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NUCLEAR
Defector From N. Korea Creating a Stir in Japan
Toxic Munitions And Deadly Vaccines
Inspectors Examine Two Sites Outside Baghdad
Inspectors Conclude First Mission
Iraq Set to Open Sites Previously Off-Limits
U.N. Body to Urge N.Korea Nuclear Checks
Teller Honored by Energy Dept. Secretary
Nevada senators seek Yucca Mountain probe
Los Alamos nuclear lab warns of radioactive trees
New Mexico Lab Fires Two Whistleblowers
Indian Point 3 Will Increase Power Output
Bush Names Kissinger to Lead 9/11 Probe
The Latest Kissinger Outrage
Terrorism insurance bill signed into law
MILITARY
Dogfight Over the F/A-22
Figuring the Costs of War
Rebel attacks on pipelines weakening state oil company
Court Throws Out Colombian Army's Emergency Powers
U.S. Wants to Move Fast on Sensors for India Border
Israel seeks military aid increase
Israeli and Palestinian doves meet
Israel Asks U.S. for an Increase of $4 Billion in Military Aid
US ultimatum to Saudi leaders, 'do it, or we will'
Yemeni Proclaims His Nation's Solidarity With U.S.
NATO: The More the Murkier
FBI puts 'Spiders' to work in Pakistan
Face of U.S. espionage changing
Pentagon Wants $10 Billion a Year for Antiterror Fund
A very public wargame
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Kissinger to Lead 9/11 Inquiry
N.C. Sets Up `Actual Innocence' Panel
Bush Signs Bill to Boost Cyber Security
105 foreigners on watch list got visas
ENERGY AND OTHER
BP Solar drops thin film solar cells, up to 260 US jobs
Northern Calif. Geothermal Plant OK'd
Court Requires Cheney to Disclose Energy Documents
Agency Proposes Relaxing Rules on Logging in National Forests
Bush Signs $250M Great Lakes Cleanup Bill
Whole Foods in Los Angeles Goes Solar
Woman to Bear a Clone, a Doctor Says
Stem Cell Mixing May Form a Human-Mouse Hybrid
U.S. Urges Abolition Of Tariffs
Saved, or Ruined, by 'White Gold'
ACTIVISTS
Russia Greens say security service oppressing them
Government, ACLU reach a pact on Patriot Act data
Where is Israel's Daniel Ellsberg?
Protest Against G.I.'s Leads to Breaching of Post Near Seoul
Iran Releases Four Student Protesters
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- asia
Defector From N. Korea Creating a Stir in Japan
Legislature Cancels Testimony on Nuclear Claims
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 27, 2002; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43573-2002Nov26?language=printer
TOKYO -- Kenki Aoyama complains he is the spy no one wants to hear.
A self-described double agent, a man with roots in two countries and a passport from a third, a man who uses a pseudonym and talks from the shadows, he says he has now come out of the cold.
He wants to tell the stories that the Japanese Foreign Ministry has been buying ever since he escaped to China from North Korea four years ago, wading across a river with his family after working 38 years for the secretive government.
Some of those stories are blockbusters: Aoyama says North Korea has developed a nuclear bomb. He says it has a phalanx of missiles dug into a hillside, some aimed at Japan. He says North Korea kidnapped dozens more Japanese nationals than it has admitted.
But the party chiefs in the government's ruling coalition abruptly canceled Aoyama's scheduled testimony before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives last week. The party leaders said they cannot be sure enough of Aoyama's background to allow him to speak. Opposition politicians cried foul; they said the government fears being embarrassed by what Aoyama would say.
In particular, say the critics, the Foreign Ministry does not want to explain why it did not raise earlier and louder alarms about Aoyama's nuclear and missile claims.
"There are lots of things [the ruling parties] don't want out," said Masaharu Nakagawa, of the opposition Democratic Party. "We want to know what facts he gave the Foreign Ministry, and whether they neglected the information."
Masahiro Imamura, a senior ruling party member of the committee, said the testimony was canceled because Aoyama's background is too murky. "We don't know what kind of person he is," Imamura said. By uninviting him, "we've protected the honor of the Parliament."
The Foreign Ministry, already embroiled in controversy over its political ties to legislators, is trying to distance itself from the issue. "We had no involvement" in the decision to cancel his appearance, said a Foreign Ministry spokesman. He would not comment on why the ministry had helped Aoyama get into Japan and why it had bought his information. The matter is secret because of intelligence-gathering, he said.
Other Foreign Ministry sources said privately that Aoyama's background as a North Korean engineer-turned-spy, and the details he has provided from his long career, have not been discredited. But they say his more sensational claims also cannot be proved -- and could complicate delicate diplomacy with North Korea.
"We just don't know for sure" about Aoyama, insisted a high-ranking official.
Aoyama is not his real name, the confessed spy acknowledges, although that is on his Japanese driver's license. He was born in Japan, to Korean parents, in 1939 under a different name, and lived in North Korea under yet another. He revealed the names to a reporter, but asked that they not be used.
"The North Koreans don't know who I am. They smell me, but they haven't confirmed it. If they learn my real name, all my relatives in North Korea will be" -- he drew his finger across his throat.
Aoyama, a slight, pale man, chain-smokes nervously. He talked to a reporter in a "safe" hotel outside Tokyo. He wore a toupee, and would not agree to be photographed. He illustrates his points with schematic sketches on a scratchpad, like the engineer he says he is, and tells his story in painstaking detail.
After 21 years in Japan, where Koreans were denied Japanese citizenship rights and suffered discrimination, Aoyama joined a "return to the homeland" movement then popular and left for North Korea in 1960.
There, he met and married his wife, also a Japanese-born Korean, and earned his way into a prestigious engineering college. Many engineers, he said, were being sent after graduation to Yongbyon, a backwater town that was the site of North Korea's fledgling nuclear program, but he was lucky. He was assigned to an engineering unit in the capital, Pyongyang, that did research, communications and work related to missiles, Aoyama said. Through his job and network of school classmates -- a lifelong bond in Korean society -- Aoyama followed North Korea's missile and nuclear pursuits, he said.
"Kim Il Sung's ambition to develop nuclear was burning," Aoyama wrote in a recent article in a Japanese magazine, referring to the founder of North Korea.
Work proceeded with Russian help, though slowly, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Then, more than 40 scientists and engineers -- most of them Russians but also some East Germans and Czechoslovaks -- moved into apartments in Pyongyang to work on the program.
In about 1996, Aoyama said, his fellow engineers were celebrating the arrival of centrifuges that could process the country's abundant natural uranium into nuclear weapons fuel. Two years before that, Aoyama said, he ran into a group of 30 to 40 visiting Pakistani engineers, and his classmates confirmed the connection.
"They were there to exchange technologies," he said. "The Pakistanis came to learn our missile technology. Pakistan, naturally, gave North Korea nuclear technology in return."
The United States has said it has evidence that Pakistan aided North Korea's nuclear program in exchange for help in making missiles that could target India. Pakistan has denied it.
North Korea's nuclear capabilities have long been a source of speculation. The CIA estimates North Korea could have developed one or two nuclear bombs, and Chinese estimates put the number higher. But those estimates are unproven; North Korea has neither tested a bomb nor outright claimed to have one.
Aoyama said his suspicions were confirmed around 1997. He was working as an industrial spy in Beijing, and he met an old friend, a North Korean nuclear scientist, at a bar there.
The man looked terrible, thin and wan. His eyebrows had disappeared from accidental radiation, Aoyama said.
"I said, 'Are you still working on it?' " Aoyama recalled.
"No," came the reply. "It's done. We succeeded."
"It" was a nuclear bomb, and Aoyama said the man told him that Pyongyang's long quest to obtain an atomic weapon had been achieved.
"I've been telling them [Japanese authorities] North Korea has a nuclear weapon for three years," Aoyama said this week.
Aoyama turned from scientist to spy starting in 1994, he said. His technical expertise and fluency in Japanese earned him an assignment in Beijing as an industrial spy.
Aoyama said he pocketed large profits from his efforts. But in the spring of 1998, he was abruptly summoned back to Pyongyang, where he learned he had fallen under official suspicion, a likely death sentence. Within two days, he said, he and his wife and three children were on a train to the northern border, where they bribed guards to let them wade across the river into China at night.
With more bribes, he had earlier obtained a Chinese passport, though he said he does not speak Chinese. He took some of his information to the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, he said, and in March 1999 was brought to Japan by the Foreign Ministry.
Aoyama said he gave 32 reports detailing what he knew of North Korea to the Japanese Foreign Ministry. He received $1,500 per month, or less, in return -- barely subsistence in Japan.
But after more than three years, Aoyama said, he became angry that the Japanese government was not more alarmed by his reports, particularly those about the nuclear and missile programs.
"I've given them information they couldn't buy with any money," he said.
He wrote a book, published in September, mostly about life in North Korea. Then he published his more volatile charges in an article this month in the Monthly Gendai magazine, resulting in his now-revoked invitation to testify. Instead, he met last week with opposition party members. Speaking from behind a screen, he spurred the growing controversy with additional allegations.
There is more to North Korea's missile and nuclear programs than Japan or the United States recognize, he said.
He said North Korea has an extensive biochemical warfare program -- though he said he does not know details of it.
He alleged that a kingpin of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the late Shin Kanemaru, had received unmarked gold bullion from North Korea for secret negotiations with the isolated regime. The story fit the discovery of unmarked bullion in Kanemaru's home in 1992, but this charge was indignantly denied by the ruling party officials. Two high-ranking Foreign Ministry officials privately acknowledged in interviews that payments were made to Aoyama. But both insisted that this did not lend Aoyama credibility.
"We pay for lots of information, but we don't believe all of it," one official said.
-------- depleted uranium
Toxic Munitions And Deadly Vaccines
American Soldiers Endangered By Their Own Instruments Of War
Nov 27 2002,
TomPaine.com
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6815
Conn Hallinan is provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a foreign policy analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus
Every time I hear the likes of Vice-President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, or Sen. Lieberman go on about war with Iraq, it reminds me of a history lesson. Congress should keep in mind when it begins its debate over Iraq: Wars are waged with the bodies of the young, and they always come home.
The 1991 Gulf War is a case in point. As wars go, it was a slam-dunk for the United States side. While Iraqi casualties were somewhere between 85,000 to 100,000, the United States lost 148 soldiers in combat, the majority of those the victims of so-called "friendly fire."
Gulf War II is likely to be a repeat. The United States is better armed than it was 11 years ago, while a decade of sanctions and bombings -- more tonnage has been dropped on Iraq since the end of Gulf War I than was dropped on Yugoslavia during the war over Kosovo -- has reduced the Iraqi military to a shadow of its former self. I suspect we will take Baghdad in less than a week. But that's when the real trouble starts.
Out of 700,000 U.S. soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 118,000 are suffering from chronic fatigue, headaches, muscle spasms, joint pains, anxiety, memory loss and balance problems. Gulf vets are twice as likely to develop Lou Gehrig's Disease, and two to three times more likely to have children with birth defects.
War has always been a toxic business, but it is much more so today than it was 50 years ago. Modern battlefields are saturated with Depleted Uranium Ammunition (DUA), and other chemicals, and soldiers are pumped full of untested vaccines and antidotes.
In the last Gulf go-around, the United States fired 860,590 DUA munitions. While the military keeps claiming DUAs are harmless, tank crews protected by DUA armor get the equivalent of a chest x-ray every 20 to 30 hours. Ask your doctor if that is a good idea. The Army's own Chemical Command concluded back in 1991 that troops exposed to DUA should wear protective masks, respirators and clothes, "at a minimum." Fighting in such gear is almost impossible, which means it is unlikely to be used much, and probably only if chemical or biological weapons are used.
