Archive By Date | Today's Links to Search By
Activists' News | Nuclear | Depleted Uranium | Military | Police
Alternative Energy Etc. | From Subscribers
NUCLEAR
U.S. Plans More Money for Nuke Protection
The Question of Irradiated Beef in Lunchrooms
HEALTH EFFECTS OF DEPLETED URANIUM
Ten years later, Iraq still torn
True facts and fallacies
Depleted uranium munitions available
Iraq Vows More Cooperation on Inspections
U.N. Finds No Proof of Nuclear Program
U.S. to Present More Intelligence on Iraq
Missing plutonium probe latest flap for Japan
Japan's missing plutonium wasn't missing
S.Korean Envoy Says North's Kim to Consider Plea
S. Africa Touted for 'Real Disarmament'
As U.S. Girds for Worst in Iraq, Retaliation Isn't Clear-Cut Issue
Compensation for Nuclear Workers
Fired Los Alamos Probers Return
Energy Dept. Discusses Worker Suspension
Los Alamos Whistle - Blower Suspended, Group Says
Scant Compensation for Sick Nuke Workers
Ashcroft away from Capitol as precaution during speech
'We will disarm' Saddam
Democrats challenge Bush to turn attention to home front
Kennedy to insist on second war-approval resolution
BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH
Bush's 3 Bogus Reasons for War on Iraq
MILITARY
Hundreds of US troops locked in fiercest Afghan battle for nearly a year
Allies Rout Rebels in Afghanistan
Ethiopia's Proud Heritage
Cannibalism reported in Congo
Jordan Receives First Batch of F - 16 Jets
Northrop Reports Earnings Gains
EU starts 'navy' to stop influx from Africa
Ireland Debates U.S. Military Stopovers
It Is a War for Oil
Russia U-turn could signal backing for Iraq invasion
Saddam: Iraq Is Ready for U.S. Attack
Iraqi Diplomat Says U.S. Is 'Blinded by Oil Fever'
Air Base Reopens in Kurdish Northern Iraq
Mission Iraq
Arab Nations Unconvinced by Bush's Reasons for War
NATO Delays Iraq Military Plan Again
Divided NATO Makes No Headway on Backing Iraq War
Pakistani's Tough Talk: Not Just for India
PAKISTAN - Militants seek to fingerprint Americans
CIA Report Sought in 9/11 Trial
U.S. Fails to Sway U.N. Council on Iraq
Iraq May Chair Disarmament Conference
Gulf war II to be much quicker
Marines in Desert Marshal the Tools of War
KUWAIT - 2 Americans injured in training accident
The Empire Strikes Back
CHINA - Execution of Tibetan criticized by U.S.
Inhuman Enemy
Demonizing Saddam
Scientists say bioterror threat 'exaggerated'
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
The FBI Says, Count the Mosques
Bolivia coca protests end as government agrees to talks
Bush unveils terror intelligence analysis center
Fairfax to Confine Students In Case of Terrorist Attack
More countries issue ID cards to illegal aliens in U.S.
Terrorism Agency Planned
ENERGY AND OTHER
Nuon opens four Dutch wind parks of a total 54 MW
Hydrogen Fuel Cell Plan Seen as Long - Term
Bush mentions environmental initiatives in State of the Union address
'Superman' Reeve Says Stem Cell Research Inevitable
From Killer to Chronic Disease: Drugs Redefine Cancer for Many
ACTIVISTS
IMPORTATION OF DEADLY BIO-AGENTS TO THE UC DAVIS CAMPUS!!!
15 Fort Benning Protesters Get Jail Time
Greenpeace blocks UK supply ship heading for Iraq
On America's Stage, Performance Protest
Protesters say state of union is 'sorry'
Protesters Tell Bush, 'We're Not Buying It'
Anti - War Protestors Disrupt Italy Senate Hearing
Bishop to Appear in Anti - War Commercial
Female Leaders Urge Peace on Iraq
Anti-war protesters announce Feb. 15 rally for `millions'
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
U.S. Plans More Money for Nuke Protection
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Proliferation.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration will propose a 30 percent increase to $1.3 billion next year for programs aimed at keeping nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists, officials said Wednesday.
The proposal, much of it to help Russia secure its nuclear material, represents the second year of increased spending for nuclear nonproliferation after the Bush administration -- before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks -- sought to scale back the programs.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham broadly outlined the additional spending in a speech Wednesday. It will be part of the proposed budget President Bush will send to Congress next week for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
``We intend to be aggressive'' on nuclear nonproliferation, Abraham told members of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The proposed budget, he said, will ``contain the largest request for nonproliferation programs in U.S. history.''
The government currently is spending about $1 billion on these programs to help Russia secure its nuclear materials and other nuclear nonproliferation efforts. More than $7 billion has been spent on the effort over the past decade.
Earlier this month, a report developed by 15 international organizations and financed by the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative, called nuclear proliferation ``the gravest danger in the world today'' and said efforts to deal with it have fallen short.
For example, the report said, less than half of Russia's weapons-usable nuclear material identified by the Energy Department is considered to be in secure locations. And virtually none of its plutonium and only one-seventh of its highly enriched uranium so far has been rendered unusable for weapons use, should terrorists or rogue states obtain it.
