda wars
Disclosure Curbs in Homeland Bill Decried
Information From Companies at Issue
By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 16, 2002; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61385-2002Nov15?language=printer
Department of Homeland Security officials who disclose "critical infrastructure information" obtained from private companies could be fined, dismissed or imprisoned for up to a year under the landmark bill setting up the new agency.
The provisions could win final approval next week when the Senate votes on the bill to establish the department. They sparked a volley of criticism yesterday from civil liberties and environmental groups, as well as from some leading Democrats.
Under the measure, government officials would be barred from disclosing to the public broad categories of information "not customarily in the public domain," once a company has requested in writing that it be kept confidential. Unauthorized leaks could be punished by jail terms of up to one year.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said the disclosure rules represent "the most severe weakening of the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] in its 36-year history," adding they had been inserted in the bill "behind closed doors."
Some private groups said the language will create a loophole that could make government officials fearful of disclosing information about corporate activities that pose risks to the public.
But Republicans said the language, which was included in a version of the bill the House passed last summer, would merely safeguard sensitive information that private companies voluntarily provide to the government about pipelines, railroads, dams and buildings.
"It's in there to make companies and individuals feel comfortable about sharing information with the department to keep us safe," said Richard Diamond, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.). "It would be catastrophic if the information fell into the wrong hands."
The controversy over the language erupted as groups scrutinized the sprawling Homeland Security Department bill nearing passage in Congress. After last week's GOP election victories, Republicans drafted a new version of the measure, which was adopted by the House on Wednesday. It incorporates parts of the bill passed earlier by the House and adds some new provisions agreed to by the White House.
In the case of the FOIA rules, it largely ignores a bipartisan compromise worked out in the Senate this summer by Leahy, Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah).
Leahy's office said yesterday that, unlike the new version, the compromise had not included criminal penalties for unauthorized disclosures, and that it would have required the government to release portions of records even if other parts were privileged.
Sources said that Bennett argued for the inclusion of the compromise in the bill now before Congress, but that he was overruled by the White House.
Laura W. Murphy, director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said: "We have big objections to this."
A major concern, she said, is that companies could ensure secrecy for a wide range of information provided to the government simply by declaring that it involves critical infrastructure and then demanding confidentiality.
Murphy said she fears that companies would use the law to block public knowledge of activities that threaten public safety or health. The ACLU contended that the proposed law could prevent the disclosure of potential health risks from uranium stored at private sites or of defects in railroad tracks.
Murphy added that the law might discourage whistle-blowers from coming forward with revelations about corporate wrongdoing.
"It would put it up to the private sector what information was released, and a government bureaucrat who released information that could protect the public [from corporate misdeeds] would be subject to criminal penalties," Murphy said.
--------
Pentagon Schools Reporters for Possible Iraq War
November 16, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-usa-reporters.html
ABOARD THE USS IWO JIMA (Reuters) - The Pentagon launched a military-education program for U.S. and foreign reporters on Saturday aimed at giving greater media access to possible future battlefields in Iraq and elsewhere and training them how to survive chemical attacks.
Nearly 60 reporters, camera operators and photographers from three countries and more than 30 news organizations showed up for what military officials said was the most ambitious effort of its kind since at least the Vietnam War.
Three more week-long sessions are planned in the next months, including one to take place abroad, possibly at a U.S. military base in Germany. Military officials said they planned to offer more classes to help educate reporters, many of whom, unlike earlier generations, have no military experience.
The boot camp for journalists includes emergency-procedure training at sea, notably fire-fighting, damage control and surviving nuclear, chemical or biological attack.
At the Marine Corp's base at Quantico, Virginia, reporters will operate with Marines in ``live-fire'' situations and amid simulated biological and chemical attacks.
``The bottom line is that the more access we can facilitate, taking into consideration all the things we do -- operational security, safety -- the better off we all are,'' said Victoria Clarke, the Defense Department's chief spokeswoman.
The Pentagon hoped to raise the media's and the military's ``comfort level'' in dealing with each other, notably so that military commanders would welcome more combat coverage.
AT LOGGERHEADS
Reporters and the U.S. military have often been at war over access to the front lines of conflict.
During the 1991 U.S.-led war that drove Iraq from Kuwait, for instance, many news organizations complained that they could get access to nothing more than military briefings in hotel ballrooms in Saudi Arabia.
More recently, in Afghanistan, even reporters at Bagram Air Base and other launch pads said they often were kept in the dark about missions going on under their noses only to learn of them from satellite feeds of Pentagon news briefings. But many military people believe that independent reporting from Vietnam eroded public support for the war and led to a U.S. retreat.
Clarke said the Defense Department's view was that, the more the public can see of U.S. military forces in action, ``the more support we'll have over the long haul.''
``We think it's the right thing to do and we certainly think it's in our interest to do it,'' she said.
She referred to the boot camp-like training as part of ``contingency'' planning for any use of force by President Bush to make sure that President Saddam Hussein of Iraq retains no banned nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
Reporters who have covered U.S. military operations in the past welcomed the Pentagon's pledge to open up more slots for front-line coverage.
``I just hope this genuinely signals a new era of letting journalists go in on the ground during combat operations,'' said Eric Westervelt, a National Public Radio correspondent who covers the Pentagon and who reported from Afghanistan during U.S. operations there after Sept. 11, 2001.
``The point is to witness independently what's going on,'' said Carol Williams, a Los Angeles Times correspondent who has covered conflicts from Yugoslavia to the break-away Russian province of Chechnya. ``That's much better for the public than a sanitized version via the Pentagon.''
Among the reporters taking part for foreign-based news organizations were the Washington correspondents for Russia's Itar-Tass news agency and the United Arab Emirates' Abu Dhabi TV.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Doctors: Bill allows forced vaccinations
Physicians' group decries legislation establishing new Cabinet agency
November 16, 2002
By Jon Dougherty
WorldNetDaily.com
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29682
A physicians' group is among a growing number of critics imploring the Senate to scrap portions of a proposed homeland security bill they say will seriously undermine civil liberties and grant the federal government unprecedented - and unconstitutional - power.