One major suspect in Gulf War Syndrome is the experimental anthrax vaccine required for all military personal. That requirement has caused an exodus from the Air Force. According to the Associated Press, the vaccine is a leading reason for aircrews and pilots resigning from the National Guard and Air Force Reserve units, and 86 percent of those who take the vaccine report local or system-wide reactions.
The effect of another war on Iraqis, of course, will be horrendous. The Pentagon projects a minimum of 10,000 Iraqi civilian deaths for Gulf II.
If Congress and the American pubic don't bring a halt to all this, we are going to kill and maim tens of thousands of innocent people, goad angry young Muslims to commit more terrorism against American civilians, and create yet another round of deadly Gulf War Syndrome for our troops.
Young men pressed into the service of empire have always paid for it with their lives. Rudyard Kipling's epitaph for them still resonates today:
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
-------- inspections
Inspectors Examine Two Sites Outside Baghdad
Iraq Says Nuclear Facility Houses Only Civilian Programs
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45556-2002Nov27?language=printer
AL-RASHAD, Iraq, Nov. 27--U.N. inspectors resumed their search this morning for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq by fanning out in two groups to visit a large military compound and a government-run factory on the outskirts of Baghdad, commencing a mission that could determine whether the United States launches a war against Saddam Hussein's government.
U.N. officials did not issue any immediate comment about their visits, but journalists following both groups did not witness any problems. Both teams were able to enter the compounds quickly and were subsequently observed touring the facilities with Iraqi officials.
The inspectors left the U.N. compound in Baghdad at 8:30 a.m. local time (12:30 a.m. EST), traveling in a convoy of nine white four-wheel-drive vehicles and one ambulance. The vehicles, which were pursued by dozens of cars filled with foreign journalists, quickly split into two groups, with one traveling to the complex at Al-Rashad and the other heading to a graphite factory.
The site at Al-Rashad, identified by Iraqi officials as the Al-Tahaddi Center, was visited by seven specialists from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is working with a special U.N. commission examining Iraq's weapons programs. The Al-Tahaddi facility, located about 12 miles northeast of Baghdad, has been associated in the past with Iraq's nuclear-energy program and was searched by previous groups of inspectors in the 1990s.
Iraq insists that it does not posses weapons of mass destruction and no longer has a civilian nuclear-energy program. Al-Tahaddi's director told journalists after the three-hour inspection that the facility is engaged only in civilian projects, principally producing and repairing high-voltage electronic motors for cement factories and oil refineries.
"We don't have anything that's not permitted here," said the director, Haythan Mahmood.
After the inspectors left, he escorted a small group of television cameramen to one building in the compound, a three-story structure where several workmen clad in blue and orange jumpsuits were working on what appeared to be engine parts, hammering and bolting various pieces of metal. The journalists were not permitted to visit other buildings at the site.
The inspectors, however, were seen walking around the compound and entering several other buildings, at least one of which appeared to be newly constructed. Two others looked to be mobile structures.
Charles A. Duelfer, a former deputy chairman of an earlier U.N. commission charged with examining Iraq's weapons programs, told a U.S. Senate subcommittee in February that the Al-Tahaddi Center has been one of the "key facilities where [nuclear weapons] personnel congregated."
"These centers have legitimate rationales for their on-going work, but the presence of teams of alumni from the nuclear weapons program is a key tip-off," he said in prepared testimony.
About an hour after the inspectors left the U.N. compound, a long, thin line of smoke from a lone fighter jet could be seen in the skies over Baghdad. Air raid sirens sounded across the capital, followed by an all-clear some 10 minutes later.
An Iraqi civil defense official told the Reuters news agency that Western planes flew over the capital. But U.S. and British officials denied any activity over the city.
"Iraqi claims that Western warplanes flew over Baghdad tonight are false," a Pentagon spokesman was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Baghdad is just north of a southern "no-fly" zone routinely patrolled by U.S. and British planes. In the past, sirens have sounded in Baghdad when the planes struck at targets near the edge of the zone in response to Iraqi anti-aircraft fire.
The second group of inspectors visited the military-run Graphite Rod Factory, located in the town of Amariyah, about 25 miles southwest of Baghdad, according to report filed by an Associated Press reporter who followed that group of inspectors. Those inspectors were members of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.
A U.N. Security Council resolution approved unanimously earlier this month calls for inspectors to be given access to any person or place in Iraq--including mosques, military bases and Hussein's palaces--without having to seek permission or provide advance notice. The resolution also requires Iraq to permit its scientists and their families to be interviewed abroad, and it gives Hussein's government until Dec. 8 to provide a complete account of the status of its chemical, biological and nuclear facilities.
Although his government has condemned the resolution as a violation of Iraq's sovereignty based on concocted evidence, Hussein has grudgingly accepted it as a last-ditch chance to avert a military showdown with the United States. The resolution states that Iraq could face "serious consequences" if it fails to cooperate.
U.N. inspectors first arrived in Iraq in 1991, shortly after the end of the Persian Gulf War. They have been credited with destroying large quantities of Iraq's chemical weapons stockpile and monitoring equipment that could be used in the manufacture of nuclear and biological devices.
But the inspectors found themselves embroiled in frequent disputes with the Iraqi government, which restricted the inspectors' ability to travel and visit certain sites. Finally, in 1998, the inspectors withdrew, declaring that Iraq's defiance made it unable to carry out their work. The United States and Britain subsequently launched four days of air strikes against Iraq.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said today that Iraqi cooperation "is the only way to avoid a military conflict in the region."
"I do not believe war is inevitable," he told Europe 1 radio in Paris.
Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri, in remarks broadcast on Radio Cairo Wednesday, said: "Iraq is not afraid of the inspectors' work because it has nothing to hide, but Iraq fears that some of the inspectors will misuse their authority and make trouble that the United States will use to strike Iraq. Iraq will not give them such an opportunity."
----
Inspectors Conclude First Mission
Reuters
November 27, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43564-2002Nov26.html
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.N. arms inspectors today completed their first field mission in Iraq in four years - the formal start of a hunt for banned Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The inspectors spent about three hours at a large military compound east of Baghdad before heading back to their headquarters at the old Canal Hotel on the southeastern outskirts of the capital.
There was no immediate word from the inspectors or the Iraqi authorities on how the inspection went.
----
Iraq Set to Open Sites Previously Off-Limits
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 27, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43564-2002Nov26?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 27 (Wednesday) -- As U.N. arms experts began to hunt today for clues that President Saddam Hussein's government has or is developing weapons of mass destruction, the inspectors and the government both say they will be heading into previously out-of-bounds territory in a quest to avert a U.S. military attack.
The inspectors set off early today in a convoy of nine white vehicles with U.N. logos and drove to a large military compound about 12 miles east of Baghdad. They were escorted by Iraqi officials and followed by about 50 cars carrying journalists, who were barred from entering the compound.
The inspectors, reinforced by a new Security Council resolution, say they finally will be able to visit any place in Iraq, including secret military research laboratories and Hussein's presidential palaces, without giving advance warning to Iraqi officials, a power that eluded their predecessors during more than seven years of inspections in the 1990s.
The Iraqi government, secretive and intensely nationalist, says it is willing under the resolution to open itself up to foreign officials in ways never before imaginable here. If it follows through on promises to cooperate, the government will be required to allow the U.N. inspection teams to walk through some of the country's most sensitive installations -- where not even many Iraqis penetrate -- and permit top scientists to be taken abroad for interviews.
The degree of Iraqi compliance with the new inspection requirements, laid down Nov. 8 in a unanimous resolution, remains to be seen. It is also unknown whether Hussein's government is telling the truth when it claims that it no longer has weapons of mass destruction or programs to build them. But the government has vowed to abide by the new rules, and several signs point to a response that will be markedly different from the way Iraqi officials handled previous inspections from 1991 to 1998.
An adviser to Hussein said Tuesday that "every ministry, every site in the country that the inspectors might want to visit, has received instructions to cooperate fully."
"This is the first time the government has given this directive," he said. "They have been told, 'Prepare the keys. Prepare the person to accompany the inspectors. Prepare the gates to be opened 24 hours a day.' "
U.N. officials said they also were told by Iraqi officials that such orders have been issued. One of the inspection leaders, Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said the Iraqi government promised to provide the inspectors "full cooperation and full transparency."
Hans Blix, the chief U.N. inspector, told the Security Council Monday that Iraqi officials informed him during a visit to Baghdad last week that, despite the pledge of cooperation, inspections of sensitive laboratories and presidential sites cannot be as routine as those of more mundane sites. But he did not specify what conditions the Iraqi government might impose, and his lieutenants here put emphasis on the promises of cooperation.
"Things look different this time," said Demetrius Perricos, leader of an 11-member team from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, Blix's organization charged with inspecting Iraq's chemical, biological and missile programs. Inspectors from the IAEA, who will work alongside those from the United Nations, will be responsible for nuclear issues.
U.S. officials are skeptical of Iraq's promises to cooperate, noting that Iraq has failed in the past to provide an honest accounting of weapons programs. They also contend that although Iraq might have destroyed much of its production capacity, it may also have hidden small caches of chemical and biological weapons that would be hard to find in a country of 168,000 square miles.
Many Iraqis, official and unofficial, expressed opposition to the demand to open up any building to the inspectors, calling it a violation of their sovereignty. But they said they were willing to put up with it if a war with the United States could be averted.
"Can you imagine inspectors going into the White House and searching everywhere without giving notice?" said Mohammed Akram, a Baghdad shopkeeper. "It's very difficult for us to imagine that people should be allowed to do that to us."
But, he said, if it might help prevent a U.S. attack, "we must swallow our pride and do this."
The Iraqi government also has indicated it will accommodate journalists who want to cover the inspections. The Information Ministry issued press passes Tuesday to about 100 foreign reporters and told them they would be free to follow the inspectors wherever they went. Usually, any visits to government buildings require advance permission and the presence of a government minder.
Government officials said they would be more than happy for journalists to witness the inspections in their entirety, filming the experts as they run their Geiger counters and scoop up soil samples. "We want the cameras inside," the presidential adviser said. He said the government "wants to document the work of the inspectors, particularly if they try to create problems."
U.N. officials, however, nixed the presence of journalists at inspection sites, saying their Security Council mandate gives them the power to make places that are being searched "exclusion zones," where nobody can enter or leave. "Our job is to be done in a quiet manner, away from the cameras," Perricos said.
With a clear Security Council mandate and the equivalent of nationwide backstage passes, the inspectors said they also plan to approach this round of searches differently. For starters, they have a clear game plan for inspections over the next few weeks, based on studying satellite photos and sifting through intelligence reports for the past four years, since the last group of inspectors withdrew.
"It is our first opportunity to go under the roofs to see what's there," Perricos said.
He refused to detail where they plan to visit first, but other U.N. officials said the initial searches almost certainly will occur at well-known sites long linked to Iraq's weapons programs, where the experts may install cameras and other surveillance equipment. Those visits, U.N. officials said, likely will result in little new evidence or confrontation, but will provide important practice for the newly arrived inspectors, many of whom have never worked in Iraq.
U.N. officials said they plan to pay close attention to Western intelligence reports that Iraq has shifted some of its chemical and biological weapons-related facilities underground and put others in mobile laboratories. The IAEA said it also intends to look into allegations that Iraq may be using recently imported aluminum tubes to enrich uranium compounds into weapons-grade material.
At a news conference Tuesday, the inspectors showed off some of the 20 tons of equipment they have flown into Baghdad in recent days, including ground-penetrating radar that can uncover underground facilities and radioactive isotope detectors. This round of searches will employ more advanced technology than inspectors have used in the past. Photographs, for instance, will be taken with digital cameras, allowing images to be sent to experts outside Iraq for their advice while inspectors are still examining a site, Perricos said.
-------- korea
U.N. Body to Urge N.Korea Nuclear Checks - Sources
November 26, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-iaea-inspections.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - A U.N. nuclear watchdog will urge North Korea to open its atomic weapons program to inspections, diplomatic sources said on Wednesday, a move that would boost pressure on Pyongyang but could offer it a way out of isolation.
