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NUCLEAR
Nuclear reactors able to withstand attack by airliner
UK nuclear rescue to repeal poison pill law-sources
Germany approves second on-site nuke waste storage
IAEA Chief Says Agency Begins Iraqi Interviews
Iraq opens doors to CIA to prove US is lying about banned weapons
U.S. ignores Baghdad's invitation to CIA
Iraq 'Ready to Deal' With Questions
S.Korea's Roh, Kim Hold Talks on North Korea
US, Allies Push to Stop N.Korea Nuclear Move
Surveillance Gear Removed, N. Korea Admits
North Korea takes over nuclear lab as crisis escalates
North Korea removes UN surveillance seals from spent fuel rods
What Lies in Yongbyon Pond?
`Nuclear Envoy' to Be Appointed
Tensions mount over N. Korean nukes
U.S. urges reactor be left shuttered
Powell Consults on N.Korea, Wants Peaceful Solution
U.S. Consults on N. Korea, Wants Peaceful Solution
Rumsfeld Warns N.Korea U.S. Not Distracted by Iraq
Sweden clears reactor for controversial fuel
Los Alamos Cited for Storage Violations
MILITARY
Saddam planned to use bioweapons in Gulf War: CIA
Raytheon Makes First Acquisitions Since '98
Iraq Standoff Buoys Lockheed Martin
Colombian Officials to Meet Far - Right Militias
Baghdad Blasts 'Little Bush'
U.S. Says Iraq Shot Down Unmanned Drone
Israel, US to Hold Joint Military Exercises
Arafat Slams Israel Grip on Bethlehem at Christmas
Japan offered support for US attack on Iraq
Israel Seeks to Stay Out of Any Iraq War
US plans to use Turkey as Iraq staging post
Troops in Kuwait Watch and Wait
Attacks on U.S. forces downplayed
US Air Force uses drugs to keep pilots alert
Rumsfeld Says, If Necessary, U.S. Can Fight 2 Wars at Once
U.S. Testing Missiles and Spy Planes in Its Gulf Buildup
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Guatemala Inmates Riot, One Dead
Many Tools of Big Brother Are Up and Running
Cities Urge Restraint in Fight Against Terror
OTHER
BWT and Nuvera in fuel cell development deal
Sierra Pacific signs 50 MW solar power contract
Oil Hits 22-Month High on Iraq, Venezuela
ACTIVISTS
Anti-War Not The Same As Anti-Defense
Iraq Says Foreigners Will Shield It from U.S.
A Hong Kong Rally for Tough New Laws Pushed by Beijing
Foes of Venezuela's Chavez March, Reject Truce
Activists planning mass civil disobedience if U.S. attacks Iraq
Protesting May Be Good for Your Health
Dozens hurt in anti-pipeline protest in Thailand
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Nuclear reactors able to withstand attack by airliner
ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 23, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021223-94486665.htm
Tests using engineering models support the nuclear industry's arguments that a reactor could withstand a direct hit by a jetliner, an industry-sponsored report says.
While the tests by engineers independent of the industry provide valuable data, federal regulators briefed on the findings say they are waiting for completion of their own tests before drawing conclusions.
The vulnerability of the 4-foot-thick concrete containment domes of reactors to an airborne strike has been of major concern since the September 11 attacks.
Reactors are designed to withstand many natural disasters, including hurricanes and earthquakes. They never were designed specifically to be protected against a direct hit by a large aircraft such as the planes flown into the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
Findings to be released this week conclude that if a Boeing 767-400 jetliner, fully loaded with 28,980 gallons of fuel, were flown directly into the center of a reactor at 350 mph, the plane would not penetrate the structure.
"The analysis indicates that no part of the engine, the fuselage or the wings - nor the jet fuel - entered the containment building," says the report prepared by two consulting firms for the Electric Power Research Institute at the request of the nuclear industry.
The computer analysis evaluated a direct impact on the containment structure of one of the plane's engines and "the global impact" of the entire aircraft mass on the structure.
The analysis concluded that damage would be limited to "some sprawling," or crushing of material, of the concrete but with minimal penetration.
A summary of the report, provided to the Associated Press yesterday by industry sources, produced no detailed test calculations but said conservative assumptions were used.
For example, the computer runs assumed a fuel-loaded aircraft, making a direct hit at the center of the containment building where impact forces would be greatest.
It assumes use of a Boeing 767-400 because that wide-bodied jet best represents the commercial aircraft fleets, and the report used a speed of 350 mph because that is believed to be the speed at which two jetliners hit their targets on September 11.
Higher speeds would make an aircraft too hard to control at low altitude and a hit on a reactor difficult, the study said.
The tests were conducted by ABS Consulting, which specializes in quantifying losses from natural and man-made hazards such as fires, earthquakes and missile impacts; and Anatech Corp., a San Diego engineering firm that specializes in evaluating structural failures.
The sponsoring Electric Power Research Institute, based in Palo Alto, Calif., is a nonprofit energy research consortium of the electric power industry. After the September 11 attacks, the Nuclear Energy Institute asked the consortium to develop the study.
Separate tests on reactor vulnerability to an aircraft crash, details of which are classified, are under way at the government's Sandia National Laboratory and elsewhere, said a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Spokesman William Beecher said he could not comment on the industry tests without referring to classified information involving the government tests. He said commission officials have been briefed on the industry findings.
-------- britain
UK nuclear rescue to repeal poison pill law-sources
Story by Andrew Callus
REUTERS UK:
December 23, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19171/newsDate/23-Dec-2002/story.htm
LONDON - Rescue legislation for nuclear power firm British Energy will repeal part of a 1989 privatisation law that was designed to block renationalisation by future governments, political sources said.
The moves shows the British government takes seriously the possibility that the stricken privatised power producer's creditors may reject the refinancing package it has put together.
Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt has already said the state would have to take back under its full control the producer of a fifth of the UK's electricity if bondholders, bank lenders and business creditors reject the plan.
British Energy appealed to the government for help in September after power prices fell below its cost of production in the newly deregulated UK power market.
It won a 650-million-pound ($1.04 billion) emergency loan, which under EU rules must be replaced by a permanent restructuring by March 9 next year. Creditors have yet to agree the revamp proposed by the state.
THATCHER "POISON PILL"
Britain's Electricity Act of 1989 was put together by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in the heyday of state sell-offs.
Section 74 of the act, written more than six years before British Energy was privatised and seven years before the current left-of-centre Labour government took power, says any new state investment target set by the government "must be lower than the one it replaces".
The company is at present fully investor-owned, except for a government golden share that can be used to block takeovers.
Political sources say the clause was designed as a "poison pill" against future governments that might try to renationalise the industry.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Trade and Industry confirmed that the draft law to rescue the company was ready for approval by senior ministers, but would not comment on its contents.
The restructuring plan hammered out by the government and the firm requires bondholders to accept about 30 pence in the pound of their original investment, in exchange for a majority stake in the company. It leaves other creditors similarly out of pocket, and existing shareholders sitting on near worthless stock and unlikely to see a dividend for years to come.
For its part, the government has taken on nuclear plant decommissioning liabilities and forced the state-run nuclear fuel firm BNFL to accept a lower priced reprocessing contract from British Energy, at a cost to the taxpayer of 150-200 million pounds a year.
The fiasco has fuelled controversy over the viability of the nuclear industry and added a new name to the list of UK post-privatisation controversies.
A row over high executive pay at privatised British Gas in the mid-1990s and the collapse of Britain's privatised rail network operator Railtrack into administration last year have kept the issue of private sector involvement in public utilities in the headlines.
-------- germany
Germany approves second on-site nuke waste storage
REUTERS GERMANY:
December 23, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19192/newsDate/23-Dec-2002/story.htm
FRANKFURT - Germany's authority for protection from radiation (BfS) has permitted operators of the Grohnde nuclear plant to build an on-site interim storage for nuclear waste, the environment ministry said.
The approval is the second for one of 12 such sites which will hold German nuclear waste for up to 40 years prior to it going into a final repository.
Under a nuclear consensus deal between the government and power industry signed in 2000, utilities aim to build the sites to avoid the unpopular transport of atomic waste.
"BfS today gave operators (utility E.ON (EONG.DE) and GKW) of the (northern German 1,430 megawatt) Grohnde nuclear plant the go-ahead for an interim waste site," the Berlin ministry said in a press release.
"Decentralised sites will drastically reduce the number to waste transports and make intra-German transports entirely unnecessary in the foreseeable future," it said.
BfS said its officials had taken latest safety considerations after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S. into account before approving the site's construction.
A permanent storage for German nuclear waste has yet to be chosen for use after the country shuts all its nuclear plants by the early 2020s.
While central storage sites at Gorleben and Ahaus could hold all of the nuclear waste until final decommissioning of the total 19 plants, on-site storage avoids rising costs to guard transports against anti-nuclear demonstrators.
-------- inspections
IAEA Chief Says Agency Begins Iraqi Interviews
Reuters
Monday, December 23, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28736-2002Dec23?language=printer
LONDON (Reuters) - The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told CNN television on Monday the agency had begun the process of interviewing people with "critical information" on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.
Mohamed ElBaradei told CNN the agency was in the process of interviewing people in Iraq and was making provisions to conduct interviews outside the country if necessary.
"We are now I think in the process of interviewing people inside Iraq in private...but we are also working on the practical arrangements to take people out of Iraq," he said.
----
Iraq opens doors to CIA to prove US is lying about banned weapons
Monday December 23, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/021223/1/35z0f.html
Iraq has labeled as lies US and British claims it has weapons of mass destruction, and was prepared to open its doors to the CIA to prove the point in a bid to halt massive US war preparations.
Baghdad's latest barb, delivered by a top aide to President Saddam Hussein, came as Saudi Arabia warned Washington against going it alone, while also hinting it might cooperate in a UN-sanctioned war.
But US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a noted hawk, insisted Washington has not decided on war and is still looking for a peaceful solution.
Iraqi General Amer al-Saadi said Sunday night that after nearly a month of UN arms inspections covering "practically all the sites" named in US and British reports and after the submission of Iraq's December 7 declaration on its weapons programs, the "lies and baseless allegations have been uncovered."
They had convinced "UNMOVIC (the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission), the IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency) and the whole world to believe they have ironclad evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and promised to provide the evidence."
He was referring to a dossier published several weeks ago by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and one by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The Blair report was "long on allegations and short on evidence," he said. "The report was a hodge podge of half-truths, naive short-sighted allegations and lies. The CIA report was much the same.
"The true part of the half-truths appears in detail in our declaration," said Saadi, who is Saddam's top adviser on weapons.
"Now ... we have (British Foreign Secretary Jack) Straw and (US Secretary of State Colin) Powell declaring that we are in material breach" of UN Security Council Resolution 1441, which toughened the inspections regime.
The resolution, adopted on November 8, required Iraq to present "a currently accurate, full and complete declaration of all aspects of its programs to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems."
Being in material breach of it would expose Iraq to the risk of a UN-sanctioned military attack.
Saadi said Iraq had no more documentation to support its claims "but we are ready ... to work and cooperate with UNMOVIC to find ways of resolving the remaining disarmament issues, provided also that an assessment is made of the significance of those remaining issues."
To drive that home, Saadi said Baghdad was prepared to allow US experts, presumably from the CIA, to come to Iraq.
"We have no problem with the American intelligence services coming to Iraq and pointing out to the inspectors the sites that they should inspect," he said.
Another round of inspections began Monday, with Washington having already started sharing sensitive intelligence with the arms experts.
Meanwhile, in an interview with CNN Sunday, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, spoke out against a unilateral US war.
"I cannot imagine a war waged on Iraq on a bilateral fashion, that the United States goes alone," he said.
"It is not a conflict between the United States and Iraq. It is about United Nations resolutions and about the government of Iraq's implementation of those resolutions."
