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NUCLEAR
Balkan Syndrome Resurrected
We tried to build an atom bomb, says Iraqi weapons chief
U.N. Team Expands Inspections, Visiting 5 Separate Sites
U.N. Team Inspects Uranium Mine
'North Korea threat part of U.S. regional strategy'
Livermore Lab Creates New Division
Officials Question Security Of A-Plant
U.S. Gives Assurance On Iraq Document
Bush told to reveal all on Iraq
U.S. Gives Assurance On Iraq Document
MILITARY
Rumsfeld courts east Africa as key partner in global war on terrorism
N. Korean Ship with Scuds Seized En Route to Yemen
Ship Reportedly Carrying Scud-Type Missiles Is Intercepted
Israel helping China build new fighter jet
China Suggests Missile Buildup Linked to Arms Sales to Taiwan
U.S. enlists Algeria in terror battle
Malaysia criticizes Australia's strategy against terrorism
Northrop-TRW Deal Hits a Last-Minute Snag
Tech Contractors Cite Rising Demand
Government Allows Northrop, TRW to Merge
U.S., Canada Reach Agreement to Let Troops Cross Border
Taiwan Question Eludes U.S. - China Talks
U.S. and China Resume High-Level Military Talks
In Colombia, a mission for peace
U.S., British Jets Attack Iraq Air Defenses
Israeli Chief of Staff Justifies Killing of Civilians
Israel Vaccinates Soldiers and Health Workers
U.S. set to use mines in Iraq
European Satellite Plunges Into Pacific
At Qatar Base, a Test Run for War
U.S. and Canada Expand Pact to Coordinate Defense Planning
Pentagon Readies for Possible Tribunals
U.S. Says Iraqi Indicated Atom Project Is Continuing
Couch-Potato Commandos
Iraq's nuclear noncapability and the US-British propaganda campaign
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Court Voids Ruling That Death Penalty Is Unconstitutional
U.S. Pushes Heroin Addiction Treatment
AMERICA UNDER SURVEILLANCE: PRIVACY AND SECURITY
ENERGY AND OTHER
Judge Knocks GAO Out of Cheney Task Force Lawsuit
U.S. study links chemical to sperm damage
The Green Seal of Approval
EPA Sued to Ban Toxics in Common Wood
Stanford Reveals Human Embryo Clone Plan
Agency Adds Shredding of Documents to Inquiry
ACTIVISTS
Carter Accepts Nobel Peace Prize With a Warning Against War
Nobel Laureate Jimmy Carter Urges Peace
'Global challenges must be met with an emphasis on peace'
The Peace Warriors
100 Arrested in U.S. Anti-War Protests
Anti-Iraq War Protestors Rally Across U.S.
Groups Gather to Protest Iraq War
University Protests in Iran Bring a Bitter Walkout in Parliament
Thank you, Philip Berrigan
Minnesota-born Philip Berrigan, 'saint of our time'
Baltimore City Council Says No To War
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
Balkan Syndrome Resurrected
The UN releases a study that lends credence to health experts' cries that NATO's wartime uranium-tipped weapons have left behind a deadly, cancerous legacy.
by Anes Alic and Dragan Stanimirovic
10 December 2002
Transitions Online
http://www.tol.cz/look/BRR/article_single.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=9&NrIssue=1&NrSection=4&NrArticle=8027&ST1=body&ST_T1=brr&ST_AS1=1&ST_max=1
SARAJEVO and BANJA LUKA, Bosnia and Herzegovina--After two years of silence, Balkan Syndrome--better known as the depleted uranium affair--is getting its due attention. The United Nations Environmental Protection Agency (UNEP) in November confirmed the dangerous presence of depleted uranium in areas of Bosnia bombed by NATO aircraft in 1994 and 1995, which Bosnian officials say has led to a shocking increase in cancer-related deaths.
UN experts confirmed the discovery of two locations containing a high level of radiation from depleted uranium from NATO bombings: the Sarajevo suburb of Hadzici, where a munitions warehouse and a tank-repair facility are located, and a Bosnian Serb army barracks in Han-Pijesak, also near Sarajevo. Investigators discovered uranium materials and dust inside the buildings. Balkan Syndrome Resurrected The UNEP task force says that depleted uranium can create an increase in uranium concentration 100 times the natural levels contained in groundwater.
Upon the release of the November UN expert study on depleted uranium, health officials from Republika Srpska confirmed that uranium has indeed caused many civilian deaths in those two regions. Health officials say that civilian deaths in those regions are double what they are in other, unaffected regions.
Earlier this year, the Bosnian government invited 17 international experts to investigate rumors that depleted uranium is still present in the environment and may be adversely affecting the health not only of the local population but also of international peacekeepers stationed in Bosnia.
The team of experts investigated 14 separate locations over a one-month period, finding traces of radiation in three places. Investigators were not able to examine eight other locations--four small towns near Sarajevo and four others in eastern Bosnia--deemed to be too risky due to the presence of land mines.
Pekka Haavisto, who heads the UNEP task force, told the daily Oslobodjenje: "We are concerned about the situation at the Hadzici tank-repair facility and the Han-Pijesak barracks and the health condition of the citizens." Haavisto said that after being analyzed in Western European laboratories, the final results would be released in March 2003.
Recent years have brought growing concern among experts that shrapnel from depleted uranium-tipped weapons from could cause cancer or other radiation-related problems. According to health experts, dust particles from depleted uranium could be inhaled, or the substance could leach into the ground and the water supply.
AFTEREFFECTS
During NATO's 1994 and 1995 bombings of Bosnian Serb positions around Sarajevo, NATO aircraft used munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal that is effective in piercing armor. Most of those bombs were fired in Hadzici. In one day in October 1995 alone, NATO planes fired 300 projectiles into the Sarajevo suburb. According to the Bosnian government, NATO forces fired some 10,800 rounds of 30mm armor-piercing projectiles during the war.
Under the November 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, some Sarajevo suburbs held by Serbs during the war came under the control of the mostly Bosniak and Bosnian Croat federation entity of Bosnia. One of those suburbs was Hadzici. Most of the approximately 30,000 Bosnian Serbs who lived there fled their homes and moved as refugees to other parts of the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and to Yugoslavia.
Some 5,000 civilians from Hadzici fled to Bratunac, in eastern Republika Srpska. Medical analysis conducted by the local Institute for Health in 1998 showed that the mortality of Hadzici refugees was double the mortality rate for the rest of Bratunac's residents. The study's author, Dr. Slavica Jovanovic, told the SRNA news agency that she has no doubt that depleted uranium is responsible for the increased death rate of those people.
"We can say that the mortality rate of the refugee population is greater because of high stress, poor nutrition, and bad living conditions. But we were shocked to discover that deaths among Hadzici's refugees are much more numerous than [among] other [refugees]," Jovanovic told SRNA. She blamed those deaths on the fact that the refugees from Hadzici were exposed to radiation because they lived close to the bombed locations.
In her report, Jovanovic wrote that since the end of the war, 25 percent of wartime Hadzici residents have died of various cancers, tumors, and heart attacks. In Bratunac alone in the last four years, 500 of the 5,000 Hadzici refugees have died. One Hadzici refugee dies every three to four days, and every second one dies from cancer.
Jovanovic said that she could not say for sure how many Hadzici refugees have cancer because many do not check themselves into hospitals since they cannot afford medical treatment. The doctor said she is hoping that the international community will step in and find some way to examine the town's refugee population and help provide treatment.
After the UNEP report was released, the Republika Srpska army evacuated soldiers from its barracks in Han-Pijesak. Officials say that organized medical exams will soon begin for soldiers who were in the barracks during the past seven years.
At the same time, medical workers from the federation entity are also sending out warnings to people still living in Hadzici--but they are expanding their warning to the general public, which they fear could also be affected by the presence of depleted uranium. Federation health officials say they are also worried that that radiation has caused an increase in the number of diseases such as cancers--especially leukemia--tumors, cerebral palsy, and others.
After the reintegration of Hadzici into the federation entity, prewar Bosniak and Croat workers began cleaning out the munitions warehouse and tank-repair facility, removing more than 1,000 truckloads of garbage and munitions
Now those workers fear they too have been contaminated. Unfortunately, they will have to wait to find out. Workers have begun undergoing medical examinations, but the results will not be available until April 2003. What's more, despite UNEP warnings to immediately evacuate all workers because of danger of inhaling depleted uranium dust, some workers from Hadzici are still on duty.
"Believe me, I am very afraid. But if I have been inhaling radiation for the past seven years, I can do it until they publish the final results," Zijad Fazlic, director of the Hadzici tank-repair facility, told TOL on November 24. "All we can do now is to wait for the results. I don't know what we are going to do, but if I had known this, I would never have come here to work. Families of workers also live here," he said.
Soon after the UNEP report was published, federation medical officials started to speculate that it is possible that depleted uranium is the cause for the shocking jump in cases of leukemia in children.
"It has not yet been proven, but we cannot see anything else except uranium," Edo Hasanbegovic, director of the ontological department in Sarajevo's Kosevo clinic, told the daily Oslobodjenje on 21 November.
Hasanbegovic said that research is set to begin soon to find out whether a connection can be made between the increase in diseases and depleted uranium. But he said he is certain that depleted uranium is one of the elements that causes leukemia in Bosnia. "That we can claim without medical research. Every year we have a 50 percent to 70 percent increase in the number of new underage patients," said Hasanbegovic.
PLAYING CATCH-UP
Lejla Saracevic, chief of radiobiology at Sarajevo University, told TOL on 29 November that before the depleted uranium affair was made known to the public, local experts had asked the government to allow them to conduct research in potentially contaminated areas. The government, however, refused, saying there was insufficient money in the budget for such research--research Saracevic said costs little.
Saracevic said that once the most critical locations have been decontaminated, it is necessary to find out how much of the rest of the region is radioactive. "It has been a long time. In seven years the uranium has migrated into the ground and through the water. It is very possible that it now exists in our vegetation and possibly in our food. Our priority is to check that now," she said.
Before the war in Bosnia, the annual number of new cases of children with leukemia was never greater than 13. Since the end of the war, that number has grown every year: Last year it was 26. The situation is the same with other cancers: Every year the number grows. And almost 80 percent of those new cases are coming from areas that were exposed to the radiation of depleted uranium--areas that were bombed during the war.
The so-called Balkan Syndrome affair first aroused attention in early 2001, when Italian media published reports that one Italian soldier who had served in Bosnia had died of leukemia and that five more were very ill. The Italian media blamed the sicknesses on NATO's use of depleted uranium in its weapons.
At the time, all governments denied that NATO was using uranium-tipped munitions. Nonetheless, medical examinations of soldiers were promptly begun, with many being diagnosed with leukemia and other forms of cancer. Anes Alic is TOL's correspondent in Sarajevo. Dragan Stanimirovic is TOL's correspondent in Banja Luka.
We want your feedback. If you have comments on this, or any other TOL article, please email us at react@tol.cz
-------- inspections
We tried to build an atom bomb, says Iraqi weapons chief
By Kim Sengupta
10 December 2002
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=360221
United Nations inspectors visited a nuclear complex for the third time yesterday, 12 hours after Saddam Hussein's chief scientific adviser disclosed how close Iraq had come to making an atomic bomb.
Iraq's report to the UN contains 2,081 pages on its nuclear programme alone, and supposedly confirms that Baghdad used domestic and foreign facilities in an effort to manufacture the Arab world's first atomic bomb.
Lieutenant-General Amer al-Saadi referred to work undertaken to develop a "trigger" and make "the final shape of the device". He said: "In scientific jargon device means bomb. It is up to the IAEA [the International Atomic Energy Agency] to judge how close we were. We haven't reached the full assembly of the bomb, nor tested it."
The general, a chemistry specialist who studied at the University of London, is the first non-defecting Iraqi official to talk about the country's nuclear programme with relative candour. He insisted, however, that Iraq no longer had nuclear ambitions.
An IAEA spokesmen said yesterday that General Saadi's statement was consistent with what the agency already knew about Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme up to 1998, when the inspectors pulled out of the country.
Washington and London, however, claim to have intelligence indicating that President Saddam's government is reactivating the programme. Tony Blair recently made public satellite photographs which, he maintained, showed the Iraqis were engaged in new construction.
Al-Tuwaitha, a complex sprawling across 50 hectares (120 acres), was the biggest nuclear facility in Iraq and the site of the three Osirak reactors that were bombed by the Israelis in 1981 and the Americans during the Gulf War 10 years later. The plant's main purpose was to produce the fissionable material needed for making nuclear devices.
The Iraqis say the site is now used for making pharmaceutical products and for experiments in growing mushrooms for the food industry. They say no nuclear work has been done there since 1991.
During their first visit to Tuwaitha last week, agency inspectors took away samples from a German-built furnace which, according to the director of the complex, Faiz al-Barkhdar, has been out of use since the mid-Nineties because of a lack of spare parts.
Dr Barkhdar said: "The truth is that even the harmless work we do now is hampered by lack of resources. When the Israelis bombed us, the IAEA said we had co-operated with them in the past. And that has continued. I do not know why they keep coming back to al-Tuwaitha, but they will not find anything, it does not matter how many so-called satellite photographs Tony Blair produces."
The IAEA said the site had been visited "room by room" but that more time was needed to inspect the dozens of buildings that had been monitored by UN arms inspectors before they pulled out in 1998. The Iraqis vast declaration to the UN is said to include details of how two methods were used to try to obtain a domestic supply of weapons-grade fuel - electromagnetic isotope separation and gas-centrifuge enrichment.
--------
U.N. Team Expands Inspections, Visiting 5 Separate Sites
December 10, 2002
New York Times
By JOHN F. BURNS with TERENCE NEILAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/international/middleeast/10CND-BAGH.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 10 - United Nations weapons inspectors markedly expanded their operations today, sending a team of nuclear monitors on a six-hour drive across the desert to a mining center near the border with Syria as just one of five separate missions.
The phosphate deposits in a sprawling facility at Ashakat, about 250 miles northwest of Baghdad, were found by inspectors in the 1990's to have been exploited for their uranium content as well as for fertilizer. Today's visit was presumed to assess current operations at the center.
Eleven inspectors in four-wheel-drive cars drove into the site, which sits in an otherwise empty quarter of the desert. They were immediately allowed into the guarded center, but journalists were barred from entering.
Other visits were made to possible nuclear, biological and chemical sites.
One team was reported to have gone to an animal vaccine center in Abu Ghouraib, about 16 miles west of Baghdad. The site, presumed to be the Amariyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, was a center of biological weapons-related research in the 1980's.
A second group visited the Furat Chemical Industries General Company, which is linked to the Ministry of Industry and Minerals. The site is 41 miles south of Baghdad.
A fourth team visited Ibn al-Haitham research center in a northern Baghdad suburb.
A team later returned to the Tuweitha nuclear site, 12 miles south of Baghdad, the inspectors' fourth recent visit to the site.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission have visited about 30 sites since their return to Iraq last month after a four-year gap.
Today's expanded visits, which marked the end of the second week of field missions, followed a quickened pace of inspections on Monday.
The largest team of nuclear experts yet was sent for a third inspection of Al Tuweitha, the giant nuclear complex south of Baghdad and the centerpiece of Iraq's atomic-bomb project until it was itself bombed by American aircraft in 1991 during Persian Gulf war. The inspectors also examined two related nuclear sites and a sprawling military-industrial plant near Al Fallujah, 55 miles northwest of Baghdad, where they searched two chemical plants that played a part in Iraq's chemical weapons program in the 1980's and 90's, producing phenol and chlorine. Like Al Tuweitha, the so-called Fallujah II site was placed under monitoring during the previous inspections, from 1991 to 1998.
The current round began on Nov. 27 and ran into immediate criticism from the Bush administration, which said the effort was undermanned. On Monday spokesmen for the inspections teams in Baghdad were keen to emphasize that more inspectors had been sent out than on any previous day, with five teams scouring Al Tuweitha alone.
The growing momentum was aided by the arrival of 25 inspectors on Sunday to join the 17 in the initial party. The experts are divided into two groups. One works for the main weapons-inspection agency, known as Unmovic, in searching biological, chemical and missile sites. The second consists of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency and is responsible for nuclear sites.
There are now 25 weapons inspectors and 17 nuclear inspectors here, with a checklist of more than 900 sites to cover.
By Christmas, the number of inspectors is to rise to about 100, and beyond that, early next year, to a maximum of 300.
On arrival here, officials leading the inspection teams said they thought the work could take up to a year. That view was affirmed today by Mohammed ElBaradei, director general of the atomic energy agency, who said on a visit to Tokyo that it could take a year to conclude whether Iraq still had any elements of a nuclear weapons program.
Leaders of inspection teams have said that if the United States wants quicker results, it should provide the teams with more intelligence information.
Until then, the teams are likely to spend much of their time going over old sites long since rendered useless by the destruction ordered by previous inspectors, by American and British bombing in 1991 and 1998, or by the Iraqis themselves. From their experience in the 1990's, the inspectors know that once a site goes onto an inspection list, it is often abandoned, with the work shifted elsewhere, usually under the name of a different ministry or a state-run company.
--------
U.N. Team Inspects Uranium Mine
December 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Weapons-Inspectors.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- International nuclear monitors drove six hours across the Iraqi desert to a remote uranium mining site in one of five inspections mounted Tuesday, a marked expansion of the U.N. field operation. Still more inspectors arrived in Baghdad.
Iraq's chief liaison to the U.N. teams said the Iraqis have found the inspectors to be working in a ``calm and professional'' manner. But he again complained about last week's surprise inspection of one of President Saddam Hussein's palaces, calling it an American-inspired provocation.
Also Tuesday, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan rejected U.S. skepticism of Baghdad's report to the U.N. Security Council on its weapons program, and said an attack on his country would be a challenge to the whole region.
``Any aggression against Iraq is the start of more aggression on the neighborhood,'' he told Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television network, which showed only a brief segment of the interview.
In Washington, Pentagon officials said allied aircraft bombed an Iraqi surface-to-air missile system Tuesday after Saddam's forces moved it into a restricted zone earlier in the day.
The attack hit a site called Qalat Sal, near the Tigris River city of Al Amarah, about 165 miles southeast of Baghdad. It was unclear if Iraqi forces fired at U.S. and British warplanes patrolling the southern no-fly zone. But U.S. officials say the mere presence of air defense systems inside such zones represents a threat to coalition pilots.
Tuesday marked the end of the second week of field missions for the U.N. inspectors, who returned to Iraq after a four-year absence under the Security Council resolution requiring the Baghdad government to give up any remaining chemical or biological weapons, and shut down programs to make them. Iraq denies it has such weapons or programs.
Later Tuesday, more inspectors -- about 25 were expected -- arrived on a flight from a U.N. rear base on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, bolstering the U.N. inspection staff to about 70. U.N. officials said they expected to have about 100 inspectors comprising eight teams by year's end.
The Iraq field missions were expanding as U.N. analysts began combing through 12,000 pages of documents submitted by Iraq to the United Nations over the weekend, detailing past programs of weapons of mass destruction and what it says are purely civilian programs today in the chemical, biological and nuclear areas.
Inspections in the 1990s, after Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War, led to the destruction of tons of chemical and biological weapons, and to the dismantling of Iraq's program to try to build atomic bombs.
On Tuesday, reporters followed several cars of U.N. nuclear experts to mining operations at Akashat, in the desert near the Syrian border 250 miles west of Baghdad. The enormous complex surrounded by antenna posts, some broken, sat in an otherwise empty quarter of the desert. Reporters were unable to follow the inspectors inside.
The U.N. team presumably wanted to assess current Akashat operations considering what was found there by U.N. nuclear inspectors in the 1990s.
In the 1980s, the phosphate deposits at Akashat had been exploited for their uranium content as well as for fertilizer, producing some 100 tons of uranium over six years.
Also Tuesday, other nuclear inspectors headed again for al-Tuwaitha, Iraq's major nuclear research center, 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, Iraqi Information Ministry officials reported. It was their third recent visit to the sprawling complex, where Iraqi scientists in the 1980s worked on developing technology for enriching uranium to levels usable in bombs.
A third U.N. team was reported to have visited a veterinary medicine establishment at Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad -- presumably the Amariyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, site of biological weapons-related research in the 1980s.
That institute is reported to have expanded its storage capacity to an extent the U.S. government says exceeds Iraq's needs. Iraq contends the facility only makes and stores human vaccines.
Other inspectors were reported to have gone Tuesday to a military training center in Baghdad and to an industrial facility at al-Furat, just south of Baghdad. The purposes of those visits were not immediately known.
In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair said it would be ``naive'' to believe Saddam plans to comply with U.N. demands for disarmament. He also restated the readiness of the United States and Britain to take military action against Saddam.
``If there is a breach and Saddam doesn't comply, then we are prepared to take action,'' Blair was quoted as saying in the Financial Times.
In an interview published Tuesday in the weekly al-Rafidayn, Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, chief Iraqi liaison, said of the inspectors' ``behavior'' that ``we're satisfied with it so far because it is calm and professional.''
Iraqi officials have complained sharply, however, about the U.N. inspection Dec. 3 of Baghdad's al-Sajoud palace, one of Saddam's many presidential palaces.
``The visit took place under pressure from the United States of America to create a crisis or confrontation between Iraq and inspection teams, but this did not happen,'' Amin reiterated.
Such palace inspections contributed to the U.N.-Iraqi tensions that ended with the collapse of the previous inspection regime in 1998. The new U.N. resolution declares the monitors have unrestricted power to inspect such sites.
Asked how long he expects the new U.N. inspections to take, Amin said that if the inspection agencies are ``sincere,'' he thinks they should take eight months.
``Then the Security Council should suspend the sanctions imposed on Iraq and the monitoring process would continue,'' he said.
He was referring to international economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990, and to U.N. plans to establish a long-term system of monitoring Iraq's military-industrial complex -- via surveillance gear, required reports and periodic visits.
-------- korea
'North Korea threat part of U.S. regional strategy'
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
PINR Power and Interest News Report (PINR)
http://yt.org/article.php?sid=920
(PINR) -- North Korea's recent admission of enriching uranium for the purpose of creating a nuclear weapon may be an attempt to foil the U.S. strategy of keeping North Korea a public threat in order to facilitate the creation of the Theater Missile Defense (TMD) system.
North Korea has been yearning to strengthen its economy that has been constrained by international regulations disallowing economic aid from U.S.-controlled multilateral financial institutions. Pyongyang was hoping the 1994 U.S. - D.P.R.K. Agreed Framework would facilitate this. Under the agreement, the United States lowered trade and economic barriers along with guaranteeing that two 1,000 megawatt light water reactors (LWR) would be built by 2003. For the United States, the purpose of the agreement was to decrease the likelihood North Korea would create nuclear weapons with nuclear waste created by its graphite-moderated nuclear reactors. Graphite-moderated nuclear reactors contain a plutonium reactor, which, like enriched uranium, can be used to make nuclear weapons; it is more difficult to convert LWR waste into weapons-grade material.
Contrary to the agreement, construction of the LWRs is far behind schedule. The first reactor is not expected to reach completion until at least 2008 if there are no further delays, even though the 1994 agreement specified that both reactors would be built by 2003. The holdup has prompted North Korea to take bold actions hoping to keep the project on target. The first such action took place in 1998 when North Korea test fired a Taepo-Dong-1 missile which resulted in the project being even further delayed. But this action did not directly violate the agreement. Even as recently as February 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that North Korea has so far "stay[ed] within the agreement." Despite this, the construction of the LWRs remained behind schedule.
In addition, the Bush administration demanded that North Korea open its borders to nuclear inspections. However, the 1994 agreement clearly states that North Korea does not have to allow inspections until a "significant portion of the LWR project is completed," which by consensus has not been done. Therefore, the recent admission by North Korea of enriching uranium may be another attempt to force the United States to hasten the production of the LWRs.
North Korea has further reason to doubt U.S. sincerity in living up to the Agreed Framework. It came as a surprise to North Korea when they were labeled as part of the "axis of evil," a term used to justify possible U.S. military action. By admitting to a nuclear weapons program, North Korea may be hoping to initiate new negotiations. North Korea could possibly offer to give up their bomb program if the U.S. lives up to its commitments of normalizing ties, releasing aid, and allowing North Korea access to international financial institutions.
The Bush administration may not be interested in removing North Korea from the threat list. A perceived North Korean threat is necessary to justify building the Theater Missile Defense (TMD) system, intended to counter China's growing military and political power. With China's economy growing at seven percent, it is only a matter of time before it dwarfs Japan in power and strategic influence. This worries sectors of Japan's government, especially the military establishment, and also concerns the Bush administration, who do not want to see U.S. regional power and economic interests threatened by China. Since neither the U.S. nor Japan are willing to admit to building the new missile system to counteract a Beijing threat, North Korea is currently being used as the primary reason for creating the TMD in Japan.
