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NUCLEAR
Indian officials say blast at nuclear plant minor
Chinese missile has twice the range U.S. anticipated
Iraqi Nukes Unlikely, Says Top U.N. Nuclear Inspector
Blix: Iraq inspection talks 'fruitful'
Iraqi Vows Some Limits on U.N. Probe
Iraq must back up weapons assertions
Inspectors Urge Iraq to Document Arms Claims
Japan's TEPCO half-year net profit falls 12 pct
PIKETON PLANT Records falsified, suit claims
Safety Lapse at Ohio Reactor Is Cited as Potential Peril for Others
Senate votes for Homeland Security Dept.
Terrorism attacks have no effect on student exchange
U.S. Prepares for Security Overhaul
MILITARY
E. Europe Armaments Find Way To Iraq
U.S. Asks Britain for Troops
Welcome mats out for agency headquarters
Bush Says U.S. Ready to Disarm Iraq, but Calls War Last Resort
Western Planes Strike Targets in Southern Iraq
Labor Party in Israel Selects Dove as Leader
Peace Talks Supporter Wins Israeli Labor Vote
Israeli Tanks Enter 3 Gaza Villages
NATO to expand with new focus on terror defense
NATO's growth spurt
Bush calls for war coalition
Bush urges NATO stand against Iraq
Key Issues at NATO Summit
Veterans Lose Health Care Suit Against Pentagon
Omen points to changes at Pentagon
G.I.'s Train on Iraq's Border
Saddam pounces on son's newspaper
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Surgeon freed after 'dirty bomb' arrest
They spy
Bipartisan duo hits FBI's discipline policies
Pentagon Defends Anti - Terror Project
Photo radar snaps up $20 million for D.C.
Conspiracy of silence?
Expanded wiretaps, searches will target terrorism suspects
ENERGY AND OTHER
Toyota to start leasing fuel-cell cars next month
Across Pacific Northwest, Downward Trend for Dams
Mothballed cruise ships may house NY's homeless
ACTIVISTS
Protesters call for NATO's end
Suit Challenges Weapons Incineration at Anniston
Protesters and Others Arrested File Suit Against Police, District
Venezuelan Marchers Want Police Restored to Civilian Rule
Spurning Overture From Iran's Top Leader, Students Press Protests
Prague Battens Down, Fearing a Storm of Protests
Protesters Clash in Venezuela
Unemployed Argentines Stage Protest
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Indian officials say blast at nuclear plant minor
REUTERS INDIA:
November 20, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18667/story.htm
HYDERABAD, India - An explosion at a nuclear fuel processing plant in southern India at the weekend caused no radioactive leak or injuries, officials said.
"There was no spread of any radioactive material. No employee was injured," a spokesman for the Nuclear Fuel Complex on the outskirts of Hyderabad told Reuters.
Officials of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) have begun a probe into the cause of the blast early on Sunday inside a chemical facility at the sprawling complex which houses about 25 plants, the spokesman said.
But officials said the incident was not serious.
"The blast occurred in the chemical plant used for uranium purification," S.M. Rao, deputy chief executive (safety) of the at the Nuclear Fuel Complex, said. "It's the kind of accident common in any chemical plant. There's nothing serious about it.
Energy-strapped India aims to generate 20,000 megawatts of nuclear power over the next two decades but its civilian nuclear programme has been dogged by lack of international funding because of a parallel nuclear weapons programme.
-------- china
Chinese missile has twice the range U.S. anticipated
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 20, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021120-2387.htm
China recently test-fired a new cruise missile with twice the range U.S. intelligence agencies initially estimated, intelligence officials say.
The test comes as Chinese Communist officials last week appointed a top general in charge of China's missile buildup to a new post within the leadership that runs the military.
China fired a YJ-83 anti-ship cruise missile from a JH-7 fighter-bomber earlier this month over Bohai Bay, off northern China.
The test results surprised U.S. intelligence officials. Until recently, the estimated range of the YJ-83 had been assessed to be about 75 miles. The new missile test showed that its range is about 155 miles.
The last time the missile was tested was July 4, when the People's Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper, announced the testing of a beyond-visual-range anti-ship missile. This weapon is believed by Pentagon officials to be part of Beijing's efforts to develop a long-range strike capability against U.S. aircraft carriers and ships.
Officials say the missile represents a new capability for the Chinese military in conducting "over-the-horizon" attacks on U.S. or allied ships in any conflict with China. The YJ-83 is believed to be a derivative of the C-801 anti-ship cruise missile but can travel at supersonic speeds, making it very difficult for ships to stop.
Defense specialists say the YJ-83, sometimes called the C-803, also has the capability to receive target information in flight
Richard Fisher, a specialist on the Chinese military with the Jamestown Foundation, said the new YJ-83 will probably be outfitted on the upgraded JH-7a fighter-bomber.
"With a range of 250 km [155 miles], it gives the PLA and its export clients a new anti-ship missile that can fire beyond the reach of U.S. Naval anti-aircraft missiles like the Standard SM-2, which will soon equip Taiwan's Kidd-class destroyers," Mr. Fisher said.
"This test also indicates that longer-range land-attack cruise missiles are just around the corner," he noted.
China announced major leadership changes last week that elevated new leaders to many Communist Party posts. However, outgoing Chinese President Jiang Zemin stayed on as chairman of the Party's Central Military Commission, the powerful organ that controls the military.
The commission was used by the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1989 to bypass deadlocked government and party structures in ordering Chinese military forces to attack unarmed civilian protesters who had occupied Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Hu Jintao, who was named the new Chinese party leader, was reappointed last week as a vice chairman of the military commission.
Additionally, two generals were named commission vice chairmen: Gen. Guo Boxiong and Gen. Cao Gangchuan. Both generals are proteges of Mr. Jiang, who promoted them when he was party leader.
Gen. Cao is expected to become China's defense minister, replacing Gen. Chi Haotian, in the next several months. His appointment is viewed by U.S. intelligence analysts as a sign that China's major military buildup will increase under his leadership.
Officials said Gen. Cao's promotion within the commission is significant; as head of the General Armament Department he was the official in charge of China's missile development and other weapons-modernization programs.
Gen. Guo was an aide to Gen. Fu Quanyou, the chief of the Chinese general staff, who lost his post on the Central Military Commission. Gen. Guo is expected to replace Gen. Zhang Wannian, who ran the military commission until the recent leadership changes.
-------- inspections
Iraqi Nukes Unlikely, Says Top U.N. Nuclear Inspector
Stewart Stogel
Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2002
Newsmax.com
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/11/19/170053.shtml
NEW YORK - Before he left for Baghdad, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (the U.N. Security Council Iraqi nuclear inspectors), spoke with NewsMax.
ElBaradei assumed his post four years ago, replacing Hans Blix, who is now the U.N.'s chief non-nuclear weapons inspector. Before this assignment, ElBaradei served as Blix's chief legal adviser at the IAEA.
Excerpts of the interview:
Newsmax - When will the IAEA be fully operational in Iraq?
E - "Probably a couple of months, early next year, January, early February."
Newsmax - How long will it take to assess Iraq's current nuclear capabilities?
E - "Hard to say ... a year, maybe more." [ElBaradei points out that within one year, he must report to the Security Council on Iraqi cooperation ... not the state of Iraq's nuclear program.]
Newsmax - Could Iraq have secretly reconstituted its nuclear program since December 1998?
E - "It is difficult in our estimation to hide a complete nuclear weapons program. Whether you can hide a small facility for research and development, that is possible .... What we believe is that an entire program to be hidden is difficult because nuclear has signatures .... Nuclear is the most dangerous, but it is also the easiest to detect."
Newsmax - What about reports on Iraq trying to buy yellowcake (uranium) in Africa?
E - "We still need to go and get the details and investigate that. We have seen the reports in the American press and British press, but we still need to follow up on that and see."
Newsmax - What about interviewing Iraqi scientists outside Iraq?
E - "We have to work out the mechanisms ... we have not done so yet [with UNMOVIC and the Iraqis and prospective nations to host these outside interviews]. If we take people out of the country, we have to secure a place, a safe haven, an asylum. There are a lot of practical issues we need to work through. ...
"We have done a lot of very successful interviews in the country, in the workplace. A lot of no notice interviews at workplaces were very helpful [in the past]."
ElBaradei explained that in the past, surprise interviews in the workplace gave the IAEA an opportunity that not only provided valuable feedback but also allowed an inspection of lab facilities and records at the same time. They later could compare the interviews with findings of the lab or classroom's equipment and files.
It is believed that the so-called "workplace interviews" could resume by the end of this month, although another IAEA official told NewsMax on the issue of outside Iraq interviews, contrary to several published reports, "the IAEA will not have 747s loaded with green cards to ferry Iraqi scientists out of the country."
----
Blix: Iraq inspection talks 'fruitful'
By Ghassan al-Kadi
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
November 20, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021120-061058-7113r.htm
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- International arms inspectors, having garnered what a senior member called a promise of "complete commitment and cooperation" from Iraqi officials, left Baghdad Wednesday on a scheduled trip to Cyprus after two days of talks.
Weapons inspection leader Hans Blix said that the discussions focused on a mechanism for the inspection mission in Iraq and were "positive and fruitful."
Blix, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohammad ElBaradei and a number of inspectors flew to Cyprus aboard a U.N. plane. Remaining in Baghdad to continue preparations to execute the U.N. resolution on Iraqi weapons inspections were some 20 other logistical experts. The preparations include the rehabilitation and expansion of the headquarters of U.N. inspectors at al-Qanat hotel in central Baghdad.
The U.N. team of inspectors are scheduled to begin their search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq Wednesday.
During a news conference in Baghdad late Tuesday, Blix said the purpose of the two-day talks was to building confidence between the two sides ahead of the inspection operations.
"We agreed with the Iraqi side on the mechanism that would be referred to in case differences emerge between the two sides in the future," he said, expecting the inspection to resume in the coming two weeks.
Blix and ElBaradei had separate talks with Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri and head of the Iraqi negotiating team Lt. Gen. Amer al Saadi, who is President Saddam Hussein's consultant responsible for the weapons of mass destruction file.
ElBaradei said the Iraqi officials pledged during the talks "complete commitment and cooperation with the international inspection teams to implement U.N. Security Council resolutions, especially Resolution 1441."
Resolution 1441 is the U.S.-introduced measure recently passed by the Security Council in a unanimous vote that reordered the weapons inspectors back to Iraq.
ElBaradei expressed hope that the agreement with the Iraqi officials be "translated into practical steps" and said the inspection teams will return to Baghdad next week to start their operations.
"A new phase started after Resolution 1441 and we should not look back to the past but to the future," ElBaradei said. "We pledged to the Iraqis that we will operate with all honesty and objectivity."
Asked about removing Israeli weapons of mass destruction, he said: "Let's start first with solving the Iraqi problem because this would help make the Middle East a free-weapons area."
Al Saadi, a member of the Iraqi negotiating team, said the talks with Blix and ElBaradei were "positive and constructive" and praised both officials for their "cooperation and professionalism."
He said Iraq and the U.N. inspectors had "same point of view" and hoped that Blix and ElBaradei fulfill their promises for conducting the inspection teams with "professionalism."
Asked whether Iraq will submit its arms inventory to the United Nations within the 30-day notice defined in Resolution 1441, al Saadi said: "We have no new program and we say with all honesty that we will again submit clear clarifications about these programs."
Meanwhile in Jordan, Iraq's neighbor to the southwest, government officials announced three Jordanian experts in biological and chemical sciences will join the team of international inspectors.
The newspaper daily al-Dustur quoted sources as saying the three experts represented the Jordanian armed forces as well as to academic scientific departments and were specially trained in inspection for non-conventional weapons.
Iraq has called for Arab experts, particularly from the Arab League, to conduct inspections along with those of the United Nations. Blix also noted in recent statements that the United Nations would enlist the help of Arab experts.