Diplomatic sources in Tokyo said the Board of Governors of the 137-member International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would issue a statement urging the inspections at its meeting in Vienna on Thursday.
U.S. officials said last month that North Korea admitted it was pursuing a nuclear arms program in violation of a landmark 1994 agreement, putting Pyongyang on a collision course with the world community.
But the sources said an IAEA call for inspections could offer the isolated communist state a face-saving way to compromise.
``This means not only pressure on North Korea but also a message that could make it easier for them to make concessions without losing face,'' one diplomatic source, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.
Washington has said Pyongyang's uranium enrichment project clearly violated the 1994 pact to freeze work on nuclear weapons in exchange for oil shipments and two light-water reactors that cannot be easily used to produce weapons-grade material.
Under the accord with Washington, Pyongyang agreed to regular inspections of its nuclear facilities by IAEA experts, but the U.N. nuclear watchdog's verification has yet to begin.
Following Pyongyang's shock admission, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), a U.S.-led international consortium in New York, decided earlier this month to suspend fuel oil shipments starting from December.
Analysts have said the freeze on oil shipments could deal a serious blow to North Korea's energy supplies ahead of its severe winter as well as to its munitions industry.
MULTILATERAL APPROACH
The diplomatic source voiced hope that the IAEA's overture would draw a positive response from North Korea in a way that would avert a nuclear crisis.
``We really hope that North Korea would respond positively before the next KEDO meeting set for December 11,'' he said.
``Otherwise, the issue could become even more serious and we may not be able to find a way out.''
A second diplomatic source in Tokyo said approaches by multilateral organizations such as the IAEA could be more effective in convincing the North to scrap its nuclear arms program give that Pyongyang is locked in a stand-off with key countries.
Washington is insisting it will not talk to the communist state before it abandons the nuclear arms program.
Japan resumed talks on establishing diplomatic ties with North Korea last month but the dialogue has stalled due to wide gaps over the key issues of Japanese citizens abducted decades ago and the nuclear arms program.
It is now unclear whether a second round of Japan-North Korea negotiations can be held before the end of the year.
South Korea has pursued a policy of engagement with the North, but that could change if an opposition candidate wins Seoul's December 19 presidential election.
``When it comes to encouraging North Korea to come forward, multilateral bodies are sometimes more effective and useful than individual countries,'' the source said.
A similar call by the IAEA for nuclear site inspections in March 1993, however, prompted a crisis when Pyongyang said it was withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The threatened pullout was only averted after talks with the United States, which eventually led to the 1994 agreement.
EXCUSE FOR STIFFER STANCE?
The source expressed concern that the United States could harden its already stiff stance and stop backing the KEDO projects if North Korea refused to accept nuclear inspections.
``That could give an excuse for America to toughen its stance toward North Korea,'' he said.
The United States has ruled out negotiations with North Korea, which President Bush labelled part of an ``axis of evil'' with Iraq and Iran, until the Stalinist state dismantle the uranium enrichment program.
In Washington on Tuesday, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said that it was time for Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear program, not jockey for new negotiations.
``What we really need to have is action from North Korea rather than negotiations and words,'' Kelly, who oversees Asia and Pacific policy, told Reuters.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Teller Honored by Energy Dept. Secretary
November 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Teller-Honored.html
LIVERMORE, Calif. (AP) -- Nuclear physicist Edward Teller, who is best known for his role in creating the hydrogen bomb, received the Energy Department's highest honor for his many contributions to science in the 20th century.
In accepting the Secretary's Gold Award on Tuesday, Teller said the next generation of scientists will harness the power of supercomputers to do ``more, much more than I have done.''
``Things can be done that you cannot imagine,'' Teller said. The best minds of science ``will be able to keep up with computers ... and create a new world by the end of this century.''
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who presented the award at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said he was there to recognize the accomplishments of the lab as well as the 94-year-old scientist. ``Both have served this nation well. Livermore for 50 years and Dr. Teller for a little bit longer,'' he said.
Teller, sitting on stage in his wheelchair, his hallmark black cowboy boots offset by a colorful tie patterned after the U.S. flag, raised his hand modestly as the auditorium of lab employees stood to applaud warmly.
``Sixty years of my long life have been devoted to what we are doing and this is cause of whatever pride I have,'' he said.
Frail, hard of hearing and sight, Teller nevertheless delivered a strong homily on the past achievements and future possibilities of science.
Unlocking the secrets of DNA through high-speed modern computers is the wave of the future, he said. ``To understand that, to understand life may be the big thing that is coming in the 21st century,'' he said.
Teller worked on the atomic bomb during World War II at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and later helped found the Livermore lab in California.
It was there that he worked on the H-bomb and also helped usher in the era of supercomputing, Abraham noted.
On the Net:
http://www.llnl.gov
http://www.lbl.gov
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- nevada
Nevada senators seek Yucca Mountain probe
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
By JoAnne Allen, Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11272002/reu_49056.asp
WASHINGTON - Nevada's U.S. senators on Wednesday demanded a federal investigation into the treatment of whistle-blowers who have raised questions about quality assurance problems within the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump site project.
Citing safety concerns, Senate Democratic Whip Harry Reid and Republican John Ensign, along with officials from the state, have vehemently opposed the Bush administration's plan to put a permanent nuclear waste repository in the Nevada desert, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
In a letter to the General Accounting Office, Reid and Ensign urged congressional investigators to look into reports of alleged mistreatment of quality assurance contractors who questioned the integrity of the scientific process in the Yucca Mountain project.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Energy had no immediate comment.
The senators cited a recent Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper report which said two workers were removed from their jobs because they had been aggressive in identifying technical deficiencies in the project.
"Once they came forward and identified defects with the science, they were either terminated or relocated," Reid said and in a joint statement with Ensign. "Apparently, these employees were used as an example: 'Keep your mouth shut or you'll be removed.'"
Ensign added, "We have project workers who are trying to warn the public about the possible dangers at Yucca Mountain. Now it appears that someone at the Department of Energy may be trying to silence those voices."
Reid and Ensign also asked the GAO to investigate claims made in an anonymous whistle-blower letter they received of a significant loss of scientific data that would be needed to make a licensing determination for the project.
The Energy Department won legislative approval in July to apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license the $58 billion Yucca Mountain repository. The facility is scheduled to open in 2010 and hold 77,000 tons of radioactive material that the Environmental Protection Agency says must be isolated for 10,000 years.
U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham contends that $4 billion in studies over the past 20 years have found Yucca Mountain, which would receive shipments of waste from around the country, would be a safe site.
Backers of the project contend it would be safer to have the waste in one place rather than scattered at facilities nationwide.
But Nevada has refused to concede in an ongoing fight to prevent development of the nuclear waste dump and is pursing three legal challenges.
-------- new mexico
Los Alamos nuclear lab warns of radioactive trees
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
By Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11272002/reu_49048.asp
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - Workers trying to thin forests near Los Alamos National Laboratory have been told not to remove trees cut down in certain areas because they might be radioactive, lab officials said Tuesday.
"The lab has identified a few patches in a zone not heavily forested that was surveyed before and after experiments in the 1940s and 1950s," said Jim Danneskiold, a spokesman for the lab in New Mexico where the first atomic bomb was built in 1945. "As a precaution, we've told them (workers) to steer clear of those areas."
The trees are located in Bayo Canyon, a destination about 40 miles northwest of Santa Fe which is popular with horseback riders and hikers. The site, formerly known as Technical Area 10, was used in the 1940s and 1950s as a place where scientists at the nuclear lab studied explosions.
Danneskiold said the area where radioactive contamination has been detected is a one-acre site in Bayo Canyon, where all the trees were blown away during tests on explosives.
That area has been fenced off to both workers and the general public. The lab is warning workers not to remove wood thinned in the 30 surrounding acres as a precaution against possible radioactive contamination.
"There is no risk to recreational users," Danneskiold said.
But not everyone agrees. "Recreational users should be worried. Breathing that dust is not good," said Greg Mello, who heads the Los Alamos Study Group, which monitors lab activity. He contends there are several contaminated sites near the lab.
Hundreds of homes and thousands of acres were burned in May 2000 when fire ravaged the area near Los Alamos and threatened the laboratory.
Since then, forest and county officials have been thinning parts of the pine forest to reduce the risk of fire, said Bill Armstrong, a forester with the U.S. Forest Service.
Trees collected on laboratory property from areas where experiments never occurred are being offered to the public as free firewood, Danneskiold said.
--------
New Mexico Lab Fires Two Whistleblowers
November 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Lab-Fraud-Inquiry.html
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Los Alamos National Laboratory has fired two internal investigators after someone delivered their reports alleging widespread theft and fraud at the lab to a national watchdog group.
At least one congressional investigation was already under way Tuesday, a day after Glenn Walp and Steven Doran received identical letters terminating their employment.
Walp and Doran were hired this year to investigate the nuclear research lab's handling of government property and money. They said they uncovered a lack of controls on money and high-tech hardware.
Walp submitted a report to Los Alamos authorities in March that listed 263 desktop or laptop computers as missing since 1999, many of them presumed stolen. In all, about $2.7 million worth of equipment is unaccounted for, according to Walp's reports.
``I think there has been a culture that has been embedded in that environment that is almost conducive to committing a theft,'' he said Tuesday by phone from Santa Fe.
Reporting a desktop computer lost, he wrote, ``is parallel to my spouse telling me she just lost the refrigerator.''
Information on the pair's findings was turned over anonymously to news media and to the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit watchdog group. Walp and Doran said they were not the source.
Lab spokesman Jim Danneskiold said he couldn't say why Walp and Doran were fired. But he said the lab did not need a reason because both were still in their probationary phase of employment and subject to discretionary dismissal -- as long as the firings were not retaliatory.
``The laboratory's position is that there was no retaliation in these two terminations,'' Danneskiold said.
Both Walp and Doran said Tuesday that they had done nothing wrong and would work with Congress and the FBI to clear up the climate at the lab. Doran blamed lab officials for ``roadblocking'' the investigation with legal maneuvers and said he and Walp had aggressively pushed higher-ups at the lab to do something about the lack of controls on money and high-tech hardware.
``I think there has been a culture that has been embedded in that environment that is almost conducive to committing a theft,'' Walp said Tuesday.
Danneskiold responded: ``I have worked for the lab for 12 years and haven't observed that culture.''
Danneskiold said that the lab, as any institution would, consulted legal counsel when allegations of wrongdoing were uncovered.
``The FBI is forwarded any evidence as soon as it comes to the lab's attention,'' he said, noting that Los Alamos officials have cooperated since the investigation began.
The University of California operates the nuclear weapons laboratory for the Department of Energy.
Rep. Jim Greenwood, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative arm, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that the subcommittee would probably look into the firings.
In a letter to the University of California earlier this month, the Pennsylvania Republican asked for documents relating to the lab's guidelines for purchasing equipment.
Security at the lab has been under scrutiny since scientist Wen Ho Lee was fired and accused of dozens of lab security violations. Lee pleaded guilty in September 2000 to a single count of using an unsecured computer to download a defense document and a federal judge freed him with an apology.
On The Net:
Los Alamos National Laboratory: http://www.lanl.gov
-------- new york
Indian Point 3 Will Increase Power Output
November 27, 2002
New York Times
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/nyregion/27NUKE.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave permission to the Indian Point 3 nuclear reactor today to raise its power output slightly.
The reactor will be allowed to increase its output 1.4 percent, to produce 1,041 megawatts of power. When it was sold in 2000 by the New York Power Authority to its current owner, the Entergy Corporation, it was rated at 1,027 megawatts; when it entered commercial service in 1976, it was rated at 965 megawatts.