The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons said yesterday that one section of the legislation would allow the head of the Health and Human Services department to order Americans to receive potentially deadly smallpox vaccines against their will.
The bill gives "the HHS secretary virtually unlimited powers to declare an emergency and order smallpox treatment that could include forced immunizations, detainment and quarantines," said AAPS.
The 480-page bill passed the House Wednesday night on a 299-121 vote and is currently on the fast track to Senate passage. But as more details of the bill become known, the number of critics who oppose all or part of it also increase, including members of both parties as well as liberal and conservative analysts.
New York Times columnist William Safire, in an editorial Thursday entitled, "You Are a Suspect," attacked the entire measure, claiming a provision in the bill that establishes a broad Defense Department-administered database of information on every American is akin to author George Orwell's book "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," Safire wrote.
Called the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness program, it would be administered by a totally new department called the Security Advanced Research Projects Agency.
AAPS said the dubious medical emergency language is contained in Section 304, titled, "Administration of Counter Measures Against Smallpox."
The bill gives HHS authority to declare an actual or potential bio-terrorist incident while giving the secretary the power to "administer 'countermeasures'" - like forced immunizations - to "a category of individuals or everyone." Also, the bill gives HHS the power to "continually extend" the emergency declaration indefinitely, without Congress' consent.
"Also, if you are harmed" by the countermeasures, "you cannot sue or take any other civil remedy," AAPS said.
"This section will give the [HHS] secretary unlimited power to define a real or potential threat, to take any measures he decides and to do it for as long as he wants," said Kathryn Serkes, a spokeswoman for the group. "It's 'Alice in Wonderland' time again - an emergency is just what [the secretary] says it is."
Some lawmakers are also alarmed at the scope of the bill.
The legislation "gives the federal government new powers and increases federal expenditures, completely contradicting what members were told about the bill," said Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, on the House floor before the vote Wednesday.
"Furthermore," he continued, "these new power grabs are being rushed through Congress without giving members the ability to debate, or even properly study, this proposal.
"I must oppose this bill and urge my colleagues to do the same," he said.
Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., also opposes the legislation.
"We're making a huge mistake passing the bill at this time," he said Thursday. "There has not been a single hearing" on its contents.
Expressing concern about the manner in which the bill was being fast-tracked, Byrd added: "If necessity is the mother of invention, then politics is the mother of bureaucracy."
Other problems with the bill, AAPS says, "include centralized database provisions, airport security, unchecked power to Cabinet officials, extent of the new bureaucracy, concentration of power in the Executive Branch, suspension of the rule that prohibits secret advisory committee meetings, limited public access to information and failure to address border security and immigration issues, such as [the] tracking of foreign students."
Serkes said the provision dealing with HHS reminds her of similar emergency legislation directed at empowering governors.
The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, WorldNetDaily reported in January, gives governors the power to order the collection of all data and records on citizens, ban firearms, take control of private property and quarantine entire cities, under the auspices of protecting "the health and safety of citizens from epidemics and bioterrorism," according to one analysis.
The version of the bill either under consideration or adopted by the majority of states thus far was drafted in October 2001, just a month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, by The Center for Law and the Public's Health at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities, in collaboration with several other organizations.
"Just remove 'governor' from the old bill and insert 'secretary' and magically you have a federal bill that was firmly rejected by voters across the country," said Serkes.
Of the homeland security measure, Serkes added: "We need an honest accounting of how this will work. It's too frightening to allow it to be rammed through."
In response to some of the concerns, Senate Democrats are proposing amendments to the bill that would eliminate the liability protections in the House version for vaccine makers. The White House says it supports the amendments to an extent.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday there are provisions in the bill that "still allow people the right to compensation or the right to sue if they believe they've been harmed by the use of a particular vaccine." But, he said, the provisions "only require that individuals seeking compensation begin by seeking resolution through the Vaccine Injury and Compensation Program."
"If an individual is not satisfied with the award that is offered through that system, then they always have the right to proceed and sue the manufacturer," he said. "But, in short, the vaccine manufacturers will still be subject to liability. We just want to close loopholes, where people can circumvent that process."
If you'd like to sound off on this issue, please take part in the WorldNetDaily poll.
Jon E. Dougherty is a staff reporter and columnist for WorldNetDaily, and author of the special report, "Election 2000: How the Military Vote Was Suppressed."
----
Who will protect the whistleblowers?
Michelle Malkin
November 16, 2002
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20021116-3490024.htm
While lawmakers in Washington pat themselves on the back for cooking up a massively expensive and mostly cosmetic Homeland Security Department bill, many of the real heroes of homeland security continue to suffer recriminations and retaliation.
Border Patrol agent Keith Olson, the arresting officer in Bellingham, Wash., who was responsible for obtaining the fingerprints of illegal alien sniper suspect John Lee Malvo last December, has been the subject of two internal investigations during the past three weeks. Instead of pinning a medal on his chest and giving Agent Olson a raise for taking the prints of Mr. Malvo that eventually led to his arrest in the D.C., area killing spree, federal officials are conducting a probe of his conduct.
Meanwhile, Border Patrol Agent Daryl Schermerhorn has been castigated by an INS higher-up for publicly criticizing the decision by federal immigration authorities to release Mr. Malvo and his illegal alien mother earlier this year pending deportation proceedings.
On Oct. 29, Mr. Schermerhorn, a Northwest regional union representative for Border Patrol agents in Washington state, explained to Fox News' Bill O'Reilly that the catch-and-release policy for illegal aliens is a result of the government's perilous penny-pinching:
Bill O'Reilly: "Why were they happy to keep Malvo and his mother in the country? Why?"
Mr. Schermerhorn: "What's the price of an airplane ticket from Seattle to Jamaica? That's why. The cost of housing them in jail until that time, that's why. They're trying to save a few dollars. It's nothing new for the INS to release criminals onto the streets and for them to commit murder. There's been hundreds murdered in the United States at the hands of illegal aliens.
"It won't change until people are willing to talk about it, and there's very few of us in the Border Patrol willing to talk about it. I represent the Border Patrol agents through the National Border Patrol Council. We're willing to talk about it."