But he left open the possibility that his country, home to a massive US-built air base, might cooperate in a war if it receives UN support.
He said Riyadh would allow US warplanes to fly through Saudi airspace in the event of a UN-sanctioned war.
And while many observers believe the Pentagon is intent on waging war, Wolfowitz said Washington is also planning for a peaceful resolution of the standoff with Baghdad.
"It would not be responsible to plan only for the worst case. Things could break in a more favorable direction, and we need to be prepared for that too so that we do not proceed on assumptions that lead to unnecessary American or Iraqi deaths," he wrote in a letter published in Monday's Washington Post.
"President (George W.) Bush has not made any decision about the use of force to achieve the goal of disarmament of Iraq's arsenal of terror," Wolfowitz continued.
Prince Saud's remarks came as the six Gulf monarchies turned on Saddam, ending a summit in Qatar Sunday by condemning his "threats" against them.
Kuwait had called on the Gulf Cooperation Council to adopt a tough stance on a recent speech by Saddam, who apologized for the August 1990 invasion of the country but also uttered what the emirate considered to be a serious threat.
Saddam's "message contained pure fabrications and incitement against the Kuwaiti government and support for terrorist acts in the country," the summit's final communique said.
"This message constitutes a threat against Kuwait and the members of the GCC and an interference in their affairs," it added.
German Finance Minister Hans Eichel warned, meanwhile, that war would represent a "big risk" to the still ailing global economy.
"No one can predict the consequences such a war would have for the global economy and therefore for us, for example in terms of growth and oil prices," he said in an interview with Bild daily.
"In any case, it's a big risk," Eichel said.
----
U.S. ignores Baghdad's invitation to CIA to join hunt for Saddam's arsenals
Inspectors swoop down on Iraq sites
MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Dec. 23, 2002
http://www.msnbc.com/news/842500.asp?vts=122220021000
Scores of U.N. arms experts swooped down on at least three sites near Baghdad on Monday, a day after Iraq said it had no secret weapons to hide. The United States, meanwhile, ignored an Iraqi invitation to send CIA agents to Iraq to prove intelligence reports frequently cited by the Bush administration as evidence of Saddam Hussein's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
IRAQI OFFICIALS SAID a biological weapons team from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) spent two hours at what the officials described as a closed baby milk plant in Abu Ghreib west of Baghdad.
Youssef Taher, chief of the facility, said the plant closed three years ago due to the high cost of producing milk locally compared to importing it.
Other UNMOVIC teams inspected an animal vaccination facility and the headquarters of an engineering company run by Iraq's Military Industrialization Commission.
Iraq on Sunday insisted it is hiding no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, though U.N. inspectors have called its arms declaration wanting and American and British officials have called it a lie.
"We have told the world we are not producing these kind of weapons, but it seems that the world is drugged, absent or in a weak position," President Saddam Hussein said Sunday during talks with visiting Belarus envoy Nikolai Ivanchenko.
INVITATION TO CIA
Saddam's scientific adviser Amir al-Saadi told reporters in Baghdad Sunday that Iraq had answered many of the questions about its weapons program in a declaration to the United Nations earlier this month or in interviews officials have given U.N. inspectors who have been working here since last month.
Al-Saadi accused the United States and Britain of ignoring Iraq's replies and making judgments before U.N. experts could fully examine the Iraqi declaration. "Why don't they let the specialized organs of the United Nations get on with their task?" al-Saadi asked at a televised news conference.
"We don't even have an objection if the CIA itself comes and joins the inspection teams to show them the places which they claim have something," he said. Interactive: Conflict with Iraq - A look at the ongoing standoff with Saddam
An administration official told NBC News that remarks made at the end of the week by White House press secretary Ari Fleischer and Secretary of State Colin Powell would stand as the U.S. response to al-Saadi. "It's now up to the U.N. Security Council" to decide how to deal with Iraq, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix has said the Iraqi weapons declaration earlier this month leaves so many unanswered questions that it is impossible to confirm the accuracy of Iraq's claim to have no weapons of mass destruction. Blix has asked the United States and Britain to share intelligence to help inspectors determine the truth.
President Bush, pointing to what U.S. officials call fabrications and omissions in the declaration, already has declared Iraq in "material breach" of U.N. demands but has decided to hold off any military response for at least a month as the Americans seek to build U.N. support for attacking Saddam.
In Washington, a senior Bush administration official said on condition of anonymity Sunday that the United States is in "watch and wait" mode this week.
"Iraq's actions to date suggest they have not made the strategic choice to disarm," the official said. "While we have not given up on disarming Iraq through the United Nations, we are now entering a final phase in how we compel Saddam Hussein to disarm."
Babil, the Iraqi newspaper run by Saddam's son Odai, said in a front-page editorial Monday that the United States was a "terrorist country" that wanted to attack Iraq as part of a plot to control the region.
SHOW OF FORCE
Meanwhile, U.S. forces in the Kuwait desert concluded the biggest military exercises since the Gulf War.
In what was described as a terrifying display of military force near the Iraqi border, tracer fire, anti-tank missiles and machine gun rounds lit up the desert for more than an hour as rampaging M1A1 Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and soldiers attacked imaginary enemy targets during nighttime exercises. The 2nd Brigade, the largest U.S. force deployed, sent its armor forward against positions prepared to resemble Iraqi trenches and minefields supported by armored vehicles.
French journalist Patrick Bourrat died while covering the exercises which were open to reporters and television crews.
The military maneuvers were described by some commanders as a warning to Saddam as much as a chance for soldiers to rehearse for combat. The U.S. military build-up could place more than 100,000 troops in the Gulf region in coming weeks.
DAILY INSPECTIONS
U.N. experts have made almost daily inspections since resuming work in Iraq last month, working there for the first time since teams left in 1998 ahead of U.S. and British airstrikes launched to punish Baghdad for alleged failure to cooperate.
Last week at Al Fao, a military industrial facility that inspectors also visited Monday, U.N. experts were briefly delayed getting into a guest house at the complex while officials there, apparently taken by surprise, sought permission to let them enter.
A year ago, an Iraqi engineer who said he defected after having been arrested inside the country reported working for the Iraqi government's Military Industrialization Organization and an affiliated company, Al Fao.
In an interview with The New York Times, conducted in December 2001 in Thailand, the engineer said his work involved repairing secret storage facilities for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.
Sites visited Sunday included the Al Battanee Center - a facility involved in space research and development - in Baghdad, which U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki said helped manufacture the guidance and control system for the new al-Samoud missile.
U.S. and British intelligence reports contend Iraq is extending the al-Samoud's range beyond permitted limits.
Inspectors also visited the al-Kindi Co., which the final report of U.N . weapons inspectors who worked in Iraq in the 1990s identified as being involved in Iraq's biological weapons programs.
The U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission under Blix is searching for evidence of chemical or biological weapons and the means to deliver them. Mohamed ElBaradei's International Atomic Energy Agency, also a U.N. body, is searching for banned nuclear weapons.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
New details emerged about U.S. efforts behind the scenes in a New York Times report. Quoting Kurdish and Western officials, the newspaper reported in Sunday's editions that U.S. intelligence agents had been working with Kurdish officials in northern Iraq in recent weeks. "Recruiters for an American-sponsored opposition group have been selecting candidates for a program to train scouts and translators that one day may help American forces inside Iraq," the paper said. Teams from the CIA have been working with the principle political parties in the Kurdish region for around two months, the Times reported.
Iraq said on Monday it would soon receive the first batch of Arab and European volunteers ready to act as human shields in case the United States launches a military attack. Last time Iraq used people as human shields was in December 1998 when Washington and London launched an extensive air and missile bombing campaign for Iraq's alleged failure to cooperate with U.N. arms experts. Hundreds of Iraqi volunteers were used as human shields in a number of presidential palaces scattered in Baghdad and other main Iraqi cities.
----
Iraq 'Ready to Deal' With Questions
CIA Agents Invited to Visit; Issue of Interviewing Scientists Unsettled
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 23, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27239-2002Dec22?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 22 -- Iraq pronounced itself "ready to deal" with outstanding questions about its arms programs today, agreeing to allow scientists to be interviewed here without government officials present and even inviting CIA agents to visit suspected weapons sites.
Iraq, however, still would not commit to permitting scientists to be taken abroad for interviews, as the United States has demanded, and said it would supply no more documents to fill in the "gaps" found by U.N. inspectors in a 12,000-page declaration about its weapons programs submitted this month.
"We don't have any more," Gen. Amir Saadi, a top adviser to President Saddam Hussein, said at a news conference this evening. "We don't have any more documentation. But we are ready . . . to work and cooperate with" the inspectors.
"We do not even have any objection if the CIA sent somebody with the inspectors to show them the suspected sites," Saadi added.
The statements marked Iraq's most extensive response yet to the Bush administration's declaration three days ago that Iraq is in "material breach" of U.N. resolutions for failing to fully disclose its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. Saadi denounced what he called American "lies and baseless allegations" and called for the inspectors to be allowed to work without pressure from the United States.
The pronouncement also underscored Iraq's strategy to head off war with U.S. forces gathering in the Persian Gulf. While standing by its assertion that it possesses no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, Iraq has embraced the U.N. inspection process in an effort to undercut the credibility of U.S. claims and isolate the United States from would-be coalition partners around the world.
In contrast to the 1990s, when Iraqi officials routinely obstructed and denounced U.N. inspectors as dupes and spies, Hussein's aides have opened all doors and praised this latest round of examiners, even contending that their work has confirmed the Iraqi position. The Iraqi officials have all but ignored criticism by the chief inspector, Hans Blix, that their declaration was incomplete, and instead have in effect portrayed the U.N. team as an ally against reckless U.S. warmongering.
"Iraqis are calculating, 'Let's do all we are asked for and then there will be no pretext for war' -- or at least real reason for war understood by other players in the world," said a diplomat here. "I was told that [government officials] were told if an inspector wants to lick your mouth, you open your mouth and wait for him to finish."
"Iraq will go to the extreme of cooperation with the U.N. weapons inspectors as we will never give the American and British governments the pretext they are looking forward to get in order to start their unfair war against our country," Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh told the Gulf News during a visit to the United Arab Emirates.
As part of the strategy, Iraq continued to woo its Arab neighbors today by making another gesture to Kuwait, the tiny neighboring emirate it invaded in 1990, setting off the Persian Gulf War.
Iraq returned a load of stolen paintings, carpets and other items owned by the Kuwaiti royal family during a meeting at a border post. Hussein last month apologized to Kuwait for the invasion and has agreed to renew long-frozen talks next month on the fate of Kuwaitis who went missing during the occupation.
So far, though, the strategy has met with limited success. Even Hussein seemed frustrated today that Iraq has not been able to rally international opinion against the United States. "We have told the world we are not producing these kind of weapons, but it seems that the world is drugged, absent or in a weak position," he told a delegation from Belarus, according to an Iraqi news agency.
The latest maneuvering came as most of the international nuclear inspectors left the country after nearly wrapping up the first stage of their work. Chemical and biological inspectors remained in Iraq.
A U.N. official reported that specialists from the International Atomic Energy Agency took air, soil and water samples from 27 sites over the past three weeks and are awaiting results to determine whether tests show any indication that Iraq has continued work to develop a nuclear bomb.
Thirteen nuclear inspectors packed up and left today, and two others flew out a few days ago, leaving just six behind. The IAEA team has come close to completing its preliminary inspections of all known sites and will begin "a more investigative phase" in which it will study procurement files, factory inventories and consumption records in an effort to compare them with previous data, said U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki.
Iraq tried to portray this as an indication that it had been essentially cleared on the question of nuclear weapons, even though the atomic energy agency officials have made no public determinations. "We don't have a problem with IAEA," Saadi said. "We're not concerned about the nuclear file. It is closed for all intents and purposes."