In addition to the TMD, the U.S. is also discussing the implementation of the Navy Theater Wide Defense (NTWD) system that could be installed on U.S. and Japanese Aegis warships. These mobile missile defense systems could severely weaken China's military threat and reduce Beijing's political clout. China is concerned that its ballistic missiles, pointed at Taipei to prevent their independence, could be rendered ineffective by a NTWD protecting Taiwan. While official recognition of China's threat to the U.S. would cause unwanted political ramifications, the touting of North Korea as a public threat provides a convenient justification for the development of both these new missile defense systems.
China is warily monitoring North Korea and U.S. relations. China is considered North Korea's closest ally, largely because China is protecting its southern border from unwanted influence. If North Korea should become politically unstable, it could prompt U.S. forces to move north from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) -- where 37,000 U.S. troops help separate North and South Korea -- to fill any power vacuum created by a government breakdown. Such a move would cause instant conflict with China; therefore, China has both a vested military and political interest in maintaining their support of North Korea.
Besides North Korea and China, resistance to this U.S. strategy is coming from South Korea, which hopes to create stronger ties with North Korea in preparation for future reunification. The prospect of worsening relations with Pyongyang is not only scorned in Seoul, but is also feared.
North Korea has the fourth largest military in the world with over 1.2 million armed personnel compared with only 650,000 in South Korea. Military spending stands at 20-25 percent of the North's GNP. Pyongyang has the second-largest special operations force in the world, including 55,000 troops trained to operate behind enemy lines in case of warfare.
Because these troops are massed on the DMZ, the South Korean capital of Seoul would probably be decimated in any major conflict. This danger, and the high cost of war, explains South Korea's open-door policy towards the North, typified by South Korean Prime Minister Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy. These divergent policies have created a political rift between South Korea and the United States.
The upcoming elections in South Korea may affect this conflict, especially if the less conciliatory Lee Hoi-chang is elected and takes a harder stance on North Korea. However, as mentioned above, it will be difficult for any South Korean government to be overly bold due to the tension along the DMZ.
The real variable is Japan. The U.S. has been counting on Japan's military establishment for support of the missile defense projects. The Koizumi government has been struggling to moderate between its military establishment -- closely linked to the United States -- and its regional allies such as South Korea, who want a less-hostile approach toward Pyongyang. Japan has been forced to reassess its diverging alliances; however, it is doubtful that it will risk straining ties with its largest export market, the United States.
Constrained by these alliance pressures, it is unlikely that the U.S. will risk direct military confrontation with North Korea. At the same time, Washington, keeping a wary eye on growing Chinese military and political influence, also considers it prudent to maintain North Korea as a perceived threat -- at least until the new Theater Missile Defense and Navy Theater Wide Defense systems are in place to help maintain the balance of regional power in favor of U.S. interests.
Erich Marquardt drafted this report; Matthew Riemer, Gillian Norman contributed.
[The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an analysis-based publication that seeks to, as objectively as possible, provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. PINR seeks to inform rather than persuade. This report may be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast provided that any such reproduction identifies the original source, http://www.pinr.com. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com.]
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- california
Livermore Lab Creates New Division
December 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Livermore-Lab-Security.html
LIVERMORE, Calif. (AP) -- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has created a new division dedicated to homeland security, lab officials announced Tuesday.
Founded in the Cold War, Livermore has traditionally focused on the threat of nuclear war. Director Michael Anastasio said its location -- close to San Francisco and Silicon Valley -- also makes it a good site for fighting the threat of domestic terrorism.
``This is a rich and fertile area in science and technology and also it's a rich and fertile source of targets for potential terrorism,'' he said.
Parney Albright, senior director of research and development for the White House's Office of Homeland Security, praised the new division.
The Livermore division, which has a budget of about $50 million for the first year, will be under control of the lab, but will work closely with the newly created Department of Homeland Security.
``This is a big step in the direction that we've been asking all the labs to head toward ... marshaling a cadre of people and activities focused on homeland security,'' he said.
The lab also rolled out for public inspection two computerized anti-terrorism tools.
One allows users to create a database of buildings, stadiums or other centers that could be targets. The system also has an inventory of more than 1,000 toxic substances with details on how the substances affect people as well as treatment and cleanup information.
The other computer tool demonstrated Tuesday allows agencies to ``build'' a setting, such as an airport, downtown area, sports stadium, and put in as much detail as they want, including how many windows a building has. They then program in a simulated emergency, such as an earthquake or chemical spill, see how buildings or people are affected and formulate emergency plans based on those simulations.
The simulation system was used to help plan security for the Winter Olympics in Utah.
On the Net:
Livemore: http://www.llnl.gov
-------- new york
Officials Question Security Of A-Plant
December 10, 2002
New York Times
By WINNIE HU
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/nyregion/10NUKE.html
BUCHANAN, N.Y., Dec. 9 - The Westchester County executive, Andrew J. Spano, and other opponents of the Indian Point nuclear plant questioned its security today, after the release of a report that said some security guards there had expressed concerns after Sept. 11 about adequately protecting it.
Mr. Spano, who has called for the closing of Indian Point, said he should have been told earlier about these security concerns, which were documented in an internal report completed in January for the plant's owner, the Entergy Corporation. The New York Times published an article about the report on Sunday, after receiving a copy from Riverkeeper, an environmental group that opposes the plant.
In response to the report, Mr. Spano said he planned to call for the creation of a federal security force for nuclear plants - similar to the one for airports - when he meets with county executives and representatives from the Office of Homeland Security at a conference in Washington on Wednesday.
"At this point, the security of the plants should be under Homeland Security," he said. "You know, we have the airports under Homeland Security, and they're not half as vulnerable as nuclear plants."
Last year, legislation was introduced in Congress to federalize security at nuclear plants around the country, but it was not passed. Several Congressional aides said today that the issue appeared to be dead, though some elected officials, including Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, have continued to seek more protection for nuclear plants.
"We know that terrorists turned airplanes into missiles," Mrs. Clinton said in a statement. "We don't want them to turn power plants into nuclear weapons."
In the past year, widespread fears that nuclear plants could become terrorist targets have prompted towns and villages across the New York region to pass resolutions calling for the closing of Indian Point 2 and its twin reactor, Indian Point 3, in this town about 40 miles north of Midtown Manhattan.
Last month, Mr. Spano set aside $500,000 in his budget for a study to assess how the county could buy Indian Point, or seize it by eminent domain if necessary, to replace the nuclear operation with a natural-gas plant. Entergy has said it does not intend to sell the site.
In the internal report, some security guards complained that they were inadequately trained, that other other guards reported for duty drunk, and that security drills were carefully staged to ensure that mock attackers were repelled. These guards also said that they were forced to work long hours and that their electronic security equipment often malfunctioned.
Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy, said today that a federal security force was unnecessary because the company had already addressed most of the issues cited in the report. He pointed out that Indian Point had also met security requirements set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
For instance, Mr. Steets said, armed National Guard troops and state troopers have been monitoring the entrance to Indian Point since the Sept. 11 attacks, and concrete barriers and barbed-wire fencing have been installed around the plants. In addition, he said, Entergy plans to hire 30 new security guards in January in response to complaints from some guards that they are being asked to work too much.
"We hope that people will recognize that this is a year-old report, and the findings in it have been largely addressed," Mr. Steets said.
He said that such internal reports were intended to assess and improve the performance of the plant's employees, and were not normally made public.
But Mr. Spano and other officials said that they should have been informed about this particular report, given their repeatedly voiced concerns about the safety of Indian Point. Michael Kaplowitz, a county legislator who has held several hearings on Indian Point this year, said he was shocked and angry to learn about the report.
"Here all along they've been telling us that it's safe, secure and vital," he said of Entergy officials. "And frankly, they've been fibbing about the security part."
Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said that the agency's inspectors had reviewed the internal report when it was completed and that the agency had ordered all nuclear plants, including Indian Point, to substantially increase their security.
"We've been fully engaged in the security issues there," he said. "We know there are still some concerns about fatigue on the part of the security guards, and we're looking at that."
-------- us politics
U.S. Gives Assurance On Iraq Document
Allies Told Report Isn't Trigger for War
By Karen DeYoung and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 10, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32687-2002Dec9?language=printer
As U.S. experts began to copy and comb through Iraq's 12,000-page declaration of its weapons of mass destruction program, the Bush administration moved yesterday to assure skittish allies that it does not intend to use the document as a trigger to begin military operations against Iraq, U.S. and foreign officials said.
"We're now on common ground with the administration" in a position of "measured skepticism" but no "crazed or precipitative reactions" about Iraq's contentions that it has no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs, said a senior diplomat from one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
The Americans have said "they might use it as a piece of the puzzle, but not as a trigger," another diplomat said. "If they want to use it even as a puzzle piece, they have to say why they don't trust the declaration, and whether they are going to give intelligence to disprove it, or ask the inspectors" to verify Iraqi claims.
The reassurances were accompanied by a substantial softening of recent administration predictions that the document will be riddled with lies constituting a material breach of the U.N. resolution that was adopted unanimously last month. "We have not made any conclusions about the declaration," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
"We want to be very deliberate as we move through and look at this document to determine, with the international community, what this indicates about Saddam Hussein and his disarmament," Fleischer said. Although U.S. military preparations for war continue, Fleischer said "the president hopes to avoid" that eventuality. "Combat," he said, "is the last thing this president wants to engage in."
The Iraqi government contends that it has dismantled its weapons of mass destruction programs.
One of only two copies of the declaration provided by Iraq Saturday ended up in U.S. hands yesterday, despite Friday's Security Council decision that U.N. inspectors should review it before it was distributed to governments.
The United States received the document after it persuaded Colombia's U.N. ambassador, the current president of the Security Council, to turn it over. The council's other permanent members -- Britain, France, Russia and China -- acquiesced to the U.S. move.
U.S. officials said their first order of business was to make copies of the voluminous paper document for the other four council members. U.S. intelligence officials spent much of the day transferring the declaration onto CD-ROMs, which the other four began receiving last night. The 10 rotating members of the council will eventually receive versions with sensitive weapons information excised.
The second original copy was retained by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which are conducting inspections in Iraq. They began their examination of the document yesterday, and made tentative plans to report their initial conclusions to the council on Dec. 19.
U.S. weapons and intelligence experts have been gathered in a central location in the Washington area, most likely CIA headquarters in Langley, to review the document. Divided into sections covering chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and long-range missiles prohibited by the United Nations, the U.S. copy is to be parceled out in what one White House official called "one-inch squares" to experts in the various fields.
"We don't know what the elephant will look like when we put the pieces together," the official said.
According to informed sources, and an Iraqi-prepared index of the document made available in New York, a major portion of each section repeats the last presentations the Iraqi government made to U.N. inspectors before they withdrew from Iraq in late 1998. The 2,400-page portion on Iraqi's nuclear program, for example, includes about 2,100 pages that initial review indicated was an exact copy of the earlier document.
A separate portion of the nuclear section, totaling about 300 pages and written in Arabic, is labeled as "covering the period from 1991 to 2002" and is divided into segments describing the major departments of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Organization and a list of nuclear facilities. Another portion covers secondary sites, including a series of companies. Additional data supplied by Baghdad on CD-ROMs also has to be integrated into the narrative, sources said.
The 118-page portion of the chemical declaration that details the post-1998 period includes major and secondary sites. An annex of 841 pages is described as listing dual-use facilities that manufacture commercial products but could produce weapons, and all Iraqi commercial chemical plants that are unrelated to prohibited arms facilities.
The 528-page biological declaration is described as containing more than 100 pages of answers to questions raised by inspectors in the procurement and production areas through 1998. The index of the biological update section, with no page numbers given, promises data through 2002, including information on biological research, development and production facilities that are dual-use and those unrelated to bioweapons. A two-part annex containing supporting documents totals 732 pages.
Nearly half of the 1,240-page section on ballistic missiles is said to detail Iraq's missile projects and the status of "current activities." Another 113 pages cover forms and initial designs of systems, with an additional 11 pages on the "relationship" of the missiles with prohibited activities in other fields, likely a reference to missiles designed to carry chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.
Another chapter promises procurement details on 11 missile projects, including relations with other "states, companies, establishments and main suppliers."
As required by last month's resolution, there is a four-page chronological summary on "remotely piloted aircraft," a project inspectors believed might involve an unmanned chemical or biological weapon delivery system.
Only one Security Council member objected to the agreement to turn over the document to the United States. Syria's U.N. ambassador, Mikhail Wehbe, accused Colombian Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso of breaching council protocol by deciding that only the permanent five members would have access to the entire document. A number of senior administration officials were said to be unhappy at Friday's decision to give the inspectors first crack at the document, as suggested by UNMOVIC Chairman Hans Blix. Saturday morning, U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte called Valdivieso to ask that the document be shared with the council's five permanent members.
A close U.S. ally that receives hundreds of millions of dollars in annual U.S. aid, Colombia also consulted with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. On Sunday night, U.S. diplomats accompanied Valdivieso to Blix's office to inform him of the decision.
Lynch reported from the United Nations. Staff writer Walter Pincus contributed to this report.
----
Bush told to reveal all on Iraq
By Caroline Overington,
Sydney Morning Herald Correspondent in New York and agencies
December 10 2002
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/09/1039379785088.html
The United States is under intense international pressure to release the information it says it has about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
The Iraqi Government, the weapons inspectors in Baghdad and some members of the US Congress have all urged President George Bush to reveal what he says he knows.
The chairman of the US Senate intelligence committee, Bob Graham, compared the moment to the Cuban missile crisis, saying that, just as John F. Kennedy had come forward with information about Soviet missile sites in Cuba in 1962, Mr Bush needed to come forward with information about Iraq.
The Senate Democratic leader, Tom Daschle, said the US should "put our best evidence forward, especially if it's a question of Saddam Hussein again denying all of these assertions".
On Sunday Iraq gave United Nations weapons inspectors an 11,000-page declaration it says proves it does not have weapons of mass destruction.
The document was delivered just as inspectors began publicly complaining that their search for weapons had been frustrated by Washington's refusal to tell them where to look.
The Iraqi Government has apparently taken note of the strained relations between Washington and the inspectors, saying Mr Bush should put his cards on the table.
Mr Bush has said it is not up to him to prove Iraq has prohibited weapons, but for Iraq to prove that it does not.
The US was reported angry at the UN's refusal to release a copy of the document to it or to any other member of the UN Security Council because it was worried it contained material that was too dangerous for broad consumption.
However, in a surprise decision the 15-member security council agreed late on Sunday to give the permanent members - the US, Russia, France, China and Britain - full access to the document. This means that Washington will not have to wait to begin its own analysis and translation of the document.
UN officials said the permanent members had the expertise to assess the risk of proliferation and other sensitive information.
The Security Council must decide if there are any errors or omissions in the declaration that would place Iraq in breach of its obligation to disarm.
Iraq has also confirmed what the International Atomic Energy Agency has long suspected: that Saddam previously tried to make a nuclear bomb, but that it never reached the assembly stage.
A senior adviser to Saddam, General Amir al-Saadi, said on Sunday that there was no guarantee Iraq would have succeeded in making the bomb.
"It is for others to judge; it is for the International Atomic Energy Agency to judge how close we were. If I tell you we were close, it is subjective, maybe [self-] promotional."
The Iraqi document is being analysed and translated at UN headquarters in New York and IAEA headquarters in Vienna.
The agency's director-general, Mohamed ElBaradei, said it would begin a "painstaking and systematic cross-checking of the information provided by Iraq against information the IAEA already has".
The agency concluded in 1998 that Iraq had not achieved its aim of producing a nuclear weapon, but that its program was "well-funded, well-staffed and aimed at the production of a small arsenal of nuclear weapons".
The agency removed all known weapons-grade nuclear material from Iraq and destroyed the country's nuclear weapons facilities and equipment.
--------
U.S. Gives Assurance On Iraq Document
Allies Told Report Isn't Trigger for War
By Karen DeYoung and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 10, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32687-2002Dec9?language=printer
As U.S. experts began to copy and comb through Iraq's 12,000-page declaration of its weapons of mass destruction program, the Bush administration moved yesterday to assure skittish allies that it does not intend to use the document as a trigger to begin military operations against Iraq, U.S. and foreign officials said.
"We're now on common ground with the administration" in a position of "measured skepticism" but no "crazed or precipitative reactions" about Iraq's contentions that it has no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs, said a senior diplomat from one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
The Americans have said "they might use it as a piece of the puzzle, but not as a trigger," another diplomat said. "If they want to use it even as a puzzle piece, they have to say why they don't trust the declaration, and whether they are going to give intelligence to disprove it, or ask the inspectors" to verify Iraqi claims.
The reassurances were accompanied by a substantial softening of recent administration predictions that the document will be riddled with lies constituting a material breach of the U.N. resolution that was adopted unanimously last month. "We have not made any conclusions about the declaration," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
"We want to be very deliberate as we move through and look at this document to determine, with the international community, what this indicates about Saddam Hussein and his disarmament," Fleischer said. Although U.S. military preparations for war continue, Fleischer said "the president hopes to avoid" that eventuality. "Combat," he said, "is the last thing this president wants to engage in."
The Iraqi government contends that it has dismantled its weapons of mass destruction programs.
One of only two copies of the declaration provided by Iraq Saturday ended up in U.S. hands yesterday, despite Friday's Security Council decision that U.N. inspectors should review it before it was distributed to governments.
The United States received the document after it persuaded Colombia's U.N. ambassador, the current president of the Security Council, to turn it over. The council's other permanent members -- Britain, France, Russia and China -- acquiesced to the U.S. move.
U.S. officials said their first order of business was to make copies of the voluminous paper document for the other four council members. U.S. intelligence officials spent much of the day transferring the declaration onto CD-ROMs, which the other four began receiving last night. The 10 rotating members of the council will eventually receive versions with sensitive weapons information excised.
The second original copy was retained by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which are conducting inspections in Iraq. They began their examination of the document yesterday, and made tentative plans to report their initial conclusions to the council on Dec. 19.
U.S. weapons and intelligence experts have been gathered in a central location in the Washington area, most likely CIA headquarters in Langley, to review the document. Divided into sections covering chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and long-range missiles prohibited by the United Nations, the U.S. copy is to be parceled out in what one White House official called "one-inch squares" to experts in the various fields.
"We don't know what the elephant will look like when we put the pieces together," the official said.
According to informed sources, and an Iraqi-prepared index of the document made available in New York, a major portion of each section repeats the last presentations the Iraqi government made to U.N. inspectors before they withdrew from Iraq in late 1998. The 2,400-page portion on Iraqi's nuclear program, for example, includes about 2,100 pages that initial review indicated was an exact copy of the earlier document.
A separate portion of the nuclear section, totaling about 300 pages and written in Arabic, is labeled as "covering the period from 1991 to 2002" and is divided into segments describing the major departments of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Organization and a list of nuclear facilities. Another portion covers secondary sites, including a series of companies. Additional data supplied by Baghdad on CD-ROMs also has to be integrated into the narrative, sources said.
The 118-page portion of the chemical declaration that details the post-1998 period includes major and secondary sites. An annex of 841 pages is described as listing dual-use facilities that manufacture commercial products but could produce weapons, and all Iraqi commercial chemical plants that are unrelated to prohibited arms facilities.
The 528-page biological declaration is described as containing more than 100 pages of answers to questions raised by inspectors in the procurement and production areas through 1998. The index of the biological update section, with no page numbers given, promises data through 2002, including information on biological research, development and production facilities that are dual-use and those unrelated to bioweapons. A two-part annex containing supporting documents totals 732 pages.
Nearly half of the 1,240-page section on ballistic missiles is said to detail Iraq's missile projects and the status of "current activities." Another 113 pages cover forms and initial designs of systems, with an additional 11 pages on the "relationship" of the missiles with prohibited activities in other fields, likely a reference to missiles designed to carry chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.
Another chapter promises procurement details on 11 missile projects, including relations with other "states, companies, establishments and main suppliers."
As required by last month's resolution, there is a four-page chronological summary on "remotely piloted aircraft," a project inspectors believed might involve an unmanned chemical or biological weapon delivery system.
Only one Security Council member objected to the agreement to turn over the document to the United States. Syria's U.N. ambassador, Mikhail Wehbe, accused Colombian Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso of breaching council protocol by deciding that only the permanent five members would have access to the entire document. A number of senior administration officials were said to be unhappy at Friday's decision to give the inspectors first crack at the document, as suggested by UNMOVIC Chairman Hans Blix. Saturday morning, U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte called Valdivieso to ask that the document be shared with the council's five permanent members.
A close U.S. ally that receives hundreds of millions of dollars in annual U.S. aid, Colombia also consulted with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. On Sunday night, U.S. diplomats accompanied Valdivieso to Blix's office to inform him of the decision.
Lynch reported from the United Nations. Staff writer Walter Pincus contributed to this report.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Rumsfeld courts east Africa as key partner in global war on terrorism
The Associated Press
12/10/2002
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-12-10-rumsfeld-africa_x.htm
ASMARA, Eritrea (AP) - Sharpening the U.S. focus on the Horn of Africa as a haven for terrorists, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld arrived in the Eritrean capital on Tuesday to discuss expanding military cooperation and to visit American troops training in neighboring deserts.
Rumsfeld was visiting Ethiopia and Djibouti as well as Eritrea. The three impoverished nations are neighbors in an unstable region that lies across the Red Sea from Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden.
Later in the week, Rumsfeld was headed to the oil-rich sheikdom of Qatar in the Persian Gulf to get a firsthand look at a new U.S. military command post headed by Gen. Tommy Franks.
Franks and hundreds of his battle staff are conducting an exercise this week to test the command post's ability to communicate with its naval, land and air components elsewhere in the Gulf. It is widely seen as a practice run for a possible American-led war against Iraq, although no combat troops are involved.
In Asmara, the Eritrean capital, Rumsfeld met with President Isaias Afwerki and other government officials. Afterward, Isaias told reporters his country was not looking for U.S. handouts but was determined to help the United States in any possible to fight a global war on terrorism.
Asked whether the offers included allowing U.S. troops on Eritrean soil, Isaias replied, "That is the least of them."
Later Rumsfeld flew to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, where he was meeting Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
In an interview en route from Washington, Rumsfeld said the Bush administration was pleased at the cooperation of Eritrea, Ethiopia and Djibouti in the war on terrorism. He left open the possibility of expanding the U.S. military presence in the area but said no decisions were imminent.
"I'm not here to engage in transactions," he said. "I'm not here to put pressure on anybody. I'm here to demonstrate that the United States values what these countries are doing."
So far the United States has only agreed to use Camp Lemonier in the desert hinterland of Djibouti.
The port at Assab, on the southern tip of Eritrea, is one of the largest on the Red Sea. When Franks - commander of all U.S. forces in the Horn of Africa, the Persian Gulf and Central Asia - visited Assab in March the government offered to host American forces on its soil.
"It's not so much a matter of saying 'no,'" Rumsfeld said, adding, "It's something that evolves over time."
The Pentagon recently established a specially tailored military force, called Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, to oversee anti-terrorist operations in the region. It is led Marine Corps Maj. Gen. John Sattler, whose headquarters is the USS Mount Whitney, a command ship newly arrived in the area.
Rumsfeld indicated the United States is in the Horn of Africa for the long haul. He said his decision to visit the area should be seen as an indication that the war on terrorism is truly global.
"The fact that it is going to be a long war and the fact that it is a distinctly different kind of war is emphasized by the fact that we absolutely require the cooperation of countries of all sizes on each continent on the face of the Earth if we are going to be successful," he said.
During the Cold War the United States operated a listening post from Asmara. It was known as Kagnew Station and run by the Army Security Agency, a forerunner of the National Security Agency.
In neighboring Djibouti, hundreds of American troops have been training for months. Many are at Camp LeMonier, a French air base. Although some U.S. combat forces operated from Djibouti during the conflict in Somalia in the early 1990s, it has taken on added importance in the war on terrorism.
Djibouti is close to Yemen and on the Bab el Mandeb Strait, a choke-point where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden. It's not far from Yemen's port of Aden, where the USS Cole was attacked by terrorists in October 2000, killing 17 sailors.
Rumsfeld said he has no doubt that some al-Qaeda terrorists are hiding in the Horn of Africa, although he mentioned no numbers and named no countries.
-------- arms sales
N. Korean Ship with Scuds Seized En Route to Yemen
December 10, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-ship.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A North Korean ship carrying at least 12 hidden Scud missiles and bound for Yemen has been stopped in the Arabian Sea, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
``The ship was stopped on Monday by Spanish authorities who stopped it in the Arabian Sea about 600 miles from the Horn of Africa. ... It was believed to be bound for Yemen,'' one official told Reuters.
He said U.S. intelligence had been tracking the ship closely for weeks. CNN reported that the ship had been boarded by U.S. military specialists who were trying to stabilize the cargo.
U.S. officials said the 12 Scud missiles were hidden beneath concrete.
-------
Ship Reportedly Carrying Scud-Type Missiles Is Intercepted
December 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/international/10WIRE-MISSILE.html
WASHINGTON -- A ship carrying a dozen Scud-type missiles from North Korea was intercepted in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday, U.S. officials said. They said the missiles were believed to be headed for Yemen.
The ship was stopped and boarded about 600 miles east of the Horn of Africa, the officials said.