Mr. Schermerhorn's candor has been met by caustic, insulting criticism from at least one INS official. On Oct. 30, Robin F. Baker, an assistant regional director in the INS Western Regional Office in Laguna Niguel, Calif., sent an e-mail to Mr. Schermerhorn, which was copied to nearly 50 other INS employees:
"Nobody, not even a person of your monumental intelligence, could have predicted what path the young Mr. Malvo would take. Your agenda, whatever it may be, is counterproductive to the thousands of [detention and removal] personnel who are doing their best in spite of the limitations placed upon them by Congress, uncooperative foreign consulates, [nongovernmental organizations], pro bono attorneys, special interest groups, ect. [sic] Have you ever detained a noncriminal mother and her 16-year-old child for a lengthy period of time? Have you had to face the wrath of the above-mentioned groups?"
Mr. Baker did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Ignore the hysterics. Of course, no one could have predicted that Mr. Malvo would go on a cross-country killing spree, as government prosecutors have alleged. But there were two people at INS who had a gut instinct that Mr. Malvo and his mother - two admitted illegal aliens with no documentation and no means of support - should be detained and deported immediately for the good of the country: Border Patrol officer Keith Olson and his fellow agent, Raymond Ruiz.
Agent Ruiz warned last December: "Subject Uma James is a native and citizen of Jamaica with no immigration documents allowing her to be or remain in the United States legally. She has no roots or close family ties in the United States and is likely to abscond."
If INS and immigration court officials had heeded the warnings of the arresting officers, instead of caving in to the "pro bono attorneys and special interest groups" that Mr. Baker whined about in his e-mail, Mr. Malvo would never have had the opportunity to pursue his "counterproductive" agenda. And his mother wouldn't be on the lam today.
That's right. Mrs. James (also known as Una James and Ana James), remains on the loose - in violation of the $1,500 bond posted on her behalf by the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project of Seattle. Neither the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project nor INS investigators have been able to track her down. Last week, Virginia Commonwealth Attorney Robert Horan said FBI agents have now joined the hunt for her in Washington state.
Will a $37 billion Homeland Security Department prevent another Malvogate? So long as federal immigration authorities remain more committed to stifling whistleblowers instead of protecting them: Fat chance.
Michelle Malkin is a nationally syndicated columnist and the author of "Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores" (Regnery).
----
Officials at FBI probed, rewarded
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 16, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021116-28573828.htm
Senior FBI executives received cash bonuses and promotions while under investigation for suspected misconduct during an internal bureau review of the August 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, that claimed three lives.
The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General yesterday said in a report the bonuses and promotions went to former FBI Deputy Director Larry A. Potts, later demoted and suspended for improper oversight of the deadly siege; and E. Michael Kahoe, a senior FBI executive sentenced to prison for destroying a critical Ruby Ridge document.
Other cash awards and promotions, the report said, went to Danny O. Coulson, former deputy assistant director who worked for Mr. Potts; and three senior FBI executives, Charles Mathews, Robert E. Walsh and Van A. Harp, accused of not conducting proper after-the-fact investigations to determine what happened at Ruby Ridge.
"While a presumption of innocence is usually appropriate while a subject is under investigation, rewarding a subject who is later found to have committed misconduct can result in adverse consequences," the report said. "The FBI should be mindful of the message it sends to both the investigators in a particular case and the rest of the FBI when subjects of an investigation are promoted or receive bonuses or awards while under investigation.
"This is especially true where high-level officials are under investigation, because investigators may interpret the giving of an award as an indication that senior management has already judged the merits of the investigation," it said.
The inspector general's report is the result of an investigation to determine whether the FBI's system of discipline is unfair because senior bureau executives are treated more leniently than rank-and-file agents. Investigators used the Ruby Ridge incident as an example.
The report concluded there was insufficient evidence to prove a double-standard of discipline, in part, because of the low number of cases involving senior executives, but that the FBI "suffered and still suffers from a strong, and not unreasonable, perception among employees that a double standard exists."
In the Ruby Ridge case, Vicki Weaver was killed Aug. 22, 1992, by FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi. He was acting on shoot-on-sight orders, although it has never been determined who authorized a change in the bureau's rules of engagement that allowed the shooting. Her son, Samuel, 14, and Deputy U.S. Marshal William F. Degan, died in a separate shootout a day earlier.
Mrs. Weaver's husband, Randy, had been sought on weapons violations. He and a family friend, Kevin Harris, also were wounded. They were charged in Mr. Degan's death, but acquitted by an Idaho jury.
Mr. Potts and Mr. Coulson, who directed the siege from Washington, denied ordering changes in the bureau's deadly-force policy. But Eugene F. Glenn, who headed the Salt Lake City office and was the on-site commander at Ruby Ridge, and Richard Rogers, head of the FBI's hostage-rescue team, have disputed the claims of Mr. Potts and Mr. Coulson.
Among the FBI executives named in the report, only Mr. Kahoe was found guilty of any wrongdoing. Several were recommended for suspension or demotion, but only letters of censure were ever issued.
The inspector general's report said Mr. Potts was named acting deputy director in 1994, prior to the completion of an internal FBI investigation into government conduct during the Ruby Ridge siege. The report said despite Mr. Potts' receipt in January 1995 of a letter of censure in the Ruby Ridge matter, he was named deputy director in May 1995.
According to the report, Mr. Coulson was promoted to agent-in-charge in Baltimore in April 1993 while still a focus of the FBI's internal Ruby Ridge investigation. It said he was given a cash award of $5,590 in November 1993, although the investigation remained active.
Mr. Coulson was named to lead the FBI's Dallas office in September 1994, the report said, before recommendations regarding discipline in Ruby Ridge had been completed. He later received a letter of censure for his role in the standoff.
Mr. Walsh received a cash award of 5 percent of his salary while under investigation by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) in the Ruby Ridge matter, the report said. It said he was named agent-in-charge of the FBI's San Francisco field office in December 1996 while he was the focus of a separate criminal probe of Ruby Ridge by U.S. Attorney Michael Stiles in Philadelphia.