In responding to the U.S. statements last week, Saadi ridiculed some of the assertions as "rehashed allegations" from long-ago reports by U.N. inspectors, who he said tried to tamper with chemical samples to falsify results.
Saadi acknowledged that Iraq tried to procure crude uranium oxide known as "yellow cake" in the mid-1980s but said no further purchases were made. He said that Iraq developed 1.5 tons of VX nerve agent in 1990, but that the material degraded rapidly and the program was abandoned. U.S. reports have said Iraq produced 3.9 tons, but Saadi did not address the discrepancy.
The Iraqi government today signaled more flexibility in meeting demands for interviews with scientists. "We believe in most cases they would want to conduct interviews here privately without the presence of Iraqis," Saadi said. "Okay. We have no objections." But taking them overseas, he added, still "raises so many pitfalls" that Iraq is not yet ready to agree.
The degree to which Iraqis are trying to declare common cause with Blix's inspection team has been striking. Saadi chastised Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw today, accusing them of impeding the inspections. "Why don't they let the specialized organs of the United Nations get on with their task? Why interfere in their work in this crude fashion?"
If it were left up to the inspectors, Saadi said, Iraq could work out a peaceful settlement of the issue. "If, as we are given to understand, they are professional, they are not in anybody's pocket and they would look at all questions objectively, we believe we can reach understanding."
-------- korea
S.Korea's Roh, Kim Hold Talks on North Korea
Reuters
Monday, December 23, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27858-2002Dec23?language=printer
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's top two leaders met on Monday to discuss North Korea's nuclear brinksmanship and local media said they had agreed to work toward a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, facing a major crisis less than a week after he was voted to office on a tide of anti-U.S. sentiment, met President Kim Dae-jung in the first step of the transition process.
"The president-elect asked the president for much assistance and the president offered to help as much as he can," Kim's spokeswoman Park Sun-sook told reporters after their meeting.
She gave no details of the meeting other than saying talks "centered on the North Korean nuclear issue" and ties with the United States, Japan, China, Russia and the European Union.
Local media said the two agreed to pursue a "peaceful resolution" of the row, which escalated over the weekend after North Korea said it had begun removing U.N. monitoring equipment at a nuclear reactor capable of yielding weapons-grade plutonium.
The United States has taken a hard line on North Korea, saying it would not bargain nor negotiate under duress with the communist state.
Roh, who takes office in late February, had campaigned on a platform of more dialogue with the North and an end to sanctions.
Pyongyang meanwhile made efforts to accentuate the differences between South Korea and the United States, who have been allied against North Korea since 1950.
"Now is the time for all the Koreans to frustrate the U.S. imperialists' aggression and anti-reunification moves," said the North's ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun.
A South Korean editorial said Roh had to move quickly to prevent North Korea from escalating the crisis.
"To prevent Pyongyang from misjudging the situation, it is necessary for President-elect Roh to release a careful and determined decision with respect to the nuclear problem as soon as possible," said the conservative daily Chosun Ilbo.
----
US, Allies Push to Stop N.Korea Nuclear Move
Reuters
Monday, December 23, 2002
By Paul Eckert
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28154-2002Dec23?language=printer
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's president and president-elect discussed North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship on Monday as the United States said it would neither bargain nor negotiate under duress with the reclusive communist state.
Little emerged from the meeting between President Kim Dae-jung and his successor, Roh Moo-hyun, who was elected on Thursday and takes over in February.
South Korean media said the two men, who both favor constructive engagement with the North, confirmed that they sought a peaceful resolution to a crisis a leading U.S. lawmaker described as a greater threat than Iraq.
Kim's spokeswoman, Park Sun-sook, told reporters the talks "centered on the North Korean nuclear issue" and ties with the United States, Japan, China, Russia and the European Union, all countries working with Washington to defuse the crisis.
But both sides declined to offer detailed comment on the talks, the first of several meetings planned during the leadership transition. Roh also received "factual briefings" from Kim's top security advisers, a presidential aide said.
North Korea, a country President Bush lumped with Iraq and Iran in an "axis of evil," said at the weekend it had begun removing U.N. monitoring equipment at a nuclear reactor capable of yielding weapons-grade plutonium.
South Korean shares fell more than two percent on Monday to close at their lowest level in a month. Traders blamed North Korea's nuclear announcement and worry about war in Iraq.
Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned China, South Korea, Russia, Japan and other allies over the weekend. On Sunday, South Korea voiced "deep regret" at the North's move and vowed to work with allies to defuse a crisis.
State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said Washington, which accuses Iraq of possessing secret weapons of mass destruction and has threatened it with war if it does not come clean, expected North Korea to respect international commitments it had made.
"We will not bargain or offer inducements for North Korea to live up to the treaties and agreements it has signed," Fintor said. "Let me underscore the United States will not enter into dialogue in response to threats or broken commitments."
8,000 FUEL RODS
A U.N. watchdog said North Korea had broken seals on about 8,000 spent fuel rods at Yongbyon, a reactor at the center of an earlier crisis defused by a 1994 oil-for nuclear compliance deal.
"As the spent fuel contains a significant amount of plutonium, North Korea's action is of great non-proliferation concern," said Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Australia, one of the few Western nations to have diplomatic ties with North Korea, weighed in with strong words of its own.
"(North Korea's) actions will be met by firm international resolve," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said, urging the North to step back and cooperate fully with the IAEA.
In Pyongyang, new British Ambassador David Slinn said he paid a courtesy call on North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun, but he declined to discuss the contents of the meeting.
In Washington, the outgoing chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat Joseph Biden, told "Fox News Sunday" the North Korea threat was greater than Iraq.
"This is a greater danger immediately to U.S. interests at this very moment, in my view, than Saddam Hussein is," he said.
Impoverished North Korea, short of food and fuel oil, accuses Washington and its allies of triggering the crisis.
Its official Korean Central News Agency said seals and monitoring cameras were being removed "from the frozen nuclear facilities for their normal operation to produce electricity."
Under the 1994 agreement with the United States, North Korea froze its reactors in exchange for shipments of oil and the construction of proliferation-proof reactors.
The United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union halted oil supplies after Washington said the North had acknowledged defying the 1994 agreement and other international commitments with a program to develop highly enriched uranium.
On Monday, Pyongyang said nothing new about the reactors, but reiterated its demand for a non-aggression pact with Washington.
"If the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula is to be settled properly, the U.S. should stop posing a nuclear threat to (North Korea) and accept (our) proposal for the conclusion of a non-aggression treaty between the two countries," said the North's ruling party newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun.
South Korean commentators said Pyongyang appeared to be testing Roh and trying to exploit divisions on North Korea between Seoul and Washington.
Also on Monday, working level military officials from the two Koreas met to confirm plans to open a cross-border road next week for South Korean tourists to visit the Mount Kumgang resort just over the border in eastern North Korea.
----
Surveillance Gear Removed, N. Korea Admits
Move Ratchets Up Confrontation Over Reactor That Had Been Sealed
By Peter S. Goodman and Akiko Kashiwagi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 23, 2002; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27178-2002Dec22?language=printer
SHANGHAI, Dec. 22 -- North Korea confirmed today that it dismantled U.N. surveillance equipment at a nuclear reactor it had mothballed but is now reactivating, ratcheting up a confrontation with its neighbors and the Bush administration.
In a statement, the official Korea Central News Agency said the government was "compelled" to begin removing the equipment "because the U.S. unilaterally abandoned its commitment to supply heavy oil in compensation for the loss of electricity," the news agency said.
North Korea's admission, one day after the International Atomic Energy Agency announced that North Korea had disabled the devices, prompted fresh words of concern and rebuke from neighboring governments and the United States. As Japanese, U.S. and South Korean officials talked privately about how best to respond, some accused North Korea of engaging in nuclear brinkmanship, intentionally seeking to trigger a crisis that would allow it to pressure the world into resuming economic aid. "It has no other effective cards to play," said a Japanese government official quoted by the Kyodo News agency.
"The tension is now mounting to the point we were at in March 1993," when North Korea and the United States stared each another down in a similar nuclear confrontation, said Hideshi Takesada, an expert on Korea at the National Institute for Defense Studies in Tokyo.
North Korea's decision to dismantle surveillance cameras at the Yongbyon reactor is the latest development since disclosures in October that for years it has quietly sought to develop nuclear weapons in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States. Under that accord, North Korea pledged to abandon its nuclear weapons program and shutter the reactor in exchange for critically needed fuel oil from the United States. Though North Korea maintained that the reactor was intended to generate electricity, the United States said plutonium from it could easily be diverted to produce weapons.
When the Bush administration accused North Korea of violating the deal, the United States, the European Union, South Korea and Japan promptly halted fuel shipments. Japan cut off dialogue with North Korea that had been aimed at formalizing relations. The Bush administration has since sought to use a combination of diplomatic and economic pressure to force North Korea to abide by its 1994 promises.
According to South Korean reports, the United States is pressing China -- which played a key role in brokering the 1994 agreement -- and Russia to urge North Korea to comply with its terms. Today, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spoke by telephone with Foreign Minister Choi Sung Hong of South Korea, and they are reportedly working for cooperation with Russia and China on the matter, South Korean officials said.
Meanwhile, North Korea has sought to compel the United States to resume discussions by resurrecting its nuclear power plant, using global fears of its nuclear designs as a bargaining tool. Taking down the monitoring cameras at the nuclear plant amounts to North Korea's latest move under this strategy, analysts said.
"Clearly, this is a fierce game of chicken," said Lee Jung Hoon, a professor of international relations at Yonsei University in Seoul. "We should be very worried about this. We are approaching the worst limits of this situation."
North Korea's decision to intensify the confrontation with the United States also reflects its apparent calculation that it has gained leverage since presidential elections last week in South Korea. Voters there handed power to Roh Moo Hyun, a former labor lawyer who campaigned on a pledge to continue the "sunshine policy," which relies on engagement and aid to improve relations between the two halves of the Korean peninsula -- even if doing so strains South Korea's ties with the United States.
In electing Roh, South Korean voters effectively rebuked President Bush, who has branded North Korea part of an "axis of evil" and has sought to isolate the country by encouraging South Korea and Japan to minimize contact.
"North Korea sees that South Korea is on its side and is trying to intensify anti-American sentiment to use as leverage in negotiations with the United States," said Tsutomu Nishioka, an analyst at the Modern Korea Institute in Tokyo.
Although some officials in the Bush administration have discussed a military response to North Korea's nuclear admissions, the United States remains preoccupied with the looming prospect of war with Iraq.
Moreover, South Korea -- which could be devastated within minutes of any outbreak of hostilities -- is more eager than ever to avoid war. This convergence of circumstances has apparently convinced North Korea that the United States is powerless to respond militarily, analysts said, emboldening the reclusive communist country to test the limits of threat in seeking a resumption of aid.
"This is a confident move by North Korea," said Takesada, the expert at Tokyo's National Institute for Defense Studies. "They see that the United States cannot resort to military action."
Lee, the Yonsei University expert, said North Korea was likely to continue on its course of confrontation until it believes that the United States is really preparing to respond with force.
"Until the eve of a military confrontation," he said, "they will continue to play brinkmanship."
Kashiwagi reported from Tokyo. Special correspondent Joohee Cho in Seoul contributed to this report.
----
North Korea takes over nuclear lab as crisis escalates
December 23, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/021223/1/35z8m.html
North Korea ratcheted up tension in the Korean peninsula's nuclear crisis, ignoring international condemnation by removing UN seals at a laboratory suspected of being used to produce weapons-grade material.
A source close to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told AFP late Monday the North had started stripping the nuclear watchdog's seals and monitoring equipment from the laboratory at Yongbyon.
The lab is suspected of having reprocessed fuel rods for weapons-grade plutonium before its activities were frozen under a 1994 arms control deal with the United Sates.
"North Koreans are cutting the seals of the nuclear fuel reprocessing laboratory," the source, who is fully informed of the UN nuclear watchdog (IAEA) activities in the North, said.