The Jordanian experts were chosen following the endorsement of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1284 under which the international monitoring and investigation committee for Iraq was set up.
----
Iraqi Vows Some Limits on U.N. Probe
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent,
Nov 20, 2002
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WEAPONS_INSPECTORS_IRAQ?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
Kay says he thinks the inspection process will be difficult. (Audio)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq's vice president said Wednesday there would be limits on the U.N. weapons investigation, though the top inspector says Baghdad has agreed to unannounced checks even on Saddam Hussein's "special" sites.
The question of unannounced checks on sites like Saddam's palaces, an issue that helped derail inspections in the 1990s, "is settled by the resolution. It wasn't even discussed," chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said Wednesday after departing Baghdad at the end of a two-day visit inaugurating a new U.N. oversight program, four years after the last inspections.
The Swedish ex-diplomat was referring to the new U.N. Security Council resolution describing the inspections as a "final opportunity" for Iraq to meet its post-Gulf War obligations to give up any weapons of mass destruction. In accepting the resolution, Iraq accepted full and unfettered inspections. President Bush has threatened military action if the Iraqis don't disarm.
The United States was contacting allies in search of support if military action is required. In Copenhagen on Wednesday, Danish lawmakers approved the participation of Danish soldiers and equipment in any international force in Iraq, if necessary.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, in a speech Wednesday in his capital to a group of economists, said Australian defense officials had held contingency talks with their U.S. counterparts over a possible strike against Baghdad. He did not describe what any Australian contribution might be.
In London, British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said Wednesday the United States has requested British troops to join a possible war on Iraq. Hoon said Britain had not yet decided on its response.
Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes bombed three air defense communications facilities in southern Iraq on Wednesday, a day after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Washington would immediately respond to attacks on American and British warplanes.
Rumsfeld said the United States would retaliate in such circumstances involving the patrolling of no-fly zones regardless of whether the United Nations views the shootings as violations of U.N. resolutions.
U.S. warplanes struck at the Iraqi defense facilities after Iraqi air defenses fired surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery at U.S. and British planes.
The Security Council has never specifically approved the flights over northern and southern Iraq, which Baghdad considers violations of its sovereignty.
Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said Wednesday that Iraq would fully cooperate with weapons inspectors, but he vowed to prevent them from gathering "intelligence."
"Any demand or question or a manner of work that conforms with the objective of the inspectors who want to verify that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction will be met with full cooperation," Ramadan said in an interview from Baghdad with the private Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation.
"But for demands which are clearly (meant) for intelligence or for other objectives that have nothing to do with the weapons of mass destruction, we will act in such a way so as to safeguard the country's sovereignty and security," he said.
Iraq had raised sovereignty in barring inspectors from Saddam's palaces and other sites in the 1990s.
On Tuesday, Iraqi presidential adviser Amir al-Saadi confirmed Iraq would meet a U.N. deadline and file by Dec. 8 a comprehensive list of nuclear, chemical and biological programs. But he gave no indication whether it will contain anything beyond an inventory of Iraqi work in peaceful uses of nuclear, chemical and biological materials. The Security Council resolution demands the Iraqis include any work in weapons development.
Blix said Iraqis were "somewhat concerned" they would not have time to gather all the information needed by Dec. 8.
"They had particular concerns about reporting on the peaceful industries, like chemical industry ... they have quite a lot of that and they were a bit concerned about how they would go about" compiling information in that area, Blix said.
The Dec. 8 list is the standard by which the international community will judge whether Saddam's government is telling the truth about its interest in the most advanced weapons.
Blix and chief U.N. nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei said that if the Baghdad government cooperates fully with their inspections, they might be able to report in about one year that it has complied with Security Council requirements and U.N. economic sanctions on Iraq should be lifted.
Blix and ElBaradei left Iraq on Wednesday as scheduled, leaving behind most of the two dozen inspectors and other U.N. staff who had accompanied them. Additional inspectors arrive next Monday, and the first field operations are expected by Nov. 27.
ElBaradei, speaking to reporters on arrival in Cyprus hours after leaving Baghdad, said that the work that begins Nov. 27 will be "the real test" of the Iraqis' pledges of cooperation.
The seven-year inspection regime in the 1990s dismantled Iraq's nuclear program before it could build a bomb, and destroyed large amounts of chemical and biological weapons and longer-range missiles forbidden by postwar U.N. resolutions.
But some chemical weapons in particular were believed never destroyed, and U.S. intelligence reports suggest the Iraqis may have rebuilt some weapons programs since the inspectors pulled out in 1998.
Blix said the Iraqis had agreed in their discussions to open a U.N. inspectors office in the northern city of Mosul, and to expand their Baghdad office to accommodate the hundreds of international weapons experts who will come and go in coming months.
ElBaradei and Blix will leave the day-to-day inspections to their teams, supervising from Vienna and New York respectively unless developments here require high-level intervention.
----
Iraq must back up weapons assertions
By Charles J. Hanley
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 20, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021120-33149356.htm
BAGHDAD - U.N. inspectors urged Iraqi officials yesterday to review carefully their long-standing assertions that they have no more weapons of mass destruction, and Baghdad pledged to meet a Dec. 8 deadline to disclose all information about its arms programs.
With the United States closely watching for any Iraqi infractions - and warning that it has adopted a "zero tolerance" approach to Iraq - differences also emerged yesterday between the United Nations and Washington over what constitutes Iraqi violations.
Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix said that if the Iraqis stick with their assertion that they have no more weapons of mass destruction, they must provide convincing documentation by the promised deadline. "We don't think that has yet been convincingly done.
"We have tried to impress on them they must look into their stocks and stores, and see if there's something they should declare," Mr. Blix said late yesterday. "The production of mustard gas is not like the production of marmalade. You're supposed to keep some track of what you produce. There must be documentation, records of what was produced."
Meeting the Dec. 8 deadline is a key initial demand laid down in the new U.N. resolution aimed at peacefully disarming Iraq. President Bush has threatened military action if Iraq does not cooperate with the resolution that sent inspectors back to Baghdad after a four-year absence.
Asked by reporters whether Iraq would meet the deadline, presidential adviser Amir al-Saadi responded in English: "Yes, within 30 days [of passage of the U.N. resolution], as the resolution says, a report from Iraq will be submitted on all the files of nuclear, chemical, biological and missile files."
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the Iraqi delegation had confirmed that it had not developed any nuclear-weapons capacity since inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 ahead of U.S. bombing strikes on Baghdad. Iraq did not allow inspectors to return.
Earlier, Mr. ElBaradei told Associated Press Television News and Egypt's Nile television that Iraq promised to declare "all of its activities in the chemical, biological and nuclear fields, even those of civilian use."
Mr. ElBaradei, speaking in Arabic, said the Iraqis were cooperating so far and had pledged to continue doing so. "We hope that this oral commitment will be translated into fact when we begin inspections next week."
Mr. al-Saadi, asked whether Iraq was prepared to grant inspectors unfettered access, replied: "Yes, as stipulated in the resolution and as we have agreed with them."
The inspections are considered Saddam Hussein's last chance to avoid war with the United States. Washington has said that toppling Saddam might be the only way to contain the threat it believes Iraq poses to the world with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Mr. Blix and his team arrived in Baghdad on Monday as allied warplanes bombed Iraqi air-defense systems in the northern no-fly zone. The U.S. military said the attack was initiated after Iraqi gunners fired on the jets during routine patrols.
In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Iraqi anti-aircraft fire "appears to be a violation" of the latest U.N. Security Council resolution.
However, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan took issue with that interpretation, telling reporters in Kosovo, "I don't think the council will say that this is in contravention of the resolution that was recently passed."
The 15-member council never explicitly approved the flights over northern and southern Iraq, which Baghdad considers violations of its sovereignty.
--------
UNITED NATIONS
Inspectors Urge Iraq to Document Arms Claims
November 20, 2002
New York Times
By SAM DILLON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/20/international/middleeast/20IRAQ.html
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 19 - United Nations arms inspectors, meeting with senior Iraqi officials in Baghdad, urged them today to do some soul-searching about their repeated assertions that they are not hiding weapons of mass destruction, and to produce documentation to back up those claims.
"The production of mustard gas is not like the production of marmalade," Hans Blix, the chief United Nations inspector, told reporters after meeting with the Iraqi officials, The Associated Press reported. "You're supposed to keep some track of what you produce. There must be documentation, records of what was produced."
One of the Iraqi officials, Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, said that to comply with the terms of the resolution, Iraq would submit a declaration to the United Nations team on Dec. 8 covering biological, nuclear and chemical weapons.
As the first United Nations arms inspection mission in four years prepared to begin operations in Iraq, the United Nations and the Bush administration disagreed over whether Iraq had violated a Security Council resolution by firing on United States and British aircraft on Monday over the no-flight zones in northern and southern Iraq.
The White House said that by shooting at the planes, Iraq had breached the resolution, but Secretary General Kofi Annan took the opposite view in statements to reporters traveling with him in Kosovo today. "I don't think that the Council will say this is in contravention of the resolution of the Security Council," Mr. Annan said.
One Bush administration official shrugged off Mr. Annan's comments. "What he said reflects his personal view about how a Security Council vote would go," the official said, while acknowledging that Washington stands alone among Council members in its interpretation. "There's a longstanding disagreement among the U.S. and other Security Council members about the status of the no-fly zones."
On Monday, Bush administration officials portrayed Iraq's recent attempts to shoot down United States and British aircraft over the zones as a "material breach" of the Nov. 8 Security Council resolution authorizing the new arms inspections.
Diplomats here said the administration's interpretation pitted it against the other 14 states of the 15-member Council. But the United States position did not jeopardize the Council's basic unity around the goal of getting the inspections under way, the diplomats said, because neither the United States nor any other government would bring up the dispute for formal debate.
Still, the issue foreshadows other, more serious disputes that could erupt over similarly ambiguous language in the resolution if the United States attempts to move militarily against Iraq without gaining the Security Council's explicit approval, the diplomats said.
Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said the United States reserved the right to take the issue of the no-flight zones to the Security Council but had "no immediate plans" to do so.
"That's always a serious incident, any time anybody fires on American planes," Mr. Fleischer told reporters as he flew to Prague today with President Bush. "It's a material breach of the United Nations resolutions. It can endanger the lives of American and British who patrol to enforce the no-fly zone."
The dispute about the meaning of Resolution 1441, which authorizes the arms inspections now getting under way, underlined the ambiguity of several clauses that allowed 15 member states with views on Iraq as diverse as the United States, Russia, China and Syria, to vote unanimously on Nov. 8 for its approval.
"This resolution allowed all sides to stick to their convictions and still say they won the argument," a diplomat said today.
The no-flight zones over northern and southern Iraq were established by the United States, Britain and France after the Persian Gulf war. The Security Council never explicitly approved the flights over the zones, and Baghdad considers them a violation of its sovereignty.
The Nov. 8 resolution forbids Iraq from taking hostile acts directed against any member state enforcing the resolution, but does not mention the no-flight zones specifically. During the negotiations that preceded its passage, American diplomats submitted a draft resolution with language specifying that Iraqi attempts to defend the zones from foreign aircraft would constitute a breach, diplomats said today. But Washington erased those and all other references to the zones from the draft after several nations objected, the diplomats said.
China disagreed today with the White House's interpretation of the resolution. "As far as China is concerned, we do not see the point that we have the no-fly zones, because that's never been the Security Council's resolution," said China's United Nations ambassador, Wan Yingfan.
In Moscow, Reuters quoted the Russian Foreign Ministry as saying today, "Recent claims that Iraq's actions in the no-fly zones can be seen as a violation of the U.N. Security Council resolution 1441 have no legal grounds."
The diplomatic dispute did not slow the activities of the inspection team, which arrived in Baghdad on Monday and met today with Mr. Sabri and an adviser to President Saddam Hussein, Gen. Amir al-Saadi.