Robert Einhorn, a former Clinton administration nuclear arms specialist now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a co-author of the report, said he had not yet analyzed the proposed spending increase to determine its likely impact.
Abraham said the proposal for fiscal 2004 will let the government expand programs to help secure Russia's 600 metric tons of weapons-usable nuclear material.
``We expect to complete most of the work (in securing these materials) over the next few years, in many cases ahead of schedule,'' said Abraham.
The secretary said the proposal will include $110 million for improving nuclear material detection, including programs to monitor border checkpoints and major shipping ports worldwide, focusing on so-called ``megaports'' through which 90 percent of container ship traffic flows.
Also, said Abraham, ``we must reduce the total amount of excess nuclear material and end its production.''
To do this, he said, additional money will be earmarked to help Russia:
--Build plutonium disposition plants.
--Shut down its plutonium-making reactors.
--Improve border security to reduce the risk of illicit nuclear trafficking.
--Help secure 1,200 Russian Navy warheads.
Other funds would help secure some of Russia's numerous non-weapons radiological sources that terrorists could use to make ``dirty bombs.''
The proposed budget ``will allow for the securing of an additional 18 sites in Russia where this material is stored, as well as for locating, consolidating and securing an additional 225 orphan or surplus radioactive sources in the former Soviet Union,'' said Abraham.
--------
EATING WELL
The Question of Irradiated Beef in Lunchrooms
January 29, 2003
New York Times
By MARIAN BURROS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/29/dining/29WELL.html
IRRADIATED beef may be coming soon to your local school cafeteria.
The farm bill that was passed last May directs the Agriculture Department to buy irradiated beef for the federal school lunch program. It will be up to local school districts to decide if they want it.
Americans have been reluctant to buy food that is irradiated, a process that uses electrons or gamma rays to kill harmful bacteria like salmonella and E. coli 0157:H7, which cause food poisoning. Some people fear, wrongly, that the food is radioactive. Others are concerned that the process hasn't been tested well. They may be correct.
Based on European studies showing the formation of cancer-causing properties in irradiated fat, the European Union, which allows irradiation only for certain spices and dried herbs, has voted not to permit any further food irradiation until more studies have been done.
Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America, said: "There is nowhere in the world where a large population has eaten large amounts of irradiated food over a long period of time. It makes me queasy that we are going to feed it to schoolchildren."
Advocates of meat irradiation have been struggling for public acceptance; some irradiated meat is being sold. But some within the food industry criticize the tactics being used to gain acceptance for food irradiation. Diane Toops, the news and trend editor of Food Processing, a trade magazine, said in this column in 2001: "The irradiation business is making all of the same mistakes biotechnology has made, trying to force their new technology down the throats of consumers who have a lot of questions."
Because the word irradiation conjures up radioactivity and, more recently, the method by which anthrax spores have been killed, the industry has tried to keep it off food packaging. It is lobbying to use a word with which people are more comfortable: pasteurized.
A farm bill provision, added by Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat, directs the Food and Drug Administration to look for a less fear-inducing word. Senator Harkin, a longtime proponent of food safety, is also responsible for the language in the bill that directs the Agriculture Department to buy irradiated meat.
The same month the farm bill passed, according to the Federal Election Commission in 2002, Senator Harkin received a $5,000 campaign contribution from the Titan Corporation, which until last August owned the SureBeam Corporation of Sioux City, Iowa, the country's largest food irradiator. Tricia Enright, Mr. Harkin's spokeswoman, said: "Tom Harkin's record as a leader of food safety is unparalleled. His commitment to this technology goes back decades."
The Harkin provision has given the Bush administration what it asked for in 2001: irradiated beef in the school lunch program, in place of testing for bacterial contamination. School lunches fall under the jurisdiction of Dr. Peter S. Murano, deputy administrator of the Food and Nutrition Service. He and his wife, Dr. Elsa Murano, the Agriculture Department's under secretary for food safety, are known for their writings on the use of irradiation to improve food safety. Previously, she ran the food irradiation program at Iowa State University.
To convince the public that irradiation is necessary because food poisoning has been increasing in schools, the meat industry cites a General Accounting Office study issued on April 30, 2002, that maintains that such outbreaks are rising at the rate of 10 percent a year.
But Dr. Robert Tauxe, chief of the foodborne and diarrheal diseases branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said, "The percent of outbreaks in schools hasn't changed in the last 10 years." The statistical change, he said, is due to better reporting.
Although the Agriculture Department is authorized to offer irradiated meat to schools, the secretary of agriculture, Ann M. Veneman, is moving slowly. So far, it is served only in schools in a pilot program in Minneapolis. According to the Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit Washington advocacy group, which opposes irradiation of food, of more than 1,500 comments the Agriculture Department received from the public on the subject, two-thirds were against it.
"I don't think the right place to start this is in the school lunch program," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "There is not enough public acceptance. It's essential parents be allowed to sign off before irradiated meat is allowed. If kids don't have the right to refuse and it's not labeled, it's really taking consumer choice away."
The American School Food Service Association, a trade group, states that irradiation will make beef safer and save money, because salmonella testing will no longer be necessary. That idea angers people like Ms. DeWaal, who said, "Irradiation is not a substitute for testing."