U.S. intelligence had been tracking the vessel closely, said U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The ship contained about a dozen short- to medium-range missiles, similar to the Scud missiles used by Iraq in the Persian Gulf War, the officials said. It also contained missile parts.
The ship allegedly carrying the missiles was stopped by two ships from the Spanish Navy participating in Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led global anti-terrorism coalition, said Alberto Martinez Arias, a spokesman for Spain's Defense Ministry.
Crews from the Spanish ships, the Navarra and Patino, stopped the unflagged ship "Sosan" east of the island of Socotora and called U.S. authorities for assistance, Martinez said. The Spanish Navy stopped and boarded the ship after its crew refused to identify themselves.
The North Korean captain of the Sosan initially told Spanish officials the ship was carrying cement. The Scuds were discovered shortly thereafter, Martinez said.
The ship was being held in the area while the search continued and as U.S. experts made sure that any explosive materials were neutralized, U.S. officials said.
Officials said the shipment did not appear to be headed for Iraq.
Yemen has been identified by the United States as a nation that has harbored terrorists, although its government has been an ally of the United States in the war against global terrorism. Yemen's port of Aden was the site of the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole by terrorists, which killed 17 sailors.
Yemeni officials contacted late Tuesday said they had no information concerning the ship, its contents or its boarding by international forces.
The boarding of the ship occurred as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was traveling in the area.
It was unclear precisely what missiles were aboard the seized vessel. North Korea has built and exported at least two missiles in the Scud class: the Scud B and the Scud D, or No Dong.
Scud B missiles were produced in large numbers by the former Soviet Union and ended up in Iraq and North Korea, among other nations. The missiles are very inaccurate, often break up in flight and have a range of less than 200 miles.
The Scud D, or No Dong, missile produced by North Korea is advanced compared with the Scud B. It has a range of about 840 miles and can carry a conventional, chemical or nuclear warhead. Iran and Pakistan use modified versions of the No Dong, and Pakistan's are fitted to carry nuclear warheads.
-------
Israel helping China build new fighter jet
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, December 9, 2002
http://216.26.163.62/2002/ea_china_12_09.html
A new report says Israel has helped China develop a new fighter jet built with Russian components and is weighing a Chinese request for an Israeli radar system.
A report by the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation said China has sought Israeli radar for its new J-10 Chengdu fighter-jet. The J-10 is said to make extensive use of foreign components, largely from Russia, Middle East Newsline reported.
Military discussion between Israel and China have not been in the news since the Jewish state cancelled the Phalcon airborne early-warning radar to Beijing last year. The cancellation came after heavy U.S. pressure. Health insurance for the self-employed: Special offer The report also cited "possible Israeli design assistance" for China's HQ-9/FT-2000 surface-to-air missile and the SONG conventional submarine.
The report said the Chengdu J-10 multirole fighter was built with Israeli help. Israel, Fisher said, provided assistance in developing the airframe and control system.
The engine for the J-10 "will be a Russian Saturn-Alyuka AL-31FN and its radar likely from Israel or Russia, or influenced by their technology," the report, authored by Richard Fisher, said. "The new SD-10 active guided air-launched anti-aircraft missile uses the radar and data link from Russia's very capable Vympel R-77, combined with a Chinese missile motor."
Fisher, a senior fellow with the Jamestown Foundation, is the managing editor of China Brief. The publication focuses on China's emerging strategic power.
Fisher, in a report entitled "Military Sales to China: Going to Pieces," said Beijing seeks to build indigenous weapons with imported foreign-made components. The report said Israel's Phalcon radar was to have been placed on a Russian Il-76 cargo plane.
"The PLA [Chinese military] was hoping to make the Phalcon, which used modern and effective phased-array technology, a centerpiece of its developing military information architecture, and a critical force-multiplier for the PLAAF [air force]," the report said. "The PLA timetable was set back several years. The embarrassment of powerlessness over the situation would have been avoided had the system been built in China, had China been able to develop it."
The report said China's military has still not mastered what it termed the current intermediate stage of coproduction. It cited a 1996 contract to coproduce 200 J-11 aircraft, a version of Russia's Su-27SK fighter-jet. The first two jets were so poorly assembled that Russian technicians had to rebuild them.
But the J-11, produced by China's Shenyang, has been improved and now has a better finish that Russian-made Su-27s. Shenyang will also modify its J-11s with a new Chinese radar that will make them multi-role fighter and attack capable.
The report said China plans to obtain a range of systems and technology from Britain. They include micro- and nano-satellites and airborne early-warning radar for the Y-8 aircraft.
----
China Suggests Missile Buildup Linked to Arms Sales to Taiwan
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 10, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32700-2002Dec9?language=printer
BEIJING, Dec. 9 -- President Jiang Zemin suggested during his meeting with President Bush in October that China could link its deployment of short-range missiles facing Taiwan to U.S. arms sales to the Taiwanese military, a senior Chinese official said.
The official recently described the offer as "sincere and well thought through." The proposal marked the first time China has offered to link the missiles with arms sales and, the official said, "created new space for cooperation" between Washington and Beijing.
The offer seemed to call the U.S. government's bluff on the arms sales issue; for years U.S. officials have used China's substantial and growing missile deployment in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces as the main reason for U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. As recently as March, a senior U.S. administration official said a decrease in China's missile deployments would be a precondition for any limit on U.S. arms sales to the island, which lies 100 miles from China's southeastern coast.
But Bush administration officials, responding to a reporter's inquiries in Washington, seemed to have little interest in the Chinese proposal, using words that suggested it was a non-starter as far as they were concerned.
"We will fulfill our commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act," an administration official said. "We have made our position clear, that any issue between Taiwan and China should be resolved without resorting to force or coercion and instead through political dialogue."
The official added that the Chinese idea was "never formally proposed," either during Bush's meeting with Jiang at the president's ranch in Crawford, Tex., or in other meetings. "I don't think anyone would consider it an offer," he said.
Officials suspect that China deploys about 400 missiles within range of Taiwan's cities, airports and other installations, a buildup that is increasing by about 50 missiles a year. The missiles represent the one area in which China has achieved military dominance in the Taiwan Strait. While growing stronger, the Chinese air force and navy are still no match for Taiwan's forces.
China claims Taiwan is part of its territory and has vowed to attack the island of 23 million people if it declares formal independence. Taiwan is a democracy, and successive governments have said that unification with China could be considered only if China undertakes significant political reforms.
U.S. officials have acknowledged that Jiang raised the missile issue with Bush in October, but they have not given details of what was discussed. The Chinese official said the subject was raised again in informal talks between Chinese leaders and a delegation led by former defense secretary William J. Perry last month in Beijing.
"I believe the Chinese leadership would not make an offer like this without having thought it through," the Chinese official said. "It was a very constructive idea. It creates a new space for discussion."
Previously China had said that any issue involving its missile deployments was an internal matter and could not be discussed. China demanded that the United States cut its arms sales to Taiwan unilaterally and offered no sweeteners.
Missile deployments and arms sales to Taiwan "are linked," said the official. "They are interactive."
U.S. relations with Taiwan were codified by the Taiwan Relations Act, which vaguely commits the United States to protect Taiwan's interests. Since it was passed in 1979, successive administrations have interpreted it to mean that the United States would sell Taiwan billions of dollars worth of military hardware.
However, the United States also agreed to limit arms sales to Taiwan in a joint communique signed in 1982, during the first Reagan administration, as long as China pursued unification with Taiwan peacefully. Successive administrations have pointed to China's missile deployments, and its general military buildup, as indications that China is not committed to peaceful unification.
The missile offer is part of a series of Chinese moves designed to "further stabilize" U.S.-China relations, the official said. China has toned down its criticism of Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, and has significantly modified its policy toward the island. It also has toned down criticism of the United States. Its biennial white paper on national security issued today lacked most of the anti-American vitriol that filled the paper in 2000.
China has also dropped its precondition that Taiwan must first accept the "one China" principle before direct shipping and airline links can be inaugurated.
The Chinese official expressed some frustration at U.S. policymakers who, he said, believe China's recent "good behavior" is a result of the Bush administration's tougher policy toward China and clearer support of Taiwan. Under Bush, the long-standing policy of "strategic ambiguity" about whether the United States would respond to an unprovoked attack on Taiwan has been replaced with a much clearer commitment to defend the island.
"China has been making serious efforts to improve its ties with the United States," he said. "Anti-terrorism is important to the United States, and China's support is important to the United States on this front. But you can't expect to request us to support you on counterterrorism and then overlook or even hurt our national security on this other issue."
Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
----
U.S. enlists Algeria in terror battle
Arms sale overcomes rights record qualms
Barry James/IHT
International Herald Tribune
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=79694
PARIS The United States will sell weapons to the Algerian government for the first time, a senior U.S. official said Monday, despite earlier reservations about its record on human rights and the fact that the move takes Washington into a traditional area of French foreign policy.
William Burns, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, was reported in Algiers as saying the government was drafting a proposal to Congress to step up military assistance to the government of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
"We are putting the finishing touches to an agreement to sell Algeria military equipment to fight terrorism," Burns said, according to Reuters.
The United States already is helping to train Algeria's military and security forces to fight Islamic militants, and had indicated that more assistance would soon become available.
Burns said that Washington "has much to learn from Algeria on ways to fight terrorism," and that increased military support was aimed "at intensifying security cooperation" with the North African country.
Burns, who is on a visit to Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, is the second senior U.S. official to visit Algiers in a month. Marc Grossman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, last month assured the Algerians that more security cooperation would be forthcoming.
Burns did not say what kind of weapons the United States was willing to supply, but the Algerian authorities have long complained that a shortage of attack helicopters and night-vision equipment was hampering the country's efforts to end a 10-year Islamic insurgency that is estimated to have cost more than 100,000 lives.
These are precisely the kind of weapons that France has refused to sell its former colony, said Guillaume Parmentier, director of the French center on the U.S. at the French Institute for Foreign Affairs, of IFRI. He said the fear was that putting such weapons in the hands of the Algerian security forces could incite terrorist reprisals in France.
Parmentier said that, in contrast to France, the United States had a more relaxed attitude to Algeria's Islamic fundamentalists in 1992 when the military-backed regime canceled a general election the Islamists were poised to win. In the past, the United States has criticized the ruthless government crackdown on radical Islam.
But like another former pariah state, Pakistan, Algeria now seems to have become an ally in the war against terrorism, analysts said.
"When you talk of terrorism," it is clear that the Americans are ready to do anything," Parmentier said.
The Algerian authorities have long complained that they have been misunderstood in their tough response to the terrorist threat, and have accused Western countries like Britain of worsening the situation by harboring Algerians accused of being terrorists or instigators of terrorism.
Now, an Algerian newspaper, Le Matin, said recently, the United States or European countries "no longer believe in negotiations or complacency toward the Islamists, who could threaten their security."
The official press in Algeria a couple of months ago reported the killing there by security forces of a senior Al Qaeda operative, Emad Abdelwahid Ahmed Alwan, from Yemen. There was speculation that he had been sent to make contact with the Islamist Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, one of two radical groups at war with the secular government, which is on Washington's list of terrorist organizations. Alwan, also known as Abou Mohamed, played an important role in regrouping North African veterans of the war in Afghanistan following the U.S.-backed defeat of Soviet forces.
It was unclear whether the United States had consulted France before announcing stepped up military aid to Algeria. But a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry said there was no reason for consultation since, "the United States is a sovereign country and so is Algeria."
Timothy Garden, an analyst on defense and security issues with the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said that if France had not been consulted, "it would not be helpful in terms of cooperation." He said that Europeans in general were not in favor of selling weapons that could be used in domestic conflicts, "while America is not bothered even about Israel's use of F-16 fighters in an internal policing role."
-------- asia
Malaysia criticizes Australia's strategy against terrorism
12/10/2002
The Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-12-10-malaysia-terror_x.htm
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysia criticized the United States and Japan on Tuesday for supporting Australia's stance that it has the right to launch pre-emptive strikes against terrorists outside its borders.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said last week he was prepared to launch pre-emptive strikes on terror targets overseas. American and Japanese officials voiced support in separate interviews Tuesday.
Malaysian Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz called the Australian position a threat to national sovereignty and said any strike on Malaysian soil would be considered an act of war.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who is visiting the Asia-Pacific region, told the Australian Financial Review that Australia's stance is "a wake-up call to some neighbors that they have to better police themselves."
Rafidah countered that Malaysia "did not need alarm bells or wake-up calls from anyone."
Japan's counterterrorism ambassador, Hiroshi Shigeta, was the first leading Asian official to support Howard, saying that he was "comfortable" after Howard's remarks were clarified by Australian diplomats, the Australian newspaper The Age reported.
But Rafidah said Japan should not be "too comfortable unnecessarily."
"I hope they don't have to face an Australian attack one day, if they know that in Japan there is terrorism," Rafidah said. "As you know, Japan has its own share of terrorist action."
Rafidah said that Southeast Asian countries agreed that Howard's statement was a threat to the sovereignty of other nations, but "maybe the Japanese translation was different. I don't know."
Shigeta said Howard's statement - which included a call to amend the U.N. Charter to allow pre-emptive strikes - was not a threat to countries in the region.
"I consider Australia is in favor of respecting international law," Shigeta was quoted as saying.
Rafidah said Malaysia had struck hard against suspected terrorists in recent months. The country has jailed 70 suspected militants since mid-2001, many of them members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a group linked to al-Qaeda and implicated in several plots and attacks in the region.
-------- business
MARKET PLACE
Northrop-TRW Deal Hits a Last-Minute Snag
December 10, 2002
By LESLIE WAYNE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/business/10PLAC.html
Just as shareholders are poised to vote on Northrop Grumman's $7 billion bid for TRW Inc., the deal has taken an unexpected twist.
Northrop and the Justice Department - prodded by the Lockheed Martin Corporation and the Pentagon - are in 11th-hour negotiations on a consent decree to assure the government that Northrop will not abuse its control over important, and often classified, satellite technology.
These negotiations are unsettling for a deal that was announced six months ago. While most analysts said they believed that the talks would not derail the merger, the analysts were surprised the two sides had not yet come to an agreement this late in the game. Northrop has already said this sticking point could push back the deal's closing by a week or so from the deadline, which is tomorrow.
"The government has been convinced by Lockheed to throw a clinker in front of this deal," said Paul H. Nisbet, a military analyst with JSA Research Inc. "The big deal is whether the government and Northrop can work out a consent decree, and I think they will."
At issue between Northrop and the government are sensors that go inside a variety of satellites used for military and commercial purposes. After the merger, a combined Northrop-TRW, which both make these sensors, will have monopoly control on their sales. Lockheed makes everything else needed to get satellites up into the sky - the launching vehicles, spacecraft, ground systems - but it will have to buy the sensors from Northrop.
Northrop is also in the satellite business, and, since it makes satellites as well as the sensors, it can become a one-stop shop for this growing business. Still, it is more than mere competition that has Lockheed and the Pentagon worried. The real fear is that Northrop could charge Lockheed high prices for the sensors, putting Lockheed at a cost disadvantage when the two companies compete head-to-head in satellites, potentially stifling competition.
"There's an important issue and we hope it will be resolved," said Glenn Flood, a Pentagon spokesman. "It's at Justice now. It was something that we found during our review of the deal, and we have heartburn with it."
The issue of sensors is real enough for Northrop to drag its feet in signing off on a consent decree proposed by the Justice Department. But, there are many who suspect that if Lockheed is not making mischief - and some think it is - this last minute snag, at least, reflects a new competitive dynamic between the corporate rivals.
Four years ago, Lockheed and Northrop's own plan to merge was unexpectedly scuttled by the government. After the thwarted merger, Lockheed was left strong and Northrop weak. Since then, Northrop has clawed its way back with one big acquisition after another, among them Litton Industries and Newport News Shipbuilding. Once the TRW deal goes through, Northrop will have grown from being one-third of the size of Lockheed after the proposed merger to a company of roughly the same size - each will have revenue of around $26 billion.
"These negotiations don't sound like anything that would kill the deal," said Byron K. Callan, an industry analyst with Merrill Lynch. "But it does raise the question about what could be so difficult that Northrop would not want to put this deal to bed and be done with this overhanging risk. As for Lockheed, I don't think it is doing anything but acting in its own best interest."
Lockheed says it is not opposing the merger, it just wants access to the sensors, also called payloads. "We don't oppose the merger providing we obtain assurances that Lockheed will continue to have access to all payloads," said Tom Jurkowsky, a Lockheed spokesman.
Randy Belote, a Northrop spokesman, said Lockheed should not worry. "We're working with the Justice Department," he said. "We are optimistic about the progress."
This back-and-forth is taking place amid a general decline in arms-industry stocks, including those of Lockheed and Northrop, despite additional spending for the war on terrorism.
In June, for instance, Northrop was trading as high as $132 a share; it has since fallen to around $95 a share. Lockheed has fallen to around $50 a share from around $70 a share in June. The only good news for Northrop is that the fall in stock prices has knocked $1 billion off the purchase price of TRW.
When military shares peaked earlier this year, many investors pulled their gains out. Also, many in the market are discounting that there will be a war with Iraq, especially since weapons inspectors have turned up no signs yet that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction. Even if a war does occur, most weapons and munitions to be used have already been purchased by the Pentagon, and military contractors make money only on new orders.
"War is not automatically a good thing for these stocks," said David Gremmels, an analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners. "We've seen a lot of sector rotation out of defense stocks, and the conventional wisdom now says war with Iraq seems a little less likely today than six months ago."
Still, the skirmishes between Lockheed and Northrop are gripping to many investors. The last-minute actions taking place in Washington show how much Northrop has gained and Lockheed has lost. Since the government scuttled Lockheed's takeover of Northrop, Lockheed has lost several important contracts, among them orders to build the next-generation spy satellite, destroyer, weather satellite and space telescope as well as for electronic upgrades on the C-130 transport, which it makes.
Now, Northrop holds the lock on the satellite sensors that Lockheed needs.
"This shows how fortunes have reversed in this industry," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a public policy organization in Arlington, Va. "Northrop has gained ground and Lockheed has lost."
----
Tech Contractors Cite Rising Demand
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32622-2002Dec9?language=printer
For more than a year, the region's technology contractors have been waiting in vain for the big boost in technology spending that was supposed to come from the government's new focus on homeland security. Could the early stages of the boom be arriving?
Yesterday, California-based Computer Sciences Corp., with 8,000 local employees, announced that it would be hiring 400 employees, mostly in the D.C. area, to satisfy an increase in demand for information technology security. "Since mid-summer, there has been a noticeable upturn in demand for information security-related services among our clients in the U.S. government and commercial sectors," said Joe Stafford, vice president of CSC's Global Information Security Services.
Meanwhile, Northrop Grumman Corp.'s information technology division plans to hire 400 to 500 employees in the next month and 4,000 next year. Fairfax-based STG Inc., which provides technology and engineering services, said it will add 700 jobs over the next three years.
In September a subsidiary of computer reseller Micro Warehouse Inc. opened offices in Ashburn, adding 40 employees to help it focus on government clients. The company will be adding 100 workers to that office over the next six months, officials said.
"Any kind of hiring is good news right now," said Stephen S. Fuller, a public policy professor and regional economist with George Mason University. "This is just indicative of the strength of the local economy."
The increase in government spending expected after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been slow to materialize despite President Bush's budget proposal, which called for spending on IT security to reach $4.2 billion in fiscal 2003, compared with $2.7 billion this year. Overall, information technology spending would reach $52.4 billion, up from $47.8 billion, under the budget proposal.
The delay in approving the next year's budget and the Office of Management and Budget's cautious approach to spending has translated into a disappointing year for many contractors, industry officials said.
"People were looking for the windfall after 9/11 for this kind of activity, and it hasn't showed up to the degree that has been expected," Fuller said. But now some are beginning to report an increase in business, exemplified by CSC's hiring announcement. "It was slower to emerge but will last longer than had been anticipated," he added.
Lagging spending from the private sector makes the anticipated public spending even more welcome. CSC's revenue in the commercial sector declined 8 percent during its second quarter, which ended in September, down to $959 million from more than $1 billion during the year-earlier period. In August, the firm asked 66,000 employees to volunteer to take extended leaves of absence -- for at least six months -- at 20 percent of their pay. Only a "relatively small portion of them did," according to a company spokesman.
In addition, the firm reduced its workforce by 1,000 employees during the past year through attrition and layoffs, the spokesman said.
But government work can be troubling, too. Earlier this year, CSC quibbled with San Diego County over its progress on a seven-year, $644 million contract to provide all of the county's computer and telephone services. The country declared CSC in default after it didn't reach several contractual milestones and withheld a payment until a settlement was reached. "Since then things have been on track," a county spokesman said.
Still, government contracting reflects the company's fastest growth sector. Revenue from government agencies increased 17 percent during the second quarter, to $772 million.
And that doesn't include more than $200 million in contracts the company's Enforcement, Security and Intelligence unit won during the past three months, much of it with the intelligence community. Many of the new hires will work on those contracts and will need security clearances, a company spokesman said.
----
Government Allows Northrop, TRW to Merge
By Mark Weinraub
Reuters
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34347-2002Dec10?language=printer
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. on Tuesday said it had reached a deal with U.S. antitrust authorities that will allow its $6.7 billion purchase of TRW Inc. to go ahead after shareholder approval.
Northrop said in a statement that the agreement with the Justice Department does not require it to sell any assets.
The company did not provide other details about the consent decree, but said it ensures that the merger will not harm competition in the electronic satellite payload industry. Sources close to the negotiations have said the decree would spell out remedies in the event Northrop violates the order.
A Justice Department spokeswoman said she had seen Northrop's statement, but had no immediate comment and could not confirm that the consent decree had been finalized.
Shares of Northrop were up $1.84, or 1.9 percent, to $97.19 while TRW's shares were up $1.09, or 2.1 percent, to $51.99 in Tuesday morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Northrop's shares have fallen about 23 percent since it signed the deal with TRW in July, slicing about $1 billion off the original value of the acquisition. TRW's stock has fallen nearly 11 percent during the same period.
APPROVAL PROCESS DRAGGED ON FOR MONTHS
The approval process has dragged on for months as regulators examined whether the merged entity would control the specialized radar systems and electronics used in military satellites.
If the deal closes, rival Lockheed Martin Corp. would have no choice but to buy the specialized satellite radars from the combined company.
Northrop, the world's largest shipbuilder and the maker of the unmanned Global Hawk spy plane, wants TRW for its military space business. That business, seen as a hot property as the United States looks to shore up homeland defense, led to a bidding war for TRW when it announced it was open for sale.
With the shareholder votes set for Wednesday, Northrop took the unusual step of announcing an agreement on the consent decree before antitrust regulators made their own announcement.
Asked why the company rushed out its announcement, Northrop spokesman Randy Belote said, "Because we struck an agreement on the essential terms and obviously we wanted to announce this before the shareholders' meetings."
The European Union antitrust authority in October approved the deal, which would create a company that would vie closely with Boeing Co. for the position as No. 2 U.S. defense contractor behind Lockheed.
TRW has already signed deals to sell parts of itself that Northrop does not want, such as its auto parts unit and its aeronautical systems business.
(Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa in Washington)
-------- canada
U.S., Canada Reach Agreement to Let Troops Cross Border
Continental Terrorism Concerns Cited
By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 10, 2002; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32621-2002Dec9.html
TORONTO, Dec. 9 -- U.S. troops could be deployed to Canada and Canadian troops could cross the border into the United States if the continent is attacked by terrorists, according to an agreement announced today by U.S. and Canadian officials.
"The aim . . . is simple: to save lives," Canadian Defense Minister John McCallum said in announcing the creation of the so-called Planning Group, a joint task force in which Canada and the United States will work on contingency plans to defend North America.
As an example of a case in which U.S. troops might enter Canada, McCallum cited a hypothetical biological attack in Vancouver. U.S. forces in Seattle might be able to respond faster than Canadian forces in Ontario, he said.
Under the agreement, any U.S. troops in Canada would be under Canadian command, while Canadians crossing the border would be under U.S. command.
The State Department said both countries are convinced that cross-border military cooperation is vital to enhancing the security of the continent. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the department said in a statement, "the overall threat to the North American continent from the air, land and sea has greatly increased, including the potential for the use of weapons of mass destruction delivered by unconventional means, by terrorists or others."
The Planning Group will initially coordinate maritime surveillance and the sharing of intelligence about potential maritime threats. The group will be based at the Colorado Springs headquarters of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which is run jointly by Canada and the United States to detect missiles and warn of attacks from the air against North America.
The agreement has prompted debate here about a potential erosion of Canada's sovereignty. U.S. dominance has long been an issue in this country, which sits next-door to the world's only superpower. But McCallum said there should be little concern. "We are in control," McCallum said, "by putting Canada in a position to work with the United States to defend North America."
Peter Stoffer, who speaks for the opposition New Democratic Party on defense issues, disagreed, saying that the Americans "could walk right over us. Our military is so short of funds and so short of planning."