The reactor and its near-twin, Indian Point 2, have been the subject of intense opposition since the attacks of Sept. 11 from people who say the plants would be attractive targets for terrorists. But the commission said that it had published a notice of the proposed change in the Federal Register in July, and had received no public comments in response.
The plant will use its existing systems to produce more steam and thus more electricity. The commission said in July that the operators had installed more accurate equipment to measure the amount of power being produced in the nuclear core, and could thus run the reactor at a higher level without fear of exceeding the ability of the emergency core cooling system and other equipment to handle any problems.
The change will not decrease the margin of safety or increase the consequences of an accident, the commission said. The operators plan to begin producing more power in mid-December, the agency said.
-------- us politics
Bush Names Kissinger to Lead 9/11 Probe
By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writer
Nov 27, 2002
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
Kissinger says he won't be afraid to tread on the toes of America's allies. (Audio) http://customwire.ap.org/audio/20021127112814-230.ra
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush named former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on Wednesday to lead an independent investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks and said the probe "must uncover every detail and learn every lesson" of the terrorist strikes.
Kissinger pledged to "go where the facts lead us."
"We are under no restrictions, and we will accept no restrictions," Kissinger told reporters at the White House.
Kissinger, 79, will lead an investigative commission created under a bill Bush signed authorizing intelligence activities in the 2003 budget year.
"This commission will help me and future presidents to understand the methods of America's enemies and the nature of the threats we face," Bush said at a White House ceremony with lawmakers, survivors and victims' families.
"This investigation should carefully examine all the evidence and follow all the facts wherever they lead," said Bush, who was initially cool toward creating an independent commission. "We must uncover every detail and learn every lesson of September the 11th."
Kissinger spoke briefly to family members before talking with reporters after the ceremony. "To the families concerned, there's nothing that can be done about the losses they've suffered, but everything must be done to avoid that such a tragedy can occur again."
Kissinger is one of the best known diplomats of the 20th century, but also a controversial figure.
He was secretary of state to Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 with North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho for cease-fire negotiations during the Vietnam war. Kissinger also made a determined peacemaking effort in the Middle East and made repeated trips to the region. But he has also been called a war criminal by his harshest critics, for the role he played in Vietnam and other hot spots, working at times with corrupt governments in pursuit of U.S. interests.
The commission has a broad mandate, building on the limited joint inquiry conducted by the House and Senate intelligence committees. The independent panel will have 18 months to examine issues such as aviation security and border problems, along with intelligence.
Bush called on members to report back more quickly than 18 months, saying the nation needed to know quickly how it can avoid terror attacks in the future.
However, Bush did not set as a primary goal for Kissinger to uncover mistakes or lapses of the government that could have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks. Instead, he said the panel should try to help the administration learn the tactics and motives of the enemy.
"This commission is not only important for this administration, this commission will be important for future administrations until the world is secure from the evildoers that hate what we stand for," Bush said. He pledged his administration will "continue to act on the lessons we've learned so far to better protect the people of this country. It's our most solemn duty."
It was Bush's third major bill-signing in as many days and served as a holiday send-off for the president, who was leaving immediately afterward to spend the long Thanksgiving weekend at his Crawford, Texas, ranch.
Like the Homeland Security Department, the independent commission was an idea to which Bush's support came late.
The White House held that only Congress should investigate, arguing that an independent probe could distract administration officials from anti-terrorism efforts and produce leaks that could compromise intelligence operations. The change of heart came in September, as family members of Sept. 11 victims applied pressure and congressional hearings began to uncover intelligence and law enforcement failures.
The White House had concerns about the leadership and subpoena powers of the panel. Bush insisted only a bipartisan group should be able to compel testimony and documents, fearing that one-party subpoenas would lead to ineffective finger-pointing and allow the panel to be used merely to score political points.
The 10-member commission will be evenly divided between Republican and Democratic appointees.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush does not envision testifying before the panel.
But Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., a leading advocate of the commission, said it is likely Bush will be asked to address the panel.
In addition to serving as secretary of state, Kissinger also was national security adviser for Nixon and Ford from 1969-75. He made history in July 1971 when he made a secret trip to China, ending a Sino-American estrangement that had lasted for more than two decades.
He is the only secretary of state to have held down the job of national security adviser at the same time. He served in both posts from October 1973 to October 1975, when he left the NSC while retaining his role as secretary of state.
Kissinger also is well known for his efforts to achieve detente with the Soviet Union. The idea was to strengthen trade and economic ties with Moscow, giving the Soviets a stake in stable relations and perhaps taming Moscow's expansionist ambitions. The policy had mixed results.
----
The Latest Kissinger Outrage
Why is a proven liar and wanted man in charge of the 9/11 investigation?
By Christopher Hitchens
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Slate Magazine
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2074678
The Bush administration has been saying in public for several months that it does not desire an independent inquiry into the gross "failures of intelligence" that left U.S. society defenseless 14 months ago. By announcing that Henry Kissinger will be chairing the inquiry that it did not want, the president has now made the same point in a different way. But the cynicism of the decision and the gross insult to democracy and to the families of the victims that it represents has to be analyzed to be believed.
1) We already know quite a lot, thanks all the same, about who was behind the attacks. Most notable in incubating al-Qaida were the rotten client-state regimes of the Saudi Arabian oligarchy and the Pakistani military and police elite. Henry Kissinger is now, and always has been, an errand boy and apologist for such regimes.
2) When in office, Henry Kissinger organized massive deceptions of Congress and public opinion. The most notorious case concerned the "secret bombing" of Cambodia and Laos, and the unleashing of unconstitutional methods by Nixon and Kissinger to repress dissent from this illegal and atrocious policy. But Sen. Frank Church's commission of inquiry into the abuses of U.S. intelligence, which focused on illegal assassinations and the subversion of democratic governments overseas, was given incomplete and misleading information by Kissinger, especially on the matter of Chile. Rep. Otis Pike's parallel inquiry in the House (which brought to light Kissinger's personal role in the not-insignificant matter of the betrayal of the Iraqi Kurds, among other offenses) was thwarted by Kissinger at every turn, and its eventual findings were classified. In other words, the new "commission" will be chaired by a man with a long, proven record of concealing evidence and of lying to Congress, the press, and the public.
3) In his second career as an obfuscator and a falsifier, Kissinger appropriated the records of his time at the State Department and took them on a truck to the Rockefeller family estate in New York. He has since been successfully sued for the return of much of this public property, but meanwhile he produced, for profit, three volumes of memoirs that purported to give a full account of his tenure. In several crucial instances, such as his rendering of U.S. diplomacy with China over Vietnam, with apartheid South Africa over Angola, and with Indonesia over the invasion of East Timor (to cite only some of the most conspicuous), declassified documents have since shown him to be a bald-faced liar. Does he deserve a third try at presenting a truthful record, after being caught twice as a fabricator? And on such a grave matter as this?
4) Kissinger's "consulting" firm, Kissinger Associates, is a privately held concern that does not publish a client list and that compels its clients to sign confidentiality agreements. Nonetheless, it has been established that Kissinger's business dealings with, say, the Chinese Communist leadership have closely matched his public pronouncements on such things as the massacre of Chinese students. Given the strong ties between himself, his partners Lawrence Eagleburger and Brent Scowcroft, and the oil oligarchies of the Gulf, it must be time for at least a full disclosure of his interests in the region. This thought does not seem to have occurred to the president or to the other friends of Prince Bandar and Prince Bandar's wife, who helped in the evacuation of the Bin Laden family from American soil, without an interrogation, in the week after Sept. 11.
5) On Memorial Day 2001, Kissinger was visited by the police in the Ritz Hotel in Paris and handed a warrant, issued by Judge Roger LeLoire, requesting his testimony in the matter of disappeared French citizens in Pinochet's Chile. Kissinger chose to leave town rather than appear at the Palais de Justice as requested. He has since been summoned as a witness by senior magistrates in Chile and Argentina who are investigating the international terrorist network that went under the name "Operation Condor" and that conducted assassinations, kidnappings, and bombings in several countries. The most spectacular such incident occurred in rush-hour traffic in downtown Washington, D.C., in September 1976, killing a senior Chilean dissident and his American companion. Until recently, this was the worst incident of externally sponsored criminal violence conducted on American soil. The order for the attack was given by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who has been vigorously defended from prosecution by Henry Kissinger.
Moreover, on Sept. 10, 2001, a civil suit was filed in a Washington, D.C., federal court, charging Kissinger with murder. The suit, brought by the survivors of Gen. Rene Schneider of Chile, asserts that Kissinger gave the order for the elimination of this constitutional officer of a democratic country because he refused to endorse plans for a military coup. Every single document in the prosecution case is a U.S.-government declassified paper. And the target of this devastating lawsuit is being invited to review the shortcomings of the "intelligence community"?
In late 2001, the Brazilian government canceled an invitation for Kissinger to speak in Sao Paulo because it could no longer guarantee his immunity. Earlier this year, a London court agreed to hear an application for Kissinger's imprisonment on war crimes charges while he was briefly in the United Kingdom. It is known that there are many countries to which he cannot travel at all, and it is also known that he takes legal advice before traveling anywhere. Does the Bush administration feel proud of appointing a man who is wanted in so many places, and wanted furthermore for his association with terrorism and crimes against humanity? Or does it hope to limit the scope of the inquiry to those areas where Kissinger has clients?
There is a tendency, some of it paranoid and disreputable, for the citizens of other countries and cultures to regard President Bush's "war on terror" as opportunist and even as contrived. I myself don't take any stock in such propaganda. But can Congress and the media be expected to swallow the appointment of a proven coverup artist, a discredited historian, a busted liar, and a man who is wanted in many jurisdictions for the vilest of offenses? The shame of this, and the open contempt for the families of our victims, ought to be the cause of a storm of protest.
----
Terrorism insurance bill signed into law
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021127-398178.htm
President Bush yesterday signed legislation that guarantees insurance companies up to $100 billion in federal reimbursements after any future terrorist attacks, a move he said would jump-start $15 billion in construction projects nationwide.
"Today we're taking action to strengthen America's economy, to build confidence with America's investors and to create jobs for America's workers," said the president, flanked by six construction workers in jeans and boots at a White House signing ceremony.
"Should terrorists strike again, we have a system in place to address financial losses and get our economy back on its feet as quickly as possible," he said.
The measure, called the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, guarantees the federal funds for insurance companies in the three-year aftermath of an attack. The law, which critics called a taxpayer-financed gift to insurance companies, requires insurance companies to offer terrorism coverage.
The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon cost as much as $50 billion in insurance claims, prompting insurance companies to balk at offering terrorism coverage in new policies. That reluctance, Mr. Bush said, has delayed more than $15 billion in construction and real estate transactions.
"It will give people the comfort they need to go ahead with large building projects," said Larry Mirel, D.C. Department of Insurance and Securities Regulation commissioner. "The market was beginning to adjust before the legislation, but it's going to be a lot easier with the legislation in place."
But Sen. Phil Gramm, Texas Republican, and some Democrats fought the bill on the grounds it overexposed taxpayers to losses, discouraged development of a private terrorism insurance market and did nothing about punitive damage awards against those hit by terrorism.
The Consumer Federation of America said the new law makes taxpayers liable for billions of dollars in losses that the insurance industry could easily afford. It also disputed reports of construction delays due to insurance worries, saying that for "all but the highest risks, such as skyscrapers, rates are falling and banks are lending freely."
"It is shocking that Congress and the president accepted the wild claims made by insurance and real estate lobbyists at face value," said J. Robert Hunter, the group's director of insurance.
Under the new law, the government could aid the industry on terrorism-related claims that surpassed $5 million. Insurance companies would pay deductibles ranging from 7 percent to 15 percent of the premiums they received the previous year. The federal government would then cover 90 percent of everything above the deductible with the companies paying the other 10 percent.
The program would be capped at $100 billion over three years.