According to the report, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh asked the OPR and Mr. Stiles about the promotion, and the OPR did not object, Mr. Stiles declined comment. The report said a memo to Attorney General Janet Reno requesting approval for Mr. Walsh's move to San Francisco did not mention the investigation.
Mr. Harp, now head of the Washington field office, was named agent-in-charge in Cleveland after OPR began an investigation into the inadequacy of his after-the-fact Ruby Ridge probe, the report said. It said a memo to Mr. Freeh presenting Mr. Harp's qualifications did not mention the ongoing probe, although the inspector general's report said Mr. Freeh was aware of the investigation and its scope.
In addition, the report said, Mr. Harp was given a cash bonus of $8,099 in November 1997 while under investigation in the Ruby Ridge matter and a $14,208 bonus in October 1998 while that inquiry continued and a separate probe began into his role in the receipt of travel reimbursements by FBI senior executives to attend a 1997 retirement party for Mr. Potts.
Mr. Walsh and Mr. Harp had been assigned to investigate accusations of misconduct by the government in the Ruby Ridge matter. The OPR later said they did not take sufficiently aggressive steps in the probe and avoided uncovering the full truth to protect Mr. Potts and Mr. Coulson.
The report said Mr. Mathews was promoted to the FBI's Senior Executive Service (SES) in July 1995 after the OPR had begun its investigation into accusations that a separate internal Ruby Ridge inquiry he headed was inadequate. It said Mr. Mathews, who served as a top assistant to Mr. Coulson in Portland, Ore., from 1988 to 1990, was promoted to agent-in-charge in New Orleans in June 1997 while the OPR investigation continued.
Mr. Mathews was assigned to find out what, if any, disciplinary action should be taken against FBI personnel involved in the Ruby Ridge incident. His report recommended discipline for several agents at the scene, but did not contain any recommendations for discipline for Mr. Potts or Mr. Coulson.
The inspector general's report said Mr. Kahoe got a cash award of $7,126 in November 1993 during the initial Ruby Ridge investigation and was named agent-in-charge in Jacksonville, Fla., in June 1994 while still under investigation. He pleaded guilty in October 1996 to obstruction of justice and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Mr. Kahoe destroyed a November 1992 after-action report that referred to "problems" in the FBI's conduct during the Weaver siege. The document had been sought by federal prosecutors in Idaho, but was never made available.
--------
SECURITY
Terror Alert Brings New Steps to Prevent Attacks, U.S. Says
November 16, 2002
New York Times
By ELISABETH BUMILLER with JODI WILGOREN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/16/politics/16TERR.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 - White House officials said today that they were taking extra precautions to protect the nation's most critical facilities from terrorist assaults after an F.B.I. warning that Al Qaeda may be planning "spectacular attacks" with mass casualties in the United States.
"A lot is being done to bring additional protective measures, particularly to critical infrastructure," said Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, in a briefing to reporters. White House officials said that by "critical infrastructure," Ms. Rice meant nuclear plants, chemical plants, oil refineries, airports, railroads and bridges, among other things.
At the same time, American intelligence officials said today that a senior Qaeda operative had been captured and taken into American custody in recent days. Officials declined to identify him or where he was captured, but they did say he was one of the top dozen Qaeda operatives, and so was considered a significant catch.
He was not, they said, one of the most widely recognized Qaeda leaders - Osama bin Laden or his senior deputies, Ayman al-Zawahiri or Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Senate Democrats have criticized the administration, charging this week that the president's focus on preparations for war with Iraq are distracting him from what they call the failure of his campaign against terrorism. Democrats were reacting to the release this week of an audiotape apparently made by Osama bin Laden.
Today Ms. Rice responded sharply to that criticism. "Let me start by saying that the president begins his day at 8 a.m. in the morning with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, joined shortly after that by my colleague Tom Ridge, and the F.B.I. director, and his counterterrorism person to review the terrorism threats against the United States," Ms. Rice said. "He does not begin his day on Iraq."
Ms. Rice added that while the president considered Iraq part of the war against terrorism, "the part of the war on terrorism that is going after Al Qaeda" and "trying to protect the country is fought aggressively every day, every hour, by this administration."
Ms. Rice also said the F.B.I. alert that went out to state and local law enforcement agencies on Thursday night was "a summary of intelligence, not a new warning." The alert said in part that 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."
Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House Office of Homeland Security, said that in recent weeks, since other F.B.I. terrorist warnings on Oct. 9 and 23, the administration had been in touch with state and local governments as well as private companies to make suggestions on adding security at power plants and transportation centers.
Despite the recommendations, however, homeland security chiefs from several states said they had done little more this week than pass the warning on to local law enforcement agencies. They said that the latest alert, though frightening, lacked specificity, leaving state officials with little direction as to how to respond.
"It's too vague," said Lt. Col. Craig Beardsley, who is responsible for homeland security in Kansas. "It gets to that point where you can only do so much. I think, frankly, most states are doing what they can."
Lt. Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska said budget realities prevented a direct response to such broad warnings. "We can't afford not to take it seriously," he said, "but on the other hand, that doesn't mean we run out and put 50 additional law enforcement personnel on the street either."
Mr. Heineman said his priority was to disseminate the information widely to the people who patrol the state's two nuclear power plants and its other infrastructure, to every local police and fire department, and to private venues where crowds gather.
In Iowa, Ellen Gordon, the homeland security adviser, said the "spectacular" warning was just one of several received in the past few weeks. "It's worded a little bit differently," she said, "but if you read the content, it's similar to the other messages."
"We're doing the same things we've been doing," she added.
Mitchell Singer, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Washington-based group that represents the owners of the nation's 103 nuclear reactors, said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had not advised the group of an increased threat level.
"If you're asking me, `Has there been any talk about this around here?' No, there has not been," Mr. Singer said. "If it was considered to be a viable threat, what they call a credible threat, then from the state of readiness the plants are on now, it would go even into the next level."
Patti Grisanti, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Public Safety, spent most of today doing interviews for local television and radio programs to remind the public to be on heightened alert.