"They could complete it possibly by tomorrow."
The move followed similar actions at the Yongbyon nuclear facility over the weekend, which saw North Korea take control of thousands of spent fuel rods that could be used to make nuclear weapons.
The United States responded to that development with swift condemnation.
"The 8,000-odd spent fuel rods are of particular concern because they can be reprocessed to recover plutonium for nuclear weapons," US State Department spokesman Louis Fintor said.
Earlier Monday, the nuclear crisis dominated the first meeting between South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung and president-elect Roh Moo-Hyun, meeting for the first time since Roh's election last week.
The meeting was supposed to focus on smoothing over the February 25 transfer of power between the outgoing and incoming leaders.
Instead the 90-minute talks centred on Pyongyang's latest standoff with the international community.
"Their discussion was pinned down on international relations which focused on North Korea's nuclear issue," President Kim's spokeswoman Park Sun-Sook said.
South Korea's frustration with the North was evident in a foreign ministry statement which urged Pyongyang to restore the seals and disabled monitoring cameras on the rods.
"Despite repeated warnings from our government and the international community, North Korea took further actions to unfreeze its nuclear activities, raising regional tension and amplifying international concerns over nuclear proliferation," the statement said.
The United States has been stepping up international pressure on North Korea since the weekend.
Deputy US Ambassador Evans Revere met South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tai-Sik in Seoul Monday to discuss countermeasures to be taken against the North following their foreign ministers' urgent talks over phone.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi also expressed widespread international alarm about Pyongyang's "regrettable" latest move.
US Senator Richard Lugar, who will head the Senate's foreign relations committee next year, said North Korea was creating "a very dangerous situation, initially for South Korea and for Japan but ultimately for the United States."
Analysts have said North Korea could extract some 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of weapons-grade plutonium for at least three nuclear weapons from the irradiated rods.
Pyongyang said it unfroze its nuclear facilities because it was in a desperate energy crisis aggravated by the suspension of fuel oil shipments, but Washington said the spent fuel has nothing to do with power generation.
The United States and North Korea came close to war over Pyongyang's plutonium program in the early 1990s. The confrontation was defused when Washington and Pyongyang signed the 1994 Agreed Framework.
But the accord has been unravelling since the US announcement in October that Pyongyang has admitted to running a new, secret and separate program based on enriched uranium.
In retaliation, Washington cut its fuel aid to Pyongyang.
----
North Korea removes UN surveillance seals from spent fuel rods
Monday December 23, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/021223/1/35ylf.html
North Korea has ratcheted up nuclear fears by removing UN seals from spent nuclear fuel rods that could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium, officials said here.
"This is serious, there can be no doubt about it," said a South Korean foreign ministry official.
He said that President Kim Dae-Jung would discuss the matter at a meeting later in the day with president-elect Roh Moo-Hyun who will take over from Kim in February.
The United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called on North Korea to show restraint after the Stalinist country began removing seals and monitoring cameras Saturday from frozen nuclear facilities.
But North Korea ignored the IAEA's appeals and took further action Sunday to remove seals from a cooling pond containing some 8,000 irradiated fuel rods at one of its nuclear reactors in Yongbyong.
The rods, which could be used to extract some 25 kilograms (pounds) of weapons-grade plutonium for at least three nuclear weapons, were sealed in 1994 under an accord North Korea signed with the United States to suspend its nuclear weapons program.
The North's action is "of great non-proliferation concern and represents a further disruption of the IAEA's ability to apply safeguards," IAEA director general Mohammed ElBaradei said in Vienna.
"It is deplorable that the DPRK (North Korea) has not responded to repeated requests I have made for an urgently needed discussion on safeguards issues" that would bring the North into line with an agreement it had made on nuclear proliferation, he said.
North Korea confirmed Sunday the energy-starved nation had started removing seals and monitoring cameras from frozen nuclear facilities to resume power production.
The United States urged North Korea not to restart its frozen nuclear facilities saying the spent fuel has no relevance for power creation.
"The 8,000-odd spent fuel rods are of particular concern because they can be reprocessed to recover plutonium for nuclear weapons," US State Department spokesman Louis Fintor said.
He said the North's move to restart its nuclear ambitions would "fly in the face of the international consensus that the North Korean regime must fulfill all its commitments, and in particular dismantle its covert nuclear weapons program."
Japan has expressed widespread international alarm about Pyongyang's latest move.
South Korean officials have urged North Korea to reverse its decision and put its nuclear facilities back under UN surveillance.
The North, however, said Sunday through its official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) that the decision to reactivate nuclear facilities was taken because the United States had "unilaterally abandoned its commitment to supply heavy oil in compensation for the loss of (nuclear) electricity."
It was referring to the 1994 accord under which the North agreed to freeze its nuclear program in return for the shipment of 500,000 tonnes of fuel oil every year from the United States.
The US led a decision in October to end the oil supplies following revelations that North Korea had admitted to secretly running a nuclear program based on enriched uranium.
In response, North Korea said on December 12 that it would reactivate its plutonium-producing nuclear facilities.
----
What Lies in Yongbyon Pond?
By Seo Soo-min Staff Reporter,
Korea Times ssm@koreatimes.co.kr
12-23-2002 17:15
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200212/kt2002122317152012010.htm
The North Korean nuclear crisis has reached new heights with Pyongyang having unsealed a storage chamber containing 8,000 irradiated fuel rods Sunday.
If the North opens the fuel pond in Yongbyon, it would mean a dangerous step towards crossing the ``red line'' set by the international community.
The danger lies in the fact that the fuel rods, weighing some 50 tons, can yield 28-35 kg of weapons-grade plutonium if reprocessed, enough to make four to six nuclear warheads, according to statistics at the Defense Ministry.
The whole process would take less than one year, the ministry said.
Turning the plutonium into nuclear warheads, if a country has the technical know-how, takes only seven to 10 days. Suspicions that Pyongyang already possesses enough plutonium to produce one or two warheads have not been confirmed.
Currently, about 10 seals hanging above the 400 aluminum cans in the spent fuel pond have been broken, and surveillance cameras have been disabled. The cans holding the still-hot rods, however, have not yet been opened.
If the North were to reprocess the rods, it would have to open the cans and take the contents to the nearby radiochemical laboratory. The site is one of the five nuclear-related facilities frozen by the Agreed Framework that North Korea and the U.S. signed in 1994 to defuse the nuclear crisis at the time.
The Agreed Framework stipulates that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) be allowed to monitor the freeze. The IAEA has maintained a continuous presence in Yongbyon since 1994 to verify its implementation.
The facilities subject to the pact are the 5-megawatt reactor, the radiochemical laboratory for reprocessing, the fuel fabrication plant and the partially built 50 and 200 kilowatt nuclear power plants. The main corridors leading to the frozen facilities had been sealed, and hundreds of surveillance cameras took pictures every five minutes.
Two inspectors are currently in Yongbyon. So far, North Korea has not indicated it will expel the IAEA inspectors from Yongbyon, a move which experts say could mark the end of the whole IAEA process in the North.
Officials in Seoul said the North's latest move is particularly worrisome since it is unrelated to the energy crisis Pyongyang cited as a reason for resuming its nuclear program following the cutoff in oil supplies from the U.S.
It reflects Pyongyang's dire need to resume dialogue with Washington on its own terms, they added.
``There's a world of difference in the thinking here, from North Korea which views the nuclear issue as a means of survival by getting the world to listen to it, to the U.S. which sees the issue from a global perspective, as part of its non-proliferation efforts,'' a senior government official said on condition of anonymity yesterday.
He forecast North Korea will approach the spent fuel rod issue carefully, since it knows reprocessing them would mean crossing the red line.
---
`Nuclear Envoy' to Be Appointed
By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter, jayshim@koreatimes.co.kr
Korea Times
12-23-2002
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200212/kt2002122317202910440.htm
South Korea plans to appoint a ``nuclear ambassador'' to deal with North Korea, which disabled U.N. surveillance equipment at one of its mothballed reactors, an aide to President-elect Roh Moo-hyun said yesterday.
The nuclear tension escalated Monday, when the North removed seals from the entrance to a storage chamber that holds some 8,000 irradiated fuel rods, although a government official said North Korea has not touched the rods yet.
``The designation of the nuclear ambassador is necessary to jointly address the nuclear standoff through intensive diplomatic efforts with relevant nations like Japan, China and Russia as well as the United States,'' Kim Sang-woo, the Millennium Democratic Party's foreign media spokesman, told The Korea Times.
Kim, former lawmaker and ambassador for international and strategic affairs, said Roh will seriously consider sending a special delegation to the United States, composed of policy assistants and current government officials, to deal with the matter.
Officials at the Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry said the ministry has been preparing the delegation's visit to the United States to follow up on the agreement reached in a telephone conversation between Roh and U.S. President George W. Bush last Friday.
North Korea's move was a shock to Seoul officials because the 8,000-odd spent fuel rods could be reprocessed to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
It is also likely to have an affect on security on the peninsula and in Northeast Asia as it can be interpreted as the North's intention to develop nuclear arms.
U.S. officials claim the fuel rods have no relevance for the generation of electricity, rebuffing North Korea's allegation.
Experts seem inclined to believe the North's brinkmanship was intended to bring the U.S. to the dialogue table and gain more attention from the international community.
``What matters is the discrepancies in opinions held by the U.S. and North Korea. We are caught between the two sides and are poised to press for endeavors to resolve the issue peacefully through dialogue,'' Kim said.
----
Tensions mount over N. Korean nukes
Monday, December 23, 2002
CNN
http://asia.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/12/23/n.korea.nukes/
SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea's President Kim Dae-jung has met his newly elected successor for their first transition talks amid a growing crisis over North Korea's nuclear program.
Kim received Roh Moo-hyun Monday at the Blue House presidential residence with their talks focusing on North Korea's moves to restart mothballed nuclear facilities -- a development one U.S. lawmaker has described as a greater threat than Iraq.
The talks came as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nation's nuclear watchdog, confirmed that Pyongyang had begun removing monitoring equipment and seals from a five-megawatt reactor and a spent fuel storage chamber.
The United States, along with the IAEA, has repeatedly urged Pyongyang not to restart its nuclear facilities, frozen under a 1994 deal with Washington.
It was then that Washington promised to send fuel oil to Pyongyang and help build light-water reactors in return for North Korea abandoning its nuclear weapons programs.
The deal began unraveling in October this year, when U.S. diplomats said Pyongyang admitted having a nuclear weapons program sparking an escalating political battle of wills.
South Korean commentators have said that Pyongyang is making the most of a difference of opinion between Seoul and Washington on how to deal with the secretive state, as its southern neighbor changes leadership.
Escalation
Impoverished North Korea, short of food and fuel oil, has defended its decision to reactivate the closed reactors, saying it needs to generate badly needed electricity.
But Pyongyang's action has sparked worldwide condemnation, prompting U.S. Senator Joseph Biden to say the North Korean nuclear issue was a greater threat to U.S. interests than Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
His voice was echoed elsewhere in America, with Washington saying Pyongyang is accessing some 8,000 spent fuel rods, containing enough plutonium to make up to three nuclear weapons.
Some U.S. officials have gone as far as to say the restarted nuclear facilities could produce bombs in a matter of months.
Meanwhile the head of the nuclear watchdog IAEA has said North Korea's action was of "great nonproliferation concern."
While the U.S. State Department says it wants a peaceful resolution to the crisis, it has reiterated Washington will not bargain with North Korea and is standing firm by its stance that the communist state is part of an "axis of evil," alongside Iraq and Iran.
North Korea says it is willing to resolve U.S. security concerns if a non-aggression treaty is signed, but Washington has rejected that offer, demanding concrete steps to end its nuclear weapons program a condition for renewed talks.