Mr. Blixsaid after the encounter that he had urged the Iraqis to provide documents proving that they have no more weapons of mass destruction.
"We have tried to impress on them they must look into their stocks and stores and see if there's something they should declare," Mr. Blix told reporters in Baghdad late Tuesday, The A. P. reported. He said full-scale inspections would begin in "about a week."
Accompanying Mr. Blix in the meeting was Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. Mr. ElBaradei, speaking in Arabic after the meeting, said that the Iraqis had cooperated with the inspection mission so far and had promised to continue. "We hope that this oral commitment will be translated into fact when we begin inspections," he said.
-------- japan
Japan's TEPCO half-year net profit falls 12 pct
REUTERS JAPAN:
November 20, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18666/story.htm
TOKYO - Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc (TEPCO), embroiled in a scandal over falsified nuclear safety records, said yesterday its first-half net profit fell 11.9 percent due to soft demand and having to cut electricity prices.
Group net profit for April-September at Japan's largest power utility was 155.88 billion yen ($1.29 billion), compared with a net profit of 177.02 billion yen in the same period last year.
For the full year to March 2003, TEPCO forecast a group net profit of 128 billion yen, against a profit of 201.73 billion yen the previous year.
It said said sales revenues were weighed down by a 7.02 percent cut in electricity prices it made in April.
TEPCO, which serves the heavily industrialised Tokyo area, has been stepping up cost cuts in expectation that competition will increase due to continuing industry liberalisation.
Analysts say the closure of several nuclear reactors, which started in September, for unplanned safety checks in the wake of revelations of past lapses could have an impact on full-year earnings if the shutdown is prolonged.
TEPCO has been forced to turn to thermal power plants to cover the supply gap, increasing fuel procurement costs.
The announcement came just after the close of trading on the Tokyo stock market. TEPCO's shares ended the day down 4.0 percent at 2,040 yen, underperforming the benchmark Nikkei average N225), which rose 0.23 percent.
TEPCO admitted in early September that it had falsified repair records at three nuclear power plants and had continued operating several nuclear reactors despite the existence of cracks in some core parts.
It later said it would carry out an unscheduled shutdown of those plants for safety checks.
In late October, TEPCO also said it had manipulated the air pressure of nuclear reactor containers to pass safety checks.
The revelations have heightened public fears about safety in the nuclear industry.
TEPCO has so far shut down nine nuclear reactors, accounting for some 14.6 percent of its total capacity.
Thermal power plants are much more expensive to operate due to higher fuel costs, with daily generating costs rising by about 100 million yen if a one-gigawatt nuclear plant is closed and replaced by a thermal plant.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- ohio
PIKETON PLANT Records falsified, suit claims
Radiation readings were altered, workers testify
Wednesday, November 20, 2002
Kevin Mayhood
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
From: "Vina K Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>
A security guard at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant alleges the plant's operators altered records of workers' exposure to radiation to enrich themselves with bonuses from the federal government.
Jeff Walburn, who has worked at the plant in Piketon for 26 years, contends in a federal lawsuit that Lockheed Martin, Lockheed Martin Utility Services and U.S. Enrichment Corp. used false and unreliable exposure readings to receive incentive payments for operating a safe work environment.
The lawsuit was filed in 2000 in federal court in Columbus under the false-claim act, but a judge unsealed it for public view only last week.
The act allows a civilian to sue on behalf of the federal government when it overpays a supplier because of alleged fraud. The lawsuit was sealed so the companies would be unaware of any federal investigation.
The Piketon plant helped produce weapons-grade uranium and handled plutonium during the Cold War. Plant workers say their exposure records are unreliable and are hoping Walburn's lawsuit provides them with accurate information, said former employees Paul Smith and Vina K. Colley.
Congress two years ago approved payments to workers exposed to radiation at the plant. They must be diagnosed with one of 21 types of cancer.
The plant was closed last year but operations to decontaminate it are continuing. U.S. Enrichment is considering establishing an advanced-technology enrichment plant at the facility.
Representatives of the companies declined to comment, saying they had not seen the suit.
Walburn also declined to comment, but his attorney, Steve J. Edwards, said, "We have evidence in Jeff's case that his records were changed twice.''
Edwards said he has depositions from two employees who said they altered 400 to 600 records per year for a variety of workers and visitors. They never questioned why.
Safety regulations say workers must not be exposed to more than a certain cumulative amount of radiation in their lifetime, Edwards said.
"How can they know if they are near or at that amount if their records are not accurate?'' he said.
Walburn first sued the companies in 1996, seeking damages for lung ailments. The case was dismissed the next year.
In depositions for the false-claim suit, employees Linda Smith and Chris Kelly said they altered Walburn's readings from numbers showing "insignificant'' exposures to show he had no exposures on three days in the mid-1990s.
They said the changes were made at the direction of a supervisor who was concerned about a court case.
Smith and Kelly said their boss told them it would be easier to explain a zero reading than how Walburn was exposed to radiation, even though the amount was considered insignificant.
Walburn's records, however, were later changed back, the lawsuit says. Smith and Kelly said they didn't restore the numbers and don't know who did or why.
U.S. District Judge James L. Graham agreed to government requests to keep the lawsuit sealed, but only until this month.
The Department of Justice has said that, for now, it will not join in the lawsuit because it is still investigating Walburn's allegations.
If Walburn wins, he could receive a cut of damages awarded to the U.S. government. For each false claim proved, the company that cheated the government must pay triple the amount it took, plus a penalty of up to $10,000.
----
Safety Lapse at Ohio Reactor Is Cited as Potential Peril for Others
November 20, 2002
New York Times
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/20/national/20NUKE.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 - In a confidential report, the nuclear industry's internal oversight group has warned utilities that a focus on production over safety had endangered an Ohio reactor and could be a broader problem around the nation.
Corrosion at the Ohio reactor, discovered in March, ate away 70 pounds of steel and left the reactor vessel vulnerable to rupturing. But while the physical degradation of the reactor was unique, the internal report suggested that the causes might not be. The report, not intended for distribution outside the nuclear industry, said the the First Energy Nuclear Operating Company,
operators of the reactor, Davis-Besse, near Toledo, had fallen prey to "excessive focus on meeting short-term production goals" and "a lack of sensitivity to nuclear safety."
"The lessons learned from the Davis-Besse event are universal in nature and should be reviewed by all nuclear stations," said the report, by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, a group formed by the industry after the March 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, Pa., to share expertise and reduce the chance of further meltdowns. The report is marked "limited distribution" and is coded "Red: Immediate Attention."
For several years, outside critics have raised alarms about a deregulated power market, saying managers would cut corners to keep reactors operating when they should have been shut for maintenance. Even the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission raised that concern, in 1994.
At Davis-Besse, in Oak Harbor, about 25 miles east of Toledo, managers postponed taking the time to inspect an area on the vessel head that turned out to be corroding, and ignored warning signs that this was happening, the report said.
The industry has not publicly admitted to any worry, nor seized the Davis-Besse incident as a warning. The new report, however, recommended that each nuclear company "conduct a self-assessment to determine to what degree your organization has a healthy respect for nuclear safety and that nuclear safety is not compromised by production priorities."
The institute has a quasiregulatory function, bringing lagging reactor operators up to the industry standard as a way to head off tighter rules from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. After the meltdown of the reactor at Three Mile Island, in March 1979, the industry created the institute to investigate problems at each plant and to issue confidential reports to the others, so they all could benefit from lessons learned. Operators of all the nation's power reactors are members of the institute, and on the intermittent occasions when its internal assessments become public, they have all been written in blunt terms. Industry executives say its pronouncements are carefully read.
This one, nine pages plus footnotes, was made available by a nuclear industry expert who is seeking to have the industry take it to heart.
A spokesman for the institute, Terry Young, said its personnel could get access to the plants, and state their findings plainly, only if everyone agreed that the findings should be kept within the industry. "We cherish that sense of trust," he said.
Mr. Young said the reports did, in fact, discuss management issues when that was relevant.
The report, dated Nov. 11, cites one failing that seems to show that Davis-Besse's operators had not learned to benefit from other failures. In a July 2001 report to members, the institute emphasized the importance of inspecting for corrosion after a less severe problem was found at a similar plant in South Carolina, Oconee. The institute said managers suffered from "isolationism."
The Oconee report was "reviewed and accepted" by management at Davis-Besse, the institute said, but managers did not perform the inspection on their own plant.
A year ago, even as the steel was being eaten away, the plant's operator was seeking permission to raise its power output by 12.9 percent above what it was licensed for when it opened in 1978.
Experts not involved in the preparation of the report said that it touched on a difficult area, determining when priorities have been put in the wrong order and people's attitudes have shifted away from safety and toward production, and that this report differed from most written by the institute because it focused on upper-level management.
"Talking about management is very sensitive for them," said Andrew C. Kadak, the former president of the Yankee Atomic Electric Company, an umbrella company for three reactors, and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
At the Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog group that is generally critical of the industry, David Lochbaum, a nuclear expert, said measuring attitudes toward safety was hard for people in the industry.
"Most of the nuclear industry's people are engineers," Mr. Lochbaum said. "They love equations, things they can measure. But safety culture isn't something you can do that on; you can't see how many feet of safety culture you have and whether you've come up shy or not."
Paul Blanch, a nuclear safety consultant, said that for "merchant" plants, the ones selling their production in deregulated markets, "their only concern is making money."
Mr. Blanch said the institute's report "hit the nail on the head."
"Production does come before safety," he said. "They've got to strike the proper balance."
An engineer at a nuclear plant that was shut for safety reasons for a time in the 1990's, who would not allow his name to be used, said the report was a shift for the institute, which began by trying to share best practices around the industry, and later on human performance, but which is now focused on leadership performance.
-------- us politics
Senate votes for Homeland Security Dept.
House passage seen for Cabinel-level agency;
Vote reflecting Bush's clout;
A sweeping consolidation of agencies, taking years
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis National Staff
Baltimore Sun
November 20, 2002
http://www.sunspot.net/news/custom/attack/bal-te.homeland20nov20,0,4835024.story?coll=bal%2Dhome%2Dheadlines
WASHINGTON - The Senate voted overwhelmingly last night to establish a Department of Homeland Security to protect the nation against terrorism, delivering a major victory to President Bush on a bill he had championed throughout this year's elections.
The senators broke a four-month logjam and capped an extraordinary year in a Congress defined largely by its response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The vote reflected the political muscle that Bush gained in the wake of that catastrophe and his party's sweeping gains in the midterm elections.
Once the Cabinet department is fully in place - which could take years - it would consolidate 22 agencies, take in 170,000 workers and mark the largest reorganization of the government in more than a half-century.
By last night, months of intense Democratic opposition to Bush's plan had all but lifted. The Senate passed the bill 90-9; the House is expected to pass it Friday, preparing it for Bush's signature as early as next week.
It was one of the last votes of the 107th Congress. It was cast hours before the Senate passed a resolution to keep the government funded at current levels through Jan. 11 and was later to adjourn for the year.
"We're making great progress in the war on terror," Bush said on Air Force One, en route to Europe for a NATO summit. "Part of that progress will be the ability for us to protect the American people at home."
Bush called the measure "landmark in its scope."
Many Senate Democrats, including their leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, said they were voting for the bill only grudgingly. Many agreed that such a department was necessary to fight terrorism but expressed uneasiness about the expanded new authority it would give the president.
Eight Democrats - including Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland - and one independent voted against the department. They argued that Congress was ceding too many prerogatives to the executive branch with too little debate.
"We might as well just dive under the bed and say, 'Here goes nothin','" said Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat.
The president's signing of the bill will start the clock on what is sure to be a long and complex process of bringing nearly two dozen federal agencies and offices under one sprawling Cabinet department.
A budget dispute has prevented most of the government's spending bills from passing this year, meaning that no additional money has been allocated to the new department to carry out its functions.
The last time the government undertook a restructuring of such magnitude was in 1947, when President Harry S. Truman proposed bringing the War and Navy departments together under one agency, now called the Defense Department.