Barry Sackin, a lobbyist for the food service association, said that school districts will have the right to refuse irradiated meat, and when it is used, it will have to be labeled. "The last thing we need is a reporter who puts out a story that kids are served irradiated meat and parents didn't know," he said.
-------- depleted uranium
Wednesday's campus events - The Invisible War
HEALTH EFFECTS OF DEPLETED URANIUM
by UIC Today
January 29, 2003
University of Illinois - Chicago
http://www.uictoday.net/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/01/29/3e3777cf63449
12:30pm ~ 2:30pm The Invisible War.
Documentary Film and Discussion Free of Charge.
GULF WAR SYNDROME REVISITED
HEALTH EFFECTS OF DEPLETED URANIUM
Were RADIOACTIVE WEAPONS used by the United States in Iraq, Bosnia, Kuwait, and Kosovo? And TESTED in Indiana, New Mexico, the UK, Japan, and Puerto Rico? And If the answer is YES, what does that mean, and why should you care?
UIC School of Public Health Auditorium
1603 W. Taylor Street,
Chicago, Illinois
And then join us for the shattering and complimentary film
--------
Ten years later, Iraq still torn
By RYAN SIEVEKING
January 29, 2003
Red and Black
http://www.redandblack.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/01/29/3e37dfa56d206
Will Winterfeld spoke Tuesday in the Athens-Clarke County Library of suffering mothers and children in Iraq.
Winterfeld, a member of the relief organization The Jubilee Partners, spoke of many staggering things.
He spoke of death.
"More than 1.2 million people in Iraq have died as a result of the United Nations embargo initiated during The Gulf War," he said.
The embargo, which still is enforced, curtails the trade of everything from pencils to medical supplies.
"The embargo has been exhaustive to children of the region," Winterfeld said. "Ten years after the war with Iraq, the people still suffer from a protracted period of war with sanctions."
During the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, relief organizations became more active in Iraq and its neighboring regions, he said.
Winterfeld also said The Jubilee Partners wanted to aid the impoverished region by purchasing and delivering medical supplies.
"We wanted to counter the effects of the embargo on the Iraqi people," Winterfeld said.
In 1998, the Jubilee Partners raised $250,000 for their cause. The money, however, proved to go a short way in what manifested as a long battle to aid the region.
"Some doctors are paid $15 a month and denied cancer medicine," Winterfeld said. "Children and mothers are being taken by leukemia. Doctors, without resources, are forced to decide who lives and who dies."
In addition, he said Saddam Hussein's influence on Iraq remains largely unchallenged. Winterfeld said he is aware that Hussein has used chemical weapons to kill his own people.
"Saddam does not share our views on the sanctity of human life," he said. The use of depleted uranium missiles during the Gulf War has also been devastating.
"The United States tipped their weapons with depleted uranium in an attempt to destroy tanks more efficiently," Winterfeld said. "Children are subject to cancer from the dispersed uranium. It's a half life of death that will stay with these people forever."
Winterfeld has spent extended periods of time in Iraq. He has visited empty schools with no students and under-staffed hospitals with no electricity. He has seen women tear down their own doors to sell the wood.
His chief concern, however, centers around recent efforts by President Bush to lobby for war in the region.
"The impending war will destabilize the region yet again," Winterfeld said. "Food distribution will be disrupted. The writing is on the wall -- the United Nations does not support the war."
At the core of these events, however, The Jubilee Partners remain resilient in their efforts, he said.
Currently, they are raising $1 million to help supply the region with goods.
"We've been threatened by the Iraqi government before, but we're willing to go to prison for our cause," Winterfeld said. "It's something we decided from the outset of our efforts."
-------
True facts and fallacies
Jan 29, 2003
Asia Times Online
By David Isenberg
Middle East - The short-lived and controversial Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), proposed by the Pentagon in November 2001 and terminated in February 2002, may no longer exist, but its central tenet - aid to influence countries overseas to help or at least support the war against terrorism - lives on. The only difference is that the propaganda function is now assumed directly by the White House, and the target is the American public.
To that end, on January 22 the White House's new Office of Global Communications, which President George W Bush created by executive order and opened the day before, released "Apparatus of Lies: Saddam's Disinformation and Propaganda, 1990-2003". The aim of the publication is "to reveal the disinformation and propaganda of the Iraqi regime". The release of the document coincided with faltering support for the Bush administration's push for war. In short, it was the latest salvo in the administration's public relations offensive.
The document details what it views as Iraq's propaganda and disinformation in four broad categories: crafting tragedy; exploiting suffering; exploiting Islam and corrupting the public record.
The 32-page document details what the US says are Iraq's material breaches of UN Resolution 1441 and previous resolutions. It lists recent events as breaches of Resolution 1441, such as:
# The discovery on January 16 of previously undisclosed empty chemical warheads.
# The ongoing intimidation of Iraqi scientists.
# Numerous chemical, biological and nuclear weapons stockpiles and programs unaddressed in Iraq's 12,000-page declaration in December.
To those who have followed Iraq and Saddam Hussein closely over the year, none of the items detailed are new. Indeed, the report details several of what might be called golden oldies of Iraqi deception operations, such as collocating military assets within the civilian infrastructure.