Canada has long been under pressure from Washington to increase military spending. The country ranks toward the bottom among the 19 NATO countries in terms of military spending as a percentage of gross domestic product, allocating about 1.2 percent in 2000, according to NATO. Last year, a report by a group of retired Canadian military leaders concluded that Canada's military had been so weakened by spending cuts that it could not defend the country in a war.
-------- china
Taiwan Question Eludes U.S. - China Talks
December 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-China.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The first high-level military discussions in years between the United States and China helped the two sides understand each other but produced no agreement on the hot-button issue of Taiwan, U.S. officials said.
Chinese military officials did say they would try to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program, however, Pentagon officials said.
Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3 official who headed the U.S. delegation at Monday's meeting in Washington, said the talks were useful and professional. Gen. Xiong Guangkai, deputy chief of the general staff of China's People's Liberation Army, led the delegation from Beijing.
``They were real discussions. They were not just stilted set pieces,'' said Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy. ``We came away with some additional understanding of the personalities on the other side and the ideas on the other side.''
On Taiwan, the talks were not so harmonious. Feith said Pentagon officials objected to China's buildup of missiles across the Taiwan strait, while China responded with objections to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and China regards Taiwan as a renegade province. The United States does not have diplomatic ties with Taipei but is committed to defending the island from Chinese attack.
In a biennial military report given to U.S. officials Monday, China said it ``will not foreswear the use of force'' to reunite Taiwan with the mainland.
``China's armed forces will unswervingly defend the country's sovereignty and unity, and have the resolve as well as the capability to check any separatist act,'' said the report, titled ``China's National Defense in 2002.''
While lunching on salmon, Chinese officials also presented a detailed proposal for military-to-military contacts with the United States, Feith said. He said it was too soon to offer a U.S. reactions to the proposals.
The Pentagon wants the exchanges to be more than just port calls and photo opportunities, Feith said.
``If the exchanges are structured properly, they will serve our interests, our common interests, providing insights, to reduce the possibility of mistakes, of misunderstanding,'' Feith said.
The talks are the latest sign of warming in military relations between the two countries. A low point was April 2001, when a Chinese fighter jet collided with a U.S. Navy surveillance plane over the South China Sea.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was angered by China's accusation that the Navy's EP-3 surveillance violated Chinese sovereignty by landing at a Chinese airfield after the aerial collision. He also was unhappy that China detained the crew for 11 days and refused to let the United States repair and fly the plane off the airfield. The Chinese fighter jet crashed in the sea, killing the pilot.
But relations have improved since then, with U.S. Navy ships resuming port calls in China last month and increasing contacts among higher level officials.
The Chinese said they would try to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program, Feith said. The Chinese also insisted they no longer sell missile technology or equipment to North Korea, Feith said.
``I don't know whether they're going to take concrete steps,'' Feith said, adding, ``There is a common interest that exists between China and the United States ... to stop the North Korean nuclear program.''
The United States has been consulting with China and other countries in the region since Pyongyang's surprise admission in October that it has a secret uranium enrichment program to make nuclear weapons. Shipments of fuel oil to North Korea have ended. Under a 1994 agreement, North Korea had promised to end its nuclear weapons programs in exchange for two civilian nuclear power plants and the fuel oil aid.
On the Net:
CIA factbook on China:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html
----
U.S. and China Resume High-Level Military Talks
December 10, 2002
New York Times
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/international/asia/10CHIN.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 - The Pentagon opened high-level talks with the Chinese military today for the first time since President Bush took office, the latest sign of improved American-Chinese relations.
At the Pentagon today, Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, and Gen. Xiong Guangkai, the deputy chief of the Chinese general staff, discussed a range of major issues that have been the source of past tensions, including Taiwan, North Korea, Iraq and military exchange programs.
In a news conference afterward, Mr. Feith said that although there were no major breakthroughs, the renewal of the annual sessions - known as the Defense Consultative Talks - was an important step to reducing the threat of conflict between the militaries.
"The talks were useful," Mr. Feith said. "They were real discussions. They were not just stilted set pieces. And that's good."
The talks began during the Clinton administration but were suspended after the collision of a Chinese fighter jet and an American surveillance plane off Hainan island in April 2001, leading to a tense standoff.
But Bush administration officials say relations have warmed markedly since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and the White House urged the Pentagon to renew the talks.
Mr. Feith said the United States delegation had urged the Chinese to increase their efforts to stop the export of Chinese technology that could be used to produce nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in countries like North Korea, Syria and Iraq. He said the Chinese had made no promises, but had asserted that they were no longer providing missile technology to North Korea.
"They have said that they want a nuclear-free Korean peninsula," Mr. Feith said. "We agree on that. And it is clear that they have more lines of contact into North Korea than we do."
As expected, there was far less agreement on Taiwan. Mr. Feith said the Chinese had refused to renounce the use of force against Taiwan, and had made no offers to reduce the number of ballistic missiles they have pointed across the Taiwan Strait.
He also said the two delegations had discussed the next step for inspections in Iraq, though he offered no details.
General Xiong, a hard-liner who once warned that China could strike Los Angeles with nuclear weapons if the United States intervened in a conflict over Taiwan, has also asked to meet with the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. But White House officials could not confirm that a meeting had been scheduled.
-------- colombia
In Colombia, a mission for peace
By Steve Salisbury
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 10, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20021210-85797464.htm
VILLA DE LA PAZ, Colombia - With prospects for peace in Colombia as remote as at any time during the nation's 38-year-old civil war, hope is being kept alive by a most unusual mediator - an American missionary who has known the Marxist rebels since they kidnapped him almost two decades ago.
Russell Martin Stendal, 47, a Protestant missionary from Minneapolis, had been working in Colombia as a rancher and operating a two-Cessna flying service for about eight years when he was taken captive by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in August 1983.
He was released five months later, making him more fortunate than some of the 120 Americans who have been kidnapped in Colombia, mostly by guerrillas. In 1999, FARC rebels kidnapped and killed three American activists who were building a school for an Indian tribe. The FARC later called the slayings a "misunderstanding."
Instead of fleeing Colombia, Mr. Stendal, his Colombian wife, Marina, and their four children continue to live in the country. They spend much of their time at a countryside home on the edge of the grounds of the defunct Lomalinda Translation Center, near Puerto Lleras in Meta province.
Despite a State Department warning that the FARC extorts from, kidnaps and kills U.S. citizens in Colombia, Mr. Stendal and his younger brother, "Chaddy," have acted as an informal "back channel" and sometimes as mediators in Meta among the FARC, the vigilante United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), local communities and the Colombian army. The brothers do this as part of their efforts to evangelize all the warring parties.
"Divine providence put us in the situations where we have had trajectories for many years with both sides that has led to the trust that there is now," Mr. Stendal said.
In 1964, the year the FARC was founded, the Stendal family moved from Minnesota to Colombia. Russell Stendal was 8. His father, Chad Stendal Sr., a civil engineer, was among the founders of the Lomalinda Translation Center of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) in Meta.
SIL was set up by Wycliffe Bible Translators to translate the New Testament into Colombia's Indian languages. According to Russell Stendal, the Lomalinda center grew to have nearly 100 households and 300 volunteers - mostly Americans.
But in the mid-1970s, SIL became the target of unsubstantiated rumors that it was a U.S. government entity, and in 1981, one of its members, Chester Bitterman, was kidnapped and killed by guerrillas of the now-disarmed and legalized April 19 Movement. Another American missionary was kidnapped by the FARC in the mid-1990s, and SIL's Lomalinda center closed about a year later, Russell Stendal said.
"It is astonishing we are all still alive," his father said. "Of the 23 closest personal friends of Chaddy, 20 were killed and three fled the country." Russell Stendal and his brother bought five small houses at Lomalinda, and there Russell Stendal started his first radio station in Colombia, Marfil Stereo at 88.8 FM. That was nearly four years ago.
Eighty percent of the station's broadcast content is secular, and 20 percent religious, Russell Stendal said. He later added Radio Alcaravan, 1530 AM , and a short-wave station, the Voice of Your Conscience at 6010 on the 49-meter band, which can be heard in the evening in North America and Europe. These two stations are primarily religious.
"Our programming isn't typical Christian programming. It is not trying to get people into our church and not into somebody else's church," Russell Stendal said.
"We are trying to bring people into a personal relationship with God, no matter to what group they belong," said his mother, Patricia Stendal.
"We produce programs that have solid values, and that deal with attitude and a change of heart, of being tolerant of other people's views and ideas," Russell Stendal said.
Mr. Stendal's broadcasting career grew out of his writing his first book, "Rescue the Captors," which he began while a captive of the FARC. The Stendal family said it paid $55,000 for Russell Stendal's freedom, down from the $500,000 ransom demand. The Stendals say they also "donated" a year later more than 80 percent of Chad Stendal Sr.'s 74,000-acre cattle ranch in Meta to landless Indians and peasants - an action that gained the family good will from the guerrillas.
Russell Stendal's story reached President Reagan, and he was invited to the White House. Mr. Reagan's director for domestic drug abuse policy met with him and opened doors for Mr. Stendal to make an anti-drug documentary and a two-year speaking tour of American high schools and colleges.
In the 1980s and early '90s, the late Rev. Rafael Garcia Herreros, a Colombian priest and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, enlisted Russell Stendal in joint Protestant-Catholic outreach efforts toward outlawed groups. Mr. Stendal tells of driving Father Garcia to secret meetings with the late Medellin cocaine cartel leader Pablo Escobar, where the priest persuaded Escobar to surrender.
Except for rustling Stendal cattle in the past two decades, the FARC and the AUC have not bothered the family, Russell Stendal said.
That's "because they see we are not political," said Chad Stendal Sr., who lives with his wife in Bogota. "And they also see that we physically help a lot of people, no matter who they are. We have helped a lot of wounded while they were dying."
Last month, Villa de la Paz, a community of about 600 people nearly 50 miles south of Lomalinda in an area dominated by the FARC, held a "Forum for Peace." Villager Hilberto Saenz says the Stendal brothers agreed to help organize it.
Residents complained of a deteriorating situation. Some accused the AUC and soldiers of collaborating in a campaign of killings against FARC sympathizers in nearby towns, and they feared it would reach Villa de la Paz.
"We cannot deny that there are guerrillas here," said the village treasurer, a 58-year-old man who asked not to be named. "But we are not guerrillas. So, we would like the government to allow the food, medicine and things necessary to live to enter town."
Some observers question the need for such a lightly inhabited area, where coca is heavily cultivated, to receive frequent, large deliveries of gasoline, which can be used to extract unrefined cocaine. One villager said the gasoline tankers also smuggle out the coca alkaloid in liquid form.
Villa de la Paz was founded in 1986 by peasants and coca growers, under the watch of the FARC - Colombia's largest guerrilla group, with an estimated 14,000 to 17,000 troops - and this has put its residents in the FARC-AUC-and-army cross fire.
In May, say villagers, laundress Luz Dari Caiceido was killed by government helicopter gunfire on the edge of Puerto Toledo, 18 miles south of Villa de la Paz.
Three guerrillas were said to be on the outskirts, but "bullets were hitting the town," said Edilma Marin, who was working at Puerto Toledo's communal pharmacy that day and says she saw Miss Caiceido's bullet-riddled body. Mrs. Marin said the victim was a destitute single mother who left five young children and a tar-paper shack.
Perhaps 5,000 people came to Villa de la Paz during the Nov. 23 peace forum, including truckloads of unarmed FARC guerrillas in civilian clothes. It was a hot, sunny day just north of the equator. About 400 people packed a tin-roofed village hall, and hundreds more filled the nearby streets. The smell of veal roasting on spits filled the air.
The hall's pink concrete walls were adorned with anti-government and anti-Plan Colombia banners. Speaker after speaker denounced abuses by the army and the vigilantes, but not by the guerrillas.
After one old man criticized the United States as the greatest human rights violator in history, a village leader close to the FARC took the microphone to reply. "The United States has two classes," he said, "the exploiters and the exploited. We have Americans with us here, and we honor them."
Russell Stendal, who was introduced as one of "the exploited," then took the mike.
"Someone told me, 'If our enemies are fearsome, then we are going to be more evil,'" he said. "Instead of being a contest of who can be the worst, why not see who can do the most good?"
His listeners applauded when Russell Stendal mentioned his belief that the FARC's 43rd Front, which controls the area, didn't have a policy of kidnapping during the past five years - unlike the FARC in general.
After the forum, people crowded around the American's red Chevy Suburban, where assistants passed out some of the 7,000 religious books and Bibles given away that day. Marxism is atheist, but many of the FARC's rank and file were raised as Catholics or Protestants.
Nacho, 27, an officer of the FARC's 43rd Front, received Russell Stendal and others just outside Villa de la Paz two hours after the peace forum. He sat with the visitors in plastic chairs under a thatched roof near a small wooden house. Trucks occasionally roared by, raising dust from an adjacent dirt road.
Accompanied by about 10 armed guerrillas in camouflage fatigues, Nacho said the idea of a regional peace forum was something to be considered. Three years of virtually fruitless national peace talks between the FARC and the previous Colombian president, Andres Pastrana, collapsed 10 months ago.
But Nacho, who said he is a 10-year FARC veteran, dismissed Russell Stendal's idea that each warring group give up 150 rifles to be melted into a peace monument. "We need the rifles," he replied, laughing.
His coppery face frowned in evident disagreement when Hamilton Castro, president of the private Pro-Colombia Foundation, said: "Sincerely, if the FARC commits terrorist acts, then it is terrorist. If the state commits terrorist acts, then it is terrorist."
Nacho responded that it is a time of war, and that the FARC has a right to act against its enemies, through means such as bombings and executions. "We are not terrorists," he said. "We are fighting for the people."
He said it would be hard to renew peace negotiations as long as the FARC was designated as "terrorist" and U.S. extradition orders were pending against its leaders.
Getting into the driver's seat of a green sport utility vehicle, Nacho smiled and shook hands, saying he enjoyed the visit. Mr. Stendal handed him a camouflage-covered Bible.
The next day, Russell Stendal's team left Villa de la Paz. At an army checkpoint en route to Puerto Lleras, a soldier snatched a small peace pennant affixed to Mr. Stendal's side mirror. When Mr. Stendal complained, a sergeant ordered the soldier to give it back.
Later, among the riverside ruins of Puerto Lleras, a soldier named Alex searched Mr. Stendal in a routine security check and recognized his ID card.
Alex pulled out a well-worn copy of Mr. Stendal's book - "The Beatitudes, God's Plan for Battle" - and asked him to autograph it.
-------- iraq
U.S., British Jets Attack Iraq Air Defenses
December 10, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-usa-strike.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and British warplanes on Tuesday attacked an anti-aircraft missile system in a ``no-fly'' zone in southern Iraq in the first such raid in a week against Iraqi air defenses, the U.S. military said.
Responding to ``Iraqi threats against coalition aircraft,'' warplanes bombed a mobile surface-to-air missile system south of Al Amarah, approximately 165 miles southeast of Baghdad, the U.S. Central Command said from the Macdill Air Force base in Florida.
The military was evaluating the damage from the attack that occurred at approximately 2 p.m. in the zone, the statement said. giving no details.
After three raids in four days at the start of the month, Tuesday's strike was the first since Dec. 4 when the United States bombed elements of an air defense system in a no-fly zone in the north of the Gulf nation. U.s. military officials said the attack was made after Iraqi forces fired anti-aircraft guns at jets policing the zone.
The tit-for-tat exchanges have gone on since the 1991 Gulf War but have increased sharply in recent months as the United States has organized a military buildup within striking distance of Iraq ahead of a possible invasion of Iraq.
The latest air strike was the first since Iraq met a U.N. deadline last weekend to present the world body with a formal declaration of its weapons programs in accordance with a new U.N. resolution.
The attack also came as U.N. arms inspectors continued a new round of inspections of Iraqi sites under the resolution ordering Baghdad to prove it has given up any chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs.
The United States has said it could launch a military invasion of Iraq if President Saddam Hussein does not comply with the order to disarm.
Some U.S. officials have suggested Iraqi aggression against U.S. jets patrolling the zones could be a breach of the new U.N. resolution.
Iraq does not recognize the no-fly zones, set up after the Gulf War to protect a Kurdish enclave in the north and Shi'ite Muslims in the south from possible attack by Iraqi forces.
Baghdad has charged the jets often strike civilian sites and kill innocent people, but U.S. officials say the jets never intentionally target civilians.
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli Chief of Staff Justifies Killing of Civilians
December 10, 2002
Palestine Media Center
Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/
"An Israeli army statement released after the meeting claimed that most of the harm caused to innocent people was a result of .." enlarge image
TEL AVIV - Israeli Chief of Staff, Moshe Yaalon on Sunday claimed that the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) recent harming of Palestinian civilians was a consequence of dealing with a civilian population while fighting terror.
Addressing an IOF operational meeting, the general said most of these deaths were brought about by the complexity of operating in populated areas, Israel Radio reported.
An Israeli army statement released after the meeting claimed that most of the harm caused to innocent people was a result of the complexity of the situation in the territories and only a small number of incidents had been caused by a failure to follow standard procedure.
However, the Palestinian health ministry has revealed that during the past two years, IOF have killed 500 Palestinian children during their military offensives in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Moreover, and only hours after the meeting, however, a Palestinian woman was killed by Israeli occupation armys tank fire in the southern Gaza Strip while her three children were also wounded.
The mother and her children came under machinegun fire from tanks positioned near the neighboring illegal Israeli settlement of Rafiah Yam.
The victim, Nahla Akel, 41, was hit in the neck and soon after reaching the hospital she died.
Her two sons aged four and twelve, and a 15-year-old daughter were being treated for shrapnel wounds. Their lives were not in danger, hospital sources added.
----
Israel Vaccinates Soldiers and Health Workers
December 10, 2002
New York Times
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/international/middleeast/10ISRA.html
TEL AVIV, Dec. 7 - Israel has successfully vaccinated more than 15,000 soldiers and public health workers against smallpox on a voluntary basis since July with virtually no severe side effects, senior Israeli officials say.
In interviews, Israeli military and public health officials said the immunizations had been carried out under a crash program to protect the country from a possible Iraqi attack with smallpox or other lethal germs. As a result, thousands of the country's public health professionals are now prepared to immunize the entire country against the deadly virus within four days should a single smallpox case be diagnosed anywhere in the world.
The Israeli experience has encouraged vaccination advocates in the Bush administration, which has been debating a similar program for months, American officials said.
The Bush administration is expected to announce this week a decision to begin vaccinating up to 500,000 troops and an equal number of public health workers, law enforcement officials and others who respond to emergencies against the highly contagious virus. Before the World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated in 1980, it killed about a third of those infected.
"The United States has much to learn from Israel's experience," Leonard J. Marcus, the director of the health care negotiation and conflict resolution program at the Harvard School of Public Health, concluded in a recent report on Israel's medical response to bioterrorist threats.
Israel has traditionally been extremely secretive about its defenses against biological weapons. But officials said in recent interviews that they had decided to discuss their program in some detail so that Israel's actions would not be misinterpreted and to allay public fears at home and abroad about the safety of the vaccine.
"After Sept. 11, there was a profound change in our psychology," said Boaz Lev, the director general of Israel's Ministry of Health. "Although there was no new information on which to base our vaccination decision, the potential terrorist threat increased dramatically, especially in the minds of doctors."
Dr. Lev said that while Israel's decision to begin revaccinating its population was initially spurred by reports that the United States was contemplating such a step, Israel had now "jumped far ahead" of the American biodefense effort.
He declined to say how many soldiers had been vaccinated, but he said that for soldiers and civilians alike the program was now voluntary.
Israel uses the Lister vaccine strain, different from the strain used by the United States. Dr. Lev said that Lister was less virulent than the American strain and has fewer side effects. He said Israeli doctors and health professionals had screened out those with health conditions that precluded safe inoculation, like pregnant women and people with ailments that suppress the immune system.
Though as many as 30 to 50 percent of potential volunteers initially resisted being vaccinated, experts said, volunteer rates rose sharply after public health officials began discussing the program's risks and benefits, and after medical professionals began being vaccinated.
Dr. Marcus concluded in an October report that after being inoculated, 5 percent of those vaccinated reported side effects like fevers, headaches, muscle pain, fatigue and weakness. Medical literature suggests that one in a million people is likely to die from the smallpox vaccine, and one in roughly 250,000 is likely to suffer serious side effects.
There were only two problematic cases in Israel so far - one a woman with an immune disorder. She was not vaccinated but was infected by her husband, who was. She responded quickly to treatment and recovered fully, Dr. Lev said.
Israel ended its vaccination program later than most countries. Until 1980, Dr. Lev said, smallpox vaccination was mandatory. Inoculations of soldiers continued until 1996.
Israel ended vaccinations partly to dispel the perception that it had turned the virus into a weapon, as had the former Soviet Union.
Some Israeli doctors and public health experts contend that Israel's $2 million vaccination program should be even more ambitious and comprehensive. Aryeh Eldad, the leader of a team that advised the Health Ministry on epidemiological control in its vaccination program, resigned this summer to protest the ministry's rejection of his recommendation that all Israelis be immediately inoculated.
Dr. Lev hinted that a broader program might be in the offing. He added that even if the threat posed by Iraq receded, terrorist groups and other states could continue to threaten Israel.
-------- landmines
U.S. set to use mines in Iraq
By Tom Squitieri,
USA TODAY
12/10/2002
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-12-10-landmines-usat_x.htm
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is preparing to use anti-personnel land mines in a war with Iraq, despite U.S. policy that calls for the military to stop using the mines everywhere in the world except Korea by 2003.
To prepare for a possible war with Baghdad, the Pentagon has stockpiled land mines at U.S. bases in countries ringing Iraq, according to Pentagon records. The decision to make the mines available comes despite a recent report by the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, concluding that their use in the 1991 Gulf War impeded U.S. forces while doing nothing to impair Iraqi forces.
Using the mines would stoke the international debate over the merits and morality of using land mines, which can remain deadly long after fighting ends.
From 15,000 to 20,000 people are killed or maimed worldwide each year by land mines, according to the United Nations. Of those, 80% are civilians and one-third are children.
Military experts say land mines can save soldiers' lives. They play a "vital and essential role" in battle by restricting where the enemy can move and protecting U.S. troops, said a Pentagon spokesman.
Officially, the Pentagon will say only that it "retains the right to use" land mines wherever it chooses, and that commanders can get approval to use them under rules designed to minimize risk to non-combatants.
But critics say the risks to soldiers and civilians aren't worth it.
"It would be a terrible mistake for us to use land mines in Iraq," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a prominent critic of land mines. "They are outmoded, indiscriminate weapons that have been banned by every other NATO member except Turkey, and they should be banned by the United States. We have other far more effective and precise weapons to do the job."
In advance of a possible war, Pentagon records show, the U.S. military has stored land mines in Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and on Diego Garcia, a British-owned island in the Indian Ocean where U.S. forces have a base.
In 1997, international negotiations produced a treaty to ban the use of land mines; 146 countries are parties to it. The United States has not signed the treaty, but in 1998 President Clinton directed U.S. armed forces to phase out use of land mines by 2003, except in Korea.
The Bush administration has been reviewing that policy. The Defense and the State departments have clashed over it, but for now the Clinton directive remains in effect.
-------- space
European Satellite Plunges Into Pacific
December 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Russia-Satellite.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- The world's largest communications satellite was sent plunging into the Pacific Ocean Tuesday two weeks after a Russian booster rocket failed to put it into the correct orbit, Russia's space forces said.
European mission control used the Astra-1K's engines to push it back into the earth's atmosphere and plunge it into the southern Pacific Ocean, said space forces spokesman Vyacheslav Davidyenko.
The French-made Astra-1K was rendered useless following its Nov. 26 launch on a Russian Proton rocket, when a Russian-made booster unit failed to push the satellite into its intended orbit.
Its owners later established partial control over the satellite but said it would never be able to fulfill its main mission of handling signals for radio, television, mobile telephones and the Internet.
The failure marked another setback for Russia's satellite-launching program, which Moscow sees as a potential cash cow for its depressed space industry. It followed the Oct. 15 explosion of a Russian Soyuz-U rocket, also carrying a satellite, half a minute after liftoff.
The Astra-1K, manufactured by France's Alcatel Space corporation for Societe Europeenne des Satellites of Luxembourg, weighed nearly six tons and was the largest communications satellite ever built.
-------- us
At Qatar Base, a Test Run for War
U.S. Commanders Conduct A Computer Simulation At New Gulf Headquarters
By Daniel Williams and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 10, 2002; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32506-2002Dec9?language=printer
DOHA, Qatar, Dec. 9 -- The top U.S. commander in the Middle East launched a computerized dry run today for an attack on Iraq, overseeing the start of military exercises on a virtual Persian Gulf battlefield from a secretive base in Qatar.
Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who heads the Tampa-based U.S. Central Command, presided over the rehearsal, called Exercise Internal Look, from his war room at al-Sayliyah military base near Qatar's capital, Doha. The base has served in the past as a storage depot for pre-positioned U.S. heavy armor but has been converted into an operational headquarters for use in a possible conflict with Iraq.