The Homeland Security Department will be in charge of preventing terrorist attacks and reducing the nation's vulnerability, by securing U.S. borders, developing science and technology to counter threats and consolidating intelligence gathered from inside and outside the department. It will also coordinate a response to any terrorist strikes that do occur.
Senate passage came after a series of near-death experiences for the department on Capitol Hill this fall.
The most recent occurred yesterday morning, hours before the overwhelming bipartisan endorsement. Democrats tried unsuccessfully to strip the measure of a handful of what they called "special interest" provisions added by House Republicans leaders late last week, before that chamber completed action on the bill and adjourned.
Had the effort succeeded, the bill might have died.
But by 52-47, the Senate killed an amendment that would have dropped new liability protections for drug companies that are sued over the effects of vaccines, airport screeners sued for security breaches and manufacturers of security equipment sued for harming Americans.
The amendment would also have dropped a provision that hands a lucrative research program to Texas A&M University and another provision Republicans added that essentially guts a ban on awarding department contracts to companies that relocate abroad to avoid taxes.
Three Democrats, as well as Dean Barkley, the interim independent senator from Minnesota, joined 48 Republicans in opposing the amendment. The three Democrats were Sens. Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, who faces a run-off election Dec. 7 to retain her seat, Zell Miller of Georgia and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
Only one Republican, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, joined 45 Democrats and Sen. James M. Jeffords, a Vermont independent, to try to eliminate the provisions.
McCain called the provisions "special deals for special interests" and said he is worried that the private sector is engaging in "war profiteering."
Wavering senators who voted against removing the provisions - including Nelson and Susan M. Collins and Olympia J. Snowe, both Maine Republicans - said that Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi promised to work with House Republican leaders to narrow the provisions once the 108th Congress convenes in January.
Senate Republicans spent most of the fall delaying action on a Democratic-written Homeland Security bill. They wanted to give Bush more authority to reshuffle agencies in the new department and to oversee its personnel and budgets.
Democrats protested. In particular, they criticized Bush's plan to bypass civil service laws to establish new personnel practices - such as rules for hiring, firing and promoting employees - for the department.
The bill reflects an agreement on the workplace rules reached last weekend between Senate moderates and Tom Ridge, the White House's homeland security adviser, who is likely to head the new department. That agreement gave Republicans enough votes to pass their plan.
The measure will give the administration the final say on establishing labor practices at the department, though it will allow labor's representatives a chance to appeal rules they oppose.
On another key issue for organized labor, the measure will let Bush exclude workers from unions if he determined it was necessary to protect national security. But the exclusion would expire after four years.
Labor representatives and many Democrats said they still believed the personnel provisions fell short of protecting federal employees' rights. But many overlooked those and the items added by Republicans last week to support the overall bill.
"I'm absolutely committed to the belief that we do need this agency, and I feel so strongly about it that I'm prepared to vote for it, even though on the issues of workers' rights, I continue to be disturbed," said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat.
Mikulski said she would use her position on the influential Senate Appropriations Committee to "stand sentry" next year on behalf of the new department's employees.
"We all feel that this meets a compelling need that's before the nation," Mikulski said.
But Sarbanes, who voted against the measure, said the department could create more problems than it solved.
"It diverts the energy and attention of a lot of people who are responsible for homeland security away from the immediate substance of the problem and to moving desks and chairs around," he said.
Before adjourning, the Senate also approved an agreement creating a three-year federal terrorism insurance program - another effort for which the White House lobbied forcefully.
Enactment of the terrorism insurance measure will create the first-ever federal cost-sharing of losses incurred by insurance companies as a result of terrorist attacks. In case of a future terrorist strike, the government would cover 90 percent of a company's terrorist-related losses above a threshold level.
----
Terrorism attacks have no effect on student exchange
By Ellen Sorokin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 20, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021120-21258480.htm
September 11 and stiffer background checks for visas have not hampered the exchange of students, with more American college youths attending schools overseas while a record number of their counterparts worldwide rush to get an education in the United States, according to a new study released this week.
A record 582,996 international students enrolled at American colleges in the past school year, up 6.4 percent from last year, according to the Open Doors 2002 study compiled by the Institute of International Education in New York.
Meanwhile, the study showed that American students choosing to study abroad more than doubled in the past decade, from 71,154 students in the 1991-1992 academic year to 154,168 last year. Last year's figures are up 7.4 percent from the previous year.
"Some feared that in the wake of September 11 young Americans would shrink from international experiences and pursue only domestic options," said Patricia Harrison, the State Department's assistant secretary for educational and cultural affairs, which funded the study.
"But as the numbers show, more students are studying abroad than ever before, a sign that young Americans clearly recognize the crucial role they will play in leading our nation into a world even more connected than it is today," Miss Harrison said.
For American students, Europe was the most popular spot to study, claiming six of the top 10 countries. Of those, England was first choice, hosting 30,289 students last year. Italy came in second with 16,127 and Spain followed with 16,016.
Of the top 10 countries, students' interest declined in France and China, both by less than 1 percent. Students' interest in the Middle East declined by about 60 percent, the study showed.
"Despite efforts by terrorists to isolate America from the rest of the world, the response by American students and American campuses is to become more intensely engaged in international affairs and to seek out more opportunities for firsthand interaction with other cultures and other countries," said Alan Goodman, the institute's president.
For international students, the most popular destinations in the United States last year were California, with 78,741, and New York, with 62,053. The University of Southern California hosted the most international students, with 5,950.
Locally, Virginia hosted 12,600 foreign students, Maryland took 13,947 and the District 9,241, according to the study. Northern Virginia Community College at Annandale campus and the University of Maryland at College Park hosted the most international students in their respective states. George Washington University hosted the most international students in the District.
The largest percentage of international students came from India, with 66,836 students. China sent 63,211 students.
U.S. education officials were encouraged by the high numbers. "The question [for international students] is, 'Do you want to stay home or do you want to come abroad?' Once they have made that decision, the U.S. is still the most attractive option," said Peggy Blumenthal, the institute's vice president for educational services.
It will not be known until next year whether the number of Middle Eastern students studying in the United States has fallen this school year.
The government began more stringent background checks of many students coming from Middle Eastern countries because several of the September 11 terrorists were found to have been in the United States on student visas.
Despite the delays in acquiring student visas, "it's clear that overall there are still so many students who want to come to the United States that the numbers are staying steady," Miss Blumenthal said.
The study also showed international students contributed about $11.95 billion to the country's economy in 2001-2002.
Virginia's international students contributed $261 million to the state's economy and Maryland's students $295 million. The District's international students contributed $231 million, the study showed.
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.
------
U.S. Prepares for Security Overhaul
By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer
Nov 20, 2002 11:22 AM EST
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CONGRESS_RDP?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
Bush praises the Senate's overwhelming vote backing the new homeland security agency. (Audio)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate approved the largest government reorganization since World War II in hopes of preventing another Sept. 11-type attack. But the monthslong effort may have been just a warmup for a bigger battle over how to get the new Homeland Security Department up and running.
"Setting up this new department will take time, but I know we will meet the challenge together," a jubilant President Bush said after the Senate, nearing adjournment of the 107th Congress, voted 90-9 on Tuesday to authorize the new Cabinet agency.
On a day that gave Bush a number of decisive legislative victories, the president hailed the bill as "landmark in its scope."
"The United States Senate voted overwhelmingly to better protect America and voted overwhelmingly to help people find work," Bush said at a news conference Wednesday in Prague, Czech Republic, referring to bills creating the new department and bolstering businesses with terrorism insurance.
Speaking with Senate Republican leaders from Air Force One as he flew to NATO meetings in Europe, the president said the Senate's work "ends a session which has seen two years worth of legislative work which has been very productive for the American people."
Eight Democrats and independent Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont voted "no" on the homeland security bill, which merges 22 diverse agencies with combined budgets of about $40 billion and which employ 170,000 workers. It will be the largest federal reorganization since the Defense Department was created in 1947.
Tom Ridge, director of the White House Office of Homeland Security, indicated Wednesday that he would head the new department if that's Bush's wish.
"I'm prepared to serve the president in whatever capacity he thinks I can serve the country," Ridge said, when asked about this on CBS' "The Early Show."
But the battles over the department are just beginning. It will take months for the agency to get fully off the ground. And a budget stalemate continues to block most of the extra money for domestic security enhancements both that parties want for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
On top of that, many senators were not happy with the final version of the bill and said they would work to make changes next year.
"I have no doubt that next year we will back addressing the shortcomings that are in this bill," said outgoing Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
But Republicans cheered the bill's passage, saying it was better to have a final product than to keep trying to amend the legislation.
"The terrorists are not going to wait for a process that goes on days, weeks or months," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who will be next year's Senate majority leader.
The Senate also:
-Sent Bush a bill making the government the insurer of last resort for terrorist attacks, with a maximum annual tab to taxpayers of $90 billion. The vote was 86-11.
-Voted 55-44 to approve U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Shedd to be an appeals court judge.
-Sent Bush a measure keeping federal agencies open through Jan. 11, needed due to unfinished spending bills.
-Used voice votes to approve about 130 land and water bills. They included a bill sent to the House extending for three years the CalFed project, aimed at restoring the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which provides water for drinking and irrigation for much of the state.
The 107th Congress isn't officially finished yet. The Senate was to meet again Wednesday, with no voting planned. The House was to meet Friday to give final, voice-vote approval to small changes the Senate made in the homeland security bill before sending it to Bush for his signature.
Most senators fled Washington on Tuesday, cleaning out their desks and saying goodbye to departing members like 99-year-old GOP Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, as well as GOP Sens. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Bob Smith of New Hampshire and Phil Gramm of Texas.
Some Democratic senators were on their way out as well, including Sens. Jean Carnahan of Missouri, Robert Torricelli of New Jersey and Max Cleland of Georgia, all of whom either lost re-election campaigns or did not run.
Cleland, who lost his legs and an arm in Vietnam, used a variation on Gen. Douglas McArthur's famous farewell that "old soldiers never die, they just fade away" in his final Senate speech.
"This old soldier is not going to fade away, but I will take my battles to another front," Cleland said to Senate applause.
Completion of the homeland security bill ended a topsy-turvy odyssey for legislation that started inching through Congress nearly a year ago against Bush's will, only to see him offer his own version after momentum became unstoppable.
Democrats resisted Bush's bill because it restricted labor rights of the new department's workers. But many reversed course after their Election Day loss of Senate control was attributed partly to the homeland security fight.
The 107th Congress has seen the world change around it during a tumultuous two-year run.
Bush won a $1.35 trillion, 10-year tax cut but saw a vibrant economy stall and federal surpluses become deficits. Terrorists killed nearly 3,000 last year when they crashed commercial airliners in Washington, New York City and southwestern Pennsylvania. And a historic 50-50 Senate tilted Democratic after Jeffords left the GOP, only to see Republicans grab it back on Election Day.
Left unresolved in this Congress were such issues as prescription drug benefits for the elderly, retirement fund protections and the rights of patients in managed care programs.
a name="military">
------- MILITARY
------- arms sales
E. Europe Armaments Find Way To Iraq
Some Suppliers Are About to Be Offered NATO Membership
By Daniel Williams and Nicholas Wood
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 20, 2002; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12793-2002Nov19?language=printer
SARAJEVO, Bosnia -- Antiaircraft missile training from Belarus. Radar units from Ukraine. Armored vehicles and tank engines from Bulgaria. Ammunition, explosives, rockets and lessons in missile technology from Serbia. And spare jet parts, missile technology and rocket propellants from Bosnia.
As the United States prepares for possible war against Iraq, the country has been energetically buying these and other military goods and services in recent months, Western officials say. One of its favorite hunting grounds for the purchases, which are illegal under a U.N. embargo, is an arc from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans.