"Basically we're reminding people, every time we hear from the F.B.I. and that radar screen comes up again, not to get complacent," she said. "We need to carry out our daily lives as normal, but the public are the eyes and ears, and if they see anything unusual they should call local law enforcement agencies."
Ms. Grisanti said that there had been no changes to security at the state level in response to the warning. "Because we have no credible threat to Colorado and the alert level was not moved from yellow to orange, there have been no specific changes," she said.
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Homeland Secrecy Measures Worry Some
November 16, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Homeland-Security-Secrecy.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Writers of the homeland security bill, in their quest to shield secrets from terrorists, may end up keeping information from the public that it needs to know, media and watchdog groups say.
At issue is whether the legislation to create the massive federal agency will erect prohibitive barriers to openness by making it easier to deny requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Senate is expected to pass the bill, already approved by the House, this week. On Monday, senators will vote on an amendment that would strip the bill of language exempting advisory committees from public disclosure rules.
``This unnecessary blanket authority,'' said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., a vociferous opponent of the legislation, ``will give the president carte blanche to expand the culture of secrecy that now permeates this administration.''
Bush administration officials and the business community argue that the very nature of the new Cabinet-level department puts a premium on discretion and that the private sector needs assurances of confidentiality if it is to cooperate with the government in addressing terrorist threats.
``The department will have that as an arrow in its quiver when it goes to businesses,'' said Laurence W. Brown, director of legal affairs at the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities. ``There will be no excuses now for keeping things secret'' from the government.
Disclosing information supplied by the private sector, White House Office of Homeland Security director Tom Ridge told senators last summer, ``could draw a roadmap of critical infrastructure vulnerabilities for those who would do us harm.''
Last June, Sens. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., worked out a compromise on the freedom of information issue. It addressed the security needs of the department but won guarded approval from those who seek information on government activities.
Their deal codified current law on freedom of information exemptions for security matters and ``we were willing to live with that,'' said Tim Edgar of the American Civil Liberties Union.
``We all understand the need for security on some things,'' said Bill Felber, executive editor of the Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan., and FOI chairman of Associated Press Managing Editors.
But the White House-approved, House-passed version of the bill the Senate is now considering has broader FOI exemptions that some feel tip the balance against the public interest.
Kevin Goldberg, legal adviser for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, said that, for example, a nuclear plant and the agency could withhold information about a security danger. ``If there's a problem so pervasive and so dangerous that a private company needs to discuss it with the government, it's probably important enough for the public to know,'' he said.
Unlike the Senate compromise that exempted from FOI requests records furnished voluntarily to the department, the House version protects any critical infrastructure information from disclosure. The House version also states that a federal employee who releases information that is supposed to be kept secret faces up to a year in prison, and says nothing about redaction so people can receive some portion of records.
``With the draconian penalty provisions the chances of having appropriate, productive conversations with people on this topic are virtually out the window,'' said Ed Jones, editor of the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., and president of Associated Press Managing Editors.
The House language, said the ACLU's Edgar, ``is a disaster for the public's right to know'' about issues that could directly affect lives, ranging from defects in railroad tracks to problems in blood supplies. The broadened language, said the APME's Felber, ``is not necessarily a good thing for public knowledge.''
Sen. Bennett said that while the House language differed from the compromise he helped develop, ``it will not give companies cover to break the law or conceal bad acts. ... It will increase the flow of information about our nation's vulnerabilities, imperative in this environment.''
The second information issue is over a provision that exempts ad hoc policy-making committees within the department from the 30-year-old Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires advice provided by these committees to be accessible to the public.
The law already allows the president to waive these disclosure rules for national security reasons, and Sen. Byrd and others say the secrecy clause has been extended mainly to shield private companies seeking to influence government policy from public scrutiny.
On the Net:
American Society of Newspaper Editors: http://www.asne.org
Associated Press Managing Editors: http:www.apme.com
American Civil Liberties Union: http://www.aclu.org
-------- spies
Bush Aides Consider Domestic Spy Agency
Concerns on FBI's Performance Spur Debate of Options
By Dana Priest and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 16, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61549-2002Nov15?language=printer
President Bush's top national security advisers have begun discussing the creation of a new, domestic intelligence agency that would take over responsibility for counterterrorism spying and analysis from the FBI, according to U.S. government officials and intelligence experts.
The high-level debate reflects a widespread concern that the FBI has been unable to transform itself from a law enforcement agency into an intelligence-gathering unit able to detect and thwart terrorist plans in the United States. The FBI has admitted it has not yet completed the cultural sea change necessary to turn its agents into spies, but the creation of a new agency is firmly opposed by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, who has said he believes the bureau can do the job.
On Veterans Day, top national security officials gathered for two hours to discuss the issue in a meeting chaired by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, CIA Director George J. Tenet, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, Mueller and six others attended.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge was recently dispatched to London for a briefing on the fabled MI5, an agency empowered to collect and analyze intelligence within Britain, leaving law enforcement to the police. Similarly, if another agency were created in the United States, it would not replace the FBI but would have the primary role in gathering and analyzing intelligence about Americans and foreign nationals in the United States.
Revelations of the debate come amid heightened apprehension within the U.S. intelligence community over the possibility of large-scale terrorist strikes against the United States or Europe.
The FBI warned law enforcement agencies Thursday night that Osama bin Laden's terror network may be plotting "spectacular" attacks inside the United States. Some intelligence officials described the threats as even more ominous than those picked up in the weeks prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But the administration, citing a lack of specific information about the time or place of any attack, did not increase the national threat alert indicator from yellow or "elevated" -- a status that means there is a "significant" risk of terror attacks.
The FBI warning said "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," adding that the highest priority targets were historic landmarks, the nuclear sector, aviation and petroleum.
The alert came after the release of a new audiotape believed to be made by bin Laden threatening the United States and its allies.
At a news conference, Rice responded to criticism from some Senate Democrats that the war on terror was flagging and from foreign officials that the war on Iraq would distract the administration from its unfinished battle with al Qaeda.
Rice said that President Bush "does not begin his day on Iraq; he begins his day on the war on terrorism."
