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NUCLEAR
Nuclear - Imaging Can Help Heart Diagnosis
U.N. Search Of Distilleries Surprises Iraq
Iraq plant equipment 'missing'
U.N. says visits not part of arms hunt
Annan Calls Iraqi Cooperation'Good'
U.N. Teams Inspect Saddam Palace in Iraq
Putin and Chinese Leader Pledge Friendship
South Korean Candidates Spar Over Nukes
Missile shields urged for airliners
A missile coverup at MIT?
Nevada States Case Against Waste Dump in Mountain
Nevada Tells Court Yucca Mountain is Unsafe
Nev. Outlines Opposition to Waste Site
Leak Prompted Texas Reactor Shutdown
Text: Bush in Lousiana
The Push for War
MILITARY
KABUL Afghans Plan a New Army of 70,000
Prague link to Kenya missiles
Croatia Protects a General Charged With War Crimes
C.I.A. Hunts Iraq Tie to Soviet Smallpox
Business Gets Its Security Connection
Incinerating Chemical Weapons Said Safe
'Zones' suspend Colombian rights
Kurds Keep a Wary Eye on the Iraq Border, Open for Now
Israeli Army chief calls for evacuation of most settlements
Turkey OKs U.S. Use of Country's Bases
Putin Eager to Cooperate With NATO
Pakistan Official to West: Focus Less on Bin Laden
Mossad under fire for disregarding information on Kenya
U.N. Employees Send Israel Protest Petition
Uncle Sam wants your kid
Why the Pentagon will watch where you shop
President Signs Defense Authorization Bill
New Terror Toys
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Guantánamo Prisoners Seek to See Families and Lawyers
Texas Death Row Appeals Lawyers Criticized
Number ties Kenya missile launcher to al-Qaeda
U.S. Says Evidence Links Attack in Kenya With Qaeda Operation
ENERGY AND OTHER
The future is here - Japan launches fuel cell cars
Ex-GM CEO makes "green" auto industry comeback
Cleaner air by increments
U.N. Food Chief Warns of Africa Famine
ACTIVISTS
Peace protests near White House growing
12/10: Protest The War Propagandists
Haitian Leader's Supporters Beat, Chase Protesters
Venezuela Nat'l Guard Disperses Protest
City Council votes for anti-war resolution
Mass protest as new wave of oil hits Spain
Anti-war teach-in squashed
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- health
Nuclear - Imaging Can Help Heart Diagnosis
December 3, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Heart-Test.html
CHICAGO (AP) -- Nuclear-imaging technology already in place at many U.S. hospitals can help emergency room doctors do a better job of ruling out heart attacks in patients with chest pain, a study found.
The study looked at sestamibi imaging, which is normally used in non-emergency settings as part of a stress test. The patient is injected with an isotope that lets doctors monitor the heart's pumping ability and see how much blood is flowing to it.
``We're just taking available technology and using it in a new way,'' said the study's lead author, Dr. James Udelson of Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston.
More than 6 million people each year go to emergency rooms with chest pain, and many are admitted to the hospital or an observation unit because doctors are unable to rule out a heart attack.
If the patients have abnormal readings on electrocardiograms, doctors can diagnose their heart attacks with certainty and start treatment. Often, however, patients have normal electrocardiograms. These people are frequently admitted for observation.
The research appears in Wednesday' Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study found that 52 percent of patients who were not given the test were admitted with what turned out to be neither a heart attack nor unstable angina, a common precursor to a heart attack. The rate was 42 percent among patients who were given the test.
Dr. Robert Bonow, president of the American Heart Association and chief of cardiology at Northwestern University Medical School, said that number could fall once doctors using the test develop confidence in it.
Bonow said the imaging could save money, because an overnight stay in the hospital would probably be more expensive than the test.
The study looked at 2,475 patients at seven hospitals, ranging from large, academic medical centers to smaller community hospitals. Of the patients, 1,260 were assigned to receive standard care and 1,215 to undergo the imaging.
-------- inspections
U.N. Search Of Distilleries Surprises Iraq
Experts Look for Equipment With Possible Nuclear Uses
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 3, 2002; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A781-2002Dec2?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 2 -- U.N. weapons experts today conducted their first inspections of Iraqi sites that have not been searched by previous U.N. teams, examining three alcohol distilleries on the outskirts of Baghdad for equipment that could be used in the development of nuclear devices.
Iraqi officials expressed surprise that experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency would choose to visit the Awali, Baraj and Dahab companies, which use the nectar of dates to make a potent and popular gin and an anise-flavored spirit called arak that is sold for 75 cents a bottle. The inspectors visited the plants one after the other, walking through the distillation and bottling facilities, speaking to employees and looking carefully at the machinery, but they did not appear to be carrying any of the radiation monitoring equipment they have taken into other sites.
[Early Tuesday, news services reported that for the first time a team of inspectors entered one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces. A convoy of about six U.N. vehicles was allowed inside the complex in the Karkh district in central Baghdad after several minutes of discussion with guards at the gate, the reports said.]
The inspectors did not comment on why they chose to visit the alcohol plants today, or what, if anything, they found inside related to nuclear weapons. An IAEA spokesman issued a brief statement saying "all sites with industrial/technical capability are of interest to us and need to be assessed to determine relevance or not to a nuclear program."
"Any site with industrial/technical capability can be used to conceal illicit activity," the statement said.
U.N. officials suggested, but did not directly confirm, that the inspectors were checking on a tip that nuclear-related equipment was being stored at the beverage plants. They appeared, however, to come up empty.
"We've got to follow up on a lot of leads," one U.N. official said. "Not all of them lead to something productive."
Another group of inspectors, from a special U.N. commission examining biological and chemical weaponry, visited a Baghdad factory that once made guidance and control systems for Scud missiles, which Iraq used extensively during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. During their six-hour search, the inspectors discovered that several monitoring cameras and some of the equipment that had been marked with identification tags by previous inspectors no longer were at the site, now called the Karama Co., a U.N. spokesman here said.
The spokesman, Hiro Ueki, said the inspectors were told by Iraqi officials that some of the equipment had been destroyed when the United States bombed the site in 1998 and other pieces had been moved. A U.N. official said the inspectors would investigate the claims.
"It is something that has to be looked into," the official said. "It's too early to tell how serious this is."
In the 1980s, Iraq modified Soviet-made Scuds to increase their range to 400 miles. Now, Iraq is prohibited from having missiles with a range of more than 93 miles. Although Iraq insists it has no such missiles, the inspectors presumably wanted to ensure that such work had not resumed.
One of the three alcohol plants, the Awali Co., whose name means "the Heights," had been visited by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s, but those inspectors were focused on biological and chemical weapons, not nuclear arms, U.N. officials said. The earlier inspectors had placed small U.N. identification tags on a few large metal fermentation vats, which were visible to journalists who were allowed to tour the plant after the inspectors left.
Part of the reason for the visit may have been to test whether the inspectors would be allowed to scour any site they wanted and to confuse Iraqi officials, who are trying to predict which sites the international experts will choose to search. Under a U.N. Security Council resolution passed unanimously last month, Iraq will face "serious consequences" if it does not allow inspectors access to any person or place in Iraq without having to seek permission or provide advance notice.
"Sometimes we don't know what we're going to find," the U.N. official said. "We've got to be able to surprise them. We wouldn't be very good inspectors if we only visited places that are logical."
But Jamal Ishaa, the manager of the Awali plant, said he could not fathom why nuclear experts were interested in his facility. "We were surprised when they came," he said. "We only produce alcoholic drinks."
Production of alcoholic beverages is legal in Iraq and is a specialty of the country's Christian minority. Consumption is legal in homes but has been banned in public places since the government put increased emphasis on Iraq's Islamic heritage after the 1991 war.
Ishaa said the inspectors looked at the bottling facilities and the fermentation rooms and asked questions of the workers, some of whom were later observed by journalists placing labels on clear glass bottles and heat-sealing metal bottle caps. He said the inspectors did not tell him why they selected his plant.
"I would really like to ask them, 'What does arak and gin have to do with nuclear [technology]?' " he said.
----
Iraq plant equipment 'missing'
Tuesday 3 December 2002
AFP
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/12/03/1038712920450.html
UN arms experts discovered equipment missing during a six-hour inspection of an Iraqi missile plant which had been placed under long-term monitoring by their predecessors, spokesman Hiro Ueki said.
"In 1998, the site contained a number of pieces of equipment tagged by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and several monitoring cameras," Ueki said after the inspection of the al-Waziriya facility north of Baghdad.
"None of these was currently present at the facility. It was claimed that some had been destroyed by the bombing of the site, some had been transferred to others sites," he said.
The spokesman said the UN team had nonetheless been "able to carry out the inspection tasks that had been planned" at what was "one of Iraq's principal missile development sites".
Asked by AFP how the inspectors planned to reconcile the discrepancy, he said: "We will check if the equipment has been transferred."
Ueki also confirmed the inspectors had visited a small industrial site north of Baghdad which had never been visited by UNSCOM - the first time they have done so since inspections resumed last Wednesday.
Like two other sites visited nearby, the plant had turned out to be "dedicated to the production of alcohol".
----
U.N. says visits not part of arms hunt
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 3, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021203-26296406.htm
NEW YORK - U.N. weapons monitors yesterday scrambled to explain why Iraq had been notified in advance of at least two visits to weapons sites in apparent violation of the surprise inspection regime outlined by the Security Council.
U.N. officials in New York and Baghdad said the forays were not inspections, but technical visits to replace equipment left behind four years ago.
"If you need a 100-foot ladder," said Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman for the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), "there's no point in arriving and waiting six hours while they find one."
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher yesterday indicated that Washington found the explanation satisfactory.
"The inspectors have assured us that they are conducting inspections on a no-notice basis," he told reporters. "They weren't conducting inspections. They were picking up equipment."
At one site, inspectors replaced an air-monitoring machine, and at the other site they replaced a video monitor.
In another development yesterday, U.N. inspectors hit their first snag on a visit to a missile-production facility outside Baghdad, where they failed to find several pieces of machinery that had been there four years ago.
They also found that surveillance equipment was not in place.
The compound had produced the long-range al-Hussein missiles that are now forbidden to Iraq and was the site of frequent visits by the former inspection regime.
"In 1998, the site contained a number of pieces of equipment tagged by the United Nations Special Commission and several monitoring cameras," said spokesman Hiro Ueki after the inspection of the al-Karoma facility north of Baghdad.
"None of these was currently present at the facility. It was claimed that some had been destroyed by the bombing of the site, some had been transferred to other sites," Mr. Ueki said.
The United Nations Special Commission was the name used by the previous team of inspectors, who were expelled from the country in December 1998. Days after they left, the al-Karoma facility was targeted by U.S. air strikes.
Mr. Ueki said the Iraqis had told inspectors where to find the missing equipment and that the inspectors would look for it later.
Earlier in the day, Brig. Mohammed Saleh Mohammed, commander of the al-Karoma compound, told reporters that the facility is involved in the design and production of missiles with a range of 90 miles or less - which are permitted by the Security Council.
He said inspections had gone "without a hitch."
The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions against Iraq after its troops invaded Kuwait, and the economic blockade cannot be lifted until the country is certified as having abandoned all weapons of mass destruction.
A 1996 program to bring humanitarian relief to the Iraqi people allows Baghdad to export oil and buy with the proceeds anything it needs except goods that could be used in the production of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
That program was to have been extended last week for another six months, but the Americans have demanded that the list of prohibited items be expanded.
Unable to reach accord with the council's other 14 members, Washington is likely to agree tomorrow to another brief extension, instead of a formal renewal of the program.