Iraq's buyers have seemed especially interested in two tasks: keeping old equipment working and upgrading the country's antiaircraft system. Although rumors of efforts to obtain chemical and biological weapons technology have circulated in Serbia, no concrete cases have come to light, the officials say.
In an effort to stanch the flow, U.S. officials pressed the Bosnian government last week to crack down on arms factories suspected of exporting supplies to Iraq. And a team of American experts arrived in Yugoslavia on Monday to gather information on a wealth of weapons sales from Serbia, the country's dominant republic.
U.S. displeasure over sales by two potential members of the NATO alliance, Bulgaria and Ukraine, has thrown a shadow over this week's summit in Prague, where invitations to new member countries are to be issued.
Allegations against Ukraine gained credence when a former bodyguard of President Leonid Kuchma released secret tape recordings in which a man whom U.S. law enforcement authorities have identified as Kuchma is heard approving the sale of a sophisticated antiaircraft system to Iraq. In response, the United States cut aid to Ukraine by $54 million, 35 percent of the annual total.
Kuchma has denied his country sold anything and insisted on attending the Prague meeting as head of a NATO candidate nation. U.S. officials have said he is unwelcome. Earlier this month, U.S. and British investigators reported that the country had failed to provide conclusive evidence that it did not sell weapons.
The Czech government has denied a visa to President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, who also wanted to show up uninvited.
Iraq's activity in Eastern Europe is natural, Western officials say. There is a long history of weapons sales from that region to Iraq, dating to the days of Communist rule when the region built large weapons industries. "There is an old boys' network that never died out," said a Western diplomat in Bosnia. "The connections are there and the desire to make weapons deals is there."
Most of the countries alleged to be doing the selling are nominally friendly to the United States. According to press reports in the Czech Republic, assault rifles have been shipped to Iraq from that country. The Czech Republic is a NATO member and last spring police there thwarted middlemen from arranging arms sales between Iraq and other East European countries.
Only Belarus is openly hostile to the United States. Last spring, the State Department accused it of training Iraqis in the use of S-300 surface-to-air missiles.
This month, officials in Bulgaria reacted with alarm at the discovery that a state-run company, Terem, sold armored personnel carriers to a middleman in Syria for delivery to Iraq. The government intercepted the shipment. "There were plans for more sales, which the authorities have stopped," said a spokeswoman for the Defense Ministry, Rumiana Strugarova.
The discovery coincided with reports that Bulgarian firms had made other shipments destined for Iraq, including engines and parts for T-55 and T-72 tanks. Bulgarian officials feared that the revelations would sink their country's efforts to gain an invitation to join NATO. "We are in trouble," Foreign Minister Solomon Passy told reporters in Sofia, the capital. "This arms sale pushes Bulgaria's chances back."
Nonetheless, the country remains on track to get a NATO invitation, according to reports from Prague. Earlier this month, the country announced it would let U.S. planes use its airspace during a war with Iraq and make an airfield available for refueling.
Here in Bosnia, also a recipient of U.S. foreign aid, military equipment has been shipped under the noses of 15,000 NATO-led troops, among them 1,200 Americans, who enforce the 1995 Dayton peace accords, Western officials say. Among other powers, the troops have the right to inspect the country's many weapons factories.
Paddy Ashdown, chief envoy in Bosnia of foreign governments that are involved in the peace accord, suggested that the trade may encompass much of the former Yugoslavia. "We do not know the extent of this matter," he said. "But my guess is it's going to be very wide-ranging. It's going to be regional."
The most prominent case involved an aviation factory in eastern Bosnia, an area under the control of Bosnian Serb authorities who have cooperated closely with the Yugoslav army. The factory, known as Orao, sold jet parts to Iraq, investigations have shown. NATO and Bosnian government officials are studying other factories for alleged sales. Government inspectors have been looking into an ammunition factory in the town of Vitez and a missile research center in the city of Banja Luka.
Last week, the Bosnian government declared the factories in the clear, but Bosnian intelligence officials countered with a secret report saying that arms and ammunition have been sold to Iraq, according to Bosnian officials.
But it is Serbia that is raising the most serious concerns among U.S. diplomats.
Yugoslav officials estimate that the trade for the last five years totals several hundred million dollars and covers a broad variety of products, including ammunition, explosives and ballistic missile technology.
"They were doing a lot of business, a lot of business," said one Western official familiar with the investigation. "Just about every defense company in the country sold to Iraq, either via Syria or via [another] third country." Those claims have been corroborated by a senior Serbian politician and Yugoslav government officials.
Shortly after peacekeepers raided the Orao factory in Bosnia, Croatian police seized a freighter, the Boka Star, near the port of Rijeka. It was found to be carrying 208 tons of explosive propellant, for possible use in rockets. U.S. officials now say the cargo has been traced to the Prva Iskra factory in Barici, Serbia. The propellant, they say, is just one of a wide range of military products shipped to Iraq over the last five years.
The Serbian daily newspaper Blic late last month reported that shipping manifests showed that several hundred thousand tons of explosives and military equipment had been sent to Iraq aboard ships that sailed from the Montenegrin port of Bar.
Documents handed to the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade by Yugoslav officials include an order for 20 million rounds of antiaircraft ammunition bound "for a country with no more than a few hundred soldiers," a Western official said. In another case, a country in the Caribbean ordered several thousand automatic rifles. In both cases, Yugoslav and U.S. officials said they believe the actual destination was Iraq.
A senior Serbian politician said that those shipments were part of trading agreements signed between Iraq and Yugoslavia during the presidency of Slobodan Milosevic, who is now before a U.N. tribunal facing war crimes charges. Three protocols were signed, in 1997, 1998 and 2000.
The deals did not end when Milosevic was ousted in October 2000, but continued under the code names "Zora" or "Dawn."
Following repeated protests from U.S. officials, Yugoslavia's Foreign Ministry raised the issue at a cabinet meeting in January of this year. A Jan. 15 letter from the ministry to the cabinet stated that Yugoslavia had $600 million worth of construction projects in "military-economic" areas with Libya, Iraq and Nigeria. The contracts with Iraq were worth $120 million.
The letter, examined by a Washington Post reporter, said that Yugoslavia was in breach of its undertaking to the United Nations not to export technology that could be used in weapons of mass destruction. In spite of those concerns, Yugoslav defense companies continued to sells weapons to Iraq.
"This was a pure kind of procrastination," said Ivan Vejvoda, adviser on foreign affairs to Serbia's prime minister, Zoran Djindjic. "They were carrying on until they could go on no longer. They were unaware of the perception that it will make outside [the country], and at the same time stuffing their pockets."
Special correspondent Wood reported from Belgrade.
-------- britain
U.S. Asks Britain for Troops
November 20, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-britain-troops.html
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Wednesday it had received a request from the United States for troops to take part in a possible military campaign against Iraq.
Speaking as President Bush urged NATO allies in Europe to join a ``coalition of the willing'' to attack Iraq if it defied U.N. weapons inspectors, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said Washington had made ``a request for forces.''
Prime Minister Tony Blair said Britain, along with other U.S. allies, had received a general request but signaled that detailed talks on troop numbers might still be some way off.
``We're simply not at the stage yet of specific requests for specific numbers of troops for use in a specific way,'' he told parliament. ``That's something that will happen at a later stage.
U.S. officials said on Wednesday Washington was asking about 50 countries what contribution they could make. Britain, a staunch U.S. ally, is widely expected to deploy around 15,000 troops to back any U.S. military action against Iraq.
Hoon said despite the diversion of 19,000 staff to cover for a firefighters' strike, Britain could still pose a serious military threat to Iraq.
``We have always made clear that in order to underpin the effectiveness of the Security Council process there needs to be a credible threat. We are going to provide that,'' he said.
But his comments were undermined by his own armed forces chief, standing beside him at the news conference, who said he was ``extremely concerned'' at the impact of the fire strikes.
``Clearly we cannot perform to the full extent of our operating facility while 19,000 people are tied up standing by to do firefighting duties,'' Chief of Staff Admiral Sir Michael Boyce said.
NO-FLY ZONES
Even before the start of weapons inspections called for in a tough U.N. resolution passed two weeks ago, Washington has said Baghdad is in ``material breach'' of the resolution by firing on U.S. and British fighter jets overflying Iraq.
That interpretation has raised fears among other Security Council members that the United States could use it as an automatic trigger for war.
British diplomats have said firing against their planes did not constitute a material breach. But Hoon said it would impact on the Security Council's assessment of Iraqi compliance.
``It is important that we recognize that this is an aggressive, belligerent state as far as our aircraft are concerned,'' he said. ``That would go to part of the picture that the Security Council would discuss.''
Asked about the doubts within Blair's Labour Party at the prospect of war with Iraq, Hoon said politicians could make their views clear at Monday's debate -- where he could spell out plans to call up reserve troops.
``All members of parliament, including those who are members of government, will be thinking through their positions,'' Hoon said.
-------- business
Welcome mats out for agency headquarters
By Tim Lemke
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 20, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20021120-71368769.htm
About a dozen locations throughout the Washington area are being pushed as potential sites for the Department of Homeland Security.
With the Senate's overwhelming passage last night of legislation creating the Cabinet-level agency, public officials from all over the region have made pitches for sites in their jurisdictions.
"There's going to be an intense effort of lobbying," said Bill Badger, president of the Anne Arundel Economic Development Corp. "Everyone's getting their angles in."
Mr. Badger and officials in his county want the agency near Fort Meade, the David Taylor Naval Research Center and the headquarters of the National Security Agency.
A host of other sites in Maryland, the District and Northern Virginia are being discussed, but those with knowledge of real estate and land in the area say nearly all have problems.
The new department would consist of 22 major agencies and would need at least 500,000 square feet to house almost 170,000 federal employees.
The agency has three options: one building, several buildings on one campus, or scattered buildings.
The cost to construct a sprawling campus with several large buildings could top $1 billion, analysts said. A site near a Metro station, which the department says it prefers, would add to the cost and all but eliminate any location outside the Beltway.
Further complicating matters is a clause in the legislation urging the General Services Administration, which will choose the site, to select a location that is federally owned.
Homeland security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the search is continuing, and that the District, Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland have been examined.
"I know we'll be moving quickly, but there's nothing to report at this time," Mr. Johndroe said.
Local officials and business leaders are giving hefty support to three large sites in the District: St. Elizabeths Mental Hospital in Anacostia, the Coast Guard headquarters at Buzzard Point in Southeast and open land along New York Avenue near Union Station.
The District's nonvoting member of Congress, Democratic Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, said she is pushing for the St. Elizabeths site, which sits on 180,000 acres owned by the federal government.
"If we find that D.C. is not being considered, we have no choice but to sound the alarm," she said yesterday. "If the agency is created outside the District, it sends a horrible symbol. It sends the message that we can't protect ourselves in the nation's capital."
An executive order believed to have been issued more than 50 years ago technically requires Cabinet agencies to be situated in the District. The Department of Defense is the only current exception.
But those in the suburbs say the executive order is archaic and will not prove to be a major obstacle.
"The world is much different than it was 50 years ago," Mr. Badger said. "Logically, you don't want the department 2,000 miles away, but 30 miles away is certainly within the realm of the national capital area."
Suburban sites under consideration include the former Naval Surface Warfare Center, a 700-acre plot in the White Oak area of Silver Spring expected to house about 5,000 employees of the Food and Drug Administration. Prince George's County officials are pitching the Suitland Federal Center, a 226-acre site that houses the Census Bureau, the National Maritime Intelligence Center and offices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Suitland is said to have the edge over White Oak because of its proximity to a Metro station.
Northern Virginia has a plethora of available office space, and state officials are pushing for the new department to set up headquarters there, said Ellen Qualls, spokeswoman for Gov. Mark R. Warner.
Two buildings in Pentagon City, with about 500,000 total square feet, have been vacated by WorldCom subsidiary MCI.
The judge presiding over WorldCom's bankruptcy trial ordered an auction for the buildings to be held in December.