Ally call
In a bid to defuse the crisis, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke over the weekend with several Asian allies, including foreign ministers from China, South Korea, Russia, and Japan.
South Korea's president-elect Roh has urged dialogue as a way of ending the nuclear standoff, with Australia joining the ranks of those calling for North Korea to curb its nuclear ambitions.
Japan and South Korea, who have strongly criticized the North Korean action, have continued to hold separate talks with the North Koreans.
On Sunday, South Korea voiced "deep regret" at the North's move and vowed to work with allies to defuse a crisis.
- CNN Seoul Bureau Chief Sohn Jie-Ae, CNN White House correspondent Dana Bash and CNN Producer Maria Arbelaez contributed to this story
----
U.S. urges reactor be left shuttered
By Scott Lindlaw
ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 23, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021223-92610568.htm
The United States urged North Korea yesterday to replace surveillance gear it dismantled at one of its nuclear plants and refrain from restarting the reactor.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell discussed the situation over the weekend with top officials from China, South Korea, Russia and Japan.
"The international community had been reaching out to North Korea to try to assist it in dealing with its severe poverty and other serious problems," State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said.
"That effort has been undermined by North Korea's pursuit of a covert nuclear program and its latest actions."
A leading Democratic senator said that the United States faces more of a threat from North Korea's nuclear plants than from Iraq's weapons programs.
"This is a greater danger immediately to U.S. interests at this very moment, in my view, than Saddam Hussein is," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat and outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"If they lift the seals on these canisters [at the plant], they're going to be able to build four to five additional nuclear weapons within months if they begin that reprocessing operation," Mr. Biden told "Fox News Sunday."
North Korea on Saturday disabled the surveillance equipment installed by the United Nations at a reactor in Yongbyon, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Mr. Fintor urged North Korea to respond to repeated requests by the U.N. nuclear agency "to consult on arrangements for safeguarding" the facilities at Yongbyon and allow the agency to replace or restore the seals and cameras.
North Korea acknowledged Oct. 4 that it had a uranium-enrichment program aimed at developing a nuclear weapon.
President Bush later halted oil shipments by the United States to the energy-poor country. In response, the North Koreans said that they would restart nuclear-energy facilities shut down as part of a 1994 disarmament pact.
North Korea's official news agency said yesterday that the government began removing the equipment because the U.N. agency was "whiling away time after proposing what it called working negotiations."
Under the 1994 agreement, North Korea pledged to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear-weapons program in exchange for international aid to build two power-producing nuclear reactors.
The United States "will not enter into dialogue in response to threats or broken commitments, and we will not bargain or offer inducements for North Korea to live up to the treaties and agreements it has signed," Mr. Fintor said.
But Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican and incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the administration must engage North Korea.
"We cannot take an attitude, I believe, in which we just simply say they are wrong - that is, the North Koreans - we're not going to talk until they do some things right," he said. "We're all going to have to talk, talk continuously to South Korea, to North Korea, to Japan, be heavily engaged."
The United States has threatened war if Iraq does not disarm, but has taken a less hostile approach with North Korea.
----
Powell Consults on N.Korea, Wants Peaceful Solution
Reuters
Monday, December 23, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29052-2002Dec23?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday consulted France and Russia about North Korea's decision to remove U.N. monitoring equipment at a nuclear reactor capable of yielding weapons-grade plutonium and said that it wanted a peaceful resolution to the situation.
Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed North Korea with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin on Monday, said State Department spokesman Philip Reeker.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Saturday said North Korea had disabled surveillance devices the agency had placed at the Yongbyon reactor and North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency later said seals and monitoring cameras were being removed "from the frozen nuclear facilities for their normal operation to produce electricity."
"Everybody is supportive of the IAEA view that North Korea's actions raise serious concerns and certainly belies their announced justification to produce electricity," Reeker said. "Spent fuel rods can be (used) to produce plutonium but they have no relevance to electricity generation."
"They are violating their responsibilities ... and we're not going to respond to threats or broken commitments," Reeker added. "We do want a peaceful resolution."
----
U.S. Consults on N. Korea, Wants Peaceful Solution
Reuters
Monday, December 23, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29232-2002Dec23?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday that North Korea would be mistaken if it felt emboldened by Washington's focus on Iraq to pursue its own quest for nuclear weapons.
Asked if North Korea might be seeking to exploit U.S. attention on Iraq to re-start its nuclear weapons program, Rumsfeld said, "If they do, it would be a mistake."
He said the United States was able to wage two regional conflicts at the same time.
"We are capable of winning decisively in one and swiftly defeating in the case of the other," he said at a Pentagon briefing. "Let there be no doubt about it."
North Korea confirmed on Sunday it had begun removing U.N. seals and cameras at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which was idled in a watershed deal with the United States eight years ago. It said it did so to generate electricity.
Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday consulted France, Russia and Britain about the situation and said the United States wanted a peaceful resolution, said State Department spokesman Philip Reeker. Over the weekend, Powell discussed the issue with Chinese, South Korean, Russian and Japanese officials among others.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Saturday that North Korea had disabled surveillance devices the agency had placed at the Yongbyon reactor. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency later said seals and monitoring cameras were being removed "from the frozen nuclear facilities for their normal operation to produce electricity."
The IAEA also said North Korea had broken seals on about 8,000 spent fuel rods at Yongbyon which Washington and its allies fear could be used to produce plutonium for weapons. The CIA has previously estimated North Korea had enough plutonium produced before 1992 to make one or two nuclear weapons.
"Everybody is supportive of the IAEA view that North Korea's actions raise serious concerns and certainly belies their announced justification to produce electricity," Reeker said. "Spent fuel rods can be (used) to produce plutonium but they have no relevance to electricity generation."
"They are violating their responsibilities ... and we're not going to respond to threats or broken commitments," Reeker added. "We do want a peaceful resolution."
Unlike its stance on Iraq, which Washington has threatened with war if it fails to give up its suspected weapons of mass destruction programs, the United States has said it wants a peaceful resolution with North Korea since Pyongyang told U.S. officials in October it had a secret nuclear weapons program.
----
Rumsfeld Warns N.Korea U.S. Not Distracted by Iraq
Reuters
Monday, December 23, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29175-2002Dec23?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday that North Korea would be mistaken if it felt emboldened by Washington's focus on Iraq to pursue its own quest for nuclear weapons.
Asked if North Korea might be seeking to exploit U.S. attention on Iraq to re-start its nuclear weapons program, Rumsfeld said, "If they do, it would be a mistake."
He said the United State was able to wage two regional conflicts at the same time.
"We are capable of fighting two major regional foreign conflicts," he told a Pentagon briefing. "We are capable of winning decisively in one and swiftly defeating in the case of the other. Let there be no doubt about it."
North Korea confirmed on Sunday it had begun removing U.N. seals and cameras at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor idled in a watershed deal with the United States eight years ago. It said it did so to generate electricity.
-------- sweden
Sweden clears reactor for controversial fuel
REUTERS SWEDEN:
December 23, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19170/newsDate/23-Dec-2002/story.htm
STOCKHOLM - Sweden said last week that an atomic power plant could use a controversial nuclear fuel known as MOX, which critics fear could be used to build weapons.
Environmental activists condemned the decision and vowed to protest.
"This is truly a shameful decision," Dima Litvinov, head of the anti-nuclear campaign of the environmental group Greenpeace in Sweden, told Reuters.
After a four-year political struggle, the Swedish government decided it would give the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant limited permission to use MOX - mixed uranium and plutonium oxide fuel.
About 850 kilos (1,870 pounds) of plutonium in the MOX fuel was used by the Oskarshamn plant between 1975 and 1982 and then reprocessed in Britain.
The government said by allowing Oskarshamn to import the reprocessed fuel, Sweden was taking responsibility for handling atomic waste that it had generated.
But Greenpeace, which with other groups recently hampered shipping of MOX from Japan to England, said it was extremely dangerous to transport the material to Sweden.
Some critics fear the potentially weapons-grade MOX could be seized on the high seas by terrorists.
"We don't usually reveal details of action, but certainly we will not let this go on," Litvinov said. "I expect strong protests from Greenpeace and also from others."
In September, anti-nuclear campaigners including Greenpeace confronted two ships carrying MOX to Sellafield, a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in England, from Japan.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new mexico
Los Alamos Cited for Storage Violations
December 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BRF-Los-Alamos-Violations.html
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) -- Los Alamos National Laboratory violated nuclear safety rules governing waste storage, a federal nuclear agency told the lab's operator on Monday.
The violations have long since been cleaned up, said Rick Malaspina, a spokesman for the University of California, which operates the lab. The National Nuclear Security Administration said neither workers nor the public was harmed by the improper storage.
Plutonium-contaminated waste, such as glove boxes or lab coats, was stored beginning in 1996 in a location that had not been approved by the government, said Tim George, a division manager at Los Alamos.
Lab officials discovered the problem in June 2001, and the waste was transferred to an approved storage facility without federal prompting, George said.
The notification comes after a rash of administrative control problems at the lab, including the disappearance of an estimated $2.7 million worth of computers and high-tech hardware. Officials said the notice was unrelated to those issues.
-------- MILITARY
-------- biological weapons
Saddam planned to use bioweapons in Gulf War: CIA
Monday December 23, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/021223/1/35yle.html
Saddam Hussein had a secret plan for a biological weapons strike early in the Gulf War, but failed to launch it because his reconnaissance planes got shot down, newly-declassified CIA documents show.
The documents, made public over the weekend by the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research organization, also indicate the Central Intelligence Agency woefully misjudged Baghdad's long-term intentions, predicting less than two years before Iraq swallowed neighboring Kuwait that Baghdad would adopt "relative moderation."
A 1992 CIA dispatch detailing the bioweapons strike did not disclose its target or the type of agent to be used.
But researchers at the archive suggested the operation was probably aimed at Israel, where Iraq fired dozens of conventionally-armed Scud missiles during the 1990-1991 Gulf War in hopes of fracturing an international coalition of Western and Arab countries determined to eject Iraq from Kuwait.
The biological strike, conceived by Saddam Hussein in the fall of 1990, was to begin with a reconnaissance mission by three Iraqi Soviet-made MIG-21 fighter jets carrying conventional ordnance, the CIA document showed.
"If these aircraft were able to penetrate air defenses and successfully bomb, then a second mission was to take off within a few days of the first."
The second phase of the operation was to include three conventionally-armed MIG-21s to divert enemy air defenses from a single SU-22 fighter-bomber that was to deliver a biological agent.
The strike plane was to follow the same route as the MIGs but would have flown at an altitude of only 50-100 meters (165-330 feet), presumably to avoid radar and make dispersion of its deadly cargo more effective, according to the dispatch.
"While wind and weather conditions would be critical to the effectiveness of the mission, for security reasons there was no intention to involve Air Force meteorologists in mission planning," the document said.
But the operation suffered a dramatic, early setback.
The three reconnaissance MIGs were shot down over the Persian Gulf after taking off from Tallil Airfield near the southern Iraqi city of An Nasariyah, according to the dispatch.
As a result, the bioweapons mission and a plan to launch decoy flights was scrapped, the document said.
The declassified documents also include a CIA assessment of Baghdad's pre-war national security goals, which shows the US spy agency was unable to read Saddam Hussein's mind in the run-up to the Gulf War.
The assessment, written by CIA analysts in December 1988 -- about 19 months before Iraqi tanks rolled into Kuwait -- predicted only "severe tensions" between the two countries over the islands of Warbah and Bubiyan.
Control of the islands was important for Baghdad to move its oil terminals away from Iran, the CIA said, forecasting that Iraq was likely to press for their "long-term lease" and "minor land adjustments near Umm Qasr."
Even the overall direction of Baghdad's foreign policy after its war with Iran appears to have been misconstrued.
"The Iraqis ... are likely to practice relative moderation in their foreign policy, giving less emphasis to efforts to subvert moderate Arab states," the CIA opined.