During dozens of campaign stops over the past few months, Mr. Bush, who received significant campaign contributions from the insurance industry in 2000, hammered Senate Democrats for holding up the legislation. Days after Republicans retook the Senate, Democrats relented and the bill passed with strong bipartisan support.
While Mr. Bush bowed to Democratic demands for unlimited punitive damages in civil lawsuits stemming from terror attacks, a provision many Republicans consider a boon to trial lawyers usually allied with Democrats, he said the new law will discourage "abusive lawsuits."
"Civil cases resulting from a terrorist attack will be combined in a single federal court. Lawyers will be prevented from shopping for courts with a reputation for outrageous awards," he said.
"It's important for our taxpayers to understand that taxpayer dollars will not be used to pay punitive damages."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports the new law, saying it will improve the legal rights of plaintiffs and defendants, as well as help American workers and the economy.
Carl G. Stoecklin, president of the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents, agreed.
"The lack of available, affordable terrorism insurance has adversely affected many of our members whose clients need this coverage. This temporary backstop will provide the market stability necessary for carriers to again offer this coverage without seriously jeopardizing their solvency," he said.
• Tom Ramstack contributed to this report.
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms sales
Dogfight Over the F/A-22
By William M. Arkin,
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45246-2002Nov27?language=printer
The Air Force announced last week that it was shaking up the management team for the F/A-22 Raptor, the new super-fighter jet now in development. Two new generals and a new Lockheed-Martin executive were put in charge. Typically for a mammoth Pentagon weapons program, the word only later dribbled out that the F/A-22 was over budget, behind schedule, and under assault from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office.
Now comes the real war.
Rumsfeld, looking at some $25 billion of the taxpayer's dollars already spent on research and development, is likely to order a reduction in the number of planes to be purchased. The Air Force wants to procure at a minimum 295 F-22 fighters; Rumsfeld's office is floating a proposal to buy less than 200.
Although Rumsfeld lives and breathes the language of military "transformation," there is little chance that he will cancel the F/A-22 program outright. For all of the Rumsfeld's rhetoric about shaking up the Pentagon, a troubled and expensive program conceived during the Cold War will remain in place. Rumsfeld was bolder when he cancelled the Army's dubious Crusader artillery gun earlier this year. So what is the reason for his timidity now? The F/A-22 is the Holy Grail of the so-called "fighter mafia" in the upper ranks of the Air Force. The Secretary may exude decisiveness and abuse the uniformed leadership and even occasionally make an unpopular decision. But again and again he has proven unwilling to make the toughest decisions or to back up his own staff when going toe to toe with the armed services.
Disparaging the F/A-22 is sure to get me cut from the Air Force's Christmas card list. But I want to make one clear: I've never been in the ranks of the F/A-22 haters. I have come to see that the plane sucks up money that might otherwise be used to leapfrog to a next generation of technology. It also promotes the notion in the Army and Marine Corps that the Air Force doesn't really care about them, and that the precision weapons revolution isn't for real.
There is no question that the F/A-22 will be the best fighter the world has ever seen. Originally known as the plain old F-22, it was designed as "air superiority" fighter. It was renamed the F/A-22 only after September 11, and as the plane started to run into flak at the Pentagon, to emphasize the addition of air-to-ground functions. Given the enemies that the United States is likely to face in the next 20 years, America doesn't need a fighter that is both the best dog fighter in existence and one that is such an expensive (though limited) bomber.
In a time of perpetual war on terrorism and with scores of cheaper alternatives in the form of heavy bombers and long-range smart weapons, the F/A-22's ability to stealthily attack the toughest air defenses on the ground is extravagant. The Air Force should focus instead on improving and extending the life of its current F-15 and F-16 fleet of fighters, and prepare to purchase a much larger number of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, which were designed for ground attack. This solution won't put the triple somersaulting F/A-22 in the air by 2005, but the United States just doesn't need the acrobatics.
"The fact is, we're at too critical a stage of this program to accept anything less than absolutely stellar performance, and we're holding people accountable," Air Force spokesman William Bodie said last week about the $690 million unanticipated Raptor overrun.
It is admirable that the Air Force is holding people accountable. But it is the concepts behind the fighter that have as much gotten it into trouble. F/A-22 proponents argue that enemies will be dissuaded from even attempting to compete with the United States in the arena of aerial dog fighting if it is purchased. They say that for the first time the United States will have the ability to put stealth jets in the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They stress the plane will be able to cruise faster than the speed of sound for longer periods of time and will be able to bomb heavily defended ground targets.
The Air Force "Transformation Flight Plan" asserts: "Most U.S. tacair [tactical aircraft] is vulnerable to rapidly improving enemy [air defenses] and cannot achieve air superiority in most well defended areas in [the] future." But whose integrated air defenses are we talking about?
The fact is that United States (and Israel) pilots flying the venerable F-15 have a perfect unbeaten record against enemy fighters. There really isn't much difference between the Mach 1.6 speed of the F/A-22 and the Mach 1.4 that the F-35 will attain. And is there any conceivable military scenario in which the United States' current nighttime stealth capabilities, plus cruise missiles, plus new satellite-guided weapons, wouldn't be good enough to prevail? If the answer is China, then we are building the wrong military anyhow.
The Air Force is also making other arguments. Perhaps the most compelling is contained in its October 21 "Paths to the Future" briefing, which decries the age of the overall U.S. aircraft fleet. According to the briefing, though the objective of average U.S. fighter jet is 12.5 years old, Air Force planes currently average 15 years in age.
But this is the territory of lies, damn lies, and statistics. The brief posits that the only way that the Air Force can achieve its goals for reducing the average age of its fleet (to 12.2 years by 2030) is to purchase 762 F-22's. This argument depends on a bit of sleight of hand. Up to now, the assumption has been that the Air Force would buy more than 1,700 F-35's. By quietly assuming it will only buy 956 F-35's, the Air Force makes the purchase of more F/A-22s seem more urgent than it really is.
On the issue of fleet age, one retired Air Force senior officer said, "I guess it's an argument."
"But if you really want to do something about your average airframe age, start buying block 60 F-16's [a new production more capable model of the aircraft] tomorrow. Trying to fix the problem with a high-end fighter is kind of crazy. It prices the Air Force out of existence."
And why do we continue to make believe that a silver bullet airplane will win wars rather than the proven combination of intelligence, air surveillance, networks, and tactics? The whole concept of defense "transformation" that Rumsfeld expounds recognizes it isn't hardware that is decisive but operational concepts, training, organization, culture, and experience.
Sure some F-22's will be purchased because the production line is already open, and so much has already been invested. But the best decision Rumsfeld could make now is indeed limit the number of planes that America will buy, and order the Air Force to upgrade and extend the life of its F-15's, renew the F-16, and plan to buy lots of F-35's when they are ready. By not sucking up even more money, more emphasis could then be placed on unmanned systems and new weapons to defeat better air defenses in the future.
About the Author
• William M. Arkin, the author of ten books and numerous studies on military affairs, is a consultant to numerous organizations, and a frequent television and radio commentator. He was an Army intelligence analyst during the 1970's, a nuclear weapons expert during the Cold War, and pioneered on-the-ground study of the effects of military operations in Iraq and Yugoslavia. In 1994, his "The U.S. Military Online: A Directory for Internet Access to the Department of Defense" was published. His Dot.Mil column, launched in November 1998, appears every other Monday on washingtonpost.com. E-mail Arkin at william.arkin@wpni.com.
-------- business
Figuring the Costs of War
By Robert J. Samuelson
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Washington Post; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43774-2002Nov26?language=printer
It is Feb. 7, 2003, just after U.S. troops have seized several Iraqi airfields to be used as staging areas. Suddenly, Scud missiles -- armed with both chemical and conventional warheads -- strike the airfields. Hundreds of Americans die. The U.S. battle plan is thrown into disarray. The Iraqis (it turns out) meekly abandoned their airfields with little resistance precisely to make them easy targets.
We don't know if there will be a war or, as this imagined story suggests, how it might unfold. But the fact that we don't know overhangs the economy. It weighs on confidence. Companies hesitate to make commitments. The uncertainties can't be dispelled by low interest rates or lofty reassurances. At a recent congressional hearing, Democratic Rep. Pete Stark quizzed Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan.
Stark: [President Bush has] an obsession, it appears, to plunge us into war. [On] the assumption that we will be there one or two years and [spend] $100 billion [or] $130 billion a year . . . what effect would this have on our economy?
Greenspan: The numbers you quote are clearly very much on the high side. . . . I would be very doubtful if the impact on the economy is more than modest, largely because this is not Vietnam or Korea. Korea . . . had a really monumental effect, because the economy was so much smaller.
Well, maybe. Since 1950, the economy's gross domestic product has grown from $1.7 trillion to $9.2 trillion in 2001 (figures in inflation-adjusted 1996 dollars). A war would probably last some months, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates the costs to the federal budget at $6 billion to $13 billion a month: not crushing for so wealthy a society. But the true economics are murkier. What happens to oil prices? Might war trigger a recession? Would a swift victory revive confidence? Because no one knows, "scenario building'' -- the next best alternative -- is now in vogue.
Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington reports the following: Saddam Hussein's army totals about 375,000 men; his air force has 316 planes, maybe half operational; the air defenses are extensive; weapons of mass destruction are unknown. For a CSIS conference, Cordesman provided three war scenarios, and economists judged the consequences.
The "benign case" anticipates rapid victory. Much of Hussein's army surrenders or defects. Because uncertainty lifts, the economy fares better than under a "no war" scenario. The temporary loss of Iraqi oil is no big deal. Iraq's production now represents about 2 percent to 2.5 percent of world oil use. Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf suppliers offset the loss. Their surplus capacity is about 6 percent of global oil consumption, says analyst Adam Sieminski of Deutsche Bank. The United States might also release oil from strategic reserves.
By contrast, Cordesman's other scenarios -- though deemed less probable -- are scarier. In the "intermediate case," fighting lasts up to three months. Iraqi attacks slightly damage other Gulf oilfields. Oil prices, now about $25 a barrel, hit $42 by early 2003. In the worst case, Iraq badly damages other oilfields. Production drops by at least 5 million barrels a day, out of a total global consumption of 77 million barrels a day. Oil prices hit $80 a barrel. Intense urban fighting incites the U.S. antiwar movement. Social unrest spreads in the Middle East. In the intermediate case, unemployment (now 5.7 percent) reaches almost 6.5 percent by late 2003. In the worst case, it goes to 7.5 percent.
Another dark assessment comes from Yale economist William Nordhaus, writing in the New York Review of Books. He says that a worst case (including a long-term occupation and reconstruction of Iraq) could cost $1.6 trillion over a decade. Only about half this total would be federal budget costs; the rest would reflect slightly higher oil prices and slower economic growth. "It seems likely," he says, "that Americans are underestimating the economic commitment involved in a war." (One omission in his math: In the next decade, U.S. GDP should exceed $100 trillion; even his cost is less than 2 percent of the national income.) Life after major wars is not like life before them. They change -- for better or worse -- the political, economic and psychological landscape in basic ways. A quick and successful war against Iraq might transform the Middle East by empowering Arab moderates. A long and messy war might destabilize the region and, by showing that U.S. power is exaggerated, abet terrorism, tensions and conflicts around the world. Pax Americana would recede; a power vacuum would develop.
The wisdom of war depends on the answers to these questions and one other: What's the alternative? If it's peace and prosperity, then war makes no sense. But if fighting now prevents a costlier war later, it makes much sense. To be blunt: If Saddam Hussein gets nuclear weapons and threatens his neighbors (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait) or drops one on Tel Aviv, prompting Israeli retaliation, we'll face a horrendous war.
The economy's fate ultimately hinges on these issues. It's unsatisfying to say that they are a matter of judgment and that we don't know and, probably, can't know the answers. But that is what candor compels.