Real estate analysts said the location, near the Pentagon and a host of defense and government contractors, would be ideal for the Homeland Security Department. But the government has been trying to limit the business it conducts with the bankrupt telecommunications company, whose accounting practices are the subject of federal probes.
The high-rise buildings also would be more prone to attack.
The U.S. Patent and Trade Office plans to move out of several offices in Crystal City next year, and some real estate brokers have suggested that the new agency could move into the empty buildings. But the lack of one large office was inconvenient for the PTO and likely would be no more convenient for the Homeland Security Department, analysts said.
More ideal, real estate analysts said, would be the patent office's future headquarters, a 2.4-million-square-foot campus in Alexandria. But LCOR, the Berwyn, Pa., developer that owns the property, said the agency is scheduled to move in December 2003 and that it has had no discussions regarding the Homeland Security Department taking the offices instead.
-------- iraq
Bush Says U.S. Ready to Disarm Iraq, but Calls War Last Resort
November 20, 2002
New York Times
By TERENCE NEILAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/20/international/20CND-BUSH.html
President Bush said in Prague today that the United States was willing to lead a ``coalition of the willing'' against Iraq if President Saddam Hussein chose not to disarm, but he repeated previous assertions that war was his last resort.
``If the collective will of the world is strong, we can achieve disarmament peacefully,'' Mr. Bush said at a news conference with President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic.
But if Mr. Hussein does not disarm, Mr. Bush said on the eve of a NATO summit meeting in the Czech capital, ``the United States will lead a coalition of the willing to disarm him.''
``By remaining strong and united and tough, we'll prevail,'' he said, but added: ``War is my last choice, my last option. I hope we can do this peacefully.''
``But one thing is certain,'' he said, ``he'll be disarmed, one way or the other, in the name of peace.''
Mr. Bush later repeated this theme, in equally forceful language, in a speech to students, during which he also made an urgent call for NATO countries to step up their military abilities.
In Cyprus today after a two-day trip to Baghdad, the chief United Nations arms inspector, Hans Blix, said Iraq had pledged its full cooperation with the Security Council by providing a complete accounting of its arms programs, Reuters reported.
``We had good discussions with representatives of the Iraqi government,'' Mr. Blix told reporters in Larnaca, and were assured that Baghdad ``will fully implement the resolution and cooperate with us, so it was a constructive visit.'' Iraq has until Dec. 8 to submit a list of its weapons.
The NATO meeting that starts on Thursday will focus on the alliance's expansion. ``Tomorrow the soul of Europe grows stronger,'' was how Mr. Bush put it in his address to the students.
Of Mr. Hussein he said: ``A dictator who has used weapons of mass destruction on his own people must not be allowed to produce or possess those weapons.
``Last week, Saddam Hussein accepted U.N. inspectors. We've heard those pledges before and seen them violated time and time again. We now call an end to that game of deception, and deceit and denial. Saddam Hussein has been given a very short time to declare completely and truthfully his arsenal of terror.
``Should he again deny that this arsenal exists, he will have entered his final stage with a lie. And deception this time will not be tolerated. Delay and defiance will invite the severest of consequences.''
At his news conference with Mr. Havel, Mr. Bush said: ``It's important for the Czech people to understand this is a guy who has poisoned his own people. He's got such hate in his heart he's willing to use a weapon of mass destruction not only on his neighborhood, but on the people of his country.''
In a statement that seemed intended to smooth feelings against the war among many European allies, Mr. Bush said, ``We will consult with our friends and all nations will be able to choose whether or not they want to participate'' in any action against Iraq.
Asked about the possible role of Germany, a particular opponent of Washington's policy on Iraq, Mr. Bush said: ``It's a decision Germany will make; just like it's a decision the Czech Republic will make; just like it's a decision Great Britain will make.''
``It's a decision that each country must decide as to how, if, and when they want to participate, and how they choose to participate. The point is, is that we will have plenty of consultations with our friends.''
He added: ``It is possible that Saddam Hussein gets the message that we're serious about disarmament and he should fully disarm - that's possible.
``The possibility becomes more real if he understands that there is a true consequence for his failure to disarm. And there is a true consequence. There's a serious consequence, as the U.N. resolution addresses.''
President Havel said he shared the opinion of President Bush, ``and of all reasonable people,'' that it would be better to achieve Iraq's disarmament without using force.
``If, however, the need to use force does arise, I believe that NATO should give an honest and speedy consideration to its engagement as an alliance,'' Mr. Havel added.
NATO leaders are to approve invitations to seven former communist states: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Their membership, Mr. Bush said, will invigorate the alliance and offer greater military security to a world in turmoil.
``The admission of these countries will not only help us militarily achieve peace,'' Mr. Bush said, ``but the admission of these countries will affect the soul of this most important alliance.''
In his address to students, Mr. Bush insisted: ``NATO forces must become better able to fight side by side. Those forces must be more mobile and more swiftly deployed. The allies need more Special Operations forces, better precision-strike capabilities and more modern command structures.''
He added: ``Ours is a military alliance, and every member must make a military contribution to that alliance. For some allies this will require higher defense spending. For all of us, it will require more effective defense spending, with each nation adding the tools and technologies to fight and win a new kind of war.
--------
Western Planes Strike Targets in Southern Iraq
November 20, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-usa-zones.html
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq said U.S. and British warplanes attacked civilian targets in the south of the country on Wednesday but were driven off by Iraqi anti-aircraft fire.
The U.S. military said Western planes bombed three air defense communications facilities in southern Iraq on Wednesday after Iraqi air defenses fired missiles at Western aircraft patrolling ``no-fly'' zones over Iraq.
The strikes at about 6 a.m. EST hit facilities between Al Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, and Al Basrah, about 245 miles southeast of Baghdad, a statement from U.S. Central Command said.
``Today's strike came after Iraqi air defenses fired surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery at coalition aircraft,'' the statement said.
An Iraqi military spokesman, quoted by the official Iraqi News Agency (INA), said U.S. and British planes bombed ``civilian and service installations'' in the province of Basrah south of Baghdad. The Iraqi and U.S. military authorities gave different times for the bombing.
``At 10 a.m. (2 a.m. EST) today, U.S. and British planes carried out 65 sorties from bases in Kuwait, flying over Kut, Diwaniya, Najaf, Samawa, Kerbala, Amarah and Basra,'' the Iraqi spokesman said.
``The planes attacked civilian and service installations in Basrah province,'' he said. No casualties were reported.
Iraq's anti-aircraft and missile batteries fired at the aircraft, forcing them to return to their bases, he added.
The last strike on the southern ``no-fly'' zone was on Monday.
U.S. and British warplanes regularly fly over northern and southern Iraq, patrolling ``no-fly'' zones created by Western allies after the 1991 Gulf War but not recognized by Baghdad.
The White House and the Pentagon have said that continued firing by Iraqi defenses at U.S. and British aircraft patrolling the zones was a direct violation of the November 8 U.N. resolution on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Britain disagrees, saying the zones were established under earlier U.N. resolutions and Iraqi missile attacks on Western patrols there are contrary to international law but do not violate the November 8 resolution.
-------- israel / palestine
Labor Party in Israel Selects Dove as Leader
Candidate for Prime Minister Favors Pullback and Talks
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 20, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12403-2002Nov19?language=printer
JERUSALEM, Nov. 19 -- Israel's Labor Party today elected as its leader and candidate for prime minister a former general and political newcomer who pledges swift Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and West Bank and renewed peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
Labor's choice, Amram Mitzna, 57, mayor of the coastal city of Haifa, set the stage for a general election Jan. 28 that will present voters with a relatively clear choice: pursuing Israel's military campaign against the two-year-old Palestinian uprising, or returning to a more conciliatory approach that could include reviving the moribund effort to reach a settlement with Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
"Many people think this will be the first time in a long time that there will be an ideological debate between the left and the right," said Shmuel Sandler, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv.
Israel's other large political party, Likud, will hold its primary Nov. 28. The contest is between two battle-tested hard-liners: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who recently became foreign minister in Sharon's caretaker government and has sought to portray himself as even tougher than Sharon. Public opinion surveys show that, as of now, Sharon is heavily favored to win the Likud race and has a commanding -- some say insurmountable -- lead to become the next prime minister.
Mitzna crushed Labor's incumbent chairman, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, 54 percent to 37 percent. Ben-Eliezer, who until recently was the defense minister in Sharon's national unity government, conceded defeat late tonight. A third candidate, longtime Labor stalwart Haim Ramon, had 7 percent.
Flanked by Ramon and Ben-Eliezer, Mitzna said in a victory speech at party headquarters in Tel Aviv that under his leadership Labor will be "a party that puts at the top of its agenda security, peace and a willingness to compromise with our neighbors."
But his promise was made against a backdrop of continuing violence, with Israeli military forces killing seven Palestinians tonight. Two were accused gunmen shot outside the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom in the southern Gaza Strip. Five more were killed in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, including Tareq Zaghal, 24, a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a radical offshoot of Arafat's Fatah movement. An Israeli military spokeswoman said Zaghal was involved in a Jan. 17 attack that killed six Israelis and wounded 35.
Voters in Israel's general election will cast ballots for a party, not a person. The leader of the party that gets the most votes will form a government, seek to create a coalition with a majority in parliament and become the prime minister. With his election by fellow Labor Party members today, Mitzna became Labor's candidate.
Israel's abrupt and shortened election season began when Ben-Eliezer led Labor out of Sharon's national unity government three weeks ago, ultimately causing its collapse.
At the time, Ben-Eliezer said he was bolting because of Sharon's refusal to cut the budget for Jewish settlements and redirect the funds to the poor and elderly. But political analysts and many Labor members saw the move as a bid by Ben-Eliezer to shore up support with Labor's left wing -- which was uncomfortable with his role in Sharon's cabinet -- in advance of today's party election.
Instead, the vote was a stinging repudiation of Ben-Eliezer's 11 months as head of Labor and the 19 months during which he served as Sharon's defense minister and another Labor stalwart, Shimon Peres, served as Sharon's foreign minister.
Labor, which according to its tradition is socially liberal and more inclined than Likud to negotiations with the Palestinians, was also the largest member in Sharon's parliamentary coalition. While Sharon's unity government was highly popular with the public, some Labor members grew angry at their party's partnership with Sharon and -- by extension -- its participation in Israel's military attacks on Palestinians and the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Many members had been arguing for months that Labor should quit the government and offer a true alternative as an opposition party. The selection of Mitzna as chairman sets the party on that course. Mitzna has said he favors a return to peace talks with leaders of the Palestinians' choosing, including Arafat. If they could not agree on a comprehensive peace plan, Mitzna has said, he would unilaterally draw a border with the West Bank, evacuate Jewish settlements on the Palestinian side and build a fence to separate the peoples.
In an interview today with the daily newspaper Haaretz, he said that if he is elected prime minister, one of his government's first acts would be to evacuate Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, which have about 6,500 closely guarded residents among a population of one million Palestinians. And he vowed to withdraw the Israeli military from most of the West Bank by the end of his first year in office.
Mitzna "says clear things and represents a clear ideological position vis-à-vis peace, and in favor of negotiations with the Palestinians," Labor member Jannet Aviad, 60, said after casting her ballot. "This is a totally different dynamic from what Sharon is doing on the ground. . . . The current government eternalizes the occupation."
Mitzna, who has won accolades for lowering tensions between Arabs and Jews in Haifa, also appeared to benefit from being a newcomer to national politics. A former tank commander, he burst onto the national scene in mid-April to challenge Ben-Eliezer. Although Ben-Eliezer criticized his inexperience, Mitzna appealed to Labor's rank and file by claiming loyalty to the legacy of Yitzhak Rabin, the assassinated Labor leader and prime minister who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in crafting the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
While Mitzna represents a clear victory for the party's left wing, political analysts said, it is not clear how broadly he will appeal to the Israeli electorate at large. Opinion surveys show that it has swung sharply to the right in the last two years of conflict with the Palestinians, during which almost 700 Israelis and more than 1,900 Palestinians have been killed.