The spy agency even projected that "if Iraq's military advantage erodes significantly, we believe the Iraqis will seek closer ties to the superpowers, particularly the United States."
-------- business
Raytheon Makes First Acquisitions Since '98
Reuters
Monday, December 23, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27982-2002Dec23?language=printer
LEXIINGTON, Mass. (Reuters) - Defense firm Raytheon Co. said it had acquired two companies, Solipsys Corp and JPS Communications, to help it improve its military communications systems.
Terms of the acquisitions were not disclosed.
The deals represent the first acquisitions since 1998 for Raytheon, maker of the Tomahawk and Patriot missiles.
----
Iraq Standoff Buoys Lockheed Martin
By Michael Barbaro
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 23, 2002; Page E06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23980-2002Dec21?language=printer
Shares in the region's military contractors advanced steadily last week, with Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp. up 10 percent after the White House disclosed mounting dissatisfaction with Iraq's weapons compliance.
Lehman Brothers analyst Joe Campbell said he expects government spending on a possible war in Iraq to lead to strong profit for the defense sector, though not everyone is convinced President Bush will sign off on a major defense budget increase.
Shares of the nation's No. 1 defense contractor closed Friday at $54.62, making Lockheed one of the week's biggest local winners on the stock market. The stock is up 17 percent for the year.
The Washington Post-Bloomberg regional stock index closed at 164.18, down 0.6 points. Shares of Rockville-based HealthExtras Inc. increased 9 percent after the company announced the acquisition of Pharmacy Network National Corp. of Raleigh, N.C., another provider of pharmacy benefit-management services. HealthExtras offers pharmacy, health and disability benefits to 2 million clients, including managed-care organizations, government agencies and consumers. The stock closed at $4.16 Friday, four days after the announcement. Shares of the company are down 27 percent for the year.
It was another rough week for Allegheny Energy Inc. Shares of the Hagerstown, Md.-based energy company plunged 23 percent after it announced a $334.4 million loss for the first nine months of 2002, including a major write-down in the value of its crippled energy-trading business.
The company said the nine-month loss, equal to $2.67 per share, includes the impact of restated earnings from recent accounting errors. Allegheny is trying to secure $2 billion to head off a cash crunch. Without the money, the company said last week, it may have to seek bankruptcy protection. Shares of Allegheny closed at $6.40.
Shares of information technology provider Halifax Corp. fell 13 percent after the company said revenue is likely to decline for the quarter ended Dec. 31. The company blamed a reduction in hardware orders but said profit will not be affected by the decline. The stock closed Friday at $5.59. It is up 80 percent for the year.
-------- colombia
Colombian Officials to Meet Far - Right Militias
December 23, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-colombia-paramilitaries.html
BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombia's government has named a group of officials to meet far-right paramilitary outlaws to study their recent declaration of a cease-fire and offer to negotiate peace, an official said on Monday.
The six commission members will consider the demands of the paramilitaries -- behind many of the worst human rights abuses in Colombia's war -- and make a recommendation to the government on whether to attempt their first peace talks with the far right, an official said in a statement.
``The work of the exploratory commission will be strictly confidential,'' said Luis Carlos Restrepo, the official responsible for peace talks, in the communique.
Colombia's main far-right paramilitary groups, including the largest, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, declared a cease-fire in early December. There have been no reports that they initiated any attacks since then.
Over the past two decades, the government has negotiated with different leftist rebel groups several times, but the paramilitaries' reputation for brutality made the idea of talks with them a political taboo.
With their origins in vigilante groups set up by cattle ranchers and drug lords, the paramilitaries for years targeted civilians they suspected of collaborating with Marxist guerrillas, and were accused of being responsible for massacres in remote villages.
There are believed to be about 10,000 paramilitary fighters in Colombia, many working in informal alliances with local military units and many deeply involved in the cocaine trade.
In recent years, consensus has grown both within Colombia and abroad that the paramilitaries' strength makes it essential that they be included in peace talks. The far-right militias say they will break links to the drug trade but want immunity from prosecution and government economic support for their members.
Analysts say that Uribe's military build-up has led the paramilitaries to the conclusion that they are no longer necessary in the war against the guerrillas.
President Alvaro Uribe has told illegal armed groups of the left and right that he will only negotiate if they call cease-fires. The country's largest guerrilla band, the 17,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, calls him a war-monger.
Thousands of people, mainly civilians, are killed in Colombia's war every year.
-------- iraq
Baghdad Blasts 'Little Bush'
Reuters
Monday, December 23, 2002
By Hassan Hafidh and Ellie Tzortzi
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29148-2002Dec23?language=printer
BAGHDAD/VIENNA (Reuters) - Baghdad blasted on Monday what it called the mad campaign of "little Bush" while U.N. nuclear experts on a mission to rid Iraq of any banned weapons said they had begun interviewing scientists.
In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said an unmanned Predator aircraft was presumed lost after being fired on by an Iraqi military aircraft in the southern no-fly zone of Iraq, an incident likely to escalate tensions.
In signs the market believed war was increasingly likely, oil prices climbed nearly to three-month highs. Gold, seen as a safe store of value in troubled times, headed higher also, boosted by a weaker dollar.
"The administration of little Bush is launching a mad campaign based on lies and accusations," the ruling Baath Party newspaper al-Thawra wrote in a front-page editorial directed at President Bush.
His father George Bush led the first U.S. campaign against Iraq as president in 1991. In Washington on Sunday, a U.S. official said the drive to rid Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction was entering a final phase.
The United Nations Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said it had begun one-on-one interviews with Iraqi scientists about suspected nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs.
"We are at a point now that we understand to a large extent where all the old scientists were and who all the new scientists are, so the interviews are conducted more efficiently," spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told Reuters.
INTERVIEWS BEGIN
Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told CNN they were working on practical arrangements to take people out of Iraq. He said interviewees had to feel they could give information with the assurance they would be safe.
"We have first however to identify those who are willing to cooperate with us, those who have critical information that will enable us to succeed," ElBaradei said.
Last month's U.N. Security Council resolution allows weapons inspectors to facilitate the travel of those interviewed and their family outside Iraq. But Iraqis fear retribution by the authorities against their wider families.
Saddam and his officials said on Sunday that Iraq was doing all it could to cooperate with the United Nations, which has scores of inspectors scouring the country for evidence of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
Iraq insisted on Sunday it had no secret weapons and challenged Washington to send in CIA agents to prove otherwise.
One of at least three sites visited by U.N. experts on Monday was a closed baby milk plant where the facility chief told reporters later: "It was an ordinary visit and we answered all their questions."
The chief, Youssef Taher, did not say what banned material the plant had been suspected of producing. He said the plant closed three years ago due to the high cost of producing milk locally compared to importing it.
An Iraqi official said Arab and European volunteers would arrive soon to act as human shields to try to stave off any U.S. attacks on vital and strategic installations.
The last time Iraq used people as human shields was in December 1998 when Washington and London launched an extensive air and missile bombing campaign for Iraq's alleged failure to cooperate with U.N. arms experts.
The United States and Britain have made no secret of their preparations for war to back up demands that Saddam come clean.
Their war of words with Iraq has been fueled by leaked media reports of a predicted ground war victory in two days and of plans for a joint seaborne invasion on Iraq, a country that has hardly any coast.
In Israel, public fears were on the rise after domestic media reported Israel would go on high alert from January 15 in anticipation that hostilities would erupt in the Gulf some time between January 27 and February 26.
Israel, a target for Iraqi missiles during the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait, was weighing whether to inoculate millions of its citizens against smallpox, a Health Ministry adviser said.
Israel fears Saddam will respond to any U.S. military strike by launching missiles armed not only with conventional but also with biological or chemical warheads against the Jewish state.
----
U.S. Says Iraq Shot Down Unmanned Drone
December 23, 2002
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=514&ncid=514&e=5&u=/ap/20021223/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_drone_lost
WASHINGTON - Iraqi aircraft shot down a U.S. unmanned surveillance drone over southern Iraq on Monday, American military officials said.
The Predator drone was conducting a reconnaissance mission, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers told a Pentagon news conference. The plane is presumed a total loss, he said.
"They got a lucky shot today, and they brought down the predator," Myers said.
Iraqi fighter aircraft penetrated the southern no-fly zone over the country and fired on the Predator, and its controllers then lost contact with the plane, U.S. officials said.
"This action is the latest chapter in a lengthy list of hostile acts by the Iraqi regime," said Jim Wilkinson, a Central Command spokesman. Central Command is the U.S. military command that oversees operations in Iraq and the surrounding countries.
Iraqi air defenses have fired on U.S. and British warplanes patrolling the no-fly zones over Iraq almost 500 times in 2002, officials said. American and British aircraft have come under attack on 32 days since Nov. 8, when the United Nations' Security Council agreed on a new weapons' inspection regime for Iraq.
The no-fly zones were set up after the 1991 Gulf War to prevent Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from using his military aircraft over northern and southern Iraq. His fighters sometimes cross into those zones and are pursued by American or British warplanes.
Most of his attacks on U.S. and British aircraft, however, come from surface-to-air missile sites on the ground, rather than from his air force. Iraq's fleet of about 300 fighter aircraft is short on spare parts and its pilots receive little training, defense officials said.
Predator reconnaissance drones are flying over the country looking for signs of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction programs.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel, US to Hold Joint Military Exercises
VOA News
23 Dec 2002
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=5FE45783-0171-439B-98DEC99466105F41
Israel and the United States plan to hold joint military exercises this week, as Israel makes preparations to defend itself against a possible attack by Iraq.
American troops are expected in Israel over the coming days for the joint operations, which are to include efforts to integrate U.S. and Israeli anti-missile systems.
There are concerns that Baghdad may launch missile attacks against Israel in the event of a U.S. led military operation against Iraq.
Israel was hit by dozens of Iraqi Scud missiles during the 1991 Gulf War. Those missiles had conventional warheads, but analysts warn that this time Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein may use chemical or biological weapons.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Cabinet Sunday that Israel is better prepared than ever, should Iraq launch an attack.
--------
Arafat Slams Israel Grip on Bethlehem at Christmas
December 23, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat lashed out against Israel's military grip on Bethlehem ahead of what was expected to be a muted Christmas holiday in the city of Jesus's birth.
Festivities in the West Bank city on Tuesday were expected to be short on cheer as the city remains under Israeli occupation since a suicide bombing in nearby Jerusalem one month ago.
``Is it fair that the whole world celebrates Christmas in freedom while our people in Palestine and Bethlehem are banned from celebrating Christmas festivities?'' Arafat, a Muslim, said at a meeting with Palestinian Christian leaders in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday.
An Israeli army spokesman could not say whether a curfew in Bethlehem, lifted in recent days, would be imposed on Tuesday.
Israel has said it would ease military measures for the holiday as long as there was quiet, but troops remain on its outskirts even when no curfew has been imposed.
``As the whole world adorns Christmas trees, Bethlehem...and the rest of the Palestinian cities and villages...are suffering from the darkness, siege, destruction, killing, arrests and abuses against our people at checkpoints,'' Arafat said.
Israel barred Arafat from Christmas events in Bethlehem for the second year running since the start of a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in September 2000, blaming him for not stopping more than two years of bloodshed.
The Palestinian leader, who had annually attended Christmas Eve mass in the city after it was handed to Palestinian control in 1995, is now largely confined to his headquarters in Ramallah by an Israeli military siege.
TWO PALESTINIANS KILLED IN WEST BANK
Israel reoccupied every major Palestinian city and town in the West Bank, except for Jericho, in June following a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings which killed scores of Israelis.
On Monday, Israeli troops shot dead a 26-year-old Hamas militant and another Palestinian man in an ambush near the West Bank town of Jenin, Palestinian sources and witnesses said.
They said the men were riding on a tractor when an undercover unit opened fire. Israeli media said one of the men had an explosives belt.