"This is the central focus of this administration," she added.
U.S. officials also revealed yesterday that they had recently captured a high-level al Qaeda member. They declined to identify him but said he is among the top dozen al Qaeda fugitives sought by the United States. It was not clear yesterday where the al Qaeda leader was being held.
A Bush administration spokesman, who asked not to be named, said no conclusions were reached about a domestic intelligence agency during the Veterans Day meeting. He said an MI5-style agency was just one option considered. The official, and other sources knowledgeable about the issue, said the White House first wants to launch a new Department of Homeland Security, which would include an intelligence analysis division.
Any major change such as this would come later, government sources said. More meetings on the subject are planned.
Some members of Congress have said they favor creating a domestic security agency and it is likely legislative proposals will be offered during the next Congress. "We're either going to create a working, effective, substantial domestic intelligence unit in the FBI or create a new agency," said Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. "The results are dismal to this point."
He said creating a whole new agency "would be a big-ticket item from everyone's standpoint. We have to think this out carefully."
During the Veterans Day meeting, Mueller offered the same arguments about the FBI's structure that he has made in testimony on Capitol Hill, sources said. He has said the FBI is uniquely positioned to act as the United States' primary domestic intelligence agency, and that reforms implemented since the Sept. 11 attacks have made counterterrorism the bureau's primary goal.
But others in the meeting were not as convinced, citing the FBI's progress to date and the inherent difficulties of retraining FBI agents who are accustomed to restrictions on domestic spying and prohibitions against gathering information on people who are not suspected of committing crimes.
The bureau worked hard to snuff out similar proposals earlier this year when the Homeland Security Department was first proposed.
But some former law enforcement officials such as George Terwilliger, a top official in President George H.W. Bush's Justice Department, advocate creating a domestic intelligence agency that would combine FBI counterterror efforts with CIA and military operations. Keeping foreign and domestic terrorism intelligence operations separate is an "outdated notion," he said. "Somebody needs to have ownership of the problem on a government-wide basis."
A number of outside intelligence experts and blue-ribbon panels recently have recommended radical overhauls of the United States' domestic intelligence structure.
In a preliminary report released this week, an advisory commission headed by former Virginia governor James S. Gilmore endorsed a new counterterrorism center made up of analysts now working for the CIA, FBI and other agencies. The center "would be responsible for the fusion of intelligence, from all sources, foreign and domestic, on potential attacks inside the United States," the commission said.
Mueller met with Gilmore prior to the report's release to try to persuade him not to recommend a separate intelligence agency, sources said.
In October, a separate bipartisan panel of high-technology experts and former intelligence officials recommended that the proposed Homeland Security Department take over collection and analysis of intelligence from the FBI. The Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age found that "the FBI has no effective process for providing intelligence on terrorism to policymakers or others outside the law enforcement community."
The proposed Homeland Security Department, which was approved by the House this week and is awaiting Senate approval, would include a new analysis division that would receive and analyze terrorism-related reports from the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies. But the new department would not collect intelligence data on its own and would not have access to original information except in special circumstances, administration officials have said.
I.C. Smith, a former FBI counterintelligence official, said there is no need to create a new intelligence gathering agency outside the FBI, or to turn over more duties to Homeland Security. Smith and many other current and former FBI officials argue that the bureau was renowned for its intelligence-gathering capabilities during the Cold War, though abuses led to restrictions on the bureau's powers.
"The FBI worked counterintelligence for decades and did it very, very well overall," Smith said. "It was able to bridge that gap between criminal investigations and intelligence operations. . . . The problem is not the structure; it's a failure of management to implement the resources they have."
Staff writer Susan Schmidt contributed to this report.
------
White House Seeks Spy Improvements
November 16, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Domestic-Intelligence.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House is actively focused on ways to improve domestic intelligence gathering as a weapon in the war against terrorism but is not now considering setting up a new domestic spy agency to do that job, senior administration officials said on Saturday.
The officials confirmed that high-level discussions are taking place about how domestic intelligence gathering can be improved with the impending creation of a Department of Homeland Security. But they said efforts also continue to restructure the domestic intelligence capabilities of the FBI.
``The administration is focused on setting up the intelligence analysis and infrastructure protection division of the Department of Homeland Security as well as focused on restructuring the FBI,'' said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the Office of Homeland Security.
``Our immediate priorities are getting this new department up and running, and continuing with the refocusing of the FBI towards countering terrorism which Director (Robert) Mueller initiated this summer'' Johndroe said.
The New York Times reported, meanwhile, that the Bush administration has begun monitoring activities of Iraqis inside the United States in an effort to identify possible terrorist threats posed by sympathizers to the Baghdad regime.
The Times, quoting senior government officials, said the intelligence program is previously undisclosed and involves tracking thousands of Iraqi citizens and Iraqi-Americans with dual citizenship who attend American universities or work at private U.S. companies.
The effort is to identify those who might pose a risk if there is a United States-led war against Iraq. Some of the targets of the operation are being electronically monitored under the authority of national security warrants and efforts are underway to recruit others as informants, the newspaper said.
If American forces invade Iraq, the effort would be intensified through detentions and arrests of Iraqis or Iraqi sympathizers believed to be planning domestic terrorist operations, the Times quoted the officials as saying.
At the White House, Johndroe declined to confirm the report, saying the White House does not comment on intelligence matters.
But a senior administration official said anonymously: ``The American people should rest assured that their government is taking all appropriate steps in order to protect them.''
The White House officials said meetings to improve domestic intelligence gathering will continue.
``For the first time in a number of years the intelligence community will soon have a new agency, the Department of Homeland Security, so it is appropriate to focus on how that department will interact with efforts to pursue the war on terrorism,'' said one official who asked to remain anonymous.
But, the official emphasized, ``there are no plans at this time to move toward a new domestic intelligence agency.''
``We are focusing on the FBI and their role in counterterrorism and how all this fits into the intelligence community,'' the official said.
Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., proposed in October that a new domestic intelligence agency be established to replace FBI units criticized for intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
``The law enforcement impulses of the FBI consistently trump intelligence needs,'' Edwards said. ``Instead of attempting to turn the FBI into something it isn't, we should establish a new agency that is focused on gathering intelligence about terrorist threats here at home.''