While many analysts said that staking out a position in direct opposition to Likud will help the party return to its roots and redefine itself, others said it is a risky gambit. The party has alienated Arab, Russian and religious voters who make up a large part of the electorate, and it has an increasingly narrow base -- principally aging and affluent, middle- and upper-middle class Israelis.
"The dovish wing took over, and it's disastrous for Labor," said Efraim Inbar, a professor at Bar-Ilan University. He said the party is "fully discredited" by its embrace of what he termed "the failed" Oslo accords.
With polls showing Labor trailing badly in the January general election campaign, the key question for many voters -- and one that Mitzna has avoided answering directly -- is whether the party would join Likud again in a national unity government. Sharon has suggested that if he wins, he might seek a partnership with Labor's new leadership, and some analysts have indicated that because of his military background, Mitzna might be tempted by an offer to be defense minister, just as Ben-Eliezer was.
----
Peace Talks Supporter Wins Israeli Labor Vote
November 20, 2002
New York Times
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/20/international/middleeast/20ISRA.html
JERUSALEM, Nov. 19 - The opposition Labor Party chose as its standard-bearer today a former general who calls for immediately opening peace talks with the Palestinians and withdrawing troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip, early election results showed.
Amram Mitzna, the popular mayor of the port city of Haifa, turned his relative inexperience on the national stage into an asset, presenting himself as an outsider not compromised by participation in the 19-month unity government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
His chief competitor, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, was Mr. Sharon's defense minister until he led Labor out of the government last month, forcing early elections as he accused Mr. Sharon of financing settlements at the expense of the poor. Mr. Ben-Eliezer conceded the primary race late tonight.
Appealing to voters exhausted by two years of conflict and alarmed by a faltering economy, Mr. Mitzna, 57, called in a victory speech for "a different reality in Israel, a different society in Israel."
Mr. Mitzna won 54 percent of the party vote, a 16-point margin over Mr. Ben-Eliezer's 38 percent, according to official figures announced early Wednesday by Israel public radio and reported by Agence France-Presse. The third candidate, Haim Ramon, got 7 percent.
As party members went to the polls in hopes of reviving their once-dominant faction, Israeli forces killed five Palestinians - four of them civilians, and one of them 14 years old - in Tulkarm in the West Bank, Palestinian officials said.
Mr. Mitzna will be a candidate for prime minister in elections scheduled for Jan. 28, in an effort to take control of the government or to energize Labor as the opposition in the 120-seat Parliament.
Mr. Sharon is running against his foreign minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to retain the leadership of his party, Likud, which opinion polls consistently indicate is the dominant faction. The Likud primary is on Nov. 28.
Appearing on Israeli television tonight, Mr. Mitzna thanked supporters and promised to present "a bright and clear alternative." Asserting that he could defy the polls and beat either Likud candidate, he said: "The majority of the people in Israel have already seen where the last year and a half have led us. There is no security, no economy, no society, no education - nothing."
In conceding defeat, Mr. Ben-Eliezer said Labor "must reach elections united, with our heads up high, with the deep conviction that our way is the right one." In what was apparently a warning to Mr. Mitzna, he also said the party should not lurch to the left.
Mr. Mitzna has been criticized as a reprise of Ehud Barak, the cerebral former general from Labor whose failed gamble on achieving peace with the Palestinians led to his crushing defeat by Mr. Sharon in February 2001. In the party race, Mr. Mitzna's rivals also criticized him as inexperienced and gaffe-prone.
But Mr. Mitzna's résumé, his image as an outsider and his agenda appealed to Labor's left-wing base. In a brief national campaign, with voters distracted by a possible American war on Iraq, he will now try to apply the same formula to a national electorate that polls suggest has shifted to the right in the conflict with the Palestinians.
Mr. Sharon campaigned more than two years ago on a promise of peace and security. Although that promise has not been fulfilled, Israelis tend to fault the Palestinians and Yasir Arafat rather than their own leaders. Israel's economic troubles, including high unemployment and a shaky international credit rating, have done little to erode Mr. Sharon's popularity.
Yet Mr. Sharon is deprived of his broad coalition, which insulated him by spreading responsibility for decisions to Labor. He has refused to negotiate until Mr. Arafat is replaced, all Palestinian violence ceases, and the Palestinian leadership takes a number of steps, including crushing all militant organizations.
Mr. Mitzna says that as prime minister he would immediately begin talks without condition. He says that without a "political horizon" to provide hope, Palestinian militants will not set aside violence.
Mr. Mitzna, among Israel's most decorated combat veterans, was wounded four times in war - three times in one battle as a tank commander in 1967. Later, as commander of forces in the West Bank in the first Palestinian uprising, he was criticized for harsh tactics, including breaking the arms of stone throwers.
He was born into the left-wing kibbutz movement. His shaggy beard dates from the same pivotal war, in 1967, when he and some fellow officers promised not to shave until Israel reached peace with the Arabs.
Haifa has a large Israeli-Arab population, and in nine years as mayor Mr. Mitzna has made himself popular with Arab voters, as well as with new immigrants and religious Jews.
Mr. Mitzna says that if he is not elected prime minister, he will not enter a unity government under the formula that had joined Labor to Likud. He says he would join only if Likud supported his plan for unilateral separation from the Palestinians, if peace talks proved unavailing.
Under those circumstances, he says, he would call for a unilateral withdrawal from part - but not all - of the West Bank. That would mean evacuating at least some Israeli settlements.
About 200,000 settlers live in the West Bank, which is also home to more than two million Palestinians. In the Gaza Strip, 7,000 Israelis live in heavily fortified settlements surrounded by 1.2 million Palestinians. Settlements have expanded under Mr. Sharon, an architect of the movement.
Mr. Mitzna said that if he is becomes prime minister, Israel would withdraw from Gaza in a year. He has said that to protect Israel, its forces would continue to surround the Gaza Strip, which is fenced off.
Mr. Mitzna had a reputation as a remote but intelligent and charismatic commander. Although he was mentioned for chief of staff, he did not climb that high, in part because of an angry letter that he wrote after the army stood by in its 1982 invasion of Lebanon while Christian Phalangists massacred Palestinians in two refugee camps, Sabra and Shatila.
Although he was later persuaded to stay on, Mr. Mitzna, then a brigadier general, asked in the letter to be relieved of his command until the serving defense minister was gone from his post. That defense minister was Ariel Sharon.
--------
Israeli Tanks Enter 3 Gaza Villages
November 20, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Gaza.html
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Dozens of Israeli tanks entered three villages in southern Gaza early Thursday, residents said, and destroyed the house of a suspected militants. Officials said four Palestinians were slightly wounded.
The villages, in southern Gaza near Israel, are known as strongholds of the militant Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the local Popular Resistance Front, a rebel offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
Residents said soldiers surrounded the house of a DFLP activist, ordered the family out and knocked down the structure with a bulldozers.
The Israeli military would say only that an operation was under way. For several months, Israel has been implementing a policy of destroying the houses of suspected militants as a deterrent measure. Palestinians and human rights groups have denounced the practice, charging that it harms innocent relatives.
Residents said the tanks were firing in all directions. Abdel Karim Abu Salah, a Palestinian lawmaker who lives in one of the villages, said Israeli forces were preventing ambulances from entering. He said three machine gun bullets had hit his house.
Witnesses said there were exchanges of fire between local gunmen and soldiers and a large explosion next to an Israeli tank, apparently a bomb planted by Palestinians. An Israeli military ambulance raced to the scene, a witness said.
The villages are about six miles east of the city of Khan Younis in the widest section of the narrow, heavily-populated strip, near the fence that divides Gaza from Israel.
In recent days Israeli forces have carried out several operations in Gaza, sending helicopters and tanks to hit suspected weapons factories and destroying the headquarters of Palestinian Preventive Security in Gaza City. Palestinians have called the raids Israeli aggression.
-------- nato
[Remember, NATO dropped depleted uranium weapons on Kosovo. See http://prop1.org/2000/du/)
NATO to expand with new focus on terror defense
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 20, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021120-18892215.htm
BRUSSELS - NATO this week will transform its mission and command structure, expanding operations into countries from North Africa to the Middle East and South Asia in order to counter new threats such as terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, alliance officials say.
At a two-day summit beginning in Prague tomorrow, the officials say, NATO will move to enhance its military capabilities, invite seven new countries to join and strengthen its relations with nations as far away as the Caucasus and Central Asia.
The alliance will create teams to respond to biological and chemical attacks, as well as a response force of 20,000 able to deploy within seven to 30 days and sustain itself for up to a month. The United States will also ask its allies for support in developing a missile-defense shield, U.S. officials say.
"We are building a new NATO, with different military capabilities and a new mission, which is to go outside the alliance's geographic borders to defend its members," Nicholas Burns, the American ambassador to NATO, said in a telephone interview.
"NATO is becoming the one organization that can integrate the entire Euro-Atlantic world, from the Western reaches of Canada and the United States all the way across to the Russian Far East."
In the largest expansion in its 53-year history, the alliance will extend membership invitations to Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, senior Western officials said. President Bush made up his mind to support those seven candidates on Friday and informed NATO Secretary-General George Robertson of his decision in a phone call.
Mr. Burns, who visited each of nine candidates, including Albania and Macedonia, three times in the months leading up to the summit, said his delegation was "impressed by their commitment to democracy, the progress they have made since the end of communism and the fact that they are like-minded with the United States."
"The majority of these countries are relatively small, but they have capable militaries and the political will to defend not only themselves but the alliance as well," he said.
Emyr Jones Parry, the British ambassador to NATO, said this round of enlargement is "better prepared" than the last one in 1997, when Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were invited to join. After those three became members more than three years ago, the alliance issued specific requirements for new applicants in individual documents calls Membership Action Plans.
The nations that will be admitted in Prague were "quite canny in responding to international events," such as NATO's 1999 war with Serbia over Kosovo and last year's campaign against the Taliban, and "genuinely started delivering," Mr. Parry said. Some of them offered use of their airspace and military bases, while others sent troops to Afghanistan.
"During the Cold War, if we added a country, there was one more to defend against the Soviet threat," a senior U.S. official said. But now, a "democratic, reforming and capable new member can be a multiplier for good in the war on terrorism."
"Countries like Bulgaria and Romania are truly capable, militarily," the official said. "The Baltic states have formed their Baltic battalion. It's a small force, but very well-trained and cohesive, and it fits well with ours." So all these contributions will "strengthen our ability to reach our strategic goal: Europe whole, free and at peace."
Mr. Burns said the United States will tell its allies at the summit that the large gap in military capabilities between them and America must be narrowed to avoid having "a two-tier alliance where we are so far ahead of our allies that we can't fight effectively together."
Even if the Europeans do not increase their spending, they "could use their existing defense euros more wisely by providing professional military units with the tools they need to carry out alliance missions, rather than retain static conscript forces," he said.
In Prague, a number of NATO's members will make commitments "to invest in certain military capabilities: strategic lift, precision-guided munitions, air-to-air refueling, sea lift and special forces."
Mr. Parry said it is up to the Europeans, including Britain, "to deliver," and "if we want the phone to ring, we have to be credible."
Although NATO invoked its common-defense Article 5 for the first time immediately after the September 11 attacks last year, the Bush administration decided not to seek the alliance's help in the anti-Taliban campaign, except for Britain's limited assistance. NATO, however, is now fully engaged in peacekeeping in Afghanistan.
In spite of earlier objections to the alliance's expansion to Moscow's doorstep, Russian President Vladimir Putin "realized that he can't prevent it," said Ahmet Uzumcu, the Turkish ambassador to NATO.
Mr. Putin will not attend the Prague summit, but the NATO-Russia Council, which was created earlier this year, will meet at the foreign-minister level.