----
Annan Calls Iraqi Cooperation'Good'
By DAFNA LINZER
Associated Press Writer
Dec 3, 2002
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/UN_ANNAN?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
Annan says the surprise inspection of a presidential palace suggests Iraq is going along with the expanded authority of the weapons inspectors. (Audio)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday that Iraq's cooperation with weapons inspectors has been good so far, and he praised the inspectors for using their authority to visit presidential palaces.
"There is a good indication that the Iraqis are cooperating, but this is only the beginning," Annan said. "They have to sustain the cooperation and effort ... and we will have to wait for the report of the inspectors." Advertisement
Annan wouldn't comment on remarks from President Bush a day earlier that "the signs are not encouraging" about Saddam Hussein's willingness to disarm.
"The inspectors are not in Iraq to play hide-and-seek with Mr. Saddam Hussein," the president said Monday in his first extensive comment on the U.N. weapons inspections since they got under way last week.
Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix also said Tuesday that Iraq hasn't obstructed his teams but that Baghdad must provide "good explanations" for moving some equipment.
"I think we have started in the manner we expected and we have not had any impediments in the visits of plants," he told The Associated Press.
"Of course over a period of time, equipment can be moved but there must be some good explanations for it, and I'm sure that our people will inquire why was it moved and where was it moved," Blix said.
"If it were to be moved for some illicit purpose, then of course it would be more serious. But in the first case there was a fermenter which had been moved, and they showed where it was. And in other cases I hope that there are good explanations, but this has to be found out."
Annan wouldn't speculate as to when he expected Iraq to present a declaration of its chemical, biological and nuclear programs. Iraq must provide the declaration to the Security Council and inspectors by Sunday.
"I will wait for the inspectors to analyze it, and then brief the Council on its contents," Annan said.
U.N. weapons inspectors are charged with disarming Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and long-range missiles to deliver them, During more than seven years of work before leaving in December 1998, inspectors tagged equipment which could have military and civilian use so it could be tracked.
Annan said he had not received a report yet from inspectors on their first week of work. But he was pleased they had gained access to all the sites they've targeted thus far, including a presidential palace which was visited Tuesday. Under the previous inspections regime, advance notice was required before inspectors could visit such sites.
"That is an indication that the inspectors are using their new authority effectively. They have the right to inspect and go anywhere and they have demonstrated that they are determined to use this new authority."
----
U.N. Teams Inspect Saddam Palace in Iraq
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent
Dec 3, 2002 12:50 PM EST
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_WEAPONS_INSPECTORS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
U-N weapons inspectors are flexing their new muscle with their latest visit. (Audio)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- International inspectors roared up to one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces Tuesday and demanded and received quick entry, in an early test of new powers to hunt for weapons of mass destruction anywhere, anytime in Iraq.
A key Iraqi official, meanwhile, said Baghdad will reaffirm its position that it no longer has mass destruction weapons in a long-awaited declaration later this week that is unlikely to satisfy Washington.
In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan described Iraq's cooperation - not only at the palace but in other inspections so far - as good but cautioned "this is only the beginning." Annan's assessment appeared at odds with that of President Bush, who said Monday that early signs from Baghdad "are not encouraging."
And in Vienna, Austria, Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the U.N. nuclear control agency, said the Iraqis were expected to submit their report to the U.N. office in Baghdad on Saturday - one day before the deadline mandated by the Security Council.
The U.N. weapons monitors found spectacle and opulence inside the sprawling, riverside Al-Sajoud palace on Tuesday. But there was no word that they found anything else. A day earlier, the United Nations announced inspectors could not find some equipment they were looking for at a missile-related site; it was not the first time in a week of inspections that such a problem arose.
Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, speaking to The Associated Press on Tuesday at U.N. headquarters, said Iraq has not obstructed U.N. weapons inspectors during their first week of work but that Baghdad must explain moving some equipment.
Iraqis said Tuesday, as they have on previous days, that they cooperated with the inspectors.
Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, the chief Iraqi liaison officer, told journalists after Tuesday's presidential search: "The inspectors were happy."
The U.N. team left the west Baghdad grounds after 1 1/2 hours and had no comment for reporters, as has been their practice. The visit itself carried a message: that this time the inspectors have a free run of Iraq, under a Security Council mandate requiring the Baghdad government to give up any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Once the inspectors left, reporters were briefly allowed inside the palace's spectacular, eight-sided entry hall. Each of the walls was inscribed in huge gold letters with a poem praising Saddam.
In the 1990s, the Iraqis sought to bar U.N. monitors from Saddam's palaces. It took personal negotiations between Saddam and Annan to reach an accommodation: Inspectors could visit with diplomatic escort and notice. Those teams found nothing.
A U.N. resolution adopted last month mandates unrestricted access at all Iraqi sites. The security staff at Al-Sajoud clearly was aware of the new powers, taking just seven minutes of radio consultation before opening the towering, ornate gates Tuesday.
As usual, Saddam's whereabouts were not publicly known. He is known to move about frequently among dozens of presidential palaces across Iraq.
Meanwhile Tuesday, the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry said an Iraqi boat fired on two Kuwaiti coast guard vessels in northern Kuwaiti waters. The Kuwaiti vessels fired back. No injuries in the firing were reported.
Iraq, which did not comment on the firing, and Kuwait have not had relations since the 1991 Gulf War, in which a U.S.-led coalition liberated the oil-rich Kuwait from a seven-month Iraqi occupation. Few clashes along the Kuwaiti-Iraqi land and naval borders have been reported in recent years.
The dramatic, unannounced call on Al-Sajoud came on the sixth day of the inspections, which have been renewed after a four-year break.
The inspectors thus far, in more than a dozen field missions, have reported unimpeded access and Iraqi cooperation.
Speaking to reporters in New York, Annan said he had not received a report yet from inspectors on their first week of work. But he was pleased inspectors had gained access to all sites, including the palace.
"That is an indication that the inspectors are using their new authority effectively," he said. "They have the right to inspect and go anywhere and they have demonstrated that they are determined to use this new authority."
Although Annan said the Iraqis had been cooperative so far, "they have to sustain the cooperation and effort ... and we will have to wait for the report of the inspectors." Annan would not comment on Bush's more pessimistic assessment.
The Bush administration alleges Iraq retains chemical and biological weapons - missed during the 1990s inspections - and has not abandoned its nuclear weapons program.
Bush threatens to wage war on Iraq - with or without U.N. sanction - if it doesn't disarm. Other governments say that only the Security Council can authorize an attack on Iraq in a situation not involving immediate self-defense.
On Tuesday, Gen. Amin told Baghdad reporters that an Iraqi declaration on its weapons required to be given to the United Nations by the end of the week "will include new elements, but those new elements don't mean that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
"Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction."
The inspectors of the 1990s eliminated tons of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons and the equipment to make them, dismantled Iraq's effort to build nuclear bombs, and destroyed scores of longer-range Iraqi missiles. Those inspectors suspect they didn't find all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. On Monday, among other visits, inspectors searched the Karama missile design plant in Baghdad - a revisit to a site inspected in the 1990s. The inspectors wanted to ensure that this key installation was not involved in producing missiles capable of ranges beyond the 90 miles permitted by U.N. resolutions after Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War.
The U.N. agency reported their inspectors found that equipment which had been tagged by earlier inspectors at Karama was missing. The Iraqis said some of it had been destroyed in U.S. bombing in 1998, when 18 cruise missiles struck the site, and some had been transferred to other locations.
Twice last week at other sites, the inspectors traced other equipment at first thought to be missing to other locations.
"If it were to be moved for some illicit purpose, then of course it would be more serious," Blix, the chief U.N. inspector, said in New York. "But in the first case there was a fermenter which had been moved, and they showed where it was. And in other cases I hope that there are good explanations, but this has to be found out."
In Vienna on Tuesday, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said the body would later this month begin analyzing samples gathered by its inspectors in Iraq. The agency, which is overseeing the hunt for Iraqi nuclear weapons, did not expect to present results before Jan. 27 at the earliest.
In a related development, an inspection team official said on condition of anonymity Monday that Iraqi had admitted it had tried, unsuccessfully, to import aluminum tubes that the United States had said might help Iraq build a nuclear bomb. Iraq denies it still has nuclear weapons ambitions.
-------- korea
Putin and Chinese Leader Pledge Friendship and Caution North Korea on Nuclear Arms
December 3, 2002
New York Times
By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/03/international/asia/03CHIN.html
BEIJING, Dec. 2 - China and Russia called on North Korea today to abandon any attempt to acquire nuclear weapons but also called on Washington to honor previous agreements with the North.
The call came during a quick but high-profile visit by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that was marked by hearty pledges of mutual friendship and appeals for restraint on Iraq.
In a 13-page declaration that set out no new policies but was notable for its strong emphasis on the unsettled situation on the Korean peninsula, Russia and China said they "consider it important for the destiny of the world and security in Northeast Asia to preserve the nonnuclear status of the Korean peninsula and the regime of nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction."
"In this context," the statement continued, the two sides "stress the extreme importance of normalizing relations between the United States and the D.P.R.K. on the basis of continued observation of earlier reached agreements, including the framework agreement of 1994." D.P.R.K. are the initials for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
In that agreement, North Korea promised to halt nuclear weapons development in return for energy aid, including construction of nuclear power plants. The agreement is in limbo following North Korean admissions of covert nuclear research.
China is one of North Korea's few allies and does not want to see the country collapse, but its diplomats have also been exasperated by the country's military posturing, which it fears could destabilize the region.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had menaced China, Moscow and Beijing have worked to rebuild friendly ties, in part to counterbalance the global power of the United States. The meeting today seemed intended for each to reassure the other of that commitment, even as both have drawn closer to Washington in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks last year.
President Jiang Zemin, receiving Mr. Putin, said, "China and Russia will be good neighbors, friends and partners forever." Mr. Putin, who arrived this morning at 1:40 and leaves on Tuesday to continue an Asian tour, said he was "fully confident of a bright future for Russia-China relations."
Mr. Putin was the most prominent foreign visitor since the change in Communist Party leadership here last month, and after meeting Mr. Jiang he met with Hu Jintao, the newly selected party chief, and other top leaders.
China and Russia have both joined in President Bush's global crusade against terror and kept quiet as the Americans sent troops to Central Asia. Both also went along, reluctantly, with an aggressive American-sponsored United Nations resolution seeking to disarm Iraq, though they remain nervous about independent American military action.
Today, both sides declared their opposition to "unilateral action" by any country and reiterated their shared faith in the United Nations Security Council, where both have veto power as permanent members. China and Russia also stressed their commitment to a "multipolar" world - code for a world less dominated by the United States.
They called for a peaceful settlement of the Iraqi weapons issue and complained that some governments have a "policy of double standards" on human rights, rejecting "the use of human rights questions as a lever for pressure in international relations."
One new bond the leaders mentioned prominently today was a shared interest in stamping out Islamic separatism. Mr. Jiang praised the Russian leader for his "just antiterrorism actions," including the recent deadly raid on Chechen rebels who held hundreds of hostages in a Moscow theater. Mr. Putin pledged renewed cooperation against Islamic movements in Central Asia and in Xinjiang Province, in China.
--------
South Korean Candidates Spar Over Nukes
December 3, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-SKorea-Election.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- The two men most likely to become South Korea's next president sparred Tuesday over how to persuade North Korea to discontinue its nuclear weapons program.
In a televised debate ahead of the Dec. 19 election, Lee Hoi-Chang and Roh Moo-hyun called on the communist North to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions and agreed the diplomatic crisis should be resolved through dialogue. But they contrasted in their proposed approaches.
Lee, of the conservative opposition Grand National Party, said he favored cutting off economic aid to North Korea if it doesn't end its nuclear weapons program immediately.
``We should make our demand in a forceful manner and should consider economic measures,'' Lee said during the two-hour debate.