He said he is proposing an agency similar to those at work in Great Britain and Canada. He said it should be structured to protect civil liberties and predicted it would prove more effective than the FBI in tracking terrorists inside the United States.
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[John Poindexter, of Iran-Contra infamy, has been chosen to head this. So where's Ollie North? et]
Information Awareness Office
http://www.darpa.mil/iao/ http://www.darpa.mil/iao/images/solicitations_line.gif
IAO Mission: The DARPA Information Awareness Office (IAO) will imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components and prototype, closed-loop, information systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness useful for preemption; national security warning; and national security decision making.
IAO Vision: The most serious asymmetric threat facing the United States is terrorism, a threat characterized by collections of people loosely organized in shadowy networks that are difficult to identify and define. IAO plans to develop technology that will allow understanding of the intent of these networks, their plans, and potentially define opportunities for disrupting or eliminating the threats. To effectively and efficiently carry this out, we must promote sharing, collaborating and reasoning to convert nebulous data to knowledge and actionable options. IAO will accomplish this by pursuing the development of technologies, components, and applications to produce a proto-type system. Example technologies include:
- Collaboration and sharing over TCP/IP networks across agency boundaries
- Large, distributed repositories with dynamic schemas that can be changed interactively by users
- Foreign language machine translation and speech recognition
- Biometric signatures of humans
- Real time learning, pattern matching and anomalous pattern detection
- Entity extraction from natural language text
- Human network analysis and behavior model building engines
- Event prediction and capability development model building engines
- Structured argumentation and evidential reasoning
- Story telling, change detection, and truth maintenance
- Business rules sub-systems for access control and process management
- Biologically inspired algorithms for agent control
- Other aids for human cognition and human reasoning
It is difficult to counter the threat that terrorists pose. Currently, terrorists are able to move freely throughout the world, to hide when necessary, to find unpunished sponsorship and support, to operate in small, independent cells, and to strike infrequently, exploiting weapons of mass effects and media response to influence governments. This low-intensity/low-density form of warfare has an information signature, albeit not one that our intelligence infrastructure and other government agencies are optimized to detect. In all cases, terrorists have left detectable clues that are generally found after an attack. Even if we could find these clues faster and more easily, our counter-terrorism defenses are spread throughout many different agencies and organizations at the national, state, and local level. To fight terrorism, we need to create a new intelligence infrastructure to allow these agencies to share information and collaborate effectively, and new information technology aimed at exposing terrorists and their activities and support systems. This is a tremendously difficult problem, because terrorists understand how vulnerable they are and seek to hide their specific plans and capabilities. The key to fighting terrorism is information. Elements of the solution include gathering a much broader array of data than we do currently, discovering information from elements of the data, creating models of hypotheses, and analyzing these models in a collaborative environment to determine the most probable current or future scenario. DARPA has sponsored research in some of these technology areas, but additional research and development is warranted to accelerate, integrate, broaden, and automate current approaches.
--
IAO Front Office Personnel
http://www.darpa.mil/iao/personnel.htm
Director Dr. John Poindexter
Deputy Director Dr. Robert Popp
Assistant Director, PM Ms. Kristen Numrych Program Managers
Mr. Thomas Armour Genoa II
LTC James Bass, PHD Babylon, Communicator
Lt Col Douglas Dyer, PHD Genisys, Genoa
Dr. Mike Foster FutureMap
Dr. Jonathon Phillips HumanID
Mr. Ted Senator Bio-Surveillance, EELD
Mr. Charles Wayne TIDES, EARS
Mr. Larry Willis WAE
--
IAO Programs
http://www.darpa.mil/iao/programs.htm
- Total Information Awareness (TIA) System
- Babylon
- Bio-Surveillance
- Communicator
- Effective, Affordable, Reusable Speech-to-Text (EARS)
- Evidence Extraction and Link Discovery (EELD)
- FutureMap
- Genisys
- Genoa
- Genoa II
- Human ID at a Distance (HumanID)
- Translingual Information Detection, Extraction and Summarization (TIDES)
- Wargaming the Asymmetric Environment (WAE)
--
Bio- Surveillance Program Manager: Mr. Ted Senator
Chart illustrating how the use of non-traditional data sources will enable early detection of a bio-terrorist event
http://www.darpa.mil/iao/BSS.htm
Program Objective:
The goal of the Bio-Surveillance program is to develop the necessary information technologies and resulting prototype capable of detecting the covert release of a biological pathogen automatically, and significantly earlier than traditional approaches. The key to mitigating a biological attack is early detection. Given the availability of appropriate medications, as many as half the expected casualties could be prevented if an attack is detected only a few days earlier than it would have otherwise been identified. For contagious biological agents, early detection is also clearly paramount. The Bio-Surveillance program will dramatically increase DoD's ability to detect a clandestine biological warfare attack in time to respond effectively and so avoid potentially thousands of casualties.
Program Strategy:
The Bio-Surveillance program is seeking to achieve its objective by monitoring non-traditional data sources such as animal sentinels, behavioral indicators, and pre-diagnostic medical data. Technical challenges include correlating/integrating information derived from heterogeneous data sources, development of autonomous signal detection algorithms, refinement of disease models for autonomous detection, and ensuring privacy protection while correlating widely differing data and sources.
Planned Accomplishments:
FY02/ FY03: The Bio-Surveillance program will leverage existing disease models, identify abnormal health early indicators, and mine existing databases to determine the most valuable early indicators for abnormal health conditions.
FY02/ FY03: The program will also develop techniques to determine the best way to differentiate "normal" outbreaks of disease from deliberate bio-terrorist releases.
FY02/ FY03: Enhanced automated privacy protection methods will be developed to assure the anonymity of records accessed by the data monitoring software.
FY02/ FY03: A prototype bio-surveillance system with appropriate military and commercial data will be constructed for a citywide area of military interest and demonstrated in a series of field experiments by injecting simulated biological event data into the real-time data streams of the testbed system.