-------- colombia
Rebel attacks on pipelines weakening state oil company
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
By Javier Baena,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11272002/ap_49059.asp
BOGOTA, Colombia - Leftist rebels have dynamited Colombia's oil pipelines 123 times this year, Colombia's state oil company Ecopetrol said Tuesday.
The resulting spills dumped almost three times the amount of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez off the coast of Alaska in 1989.
The company lost US$7.2 million as a result of the 691,000 barrels spilled. Continued violence and declining production of crude oil will force Ecopetrol to lay off 1,250 workers over the next three years, said company president Isaac Yanovich at a news conference.
Attacks are actually down from last year, when rebels dynamited the pipelines 276 times. But investors continue to shy away from the violence-ridden nation, leading to the layoffs and plans to freeze general operating expenses at Ecopetrol next year.
Colombia signed 28 oil exploration contracts with oil companies in 2001. This year, it appears there will be just 17 contracts, Yanovich said.
The layoffs at Ecopetrol, which employs 7,400 workers, will begin next year, he said.
Oil products are Colombia's primary legal export, accounting for about 25 percent of total revenues.
The rebels are waging a 38-year civil war against the government and illegal right-wing militias. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the National Liberation Army, or ELN, have frequently attacked the Cano Limon, the country's second-largest pipeline.
The United States is preparing to train an elite military unit to protect the Cano Limon, which carries oil for Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum, from rebel attacks. Colombia produces 590,000 barrels of oil a day, despite the frequent attacks on pipelines.
--------
Court Throws Out Colombian Army's Emergency Powers
November 27, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-colombia-emergency.html
BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - A court in war-torn Colombia has hamstrung the government's tough new security measures, ruling the military cannot tap phones, make arrests or raid homes without warrants.
In a decision announced late Tuesday, the Constitutional Court threw out many of the powers that President Alvaro Uribe gave to the U.S.-backed military in special ``war zones'' set up under the state of emergency he declared in August. Advertisement Click Here
Uribe was elected in May promising to get tough with leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries who are fighting in a cocaine-fueled war which claims thousands of lives a year and which has dragged on for 38 years.
Less than a week after taking office in August, Uribe declared a 90-day state of emergency, which was later extended. Using these emergency powers, he decreed ``war zones'' in two relatively small but very violent rural areas, each with heavy guerrilla presences, freeing the military of the need to seek approval from judges when carrying out arrests and raids.
Human rights groups said the new powers opened the door to arbitrary detentions and harassment, but polls showed war-weary Colombians, millions of whom live in areas where rebels or paramilitaries lord it over civilians, overwhelmingly in favor.
``For the military to be able to act as judicial police, there has to be a constitutional reform,'' the court's president, Marco Gerardo Monroy, told reporters.
The government was planning permanent legislation to make permanent the military's emergency powers.
The powers were at the heart of a security strategy that also included setting up a network of secret civilian informants throughout the country, which the government hoped would enable the overstretched military to respond more quickly to threats from illegal fighters roaming Colombia's rugged countryside.
Many of the emergency war zone measures remained in place. The army could still stop vehicles and pedestrians to check identities and declare curfews in the war zones.
RESTRICTIONS ON FOREIGN REPORTERS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
The court also overturned the government's decision to make foreign reporters seek permission every time they entered one of the war zones, saying it violated the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press.
Uribe is an enthusiastic ally of the United States, which has provided almost $2 billion in mainly military aid to Colombia in the past few years, directed mainly against the cocaine trade.
The government, which had several times pointedly reminded the constitutional court of the size of its electoral mandate and warned it not to get in the way of security policies, said it had not been officially informed of the ruling.
The army has used its new powers to make mass roundups of suspects, carrying out identity checks and making dozens of arrests in Arauca, a steamy city in eastern Colombia near an oil pipeline which is a constant target of guerrilla bombings.
The court, which threw out emergency security laws passed by the government of former President Ernesto Samper in the 1990s, also told the government to reissue the decree creating the war zones, because the way it was drawn up was faulty. But this ruling should not have much practical effect.
-------- india
U.S. Wants to Move Fast on Sensors for India Border
November 27, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-arms-india-usa.html
CALCUTTA, India (Reuters) - The United States will act fast on India's request for sensors to warn of infiltration across the border with Pakistan, U.S. ambassador Robert Blackwill said Wednesday.
He said Washington would also provide New Delhi with more weapons-locating radars.
Electronic sensors can detect human movement and Indian officials say they may be placed on India's volatile frontier with Pakistan in Kashmir to check incursions by Islamic rebels.
``The Pentagon is expeditiously processing the Indian army's request for significant Special Forces equipment and border sensors,'' Blackwill said in a speech to business executives in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta.
He did not give details.
Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan were on the brink of war in May and June this year over New Delhi's allegations that Islamabad was fueling a bloody revolt against its rule in Kashmir, a charge Islamabad denies.
The tensions have since eased.
Blackwill also said India would be leasing more weapons-locating radar sets in addition to those New Delhi had already agreed to buy.
U.S. officials said earlier this month both nations had made headway in the transfer of eight of the radars under a deal signed earlier this year.
That deal was the first weapons sale by Washington to New Delhi since the United States lifted sanctions imposed after India conducted nuclear tests in 1998.
Indo-U.S. ties have warmed considerably in the past few years, especially after the September 11 attacks when India was quick to back the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel seeks military aid increase
From combined dispatches
November 27, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021127-15818954.htm
Israel is asking the Bush administration for about $4 billion in new military aid and $8 billion to $10 billion in loan guarantees to bolster its economy, a U.S. official said yesterday.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, and the director general of Israel's finance ministry, Ohad Marani, made the request at a meeting Monday with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
"They described the economic impact on Israel of the ongoing war on terrorism as well as the impact of continuing uncertainty in the region," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "In this context, the officials indicated that Israel is preparing a proposal for assistance."
The Israeli Embassy declined to disclose how much help was requested, but said the Israelis were promised a prompt reply. An administration official provided the price tag on the condition of anonymity.
Mr. Marani presented an account of the economic situation in Israel and he and Mr. Weisglass had a detailed discussion with Miss Rice, the embassy said in a statement.
A 26-month war with Palestinian terrorists has strained Israel's defense budget while the violence has sharply reduced foreign investment and tourism.
Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. loans and grants, receiving about $2.9 billion annually.
The State Department said last week it would ask Congress for $2.16 billion in military aid for Israel for fiscal 2004, which begins next September. That is an increase of $120 million from a request for $2.04 billion for this year.
Israel relies on guarantees, which effectively make the U.S. government the "co-signer" on the loans, to borrow at lower interest rates. There is no cost to the United States if the loans are repaid, and Israel never has defaulted on a loan.
Israel's role, if any, in a U.S. war with Iraq is not clear. Mr. Sharon has said Israel reserves the right to respond if attacked. In the 1991 Persian Gulf war, even while under Iraqi missile fire, Israel complied with U.S. requests and did not respond in order to keep other Arabs in the American-led coalition against Iraq.
Preparations for a war are contributing to Israel's military expenses, but officials denied that military and economic assistance would be tied to Israeli cooperation in any war with Iraq.
"This is not directly related to compensation in the event of attack," Mr. Fleischer said.
Any aid package would be subject to congressional approval, which could come early next year.
The Bush administration is also assembling a military and economic aid package to help Turkey weather major economic disruptions if war with Baghdad breaks out, according to administration and congressional sources.
The congressional sources said Mr. Bush is considering an initial $700 million to $800 million package, which, in addition to economic assistance, could clear the way for Turkey to purchase eight S-70B Seahawk and six UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Over the next five years, bilateral aid could amount to several billion dollars.
Tourism and trade in mainly Muslim Turkey could be hurt if hostilities break out, strangling economic recovery and adding to the country's huge debt burden, which a $16 billion International Monetary Fund pact is supposed to reduce.
----
Israeli and Palestinian doves meet
By Joshua Brilliant
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
November 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021127-054125-2093r.htm
TEL AVIV, Israel, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- The speakers of the Israeli Knesset and Palestinian Legislative Council met in Jerusalem Wednesday amid signs that moderate Palestinian politicians are seeking to help Israeli doves in the national election campaign.
"We must continue with negotiations and the peace process as if there is no violence, and we must stop violence and terror and fight them as if there is no peace process," declared Palestinian Speaker Ahmad Qurei after the talks.
An almost identical sentiment had been expressed by the Israeli Labor Party's new leader, Amram Mitzna, earlier in the week. "We will continue to fight terrorism like there are no negotiations and continue to negotiate like there is no terrorism," Mitzna said.
Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, who belongs to Miztna's Labor Party and took part in the talks, remarked: "The only place we can present our misunderstandings and disagreements is around the table, not around funerals."
The two apparently reached no agreements and Qurei, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Ala, said the Palestinian Authority "is unable to stop suicide bombings 100 percent. We are under occupation. We cannot achieve peace with military power on our land."
But the meeting was seen by analysts a further indication that moderate Palestinians were rallying to support Israel's dovish Labor Party in the January elections.
The top Palestine Liberation Organization official in Jerusalem, Sari Nusseibeh, wrote this week that another victory for the right wing Likud Party would mean Israeli - Palestinian peace negotiations -- stalled by the violence of the intifada -- would be tougher. The Israeli floating vote will determine the results, and this uncommitted constituency had to be influenced.
Mamduh Nofal, a former militant commander, called on Mitzna for immediate help. A declaration on a cession of attacks on civilians boost the Israeli peace camp forward, he was quoted as saying.
Polls in Israel this week, however, suggested the right-wing Likud Party was headed for another election victory led by the current prime minister, Ariel Sharon. However, in the usual pattern of Israeli elections Sharon would be forced to form a coalition.
One possibility Sharon has mentioned in campaign speeches is a return to the government of national unity with the Labor Party. Elections loomed in Israel last month when Labor withdrew its support from the Sharon government.
Meanwhile, Mitzna has warned the Palestinians talk alone will not have an impact on the Israeli voter. "Don't just talk," Mitzna urged the Palestinian leadership Monday. "Do something to gain back the confidence of the Israeli people that there is someone to talk to on the other side."
Likud members have criticized the Labor moderates for talking to the Palestinians. Likud minister Danny Naveh slammed the Burg-Abu Ala meeting. "What more has to happen for this camp (of doves) ... to understand that after they brought here (Palestinian leader Yasser) Arafat and his terrorist gang from Tunisia we, in the past two years have been reaping murder and blood in Israel's streets (and) that there is no one to talk to? This leadership that came with Arafat from Tunisia cannot be a partner for peace."
Israel agreed to allow Arafat to establish the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza as part of the Oslo Accord.
But, Naveh said, "the only way to reach a political dialogue is (to first) beat this terror in a military fashion."
----
Israel Asks U.S. for an Increase of $4 Billion in Military Aid
November 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/international/middleeast/27ISRA.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 (AP) - Israel is asking the Bush administration for about $4 billion in new military aid and $8 billion to $10 billion in loan guarantees to bolster its economy, a government official said today.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, and the director general of Israel's finance ministry, Ohad Marani, made the request at a meeting on Monday with Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser.
The Israeli Embassy declined to disclose how much help was requested, but said the Israelis were promised a prompt reply. An administration official provided the figures.
Mr. Marani presented an account of the economic situation in Israel, and he and Mr. Weisglass had a detailed discussion with Ms. Rice, the embassy said in a statement.
A 26-month conflict with the Palestinians has strained Israel's defense budget, while the violence has sharply reduced foreign investment and tourism.
Israel is the largest recipient of United States loans and grants, amounting to $2.9 billion this fiscal year.
The State Department said last week it would ask Congress for $2.16 billion in military aid for Israel for fiscal year 2004, which begins next September. That is an increase of $120 million from a request for $2.04 billion for this year.
Israel relies on loan guarantees to borrow at lower interest rates. There is no cost to the United States if the loans are repaid, and Israel never has defaulted on a loan.