After Internal Look concludes, in about a week, the command center's modular buildings, computers, communications equipment and sleeping quarters will remain in place in case President Bush decides to launch an offensive against the government of President Saddam Hussein. Getting the equipment into place, and Franks's role in trying it out, were seen as more links in a growing chain of U.S. preparations up and down the Persian Gulf designed to ensure that, if Bush makes a decision for war, the military is ready to carry out the order.
Franks led about 50 intelligence and operations assistants into the war room, which would be the nerve center in the event of a conflict with Iraq, Central Command officials said. More than 600 Central Command personnel have arrived here in the past month from MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, and hundreds of other troops and their commanders throughout the region will be involved in the exercise.
Internal Look is a "fine-tuning" of command, control and communications equipment at the mobile headquarters, a senior Central Command official said. Al-Sayliyah is already fully operational. Over the weekend, for instance, operators at the base monitored the collision of an Iranian oil tanker with a U.S. ship in the gulf.
Franks also gets his intelligence and operations reports from Afghanistan -- U.S. troops there are also under his command -- through the new headquarters center. In effect, Central Command officials said, Franks can do anything here that he can at home.
While the Bush administration says no decision has been made to invade Iraq, its goal of "regime change," as Hussein's potential overthrow has been characterized, remains in force.
Senior Pentagon officials said they believe they have amassed enough air power and ground combat forces in the Persian Gulf area to win a war against Iraq now if they got the order to fight. "If the president gave it today, we could start it today," a senior defense official said over the weekend. However, he added, "It would be a different start than if he gave the order tomorrow."
The United States does not have nearly enough ground forces assembled in the region to go all the way to Baghdad. But it does have enough forces to open a bombing campaign and defend Kuwait and autonomous zones of northern Iraq. The United States could strike more targets with precision weapons in the first 24 hours of an air war than it was able to hit with five or six times as many planes at the beginning of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Eleven years ago, the U.S. military had 100 strike aircraft equipped with precision-guided bombs. The rest, including almost all Navy fighter jets flying from carriers in the gulf, dropped unguided bombs, which on average get no closer than within 100 yards of their intended targets. Today, however, the United States has several hundred ground-based tactical aircraft in Kuwait, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, all of which are equipped to drop laser- and satellite-guided bombs.
Many of these planes have been patrolling and hitting targets in Iraq for years, while enforcing the "no-fly" zones in the north and south.
Because new satellite-guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions can be programmed with target coordinates and dropped from high altitudes, numerous B-52 and B-1 bombers based on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia can now attack dozens of targets in Iraq on a single sortie.
In addition, the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman left Virginia last week for Middle East waters at the head of a naval battle group. The Truman carries about 70 strike jets. The group will supplement three other battle groups, each with carriers holding 70 aircraft.
All Navy fighters can now drop precision-guided munitions. A single F-18 Hornet can hit four targets during a single mission. The Navy has also improved guidance systems on Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from ships or submarines. Using Global Positioning Systems, targeters can program coordinates into missiles within an hour or two. In the past, it took 12 hours.
But ready combat ground forces are still lacking. The Army has 12,000 troops in Kuwait, but many are in support or headquarters roles. Only one armored combat brigade is on duty, consisting of about 3,500 troops.
Equipment for a second brigade is positioned in Kuwait; more is stored elsewhere in the region. Twenty-four antitank AH-64 Apache helicopters are based in Kuwait. At least one 2,000-member Marine expeditionary unit is at sea nearby, and there is enough equipment afloat in the region for a 17,000-member Marine expeditionary force.
Special Operations forces are also in the region. If war began, they would likely deploy in western Iraq in an effort to find and destroy mobile Scud missile launchers and drone aircraft that Iraq could use to fire conventional and chemical warheads at U.S. troops in neighboring countries or at Israel.
The Army has also positioned a ready force at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, equipped with M1A1 Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
As for allies, it appears that Britain and Australia have signed on. Each has observers at Internal Look. The United States meanwhile is pressing Turkey, a NATO ally with a major air base at Incirlik, to let U.S. troops stage an invasion of Iraq from the north and to commit its own troops to help administer prisoners of war and an expected flood of refugees from the center of the country.
During Exercise Internal Look, none of the tanks, planes or ships involved will actually move around. There will be no dust, no blasts, no blood. It is all being simulated, with commanders at sites around the region responding to orders and situations, such as a launch of nerve gas by the Iraqis.
Qatar appears to be judiciously ignoring the activities on its soil. The ruling monarch, Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani, has made no mention of the exercise, or of the possibility that his country would play a pivotal role in a war.
Nonetheless, the American presence here is well known. Newspapers write about it. Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite television station based here, rails about the expected war almost every day.
Besides al-Sayliyah, the U.S. Air Force uses the newly built Al Udeid base. Al Udeid's 15,000-foot runway is the region's longest. Giant hangars and airplane parking lots are spread across the base. Outside the perimeter, camels wander the sand dunes. Another base, at the Doha civilian airport, is called Camp Snoopy.
Qataris and the hundreds of thousands of guest workers who do the heavy lifting in the economy here are cautious in their comments about the buildup. "This is something for the government to decide. It is beyond our view," said Ehsam Jamali, a Pakistani tailor, in a typical remark.
For reporters, Internal Look is no look at all. The press has been barred from the press center at al-Sayliyah. Al Udeid is also off-limits. The journalists get daily e-mails from the Qatar branch of Central Command. The favorite word in the missives is "whatsoever," as in "We will not talk about any aspect of the computer assisted exercise whatsoever." However, today's communique did include news that "Gen. Franks, with his usual attention to intricate details, spoke to his staff."
Loeb reported from Washington. Staff writers Thomas E. Ricks and Bradley Graham in Washington contributed to this report.
----
MILITARY ACCORDS
U.S. and Canada Expand Pact to Coordinate Defense Planning
December 10, 2002
New York Times
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/international/americas/10CANA.html
TORONTO, Dec. 9 - The United States and Canada announced today a broadening of their military cooperation to include the possibility that troops of one country would cross into the other in case of a terrorist attack or natural disaster.
The two NATO allies currently coordinate air defenses within the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, based in Colorado. Under the new agreement, that coordination would expand to include joint maritime surveillance, intelligence sharing and military exercises.
The agreement is a sign that despite some friction between the United States and Canada over the tightening of the border since the Sept. 11 attacks, their armed forces have grown closer in the past year.
In Afghanistan, Canadian troops fought along with American forces for the first time since the Korean War, and Canada has indicated that it would contribute troops to an invasion of Iraq if it is sanctioned by the United Nations.
"This agreement will help ensure that the two countries are better prepared for possible terrorist attacks," said the State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher.
Under the agreement, either country can request the military help of the other. The troops would come under the command of the country in which they operated.
The agreement also sets up a planning group for border military contingencies, led by a Canadian Air Force lieutenant general, Ken Pennie, the deputy Norad commander.
Some Canadian opposition politicians criticized the agreement as a compromise of Canadian sovereignty, forced by American pressure.
"What is it all leading to, years down the road?" said a New Democratic Party lawmaker, Peter Stoffer, who accused the Liberal Party government of keeping the agreement secret from Parliament. "It may well be a slippery slope."
Defense Minister John McCallum noted today that American troops could respond faster to a bioterrorist attack on Vancouver than Canadian forces could. He said the agreement assured Canadian sovereignty because Canada would have to request that American troops be sent.
The agreement, Mr. McCallum said, puts "Canada in a position to work with the United States on plans to defend North America, plans the United States would otherwise be developing without us."
The Bush administration is pressing Canada, which has one of the smallest per-capita military budgets in NATO, to increase spending. Mr. McCallum supports such an increase, but others in the Liberal Party want to spend a current surplus on health care and urban housing.
--------
Pentagon Readies for Possible Tribunals
December 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Military-Tribunals.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon is completing final details of plans for military tribunals to try terror suspects, including guidelines for which crimes would be considered.
The Defense Department also is compiling lists of judge advocates, military lawyers who could serve as chief prosecutors and defense attorneys, as well as officers to serve on the tribunals themselves, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Ted Wadsworth said Tuesday.
The military has no firm deadline for finishing its work, Wadsworth said. It's up to President Bush to decide who would be tried by a tribunal, when and where the tribunal would convene, or even whether the option will be used at all.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush ordered the military to prepare to try terrorism suspects with military tribunals. Under guidelines announced by the Defense Department in March, the tribunals would be reserved for suspects who are not U.S. citizens.
The tribunals would provide more secrecy for trials and fewer rights for the accused than trials in the civilian court system. Critics say that would create a dangerous double standard for those accused as terrorists.
U.S. and international law on war crimes and terrorism is not compiled in any code, so the guidelines being prepared by Pentagon General Counsel William J. Haynes II will help prosecutors and defense lawyers understand what crimes to recommend for prosecution by tribunal, Wadsworth said.
The guidelines do not say that membership in al-Qaida alone would be ground for a terrorism conviction, Wadsworth said. The Wall Street Journal quoted Haynes Tuesday as saying al-Qaida membership would be defined as a war crime.
The fact that preparations for the tribunals are continuing does not indicate that one will convene soon, Wadsworth said.
The tribunals -- officially, military commissions -- would comprise three to seven military officers who would serve as both judges and jury. A two-thirds vote would be required for a conviction and a unanimous vote for a death sentence.
A defendant accused of terrorist crimes would be provided a military lawyer and could hire an outside lawyer as well. The president would have the final say on what should happen to a convicted defendant but could not order an acquittal. Appeals would be handled by a special panel of three people, including a military official appointed by the president.
Prosecutors could use evidence that has ``probative value to a reasonable person,'' a lower standard than required by U.S. civilian courts. Hearsay evidence also would be allowed.
The lower standard for evidence means that, for example, documents found in Afghanistan that passed through several hands before being obtained by U.S. government investigators could be used for a military tribunal, while such evidence could not be presented in a civilian court.
On the Net:
Pentagon general counsel:
http://www.defenselink.mil/dodgc/
Bush's tribunal order:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011113-27.html
-------- propaganda wars
[It must depend upon what the translation of the word "is" is?]
WEAPONS
U.S. Says Iraqi Indicated Atom Project Is Continuing
December 10, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/international/middleeast/10PREX.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 - The Bush administration today seized on an Iraqi general's admission over the weekend that his country had sought to build a nuclear weapon to argue that President Saddam Hussein had not given up his quest. At the same time, the administration conceded that it was reluctant to share with the United Nations some American-gathered intelligence about Iraqi arms programs.
Briefing reporters today, President Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said the comments on Sunday by Gen. Amir al-Saadi that "we haven't reached the final assembly of a bomb, nor tested it," proved Iraq's intentions.
General Saadi appeared to be speaking about a project that he contends was cut off during the Persian Gulf war in 1991, but his use of a present tense created some doubt.
The International Atomic Energy Agency removed all the weapons-grade nuclear material it knew about from Iraq in 1994. But the agency noted in February 1999 that Iraq had never provided key technical documents from those projects, or said how it had obtained nuclear plans and materials.
Speaking just as the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies were receiving the 12,000 pages of Iraqi declarations about its weapons, Mr. Fleischer said the United States would take its time in assessing the Iraqi declaration. But he added:
"In terms of overall Iraqi statements, you need only look at the wistful way that leading Iraqi generals describe how close they came to getting nuclear weapons. That's why the United States is skeptical of Iraqi intentions."
He added that the fact that Iraq "now for the first time has publicly talked so openly about how much it yearned to get nuclear weapons and how potentially close they came, gives reasons to pause and recognize that Iraq is a threat."
Yet Mr. Fleischer hewed close to the White House public line that the documents would be reviewed "in a very thoughtful, thorough and complete way." American officials are clearly concerned, foreign diplomats here say, that they are not viewed by other members of the Security Council as immediately dismissive of the Iraqi declaration.
But when pressed, Mr. Fleischer added, "The history of Iraq is unquestionably that they lie."
Asked about complaints from United Nations inspectors that the United States had not provided it with much intelligence about where to look for Iraqi weapons programs, Mr. Fleischer said the United States would cooperate. But he put limits on that cooperation. "We want to make sure that sources and methods are not compromised in any information that could be conveyed to the inspectors," he said.
The United States today began examining the first copy of the Iraqi declaration, and said it was sending copies, in turn, to Britain, France, China and Russia. The administration is calling in experts from many corners of the government to evaluate the declaration. The analysis, a senior administration official said, would be led by the C.I.A., but would also include the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense, the national laboratories and the National Security Council.
Within a week or two, officials said, the White House will begin to assemble the preliminary conclusions of those agencies. "The decision," an official said, "is how to respond to what we find. With our own intel? With the last findings of the United Nations inspectors?"
Mr. Fleischer's comments about the limits of the administration's willingness to turn over intelligence to the inspectors came as senior Pentagon and military officials assembled a list of surveillance and reconnaissance craft whose findings could be offered to the United Nations inspectors to assist in their work, officials said today.
American officials are expected to meet with members of the inspection team in coming days to discuss the possible assistance. No formal request has been received from the team, officials said, and no formal offer of help has been made.
Satellites and high-flying surveillance aircraft have been gathering intelligence for years over much of Iraq, and the Predator, a pilotless aerial vehicle, has been operating in the no-flight zone of southern Iraq in recent weeks, officials said.
Any of those tools conceivably could be put to use to help the weapons inspectors, one official said.
"We'll be having those discussions, probably this week," a Pentagon official said. "It's still a question of them asking us. There has been no agreement."
----
Couch-Potato Commandos
New Video War Games Give a Taste of Combat -- for Fun
By Don Oldenburg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 10, 2002; Page C01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33015-2002Dec9.html
The voice cracks with urgency in the headset. "Hostiles on the move, sir!"
Your recon squad of Navy SEALs prowls the bowels of a freighter off the coast of Alaska that's making a rendezvous with Russian terrorists. Your objective: Intercept and eliminate terrorists, scuttle the vessel.
"Order Bravo to hold position. You need to kill the two guards!" HQ commands over the headset just as two guards appear through a dark doorway. In quick jarring bursts of M-16A2 fire, they fall.
You hear footsteps. Two more guards approach from the corridor behind you and exchange fire. They drop to the deck. You hold your headset mike close and whisper that you're moving to the ship's bridge. Alerted by the gunfire, terrorists await.
Though set in 2006, "SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs" is one of several new, ultra-realistic combat video games that play on current international tensions and the war against terrorism.
Published by Sony Computer Entertainment America for PlayStation 2, packaged with a headset to communicate with off-screen operatives, "SOCOM" (Special Operations COMmand) poses a series of dangerous antiterrorist missions, from the jungles of the Congo to the marshes of Thailand, where couch-potato combatants participate as elite Navy commandos.
The best of these combat "shooters" is nearly authentic enough to pass as basic training in military special ops. Whether or not there's a war in Iraq, it seems America's escalating virtual militarization is a certainty. Consider these recently released war games:
• "Conflict: Desert Storm" (Gotham Games; PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC; rated Teen) -- Positioned behind enemy lines during the 1991 Gulf War, you lead a British Special Air Services or U.S. Delta Force commando squad on 14 missions. Make it to the end and try to assassinate a Saddam Hussein-like character.
• "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell" (Ubi Soft; Xbox; rated Mature) -- As a secret field operator with the "black-ops" NSA sub-agency, infiltrate terrorist strongholds, secure critical intelligence, "neutralize" the enemy "with extreme prejudice," and get out without leaving a trace in 14 missions.
• "Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix" (Activision; PC; rated Mature) -- As an antiterrorist mercenary, you undertake missions to stop a bioterrorist group from unleashing a deadly virus.
• "Delta Force: Black Hawk Down" (NovaLogic; PC, PS2 and Xbox in early 2003; rated Mature) -- As a Delta Force operative, you take part in daring raids against Somali warlords in Mogadishu, engaging in close-quarters battle through city streets.
"There does seem to be an increase in interest in the military-based games," says Seth Luisi, producer of "SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs," which has sold more than 450,000 copies since its release in late August.
But battle lust in video games is nothing new. There have been military simulations since the first-person-shooter genre was introduced with "Castle Wolfenstein 3D" more than a dozen years ago. But now mature-rated combat strategy games appear to be selling better than ever.
"Soldier of Fortune II," for instance, has sold 152,000 units since its release last summer, according to market research firm NPD Group. Since its September release, "Conflict: Desert Storm" has sold 129,000 units.
And game players aren't only enlisting for current engagements. Codemaster's WWII title "Prisoner of War" has sold more than 30,000 units since August, according to NPD Group, and Electronic Arts' WWII sequel "Medal of Honor: Frontline," which has sold 1.2 million units, ranks fourth among the year's best-selling video games, behind "Grand Theft Auto 3," "Madden NFL 2002" and "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City."
Douglas Lowenstein, president of the International Digital Software Association, says there's always been "a steady niche market" that loves a first-person shooter in uniform. "The bang-the-drums-for-war backdrop," he says, "is not having a material impact on the types of video games people are going out to buy."
What is having an impact, he says, are the technological advances that create abundantly more realistic combat. "This is adding a significant level of realism," he says. "The defining element of video games is interactivity in which the user has direct control on how the experience unfolds."
Making "SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs" took Sony, which consulted with the Naval Special Warfare Command, three years from concept to release. "People are expecting more out of the games as a real in-depth experience," says Luisi. "We wanted to get away from the stereotypical video game of a one-man army running around and everyone falls over when you shoot them."
Not that there isn't shooting in "SOCOM." But other elements lend to the realism. Besides such details as movielike graphics of actual Navy SEALs and accurate weapon sounds, the buzz feature is the game's voice-recognition headphone.
But Luisi says war games are still just games that require balance between the realism of combat and fun. "We didn't go totally realistic because that would mean you are crawling through brush for days," he says, "and that gets boring."
A 22-year veteran of the British Special Air Service, Cameron Spence knows combat realism. He spent six weeks behind Iraqi lines during Desert Storm.
"It was hairy and it was boring," says Spence, whom Gotham Games hired as a technical consultant to upgrade the "short spurts of fear, fighting and adrenaline" in "Conflict: Desert Storm."
To lend authenticity, Spence borrowed from heart-pounding moments during the SAS's attack on Victor 2, an Iraqi Scud missile command facility where the British ground forces were outnumbered 10 to 1 in fierce fighting. "We even looked at how individuals react and work in a firefight, what do they say to each other," says Spence, who wrote about his Iraq adventures in the 1997 book "Sabre Squadron."
The Army entered the virtual combat fray in July when it released a free video game called "America's Army: Operations" (available at www.americasarmy.com). Since then, it has been downloaded more than a million times by armchair soldiers.
"The continuing war against terrorism only serves to increase the public interest in this type of game," says Chris Keeling, a 14-year Army veteran and one of the developers of the game.
But the Army didn't spend an estimated $6 million just for fun and games. "The U.S. Army saw [video games] as a potential recruiting tool," says Keeling, whose MilitarySim.com Web site supports "AA:O" and, eventually, other military simulation games, providing articles on tactics, equipment, news and reviews. The site, which went online in July, receives more than 3 million hits a month.
The game itself is an elaborate 3-D role-playing exercise that depicts Army life from boot camp to dangerous combat missions. It features two components. One, "Operations," is the popular multi-player, first-person-shooter available now. The other, a separate but linked game called "Soldiers," is due early next year and will cover Army life, ethics, values, and career planning from infantry to military intelligence.
The Army, which released the latest version of the game last month, plans to add content to it over the next few years. Players can live-chat about missions -- and, with a click, contact Army recruiting.
As the game's slogan puts it: "No other Army game is this real -- because nobody gets the Army like the Army."
Unlike some commercial combat gamemakers, however, the Army softened the gore in its Teen-rated game, blunting potential criticism for violent content. It made kills less gruesome -- no pools of blood, no body parts -- though enemy bodies fall and buddies die next to you.
"We wrestle all the time on the whole issue of violence," says Lowenstein. "But games are a virtual world. You're not killing anybody. You're killing pixels. This leap that it has the same impact emotionally as if you killed a real person, I've found that unconvincing."
----
Iraq's nuclear noncapability and the US-British propaganda campaign
December 10, 2002
Lebanon Star
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/10_12_02_c.htm
As the war storm against Iraq swirls and gathers momentum, seeded by the efforts of the US and British governments, serious doubts arise as to the credibility of their intelligence sources, particularly the issue of Iraq's nuclear capability. It has been often noted that reliable intelligence on this matter is not immediately forthcoming. Moreover, such intelligence as has been presented is spurious and often contradictory.
Perhaps it is not too late to rectify this misinformation campaign.
I worked with the Iraqi nuclear program from 1968 until my departure from Iraq in late 1998.
Having been closely involved in most of the major nuclear activities of that program, from the Russian research reactor in the late 1960s to the French research reactors in the late 70s, the Russian nuclear power program in the early 80s, the nuclear weapons program during the 80s and finally the confrontations with UN inspection teams in the 90s, it behooves me to admit that I find present allegations about Iraq's nuclear capability, as continuously advanced by the Americans and the British, to be ridiculous.
Let us go back to 1991. A week before the cessation of two-month saturation bombings on target-rich Iraq, the Americans realized that a certain complex of buildings in Tarmiah (which had just been carpet-bombed for lack of any other remaining prominent targets) exhibited unusual swarming activity by rescuers the next morning. When they compared the photographs of that complex with other standing structures in Iraq, they were surprised to find an exact replica of that complex in the north of Iraq, near Sharqat, which was nearing completion.
They directed their bombers to demolish the northern complex a few days before the end of hostilities. My family, along with the families of most prominent Iraqi nuclear scientists and the top management of the northern complex, were residing in the housing complex. The Tarmiah and Sharqat complexes were designed to house the Calutron separators, similar to those used by the American Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs that were dropped by the Americans on Japan.
At the end of 1991, after that infamous UN inspector, David Kay, got hold of many of the nuclear weapons program's reports (reports whose maintenance and security I had been in charge of), the Americans realized that their saturation bombing had missed a most important complex of buildings: that at Al-Atheer, which was the center for the design and assembly of the nuclear bomb.
A lone bomb, thermally guided, had hit the electric substation outside the perimeter of the complex, causing little damage. The glaring and revealing detail about these two events is the utter lack of any intelligence about these building complexes information that should have caused the repository of US and British intelligence to overflow. That is to say US and British intelligence had no idea of the programs that those buildings harbored programs that had been ongoing at full steam for the previous 10 years!
What really happened to Iraq's nuclear weapons program after the 1991 war? Immediately after the cessation of hostilities, the entire organization that was responsible for the nuclear weapons project turned its attention to the reconstruction of the heavily damaged oil refineries, electric power stations, and telephone exchange buildings. The combined expertise of the several thousand scientific, engineering, and technical cadres manifested itself in the restoration of the oil, electric and communication infrastructure in a matter of months an impressive accomplishment by any measure.
Then the UN inspectors were ushered in. The senior scientists and engineers among the nuclear cadre were instructed many times on how to cooperate with the inspectors. We were also asked to hand in to our own officials any reports or incriminating evidence, with heavy penalties (up to the death penalty, in some cases) for failing to do so. In the first few months, the "clean sheets" were hung up for all to see. As the scientific questioning mounted, our scientists began to redirect the questioners to the actual technical documents themselves that had been amassed during the 10 years of activity. These documents had been traveling up and down and throughout Iraq in a welded train car. Then the order was issued to return the project's documents to their original location. At that point, David Kay pounced on them in the early hours of one morning in September 1991. Among the documents were those of Al-Atheer and the bomb specifics.
In the following few years, the nuclear weapons project organization was slowly disbanded. By 1994, its various departments were either elevated to independent civilian industrial enterprises, or absorbed within the Military Industrial Authority under Hussein Kamil, who later escaped to Jordan in 1996 and then returned to Baghdad, where he was murdered.
Meanwhile, the brinkmanship with the UN inspectors continued. At one heated encounter, an American inspector remarked that the nuclear scientists and engineers were still around, and hinted accusingly that those scientists and engineers may be readily used for a rejuvenated nuclear program. The retort was: "What do you want us to do to satisfy you? Ask them to commit suicide?"
In 1994, a report surfaced claiming that Iraq was still manufacturing a nuclear bomb and had been working on it since 1991. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors brought the report to Baghdad, demanding a full explanation.
The inspectors requested my opinion on the authenticity of the report, inasmuch as I was the responsible agent for the proper issuance and archiving of all scientific and engineering documents for the nuclear weapons project during the 80s. It was my opinion that the report was well done, and most probably had been written by someone who had detailed knowledge of the established documentation procedures.
However, as we pointed out to the IAEA inspectors, certain words used in the report would not normally be used by us but rather by Iranians and we supplied an Arabic-Iranian dictionary to verify our findings. The IAEA inspectors never referred back to that report.
During these years, crushing economic inflation was growing. It would spell the end for most of the Iraqi nuclear scientists' and engineers' careers in the following years.
In 1996, Hussein Kamil, who was in charge of the entire range of chemical, biological and nuclear programs, announced from his self-imposed exile in Amman that there were hidden caches of important documentation on his farm in Iraq. (Apparently, he had had his security entourage stealthily salvage what they thought were the most important pieces of information and documentation in these programs.) The UN inspectors pounced on this and a renewed string of confrontations occurred, until the inspectors were asked to leave Iraq in 1998.