Roh, of the pro-government Millennium Democratic Party, warned that increasing pressure on North Korea could be risky.
``When it fails, it can cause terrible consequences,'' he said. ``The carrot and dialogue can cost a lot, but we must be patient, and we will be successful.''
North Korea revealed in October that it had a nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States. The accord called for the country to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for international aid to build two power plants.
The United States, with backing from Japan, South Korea and the European Union, decided to punish North Korea by suspending free fuel oil shipments from December.
North Korea responded by declaring the 1994 agreement ``collapsed.''
U.S. officials believe North Korea has produced enough plutonium for at least one, and possibly two, nuclear weapons. North Korea denies it.
Seven candidates are running for president. But only three -- those who won an average of more than 5 percent in public surveys -- were allowed to participate in the debate.
The third candidate was Kwon Young-gil, who heads a minor political party supported by labor unions.
Kwon blamed North Korea for violating the 1994 agreement but also accused the United States of breaking the accord by delaying construction of the promised nuclear power plants.
South Korea's presidential race formally began Nov. 27. Earlier polls suggested Lee, 67, and Roh, 55, were the leading presidential contenders.
President Kim Dae-jung, whose five-year term ends in February, is barred by the constitution from seeking re-election.
-------- missile defense
Missile shields urged for airliners
By Jeffrey Sparshott
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 3, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20021203-83397040.htm
Technology to make airplanes safe from missile attacks is available but unlikely to make its way into passenger craft anytime soon.
"Putting countermeasures onto civilian aircraft is certainly technically feasible but it is not a solution that could occur quickly," said Todd Curtis, founder of the Airsafe Journal, in an article published yesterday.
Senate intelligence committee leaders Sunday called on the newly created Transportation Security Agency to "immediately" respond to the potential for surface-to-air missile attacks against U.S. commercial aircraft.
The remarks followed a failed shoulder-launched missile attack against an Israeli passenger aircraft in Kenya.
Sen. Bob Graham, of Florida, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee, wants the TSA to focus primarily on perimeter security at airports.
"There is a general concern about the working relationship between federal agencies and state and local agencies that manage large facilities, like airports and seaports, and how well they coordinate on providing security across the board," Paul Anderson, Mr. Graham's communications director, said yesterday.
Mr. Curtis and other aviation experts concurred that on-the-ground security could be implemented effectively and quickly, though at some cost.
Mr. Graham was co-sponsor of a port-security bill approved by Congress that mandates coordinated law enforcement at seaports. Mr. Anderson said that the new transportation agency has the legislative authority to act and should take the lead on the matter.
Information and intelligence sharing ought to be a top priority, he said. The TSA did not return phone calls seeking comment.
High-tech solutions also are available. Defense firm BAE Systems, for example, manufactures self-protection systems for military and civil aircraft. The company's systems could be applied to commercial aircraft but that would require government approval, said John Measell, a company spokesman.
"Our systems are primarily for the military. For commercial use, we would need approval of the government," he said.
Design and safety issues also would delay any deployment.
"One of the things we are always trying to do is ensure our design takes into account many different scenarios. But designing any [anti-]missile system in a commercial aircraft would involve significant design work and could raise significant issues in its own right," said a spokesman for airline manufacturer Boeing.
The U.S. commercial fleet includes about 4,900 passenger jets, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
"It typically takes a year before any major change to the design and operation of commercial aircraft could be certified, tested and installed," Mr. Curtis said.
It is not clear exactly how many missile systems are available around the world or if any are a threat in the United States.
"There are thousands of these surface-to-air missiles around the world," said Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican, who appeared with Mr. Graham on "Fox News Sunday."
"You can buy them and you can transport them. A lot of them are not as accurate as others. But sooner or later that's going to be one of the methods for the terrorists to hit," he said.
Simple law enforcement measures around airports, such as increasing police patrols and restricting some activities would be effective, but that may be an unacceptable burden on communities adjacent to airports, Mr. Curtis said.
"We have to rely on citizens who live near the airports to report anything suspicious," Mr. Curtis said. "Unless we have cooperation from the citizenry, there's no way to put enough eyeballs on everything going on."
--------
A missile coverup at MIT?
By James Carroll,
12/3/2002
Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/337/oped/A_missile_coverup_at_MIT_%2B.shtml
LAST MONTH the Air Force general in charge of developing the missile defense system declared that the elusive technology had finally proven itself. ''We no longer need to experiment, to demonstrate, or prevaricate,'' Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish said. ''We need to get on with this.''
But the record of Pentagon assertions in favor of missile defense has been unreliable, to say the least. A project that is bringing tens of billions of dollars into military-industrial coffers carries an irresistible bias in its own behalf, and history shows that neither the Defense Department nor its contractors are reliable evaluators of the science and technology on which President Bush's vaunted ''shield'' must stand. Leave aside for the moment the disturbing question of whether US initiatives toward missile defense will ignite a mortal new arms race with China and others. The remaining question of feasibility is grave enough. Can the nation afford $100 billion for a system that won't work? Can the government put the lives of citizens at risk behind a shield that will not protect?
Such questions are too important to leave to the obviously biased evaluators of the Pentagon and the defense industry. That is why the scientific claims of the Missile Defense Agency and its contractors must be examined by disinterested experts in the scientific community. On such independence rests the health of the US economy, the safety of the nation, and the integrity of science itself when so much else has been corrupted. These are the stakes of a dispute that has been brewing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for more than a year.
Theodore A. Postol is a professor of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT. He earned a reputation as a debunker of the Patriot missile's Gulf War performance and then as a skeptic of missile defense. He challenged whether the system under design could ever reliably distinguish between incoming warheads and decoys.
At particular issue was a 1997 test conducted and deemed successful by the defense contractor TRW. After that ''success'' was questioned by federal investigators, MIT's Lincoln Laboratory was hired to evaluate it. In 1999 Lincoln Lab affirmed TRW's results. Soon thereafter Postol objected, challenging not only the Pentagon and its contractor - but his own university. The Government Accounting Office investigated and concluded that Postol was right in pointing out flaws in the TRW test, but Postol's charge had gone beyond flaws to fraud. ''Lincoln Lab,'' he said to me over coffee recently, ''covered up a program-stopping flaw in the missile defense system. A great university involved in a coverup?''
In April 2001 Postol went to MIT authorities about the matter, and then early this year he went public, raising the grave question of whether Lincoln Lab colluded in TRW's deception. Postol argued that the ''success'' of the experiment depended on a match between observed phenomena and predicted phenomena. Had TRW fraudulently substituted one for the other? Had Lincoln Lab knowingly covered up that substitution? Had Lincoln Lab misled federal investigators? Had top MIT officials ignored and distorted these charges? Postol demanded an investigation. Last February, MIT launched an in-house inquiry into Postol's charges. (The Boston Globe called for an independent investigation at that time, asking MIT ''to reconsider this self-protecting institutional reflex.'')
The internal MIT inquiry into its own conduct was concluded last month, and it called for the outside investigation Postol had been demanding all along. That recommendation has now gone to MIT's top officials, and what it will lead to remains to be seen.
Postol, for his part, has already reached a conclusion and is hoping for a congressional intervention. In letters he sent in late October to Representative Howard Berman, Democrat of California, and Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, cosponsors of the False Claims Act, Postol wrote, ''In effect, Lincoln verified and certified as accurate bookkeeping arithmetic when Lincoln knew that the bookkeeping practices were fraudulent.''
This might sound like a reprise of the Enron scandal when both a company and its watchdog accountants were caught lying - a corruption not only of a basic system but also of the system's oversight mechanism. But Enron, finally, involved only money. The corruption that Postol alleges goes to the quick of scientific integrity, to the dead center of the academy's relationship to government and, even more crucial, to the method by which future US defense strategies will be devised.
The independent investigation demanded by the courageous Postol is long overdue. His demands might seem like disloyalty to a besieged university protective of its reputation. They might seem like mere ''prevarication'' to a Pentagon wanting ''to get on'' with missile defense. But to America there is nothing esoteric about the truth, especially when falsehood, igniting an arms race, can pave the road to war.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- nevada
Nevada States Case Against Waste Dump in Mountain
December 3, 2002
New York Times
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/03/politics/03YUCC.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 - Yucca Mountain cannot be used for disposal of the nation's nuclear waste, the State of Nevada said in a brief filed today, arguing that the site does not meet criteria that require its natural features to contain the material for thousands of years.
The brief, filed in a suit in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, includes Energy Department estimates that if "engineered barriers" fail, Yucca will leak. According to the department, if the man-made containers do not hold, the radiation dose at the site boundary will be six times higher than the rules allow after 1,000 years; after 3,000 years, the dose will be 67 times higher.
A spokesman for the Energy Department, Joseph H. Davis, said that he could not comment in detail because he had not yet seen the argument. But, he said, "It's certainly not surprising that perhaps some of the same arguments we heard before are being made by the state."
Opponents of the repository have argued before that the Energy Department is trying to make the project acceptable by relying on man-made barriers that cannot reliably be predicted to last for the 10,000 years that the law requires. But the suit includes more details about how the Energy Department has backed away from its initial insistence that the rock alone would contain the wastes.
Since the late 1950's, the United States has been seeking what scientists refer to as a "geologic repository" for the waste, which is mostly from power plants and nuclear weapons production. Nevada's brief quotes a 20-year-old statement by the Energy Department that "the host rock with its properties provides the justification for geologic disposal and is the main element in containing the waste within the repository."
The host rock at Yucca, a ridge in the desert 100 miles from Las Vegas, is formed by volcanic emissions. The main mechanism for waste to escape from the mountain is rainwater seeping down from the summit to the groundwater far below. That water flows steadily across the site's boundaries, where it can feed wells and come to the surface in springs.
Government scientists initially believed that water would take 9,000 to 80,000 years to flow from the repository to the accessible environment. But researchers have discovered fractures in the rock where water flows much faster. In 1997, scientists found traces of chlorine-36, which does not exist in nature, in the five-mile tunnel drilled to explore the mountain's rock. That meant that material produced by nuclear explosions, the first of which was in 1944, had already penetrated through 800 feet of rock. According to the suit, in 1996 the Energy Department said that some water could go from the repository level to the water table, 1,300 feet down, in 50 years, and then flow beyond the site boundaries.
The Energy Department has argued that the storage containers will hold the wastes, and it projects that releases for the first 10,000 years will be very small. But assessing the adequacy of the containers is difficult, the project's critics maintain, because the Energy Department has not made a final design public.
The suit argues that reliance on a system that combines the man-made containers with the natural characteristics is "essentially abandoning" the Nuclear Waste Policy Act's mandate "that the site's geology form the primary isolation barrier."
The suit, brought by the State of Nevada, the City of Las Vegas and Clark County, is the second recent use of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act against the Energy Department. Environmentalists are suing the department over its plan to leave some nuclear waste in steel tanks buried under a few feet of dirt at nuclear weapons plants.
The Energy Department is also under pressure to take the wastes from the operators of civilian power plants. Soon after the waste act was signed in 1982, those operators agreed to pay the government a tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour produced in exchange for the department taking the wastes beginning in 1998. That date now seems too optimistic by at least a decade, and the courts have ruled that the power companies can seek damages from the department for the extra costs of storing the fuel.
----
Nevada Tells Court Yucca Mountain is Unsafe
December 3, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2002/2002-12-03-09.asp#anchor4
WASHINGTON, DC, In the latest court action challenging the proposed high level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, the state of Nevada argued Monday that the site does not meet requirements for containing nuclear waste with its natural features.
In a brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, Nevada's lawyers argued that if casks constructed to hold spent nuclear fuel were to fail, it would increase the radiation released at the proposed repository by as much as six times more than allowed under the federal rules governing the site's licensing.