Something that is new - as well as bordering on the surreal - is the issue of dead babies. The report says "they have staged mass children's funerals, and to stage those funerals they need dead children. There is only one problem, according to defectors, journalists and participants in these funerals. To have enough children's remains to make a proper show, the regime has to collect and store them. A BBC documentary that aired on June 23, 2002, exposed how the Iraqi regime staged these processions. Instead of burying dead children immediately in accordance with Muslim custom, Iraqi authorities hold the bodies in cold storage until enough bodies are available to conduct a 'parade of dead babies'."
Another section deals with the humanitarian impact of sanctions. The report correctly points out that Iraq has greatly exaggerated the number of children who have died as a result of sanctions. But it minimizes the overall impact of the sanctions. A fair reading would note that agencies across the board, such as UNICEF, World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program have documented a serious deterioration in the physical and psychological well being of the Iraqi people.
However, at least one of the claims made in the document is at least arguable, namely, the section on depleted uranium. The report claims that in recent years "the Iraqi regime has made substantial efforts to promote false claims that the depleted uranium rounds fired by coalition forces have caused cancers and birth defects in Iraq". That Iraq has made such claim is certainly true. Whether they are false is not certain.
The document says "scientists working for the World Health Organization, the UN Environmental Program and the European Union could find no health effects linked to exposure to depleted uranium". But a 1998 report by the US National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine found that "health effects of natural uranium have been widely investigated, mostly in occupational settings. While these studies have either shown no effect or a small effect as a result of uranium exposure, our committee found weaknesses in many of these studies. We could not draw conclusions about exposure to uranium and death from a number of diseases, including lymphatic or bone cancer, nonmalignant respiratory illness, and diseases of the liver and gastrointestinal tract."
Oddly, the report also cites the January 6 discovery of previously undisclosed warheads for chemical weapons discovered by UN inspectors as an example of Iraq lies and deception. It is odd, because the rest of the Bush administration has downplayed the discovery, recognizing that it is far from a smoking gun. And as a threat to the United States, the discovery is laughable. Artillery shells have a limited range, measured in miles, so they can only be a threat to Iraq's citizens and those within a few kilometers of its borders.
In fact, although it is not mentioned in the report, it should be noted that most of what is reported in the media about what Iraq has or does not have in the way of chemical and biological weapons suffers from a lack of context. Consider some of the points made in a recently published online report "Claims and evaluations of Iraq's proscribed weapons".
For example, the report makes the claim that "Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons". But according to the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohammed ElBaradei's briefing to the UN Security Council on January 9, "The IAEA's analysis to date indicates that the specifications of the aluminum tubes sought by Iraq in 2001 and 2002 appear to be consistent with reverse engineering of rockets."
Similarly, with regard to the biological weapons that Iraq is said to have, nobody ever points out that many of them have short shelf lives. Botulism toxin and clostridium perfringens, which cause gas gangrene, are anaerobic bacilli and have a short shelf life. And Iraq did not seem to have produced dry, storable anthrax; rather, it only seems to have deployed wet anthrax agents, which have a relatively limited life.
--------
Depleted uranium munitions available to Britain's Gulf troops
LONDON AFP
Jan 29, 2003
http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030129191243.x27opabd.html
Depleted uranium munitions will be available to British troops heading to the Gulf for a possible war with Iraq, the defence ministry said Wednesday.
Weapons containing the substance -- blamed by veterans' groups for ill health suffered by soldiers after the Gulf War in 1991 -- would be available, said defence ministry army spokesman Adam Ingram.
Depleted uranium is the "waste" left over from the process used to produce the fissionable material used in nuclear weapons.
It is very heavy, having nearly twice the density of lead -- which makes it ideal for use as "penetrators" in armour-piercing shells, widely used in the Gulf War and conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo.
There have been fears that dust from the shells may pose a radiation hazard or cause heavy metal poisoning.
-------- inspections
Iraq Vows More Cooperation on Inspections
Hussein Adviser Criticizes U.N. Report but Offers to 'Explain' Outstanding Arms Issues
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57249-2003Jan28.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 28 -- A top aide to President Saddam Hussein accused U.N. weapons inspectors today of misrepresenting facts in their report to the Security Council but said Iraq was willing to be more cooperative with the inspectors to avert war with the United States.
In the first official comment here on the report delivered Monday, Lt. Gen. Amir Rashid, a former oil minister and director of Iraq's military industry, said Iraq was "ready to explain" all the outstanding disarmament issues identified in the report by the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix.
"We are ready to cooperate more to resolve the issues through technical discussions and other means," said Rashid, an adviser to Hussein. Calling compliance something that is "in our interest as a country," he said Iraq was willing to "provide more clarification" on its past programs to develop biological and chemical weapons to address concerns among U.N. and U.S. officials that Iraq's weapons declarations have been inadequate.
"We are ready to put extra effort," he said at a news conference tonight. "Complete is never complete, as you know."
Although Rashid sounded more conciliatory than other senior Iraqi officials who have commented on the inspections over the past few days, he did not promise to hand over any additional evidence sought by the inspectors. He cast the points of disagreement as a "few issues here or there" that were of "minor importance." He insisted that Iraq already has "cooperated fully" with Security Council resolutions mandating Iraq's disarmament.