In the last few years of the 90s, we did our utmost to produce a satisfying report to the IAEA inspectors concerning the entire gamut of Iraq's nuclear activities. The IAEA finally issued its report in October 1997, mapping these activities in great detail. The inspectors raised vague, "politically correct" queries which seemed obligatory in their intent.
In the meantime, and this is the gist of my discourse, the economic standing of the Iraqi nuclear scientists and engineers (along with the rest of the civil servants and the professional middle class) has been pathetically reduced to poverty level. Many of those highly educated persons have been forced to sell their possessions just to keep their families alive. Needless to say, their spirits are very low and their cynicism is high. Relatively few have managed to leave Iraq. The majority are too gripped by poverty, family needs, and fear of the brutal retaliation of the security apparatus to even consider a plan of escape. Their former determination and drive, profoundly evident in the 80s, has been crushed by harsh economic realities; their knowledge and experience grow rusty with the passage of time; their skills atrophy from a lack of activity in their fields.
Since my departure from Iraq in late 1998, one cannot help but notice the mien of those former nuclear scientists and engineers as being but a wispy phantom of a once elite cadre representing the zenith of scientific and technical thought in Iraq. Pathetic shadows of their former selves, the overwhelming fear that haunts them is the fear of retirement, with whopping pensions that equate to about $2 a month.
Yet the US and British intelligence community, obviously influenced by the war agenda, vainly attempts to continue to provide disinformation. For example, a consignment of aluminum pipes (the intelligence experts opine) might conceivably be used in the construction of highly advanced, "kilometers-long" centrifugal spinners. The consideration that there are no remaining Iraqi personnel qualified to implement and maintain these supposed spinners seems to have eluded the intelligence agencies' reports.
Last month, a group of journalists was taken on a guided tour of a "possible" uranium extraction plant in Akashat in western Iraq. The Iraqi guide pointed to the obviously demolished buildings and asked tongue-in-cheek: "Who would make any use of these ruins? Maybe your experts would tell us how."
It is true that the Iraqi nuclear scientists and engineers did not commit suicide. But for all the remaining capability they possess to rebuild a nuclear weapons program, they may as well have.
Bush and Blair are leading their publics by the nose, attempting to cloak shoddy and erroneous intelligence data with hollow patriotic urgings and cajolery. But the two parading emperors have no clothes.
Imad Khadduri, who has a PhD in nuclear reactor technology from the University of Birmingham, worked with the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission from 1968 until 1998. He has since left with his family and now lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He wrote this article for YellowTimes.org as a guest columnist and can be reached at imad.khadduri@rogers.com
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- death penalty
Court Voids Ruling That Death Penalty Is Unconstitutional
December 10, 2002
New York Times
By JERRY GRAY
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/business/10CND-COUR.html
A federal appeals court in Manhattan today reversed a lower court ruling that found the federal death penalty unconstitutional, saying that the validity of the death penalty had been previously upheld by the United States Supreme Court.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the 2nd Federal Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling made in July by Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the United States District Court in Manhattan. Advertisement Alt Text
Judge Rakoff, who was presiding over a case involving two men charged in a drug-related murder, said that the growing number of death row inmates who had been exonerated through DNA testing and other evidence had shown that there was an "undue risk of executing innocent people."
"The Federal Death Penalty Act, by cutting off the opportunity for exoneration, denies due process, and indeed is tantamount to foreseeable, state-sponsored murder of innocent human beings," Judge Rakoff said in his 28-page ruling.
But the appeals court panel said today that despite suggestions by the District Court and the defendants in the case, their reasoning for challenging the constitutionality of capital punishment was not new.
"This proposition has been presented to the Supreme Court on a number of occasions and repeatedly rejected by the court, we hold that the continued opportunity to exonerate oneself throughout the natural course of one's life is not a right so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental," the appellate judges wrote.
Judge Rakoff's ruling was the first to find the current federal death penalty law unconstitutional and it applied only to the case before him. But legal experts said at the time that if the ruling was upheld, Judge Rakoff's reasoning in the case would seemingly apply to state death-penalty cases as well.
The ruling was all the more surprising because it came in a case in which neither of the defendants - Alan Quinones and Diego Rodriguez - had gone to trial. The two men were accused of being partners in a Bronx heroin ring and prosecutors said that they hogtied, tortured and killed a man in June 1999 whom they correctly suspected of being a government informant. Both men pleaded not guilty.
The United States attorney in Manhattan at the time, Mary Jo White, had declined to seek the death penalty in the case, but she was overruled by Attorney General John Ashcroft.
That set the stage for lawyers for Mr. Quinones and Mr. Rodriguez to challenge the constitutionality of the death penalty and for Judge Rakoff to issue his unprecedented ruling.
Federal prosecutors appealed the ruling and in October argued before a three-judge appeals panel that Judge Rakoff's opinion was flawed and blocked by Supreme Court precedent that had upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty.
In its ruling today, the appeals court agreed with the federal prosecutors' argument.
"The defendants' argument that execution deprives individuals of the opportunity for exoneration is not new at all," the court said, "it repeatedly has been made to the Supreme Court and rejected by the Supreme Court."
-------- drug war
U.S. Pushes Heroin Addiction Treatment
December 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/health/AP-Heroin-Treatment.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal health officials launched an education campaign Tuesday to let doctors and heroin users know there's a new medication that can help curb addicts' cravings -- and for the first time, it can be prescribed in doctor's offices instead of drug-treatment clinics.
The Food and Drug Administration approved buprenorphine in October, an alternative to methadone in helping people kick addiction to heroin and similar opioids, drugs also found in prescription painkillers.
Now, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is trying to spread the word.
Methadone is the most common treatment for opioid addiction, but it can be dispensed only in a few special drug-treatment clinics. Only about 20 percent of heroin addicts receive it.
Buprenorphine, in contrast, can be prescribed in doctor's offices -- as long as the physician qualifies. The key: Doctors must seek a government waiver allowing them to prescribe buprenorphine after completing eight hours of mandatory training.
So far, more than 2,000 doctors have been trained to use buprenorphine and about 300 have received waivers to begin prescribing, according to SAMHSA.
To increase those numbers -- and let addicts know about the new option -- the drug abuse agency plans to hold public meetings in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Miami, New Orleans, New York/Newark, N.J., Portland, Ore., Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle, Wilmington, Del./Philadelphia and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Buprenorphine, a tablet dissolved under the tongue, works by blocking the same brain receptors that heroin targets, but without heroin's high and with weaker narcotic effects than methadone.
On the Net:
SAMHSA site: http://www.buprenorphine.samhsa.gov
-------- spying
AMERICA UNDER SURVEILLANCE: PRIVACY AND SECURITY
New Tools for Domestic Spying, and Qualms
December 10, 2002
New York Times
By MICHAEL MOSS and FORD FESSENDEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/national/10PRIV.html
When the Federal Bureau of Investigation grew concerned this spring that terrorists might attack using scuba gear, it set out to identify every person who had taken diving lessons in the previous three years.
Hundreds of dive shops and organizations gladly turned over their records, giving agents contact information for several million people.
"It certainly made sense to help them out," said Alison Matherly, marketing manager for the National Association of Underwater Instructors Worldwide. "We're all in this together."
But just as the effort was wrapping up in July, the F.B.I. ran into a two-man revolt. The owners of the Reef Seekers Dive Company in Beverly Hills, Calif., balked at turning over the records of their clients, who include Tom Cruise and Tommy Lee Jones - even when officials came back with a subpoena asking for "any and all documents and other records relating to all noncertified divers and referrals from July 1, 1999, through July 16, 2002."
Faced with defending the request before a judge, the prosecutor handling the matter notified Reef Seekers' lawyer that he was withdrawing the subpoena. The company's records stayed put.
"We're just a small business trying to make a living, and I do not relish the idea of standing up against the F.B.I.," said Ken Kurtis, one of the owners of Reef Seekers. "But I think somebody's got to do it."
In this case, the government took a tiny step back. But across the country, sometimes to the dismay of civil libertarians, law enforcement officials are maneuvering to seize the information-gathering weapons they say they desperately need to thwart terrorist attacks.
From New York City to Seattle, police officials are looking to do away with rules that block them from spying on people and groups without evidence that a crime has been committed. They say these rules, forced on them in the 1970's and 80's to halt abuses, now prevent them from infiltrating mosques and other settings where terrorists might plot.
At the same time, federal and local police agencies are looking for systematic, high-tech ways to root out terrorists before they strike. In a sense, the scuba dragnet was cumbersome, old-fashioned police work, albeit on a vast scale. Now officials are hatching elaborate plans for dumping gigabytes of delicate information into big computers, where it would be blended with public records and stirred with sophisticated software.
In recent days, federal law enforcement officials have spoken ambitiously and often about their plans to remake the F.B.I. as a domestic counterterrorism agency. But the spy story has been unfolding, quietly and sometimes haltingly, for more than a year now, since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Some people in law enforcement remain unconvinced that all these new tools are needed, and some experts are skeptical that high-tech data mining will bring much of value to light.
Still, civil libertarians increasingly worry about how law enforcement might wield its new powers. They say the nation is putting at risk the very thing it is fighting for: the personal freedoms and rights embodied in the Constitution. Moreover, they say, authorities with powerful technology will inevitably blunder, as became evident in October when an audit revealed that the Navy had lost nearly two dozen computers authorized to process classified information.
What perhaps angers the privacy advocates most is that so much of this revolution in police work is taking place in secret, said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented Reef Seekers.
"If we are going to decide as a country that because of our worry about terrorism that we are willing to give up our basic privacy, we need an open and full debate on whether we want to make such a fundamental change," Ms. Cohn said.
But some intelligence experts say that in a changed world, the game is already up for those who would value civil liberties over the war on terrorism. "It's the end of a nice, comfortable set of assumptions that allowed us to keep ourselves protected from some kinds of intrusions," said Stewart A. Baker, the National Security Agency's general counsel under President Bill Clinton.
Tearing Down a Wall
The most aggressive effort to give local police departments unfettered spying powers is taking place in New York City.
It was there 22 years ago that the police, stung by revelations of widespread abuse, agreed to stop spying on people not suspected of a crime. The agreement was part of a containment wall of laws, regulations, court decisions and ordinances erected federally and in many parts of the country in the 70's and 80's.
The F.B.I.'s spying authority was restricted, and the United States' foreign intelligence agencies got out of the business of domestic spying altogether. States passed their own laws. On the local level, ordinances and consent decrees were enacted not just in New York but also in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle. In the years since, these strictures have "become part of the culture," Mr. Baker said.
But the wall is under attack. Last month, a special appeals court ruled that the sweeping antiterrorism legislation known as the U.S.A. Patriot Act, enacted shortly after the September 2001 attacks to give the government expanded terror-fighting capacity, freed federal prosecutors to seek wiretap and surveillance authority in the absence of criminal activity. In Chicago last year, a federal appeals court threw out the agreement that restricted police surveillance. Some officials in Seattle would like to follow suit, saying they are effectively sidelined in the terrorism war.
In New York, the Police Department has sued in federal court in Manhattan to end the consent decree the department signed in 1980 to end a civil rights lawsuit over the infiltration of political groups.
Attorney General John Ashcroft and New York's police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, say the wall is a relic - unnecessary and, worse, dangerous. David Cohen, the former deputy director of central intelligence who is now the Police Department's deputy commissioner for intelligence, argues that the consent decree's requirement of a suspicion of criminal activity prevents officers from infiltrating mosques.
"In the last decade, we have seen how the mosque and Islamic institutes have been used to shield the work of terrorists from law enforcement scrutiny by taking advantage of restrictions on the investigation of First Amendment activity," Mr. Cohen said in an affidavit.
The police in other cities cite the same need. "We're prohibited from collecting things that will make us a safer city," said Lt. Ron Leavell, commander of the criminal intelligence division of the Seattle police.
Mr. Cohen did not argue in his affidavit that the authorities, if unshackled, could have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks. But he did suggest that the F.B.I.'s failure to dig more deeply into the information it had before the attacks turned on agents' fears that they could not climb the wall.
"The recent disclosure that F.B.I. field agents were blocked from pursuing an investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui because officials in Washington did not believe there was sufficient evidence of criminal activity to support a warrant points out how one person's judgment in applying an imprecise test may result in the costly loss of critical intelligence," Mr. Cohen said.
Mr. Cohen has also asked that his testimony before the federal court be given in secret, unheard even by opposing lawyers. Last week, a judge told New York City that it needed to present better arguments to justify such extraordinary secrecy.
Civil libertarians, frustrated that they cannot draw the other side into a debate, argue that questions about the need for such expanded powers are critical, and far from answered. "Who said you have to destroy a village in order to save it?" asked Jethro Eisenstein, one of the lawyers who negotiated the original consent decree. "We're protecting freedom and democracy, but unfortunately freedom and democracy have to be sacrificed."
Even the police are far from unanimous about how intrusive they must be. The Chicago police, who have been free from their consent decree for nearly two years, say they have yet to use the new power. The Los Angeles police have made no effort to change their guidelines.
"I have not heard complaints that the antiterrorist division has been inhibited in its work," said Joe Gunn, executive director of the Los Angeles Police Commission.
A joint Congressional inquiry into intelligence failures before Sept. 11 concluded that the failures had less to do with the inability of authorities to gather information than with their inability to analyze, understand, share and act on it.
"The lesson of Moussaoui was that F.B.I. headquarters was telling the field office the wrong advice," said Eleanor Hill, staff director of the inquiry. "Fixing what happened in this case is not inconsistent with preserving civil liberties."
`It Smacks of Big Brother'
The Congressional inquiry's lingering criticism has added impetus to a movement within government to equip terror fighters with better computer technology. If humans missed the clues, the reasoning goes, perhaps a computer will not.
Clearly, the F.B.I. is operating in the dark ages of technology. For instance, when agents in San Diego want to check out new leads, they walk across the street to the Joint Terrorism Task Force offices, where suspect names must be run through two dozen federal and local databases.
Using filters from the Navy's space warfare project, Spawar, the agents are now dumping all that data into one big computer so that with one mouse click they can find everything from traffic fines to immigration law violations. A test run is expected early next year. Similar efforts to consolidate and share information are under way in Baltimore; Seattle; St. Louis; Portland, Ore.; and Norfolk, Va.
"It smacks of Big Brother, and I understand people's concern," said William D. Gore, a special agent in charge at the San Diego office. "But somehow I'd rather have the F.B.I. have access to this data than some telemarketer who is intent on ripping you off."
Civil libertarians worry that centralized data will be more susceptible to theft. But they are scared even more by the next step officials want to take: mining that data to divine the next terrorist strike.
The Defense Department has embarked on a five-year effort to create a superprogram called Total Information Awareness, led by Adm. John M. Poindexter, who was national security adviser in the Reagan administration. But as soon as next year, the new Transportation Security Administration hopes to begin using a more sophisticated system of profiling airline passengers to identify high-risk fliers. The system in place on Sept. 11, 2001, flagged only a handful of unusual behaviors, like buying one-way tickets with cash.
Like Admiral Poindexter, the transportation agency is drawing from companies that help private industry better market their products. Among them is the Acxiom Corporation of Little Rock, Ark., whose tool, Personicx, sorts consumers into 70 categories - like Group 16M, or "Aging Upscale" - based on an array of financial data and behavioral factors.
Experts on consumer profiling say law enforcement officials face two big problems. Some commercial databases have high error rates, and so little is known about terrorists that it could be very difficult to distinguish them from other people.
"The idea that data mining of some vast collection of databases of consumer activity is going to deliver usable alerts of terrorist activities is sheer credulity on a massive scale," said Jason Catlett of the Junkbusters Corporation, a privacy advocacy business. The data mining companies, Mr. Catlett added, are "mostly selling good old-fashioned snake oil."
Libraries and Scuba Schools
As it waits for the future, the F.B.I. is being pressed to gather and share much more intelligence, and that has left some potential informants uneasy and confused about their legal rights and obligations.
Just how far the F.B.I. has gone is not clear. The Justice Department told a House panel in June that it had used its new antiterrorism powers in 40 instances to share terror information from grand jury investigations with other government authorities. It said it had twice handed over terror leads from wiretaps.
But that was as far as Justice officials were willing to go, declining to answer publicly most of the committee's questions about terror-related inquiries. Civil libertarians have sued under the Freedom of Information Act to get the withheld information, including how often prosecutors have used Section 215 of the 2001 antiterror law to require bookstores or librarians to turn over patron records.
The secrecy enshrouding the counterterrorism campaign runs so deep that Section 215 makes it a crime for people merely to divulge whether the F.B.I. has demanded their records, deepening the mystery - and the uneasiness among groups that could be required to turn over information they had considered private.
"I've been on panel discussions since the Patriot Act, and I don't think I've been to one without someone willing to stand up and say, `Isn't the F.B.I. checking up on everything we do?' " said John A. Danaher III, deputy United States attorney in Connecticut.
Several weeks ago, the F.B.I. in Connecticut took the unusual step of revealing information about an investigation to dispute a newspaper report that it had "bugged" the Hartford Public Library's computers.
Michael J. Wolf, the special agent in charge, said the agency had taken only information from the hard drive of a computer at the library that had been used to hack into a California business. "The computer was never removed from the library, nor was any software installed on this or any other computer in the Hartford Public Library by the F.B.I. to monitor computer use," Mr. Wolf said in a letter to The Hartford Courant, which retracted its report.
Nevertheless, Connecticut librarians have been in an uproar over the possibility that their computers with Internet access would be monitored without their being able to say anything. They have considered posting signs warning patrons that the F.B.I. could be snooping on their keystrokes.
"I want people to know under what legal provisions they are living," said Louise Blalock, the chief librarian in Hartford.
In Fairfield, the town librarian, Tom Geoffino, turned over computer log-in sheets to the F.B.I. last January after information emerged that some of the Sept. 11 hijackers had visited the area, but he said he would demand a court order before turning over anything else. Agents have not been back asking for more, Mr. Geoffino said.
"We're not just librarians, we're Americans, and we want to see the people who did this caught," he said. "But we also have a role in protecting the institution and the attitudes people have about it."
The F.B.I.'s interest in scuba divers began shortly before Memorial Day, when United States officials received information from Afghan war detainees that suggested an interest in underwater attacks.
An F.B.I. spokesman said the agency would not confirm even that it had sought any diver names, and would not say how it might use any such information.
The owners of Reef Seekers say they had lots of reasons to turn down the F.B.I. The name-gathering made little sense to begin with, they say, because terrorists would need training far beyond recreational scuba lessons. They also worried that the new law would allow the F.B.I. to pass its client records to other agencies.
When word of their revolt got around, said Bill Wright, one of the owners, one man called Reef Seekers to applaud it, saying, "My 15-year-old daughter has taken diving lessons, and I don't want her records going to the F.B.I."
He was in a distinct minority, Mr. Wright said. Several other callers said they hoped the shop would be the next target of a terrorist bombing.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- energy
Judge Knocks GAO Out of Cheney Task Force Lawsuit
December 9, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2002/2002-12-09-02.asp
WASHINGTON, DC, The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, was refused legal standing by a federal judge today in its attempt to get records related to Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force. Saying it has every legal right to see these records, the GAO is considering an appeal of the decision.
Bates Federal District Judge John Bates (Photo courtesy DC District Court)
Judge John Bates, appointed to the U.S. District Court in December 2001 by President George W. Bush, ruled in Walker v Cheney that the GAO has no standing in the case because it did not suffer any direct harm as a result of the withholding of the documents.
Comptroller General of the United States David Walker, who heads the GAO, said the agency might appeal the ruling. "We are very disappointed with the judge's decision," Walker said.
The agency is in the process of reviewing and analyzing the bases and implications of Judge Bates' ruling. Walker said, "We will consider whether or not to appeal after we have completed this review and consulted with Congressional leadership on a bi-partisan basis."
The GAO has the right and duty to examine the records of meetings with energy stakeholders at the time when the Cheney Task Force was formulating the National Energy Policy, the investigative agency maintains.
Walker
Comptroller General of the United States David Walker (Photo courtesy GAO) GAO's legislation "clearly authorizes it to perform a basic factual review of the process the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG) used to develop the President's national energy strategy," the GAO said today in a statement.
"Section 712(1), Title 31, U.S.C., authorizes GAO to investigate "all matters related to the receipt, disbursement, and use of public money," and there is no doubt that public money was used to fund the activities of the NEPDG," the GAO stated.
Three other lawsuits are pending, including two by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), to force the White House to turn over the information. One NRDC lawsuit awaits a decision by Judge Paul Friedman which is expected any day.
NRDC sued the Energy Department under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for records relating to the energy task force, including minutes of meetings that occurred.
Although the Energy Department and other federal agencies have released some information about which cabinet officials met with regarding energy policy, the NRDC said today, the White House has refused to provide similar information.
NRDC has argued that the records of Andrew Lundquist, the task force executive director, and other key task force staff, all of whom were Energy Department employees, must be disclosed under FOIA.
Cheney
Vice President Dick Cheney (Photo courtesy DOD) "Judge Bates' decision to shield the activities of Vice President Cheney's secretive energy task force seems to be more about politics than the law," said NRDC attorney Sharon Buccino.
The NRDC has also filed a freedom of information case against the Department of Interior (DOI) for records related to the formation and the implementation of the energy task force recommendations. "DOI is already moving forward to expedite energy development on public lands across the West, yet refuses to provide basic information about the decisions the agency is making and who is influencing them," the NRDC said today.
Two other civil organizations are using the courts to seek the Energy Task Force records. In the case of Judicial Watch v. National Energy Policy Development Group, the two organizations - Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club - sued the Bush administration for violating the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which promotes open and balanced government decision making. Judge Emmett Sullivan ordered discovery in this case, but the DC Circuit Court stayed this decision on December 6, pending appeal.
-------- environment
U.S. study links chemical to sperm damage
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
By Laura MacInnis,
Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/12/12102002/reu_49144.asp
WASHINGTON - Everyday exposure to a chemical ingredient used to preserve many cosmetics and fragrances may contribute to sperm damage in adult men, according to a study published Monday.
In one of the first studies of the effects of substances known as phthalates on humans, Harvard University researchers found signs of correlation between exposure to a common type of the chemical and damage to the DNA of human sperm.
The study, published in the government journal Environmental Health Perspectives, does not show whether this DNA damage could leave men infertile or cause birth defects, the researchers said.
Last month, the U.S. Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel, an industry-sponsored watchdog, sparked fury from health and environmental lobbyists when it voted to allow the continued use of three types of phthalates in perfumes and beauty products, saying they were safe in their current uses.
Phthalates, used to make fragrances last longer and to soften plastics like baby toys, have been linked in previous studies to birth defects in animals, but no evidence has proved they are harmful to humans.
The American Chemistry Council maintains that phthalates are safe and the U.S. government so far has declined to limit their use. But the European Union banned their use in some products, including baby toys, in 1999.
The study, conducted at a Massachusetts fertility clinic, analyzed urine and semen samples from 168 men believed to have normal levels of exposure to diethyl phthalates through the use of cosmetics products and plastics.
Russ Hauser, a Harvard University School of Public Health professor and senior author of the study, said preliminary results suggested exposure to those phthalates was associated with increased DNA damage in sperm, but said it was too early to tell how severe the damage was.
"What the significance of it is, we don't know. What it predicts in terms of end points in the fetus or child is really unclear at this point," he said in a telephone interview.
Hauser said his group planned to extend its research to include between 700 and 800 men in order to verify the findings, and to cross-reference results with findings of other studies measuring factors like pregnancy success rates.
"This paper shows early findings in a relatively small number of men," he said. "Our next step here really is to expand the study, and repeat the analyses."
But a group that has been fighting the use of phthalates, Health Care Without Harm, said the study showed they were right.
"The correlation found in this study is extremely troubling and deserves urgent follow up," Dr. Ted Schettler, science director of the Science and Environmental Health Network said in a statement on behalf of the group.
----
The Green Seal of Approval
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
By Jim Motavalli and Josh Harkinson,
E/The Environmental Magazine
http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2002/12/12102002/s_48685.asp
"Typically, we bring the concept of lifecycle pricing to the table," says Mark Petruzzi of Green Seal, which offers environmental certification for a range of products. "Looking only at the first cost of a product is a disingenuous way of doing things. With paint, for instance, you have to consider not only the initial price, but also its longevity and its effect on worker health and safety. You have to factor in reduced liability when you're no longer storing barrels of strong chemicals with warning labels on them, and your workers are no longer getting mysterious rashes."
Certifiers, including Green Seal, have independently assessed hundreds of products and chosen the greenest in each category. Green Seal itself offers standards in 90 product categories. Green Seal's recommendations save money: The Aberdeen Proving Ground, a military test site, switched to greener paint and saved $1.76 a gallon.