Yucca Mountain, located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being considered as a permanent repository for thousands of tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel now stored at power reactors across the country.
But the Nevada court papers charge that the Department of Energy (DOE) has known for more than 14 years that the proposed Yucca Mountain site could not contain radioactivity from high level wastes based on geology alone. The DOE endorsed Yucca Mountain two decades ago, stating that "the host rock with its properties provides the justification for geologic disposal and is the main element in containing the waste within the repository."
However, the DOE had later determined "that up to 20 percent of all water moving through the repository would reach the accessible environment in less than 1,000 years," Nevada charges, noting that that water would carry radioactivity to surrounding communities and natural areas.
The brief, which is more than 50 pages long, also argues that the DOE has "failed to address realistic sabotage scenarios involving spent fuel transport and thus vastly understated the risks and consequences of undertaking thousands of such shipments if Yucca proceeds."
Concerns about possible terrorist attacks on the Yucca Mountain site or on cross country shipments of spent fuel and other high level radioactive waste have increased since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Nevada's court filing charges, for example, that "DOE did not consider the risk that a warhead exploding inside a spent fuel container could cause fissile nuclear material inside to create a nuclear chain reaction, or 'criticality,' whose consequences would catastrophically exceed the postulated consequences of the relatively tame event described" in the agency's final environmental impact statement.
----
Nev. Outlines Opposition to Waste Site
December 3, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Waste.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A decision to bury thousands of tons of nuclear waste in Nevada should be overturned because the government cannot assure the site's geology will keep radiation from seeping into the environment, the state of Nevada argues in a court filing.
The brief, filed in a suit challenging the decision to entomb the waste at Yucca Mountain, maintains that the Energy Department violated the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act by resorting to ``engineered barriers'' to contain the waste.
In papers filed Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, the state argues that the Bush administration was ``essentially abandoning'' the 1982 law's ``mandate that the site's geology form the primary isolation barrier'' in selecting the Yucca Mountain site for waste burial.
The mountain is a ridge of volcanic rock and ash about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, adjacent to the Nevada Test Site. Last February, President Bush declared it scientifically suitable and safe as the nation's central repository for 77,000 tons of waste from commercial reactors and the government's nuclear weapons program.
After Nevada challenged the decision, Congress endorsed the president's declaration in July and overturned what could have been a veto of the site by Nevada. The Energy Department is seeking a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and hopes to open the waste repository by 2010.
But Nevada, joined by the city of Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County, has promised to continue the fight in court and filed a number of lawsuits challenging the project.
In a 100-page filing in support of its lawsuit before the appeals court, Nevada contends that the 1982 law that directed construction of a federal nuclear waste repository specifically required that natural geology at the site ``form the primary barrier keeping waste from people and the environment'' over tens of thousands of years.
The suit also argues that the Energy Department conducted a ``flawed environmental review'' of the Yucca site, disregarded procedures required under the law in determining the site's suitability and failed to assess adequately problems involving the transportation of waste to the site.
Yucca Mountain initially was chosen because Energy Department scientists believed it had the geology required to contain the waste. They later found it did not and adopted a ``total system performance'' approach in violation of the 1982 law, the state argues in its suit.
Now, the suit maintains, the project relies extensively on manmade barriers -- metal alloy waste containers and drip shields, for example -- to keep waste from escaping.
The Energy Department had no immediate response to the Nevada court filing.
Nevada officials have made similar arguments repeatedly in public meetings and in outlining their opposition to the Yucca Mountain project over the years.
Energy Department officials have maintained the site is in full compliance with the 1982 requirements, it relies on geology to contain the waste and the engineered barriers only provide additional protection.
Congress declared in 1987 that Yucca Mountain should be the only site to be considered for nuclear waste disposal. Since then, nearly $7 billion has been spent on studying the area's geology and developing a waste package and design.
On the Net:
Energy Department's Yucca Mountain site: http://www.ymp.gov/
Nevada Yucca Mountain site: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/yucca/state01.htm
-------- texas
Leak Prompted Texas Reactor Shutdown
December 3, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Reactor.html
DALLAS (AP) -- A reactor at a Texas nuclear power plant was shut down after a leak of radioactive water, leading to government scrutiny of the utility's plan for finding such leaks.
Operators shut down the TXU Energy's Comanche Peak twin-reactor plant well before leakage exceeded federal guidelines, TXU spokesman David Beshear said Tuesday. They have since repaired leaking and corroded lines.
``There was never a danger to the safety of the plant, the safety of the employees or the safety of the public,'' he said. Comanche Peak is about 80 miles southwest of Dallas.
A report by Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors said radiation monitors inside the plant's Unit 1 sounded alarms after recording high radiation readings on Sept. 26.
Radiation levels peaked six more times before operators shut down the reactor two days later, the inspectors said.
The leak was found in a small tube carrying radioactive water in one of four generators that make steam to turn the reactor's electric turbines.
The utility's own report to the NRC said a subsequent TXU check found corrosion in 667 other tubes in Unit 1, but none was leaking. That number, according to TXU, represented more than 3 percent of the tubes.
NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said an inspection of the plant focused on Comanche Peak's system for finding and responding to leaks.
``What we're interested in is whether they should have picked up on this earlier,'' he said.
The utility said it was the first unplanned shutdown of the plant, which returned to service Nov. 11.
David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the leak could have quickly developed from debris in the water or over time if corrosion had been overlooked.
``If it was missed and they had the opportunity to prevent this in the past and missed it, that's one thing,'' he said. ``But if it happened randomly, then there was nothing they could do to prevent this.''
Lochbaum said similar leaks have shut down about a dozen plants in the past decade.
The Davis-Besse nuclear power plant near Toledo, Ohio, has been shut down since February because an accumulation of acid nearly ate through a 6-inch-thick steel reactor cap. That leak, discovered in March, was the most extensive corrosion ever found on a U.S. nuclear reactor and led to a nationwide review of 69 similar plants.
On the Net:
Comanche Peak: http://www.txu.com/us/ourbus/elecgen/comanche.asp
NRC: http://www.nrc.gov
-------- us politics
Text: Bush in Lousiana
eMediaMillWorks
Tuesday, December 3, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3894-2002Dec3?language=printer
Following is the full text of President Bush's speech in Shreveport, La. Bush touted Suzie Terrell for Senate and talked about Iraq's upcoming deadline.
BUSH: Thank you all very much. I'm glad I came. Thank you all. Please be seated--unless you don't have a chair. It's an honor to be here in Shreveport. I'm so thrilled that you all came out. It's kind of getting close to home, if you know what I mean. I'm proud to be in the great state of Louisiana. Last time I was in Shreveport was on September the 11th, 2001. I went to Barksdale Air Force Base. Since that time, the world has seen the resolve of the United States of America.
I thank the men and women who wore our uniform then at Barksdale, and I know you join me today in thanking them to make sure America is free.
We're grateful for our freedom here in America. We love our freedoms. Nobody is going to take freedom away from this country. But part of living in a free society means we have responsibilities as citizens. We have the obligation as a citizen of America to do our duty. And one of the duties we have is when it comes to election time, one of the duties is to go vote.
So I'm here in the great state of Louisiana urging all the citizens--Republicans and Democrats and folks who care less about political party--to go the polls this Saturday. But I got a suggestion: For the good of Louisiana, for the good of everybody in Louisiana, Suzie Terrell needs to be the next United States senator.
(APPLAUSE)
I'm proud of the race she's running. She talks about what she believes in. She sets the right kind of tone. She's the kind of person with whom I can work to get something done for Louisiana and the people of Louisiana.
No doubt in my mind she's the right choice for everybody who lives in this state. And I want to thank you for coming to show your support for Suzie. I want to thank you for your activity at the grassroots level. You need over the next couple of days to go to your coffee shops, your community centers, and tell the people that you got a good one running for the United States Senate, you got somebody who can do the job for all the people of this state.
She's counting on you, and I'm counting on you to do everything you can to turn out a big a vote and send this good woman to the United States Senate.
And we need to have Lee Fletcher in the House of Representatives, too. I look forward to working with Lee. I look forward to having Lee a part of a fine delegation from the great state of Louisiana. He'll fit in just right with people like Billy Tauzin, who's doing a fabulous job for our country.
Jim McCrery. And David Vitter. All of them fine members of Congress. So when you get in that booth make sure you not only vote for Suzie, but if you live in Lee Fletcher's district, pull the Fletcher lever, too. I appreciate so very much the governor showing up.
Yes, he's a good man. Foster is a good man. He's my kind of guy. He's down to earth. He speaks his mind. But most importantly, he's done in office what he said he would do. He's been a great governor for the people of Louisiana. One of these days, he's going to invite me to come hunting again.
I regret that the first team of our family isn't here today. She's helping decorate the White House. But I'm proud of Laura. She is a fabulous first lady for America. And she sends her best to Suzie and Suzie's family. And like me, she urges you all to get to those polls come Saturday. Show up. Do you duty. Send a good strong message that Louisiana is wise when it comes to electing candidates. It makes sense to have one in one party and a senator in the majority party if you want to get something done. And one thing about Suzie is she's got a good record. She's proven herself to be a competent soul, somebody who can get the job done. You might remember the election commissioner's office. It needed a house cleansing. She cleaned house. There's now integrity in that office. People can be proud of that office thanks to Suzie Haik Terrell. She told the people of Louisiana she would do the job, and she has done that job. She understands who she's accountable to: She's accountable to the people. She understands she works for the people of Louisiana.
She saved $20 million for the taxpayers of Louisiana. She got an awesome responsibility and she saved money. Because she understands what I know: When you're spending the government's money, you don't spend--it's not the government's money you're spending, it's the people's money.
No, she's got a can-do spirit. See, we need people to go to Washington to set aside all the political bickering that tends to dominate the discourse, to get things done on behalf of the American people. That's what we need. We need an attitude of cooperation.
Oh, I expect there to be independent voices in Washington, D.C., and no question about her, she's an independent voice. She kind of tells you what's on her mind. But it's an attitude that's important. We need an attitude in the Senate to bring people together so we can say that we're doing the people's business and we're making a difference in people's lives.
And we're making some progress. I was proud to sign the Department of Homeland Security bill. That made sense. It now means we're going to reorganize our government so we can do our job, and that is to protect the American people from further attack. We want people all focused in the same direction. We want cultures to change if need be to make sure that we can do everything we can to say to the American people, ``We're working overtime to protect you.'' We need to know who's coming into the country, what they're bringing into the country, if they're leaving the country when they're supposed to be leaving the country, so America's protected. And we're making progress about bringing people together to get things done. I'm convinced Suzie's election will continue that progress. I went to the Pentagon yesterday and fulfilled a campaign pledge, signed the most significant increase in the authorization of defense spending since the president--Ronald Reagan was the president.
I was able to sign a piece of legislation will get our hard-hats back to work. I signed a terrorism insurance bill that will enable construction projects that have been on hold to go forward. I'm worried about the fact that some people are looking for work and can't find work in America. I want our hard-hats working. I want our welders welding. I want the construction people back to work. I want to reward the hard-hats, not the trial lawyers of America.
We're making progress up there. Suzie's election will help us make more progress. We got work to do on education. Listen, anytime any child can't read, means we got to stay on education.
I appreciate the governor's hard work, joining and setting high standards. We need somebody in the Senate who will join me in making sure we got local control of our schools in America.
Last year we spent $847 million of federal money on Louisiana schools, and that's good. But now we're starting to ask the question that Mike's been asking, and I know Suzie will ask: Are we getting our money's worth? You got to ask that question if you don't want any child left behind. You know, are the dollars we're spending making a difference in the lives of our children? Can our children read and write and add and subtract? And when we find they can, we'll praise the teachers.