Israel's role, if any, in a United States war with Iraq is not clear.
Mr. Sharon has said Israel reserves the right to respond if attacked. In the Persian Gulf war, in 1991, while under Iraqi missile fire, Israel complied with United States requests and did not respond.
In any event, preparations for a possible war are contributing to Israel's military expenses.
-------- mideast
US ultimatum to Saudi leaders, 'do it, or we will'
November 27 2002
By Douglas Farah
Washington Post
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/26/1038274301779.html
A US National Security Council taskforce is recommending a plan to President George Bush designed to force Saudi Arabia to crack down on terrorist financiers within 90 days or face unilateral US action to bring the suspects to justice.
Senior United States officials said yesterday that the interagency plan was devised before the recent furore over allegations of Saudi involvement in the financing of terrorism.
It comes amid growing concern among some congressional leaders and US allies that the government has been unwilling to press Saudi Arabia for action for fear of alienating a key Arab ally as possible war looms with Iraq.
The officials would not say what unilateral US action might entail. But they said the US would first present the Saudis with intelligence and evidence against individuals and businesses suspected of financing al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, coupled with a demand that they be put out of business. In return, one senior official said, the administration would say, "We don't care how you deal with the problem; just do it or we will" after 90 days.
The officials said the goal was to cut off funds before another terrorist attack could occur, and said they would press the Saudis to act even if there was not enough information to convict someone in a court of law.
US intelligence agencies and financial investigators had put together a classified working list of nine wealthy individuals believed to be the core group of financiers for al Qaeda and other radical Islamic terrorist groups, US officials said. Of those, seven were Saudis, one was a Pakistani merchant and one was an Egyptian businessman. The officials would not identify individuals.
"There are some who argue that sharing intelligence with the Saudis is just plain stupid," one official said. "But in so doing we put down a marker. We are saying we are not acting unilaterally, we are not moving precipitously, we are not acting as a hostile force.
"We tell them the problem and leave it to them to solve, presuming they will act in good faith. But if they do not act in 90 days, we assume solving the problem is beyond their ken and the United States will solve it."
News of the decision to confront the Saudis follows a weekend of news reports that a charitable contribution by Princess Haifa al-Faisal, the wife of the Saudi ambassador to the United States, may have indirectly benefited two of the men who participated in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
----
Yemeni Proclaims His Nation's Solidarity With U.S. in Fight Against Terrorism
By Nora Boustany
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43812-2002Nov26?language=printer
Comically candid and light on his feet, Abdel-Karim Iryani knows instinctively what a Washington audience wants to hear. The ageless former Yemeni prime minister and foreign minister, now serving as a senior adviser to President Ali Abdallah Salih, insists that Yemenis are fed up with terrorists in their midst. In an interview Monday and in other public remarks here, he made it clear that Yemen was cooperating wholeheartedly with the United States in its war against terror, with no hesitation or fear of backlash.
Last September, a joint operations room was set up by top U.S. and Yemeni security officials to combat terrorism, Iryani said in an interview. "Even the Saudis are brought in and connected to it sometimes," he added. Asked repeatedly whether there would be a strong domestic reaction to attacks launched to capture or kill terrorists on Yemeni soil, his answer was an unequivocal "no." The opposition would complain about Yemeni sovereignty being compromised, he said. But if it had nothing to protest, it would not qualify as opposition, he quipped.
Asked on Fox television Saturday whether Yemen would allow a repeat of the Nov. 3 missile attack from a CIA-operated, unmanned Predator aircraft against a vehicle carrying a top al Qaeda leader, Iryani's answer was "sure." Sinan al Harithi, also known as Abu Ali al Harithi, a senior leader of the group suspected of planning the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, was killed in the strike, with four others. "We still have at least two more at large," Iryani said after a dinner at the residence of Yemeni Ambassador H.E. Abdulwahab Abdulla Al-Hajjri.
Iryani disclosed that Yemeni authorities, using informers from the country's far-flung tribes, are tracking other such wanted "Yemeni-Afghans." But each time that convoys of jeeps were "ready to fetch them, the men we were hoping to catch would be gone by the time we got there. The same informants probably tipped them off about our planned chase. They cash in on both sides of the street," Iryani explained. "So we needed more sophisticated assistance to trace and get them before they got away."
Where realpolitik begins and ends in this seasoned statesman's mind is anybody's guess, but nine days after the Sept.11 attacks last year in New York and at the Pentagon, Iryani was in the U.S. capital to try to dispel any notion of an Afghanistan scenario being mounted against Yemen. He had meetings at the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the State Department.
"I came at the instruction of the president to say we are ready to cooperate. We did it because we felt we were targeted. Everyone was saying it was going to be Yemen after Afghanistan," he said. "In Yemen we will never regret that we cooperated with the U.S.," he declared, because Yemen has been hit by terror repeatedly. "Nothing happened after the Predator attack. Why? Because Yemen has suffered from these guys. The public is convinced that these people cannot be let loose."
The 1999 execution of Abol Hassan Almihdhar, a Yemeni, for kidnapping foreign tourists provoked no reaction, he recalled, noting that Almihdhar was a relative of a Sept. 11 hijacker, Khalid Almihdhar, and that they came from the same village in Hadramout, in the south of the country. There also have been several kidnappings of Westerners, the strike against the Cole and an attack last month on a French tanker along Yemen's southern coast.
"It has created the worst environmental disaster in Yemen and perhaps in the Arabian Sea," Iryani said of the tanker attack. "Two thousand fishermen were deprived of their livelihood; that is a minimum of 10,000 people deprived of their daily bread because a crazy man was aiming at a symbol of the Western world. Who is suffering from this action? It is only poor Yemeni fishermen families. This is why I am standing here defending the Yemeni-U.S. fight against terror."
"People like Osama bin Laden say they are fighting non-Muslims, but the falling heads are Muslim," he pointed out. Asked how he would interpret bin Laden's latest audiotaped message threatening more devastating attacks if the United States and its allies embarked on a war against Iraq, Iryani shrugged. "In my view, the man will do whatever he manages to do, with or without a war against Iraq." He dismissed reports that bin Laden was hiding somewhere in Yemen.
-------- nato
NATO: The More the Murkier
By Christopher J. Dodd
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Washington Post; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43772-2002Nov26?language=printer
At the NATO summit in Prague, President Bush pressed for "the most significant reforms in NATO since 1949," including the creation of a rapid reaction force to deal swiftly and effectively with new and emerging threats. He also called on members to invest more money in modernizing their militaries, to ensure that each will contribute to the common defense. All this took place against the backdrop of the admission of seven new NATO members, including the former Soviet states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
NATO has much to celebrate. Ten years after helping to win the Cold War, it remains the most powerful military alliance in history, with nations lining up for membership all across Central and Eastern Europe.
Unfortunately, missing from the summit in Prague were any discussions or proposed solutions to the biggest challenge faced by NATO today: reconciling an expanding membership with the ability of the organization to act cohesively and expeditiously.
President Bush deserves great credit for proposing important new military missions for NATO in the 21st century, including combating international terrorism and stemming the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These are the most important common security threats faced by America and our allies today, and confronting them will certainly be NATO's greatest challenge for years to come.
But the fact is, the military reforms necessary to deal effectively with these threats -- particularly the creation of a rapid reaction force capable of deploying around the world in a moment's notice -- will prove meaningless unless NATO also reforms its policy and decision-making structures.
Throughout its existence, NATO's decision-making has been based on consensus -- every member state must agree on every important course of action. When 16 NATO countries all faced a common Soviet threat, achieving consensus on major issues was not much of a problem.
With this latest round of expansion, NATO will have 26 members, and at least three more are poised for admission in coming years. The idea that the alliance's decisions will soon be dependent on the unanimous consent of so many diverse nations highlights the need for changes in its operational planning structure to ensure its ability to act quickly and decisively.
NATO membership should certainly remain open to any country that proves its commitment to Western values. But to ensure that NATO can continue to function effectively as a military organization, some form of top-tier administrative council -- similar to the United Nations' Security Council -- ought to be created.
The rules and structure of the new council should be left to the organization to decide, but to work, it would have to permanently include the leading military powers, such as the United States, Britain, France and Germany.
At first blush, this may seem a radical idea, likely to meet with opposition from many NATO members. But the goal of NATO in the 21st century cannot simply be to share common values -- it must be to protect and defend those values against new threats to our common way of life. Moreover, Europe already has a forum whose principal purpose is to promote economic and political integration -- the European Union.
Unless changes are made to strengthen the ability of NATO to act, there is little to prevent the diminution of its power and effectiveness as a military alliance, which would leave America, Europe and the world far worse off in the long run. Global peace and security still depend on an America engaged in the security affairs of Europe. But if the United States comes to view NATO as an organization too cumbersome to serve our core security interests, we will likely drift even farther down the road of unilateralism.
To prevent this, NATO needs to shake up its decision-making structure. A facelift every 50 years or so is not too much to ask.
The writer, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, is a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
-------- pakistan
FBI puts 'Spiders' to work in Pakistan
By Aamir Latif
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021127-24240168.htm
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The FBI has organized some former Pakistani army officers and others into a band known as the "Spider Group" to locate Taliban and al Qaeda fugitives hiding in tribal areas along the Afghanistan border.
A federal law-enforcement official in Washington said yesterday that the move marked an attempt by the FBI to develop a "free flow of information" to U.S. agents who previously had worked under some restrictions with Pakistan's official Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
The ISI had deep and long-standing ties to the Taliban and is believed by many to remain beyond the control of the central government in Islamabad.
The Spider Group consists largely of retired officers of Pakistan's army, some of whom had reached the rank of brigadier and colonel, say law-enforcement authorities in Washington and sources in Pakistan familiar with the operation.
Most of those involved have had a long experience dealing with Afghanistan, going back to the U.S.-backed war against the Soviets in the 1980s and as recently as the period of Taliban rule, from the mid-1990s until last year.
The new group is based in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar, a gateway to Afghanistan.
It is charged with tracking the activities and movement of Taliban and al Qaeda outfits that operate in a largely autonomous belt of tribal areas nearby.
Sympathy for the Taliban and its brand of Islam is widespread in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier province, of which Peshawar is the capital.
Candidates of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a coalition of six militant anti-Western Islamic parties, won a majority in the province's legislature in recent elections.
Some of those elected to the provincial assembly taught Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and other top Taliban officials. The provincial assembly's new leaders have vowed to block the FBI from carrying out its mission, saying they want to hunt for the Taliban and al Qaeda themselves.
Initially, the Spider Group was assigned to keep an eye on public gatherings and seminars involving the MMA, especially the leaders of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI) party, which is especially close to Taliban leaders.
The FBI fears that the provincial MMA-led government will give the Taliban and al Qaeda the freedom to meet, recruit members and plan attacks against pro-Western targets.
The FBI also believes that fugitive Islamists from Afghanistan are hiding in a network of madrassas, or religious schools, that are operated by the JUI.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf denies that the schools harbor terrorists or that the ISI is beyond his control. He has said his government will not allow anyone to challenge its participation in the U.S.-led war against terrorism.
The Spider Group has also been asked to recruit locals in Pakistan's tribal areas, where hundreds of wanted terrorists are holed up under the patronage of tribal chiefs.
Despite a sizable Pakistani army presence in those areas, they are considered havens for Taliban and al Qaeda fugitives.
Members of the Spider Group, a mix of Muslim and Christian retired army and intelligence officers, have been trained and equipped by the FBI, and, sources in Pakistan say, all have command of the Pashto language spoken in the region. They have also hired Arabic translators.
Active Pakistani intelligence officials have begun monitoring Spider Group members, and their presence in army receptions and ceremonies has been banned. Pakistani intelligence operatives have also been directed not to have meetings with the group members.