"Green Seal and other organizations could potentially serve as a shortcut to getting environmental preferability into government procurement," says Eun-ook Goidel of the EPA's Environmental Purchasing Program. The EPA has no problem with third-party seals as long as those labels are not the final word in purchasing decisions because "that's not legally defensible," says Goidel. Yet despite the EPA's apparent approval of independent green labels, the agency has barely used them.
Goidel says Green Seal's future role with the EPA will depend on "the extent to which it can certify more products and have its name more widely recognized." She says, "Green Seal has had a really tough time breaking into the marketplace because of very strong opposition by industry." Shore adds, "This is the EPA's unwillingness to risk the wrath of the organized packaged goods manufacturers."
But Green Seal's purpose is to make things easier for purchasing agents, and for manufacturers, too. "We spend our time and expertise working with stakeholders and identifying green products, essentially so purchasers don't have to," says Petruzzi, Green Seal's certification director. "A single standard is a lot easier for manufacturers than five, six, or seven different standards used in different parts of the country."
So, given that, why do manufacturers oppose seals? "They simply don't want to be told what to do," Shore says. "Many of the people opposed to [us] have fine products that can meet the seals, but they don't want to be dictated to by an outside organization."
--------
EPA Sued to Ban Toxics in Common Wood
December 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Wood-Arsenic.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Environmental groups and a union asked a federal court Tuesday to ban the use of several toxic materials in treated, pressurized wood products, saying the Environmental Protection Agency isn't moving quickly enough.
Wood preservatives containing arsenic and dioxin have been increasingly targeted as unsafe by advocacy groups. Those preservatives have been commonly used in utility poles, wood decks and playgrounds.
Beyond Pesticides and the Communication Workers of America sued in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, saying the EPA has enough evidence about health and environmental dangers to ban the use of chromated copper arsenate, pentachlorophenol and creosote.
Jay Feldman, Beyond Pesticides's director, said the preservatives were left on the market for the past couple decades only because alternatives weren't available, but that is no longer the case with the advent of composite and recycled materials.
Lumber companies in February agreed with EPA to phase out by December 2003 wood deck and playset uses of the arsenic-based preservative, a powerful pesticide, in pressure-treated wood. Feldman said the phase-out doesn't cover the majority of uses -- construction uses involving utility poles, marine piling, fences and supporting structures.
EPA began reviewing the risks from the three wood preservatives in 1978 and six years later issued worker protection guidelines. Last year, EPA began requiring consumer warning labels on treated lumber containing arsenic and advocacy groups petitioned the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban that product.
Arsenic, both manufactured and naturally occurring, is known to cause cancer, but the preservative industry has said the arsenic-based preservative has never been linked to skin disease or cancer in children and its wood is safe when used properly.
EPA spokeswoman Steffanie Bell said the agency worked hard to reach the February agreement with industry and continues to work on a risk assessment. A wood industry trade group didn't immediately return a call for comment.
On the Net:
EPA: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/citizens/1file.htm
-------- genetics
Stanford Reveals Human Embryo Clone Plan
December 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Stanford-Cloning.html
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Stanford University announced Tuesday its intention to clone human embryos, becoming the first U.S. university to publicly embrace the politically charged procedure.
The intent of the project is to produce stem cells for medical research.
The stem cell work will be part of the new Institute for Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine, launched with a $12 million anonymous donation to the school. Much of the institute's research will be geared to treating cancer. Any stem cells created will be shared with outside researchers, many of whom complain of inadequate access to currently available stem cell lines.
Dr. Irving Weissman, an outspoken stem cell research proponent, was named institute director.
Weissman, serving as chairman of a National Academy of Sciences panel, testified before the U.S. Senate earlier this year in favor of cloning human embryos as a supply source for stem cells.
Scientists believe embryonic stem cells, which are created in the first days of pregnancy and develop into all the cells that comprise a human body, can be used to treat many illnesses. Embryos must be destroyed to harvest the stem cells, and some abortion opponents and others oppose the research.
Last year, President Bush limited federal funding to stem cell lines created before Aug. 9, 2001. Of those 78 stem cell colonies worldwide that the Bush administration has said are eligible for federally funded research, only about a dozen are in good enough shape to use in experiments.
Even fewer -- perhaps four lines -- are being routinely shared and sent to other researchers interested in breaking into the field.
``Our avowed goal is to advance science,'' Weissman said. ``For any group to stay out of the action and wait for someone else to do it because of political reasons is wrong.''
Weissman said he intends to recruit the top cloning researchers to Stanford and wants ``to put them on notice that we are after them.''
On the Net:
Stanford: http://mednews.stanford.edu
-------- health
Agency Adds Shredding of Documents to Inquiry
December 10, 2002
New York Times
By ROBERT PEAR
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/politics/10HEAL.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 - Congressional investigators are looking into the shredding and destruction of documents in the office of Janet Rehnquist, inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, administration officials said today.
The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, was already conducting a comprehensive review of Ms. Rehnquist's office after complaints from employees who said she had politicized the agency, which investigates fraud and abuse in federal programs.
The accounting office was investigating whether Ms. Rehnquist kept a gun in her office without authorization, violated personnel rules by ousting career employees and ordered delays in a federal audit of the Florida state employees' pension fund to avoid embarrassing Gov. Jeb Bush.
In its inquiry, the accounting office learned of the destruction of documents in the office of the inspector general, known as O.I.G. It informed Ms. Rehnquist, who informed Congress.
"On Nov. 27, 2002," she said in a letter last week to the two senators who initiated the inquiry, "William Scanlon of the G.A.O. called Lewis Morris, my chief counsel, to report that the G.A.O. had received reports that in early November O.I.G. documents had been shredded."
Mr. Morris then instructed employees in the office to "stop all document destruction until further notice," Ms. Rehnquist said.
Ms. Rehnquist herself is apparently not suspected of destroying documents, and she told the two senators, Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, that her office routinely destroyed documents that included "sensitive information such as proprietary data."
Congressional investigators, who are still trying to determine what papers were destroyed, said they had not confirmed Ms. Rehnquist's suggestion that the shredding was a routine procedure intended to prevent the "inadvertent disclosure" of sensitive information.
The investigators said they had been told that documents were shredded by Carolyn Lundberg, a lawyer who works part-time as counselor and special assistant to Ms. Rehnquist, in an adjacent office. An aide said Ms. Lundberg was not available to discuss the matter.
"Any destruction of documents in the face of a government investigation is inappropriate," a Congressional investigator said.
Ms. Rehnquist, the daughter of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, was appointed by President Bush in August 2001. She supervises a staff of 1,600 people who audit, investigate and evaluate more than $460 billion a year in federal spending.
Judith A. Holtz, a spokeswoman for Ms. Rehnquist, said tonight that many of the documents destroyed in recent weeks were "old case files and correspondence" that would probably be of no interest to the accounting office. "If other records were destroyed," Ms. Holtz said, "I have no knowledge of that."
The outside review of Ms. Rehnquist's office was requested by Senators Grassley and Baucus in October.
Mr. Grassley, the author of a federal whistle-blower protection statute, said he feared that the dismissal or reassignment of 19 senior executives by Ms. Rehnquist would cripple the government's ability to root out waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, the health programs for 70 million elderly, disabled and poor people. In a letter requesting the review, the senators asked the accounting office to determine if there had been any change in "the number and intensity of audits" since Ms. Rehnquist took office.
Investigators from the accounting office met last week with aides to Ms. Rehnquist to emphasize their concern and to request extra precautions to protect the documents needed for their review. Ms. Rehnquist then alerted Congress to the possible shredding of documents.
Ms. Rehnquist said in October that she would cooperate with the inquiry requested by Congress. But Congressional investigators said they had encountered some difficulties. On several occasions, they said, when they identified an employee whom they wanted to interview, an aide to Ms. Rehnquist intervened and questioned the employee, to find out what the person would be telling the accounting office.
The latest turmoil has caused distress among internal investigators at other agencies, who said that for years they viewed the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services as a model.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Carter Accepts Nobel Peace Prize With a Warning Against War
December 10, 2002
New York Times
By FRANK BRUNI
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/international/10CND-CART.html
OSLO, Dec. 10 - Former President Jimmy Carter accepted the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize today with a declaration that although war might "sometimes be a necessary evil," it is always an evil, "never a good."
"We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other's children," he added in a solemn ceremony in which he accepted a Nobel gold medal and diploma. The award also includes $1 million in cash.
Mr. Carter repeated the view that he expressed on Monday that Washington should work with the United Nations toward a peaceful resolution of tensions with Iraq.
He said the United States, as the last superpower, had "not assumed that super strength guarantees super wisdom."
The 78-year-old former president warned: "Instead of entering a millennium of peace, the world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place. The greater ease of travel and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual respect."
On Monday, speaking at a news conference, Mr. Carter expressed a belief that the Iraqi situation could be solved peacefully. but he largely avoided any overt questioning of current United States policy toward Iraq.
Mr. Carter said that the weapons inspections under way in Iraq were important, and that the involvement of the United Nations in that effort was prudent and just.
"What I interpret as the official decisions of our government," he said, "are completely compatible, at least at this point, with what I have proposed for the last three or four months."
But Mr. Carter also offered an appraisal of those inspections that differed from some of the pessimistic ones that the Bush administration had given in recent days.
"I think at this point, in my opinion, Iraq has complied," Mr. Carter said, adding that he did not have access to all of the information the Bush administration might have.
He also said that if the United Nations Security Council ultimately judged Iraq to be in compliance, "I see no reason for armed conflict."
Mr. Carter's selection as the winner of this year's peace prize came against the backdrop of the American conflict with Iraq. When the selection was announced in October, Gunnar Berge, the prize committee chairman, said the decision should be seen as a rebuke of President Bush's threats of an American military strike.
Today Mr. Berge called it "one of the real sins of omission" that Mr. Carter was not included in the 1978 prize given to the Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, and President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt for signing the Camp David accords that Mr. Carter brokered.
"Jimmy Carter should, of course, have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a long time ago," Mr. Berge said.
Mr. Carter's presidency, from 1977 to 1981, was a troubled one, and he lost his effort to win a second term in a landslide defeat to Ronald Reagan.
But he said on Monday that the prize would help shift attention toward "the more favorable things" in his administration's record, including the Camp David accord.
He also defended the United States when a French journalist said many Europeans believed that American policy toward Iraq was driven by oil.
"Anyone who claims that the United States is trying to get cheap oil - free oil - by invading Iraq is foolish," Mr. Carter said. "I know my country. I know my people. And I can assure you that is not the policy of my government."
---
Nobel Laureate Jimmy Carter Urges Peace
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 10, 2002; 6:24 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33947-2002Dec10?language=printer
OSLO, Dec. 10 - Former president Jimmy Carter, warning that "the world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place," today accepted the Nobel Peace Prize with a ringing endorsement for the United Nations and a plea for the United States to seek multilateral solutions rather than rely solely on its military might.
A frequent critic of many Bush administration policies, Carter avoided direct references to the White House in his acceptance speech. But he endorsed international restrictions on global warming, outlawing of the death penalty and the establishment of an international court to try alleged war criminals-all positions opposed by the administration.
And he took an indirect swipe at the White House's declared policy of preemptive action against threats to U.S. security. "For powerful countries to adopt a principle of preventative war may well set an example that can have catastrophic consequences," he told a packed audience in this capitol's ornate city hall.
Citing the United States' status as the world's sole superpower, he said Americans traditionally have "not assumed that super strength guarantees super wisdom." He added that, "imperfect as it may be," the United Nations was "the best avenue for the maintenance of peace."
It was a day of high emotion and deep satisfaction for the former president, 78, who was denied the peace prize in 1978 on a technicality and was defeated for a second term in office by Ronald Reagan in 1980. In a brief interview this evening, Carter said that while he had been disappointed to have lost out on the prize 24 years ago, it was more gratifying to receive it now. "I'll make good use of it," he said.
The peace prize committee said it chose Carter for his "vital contribution" in brokering the 1978 Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt, for his emphasis on human rights in international politics and for the work of the Carter Center, the Atlanta-based research and advocacy center that he founded after leaving office in 1981.
"Jimmy Carter will probably not go down in American history as the most effective president," said Gunnar Berge, chairman of the five-member Norwegian awards committee, in introducing the winner at this afternoon's ceremony. "But he is certainly the best ex-president the country ever had."
Berge noted that Carter had been denied the prize in 1978 because he was nominated after the deadline and declared ineligible to share the award with Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat. "It became increasingly obvious that the bypassing of Carter had been one of the real sins of omission in peace prize history," said Berge. "This year we can finally put all that behind us."
The ceremony began after Carter's entourage of 81 friends and relatives-including his wife Rosalynn, four children, 10 grandchildren and many veterans of his administration-took their seats in the front of the flower-festooned auditorium. The former president then made his way to the stage to a standing ovation, after which the king and queen of Norway entered. Berge spoke first, then soprano Jessye Norman sang "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."
Carter's address touched upon many of the themes of his post-White House career. He bemoaned the growing gap between rich and poor nations, made a renewed plea for Middle East peace and denounced those who invoke religion to justify waging war or terrorism.
"In order for us human beings to commit ourselves personally to the inhumanity of war, we find it necessary first to dehumanize our opponents, which is in itself a violation of the beliefs of all religions," he said. ". . .Once we characterize our adversaries as beyond the scope of God's mercy and grace, their lives lose all value."
Carter said this false justification applied not only to terrorists, but also to armed forces that use high-tech weapons. "From a great distance, we launch bombs or missiles with almost total impunity, and never look to know the number or identity of the victims," he told the audience.
He and his friends and family returned to the city hall later in the day to participate in a one-hour live interview program hosted by CNN. The crowd broke into spontaneous applause when interviewer Jonathan Mann told Carter he was "arguably the most respected American on the planet today."
Carter follows Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson as the third president to receive the prize, which includes a check for $1 million. He said he would donate the money to the Carter Center. The prize, he said, "will obviously enhance our reputation around the world and make it easier to raise funds."
---
'Global challenges must be met with an emphasis on peace'
Excerpts from Jimmy Carter's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
Reuters
Tuesday, December 10, 2002; 8:56 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34252-2002Dec10?language=printer
Following are excerpts of a speech by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday:
The world has changed greatly since I left the White House. Now there is only one superpower, with unprecedented military and economic strength...This dominant status is unlikely to change in our lifetimes.
Instead of entering a millennium of peace, the world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place...There is a plethora of civil wars...and recent appalling acts of terrorism have reminded us that no nations, even superpowers, are invulnerable.
It is clear that global challenges must be met with an emphasis on peace, in harmony with others, with strong alliances and international consensus. Imperfect as it may be, there is no doubt that this can best be done through the United Nations.
We must remember that today there are at least eight nuclear powers on earth, and three of them are threatening to their neighbours in areas of great international tension. For powerful countries to adopt a principle of preventive war may well set an example that can have catastrophic consequences.
For more than half a century, following the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, the Middle East conflict has been a source of worldwide tension.
(U.N. resolution 242) calls for withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories, and provides for Israelis to live securely and in harmony with their neighbours. There is no other mandate whose implementation could more profoundly improve international relationships.
IRAQ MUST COMPLY
Perhaps of more immediate concern is the necessity for Iraq to comply fully with the unanimous decision of the Security Council that it eliminate all weapons of mass destruction and permit unimpeded access by inspectors to confirm that this commitment has been honoured. The world insists that this be done.
I am not here as a public official, but as a citizen of a troubled world who finds hope in a growing consensus that the generally accepted goals of society are peace, freedom, human rights, environmental quality, the alleviation of suffering, and the rule of law.
During the past decades, the international community, usually under the auspices of the United Nations, has struggled to negotiate global standards that can help us achieve these essential goals.
They include the abolition of landmines and chemical weapons; an end to the testing, proliferation and further deployment of nuclear warheads; constraints on global warming; prohibition of the death penalty, at least for children; and an international criminal court to deter and punish war crimes and genocide. Those agreements already adopted must be fully implemented, and others should be pursued aggressively.
I am convinced that Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and others can embrace each other in a common effort to alleviate human suffering and to espouse peace.
At the beginning of this new millennium I was asked to discuss, here in Oslo, the greatest challenge that the world faces. Among all the possible choices, I decided that the most serious and universal problem is the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people on earth.
The results of this disparity are root causes of most of the world's unresolved problems, including starvation, illiteracy, environmental degradation, violent conflict and unnecessary illnesses that range from Guinea worm to HIV/AIDS.
But tragically, in the industrialised world there is a terrible absence of understanding or concern about those who are enduring lives of despair and hopelessness.
War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. God gives us the capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes - and we must.
----
The Peace Warriors
For Now, Anarchists, Socialists, Quakers, And More Are Marching to the Same Drum
By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 10, 2002; Page C01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32758-2002Dec9?language=printer
The dogs of war are baying in their kennel, drooling for another romp in the desert, and the din has awakened . . . what -- the doves of peace?
If only it were that simple, the peace movement might have an easier time. Or is it movements? Anyway, many, many species flock, trot, march, slither for peace -- so unlike the single-minded hounds.
If you knew where to look around Washington this past week, you saw anarchists scouting Army recruiting offices for good places to get arrested, socialists sticking red flag pins on a map to mark where the masses are mobilizing, anti-corporate-globalization kids zipping themselves up in white vinyl body bags they bought online for $7.
But let's not define the movement only by its wild frontiers. Don't forget the suburban seniors fixing to march on the White House in spite of arthritis and titanium kneecaps, women wearing pink keeping vigil in the cold, Quakers in the basement debating slogans that are too long and nuanced to fit on a bumper sticker, mainline Protestant pooh-bahs buying newspaper ads, union bosses taking a gut check of the rank and file, professional peaceniks holding 50-person conference calls, drafting white papers, asking for money . . .
Today the whole menagerie will be buzzing, bleating, bellowing in the movement's latest efflorescence -- civil disobedience outside a recruitment office at 12th and F streets NW at 8 a.m., rally and march in Farragut Square at noon, protest an Iraqi "liberation" lobby on Pennsylvania Avenue NW at 4:30 p.m., plus more of the same across the country on this International Human Rights Day.
The peace movement also wants You. So you study it, but you have trouble figuring out where you should sign up, if you should sign up:
The Washington Peace Center, Peace Action, the American Friends Service Committee, the Washington Action Group, the Anti-Capitalist Convergence, Left Turn, Not in Our Name, Pressure Point, Black Voices for Peace, Iraq Pledge of Resistance, the International Action Center, the Women's Peace Vigil.
To name a few.
Peace groups coagulate into peace networks: Recruiters for Peace and Justice Coalition, D.C. Anti-War Network, International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism), United for Peace, Win Without War, National Network to End the War Against Iraq.
Coming soon: networks of peace networks, coalitions of coalitions of coalitions.
It was almost this complicated during the Vietnam War, when the template of American peace protest was forged. What did the Yippies, the Weathermen, the Veterans for Peace in Vietnam have in common except one of their enemies, the war? The model was tinkered with only slightly in the anti-nuke, pro-Sandinista, anti-apartheid days. Now everything is a little more so, with flattened hierarchies, fewer leaders, less charisma, more people empowered (women are no longer relegated to the outer ring of chairs at peace powwows while ego-tripping white men hold the floor for hour after free-associating hour).
The result is more moving parts, unharnessed energy, free radicals, and graybeard organizers who aimed their first monkey wrench at the war machine when LBJ was king -- now they're taking a fresh hit of zeal from baby activists who can't pronounce Hue and still think there's something new under the sun.
"They're all connected and that's the beauty of this anarchistic movement," says Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange, United for Peace and the Women's Peace Vigil. "It's got lots of different people doing lots of different things."
Can lots of different people doing lots of different things stop the war? We'll find out.
There's Jane Meleney Coe, 64, Quaker, from Bethesda, wearing a sensible pink pullover and slacks as she tells a roomful of assorted Christians and grandparents how you have to make your opposition visible. What about a march downtown, with bongo drums and prayers?
"We went off and bombed an awful lot of Afghanistan and we haven't fulfilled our promise of nation-building there -- and now we're off to Iraq?" Coe says. "For me the failure to nurture peace between Palestine and Israel is where we really need to focus our energies."
There's Ray Valentine, 22, anarchist, from the District, dressed in black, who rides his bike from Columbia Heights to coffee-shop meetings with comrades to plan a surprise for downtown military recruiters. He doesn't have a regular job but spends most of his time working with one anarchist collective that feeds the homeless on weekends and another that's starting a radical bookstore to be run with no profit, no bosses, everybody chipping in -- a micro model for a better world that, by the way, would no longer need war.
"The U.S. is doing this to maintain economic control, this iron fist over the world," Valentine says.
And there's Jack Condon, 69, a Democrat who sometimes votes Green, an ex-Marine and physics teacher, dressed in lumpy layers against the cold as he prepares to go out wheat-pasting fluorescent orange and purple antiwar posters to light poles on Capitol Hill. Being from Arlington, he gets horribly lost.
He's worried that the consequences of invading Iraq will be endless Middle East war, more terrorism, and guess who will suffer most? "The Bushes go back to their ranch. Saddam Hussein goes back in his hole. They'll be safe. We're going to pay the price, just like the Iraqi people are going to pay the price."
Organizing an ANSWER
Anarchists, Quakers, Democrats, oh my! Surprise, they're saying a lot of the same things. Maybe it's because this is an easy war to be against. Saddam hasn't even done the war dogs the favor of invading another country first. He's just a plain dangerous threat, says President Bush.
A threat? scoff the peace tribes in their coffee shacks, churches and phone bank boiler rooms. The first Gulf War wasn't a close contest, and now after 10 years of ruinous sanctions and the postwar destruction of tons of chemical weapons by United Nations inspectors, Iraq is supposed to be a threat?
The rising chorus in unison doesn't mean all pieces of the peace movement are the same. To understand them better, watch what they do, not what they say.
Socialists are the best organizers. It has ever been so, at least since the heady days of progressive mobilizations in the early part of the 20th century.
The reason the antiwar movement has received attention and momentum before the war has even begun -- surely this is some sort of record -- can be largely credited to the work of International ANSWER. On Oct. 26 that coalition turned out about 100,000 protesters in Washington and tens of thousands more in San Francisco.
ANSWER is not a socialist organization, but key members of its brain trust happen to be active in the Workers World Party. Their party politics are irrelevant to the vast majority of people, like Democrat Condon, for example, who are attracted to a seasoned outfit that's good at what it does.
The ANSWER coalition includes groups like the International Action Center, a New York-based band of serial organizers who have demonstrated against the death penalty, welfare reform, U.S. "imperialism," corporate globalization, and the inauguration of George W. Bush.
The secret of how ANSWER organizes is mundane: systematic hard work, not so common in radical circles. Sarah Sloan, a local ANSWER activist, explains it sitting in the cramped white brick D.C. chapter headquarters, on the outskirts of Capitol Hill. Sloan is 22, serious, with cropped hair and wire-rim glasses, fond of beginning sentences with the phrase "Our perspective is . . . ." She dropped out of college at 17 to join the movement after traveling to Iraq with activists to witness the devastation of the sanctions. She's unpaid, like everyone else organizing full time with ANSWER. She pays the rent by transcribing interviews for writers late at night. She's a Workers World Party member, unlike most of the D.C. volunteers.
Speaking for ANSWER, she says, "Our perspective is that massive attacks and intervention could lead to . . . a rebirth of a massive progressive people's movement."
Next to Sloan is the U.S. map with the red flag pins. Each pin marks a city from which buses of 49 passengers apiece are already scheduled to come to Washington for the next big demo on Jan. 18. Dozens and dozens of cities are flagged: Iowa City; Shepherdstown, W.Va.; Geneva, N.Y.; Charleston, S.C.; Nashville . . .
In many of the cities, the people chartering the buses are working on their first demo. They heard of ANSWER the way Condon did, by picking up a flier, then learned the calculus of movement-building: Fliers are handed out at Metro stations at the rate of 500 an hour. Photocopied poster art is enlarged 130 percent or 200 percent, depending on the size of the surface to which it will be wheat-pasted. Poster teams go out once a week and blanket city and suburbs.
"Our perspective is people have to hear about something more than once to make them feel it's a big thing," Sloan says. "We spend the bulk of our time reaching out to people who aren't involved and don't yet know about the movement against the war."
To an extent unknown outside the boardrooms of the most well-heeled charities, ANSWER understands the care and feeding of its public. Call an ANSWER office, and you'll reach a live person, or you'll soon get a call back. Students and retirees staff the phones in shifts. A local office like the one in the District might have a volunteer "hot list" of 80 people, which organizers frequently update with only the most active supporters.
By not ignoring neighborhoods like Anacostia and Capitol Heights, ANSWER attracts more people of color than other peace groups, with the exception of Black Voices for Peace, formed in Washington precisely because of the unbearable whiteness of the peace movement.
ANSWER's disciplined passion is hard to beat. And yet there are critics. Go to an ANSWER rally billed as "antiwar," and besides the peace talk you're likely to hear speaker after speaker going on about Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Palestine, Cuba, Korea, Vieques -- with the U.S. government always cast as the villain.
This is why more mainstream peace groups are a little squeamish about ANSWER.