And for those of you who are teachers, thanks for what you do.
But what's important--but what's important is when we find children in schools which won't teach and won't change, that we challenge the status quo. No child should be left behind in America.
And speaking about schools, I want to thank the Byrd High School band and the Parkway (ph) High School band for coming. I'm glad you all came. I'm sorry you had to miss school to come. Just put my name on the excuse slip. And if you're 18, make sure you vote.
No, we got more work to do. We got to make sure this economy continues to grow. I'm for a growth agenda. I want to do things in Washington, D.C., that helps create jobs. The role of government--and Suzie understands this--the role of government is not to create wealth, but an environment in which the small business can grow to be a big business.
In which the entrepreneurial spirit flourishes. And the best way to help people who are looking for work, the best way to stimulate economic vitality is to make the tax cuts we passed permanent. See, when that economy started slowing down I decided to fulfill what I said I was going to do and urge that the government let people keep more of their own money.
See, when you have more of your own money, it means you're likely to demand an additional good or a service. And when you demand an additional good or a service, somebody is likely to produce the good or a service. And when somebody produces the good or a service, it means somebody in Louisiana or Texas or anywhere else is likely to be able to find a job. The tax relief plan came at the right time. And now, in order to make sure our economy is strong and vibrant, we better make sure the tax cuts are permanent. And there's one person in this Senate race who's willing to stand up and say she will join the president in listening to the people and making tax cuts permanent. And that is Suzie Terrell.
No, we got more work to do. We've got more work to do. I need somebody in the Senate with whom I can work and Billy can work to make sure we get us an energy bill. You know, we've got a problem when it comes to energy. We get too much of our energy from countries that may not like us.
That's a problem. We can do a better job of conserving. We can do a better job of promoting technologies that will make us less dependent on foreign sources of crude oil. But we got to do a better job here at home of finding more hydrocarbons in the United States of America. An energy bill...
An energy bill is good for our job base, it's good for economic security and it's good for national security. I want to thank Billy Tauzin for working hard to get an energy bill. That new Senate may make it easier for us to get a bill done on behalf of the American people.
We got more work to do. And I look forwarding to working with Suzie to make sure that we modernize Medicare. See, medicine has changed, and the Medicare system hasn't changed. Medicine is modern, but Medicare's stuck in the past.
For the sake of our seniors, we need to fulfill our national promise and modernize Medicare, which means prescription drugs for our seniors.
I look forward to working with Suzie on behalf of the citizens of Louisiana. I also look forward to working with Suzie to make sure that our judiciary represents the values of Louisiana.
Amazing what an election did. It kind of changed the--changed the attitude in Washington. Up until recently, I couldn't get a lot of my judges through the Senate. They were playing politics with the judges. I had named some very fine people from around the country--good, honest people--and we couldn't get them through because they wanted to play politics.
You need somebody from Louisiana who will join with this president to make sure the judges I name reflect the values of Louisiana.
We don't need any more people legislating. We don't want our judges legislating. We want our judges interpreting the Constitution. Those are the kind of judges I'll name, and I can count on Suzie's vote to make sure they get confirmed. But the biggest job we have for a while is to protect this country. That's the biggest job we got. Our most awesome responsibility is to make this homeland secure. And the best way to do it is to chase the killers down one at a time and bring them to justice.
That's the biggest job facing this administration and the next Congress, and administrations and Congresses to come. This is a long haul to get them.
I guess they didn't realize who they were hitting. Oh, they thought... They probably thought the national religion was materialism and that we were so selfish that we all might file a lawsuit or two. They didn't understand America. They don't understand that when it comes to defending our freedoms, it doesn't matter how long it takes. We will defend freedom no matter what the cost.
And we're making progress. We're making progress. It's a different kind of war. You just got to know it's a different kind of war. In the old days we could destroy tanks and airplanes and ships. And people would say, ``Well, they're making progress.'' It's a different kind of war, because we're fighting people who are--they send youngsters to their suicidal deaths and they try to find a dark cave. They kind of lurch around the dark corners of some cities around the world. They're in over 60 countries.
And slowly, but surely we're dismantling the terrorist network which hates us because of what we love. See, they hate the fact that we love freedom. They can't stand the fact that in this country people can worship the Almighty God any way he or she sees fit.
Thanks to our military--thanks to our fantastic military we won the first battle of the first war of the 21st century. And we won it when we got rid of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
But in so doing it's important for you to remind your youngsters that this great country never went in to conquer anybody. We went in to liberate.
Thanks to America and our friends, many young girls go to school for the first time in Afghanistan.
Not only did we route the Taliban and many of the killers they harbor, but we freed people to realize their dreams. And we're not leaving. We're going to stay there to make sure this good country is secure, the good country can flourish, and that the hope we want for our own children is the hope that mothers and dads in Afghanistan can realize for their children.
We're making progress on this war against terror. Sometimes you'll see the progress, and sometimes you won't. It's a different kind of war. The other day we hauled a guy in named al-Nashiri. It's not a household name here in America. I can understand why some go blank when they hear his name. But he was the Al Qaida commander in the gulf states. Let me just put it to you this way: He no longer has the capacity to do what he did in the past, which was to mastermind the USS Cole that killed--the plot on the Cole that killed American soldiers. He's out of action for the good of the world.
Sometimes you'll see it and sometimes you won't. But you've got to know that in this war against terror, the doctrine stands that says, ``Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists.''
And a lot of nations have heard that message, and they're with us. We're cutting off their money. We're sharing intelligence. We're hunting down the killers one at a time. It doesn't matter how long it takes, this country will stay the course until Al Qaida is completely demolished.
But September the 11th brought home a new reality, and it's important for all our citizens to understand that reality. See, a lot of us when we were raised never really worried about the homeland. We all believed that two oceans would forever separate us from harm's way and that if there was a threat gathering overseas, we could pick and choose whether or not we wanted to be involved in dealing with that threat. September the 11th delivered a chilling message to our country, and that is oceans no longer protect us. And therefore, it is my obligation to make sure that we address gathering threats overseas before they could do harm to the American people. And that's why I elevated the issue of Iraq. That's why I took our message of peace and freedom to countries around the world. I want them to understand the nature of the man who runs Iraq. It's the nature of a man who doesn't tell the truth. Says he won't have weapons of mass destruction; he's got them.
He's not only got them, he's used them. And he's not only used them in his neighborhood, he's used them on his own people.
That's the nature of the man with whom we deal. For 11 long years he has deceived and denied. So I went to the United Nations. I said, ``When is enough, enough?'' They voted 15 to nothing to say now enough is enough.
The members of the Security Council had a chance and they accepted the challenge to make sure that this United Nations became an effective body when it comes to keeping the peace, not an empty debating society.
Then I went to NATO. Strong allies in NATO. And overwhelmingly the message was, enough is enough. And now there's inspectors inside this country. But I want to tell you, the issue is not the inspectors. The issue is whether or not Mr. Saddam Hussein will disarm like he said he would. We're not interested in hide and seek inside Iraq. The fundamental question is, in the name of peace, in the name of security, not only for America and the American people, in the name of security for our friends in the neighborhood, in the name of freedom, will this man disarm? The choice is his. And if he does not disarm, the United States of America will lead a coalition and disarm him in the name of peace.
We have an obligation to our children and our children's children to do everything we can to make sure the homeland is secure. And we'll meet that obligation. We'll meet that obligation together. You know, the amazing thing about America is that I can predict, boldly predict and certainly predict that out of the evil done to our country will come incredible good. Because of the nature of our country, I can say that.
By being tough and strong and united in the face of danger, we can bring peace to the world. I believe that. I believe that by doing what we need to do to secure the world from terrorist attack, to rid tyrants of weapons of mass destruction, to make sure that somebody like Saddam Hussein doesn't serve as a training base or a provider of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist networks, by doing our job, that the world will be more peaceful, by standing strong for what we believe, by remembering that freedom is not America's gift to the world, but God's gift to each and every human being, that we can achieve peace.
I want you to tell your kids and your grandkids that amidst all the speculation about war and military, that our drive and our vision is for a peaceful world in which everybody can realize their potential and live in peace. And here at home we have a chance to achieve some incredible good out of the evil done to our country. September the 11th shook our soul. I think it has helped awaken a spirit in the country, a spirit that understands that serving something greater than ourself in life is part of the American creed, that the American spirit is bigger than just any selfish ambition. Today, when I landed at the airport, I met Mary Anne Blanchard Selber (ph) and Jane Sares (ph). These ladies have started the Providence House here in Shreveport. This is a home to provide shelter to the homeless. They followed their hearts. The reason I bring up this example is because they represent the true strength of our country. The true strength of our country lay in the hearts and souls of our fellow citizens. You see, out of the evil done to America could come a more compassionate America.
We got to understand that amidst our plenty, there are people who hurt. There's addiction and hopelessness. There are people who wonder whether or not the American dream is meant for them. So long as any of us hurt, we all hurt. Yet, we can solve the problems in our society by loving a neighbor just like we'd like to be loved ourselves. We can solve America's problems by putting our arm around the lonely and the hopeless and say, ``I care for you. I love you.'' American can change one heart, one soul, one conscience at a time.
And the Providence House is one example of what I'm talking about. They represent the true strength of our country. People who love people. People who care for those who hurt. People who understand that government's role is limited. We can hand out money, but we can't put hope in people's hearts or a sense of purpose in people's lives. That's why I'm so strong for the faith-based initiative. I understand the power of faith in the lives of our citizens around this country.
No, if you want to join the war on terror, if you want to show the world the true worth of America, love a neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself; see what you can do to help mentor a child; go see a shut-in. It's the small acts of kindness and decency which define the true victory in the war against terror, which will show the world what this country is all about. Perhaps best defined for me and I suspect others as they come up in America of this spirit was defined best on flight 93. Remember that. When people were flying across our country, they thought they were on an average business trip or they thought they might be just taking an average trip to go see a loved one, and they find out the plane they were on was being used as a weapon. And they told their loved ones over the telephone, ``I love you,'' and good-bye. They said a prayer. A guy said, ``Let's roll.'' They took the plane into the ground to serve something greater than themselves.
No, the spirit of America is strong today. I can boldly predict that out of the evil done to America will come great good, because this is the greatest nation, full of the finest people on the face of the Earth.
May God bless you. And may God bless America.
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The Push for War
Anatol Lieven considers what the US Administration hopes to gain
October 3, 2002
London Review of Books
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n19/liev01_.html
The most surprising thing about the Bush Administration's plan to invade Iraq is not that it is destructive of international order; or wicked, when we consider the role the US (and Britain) have played, and continue to play, in the Middle East; or opposed by the great majority of the international community; or seemingly contrary to some of the basic needs of the war against terrorism. It is all of these things, but they are of no great concern to the hardline nationalists in the Administration. This group has suffered at least a temporary check as a result of the British insistence on UN involvement, and Saddam Hussein's agreement to weapons inspections. They are, however, still determined on war - and their power within the Administration and in the US security policy world means that they are very likely to get their way. Even the Washington Post has joined the radical rightist media in supporting war.
The most surprising thing about the push for war is that it is so profoundly reckless. If I had to put money on it, I'd say that the odds on quick success in destroying the Iraqi regime may be as high as 5/1 or more, given US military superiority, the vile nature of Saddam Hussein's rule, the unreliability of Baghdad's missiles, and the deep divisions in the Arab world. But at first sight, the longer-term gains for the US look pretty limited, whereas the consequences of failure would be catastrophic. A general Middle Eastern conflagration and the collapse of more pro-Western Arab states would lose us the war against terrorism, doom untold thousands of Western civilians to death in coming decades, and plunge the world economy into depression.