The FBI decided to set up the Spider Group after it concluded that "lack of cooperation" from the ISI made it impossible to hunt down Taliban and al Qaeda fugitives in the tribal areas, the sources said.
The FBI found that the ISI helped several Taliban and al Qaeda fugitives escape to Iran after the military campaign in Afghanistan last year.
The FBI believes the ISI might still be helping fugitives by providing authorities with a steady flow of incomplete information.
An ISI spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the existence of the Spider Group.
"I have heard about it; however, I cannot comment on that without any concrete information," said the spokesman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He also denied that the FBI had ever expressed no confidence in information or hints provided by Pakistan's intelligence agency.
"Pakistani secret agencies are completely following the government policy vis-a-vis the war against terrorism and the recent arrests of al Qaeda leaders from Pakistan," the spokesman said.
Two top al Qaeda operatives have been arrested in Pakistan, both outside the tribal areas. In September, U.S. and Pakistani authorities captured Ramzi Binalshibh, believed to be a planner of the September 11 attacks, in Karachi. In March, al Qaeda financier Abu Zubaydah was arrested in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad.
•Jerry Seper contributed to this report in Washington.
-------- spies
Face of U.S. espionage changing
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021127-17047651.htm
American spies are increasingly women and foreign-born citizens who succeed in passing secrets as volunteers, according to a Defense Department report on espionage.
About 20 Americans have committed espionage or tried to spy since 1990, the report states, and the globalization of economics and the information-technology revolution have made it difficult to stop government employees from giving away or selling secrets.
"It does point to a kind of confluence of factors - the increase in the number of naturalized citizens, people who have foreign attachments and people who cite divided loyalty as a motive" for spying, said Katherine Herbig, co-author of the report, in an interview.
"These are all signs that the globalization we see going on is also happening in espionage."
Recent American spies "have been older, more likely to be women and more likely to be civilian" than in the past, she said. They are also more likely to be from an ethnic minority.
The report, "Espionage Against the United States by American Citizens 1947 to 2001," was produced by the Defense Personnel Security Research Center, a government think tank in Monterey, Calif., known as PERSEREC.
It surveyed 150 spy cases involving Americans and found that most spies in the past were white men in the military with little education.
"The end of the Cold War did not mean the end of espionage by Americans," the report stated, "but it seems to have brought changes in the practice of this crime."
Of the 20 spy cases since 1990, the report said, three involved spying by women and 11 involved Americans of an ethnic minority. Five of the spies from the 1990s, or 25 percent, were naturalized U.S. citizens for whom foreign attachments were a factor.
The survey compared the spies of the 1990s with two groups of spies in earlier periods: The 65 spies uncovered between 1947 and 1979, and the 65 spies caught between 1980 and 1989, the so-called decade of the spy.
"American spies of the 1990s have been older, with a median age of 39, than either of the two earlier groups," the report said. "They include a larger proportion of women (15 percent), of racial and ethnic minorities, notably the 25 percent who were Hispanic Americans, and a lower proportion of married persons."
The increase in female spies is significant because out of 150 spies uncovered since 1947, 11 were women. The report noted that 10 of the 11 women spies worked as accomplices or partners of men.
The report was written before the discovery of a longtime spy within the Defense Intelligence Agency, Ana Belen Montes, who spied for Cuba for 10 years before being arrested in September 2001.
Reflecting an apparent decline of counterintelligence efforts, the report stated that 1990s spies were more successful than those in the '80s, when up to 45 percent of them were stopped before providing secrets to foreign nations.
Recent spies were successful in passing secrets four out of five times.
The vast majority of espionage cases since 1947 involved the Soviet Union and Russia, with a total of 114 out of 150 espionage cases involving Moscow or its Soviet bloc allies.
Among the other nations identified as "recipient countries" of American spies since 1947 were China, Cuba, the Philippines, Egypt, South Africa, Poland, East Germany, North Korea, France, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Libya, Ecuador, Japan, Vietnam, Liberia, South Korea, Greece, Britain, the Netherlands, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, El Salvador, Jordan, Iraq and Taiwan.
The report states that naturalized American spies with "foreign attachments" - relatives abroad, emotional ties to foreign nations or overseas business ties - were more easily recruited by foreign intelligence services than those with no foreign ties.
Security vetting did not find people engaged in spying: At least five spies were not detected by screening and had clearances renewed while they committed espionage.
A key trend identified by the study was the "globalization" of economics, which is affecting the loyalty of Americans. Another was high-technology information systems. Spies' methods of collection, synthesis and transmission are changing, "shifting to take advantage of opportunities in these new technologies," the report said.
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Pentagon Wants $10 Billion a Year for Antiterror Fund
By THOM SHANKER and RICHARD W. STEVENSON
November 27, 2002
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/politics/27DEFE.html?position=top&ei=5006&en=c61d87a262137df2&ex=1039064400&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position=top
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 - The Defense Department is seeking an extra $10 billion a year for the next five years, beyond the growth in its regular budget, to carry out its campaign against terrorism, senior Pentagon and other administration officials said today.
Pentagon officials, who are putting the final touches on the request, are consulting with the White House on whether the annual $10 billion appropriation would be placed in a separate contingency fund, similar to one rejected by Congress this year, or would be written into the regular military budget.
Both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill proved unwilling this year to create a $10 billion fund for the Pentagon to spend with little Congressional oversight.
But with President Bush now in a more commanding position politically after the Republican victories in the midterm elections, administration officials seem increasingly confident not only of getting the money from Congress, but also of getting it on their terms: in a separate fund.
The extra $10 billion a year could be used for military actions, for other emerging counterterrorism operations around the world and for the costs of added protection for military bases in the United States and overseas. None of it would go to the new Department of Homeland Security, or for increases requested by other departments and agencies, like the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., for their roles in counterterrorism.
The $10 billion would be insufficient to pay for a major war against a country like Iraq. The 1991 war in the Persian Gulf cost about $60 billion, most of which was paid by other allied nations.
The extra money is reflected in a budget request to the White House for 2004, along with a related five-year request, that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is expected to complete over the Thanksgiving holiday. Administration officials said the White House was expected to look positively on the $10 billion, given that Mr. Bush expressed disappointment this fall when Congress passed a military appropriations bill for the current fiscal year without including a war reserve fund of that amount.
Mr. Rumsfeld has not commented on Pentagon budget proposals, but in a meeting with foreign journalists today he emphasized that the United States and its allies needed to spend more on the military.
"We, as free people, must be willing to make the kinds of investments over a period of time that will enable our respective free countries to contribute to peace and stability, or we're making a terrible mistake," he said. "That is not directed at any one country. To the extent it's directed at all, it's directed to the United States of America. We need to do that."
The $10 billion would be in addition to budget growth that would cover inflation and whatever other increases for personnel, procurement, operations, maintenance, or research and development might be proposed by the president and approved by Congress.
"We are coming to a general agreement that our budget over the years would increase by inflation plus a $10 billion figure for the global war on terror," a senior Defense Department official said.
The request, if approved by the White House, would no doubt raise the same questions among members of Congress that this year's request did. With the power to wage war increasingly concentrated in the hands of the president, Congress has vigorously guarded its control over military expenditures, and this year's request by the Pentagon for $10 billion with no strings attached left members of both parties uneasy.
The Pentagon and the White House are still working out a framework for the $10 billion sum. It could again be proposed as a reserve fund, or it could be written into the budget as specific line items.
On Oct. 23, in signing the $354.8 billion military appropriations bill for the current fiscal year, Mr. Bush lamented Congress's refusal to include a $10 billion war reserve fund.
"I am disappointed that the act does not fund the $10 billion I requested to support the war on terrorism," Mr. Bush said in a statement issued then.
Noting that the Pentagon had also gotten less than it had requested for operations and maintenance, he added, "Without these funds, we may be forced to reduce other important programs to finance the war on terrorism."
Even so, Mr. Bush has largely won Congressional approval for what he has called the largest military buildup in 20 years. And adding $10 billion a year to the regular budget for the next five years would amount to a further shift in priorities toward national security, and increase the pressure to cut spending on domestic programs.
Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a liberal-leaning policy research center, said proposals for a separate $10 billion counterterror reserve fund would not give the public or Congress sufficient oversight.
Quite apart from the costs of war in Afghanistan or any war in Iraq, Mr. O'Hanlon said, "nobody knows how to figure the eventual costs for things like base security, homeland defense, protecting key infrastructure, help to the National Guard and Reserve to prepare for catastrophic contingencies."
"So Rumsfeld is asking us to trust his first guess at what those costs are," Mr. O'Hanlon said. "To his credit, he is trying to isolate that piece. But there is not nearly enough information to give the Defense Department this much money almost into perpetuity."
The Pentagon's request highlights the difficulties faced by Mr. Bush and his budget director, Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., as they put together a plan for the 2004 federal budget at a time when the deficit is growing.
Mr. Bush has made clear that in setting budget priorities, he will put domestic and international security first. But some Democrats say he has shortchanged domestic security programs and underestimated the costs of getting the Department of Homeland Security fully operational.
At the same time, there is political pressure from both sides of the aisle to increase spending on education, to add prescription drug coverage for retirees and to finance other social programs. In addition, Mr. Bush has signaled that he intends to propose another round of tax cuts.
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A very public wargame
As the military build-up continues in the Gulf, Julian Borger in Washington sees US forces preparing for house to house combat
Wednesday November 27, 2002
UK Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,848798,00.html
After 10 months of secrecy and denial, US military preparations for the looming conflict with Iraq have abruptly been turned into well-catered press events over the last few days. Clearly, the message has changed.
American journalists have been invited into the vast tented camps run by US forces in Kuwait's western desert, concentrated along the Iraqi border. All together, some 12,000 troops have taken over an entire quarter of Kuwaiti territory, which is now off-limits to civilians.
US television crews have been asked aboard the warships cruising in the Persian Gulf, where a fearsome armada including four or five aircraft carriers will have gathered by the end of December. Journalists have even been permitted to fly in planes patrolling the skies of northern and southern Iraq.
Meanwhile, in Louisiana last week, a group of more than a dozen foreign journalists - including a crew from the Arabic language television station, al-Jazeera - were allowed to visit the Fort Polk urban training centre to watch the 101st Airborne, the 'Screaming Eagles', practise house to house combat.
Someone somewhere in the Pentagon has decided we should be allowed to see everything.
The message from Fort Polk was obvious enough. Iraqi officials have hinted to journalists visiting Baghdad that the crack troops of the Special Republican Guard would not make the Iraqi army's mistake of 11 years ago, standing in wait for the American offensive in the desert and making an easy target for the US air force. Instead they suggested the diehard troops would gather in cities, among civilians, and prepare for death and glory in a bloody last stand, possibly bolstered by chemical or biological weapons.
It is no coincidence then, that the 101st Airborne Division were put on display bursting through doors and climbing through windows. They were making the point that the US will not be afraid to pursue Saddam Hussein into the labyrinth of city streets in Baghdad or Tikrit, the dictator's home town.
It was certainly an impressive show. For much of the night of the war game, we watched events unfold in a hi-tech command centre on an array of flat screens showing thermal images of the division's 3rd Brigade closing in on the mock-up town, which went by the distinctly un-Iraqi name of Shughart Gordon.
Towards daybreak, we walked outside and saw the small imaginary settlement being stormed. Its small but ferocious defence force of some 70 US paratroopers acting the part of generic "bad guys", was overcome and rooted out of the cellars and attics of the town. A large painted slogan nearby boasted that Fort Polk was "Forging the Warrior Spirit".
Watching the war game reach its dawn climax, I could not help thinking about the elaborate charade put on for the press a few months before the Gulf war, when the marines staged extensive rehearsals for a coastal assault on the Iraqi forces. Of course, there was never going to be a seaborne attack, and the media event was all part of the Pentagon's programme of psychological operations.
While it is clear the US readiness to fight at close quarters in city streets is being improved, it is still a safe bet