--
Evidence Extraction and Link Discovery (EELD)
Program Manager: Mr. Ted Senator
EELD will extract evidence from unstructured text data and discover relationships and learn patterns of activity
http://www.darpa.mil/iao/EELD.htm
Program Objective:
The goal of the Evidence Extraction and Link Discovery (EELD) program is development of technologies and tools for automated discovery, extraction and linking of sparse evidence contained in large amounts of classified and unclassified data sources. EELD is developing detection capabilities to extract relevant data and relationships about people, organizations, and activities from message traffic and open source data. It will link items relating potential terrorist groups or scenarios, and learn patterns of different groups or scenarios to identify new organizations or emerging threats.
Program Strategy:
EELD's initial activities demonstrated the feasibility of extracting relationships from text, and validated the detectability of patterns representing terrorist groups and scenarios. EELD has also developed two promising techniques for learning patterns of activity, developed functional system concepts to guide technology developments, selected techniques to develop for evidence extraction, link discovery and pattern learning, identified scenarios to validate the detectability of patterns in unclassified and classified data, and initiated the collection and characterization of documents for technology evaluations.
Planned Accomplishments:
FY 02: EELD will develop and demonstrate technology to extract relationships, and detect and learn single-link type patterns.
FY 03: EELD will: 1) extend its capabilities to the extraction of data from multiple sources (e.g., text messages and web pages), with an ability to adapt rapidly to new threat domains; 2) develop the ability to detect instances of patterns comprising multiple link types (e.g., financial transactions, communications, travel, etc.); and, 3) will develop the ability to learn patterns comprised of multiple types of entities (e.g., persons, organizations, etc.) and multiple link types.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Kyrgyz Police Stop Mass Protest, Govt. Sees Trouble
November 16, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-kyrgyzstan.html
BISHKEK (Reuters) - Police in Kyrgyzstan detained around 100 opposition protesters demanding the resignation of the president on Saturday, as the authorities warned the country could be heading for civil war.
The impoverished, largely agrarian nation of five million has been highly volatile since March 17 when five opposition protesters were killed and dozens wounded in fierce clashes with police in the country's rebellious south.
On Saturday, tussles broke out as police tried to stop a column of over 100 opposition supporters marching to a central avenue from a bustling market place in the capital, Bishkek, to stage a ``kurultai,'' or popular congress, there.
Police, who were unarmed, finally managed to drag nearly all the protesters into buses and drove them away. The city of 800,000 appeared calm later, but reinforced police units patrolled main streets and government buildings.
Officials were prompt to condemn the opposition action.
``The actions of political schemers, several parliamentary deputies and a bunch of intriguers, are aimed at destabilizing the situation...and seizing power by unconstitutional means,'' Prime Minister Nikolai Tanayev told a news conference.
Hundreds of protesters arrived from the south earlier in the week for the unauthorized kurultai, hoping thousands of Bishkek residents would support their call for President Askar Akayev's resignation and punishment of those guilty of the March deaths.
UNCOMPROMISING OPPOSITION
The authorities have branded the kurultai ``a mob'' and ``motley gathering'' staged by ``political extremists'' .
But opposition figure Azimbek Beknazarov, whose arrest sparked the clashes with police in March, told reporters on Saturday the opposition would press ahead with its banned congress despite the restrictions and security precautions taken by the authorities.
``We will meet either in (the southern regional center) Osh, or beyond the country's borders, or secretly in Kyrgyzstan,'' he said.
The government resigned in May after Akayev acknowledged top officials were to blame for the March civilian deaths. The opposition then spurned an invitation to join a coalition cabinet.
They also scorned an amnesty law designed to placate the opposition by absolving both sides involved in the March clashes.
Finally, opposition leaders ignored a broad constitutional assembly convened by Akayev in another attempt to restore calm by promising to delegate some of his vast powers to parliament.
``What is going on now is mere political blackmail,'' First Deputy Prime Minister Kurmanbek Osmonov said of the opposition tactics on Saturday. ``Their actions look like mutiny.''
Despite the tough stand-off, veteran leader Akayev, an urbane 58-year-old physicist, still enjoys strong support in his native north and from the sizeable Russian speaking minority.
--------
Thousands Expected For Ga. Protest
November 16, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Military-School-Protest.html
COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) -- Thousands of people attended workshops and religious ceremonies Saturday in preparation for a demonstration against a military school they say abuses human rights in Latin America.
The demonstration set for Sunday will be the 13th annual protest outside Fort Benning by the School of the Americas Watch.
The protests were started because of the Nov. 16, 1989, killings in El Salvador of six Jesuit priests. Some involved in the killings had attended the Army's former School of the Americas, which moved to Fort Benning from Panama in 1984.
As many as 7,000 protesters took part last year, including 31 who entered the post illegally, carrying crosses and mock coffins to honor the victims of Latin American violence. Twenty-eight pleaded guilty or were found guilty of trespassing and some of those are still serving six-month sentences.
The Army's School of the Americas was replaced last year by a new institution operated by the Department of Defense and supervised by an independent 13-member board that includes lawmakers, scholars, diplomats and religious leaders.
Officials say the new school, known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, still trains Latin American soldiers, but also focuses on civilian and diplomatic affairs. Human rights courses are mandatory.
Protest leaders say the change was only cosmetic, and they have promised to continue the demonstrations.
On the Net:
Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation: http://www.benning.army.mil/whinsec/
School of the Americas Watch: http://www.SOAW.org
--------
Fifty Women Pose Nude to Protest War
November 16, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nudes-for-Peace.html
POINT REYES STATION, Calif. (AP) -- Some women are baring it all to protest the possibility of war in Iraq.
Fifty women in California took off all their clothes earlier this week and spelled out the word ``peace'' on a baseball field just north of San Francisco.
Seventy-two-year-old artist Donna Sheehan said she organized the protest to convey the desperation that she and other women feel about going to war.
She called her friends, and they called their friends -- and soon they were ready to pose for a local photographer.
The women aren't exactly sure what to do with the picture.
They've all signed documents allowing their images to be sold, with proceeds going to the peace movement.
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------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!
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