These risks are not only to American (and British) lives and interests, but to the political future of the Administration. If the war goes badly wrong, it will be more generally excoriated than any within living memory, and its members will be finished politically - finished for good. If no other fear moved these people, you'd have thought this one would.
This war plan is not like the intervention in Vietnam, which at the start was supported by a consensus of both political parties, the Pentagon, the security establishment and the media. It is true that today - for reasons to which I shall return - the Democrats are mostly sitting on the fence; but a large part of the old Republican security establishment has denounced the idea and the Pentagon has made its deep unhappiness very clear.
The Administration has therefore been warned of the dangers. And while a new attack by al-Qaida during the war would help consolidate anti-Muslim American nationalism, the Administration would also be widely accused of having neglected the hunt for the perpetrators of 11 September in order to pursue an irrelevant vendetta. As far as the Israeli lobby is concerned, a disaster in the Middle East might be the one thing that would at last bring a discussion of its calamitous role into the open in the US.
With the exception of Donald Rumsfeld, who conveniently did his military service in the gap between the Korean and Vietnam Wars, neither Bush nor any of the other prime movers of this war served in the military. Of course, General Colin Powell served in Vietnam, but he is well known to be extremely dubious about attacking Iraq. All the others did everything possible to avoid service. If the war goes wrong, the 'chicken hawk' charge will be used against them with devastating political effect.
Vietnam veterans, both Democrat and Republican, have already started to raise this issue, stirred up in part by the insulting language used by Richard Perle and his school about the caution of the professional military. As a recent letter to the Washington Post put it, 'the men described as chicken hawks avoided military service during the Vietnam War while supporting that war politically. They are not accused of lacking experience and judgment compared to military men. They are accused of hypocrisy and cowardice.' Given the political risks of failure - to themselves, above all - why are they doing this? And, more broadly, what has bred this reckless spirit?
To understand the Administration's motivation, it is necessary to appreciate the breathtaking scope of the domestic and global ambitions which the dominant neo-conservative nationalists hope to further by means of war, and which go way beyond their publicly stated goals. There are of course different groups within this camp: some are more favourable to Israel, others less hostile to China; not all would support the most radical aspects of the programme. However, the basic and generally agreed plan is unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority, and this has been consistently advocated and worked on by the group of intellectuals close to Dick Cheney and Richard Perle since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
This basic goal is shared by Colin Powell and the rest of the security establishment. It was, after all, Powell who, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared in 1992 that the US requires sufficient power 'to deter any challenger from ever dreaming of challenging us on the world stage'. However, the idea of pre-emptive defence, now official doctrine, takes this a leap further, much further than Powell would wish to go. In principle, it can be used to justify the destruction of any other state if it even seems that that state might in future be able to challenge the US. When these ideas were first aired by Paul Wolfowitz and others after the end of the Cold War, they met with general criticism, even from conservatives. Today, thanks to the ascendancy of the radical nationalists in the Administration and the effect of the 11 September attacks on the American psyche, they have a major influence on US policy.
To understand the genesis of this extraordinary ambition, it is also necessary to grasp the moral, cultural and intellectual world of American nationalism in which it has taken shape. This nationalism existed long before last September, but it has been inflamed by those attacks and, equally dangerously, it has become even more entwined with the nationalism of the Israeli Right.
To take the geopolitical goals first. As with National Missile Defense, the publicly expressed motive for war with Iraq functions mainly as a tool to gain the necessary public support for an operation the real goals of which are far wider. The indifference of the US public to serious discussion of foreign or security affairs, and the negligence and ideological rigidity of the US media and policy community make searching debate on such issues extremely difficult, and allow such manipulation to succeed.
The immediate goal is indeed to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. There is little real fear, however, that Saddam Hussein will give those weapons to terrorists to use against the United States - though a more genuine fear that he might conceivably do so in the case of Israel. Nor is there any serious prospect that he would use them himself in an unprovoked attack on the US or Israel, because immediate annihilation would follow. The banal propaganda portrayal of Saddam as a crazed and suicidal dictator plays well on the American street, but I don't believe that it is a view shared by the Administration. Rather, their intention is partly to retain an absolute certainty of being able to defend the Gulf against an Iraqi attack, but, more important, to retain for the US and Israel a free hand for intervention in the Middle East as a whole.
From the point of view of Israel, the Israeli lobby and their representatives in the Administration, the apparent benefits of such a free hand are clear enough. For the group around Cheney, the single most important consideration is guaranteed and unrestricted access to cheap oil, controlled as far as possible at its source. To destroy and occupy the existing Iraqi state and dominate the region militarily would remove even the present limited threat from Opec, greatly reduce the chance of a new oil shock, and eliminate the need to woo and invest in Russia as an alternative source of energy.
It would also critically undermine the steps already taken towards the development of alternative sources of energy. So far, these have been pitifully few. All the same, 11 September brought new strength to the security arguments for reducing dependence on imported oil, and as alternative technologies develop, they could become a real threat to the oil lobby - which, like the Israeli lobby, is deeply intertwined with the Bush Administration. War with Iraq can therefore be seen as a satisfactory outcome for both lobbies. Much more important for the future of mankind, it is also part of what is in essence a strategy to use American military force to permit the continued offloading onto the rest of the world of the ecological costs of the existing US economy - without the need for any short-term sacrifices on the part of US capitalism, the US political elite or US voters.
The same goes for the war against al-Qaida and its allies: the plan for the destruction of the existing Iraqi regime is related to this struggle, but not as it has been presented publicly. Links between Baghdad and al-Qaida are unproven and inherently improbable: what the Administration hopes is that by crushing another middle-sized state at minimal military cost, all the other states in the Muslim world will be terrified into full co-operation in tracking down and handing over suspected terrorists, and into forsaking the Palestinian cause. Iran for its part can either be frightened into abandoning both its nuclear programme and its support for the Palestinians, or see its nuclear facilities destroyed by bombardment.
The idea, in other words, is to scare these states not only into helping with the hunt for al-Qaida, but into capitulating to the US and, more important, Israeli agendas in the Middle East. This was brought out in the notorious paper on Saudi Arabia presented by Laurent Murawiec of the Rand Corporation to Richard Perle's Defense Policy Board. Murawiec advocated sending the Saudis an ultimatum demanding not only that their police force co-operate fully with US authorities, but also the suppression of public criticism of the US and Israel within Saudi Arabia - something that would be impossible for any Arab state. Despite this, the demand for the suppression of anti-Israeli publications, broadcasts and activities has been widely echoed in the US media.
'The road to Middle East peace lies through Baghdad' is a line that's peddled by the Bush Administration and the Israeli lobby. It is just possible that some members of the Administration really believe that by destroying Israel's most powerful remaining enemy they will gain such credit with Israelis and the Israeli lobby that they will be able to press compromises on Israel.
But this is certainly not what public statements by members of the Administration - let alone those of its Likud allies in Israel - suggest. Rumsfeld recently described the Jewish settlements as legitimate products of Israeli military victory; the Republican Majority Leader in the House, Dick Armey (a sceptic as regards war with Iraq), has advocated the ethnic cleansing ('transfer') of the Palestinians across the Jordan; and in 1996 Richard Perle and Douglas Feith (now a senior official at the Pentagon) advised Binyamin Netanyahu to abandon the Oslo Peace Process and return to military repression of the Palestinians.
It's far more probable, therefore, that most members of the Bush and Sharon Administrations hope that the crushing of Iraq will so demoralise the Palestinians, and so reduce wider Arab support for them, that it will be possible to force them to accept a Bantustan settlement bearing no resemblance to independent statehood and bringing with it no possibility of economic growth and prosperity.
How intelligent men can believe that this will work, given the history of the past fifty years, is astonishing. After all, the Israelis have defeated Arab states five times with no diminution of Palestinian nationalism or Arab sympathy for it. But the dominant groups in the present Administrations in both Washington and Jerusalem are 'realists' to the core, which, as so often, means that they take an extremely unreal view of the rest of the world, and are insensitive to the point of autism when it comes to the character and motivations of others. They are obsessed by power, by the division of the world into friends and enemies (and often, into their own country and the rest of the world) and by the belief that any demonstration of 'weakness' immediately leads to more radical approaches by the 'enemy'.
Sharon and his supporters don't doubt that it was the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon - rather than the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories - which led to the latest Intifada. The 'offensive realists' in Washington are convinced that it was Reagan's harsh stance and acceleration of the arms race against the Soviet Union which brought about that state's collapse. And both are convinced that the continued existence of Saddam Hussein's regime of itself suggests dangerous US weakness and cowardice, thus emboldening enemies of the US and Israel across the Middle East and beyond.
From the point of view of the Arab-Israeli conflict, war with Iraq also has some of the character of a Flucht nach vorn - an 'escape forwards' - on the part of the US Administration. On the one hand, it has become clear that the conflict is integrally linked to everything else that happens in the Middle East, and therefore cannot simply be ignored, as the Bush Administration tried to do during its first year in office. On the other hand, even those members of the American political elite who have some understanding of the situation and a concern for justice are terrified of confronting Israel and the Israeli lobby in the ways which would be necessary to bring any chance of peace.
When the US demands 'democracy' in the Palestinian territories before it will re-engage in the peace process it is in part, and fairly cynically, trying to get out of this trap. However, when it comes to the new rhetoric of 'democratising' the Arab world as a whole, the agenda is much broader and more worrying; and because the rhetoric is attractive to many liberals we must examine this agenda very carefully.
Belief in the spread of democracy through American power isn't usually consciously insincere. On the contrary, it is inseparable from American national messianism and the wider 'American creed'. However, this same messianism has also proved immensely useful in destroying or crippling rivals of the United States, the Soviet Union being the outstanding example.
The planned war against Iraq is not after all intended only to remove Saddam Hussein, but to destroy the structure of the Sunni-dominated Arab nationalist Iraqi state as it has existed since that country's inception. The 'democracy' which replaces it will presumably resemble that of Afghanistan - a ramshackle coalition of ethnic groups and warlords, utterly dependent on US military power and utterly subservient to US (and Israeli) wishes.
Similarly, if after Saddam's regime is destroyed, Saudi Arabia fails to bow to US wishes and is attacked in its turn, then - to judge by the thoughts circulating in Washington think-tanks - the goal would be not just to remove the Saudi regime and eliminate Wahabism as a state ideology: it would be to destroy and partition the Saudi state. The Gulf oilfields would be put under US military occupation, and the region run by some client emir; Mecca and the Hejaz might well be returned to the Hashemite dynasty of Jordan, its rulers before the conquest by Ibn Saud in 1924; or, to put it differently, the British imperial programme of 1919 would be resurrected (though, if the Hashemites have any sense, they would reject what would without question be a long-term death sentence).
Beyond lies China. When the Bush Administration came to power, its major security focus was not the Middle East. There, its initial policy was benign neglect ('benign' at any rate in the case of Israel). The greatest fears of right-wing nationalist gurus such as Robert Kagan concerned the future emergence of China as a superpower rival - fears lent a certain credibility by China's sheer size and the growth of its economy. As declared in the famous strategy document drawn up by Paul Wolfowitz in the last year of the first Bush Administration - and effectively proclaimed official policy by Bush Jr in his West Point speech in June - the guiding purpose of US strategy after the end of the Cold War should be to prevent the emergence of any 'peer competitor'anywhere in the world.
What radical US nationalists have in mind is either to 'contain' China by overwhelming military force and the creation of a ring of American allies; or, in the case of the real radicals, to destroy the Chinese Communist state as the Soviet Union was destroyed. As with the Soviet Union, this would presumably involve breaking up China by 'liberating' Tibet and other areas, and under the guise of 'democracy', crippling the central Chinese Administration and its capacity to develop either its economy or its Army.