He complained that the reports presented to the council by Blix and the U.N.'s chief nuclear inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, failed to note that inspectors had not found any prohibited activities at sites mentioned in a British government dossier and a CIA report as possible locations where Iraq was developing banned arms. They should have said "the White House report and the British report have proved totally false," Rashid said.
"There was no proportionate presentation of the facts," he said. "We see, for example, some facts amplified and magnified to what are called problems, so it gives a political impact that is rather negative, while important issues have been abbreviated, even shrinked, and sometimes even fully ignored." He said the Iraqi government had "expected the report to be better."
In his report, Blix said Iraq has failed to accept the obligation to disarm. In particular, he said, the government had not provided inspectors with enough evidence to support claims it destroyed stocks of VX nerve agent and anthrax bacteria that it acknowledged producing in the 1980s. U.S. officials have warned that Iraq might have weaponized forms of those and other biological and chemical agents.
Rashid insisted that Iraq never manufactured VX that was pure enough to remain potent for more than a few years. Because it was synthesized 13 years ago, any remaining stockpiles would be too degraded now to have any effect, he said. "It was only what you call experimental production and it was a failure," he said. The issue of VX, he said, "needs a scientific discussion, not people who are politically motivated."
The U.S. government contends Iraq developed far purer VX that it has acknowledged and that quantities of the nerve agent it produced still remain a threat. In his report, Blix said Iraq "had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared."
Weapons experts say that while VX has a limited shelf life, ingredients are often stored separately and mixed just prior to use.
On the issue of anthrax, Rashid said Iraq developed it only in a liquid form with a "shelf life of only a few years" instead of in a powdered form that can be used in weapons. U.S. officials have disputed that contention, saying Iraq developed a sophisticated powdered form of the bacteriological agent.
Although Iraq insists it no longer possesses any biological or chemical weapons, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said in an interview with Britain's Channel Four news on Sunday that the military had issued chemical suits to some units. He said Iraq wanted to protect itself against chemical attacks by invading forces.
In a subsequent interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. , Aziz said Iraq would not attempt to strike other nations if attacked. "We will fight within our territory," he said. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles with conventional warheads at Israel and about 40 at Saudi Arabia.
But Aziz hinted that those restrictions would not apply to Kuwait, which Iraq invaded in August 1990 and where the United States is assembling a large military force for a possible invasion. "American troops are in Kuwait and preparing themselves to attack Iraq," Aziz said. "If there will be an attack from Kuwait, I cannot say that we will not retaliate."
Kuwait's defense minister, Jabir Hamad Sabah, told the Reuters news service that "Iraq would pay a high price" if it moved against Kuwait.
A spokesman for the U.N. inspection operation here said inspectors had asked to interview two more Iraqi scientists over the past two days, but both refused to be questioned in private. The spokesman, Hiro Ueki, said 16 scientists had been asked for private interviews and all had refused.
Under a Security Council resolution passed Nov. 8, Iraq is required to provide "private access" to anyone the inspectors wish to interview. U.S. officials regard Iraq's ability to produce scientists for such interviews as a key test of compliance with the resolution.
Although Iraqi officials insist they are encouraging their scientists to talk, U.S. and U.N. officials do not believe Iraq is trying hard enough. They said they believed the Iraqi government, if it wanted to, could compel its scientists to talk, but instead was dissuading them from speaking.
Rashid said Iraq was willing to discuss the problem with the inspectors to find a solution. A U.N. official said the inspectors had offered to let the scientists make audio or video tapes of their interviews. Blix and ElBaradei, he said, were considering a proposal to allow an independent witness who does not work for the Iraqi government or the United Nations to sit in on the questioning.
----
U.N. Finds No Proof of Nuclear Program
IAEA Unable to Verify U.S. Claims
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57632-2003Jan28.html
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 28 -- The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said today that two months of inspections in Iraq and interviews with Iraqi officials have yielded no evidence to support Bush administration claims that Iraq is secretly trying to revive its nuclear weapons program.
ElBaradei said in an interview that "systematic" inspections of eight facilities linked by U.S. and British authorities to a possible nuclear weapons program have turned up no proof to support the claims. "I think we have ruled out . . . the buildings," he said. ElBaradei also cast doubts on U.S. claims that Iraq has sought to import uranium and high-strength aluminum tubes destined for a nuclear weapons program.
ElBaradei's remarks, combined with a relatively upbeat assessment of Iraq's cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors, delivered to the U.N. Security Council on Monday, have complicated Bush administration efforts to make a case for military action against Iraq. The remarks also increased pressure on the United States to provide inspection teams with more intelligence regarding Iraq's suspected nuclear weapons program.
The administration's concerns about Iraq's alleged intent to develop nuclear weapons formed the basis of the case President Bush made to the United Nations in September for disarming Iraq. Bush said in an Oct. 7 speech that satellite photographs revealed that "Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past." White House officials produced satellite images showing recent construction at a former uranium enrichment plant at Furat, one of several sites searched by U.N. inspectors.
"At the majority of these sites, the equipment and laboratories have deteriorated to such a degree that the resumption of nuclear activities would require substantial renovation," ElBaradei wrote in his report to the council.