"Kudos to them for having the foresight and guts to go out there and call the demo," says Scott Lynch of Peace Action, a national grass roots group with about 85,000 members. "The problem is, if the movement continues to be led by them, it won't go any farther."
ANSWER's answer to that is: If the mainstream peace movement has such mass appeal, how come its recent demonstrations have been so puny?
All in good time, says Lynch. Slower off the mark than ANSWER, many mainstream elements of the movement plan to support ANSWER's Jan. 18 blowout -- but they also are eyeing the weekend of Feb. 16 in New York for their own huge demonstration.
Internal tension was encoded in the peace movement's DNA during the genesis moment in the early 1960s. Remember when there was a huge fight over whether the protest signs should demand U.S. troops out now, or negotiate now? Remember when doctrinaire pacifists had hissy fits at peace workers who reached out to GIs? Remember when good liberal burghers wished the scruffy Left would just butt out -- or at least stop saying nice things about Ho Chi Minh?
More recently, remember when two national coalitions arose to protest the Persian Gulf War, with one accusing the other of being soft on Saddam?
There is always a "good" peace movement and a "bad" peace movement, depending on your point of view, but they need each other, as much as they need the threat of war.
Peace Is Their Business
One afternoon last week 27 protesters zipped themselves up in white vinyl body bags on the sidewalk outside what they said was the lobbying office for ExxonMobil on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. They looked like abandoned luggage. Someone dressed as the Grim Reaper walked among the prone shapes, cackling and holding a gasoline nozzle instead of a scythe.
Then the protesters popped out of their bags, chanted "No blood for oil" and marched to a nearby gas station, where they posed for pictures next to the pumps.
Ah, the anti-corporate-globalization raiders, with their theater and whimsy.
But what do they have to do with the peace movement?
They are nothing if not opportunistic. But they also are adding a planetary perspective that seems new. You didn't hear this stuff so much in 1965.
"Some of the opposition to the war now comes from a clearer vision of what's happening in the international world than we had when we started trying to figure out where Vietnam was," says John Judge, 55, a coordinator of the Washington Peace Center. He was a college student in 1965 who flunked the physical for the draft and counseled students and GIs on their options, and he's been doing peace work ever since.
At the gas station, the Grim Reaper, who was labeled "ExxonMobil," exulted for the television cameras: "We're looking forward to the war. The price of oil is going to go up and we're going to make billions of dollars!"
The alleged war-oil connection is not new, but this species of dove is opposing the war more broadly as an instrument of global capitalism, not just oil companies. The demonstrators say this war is best understood simply as a scheme to make another patch of the world safe for Western investors.
Several miles north in bourgeois Bethesda, a different analysis is spreading softly in the night.
Jane Meleney Coe, the Quaker, has about 40 senior citizens from various Protestant denominations arranged in a circle in the basement music room of a private school while she writes their ideas with a squeaky marker pen on a large pad.
They are trying to come up with slogans. They chuckle at "Drop Bush Not Bombs" but decide it's not nice.
They admire "There Is That Which Is of God in Every Person," the old Quaker precept.
But is it too much for a sign?
This is new territory. Will Metro allow them to board trains with wooden sticks for signs?
"I can use it as a cane with my new knee," says Lee Warren Shipman, 78, an architectural planner. Later she says: "I just don't believe in war. I think al Qaeda is more of a threat than Iraq."
Odom Fanning, 82, a World War II Marine vet and retired writer, says, "I can see hundreds of thousands of our troops and allied troops being involved in a bloody and almost never-ending conflict, and I don't think history will look kindly on the United States for starting that kind of war."
It was Coe who thought the sight of 65- and 75-year-olds marching downtown would be powerful. Now it's mushroomed into the centerpiece of today's activities, the rally at Farragut Square.
The other peace tribes promise to fall in behind the church ladies, all for one, one for all.
The Battles to Come
Later will come the schisms, betrayals and burnouts.
Are sanctions effective? Is the United Nations a puppet of the U.S. government? Is capitalism a problem? Is war sometimes the answer? How much is Israel to blame for Middle East strife? How much is the U.S. to blame? What would Jesus do?
The doves disagree among themselves on all of these questions. The doves are eternally cursed to disagree, sooner or later. Oh, to be born a simple hound.
They know this. And yet they keep organizing, marching, chanting, singing, praying, drumming, going to jail, zipping into body bags -- so that one day they might get it together, and the dogs will be forever leashed.
----
100 Arrested in U.S. Anti-War Protests
By ALLEN G. BREED
Associated Press Writer
Dec 10, 2002
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ANTI_WAR_PROTESTS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
From Goshen, Ind., grannies collecting relief kits to a "die-in" on an Ivy League campus, Americans took to the streets Tuesday in mostly small, low-key events to protest a possible war on Iraq. More than 100 people were arrested.
World War II veteran Ray Kaepplinger was among 40 people picketing outside a Chicago federal office building as 20 others were being arrested in the lobby for criminal trespass.
Kaepplinger, 84, said he had "been through the plume of hell in New Guinea" and didn't want to see another war erupt. "As far as I'm concerned, President George II is as bad as Saddam Hussein," he said.
About half of the 200 protesters demonstrating outside the U.S. mission to the United Nations in New York were arrested for disorderly conduct, including clergy members. Across the country in Sacramento, Calif., nine were taken into custody for blocking the entrance to a federal courthouse.
"It's my first time ever," said Maria Cornejo, 41, a mother of four from Dixon, Calif. "That's how important this is."
The group United for Peace counted more than 120 planned vigils, acts of civil disobedience and marches in 37 states from Alaska to Florida. Protests were being organized by fax and over the Internet by anarchists and Communists, evangelicals and Quakers.
In the Mennonite community of Goshen, people gathered soap, bandages, towels and other items to send to the poor of Iraq. Sharon Baker, 64, brought in three kits for shipment through the Mennonite Central Committee.
"I'm opposed to any war, any time, anywhere, any place because war doesn't solve anything," she said.
At the Women's Building in Albany, N.Y., dozens have signed up to fast for one day each to protest the Bush administrations threats of war.
In the nation's capital, about 300 protesters, many with gray hair, staged a march to a park near the White House. Flanked by police, John Steinbach, 56, of Manassas, Va., an organizer of the Gray Panthers, was pushing the wheelchair of his 97-year-old wife, Louise Franklin-Ramirez, who he said had been protesting since 1917.
"The movement was looked on as being mainly youngsters," said Irving Irskin, 84, of Bethesda, Md., "but we want to show it's our war, too."
Earlier in Washington, several people were arrested after converging on two military recruiting stations chanting, "Hell no, we won't go," and plastering windows with red tape.
Students at the University of Michigan set up a makeshift graveyard on a major walkway through the Ann Arbor campus, using cardboard headstones that read "Iraqi child" and "Iraqi man." About 100 students and faculty at Brown University in Providence, R.I., marched with signs and staged a "die-in" in front of the city's federal building.
The White House said President Bush welcomed the protests as part of a "time-honored tradition" of democracy.
While a recent USA/CNN/Gallup Poll found that a majority of Americans still support sending ground troops to remove the Iraqi president, the percentage opposed has nearly doubled to 37 percent since a year ago.
The protests were a far cry from October's mass rallies in Washington, San Francisco and elsewhere that drew an estimated 200,000 participants. But Eric Garris, director of antiwar.com, an affiliate of the nonprofit Center for Libertarian Studies, said those events were sponsored in large part by groups with agendas other than stopping a war with Iraq.
Unlike during the Vietnam War, mainstream groups are not waiting for a full-blown conflict to register their opposition. The National Council on Churches, which represents 50 million Christians, took out a full-page ad in the New York Times last week asking Bush to avert a war.
"It took 12 years for the mainline Christian churches and the Roman Catholic Church to come to an understanding that the war in Vietnam was wrong," said the Rev. Robert Edgar, the council's general secretary and a member of Congress at war's end in 1975.
The day of protest also coincided with former President Jimmy Carter's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.
"War may sometimes be a necessary evil," he said in his acceptance speech. "But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good."
Associated Press writers Jessica Brice in Sacramento; Mike Robinson in Chicago; Carol Ann Riha in Des Moines; Danny Freedman in Washington; Michael Virtanen in Albany; Karen Matthews in New York; and Elizabeth Zuckerman in Providence contributed to this report.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Allen G. Breed is the AP's Southeast regional writer, based in Raleigh, N.C.
----
Anti-Iraq War Protestors Rally Across U.S.
December 10, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/national/news-iraq-usa-protest.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Anti-war demonstrators rallied in Washington on Tuesday at the start of a day of coordinated protests called across the United States against a possible war with Iraq.
Organizers said marches and rallies were planned in about 100 towns and cities to coincide with International Human Rights Day, although early signs were there would be no mass response.
Although polls show a majority of Americans support military action against Iraq if it refuses to disarm, the protesters said they believe their message is beginning to be heard by President (George W.) Bush.
``I really think this anti-war movement has slowed down the war machine. Now we've got to ramp it up. Public opinion is the only buffer keeping us from going to war,'' said Medea Benjamin, member of the Women's Peace Vigil at the Washington rally, which started outside an army recruitment center.
``I know that to keep my family as safe as possible I have to try to stop this war,'' said Benjamin, a mother of two whose a small group has demonstrated daily outside the White House for weeks.
About 50 protesters huddled together in the cold, hopping from foot to foot, chanting ``This oil war has got to go.'' Drivers honked in support in the rush-hour traffic. ``Be a patriot -- question the war monsters,'' said one poster.
In October, in the biggest U.S. anti-war demonstration so far, coordinated protests in Washington and San Francisco drew tens of thousands of people.
Tuesday's protests, planned across the country from North Carolina to Alaska, were organized by a range of religious, academic, business, human rights and women's groups.
Bush has said the United States is ready to go to war against President Saddam Hussein unless he complies with tough United Nations demands to dismantle any programs he has to make chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Saddam denies having any such weapons and has agreed to inspections by United Nations experts, now under way.
U.S. PROTESTS WEAKER THAN ABROAD
A Gallup poll in late November showed that 58 percent of Americans favor sending U.S. troops to oust Saddam from the oil-rich nation, although 64 percent said the United States should get U.N. authorization for a fresh war.
Anti-Iraq war demonstrations in the United States have been minor compared to those abroad. In cities such as Paris, London, and Rome, hundreds of thousands of have demonstrated.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters Bush welcomed peaceful protests, which he called ``a time-honored American tradition.''
``The president agrees that violence is not the answer in Iraq, and that's why he hopes Iraq will disarm,'' he said.
``It's cold out here, definitely, but I guess it shows people we're serious about it by being here,'' said Sarah, 25, a Washington demonstrator who asked to withhold her last name.
``We need to show people there are lots of Americans who don't agree with this, even if you don't hear that message all that often,'' she said.
----
Groups Gather to Protest Iraq War
December 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Anti-War-Protests.html
From Indiana Mennonites collecting care packages for Iraq's poor to a ``die-in'' on an Ivy League campus, Americans took to the streets Tuesday in mostly small, low-key events to protest a possible war with Iraq. More than 100 people were arrested.
World War II veteran Ray Kaepplinger was picketing outside a Chicago federal office building as 20 people were being arrested in the lobby for criminal trespass.
Kaepplinger, 84, said he had ``been through the plume of hell in New Guinea'' and didn't want to see another war erupt. ``As far as I'm concerned, President George II is as bad as Saddam Hussein,'' he said.
About half the 200 protesters outside the U.S. mission to the United Nations in New York were arrested for disorderly conduct, including clergy members. Across the country in Sacramento, Calif., nine were taken into custody for blocking the entrance to a federal courthouse.
``It's my first time ever,'' said Maria Cornejo, 41, a mother of four from Dixon, Calif. ``That's how important this is.''
In Hollywood, more than 100 entertainers signed a letter to President Bush saying a war with Iraq will ``increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks, damage the economy and undermine our moral standing in the world.''
``This notion of pre-emptive war is setting a precedent ... and we must ask ourselves, where does this end?'' said Tony Shalhoub, star of the ABC detective show ``Monk.''
The group United for Peace counted more than 120 planned vigils, acts of civil disobedience and marches in 37 states from Alaska to Florida. Protests were being organized by fax and over the Internet by anarchists and Communists, evangelicals and Quakers.
In the Mennonite community of Goshen, Ind., people gathered soap, bandages, towels and other items to send to Iraq. Among the group was Sharon Baker, 64.
``I'm opposed to any war, any time, anywhere, any place because war doesn't solve anything,'' she said.
In the nation's capital, about 300 protesters staged a march to a park near the White House. Flanked by police, John Steinbach of Manassas, Va., an organizer of the Gray Panthers, was pushing the wheelchair of his 97-year-old wife, Louise Franklin-Ramirez, who he said had been protesting since 1917.
``The movement was looked on as being mainly youngsters,'' said Irving Irskin, 84, of Bethesda, Md., ``but we want to show it's our war, too.''
Earlier in Washington, about 30 protesters converged on two military recruiting stations chanting, ``Hell no, we won't go,'' and plastering windows with red tape. Police said six people were arrested.
About 100 students and faculty at Brown University in Providence, R.I., marched and staged a ``die-in'' in front of the city's federal building.
The White House said the president welcomed the protests as part of a ``time-honored tradition'' of democracy.
While a recent USA/CNN/Gallup Poll found a majority of Americans support sending ground troops to remove the Iraqi president, the percentage opposed has nearly doubled to 37 percent since a year ago.
The protests were a far cry from October's mass rallies in Washington, San Francisco and elsewhere that drew an estimated 200,000 participants.
Unlike during the Vietnam War, mainstream groups are not waiting for a full-blown conflict to register their opposition. The National Council on Churches, which represents 50 million Christians, took out a full-page ad in the New York Times last week asking Bush to avert a war.
The day of protest also coincided with former President Jimmy Carter's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.
``War may sometimes be a necessary evil,'' he said in his acceptance speech. ``But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good.''
Associated Press writers Jessica Brice in Sacramento; Mike Robinson in Chicago; Carol Ann Riha in Des Moines; Danny Freedman in Washington; Michael Virtanen in Albany; Karen Matthews in New York; and Elizabeth Zuckerman in Providence contributed to this report.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Allen G. Breed is the AP's Southeast regional writer, based in Raleigh, N.C.
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University Protests in Iran Bring a Bitter Walkout in Parliament
December 10, 2002
New York Times
By NAZILA FATHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/10/international/middleeast/10IRAN.html
TEHRAN, Dec. 9 - Tensions over weeks of student protests have reached into Parliament here, with hard-liners leaving the floor in protest on Sunday as a reformist member called for a referendum on the current government. It was the first such scene in recent years.
The popularity of the protests, which began over a death sentence for a reformist scholar, is also broadening. Several hundred people broke through the gates at Amir Kabir University here today to join student protesters, witnesses said.
The hard-liners, who have opposed change despite the election of a moderate president, Mohammad Khatami, in 1997, have rejected the idea of a referendum and said that street demonstrations in support of the current government were a sign of its popularity.
"If it is a matter of measuring how people think about the leaders, the only way is to put it to a public vote," said Rajabali Mazroui, a pro-reform member, in Parliament on Sunday.
"I am warning those who threaten in their statements to bring in" vigilante forces against the protesters "to stop, because that is neither according to our Islamic teachings nor a way to resolve the complicated problems in our society," he added.
One hard-line member, Muhammad Muhammadi, accused Mr. Mazroui of being a traitor and of provoking students. Mr. Muhammadi threatened to call on the people to "tear him to pieces."
Then the hard-liners left the assembly, saying that Mr. Mazroui's warning was directed at Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and that they considered it an insult. The ayatollah had said last month that he would call on such groups to intervene if authorities failed to maintain calm in society.
Later, to restore the peace within the Parliament, Mr. Mazroui said that his warning had been directed at members of hard-line factions, not Ayatollah Khamenei. The speaker of Parliament, Mehdi Karoubi, negotiated with angry members for half an hour to persuade them to return.
The daily Hayat-e-No, a newspaper close to the reformers, however, said today that the attempt by hard-liners to obstruct Parliament was basically a power play, in preparation for obstructionist tactics when the body votes on Mr. Khatami's major reform bills in the coming weeks.
Parliament, which is dominated by supporters of Mr. Khatami, will consider two bills that are aimed at reforming the election law to allow liberal politicians to run for public office more easily and to expand the president's limited power.
The approval of the bills has already been slowed by the introduction of 600 proposed amendments, mostly by hard-liners. Each must be read on the floor and put to a vote. Even if the bills are passed, they must then be reviewed by the very hard-line body whose power they would weaken, so the reformists' prospects of success are not great.
----
Thank you, Philip Berrigan
By James Carroll,
12/10/2002
Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/344/oped/Thank_you_Philip_Berrigan%2B.shtml
PHILIP BERRIGAN is dead. His family and friends laid him to rest yesterday in Baltimore. Most people associate him with the Vietnam era draft board raids that made him famous. Fewer know that he committed eight major acts of civil disobedience between 1980 and 1999 - acts of disarmament, which cost him years in prison. But the image of the smiling, white-haired man in handcuffs can be misleading. Far from being a marginal figure whose time is long past, Philip Berrigan, even in death, has extraordinary relevance for two of today's most urgent questions.
The first has to do with the Catholic priesthood. Once, the pressures facing the Catholic Church would have seemed a parochial matter, but the moral conflagration that is melting the inner-girders of this institution has begun to threaten the very structure of authority in society. Catholics continue to be staggered by the abuse coverup scandal with each further revelation of the hierarchy's obtuseness - and the priesthood's hollowness.
Early on, others watched the church's immorality play with detached fascination, but lately even non-Catholics have sensed a dangerous, society-wide shuddering. If the Catholic Church can fall, what can't? In fact, the political and moral order is a pair of twin towers - and they, too, can come down.
Philip Berrigan lived a life that offers an image of redemption to the Catholic priesthood. In particular, he showed what the vow of obedience really means. With his Jesuit brother Daniel, he found himself in conflict with a hierarchy that was, in effect, a co-sponsor of an unjust war (''Bomb them,'' Cardinal Spellman told LBJ. ''Just bomb them.'') Berrigan's challenge was as much to the church as to the nation. The church, too, is subject to biblical judgment; the church, too, is fallen. And by refusing to heed those who equated his prophetic critique with disloyalty, affirming his Catholic faith to the end, and ignoring those who would excommunicate him, Berrigan showed the way for Catholics today. In defying corrupt authority, he rescued the principle of authority. To stand against a morally bankrupt Catholic power structure is the highest manifestation of Catholic love. Berrigan, married to a strong woman and the father of two magnificent daughters, never stopped being an exemplary priest.
But his significance is far broader than that. While most Americans were in willful denial about their nation's hubristic devotion to ''overwhelming force'' based on nuclear weapons, Berrigan was endlessly sounding alarms.
When the Cold War ended, and with it the threat that had pushed the world to the brink of an abyss, America alone declined to step back. The ''indispensable nation'' would be armed to the teeth. Berrigan protested, directly assaulting missiles, destroyers, warplanes, and uranium warheads. The war culture/economy, he warned, will spark a momentum toward mass violence that will be its own justification, and it will be unstoppable.
And lo, behold where we have come. The imminent invasion of Iraq is an exact instance of what Berrigan predicted - America going to war not because it needs to, but because it can. And Berrigan would insist that originating this crisis is not the eccentric machismo of George W. Bush (Berrigan challenged Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton), but the universal American fantasy that ''national security'' can depend on weapons of mass destruction.
On this point, Saddam Hussein is our mirror image, which must be why we hate him so. Berrigan was often dismissed as a pacifist idealist, but the current crisis reveals him to have been a shrewd realist. The weapons we accumulate, instead of protecting us, are themselves the source of our mortal danger.
Americans should not condescend to the troubled Catholic Church. The nation and the religion are enshrouded in the same moral fog. For years, Catholics - both bishops and laity equally at the mercy of a corrupt clericalism - looked the other way while pathological priests abused children. Now some would like to restrict blame to the cowardly leaders, fire them, and get back to normal. But what if ''normal'' is the problem? What if the entire system of church triumphalism (sex-hating, woman-hating, power-mad) must be dismantled?
Equally grave questions address the American war culture. The attack on Iraq must be opposed, but must not everything that has brought our nation to this threshold of violent imperialism be re-examined? Why, over the last dozen years, have we done so little to step back from the nuclear abyss? Why is the ideal of international law so weightless in Washington? How can we expect other nations not to imitate our unchecked reliance on weapons of mass destruction? When did this vast American militarism become ''normal?''
These are questions on which Berrigan had the nerve to stake his life, as a Catholic and an American. As a priest and a prophet. Phil is dead: His questions are still there to be asked. Phil is dead: We loved him. Phil is dead: May he rest, at last, in peace.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.
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Minnesota-born Philip Berrigan, 'saint of our time'
Doug Grow
Star Tribune
Dec. 10, 2002
http://www.startribune.com/stories/465/3521402.html
A story about the simplicity of the Minnesota-born peace giant, Philip Berrigan:
A few weeks ago, Jerry Berrigan, who lives on a community farm near Luck, Wis., took his family to visit his dying father in Baltimore. Jerry walked in the door of the Jonah House, the communal home where Philip and his wife lived. The son was greeted with this: "Glad to see you, son. It's good you're a carpenter. I need you to build me a coffin."
So Jerry phoned family friend and peace activist Mike Miles back in Luck. Miles and his family were planning to spend Thanksgiving with the Berrigans in Baltimore and would they bring Jerry's plane and sander?
The tools arrived; the coffin was built and a family friend painted roses on it.
"He loved flowers," said Miles, who lived in Berrigan's communal home in Baltimore in the 1980s. "We always did painting work [as a source of revenue] and whenever we'd paint a place where somebody was growing flowers, he'd snitch a few to take back to Jonah House."
Funeral services were held Monday for Philip Berrigan, 79, World War II veteran, former Catholic priest, husband, father, major leader of opposition to the Vietnam War and a man who spent 11 years of his life in prison for his actions in the name of peace. He died Friday of cancer.
Philip Berrigan was born in 1923 in Two Harbors, Minn., the youngest of six sons, including Daniel, who joined his brother in opposition to the war in Vietnam. The dramatic protest actions of the Berrigan brothers were at the root of what became a national protest movement against the war. The fact that the famous Berrigan brothers spent part of their childhood in Two Harbors is noted nowhere in the community.
Over the years, Philip Berrigan frequently was in Minnesota to participate in peace and social justice causes.
"He never turned me down," said Marv Davidov, who for years headed a massive antiwar demonstration at Honeywell and was involved with Berrigan for nearly 40 years. "I'd ask him to come and give a talk. Then, I'd try to pay for his airplane ticket and give him a small honorarium. He wouldn't take it."
Philip Berrigan also often appeared at the University of Minnesota at the Newman Center, a campus Catholic center and peace movement center in the 1960s. The official church hierarchy wouldn't acknowledge his appearances, said Moira Moga, who with her husband, Dan, directed the Newman Center during the height of campus radicalism.
"But there were always priests and nuns who came to hear him," she said.
Does he have a place in history?
"He was the saint of our time," Moga said.
Miles shares Moga's biblical view of Philip Berrigan. "He was our Elijah, our John the Baptist," he said.
A couple of senior University of Minnesota historians have differing views as to what sort of place Berrigan has in history.
Hy Berman said that Berrigan is little different from other "well-meaning, left-of-center clergymen" who preceded him and who will follow him.
"Basically, their cause is and was world peace," Berman said. "I'm not disparaging the antiwar movement. We need it. But the people who advocate it never have seen a war they liked or a tyrant they weren't willing to at least defend if it meant stopping a war."
But David Noble, once a strong voice against the Vietnam War, believes Berrigan's influence runs deep. Noble said you can make a case that the Berrigan brothers were founders of a "radical Catholicism" that later became liberation theology in Central America and now is spreading to Africa and Asia. That social justice theology also has had an effect on some American Protestant churches, he said.
Philip Berrigan wouldn't care about his place in history, Miles said, for he seemed to have no ego. But he would care that his message was heard.
"He was hard on himself," Miles said. "He always thought he should be doing more."
But sometimes Berrigan could be just another crazy parent.
"One of my favorite memories about Phil goes back to 1981 or '82," Miles said. "We'd done a bunch of Holy Week actions -- an exorcism in [Secretary of State] Alexander Haig's office, blood at the White House -- and then we went for a picnic and Phil wanted to fly a kite with his son. Problem was, there wasn't much wind so he kept running and running. He kept getting closer and closer to this big hedge and we sat there wondering, 'What's he going to do?' He ran right through it."
The man never was afraid of tough obstacles.
- Doug Grow is at dgrow@startribune.com.
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Baltimore City Council Says No To War
Council Members Pass Resolution Opposing Iraqi War
December 10, 2002
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/1830438/detail.html
BALTIMORE -- Baltimore City says "no" to war with Iraq.
On Monday night, the City Council passed a resolution officially declaring that the city is against a possible war.
The resolution says the Bush administration is in violation of international law in its military stance against Iraq. It also says the United States should work with Iraq through the United Nations and that war should be used only as a last resort for international conflicts.
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