To judge by the right-wing nationalist media in the US, this hostility to China has survived 11 September, although in a mitigated form. If the US can demonstrate overwhelming military superiority in the Middle East, there will certainly be groups in the Republican Party who will be emboldened to push for a much tougher line on China. Above all, of course, they support formal independence for Taiwan.
Another US military victory will certainly help to persuade these groups that for the moment the US has nothing to fear from the Chinese Navy or Air Force, and that in the event of a Taiwanese declaration of independence, the island can be defended with relative impunity. Meanwhile, a drastic humiliation of China over Taiwan might well be seen as a key stepping-stone to the overthrow of Communism and the crippling of the Chinese state system.
At present these are only long-term ambitions - or dreams. They are certainly not shared even by a majority of the Administration, and are unlikely to be implemented in any systematic way. On the other hand, it's worth bearing in mind that the dominant groups in this Administration have now openly abandoned the underlying strategy and philosophy of the Clinton Administration, which was to integrate the other major states of the world in a rule-based liberal capitalist order, thereby reducing the threat of rivalry between them.
This tendency is not dead. In fact, it is strongly represented by Colin Powell, and by lesser figures such as Richard Haass. But their more powerful nationalist rivals are in the meantime publicly committed to preventing by every possible means the emergence of any serious rival or combination of rivals to the US, anywhere in the world, and to opposing not just any rival would-be world hegemon, but even the ability of other states to play the role of great power within their own regions.
Under the guise of National Missile Defense, the Administration - or elements within it - even dreams of extending US military hegemony beyond the bounds of the Earth itself (an ambition clearly indicated in the official paper on Defense Planning Guidance for the 2004-09 Fiscal Years, issued this year by Rumsfeld's office). And while this web of ambition is megalomaniac, it is not simply fantasy. Given America's overwhelming superiority, it might well work for decades until a mixture of terrorism and the unbearable social, political and environmental costs of US economic domination put paid to the present order of the world.
As things stand, the American people would never knowingly support such a programme - nor for that matter would the US military. Even after 11 September, this is not by historical standards a militarist country; and whatever the increasingly open imperialism of the nationalist think-tank class, neither the military nor the mass of the population wishes to see itself as imperialist. The fear of casualties and of long-term overseas military entanglements remains intense. And all opinion polls suggest that the majority of the American public, insofar as it considers these issues at all, is far more interested than this Administration in co-operation with allies.
Besides, if the US economy continues to stagnate or falls sharply, the Republicans will most probably not even be in power after 2004. As more companies collapse, the Administration's links to corrupt business oligarchies will become more and more controversial. Further economic decline combined with bloated military spending would sooner or later bring on the full consequences of the stripping of the public finances caused by this Administration's military spending and its tax cuts for the rich. At that point, the financial basis of Social Security would come into question, and the Republican vote among the 'middle classes' could shatter.
It is only to a minimal degree within the power of any US administration to stimulate economic growth. And even if growth resumes, the transformation of the economy is almost certain to continue. This will mean the incomes of the 'middle classes' (which in American terminology includes the working proletariat) will continue to decline and the gap between them and the plutocracy will continue to increase. High military spending can correct this trend to some extent, but because of the changed nature of weaponry, to a much lesser extent than was the case in the 19th and most of the 20th centuries. All other things being equal, this should result in a considerable shift of the electorate to the left.
But all other things are not equal. Two strategies in particular would give the Republicans the chance not only of winning in 2004, but of repeating Roosevelt's success for the Democrats in the 1930s and becoming the natural party of government for the foreseeable future. The first is the classic modern strategy of an endangered right-wing oligarchy, which is to divert mass discontent into nationalism. The second, which is specifically American, is to take the Jewish vote away from its traditional home in the Democratic Party, by demonstrating categorical Republican commitment not just to Israel's defence but to its regional ambitions.
This is connected both to the rightward shift in Israel, and to the increasingly close links between the Republicans and Likud, through figures like Perle and Feith. It marks a radical change from the old Republican Party of Eisenhower, Nixon and Bush père, which was far more independent of Israel than the Democrats. Of key importance here has been the growing alliance between the Christian Right - closely linked to the old White South - and the Israeli lobby, or at least its hardline Likud elements.
When this alliance began to take shape some years back, it seemed a most improbable combination. After all, the Christian Right and the White South were once havens of anti-semitic conspiracy theories. On the other hand, the Old Testament aspects of fundamentalist Christianity had created certain sympathies for Judaism and Israel from as far back as the US's 17th-century origins.
For Christian fundamentalists today the influence of millenarian thought is equally important in shaping support for Israel: the existence of the Israeli state is seen as a necessary prelude to the arrival of the Antichrist, the Apocalypse and the rule of Christ and His Saints. But above all, perhaps, this coming together of the fundamentalist Right and hardline Zionism is natural, because they share many hatreds. The Christian Right has always hated the United Nations, partly on straight nationalist grounds, but also because of bizarre fears of world government by the Antichrist. They have hated Europeans on religious grounds as decadent atheists, on class grounds as associates of the hated 'East Coast elites', and on nationalist grounds as critics of unconstrained American power. Both sides share an instinctive love of military force. Both see themselves as historical victims. This may seem strange in the case of the American Rightists, but it isn't if one considers both the White South's history of defeat, and the Christian Right's sense since the 1960s of defeat and embattlement by the forces of irreligion and cultural change.
Finally, and most dangerously, both are conditioned to see themselves as defenders of 'civilisation' against 'savages' - a distinction always perceived on the Christian Right as in the main racially defined. It is no longer possible in America to speak openly in these terms of American blacks, Asians and Latinos - but since 11 September at least, it has been entirely possible to do so about Arabs and Muslims.
Even in the 2000 elections, the Republicans were able to take a large part of the white working-class vote away from Gore by appealing to cultural populism - and especially to those opposed to gun control and environmental protection. Despite the real class identity and cultural interests of the Republican elite, they seem able to convince many workers that they are natural allies against the culturally alien and supercilious 'East Coast elites' represented as supporting Gore.
These populist values are closely linked to the traditional values of hardline nationalism. They are what the historian Walter Russell Mead and others have called 'Jacksonian' values, after President Andrew Jackson's populist nationalism of the 1830s. As Mead has indicated, 11 September has immensely increased the value of this line to Republicans.
If on top of this the Republicans can permanently woo the Jewish vote away from the Democrats - a process which purely class interests would suggest and which has been progressing slowly but steadily since Reagan's day - there is a good chance of their crippling the Democrats for a generation or more. Deprived of much of their financial support and their intellectual backbone, the Democrats could be reduced to a coalition of the declining unionised white working class, blacks and Latinos. And not only do these groups on the whole dislike and distrust each other, but the more the Democrats are seen as minority dominated, the more whites will tend to flee to the Republicans.
Already, the anti-semitism of some black leaders in the Democratic Party has contributed to driving many Jews towards the Republicans; and thanks to their allegiance to Israel, the liberal Jewish intelligentsia has moved a long way from their previous internationalism. This shift is highly visible in previously liberal and relatively internationalist journals such as the New Republic and Atlantic Monthly, and maybe even in the New Yorker. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that as a result the internationalist position in the Democratic Party and the US as a whole has been eviscerated.
The Democrats are well aware of this threat to their electorate. The Party as a whole has always been strongly committed to Israel. On Iraq and the war against terrorism, its approach seems to be to avoid at all costs seeming 'unpatriotic'. If they can avoid being hammered by the Republicans on the charge of 'weakness' and lack of patriotism, then they can still hope to win the 2004 elections on the basis of economic discontent. The consequence, however, is that the Party has become largely invisible in the debate about Iraq; the Democrats are merely increasing their reputation for passionless feebleness; whereas the Republican nationalists are full of passionate intensity - the passion which in November 2000 helped them pressure the courts over the Florida vote and in effect steal the election.
It is this passion which gives the nationalist Right so much of its strength; and in setting out the hopes and plans of the groupings which dominate the Bush Administration, I don't want to give the impression that everything is simply a matter of conscious and cynical manipulation in their own narrow interests. Schematic approaches of this kind have bedevilled all too much of the reporting of nationalism and national conflict. This is odd and depressing, because in recent decades the historiography of pre-1914 German nationalism - to take only one example - has seen an approach based on ideas of class manipulation give way to an infinitely more subtle analysis which emphasises the role of socio-economic and cultural change, unconscious identifications, and interpenetrating political influences from above and below.
To understand the radical nationalist Right in the US, and the dominant forces in the Bush Administration, it is necessary first of all to understand their absolute and absolutely sincere identification of themselves with the United States, to the point where the presence of any other group in government is seen as a usurpation, as profoundly and inherently illegitimate and 'un-American'. As far as the hardline elements of the US security establishment and military industrial complex are concerned, they are the product of the Cold War, and were shaped by that struggle and the paranoia and fanaticism it bred. In typical fashion for security elites, they also became conditioned over the decades to see themselves not just as tougher, braver, wiser and more knowledgeable than their ignorant, innocent compatriots, but as the only force standing between their country and destruction.
The Cold War led to the creation of governmental, economic and intellectual structures in the US which require for their survival a belief in the existence of powerful national enemies - not just terrorists, but enemy states. As a result, in their analyses and propaganda they instinctively generate the necessary image of an enemy. Once again, however, it would be unwise to see this as a conscious process. For the Cold War also continued, fostered and legitimised a very old discourse of nationalist hatred in the US, ostensibly directed against the Communists and their allies but usually with a very strong colouring of ethnic chauvinism.
On the other hand, the roots of the hysteria of the Right go far beyond nationalism and national security. Their pathological hatred for the Clinton Administration cannot adequately be explained in terms of national security or even in rational political or economic terms, for after a very brief period of semi-radicalism (almost entirely limited to the failed attempt at health reform), Clinton devoted himself in a Blairite way to adopting large parts of the Republican socio-economic agenda. Rather, Clinton, his wife, his personal style, his personal background and some of his closest followers were all seen as culturally and therefore nationally alien, mainly because associated with the counter-culture of the 1960s and 1970s.
The modern incarnation of this spirit can indeed be seen above all as a reaction to the double defeat of the Right in the Vietnam War - a defeat which, they may hope, victory in Iraq and a new wave of conservative nationalism at home could cancel out once and for all. In Vietnam, unprecedented military defeat coincided with the appearance of a modern culture which traditionalist Americans found alien, immoral and hateful beyond description. As was widely remarked at the time of Newt Gingrich's attempted 'Republican Revolution' of the mid-1990s, one way of looking at the hardline Republicans - especially from the Religious Right - is to see them as motivated by a classical nationalist desire for a return to a Golden Age, in their case the pre-Vietnam days of the 1950s.
None of these fantasies is characteristic of the American people as a whole. But the intense solipsism of that people, its general ignorance of the world beyond America's shores, coupled with the effects of 11 September, have left tremendous political spaces in which groups possessed by the fantasies and ambitions sketched out here can seek their objectives. Or to put it another way: the great majority of the American people are not nearly as militarist, imperialist or aggressive as their German equivalents in 1914; but most German people in 1914 would at least have been able to find France on a map.
The younger intelligentsia meanwhile has also been stripped of any real knowledge of the outside world by academic neglect of history and regional studies in favour of disciplines which are often no more than a crass projection of American assumptions and prejudices (Rational Choice Theory is the worst example). This has reduced still further their capacity for serious analysis of their own country and its actions. Together with the defection of its strongest internationalist elements, this leaves the intelligentsia vulnerable to the appeal of nationalist messianism dressed up in the supposedly benevolent clothing of 'democratisation'.