The army had no immediate comment. It has hunted and killed scores of militants blamed for attacks during the uprising for statehood in which at least 1,735 Palestinians and 671 Israelis have been killed.
While visiting Moscow on Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Arafat resembled Islamic militant Osama bin Laden ``with very good PR.''
Interviewed by Russia's First Television channel after a day of talks, Netanyahu said: ``What we need is a change in the regime. I am talking about Yasser Arafat's terrorist regime. It is very much like the Taliban regime,'' referring to the fundamentalist authorities ousted from Afghanistan.
``The only difference is that he has very good PR people. Arafat can be compared to bin Laden, with the only difference that his image makers are very good. Nevertheless he is still a bin Laden.''
Israel this week stepped up preparations for a possible U.S.-led military campaign against Iraq after Washington declared it was entering the ``final phase'' in forcing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to disarm.
Israel fears Iraq would respond to any U.S. military strike by targeting it with missiles armed not only with conventional but also with biological or chemical warheads.
``I have to say there is a danger, you can't evade that,'' Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said as he toured a military base in central Israel. ``But we have taken all the means to prevent it.''
``If, God forbid, Israel is attacked, Israel will know how to defend itself,'' he added.
At Washington's request, Israel refrained from retaliating for Iraqi missile strikes during the 1991 Gulf War. But Sharon has made clear he would feel free to respond this time if Iraq used non-conventional weapons or inflicted heavy casualties.
-------- japan
Japan offered support for US attack on Iraq
Monday December 23, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/021223/1/35yua.html
Japan has unofficially offered its support for a US-led attack on Iraq to make up for its belated and largely unappreciated support for the Gulf War in 1991.
The government gave its unofficial pledge of support to US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage this month in Tokyo, Kyodo news agency reported, citing unidentified sources close to the government.
The foreign ministry could not be reached for comment Monday, a public holiday.
The early offer reflects the fact that Japan's belated support for US-led attacks on Iraq in January 1991 did not receive meaningful appreciation in the international community, the sources said.
The announcement shows Japan does not want to make the same "mistake" again, Kyodo reported the sources as saying.
Armitage was in Japan from December 8 to 10 and met Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and top cabinet ministers to drum up support for a possible war with Iraq and to thank Japan for its support in the military campaign in Afghanistan.
Japan sent a hi-tech Aegis destroyer the Kirishima to the Indian Ocean last week to protect Japanese vessels' refueling of US military ships, a type of rear-guard support that the government says does not violate the nation's peace constitution.
--------
Israel Seeks to Stay Out of Any Iraq War
December 23, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Iraqi-Threat.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel hopes a U.S. war on Iraq will eliminate one of its sworn enemies and chasten others -- but the cost could be very high if Saddam Hussein attacks the Jewish state with biological or chemical weapons, or his friends use the occasion to strike it on other fronts.
Israelis are eager to see the ouster of Saddam, who in 1991 hurled 39 Scud missiles at them in an effort to draw Israel into the war and drive a wedge between the United States and its Arab allies; Israel held back, and some say its prized deterrence was hobbled as a result.
Israel believes Iraq today has biological and chemical weapons, but there are many unknowns including whether it can mount them on missiles, whether Saddam would issue such an order, and whether it would be obeyed. There is also the possibility of a non-conventional bomb delivered by a plane or other means.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other leaders warn Israel will defend its citizens if attacked -- but a desperate Saddam would be difficult to deter if his very aim is to draw a counterattack to redefine the war and enable his regime, somehow, to survive.
Hundreds of U.S. soldiers are to arrive in Israel this week for joint exercises to integrate two different anti-missile systems that are part of final preparations for a possible Iraqi attack. Israeli soldiers also have reportedly been training with chemical agents, learning how to detect them to warn the public in case of an attack.
If Israel is hit, its decision on how to respond could be gut-wrenching.
Sharon, in almost two years in power, has shown a great sensitivity to the position of the United States, whose support has been critical in his struggle to crush the Palestinian uprising and sideline Yasser Arafat. U.S. pressure on Israel not to respond, or to use measured force, would certainly be a factor.
Israeli security officials say that since a nonconventional attack would expose the falsehood of Iraq's claims that it does not possess such weapons, Israel must also plan for the scenario of an attack with conventional weapons.
But many believe that even in such a case Israel will have to act in order to to preserve -- or reestablish -- its deterrence.
Shmuel Sandler of the Tel Aviv-based BESA Center for Strategic Studies said the deterrent capability -- which for decades helped Israel stave off the hostile intentions of an Arab world whose population is many times its own -- has been battered by two decades ``in which Israel failed to win decisively on any front.''
The list includes -- in addition to the non-response to Saddam's Scuds in 1991 -- an 18-year occupation of parts of Lebanon that ended in a unilateral and unconditional pullout in 2000; the first Palestinian uprising that led to a since-collapsed peace deal with the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1993; and the slow bleed of the current conflict with the Palestinians.
Few believe Israel would avoid retaliating to a biological or chemical attack that causes many casualties -- but no one can say how it would strike back.
Israel is reputed to have a significant nuclear capability -- but what kind of attack, with how many casualties, would justify using it? Beyond the unimaginable loss of innocent life, such an attack would break a taboo, expose Israel's nuclear hand and possibly invite similarly catastrophic retaliation.
For Israel to consider nuclear weapons, ``it needs to be a very extreme situation (in which) there will a biological strike of such magnitude that Israel will have to respond,'' said Ephraim Kam of the Tel Aviv-based Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. Israel said it would decide in the coming days whether to inoculate the entire population against smallpox. The Health Ministry has already inoculated between 15,000 and 20,000 medical and rescue workers against the virus.
The experts say it is in Israel's interest to avoid being challenged to respond.
That means relying on the United States to quickly seize control of western Iraq, the only place from which Iraqi Scuds can reach Israel, depending on the new Arrow missile defense system to knock down anything that does get through -- and, essentially, hoping for the best.
Another danger Israel could face is an upsurge in Palestinian terrorism or an effort by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon to broaden the war by attacking Israel with missiles.
Of particular are the oil refineries in the northern port of Haifa, well within Hezbollah's range. An attack that hits them and spews poison all over the area, where a half-million people live, is one of the ``mega-terror'' scenarios Israelis dread.
Israeli military planners are looking into ways to eliminate that threat, a goal that would require not only an air and artillery assault against Hezbollah's positions but also a ground move, and the risk of drawing in Syria, which effectively controls Lebanon, as well.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Dec. 16 that, ``if Hezbollah opens a second front against Israel by using long-range rockets against the northern part of the state of Israel we won't have much choice.''
Would the removal of Saddam herald a new era of moderation in the region?
Kam said it might embolden moderates and persuade hardline regimes from Teheran to Damascus to stop funding and providing shelter to terror groups.
``It would send a clear signal to the radical elements ... that the United States is ready to use force to ensure its interests against those who threaten stability,'' he said.
But others warn of a political and terrorist backlash against what could be perceived as new effort at Western colonialism.
And ``the worse scenario is that the Americans are not successful, and the whole Middle East takes up arms against them -- and Israel,'' said Sandler.
-------- mideast
US plans to use Turkey as Iraq staging post
By Esther Schrader in Washington
Los Angeles Times, Agencies
December 23 2002
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/22/1040510964511.html
The Pentagon is drawing up plans to helicopter thousands of American soldiers into Iraq from Turkey in the early days of an invasion, establishing a northern front that war planners increasingly see as a key part of any US military action against Saddam Hussein.
Designed partly to address Turkey's opposition to large numbers of US troops being based on its soil, the plans call for ferrying soldiers into Turkish bases and transferring them quickly to helicopters that would deposit them in northern Iraq, senior military officials said. There they would secure key oil fields and stabilise provinces already controlled by ethnic Kurds, who oppose Saddam's regime.
In Iraq, United Nations weapons experts have visited 10 sites across the country, including an oil refinery south of Baghdad and a communications centre near the Iranian border.
Washington and London, meanwhile, signalled that the prospect of a ground and air war to be fought to topple Saddam Hussein in early 2003 was now increasingly likely.
President George Bush cancelled a trip to Africa at a few weeks' notice while the US military forged ahead with a build-up that could have more than 100,000 troops in the Gulf region in January or February.
As fears of war rose, sirens rang out for the first time in 10 years in Saudi Arabia as the kingdom tested its emergency warning system. In Qatar, delegates from Gulf Co-operation Council states held a summit meeting to set aside regional differences.
Iraq shares borders with two GCC members and an attack on Baghdad could destabilise the region, which is awash with anti-US sentiment.
Several hundred people demonstrated outside the Qatari embassy in Cairo protesting against the West's build-up to war and the US military presence in Arab states.
Speaking during a visit to Afghanistan, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, said his forces were ready for action right away if called upon to fight a war in Iraq. He said US forces were perfectly capable of fighting two separate wars simultaneously, in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In a message to British armed forces, the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, told troops to prepare for war.
The still-developing plans for a northern front would use Turkish bases as staging areas for lightly equipped, US Army airborne units. The troops would be flown into Turkey a few thousand at a time, only long enough to be shuttled onto combat helicopters for deployment into Iraq.
An assault on Iraq from the north, in addition to much larger invasions planned from the west and the south, "will scare the bejesus out of Saddam", one military officer said, and force him to devote troops and resources to repelling US advances on several fronts.
The plans cannot be successful without the approval of Turkish officials, who have been the focus of intense US diplomatic efforts in recent weeks.
Turkey, the sole Muslim member of NATO, has permitted small numbers of US special forces soldiers to move clandestinely into the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq, but Turks do not want a huge American military presence in their country.
----
Troops in Kuwait Watch and Wait
U.S. Has Key Assets Ready at Air Base
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 23, 2002; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27179-2002Dec22?language=printer
ALI AL SALEM AIR BASE, Kuwait, Dec. 22 -- Less than 40 miles from the border with Iraq, this desert air base provides the U.S. military with the closest permanent installation from which invasion forces could be launched.
That proximity makes at least some of the 1,500 American troops here nervous.
"When you get this close to the border, it can be scary," said Senior Airman James Mack, a guard who puts in 14-hour workdays scanning the base's perimeter for intruders. "The best thing is not to think about it."
But when they do, soldiers here say they worry most about the prospect of Iraq unleashing chemical or biological agents. While the Pentagon has been warning Iraq against resorting to weapons of mass destruction, U.S, intelligence officials suspect that President Saddam Hussein may issue orders to use them in a final act of desperation. And if he does, this base could be a likely target.
To guard against such a possibility, the Pentagon has positioned Patriot missile interceptors in the vicinity for blasting Iraqi warheads out of the sky, and soldiers run regular drills to ensure they could don protective masks within seconds.
But there are obvious advantages to being this near the front, and the Pentagon has stationed some key assets here, including unmanned Predator aircraft that are regularly sent over Iraq on reconnaissance missions and Army RC-12 electronic intelligence-gathering aircraft.
The Army also is using the base to position its lead attack weapon, the Apache helicopter, as far forward as possible and still have the benefit of hangars and other permanent facilities. A squadron of 21 Apaches, armed with Hellfire missiles and 30mm cannons, arrived here from Germany in October.
Maj. Carl Coffman Jr., the squadron's executive officer, is hoping that if war comes, the Apaches will be chosen to deliver the first strikes. Apaches fired the initial shots in the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq, knocking out radar facilities that helped blind Iraq's air defense system to the first waves of U.S. bombing.
Since its arrival, the squadron, which belongs to the 11th Aviation Regiment, has been practicing potential invasion scenarios with a brigade of more than 4,000 infantry troops, members of the 3rd Infantry Division. At least one more brigade is expected to start arriving next month as the Pentagon intensifies a buildup of forces in the region.