ElBaradei said today that the findings did not prove that Iraq has abandoned its nuclear ambitions. He also faulted Baghdad for failing to provide more "proactive cooperation" that could shed light on Iraq's past weapons programs.
ElBaradei said that continued inspections offered the best chance of deterring Iraq from rebuilding its weapons programs. "We are not getting optimal cooperation," he said. "But still we are inching forward, and we still believe that barring something exceptional, we should be able in a few months to come to a conclusion on Iraq's nuclear weapons program."
Iraq was close to developing nuclear weapons before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. IAEA inspectors said they had destroyed all nuclear facilities and equipment, and removed all weapons material before the inspections ended in 1998.
President Bush raised the specter of a new Iraqi quest for nuclear weapons, telling U.N. delegates during his Sept. 12 address to the U.N. General Assembly that Iraq made "several attempts" to "buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon."
In addition to the U.S. assertion that Iraq had attempted to buy aluminum tubes to enrich uranium, U.S. and British intelligence have claimed that Iraq had tried to purchase low-grade uranium for processing into weapons-grade material from a source in Niger. Despite repeated requests for evidence, ElBaradei said "we haven't gotten anything specific. Niger denied it, Iraq denied it, and we haven't seen any contracts."
ElBaradei said that a preliminary investigation into Iraqi efforts to acquire large quantities of the aluminum tubes between 2000 and 2002 suggested that they were destined for an Iraqi program to build 81mm artillery rockets. He said that further investigation is required to determine whether Iraq may have diverted the tubes to a nuclear weapons program.
"We know that these tubes . . . could be used for conventional rockets," he said. They "cannot be used directly for [uranium] enrichment." ElBaradei said that his inspectors would continue to investigate whether the tubes had been reworked for nuclear weapons use.
----
U.S. to Present More Intelligence on Iraq
January 29, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-iraq-usa-evidence.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will showcase more intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs next week as it makes a case for war, but it will be circumstantial evidence rather than a ``smoking gun,'' intelligence experts said on Wednesday.
Analysts said the information must be more compelling than what President Bush has outlined so far to bring reluctant allies around to the U.S. viewpoint.
The specific intelligence to be presented by Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations on Feb. 5 has not been fully determined as discussions center on what can be declassified without revealing intelligence methods.
``You can be sure that we will be as forthcoming as we can next week, but also mindful of sources and methods,'' Powell said on Wednesday after talks with Pakistan's foreign minister. Powell said it would be a ``rather comprehensive presentation.''
He was expected to reveal intelligence that goes beyond what Bush sketched out on Tuesday night in his State of the Union address, which mostly repeated past assertions
The issue of what to reveal is very sensitive, especially with a possible war looming, because showing intelligence capabilities could help Iraq in battle, said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
``Those people who want smoking guns are probably not going to get them,'' Cordesman said. ``But the United States does have a great deal of additional evidence on Iraqi activities, imports and facilities.''
Even if Powell shows satellite photos, they will not be the crux of the U.S. case because the images do not make for clear-cut evidence, and explaining the significance of movements around buildings can get complicated, experts said.
IRAQ-QAEDA LINKING
The most compelling evidence would be if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could be linked directly to supporting the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, or if Iraq is shown to be close to having a nuclear weapon. But intelligence in those two areas is tenuous at best, analysts said.
The United States blames al Qaeda for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed about 3,000 people, but intelligence agencies so far have found no evidence directly linking Iraq to the hijacked-airliner strikes on New York and Washington.
Intelligence about al Qaeda's links to Iraq includes fragments such as information that Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, a suspected al Qaeda leader, received medical treatment in Baghdad. Ansar al-Islam which operates from Kurdish-held northern Iraq is also suspected of having ties to al Qaeda, but it is unclear whether Saddam has control over that group.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said ``the evidence has grown'' about an alleged Qaeda-Iraq link, but gave no details.
``It's basically three things. It's hiding of weapons, deceit and denial practices vis a vis the inspectors and links to terrorist groups,'' a senior U.S. official said of Powell's presentation which will be public. ``I think there is more coming out on al Qaeda connections and we will talk about it.''
But linking al Qaeda and Iraq is so murky that even intelligence analysts cannot agree among themselves on how strong a tie there is. This prompted one U.S. official to describe the issue as ``in the eye of the beholder.''
A U.S. intelligence source said there was evidence of al Qaeda presence in Iraq but the question was whether Saddam's regime supported it. ``Certainly they have done absolutely nothing to rid themselves of this company that is being kept.''
Iraq denies any connection to al Qaeda.
``What you would have to show is that there are direct links between Saddam and al Qaeda and therefore you've got to get rid of Saddam before he gives his chemical and biological weapons to al Qaeda,'' said Lawrence Korb, director of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. ``They do not have that.''
Korb added: ``You don't have the murder weapon, you've got the circumstantial evidence and you're trying to get people to believe on the basis of the circumstantial evidence that you're justified in doing this.''