NATO had also hoped "to announce a new step forward in our relations with Ukraine," but reports that President Leonid Kuchma "approved the sale of a Kolchuga radar system to Iraq has stopped our dialogue with him dead in its tracks," Mr. Burns said.
"Ukraine must cooperate as we respond to this problem," he said. "The U.S. believes NATO should maintain its links with reformers in Ukraine, but we cannot conduct business as usual with leaders who violate United Nations sanctions on Iraq."
----
NATO's growth spurt
Helle Dale
November 20, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/dale.htm
Most people get over their growth spurts in the teen-age years. This week, however, the very mature North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is set to grow considerably. By week's end, the roster of potential new members may bring the alliance to 26 from the current 19. If the three Baltic countries are included - as they are expected to be, along with Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania - NATO will even extend beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union.
Tomorrow, heads of government from current and aspiring NATO countries will gather in Prague for one of the most important meetings of the 53-year-old defense alliance. Though the envisioned second round of post-Cold War enlargement of NATO has taken shape with remarkably little controversy, the upcoming meeting will be an existential moment of extraordinary important for the alliance - and by extension for the troubled trans-Atlantic relationship.
In the age of global terrorism, NATO desperately needs new ways to remain relevant, indeed viable. The terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11 - and their aftermath - were a shrill but much-needed wake-up call for NATO planners.
For the first time in the history of the alliance, the members invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty - promising collective defense of a member under attack - only to find this offer of assistance politely ignored. Instead, the United States went to war in Afghanistan largely on its own. With the capabilities in place and a time frame of mere weeks, Gen. Tommy Franks did not have the time to wait for NATO allies whose force projection abilities were extremely limited anyway.
President Bush goes to Prague with a specific agenda that includes three items. First, there is the enlargement itself. By being included in NATO, these members of the defunct Warsaw Pact become further grounded in European institutions, members of the democratic West. It will bring Europe closer to realizing the vision of a continent that is "whole, free, and at peace," as Mr. Bush promised in Warsaw in the summer of 2001.
Secondly and crucially, there's the job of transforming NATO into the kind of alliance that can strike against the enemy of the future, very possibly far from its own borders. We no longer face the threat of massive armies contending for the Central European plains, the Cold War model of military conflict in Europe. Rather, today, NATO members face common threats deriving from terrorists and state sponsors of terrorism.
"Operation Enduring Freedom" in Afghanistan, in other words, is likely to be the model. These threats require a different kind of military force, a force that is lighter, more agile and more flexible.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently proposed just such a model, a NATO Response Force for expeditionary missions, a technologically high-end force consisting of some 21,000 NATO troops supported by state-of-the-art sea and air power. It could consist of "coalitions of the willing," which would eliminate the all-or-nothing approach to NATO missions that has hamstrung the alliance in the past.
Some Europeans have grumbled that this idea could rival their planned, but not yet existing, European Rapid Reaction Force meant for peacekeeping tasks in and around Europe. Still, reactions to the American proposal have largely been positive, particularly because it shows a commitment to the alliance. Even the French have declared their support.
Finally, the Bush administration will seek to build on its budding relationship with Russia. In May, NATO institutionalized a new relationship with Russia through the consultative NATO-Russia Council. It is one of the reasons that Russian opposition to the second round of enlargement has been muted to nonexistent, which marks a great difference from the first round in 1999, which brought in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. From Prague, Mr. Bush will travel to Moscow for a summit with the Russian leader. It is expected that terrorism will be featured prominently in their discussions, particularly the influence of terrorist elements in Chechnya.
Privately, the Bush administration is expected to lobby for support for action against Iraq, which is currently opposed by the German government and approached with reluctance by many other NATO members. The administration can also be expected urgently to ask for Europeans to reform and invest in their defense forces. Right now, 85 percent of total NATO capability rests with the United States. That is a clearly unsustainable situation.
After last September, many were ready to write NATO's death certificate as an alliance that had outlived its usefulness. The Prague summit will indicate whether NATO will have a new lease on life.
Helle Dale is deputy director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Email: helle.dale@heritage.org.
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Bush calls for war coalition
By Nicholas M. Horrock
UPI Chief White House Correspondent
November 20, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021120-054754-7050r.htm
PRAGUE, Czech Republic, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- On the eve of the NATO summit, President George W. Bush called Wednesday for a "coalition of the willing," to help the United States disarm Iraq, should world pressure fail to persuade Saddam Hussein to give up the weapons voluntarily.
At a news conference with the Czech Republic's president, Vaclav Havel, at Prague Castle, Bush said, as he has in the past, that he hopes the Iraqi leader will choose to shed his weapons of mass destruction peacefully, but if military action became necessary, the United States would not proceed without "consulting our friends."
Seeming to follow his father's plan on the eve of the Gulf War in 1990, Bush said the United States will form a "coalition of the willing" and "all will be able to choose whether they want to participate." In 1990, the senior President Bush formed a coalition army of 500,000 men and women that invaded Iraq and liberated Kuwait. Several in NATO joined that coalition, including the United Kingdom and France.
In the brief news conference following a private meeting with Havel, Bush seemed to have shed the United-States-will-go-it-alone challenge that he has often stressed. He said that before the United States would take any steps, "they'll be plenty of consultation with our friends" and that nations like the Czech Republic and the Great Britain will be able to make their own decision as to whether to join in the attack.
Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has said he opposes military action against Iraq, but at Wednesday's news conference, Bush said the final decision would be up to the German people.
Havel, appearing wan and speaking hesitantly, said he hoped that final reports of the summit will reflect some collective view of what to do on Iraq. Havel is expected to step down shortly due to ill health.
Both Bush and Havel are supporting moves to expand and modernize NATO. The Bush administration has pressed a plan that NATO form a 21,000-person special operations force that could operate outside the traditional boundaries of Europe and be able to contend with the threat of world terrorism.
The U.S. president defended a remark he made about NATO supplying "niche" military skills instead of the heavy ground forces now only really maintained by the United States and Great Britain, by noting that the Czech Republic's expertise in defending against biological and chemical warfare attacks is a vital skill. He said they are the "best in the world."
Bush again pushed his hard attack on terrorism, calling the terrorists "cold-blooded killers" who hate the freedom of the Czech Republic and other nations and use a "hijacked religion" to justify their cause. He reiterated that the United States is not opposed to the Muslim faith.
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Bush urges NATO stand against Iraq
President says war can be averted 'if collective will of world is strong'
By Sandra Sobieraj
The Associated Press
November 20, 2002, 8:23 AM EST
http://www.sunspot.net/news/custom/iraq/bal-nato-iraq1120,0,6301893.story?coll=bal%2Dhome%2Dheadlines
PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- President Bush exhorted NATO allies, as they gathered in this Bohemian capital under cover of American F-16 jets, to stand together in a strong "coalition of the willing" against Iraq's Saddam Hussein so that war might be averted.
"By remaining strong and united and tough, we'll prevail," the president said today.
The first of 19 NATO leaders to come here for an alliance summit focused on expansion and modernization, Bush sought to soothe European anxieties about war with promises of consultation and hopes for peace.
In a news conference with Czech President Vaclav Havel, Bush said a military clash with Iraq was his "last choice" -- and an avoidable one. It is still possible Saddam could get the message, Bush said. "If the collective will of the world is strong, we can achieve disarmament peacefully," he said.
But, the president added, if Saddam refuses to abandon his weapons programs, "the United States will lead a coalition of the willing to disarm him."
NATO diplomats had already said the alliance would not take up arms collectively against Iraq. Bush used separate meetings with Czech, Turkish, French and British leaders to discuss "the cause," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
"At that point in time, all our nations -- we will consult with our friends -- and all nations will be able to choose whether or not they want to participate," Bush said. He noted that the Czech Republic maintains army units that are among "the very best in the world" in responding to chemical and biological attacks.
As for Germany, still unrelenting in its opposition to any disarmament by force, Bush said: "It's a decision Germany will make just like it's a decision the Czech Republic will make, just like it's a decision Great Britain will make. It's a decision that each country must decide as to how, if and when they want to participate, and how they choose to participate."
Bush has no plans to meet with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose recent re-election campaign infuriated Bush by focusing on opposition to Bush's Iraq policy. Fleischer said the two leaders were likely to exchange hellos at a black-tie summit dinner tonight.
Thousands of anarchists and anti-war protesters threatened demonstrations around the summit convening Thursday. The Czech government mobilized 12,000 police officers, 2,200 heavily armed soldiers and special anti-terrorist units to protect the presidents and prime ministers converging on this romantic "city of 1,000 spires." But squares where actions were scheduled were largely empty early today.
Miles above the castles and cathedrals, U.S. fighter jets patrolled Prague airspace, supplementing Czech pilots who circled at lower altitudes in aging, Soviet-era planes. Intelligence officials fear the leaders are an inviting target for al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations.
Bush's speech to students today had to be moved from Radio Free Europe headquarters to a sequestered hotel along the riverfront because of threats, law enforcement officials said. On Tuesday, railway workers found an explosive device on city tracks.
Emphasizing unity, NATO leaders are to approve invitations to seven former communist states: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Their membership, Bush said, will invigorate the alliance and offer greater military security to a world in turmoil.
"The enemy is not Russia. The enemy is global terrorists who hate freedom, and together we can work to defeat that enemy in the name of freedom," Bush said.
The alliance is also due to announce plans for a 21,000-strong rapid response force that could mobilize in seven to 30 days to confront threats from terrorists, renegade governments or regional crises.
On Iraq, Havel said the Czech people prefer that Saddam peacefully surrender his weapons of mass destruction. "If, however, the need to use force were to arise, I believe NATO should give honest and speedy consideration to its engagement as an alliance," he said.
He emphasized his desire to see a collective NATO expression of support, whether military or political, and said he hopes NATO will address the Iraq crisis in a formal statement.
Diplomats from several NATO nations, including the United States and Germany, said Tuesday they were negotiating a summit statement that would echo U.N. demands that Iraq allow unfettered weapons inspections.
Fleischer said the United States aims to get a "generalized political statement" on Iraq, not something that gets into details or potential consequences for Iraqi noncompliance. "This is not the United Nations all over again," Fleischer said.
Bush declined to say whether his "zero tolerance" policy toward Iraq would apply to Iraqi attempts to shoot down coalition aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone.
He was also meeting today with NATO Secretary-General George Robertson and President Ahmet Necdet Sezer of Turkey, whose country shares a border with Iraq and offers military bases critical to any U.S.-led attack.
The administration disclosed that U.S. ambassadors in 50 countries have been told to solicit support from allies for personnel and equipment to assist American forces in the war on terrorism and, possibly, on Iraq.
A senior administration official said the preliminary surveys are meant to formalize ad-hoc offers of support made to Washington over recent months.
On the Net:
Prague summit: http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/2002/0211-prague/index.htm
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Key Issues at NATO Summit
November 20, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-NATO-Summit-Glance.html
Key issues facing President Bush and other leaders at this week's NATO summit in the Czech capital, Prague:
EXPANSION: NATO is expected Thursday to formally invite Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria to join the alliance. NATO ambassadors approved the expansion Monday, clearing the way for the nations to join in May 2004 following ratification by legislatures. Other candidates, including Albania, Macedonia and Croatia, will be told to wait.
NEW MISSIONS: The leaders are expected to approve a new military doctrine focusing on the danger from terrorism, rogue states and the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. NATO will set aside concerns about acting outside its traditional European and North Atlantic theaters and announce it is ready to strike against threats wherever they arise. The alliance's military structures will be reformed to give them greater flexibility. A U.S. general will become strategic operational commander, uniting U.S. and European-based commands. Another strategic commander, based in the United States, will oversee the modernization of the alliance military.
RESPONSE FORCE: Allies are expected to approve a U.S. plan for a 21,000-member rapid response force with core units able to mobilize at a week's notice. It will comprise hard-edged fighting units, with land, air and sea forces. Originally due to become operational from 2004 to 2006, NATO official