Twice now in the past decade, the overwhelming military and economic dominance of the US has given it the chance to lead the rest of the world by example and consensus. It could have adopted (and to a very limited degree under Clinton did adopt) a strategy in which this dominance would be softened and legitimised by economic and ecological generosity and responsibility, by geopolitical restraint, and by 'a decent respect to the opinion of mankind', as the US Declaration of Independence has it. The first occasion was the collapse of the Soviet superpower enemy and of Communism as an ideology. The second was the threat displayed by al-Qaida. Both chances have been lost - the first in part, the second it seems conclusively. What we see now is the tragedy of a great country, with noble impulses, successful institutions, magnificent historical achievements and immense energies, which has become a menace to itself and to mankind.
Anatol Lieven, a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC, is the author of Chechnya and Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry.
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KABUL Afghans Plan a New Army of 70,000
December 3, 2002
New York Times
By MARK LANDLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/03/international/asia/03AFGH.html
BONN, Dec. 2 - Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, announced here today that his government would establish a streamlined national army of up to 70,000 troops, under civilian control, and conduct a redoubled campaign to disarm the militias that still roam the countryside.
"We have decided to have an army that is small, effective, well paid and in the service of the nation," Mr. Karzai said.
In addition, a senior American official, Zalmay Khalilzad, said the Afghans had scored a major catch in their hunt for prominent members of the toppled Taliban leadership, arresting the son-in-law of its spiritual leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar.
Both Mr. Karzai and Mr. Khalilzad were attending a conference here that marked the first anniversary of an agreement reached here on a framework to move Afghanistan from the Taliban regime to a representative interim government.
Mr. Khalilzad, the Bush administration's special envoy to Afghanistan, told reporters that Mullah Omar's son-in-law had been arrested "a few days ago," though he offered no further details.
He said he believed Mullah Omar and other operatives of the Taliban and Al Qaeda were still at large in the country, but added, "I don't think that Afghanistan is any longer the headquarters of Al Qaeda."
Mr. Khalilzad's attendance at the conference coincided with a White House announcement that he would be ambassador at large for free Iraqis. The White House said he would "serve as a focal point for contacts and coordination among free Iraqis," and "for preparations for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq."
To conduct those new duties, he is to relinquish his National Security Council role as senior director for Southwest Asian, Near East and North African affairs. He will be replaced by Elliott Abrams, a former State Department official during the Reagan administration. The conference in Bonn, held by the German government, pointed up strides made by the Afghans, as well as their continued vulnerabilities.
Noting that security remains Afghanistan's biggest concern, Mr. Karzai signed a decree creating an Afghan National Army, a volunteer force to be trained, equipped and financed largely by the United States, with help from France and Britain.
The United States has roughly 8,000 troops in Afghanistan, still searching for Qaeda members. But as the trail grows colder, some of those troops are turning their attention to other tasks, like providing security, rebuilding schools and roads, and training soldiers.
The emphasis in the training has been on the basics: marching, tactics and marksmanship. United States officials here estimated that the army would cost $350 million a year to train, equip and operate. It will be several years before the force is fully mobilized.
But even as Mr. Karzai spoke of his pride in Afghanistan's keeping to the timetable delineated in the Bonn agreement, factional fighting erupted in western Afghanistan, near a military base where United States troops are stationed.
Mr. Karzai said the factional militias in his country, which by some estimates have 700,000 members, would be disbanded within a year. Their weapons, including tanks, artillery and rocket launchers, will be collected and turned over to the Defense Ministry.
"There is neither a compromise, nor room, for anyone to say no," he declared.
Some Afghan leaders, including the defense minister, Marshal Muhammad Fahim, had pushed for a much larger force, of 200,000. Marshal Fahim was one of the few Afghan ministers not here today.
Mr. Karzai also announced that Afghanistan's six neighbors - Pakistan, China, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - had agreed to convene in Kabul later this month to sign a declaration pledging to respect borders and not to interfere in one another's internal affairs.
"We will take their words as trustworthy and good," said Mr. Karzai, noting that given its history of foreign invasion, Afghanistan needed a well-trained army to protect it.
Among the topics discussed in the corridors at this meeting is a proposal to deploy security forces outside Kabul, the Afghan capital. Britain, Germany and other members of the international security force have refused Afghanistan's requests to expand their operations beyond Kabul.
Under this plan, which is supported by the United States, individual countries would send small detachments of soldiers to outlying cities and the countryside. Germany and the Netherlands are scheduled to take command of the 4,800-member security force in February.
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Prague link to Kenya missiles
By Inigo Gilmore in Jerusalem
Tuesday 3 December 2002
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/12/02/wkeny02.xml
The missiles fired at an Israeli airliner in Mombasa last week have been linked to an attempt in Prague last year to bring down an aircraft carrying the then Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, according to an Israeli intelligence official.
The weapon found by Kenyan security forces near the airport - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2002/12/02/wkeny02.jpeg
The discovery is the latest in a series of clues found by Israeli security experts investigating the double attack on Israeli tourists in Kenya and may help identify the perpetrators.
In the attack attributed to al-Qa'eda, suicide bombers rammed a car crammed with explosives into the entrance of the Paradise Mombasa Hotel and blew themselves up, killing three Israeli tourists and 13 Kenyans.
At the same time, a separate squad fired two shoulder-held Strela missiles at an Arkia airliner that was taking off from Mombasa airport. They narrowly missed.
The Israeli investigation, led by the Mossad intelligence agency, has turned up a gas canister used in the bombing as well as witnesses who claim to have seen the bombers.
The discarded missile launchers may yield vital information. Israeli intelligence agents told the Hebrew daily, Yediot Ahronot, that the serial numbers linked them to two similar missile launchers found near a runway at Prague airport in November last year.
Czech officials were convinced the missiles were part of an abortive plot to shoot down an El Al airliner carrying Mr Peres.
According to Yediot Ahronot, the missiles in the two attacks were from the same manufacturing series of missiles manufactured in May 1974 by the Zid factory, just outside Moscow.
Kenyan police said the missile launchers had been painted blue, apparently in an attempt to hide the serial number.
"Cross-referencing this new information with the intelligence services in Europe can give us a clear indication as to the identity of the organisation that committed the terror attack in Mombasa," an intelligence official told the newspaper.
At the time of the abortive plot in Prague, there were suspicions in Israel that the attack had been masterminded by Hizbollah, the pro-Iranian group in Lebanon.
But at yesterday's cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli defence minister, was quoted as telling colleagues: "The suspicion that al-Qa'eda was involved is growing stronger, although there is no concrete evidence."
Investigations appear to show that the missiles fired in Mombasa were in proper working order and that the attack failed only because of the terrorists' lack of expertise.
But several Israeli security experts suggested that the Arkia plane might have been secretly fitted with anti-missile technology, such as flares to foil the heat-seeking missiles.
"I can't guarantee the Arkia plane was equipped with that technology but I don't believe in miracles," said Hirsch Goodman, a researcher at Tel Aviv's Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies. He said that Israel had for 10 years considered fitting its civilian airliners with such equipment.
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Croatia Protects a General Charged With War Crimes
December 3, 2002
New York Times
By DANIEL SIMPSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/03/international/europe/03CROA.html
LICKI CITLUK, Croatia - Nine years after Croatian tanks and artillery chased Djuro Pjevac and his neighbors out of this remote village, it remains a ghost town, reminiscent of countless others across the Balkans.
Mr. Pjevac, a 78-year-old Croatian Serb, has since returned to the rubble of a homestead he spent 50 years building, camping out in a makeshift hut the size of a small automobile.
But the community he used to live in has been wiped out. In September 1993, Croatian forces set fire to every one of Licki Citluk's few dozen houses. Their former occupants, members of a Serb minority that was persecuted during World War II as well in the fighting that tore apart Yugoslavia in the 1990's, have no plans to return.
"Only a nostalgic person would come back," Mr. Pjevac said. "Look at the mess. A lot of people were killed here, some of them in their beds."
After the military action here, United Nations peacekeepers accused the Croatian Army of killing Serbian civilians in cold blood. But almost a decade passed without anyone being held accountable.
The United Nations war crimes tribunal has now charged Croatia's wartime chief of staff, Gen. Janko Bobetko, with crimes against humanity and demanded he be extradited to stand trial in The Hague, where a genocide case against the former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic is already being heard.
But Croatia is refusing to hand over General Bobetko, setting off a dispute that highlights its problems in coming to terms with acts committed from 1991 to 1995, when it fought for independence against rebel Croatian Serbs backed by Serbia and the Yugoslav Army.
"The Croats thought The Hague was a tribunal for Serbs, and they're shocked to find that's not the case," said Zarko Puhovski, president of a human rights committee. "The right-wing radicals here are sadly right in saying that no general from a winning army has ever been indicted for war crimes."
The country has reappraised the last decade since the death in 1999 of President Franjo Tudjman, the onetime Communist general who secured its independence. Nonetheless, the indictment of General Bobetko, an 83-year-old diabetic with serious heart problems who is said by doctors to be critically ill, has touched a raw nerve.
Despite warnings that Croatia's hopes of eventually joining the European Union will be dashed unless it hands the general over, Prime Minister Ivica Racan has so far refused, fearing a nationalist backlash that could bring down his reformist government.
The diplomatic quarrel has also raised questions about the tribunal's insensitivity to how it is perceived in the Balkans, where its actions stir fierce passions and most people close their ears to evidence against members of their ethnic group.
The wording of the indictment against General Bobetko has angered many Croats, who believe it questions the legitimacy of an operation to stop Serbian artillery in an area known as the Medak Pocket from shelling nearby Croatian towns.
"Janko Bobetko, acting individually and/or in concert with others, planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of persecutions of Serb civilians of the Medak Pocket on racial, political or religious grounds," the indictment says.
Such language, a standard formulation applied to similar cases, troubles Croats. It implies that their leaders actually planned the same sort of "ethnic cleansing" operations that Mr. Milosevic is accused of sanctioning. Although it remains unclear whether this was true in Licki Citluk, there is little doubt that something terrible happened.
"Approximately 164 homes and 148 barns and outbuildings, being a majority of buildings in the villages within the Medak Pocket, were destroyed, mostly by fire and explosives, after the Croatian forces had taken effective control," the indictment adds. "At least 100 Serbs including 29 local Serb civilians were unlawfully killed."
Any indictment would be challenged here, but one that casts doubt on the legitimacy of the Croats' fight against the Serbs, and points the finger at an ailing old man, is particularly inflammatory.
A week after General Bobetko was indicted, he was made an honorary citizen of Gospic, a town known for its strong Croatian nationalism. Gospic was under Serbian artillery fire during the Croatian war, but local Serbs were also killed by Croats.
Such evidence of the general's popularity has worried Mr. Racan, whose government has a narrow majority in Parliament over a resurgent nationalist-led opposition.
Many political experts here worry that the sudden pressure from outside to face up to the past is backfiring.
"The international community needs a normal and stable Croatia," said Slaven Letica, the author of several books on Croatian nationalism. "Indictments such as this, with the terrible public relations from The Hague that accompanies it, just make the Croatian situation worse and the West more unpopular."
That said, diplomats credit The Hague's influence with bringing about two war-crimes trials here. In one, Gen. Mirko Norac is accused of crimes committed in Gospic in 1991. In the other, eight men are accused of atrocities in a military prison in Split in 1992.
Although a majority of Croats surveyed by pollsters acknowledge that some soldiers committed war crimes in the fight for independence, they seem to be struggling to understand the principle of "command responsibility" under which General Bobetko is indicted.
As commander of the armed forces, his failure to prosecute any subordinates who may have committed crimes in the Medak Pocket means he could be found guilty.
Many experts believe that General Bobetko has fallen victim to the need to bring a high-ranking Croat to The Hague after Ante Gotovina, the last general to be indicted, went into hiding.
But such protests do not impress the tribunal, whose chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, says there are no grounds for Mr. Racan to appeal against the indictment. Hoping to stave off international sancti