NUCLEAR PIECES
In his speech on Tuesday, Bush reiterated the U.S. contention that Iraq had tried to buy high-strength aluminum tubes ``suitable for nuclear weapons production.'' There is also an allegation by Britain that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
``Our primary indications are that they (the tubes) are intended to be used for conventional rockets but we are still investigating that issue, because with modifications they could in fact be used for enriching uranium,'' said Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
John Negroponte, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said intelligence agencies believed the tubes had workmanship ``definitely consistent'' with use for uranium enrichment.
Alistair Millar of the Fourth Freedom Forum, whose group has done a comparison of U.S. claims against Iraq and reports by U.N. officials, said the IAEA had found Iraq tried to import uranium in the 1980s, but since the 1990s had not found evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program.
``It is not difficult to see why other allies are skeptical and have reservations about joining the United States and (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair in an attack on Iraq,'' Millar said. ``They do not find that the evidence presented so far represents a credible imminent threat that would justify the use of force.''
Bush said information from three Iraqi defectors showed that in the late 1990's Iraq had mobile biological weapons labs that could be moved to evade inspectors. There was more recent intelligence on the mobile weapons labs, a U.S. official said.
But chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix said in a Reuters interview this week: ``We haven't seen anything being moved.''
Analysts believe the most compelling case can be made based on Iraq's suspected chemical and biological weapons program and that Baghdad should be forced to explain itself on that front.
Bush said Iraq has not accounted for about 30,000 chemical weapons, materials to produce as much as 500 tons of Sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent, and more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin.
-------- japan
Missing plutonium probe latest flap for Japan's beleaguered nuclear power industry
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
By Kenji Hall,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-01-29/s_2392.asp
TOKYO -- Japanese officials acknowledged Tuesday that it took a 15-year investigation to account for a more than 200-kilogram (440-pound) shortfall in plutonium at a major nuclear power facility, further damaging the industry's already wobbly safety record.
Tokyo began investigating a fuel-reprocessing plant in Tokai, central Japan, after the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency pointed out in 1987 that the plant's records showed less plutonium than it was supposed to have.
A report wrapping up the investigation, submitted Tuesday to a government nuclear safety commission, found the nuclear material had either been safely disposed of or never existed to begin with, said Education and Science Ministry spokesman Keiji Tsukamoto. Investigators ruled out the possibility that any plutonium had been taken from the facility or that any radiation had leaked outside the plant, which has produced a total of 6,890 kilograms (15,190 pounds) of plutonium since it began operating in 1977, Tsukamoto said.
"We never thought the plutonium had been stolen," said another ministry spokesman, Masanori Nagai.
Instead, officials believe much of the plutonium was never produced. Flawed plutonium output projections at Tokai forecast the facility would produce about 100 kilograms (220 pounds) more than it was actually capable of.
Tsukamoto said another 94 kilograms (207 pounds) of plutonium had leaked into waste water that was contained at the plant, and 29 kilograms (64 pounds) was damaged in storage and rendered unusable.
The IAEA on Tuesday backed Tokyo in saying it believed no plutonium was removed from the plant. "The agency remains confident in its conclusion that no nuclear material has been diverted from the facility," IAEA Director-general Mohamed ElBaradei said in a statement.
The IAEA began inspecting the facility in 1977. In November, it conducted a review of data from the past 25 years, the agency said.
While clearing up the case of the missing plutonium, the news of calculation errors and the time it took to find them underscored public concerns about safety from an industry already awash in reports of negligence and cover-ups.
"The Tokai plant is just a small, experimental fuel reprocessing plant. If that much plutonium went unaccounted for at Tokai, how does the government expect to deal with a larger, commercial-sized plant now being built?" asked Kazue Suzuki, an activist at Greenpeace Japan.
Resource-poor Japan relies on nuclear power for more than one-third of its electricity. Current plans call for as many as 10 new plants to boost nuclear-generated power to 42 percent of total output by 2011.
But the Japanese public has become increasingly wary of nuclear power since a 1999 radiation leak at a fuel-reprocessing plant -- also in Tokai -- killed two workers. That leak, the worst-ever nuclear accident in Japan, forced 161 people to evacuate their homes and another 310,000 to stay indoors for 18 hours as a precaution. In all, 439 people were exposed to radiation.
Safety fears have been worsened by allegations last year that the nation's largest utility, Tokyo Electric Power Co., did not fully disclose data about structural problems at some of its nuclear reactors.
In a serious blow to the industry, a Japanese high court on Monday ruled in favor of residents seeking the permanent closure of a controversial fast-breeder reactor that has been closed since a 1995 accident. The court cited a bungled cover-up of the accident, which included falsified reports and concealed video footage, in its decision. The experimental reactor, which uses plutonium fuel instead of uranium and produces more plutonium that can be reused as fuel, had been the centerpiece of Japan's ambitions to expand its nuclear facilities. Officials indicated they would appeal the ruling.
Japan's national Mainichi newspaper predicted the ruling would have far-reaching repercussions for the industry. "The government may be faced with re-inspecting and revamping its (nuclear) standards and practices," it said in an editorial Tuesday. "There are concerns that energy companies are hiding their problems."