Including support personnel and the senior command staff that would be responsible for overseeing land operations in an invasion, the Army has more than 10,000 troops in Kuwait, and the Air Force has several thousand more, evidence of Kuwait's central importance in U.S. war plans.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, toured the land forces command center today at Camp Doha near Kuwait City and expressed approval of progress there in establishing the communications and intelligence-collection links that would be vital in monitoring operations during a war.
At the camp, which occupies a port facility, Myers also caught a glimpse of the massive amount of combat equipment that has flowed into Kuwait in recent weeks, enough for thousands of additional troops.
But the buildup, while already substantial, remains far from reaching any point of no return, Myers said. Completing a three-day tour of Kuwait, Qatar and Afghanistan, Myers said an invasion of Iraq was not inevitable.
"From a military standpoint, we're flexible," he said in an interview. "We can build up, we can build down. The only folks who can determine if we reach a point of no return is the Iraqi regime."
----
Attacks on U.S. forces downplayed
By Jack Fairweather
LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
December 23, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021223-92348430.htm
KUWAIT CITY - Attacks on U.S. forces in Kuwait are being covered up and played down because of concerns that further disclosures will destabilize preparations for war against Iraq, Kuwaiti officials said.
Incidents have either gone unreported or been passed off as harmless recreational shooting by hunters, a senior Kuwaiti government official said.
"The Americans have told us to downplay these incidents for fear of creating the sort of climate in which further attacks can happen," the official said.
One U.S. Marine has been killed and five seriously injured in terrorist attacks over the past two months. Although no more injuries have been reported, there have been a number of "close shaves" as U.S. military presence continues to provoke hostility among some Kuwaitis.
The country's leadership and most of its population remain resolutely pro-American and grateful for the U.S. role in liberating them from Iraqi occupation in 1991.
However, Islamic militancy has taken root in the country, and there is growing anti-American sentiment and support for groups such as al Qaeda among some youths.
The request to play down the terrorist threat comes at a sensitive time in U.S. preparations for war. Troop numbers have recently increased from 10,000 to about 15,000, and several new camps have been built in readiness for the campaign to oust Saddam Hussein.
"These attacks and the threat of further attacks are making a difficult environment to operate in. But we are working with the Kuwaitis to keep everything under control," a U.S. military official said.
As part of a widespread government clampdown on extremists, there have been more than 70 recent arrests, in addition to several sedition trials in which Kuwaitis have been accused of advocating attacks against American interests.
The U.S. Embassy recently advised its citizens not to visit shopping districts for fear of creating a target for extremists.
"The majority of Kuwaitis fully back what the Americans are doing. All this trouble is being caused by a very small, extremist fringe," a Western diplomat said.
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US Air Force uses drugs to keep pilots alert
STEPHEN FRASER DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT,
December 22, 2002
Scotsman
http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1425252002
AMERICAN fighter pilots are routinely given amphetamines on combat missions to keep them awake, despite an official ban on the use of the drugs, the US Air Force has confirmed.
The use of the stimulant drug, commonly known as speed, during combat missions was widespread during the Vietnam War and the Gulf conflict but was banned in 1992 amid fears it would cloud pilots' judgment and lead to addiction.
But an investigation by a US television news programme has now revealed that the ban is being flouted and that fighter pilots are told they will be regarded as unfit to fly if they do not take the so-called "go pills" before long combat sorties.
The news emerged as at least nine people died when a German army helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, yesterday.
The revelation has raised fears that the high number of 'friendly fire' incidents involving American fighter aircraft could be linked to the use of the powerful stimulants. In 1991 nine British soldiers, members of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and the Queen's Own Highlanders, died in a 'friendly fire' incident during the Gulf War when they were attacked by US warplanes with 'tank buster' missiles.
While the US Air Force has confirmed that amphetamines are used on combat missions, it claims the policy is justified as a "medical tool" to fight off fatigue.
The use of the drugs has emerged after lawyers for two pilots facing 64 years in jail for a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan said their clients were forced to take the drug during their ill-fated mission in April this year. The pilots killed four Canadian soldiers and wounded eight others during a night mission in Afghanistan.
General Daniel Leaf, a senior US Air Force official, told the ABC news show 20/20 that amphetamines are routinely given to fighter pilots. He said: "This is not a recreational drug. It's the use of a medical tool."
Although amphetamines can be prescribed by flight surgeons to pilots on transoceanic transport flights, they are not supposed to be used for combat missions.
Leaf said: "A combat sortie that's seven or eight or nine hours is very challenging. You have highs and lows. The American public should be very concerned if we were not providing every opportunity to counter the demonstrably fatal potential impact of fatigue."
Dr Robert DuPont, a former presidential adviser on drugs policy, said amphetamine is highly addictive. "People who get strung out on amphetamines are usually crazy. Their judgment is impaired and they do very bad things."
Last night, a spokesman for the UK Ministry of Defence said: "We do not prescribe any form of stimulant, or any other type of medication, to our pilots. We feel this would be incompatible with our zero-tolerance policy on drug use."
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Rumsfeld Says, If Necessary, U.S. Can Fight 2 Wars at Once
December 23, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/23/international/23CND-MILI.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The United States is "perfectly capable" of taking military action against Iraq and North Korea at the same time, should that ever be necessary, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today.
Mr. Rumsfeld made his comments at a Pentagon news briefing, where much of the discussion focused on Iraq's apparent downing of an unmanned American spy plane today and North Korea's statements over the weekend signaling that it might be reviving its nuclear reactor program.
Asked whether he thought the North Koreans might feel emboldened because of the United States' focus on Iraq and the campaign against terrorism, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "If they do, it would be a mistake."
"We are capable of fighting two major regional conflicts," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "We're capable of winning decisively in one and swiftly defeating in the case of the other. And let there be no doubt about it."
But Mr. Rumsfeld sought to dispel speculation about a possible conflict with North Korea. Asked whether there was "a military option on the table" for preventing North Korea from manufacturing nuclear weapons, he declined to respond directly, saying that the Defense Department prepares for "a whole host of contingencies."
"We tend not to get into details as to what those contingencies might be," he said.
Over the weekend, a senior administration official said that tougher measures against North Korea, like a blockade or economic penalties, were not currently under consideration. But the official warned, despite Mr. Bush's recent assurances that he had no intention of invading North Korea, that Washington might weigh `nondiplomatic' actions if the North moved much closer to building new weapons.
The loss of the Predator spy plane over the southern "no-flight zone" of Iraq and North Korea's renewed activity with its reactor program raised concerns in Washington about two of the three members of the "axis of evil" as President Bush has labeled Iraq, North Korea and Iran.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, played down the importance of the downing of the spy plane, apparently by Iraqi aircraft.
"They got off a lucky shot," General Myers said. "It's the same thing they've been doing the last couple of years."
Iraq has claimed that it shot down United States surveillance drones at least twice before, last May and in October 2001, and it routinely fires at aircraft from the international coalition that have patrolled the skies over the country for years.
But the incident today was the first since the passage of the United Nations disarmament resolution in early November. "They attempt to shoot down all our aircraft that fly over southern and northern Iraq in support of the U.N. Security Council resolutions," General Myers noted.
In that sense, the Iraqi action did not represent an escalation of belligerence from the regime of Saddam Hussein, the general said.
But the incident, coming only a few days after the United States rejected Baghdad's declaration that it is in full compliance with United Nations orders to scuttle its weapons of mass destruction, seemed bound to increase tensions.
Asked about Baghdad's assertions that it is complying fully with the United Nations, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "Well, they obviously aren't."
President Bush has said repeatedly that if Iraq does not disarm peacefully, it will be disarmed by force. Mr. Rumsfeld, said today, "As the president has said, the use of force is the last choice."
The Bush administration's alarms over North Korea were heightened over the weekend, when the North Korean government said it had removed monitoring equipment installed more than eight years ago by international inspectors to make sure it did not use plutonium stockpiles to produce nuclear weapons. North Korea also said it was removing monitors from a nuclear reactor.
Those actions have worried experts who follow the development of nuclear weaponry around the world and who believe that North Korea may be able to develop a nuclear arsenal within a year.
American officials have scoffed at North Korea's suggestions that in reviving its reactor program it is merely trying to provide more electric power to its people, and General Myers added his voice to that skepticism. "The fact is," he said, "is that that reactor adds negligible electricity the power grid in North Korea, and most of the electricity it produces is consumed by the reactor itself to run things."
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U.S. Testing Missiles and Spy Planes in Its Gulf Buildup
December 23, 2002
New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/23/international/middleeast/23MILI.html
ALI AL SALEM AIR BASE, Kuwait, Dec. 22 - At this isolated desert base just 39 miles south of the Iraqi border, a small armada of aircraft and 2,000 American and British troops are girding for battle.
Pilotless Predator aircraft are flying surveillance missions over the no-flight zone in southern Iraq. The Air Force has also quietly test-fired Stinger missiles from some of the Predators. The missiles would allow a slow-moving drone to defend itself against Iraqi fighter jets that cross into restricted airspace and threaten it. Advertisement
Army RC-12 intelligence planes shadow the Iraqi border sucking up electronic transmissions from Iraqi radars that would probably be struck in the first wave of an American-led assault. Navy construction engineers are building up the bases for the expected arrival next month of a second brigade of 4,000 soldiers from the Third Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga.
Apache helicopter gunships have been blasting their Hellfire missiles and 30-millimeter cannons against mock Iraqi targets in desert war games, the crews all well aware that it was an Apache that fired the first shot of the Persian Gulf war in 1991.
"We hope to be the guys to fly the first mission," said Maj. Carl Coffman, executive officer of the Second Squadron Sixth Cavalry that was sent here from Germany three months ago with 21 Apaches.
Across Kuwait, the buildup for war is palpable. Patriot antimissile batteries here provide defense against Iraq's Scud missiles. About one-quarter of the country has been cordoned off for exercises or military camps. President Bush has not yet ordered any offensive to oust President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, but troops, tanks, trucks and supplies and equipment continue to flow into Kuwait.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ended a three-day trip to the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan today by visiting troops at two pivotal bases in Kuwait as well as 5,000 sailors and marines on the aircraft carrier Constellation, which recently arrived in the Persian Gulf.
Although the Pentagon is preparing to send 50,000 additional troops to the region next month, General Myers said the American military has not reached the point of no return in the confrontation with Iraq.
"From the military standpoint, we're flexible," General Myers said in an interview aboard his plane tonight. "We can build up. We can build down. The only folks who can determine if we reach a point of no return is the Iraqi regime." The Army alone has more than 10,000 troops in Kuwait, while the total number of American forces here has climbed to about 13,000, a military official said. All visible signs point to a costly escalation that the commanders say is aimed at increasing the diplomatic pressure on Mr. Hussein to disarm.
Despite the military exercises and the increasingly tense war of words between allied nations and Iraq, American ground commanders say they have seen no significant troop movements recently. "We're watching the Iraqis every day," said Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, commander of American ground forces in the region.
At Camp Doha, the Army has converted a port packed with warehouses into a major military storage facility. Hundreds of M1 Abrams battle tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, fuel and cargo trucks are parked there. Some have been unloaded recently from ships normally afloat near Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
General Myers toured the camp's high-tech operations center, where Army commanders coordinate battle activities with the Central Command headquarters in Qatar.
South of Camp Doha, American commanders are also moving equipment into a new $200 million logistics base, Camp Arifjan.
The influx of new equipment is pressing commanders to request more troops to maintain it. "It's a fine balance between the amount you can bring in and the amount you can take care of," said Maj. Gen. Hank Stratman, deputy Army commander for support.
At sea, aboard the Constellation steaming in the gulf today with its 40 strike aircraft, General Myers gave a pre-Christmas pep talk to 4,000 sailors and marines in the carrier's huge hangar bay, before speaking privately to a smaller group of pilots about their potential role in a war with Iraq.
The ship's F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornets are patrolling the southern no-flight zone, and also use the missions to carry out mock airstrikes against Iraqi airfields, radio to