----
Japan's missing plutonium wasn't missing
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS in Tokyo
http://asia.scmp.com/asianews/ZZZDXQBIWAD.html
[IAEA confirms this report at
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=6014&Cr=japan&Cr1= - JH]
Finally, Japan's missing plutonium mystery is solved: it wasn't missing A 15-year probe blames the error on shoddy records, sparking safety fears
More than 200kg of plutonium missing from a nuclear facility in northern Japan had either been safely disposed of or mistakenly added to the books due to faulty calculations, the results of a 15-year probe show.
Tokyo began investigating a fuel-reprocessing plant in Tokai, central Japan, after the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency pointed out in 1987 that the plant's records showed less plutonium on store than it was supposed to have.
A report submitted yesterday to a government nuclear safety commission found the nuclear material had either been safely disposed of or never existed to begin with, said Education and Science Ministry spokesman Keiji Tsukamoto.
Investigators ruled out the possibility that any plutonium had been taken from the facility or that any radiation had leaked outside the plant, which has produced a total of 6,890kg of plutonium since it began operating in 1977, Mr Tsukamoto said.
"We never thought the plutonium had been stolen," said another ministry spokesman Masanori Nagai.
Flawed plutonium output projections at Tokai forecast the facility would produce about 100kg more than it was actually capable to produce. Mr Tsukamoto said another 94kg of plutonium, meanwhile, leaked into waste water, that was contained at the plant, and 29kg was damaged in storage and rendered unusable.
While clearing up the case of the missing plutonium, the news of calculation errors and the time it took to find them underscore concerns about safety from an industry already awash in reports of negligence and cover-ups.
"The Tokai plant is just a small, experimental fuel reprocessing plant. If that much plutonium went unaccounted for at Tokai, how does the government expect to deal with a larger, commercial-sized plant now being built?" said Kazue Suzuki, an activist at Greenpeace Japan.
The Japanese public has become wary of nuclear power since a 1999 radiation leak at a fuel-reprocessing plant - also in Tokai - killed two workers. That leak, the worst nuclear accident in Japan, forced 161 people to evacuate their homes and another 310,000 to stay indoors for 18 hours. In all, 439 people were exposed to radiation.
Safety fears have been worsened by allegations last year that the nation's largest utility, Tokyo Electric Power, did not fully disclose data about structural problems at some reactors.
-------- korea
S.Korean Envoy Says North's Kim to Consider Plea
January 29, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-korea-north.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who President Bush says is blackmailing the world with a nuclear arms program, has agreed to consider Seoul's plea to end the crisis, a South Korean envoy said on Wednesday.
The North tried to turn the tables by demanding that the United States remove all its nuclear weapons from South Korea -- an action Washington says it carried out 12 years ago.
After a three-day visit to the Northern capital, Pyongyang, in which the enigmatic Kim snubbed the South's envoy by failing to attend expected talks, Lim Dong-won said the communist leader had accepted a letter from South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.
The North's reclusive leader had relayed a verbal message through officials promising to reply after considering Seoul's call to reverse the moves that have triggered the second Korean nuclear emergency since 1994, Lim told a news conference on his return.
South Korea had hoped Lim's visit would open the way for a resolution of the three-month-old crisis, but Kim's snub of the envoy appeared to underscore the North's insistence it would talk only to the United States.
``North Korea repeated what it has said to the world: that it has not developed nuclear arms and has no intention to develop them. They said that if the U.S. wants to conduct its own inspections, they are willing to accept that,'' Lim said.
Lim voiced disappointment at not meeting Kim Jong-il. But he said it was significant that the North's leader had pledged to answer Kim Dae-jung's letter urging him to give up his country's suspected uranium enrichment program and return to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The nuclear crisis was sparked in October when Washington said Pyongyang had admitted to reviving an arms program it had previously agreed to shut down under a 1994 deal.
Pyongyang later expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors, removed seals from a mothballed reactor and pulled out of the treaty preventing the spread of nuclear arms.
Bush, who last year branded North Korea part of an ``axis of evil'' along with Iraq and Iran, used his latest State of the Union speech Tuesday to accuse North Korea of deceit and blackmail, but said Washington would work with its allies for a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
``Throughout the 1990s, the United States relied on a negotiated framework to keep North Korea from gaining nuclear weapons. We now know that that regime was deceiving the world and developing those weapons all along,'' Bush said.
``Today the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions. America and the world will not be blackmailed,'' he said.
NO NUKES PLEASE
The North Korean Foreign Ministry denied Wednesday that it had a nuclear weapons program and blamed Washington for breaking the 1994 agreement.
Pyongyang also issued a call to the United States to withdraw its nuclear weapons from South Korea, apparently a fresh attempt to portray America as the real military threat in the crisis.
``South Korea has turned into the biggest nuclear arsenal in the Far East and a nuclear attack base as over 1,000 U.S.-made nukes are deployed there,'' the Rodong Sinmun newspaper said.
In September 1991, Washington announced the withdrawal of all U.S. tactical nuclear weapons deployed abroad, including about 100 based in South Korea.
Tuesday, President Bush said the United States was working with South Korea, Japan, China and Russia ``to find a peaceful solution and to show the North Korean government that nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic stagnation and continued hardship.''
Pyongyang's demand for direct talks with the United States and a bilateral non-aggression treaty was repeated Tuesday by North Korea's U.N. envoy, who accused Washington of deploying an aircraft carrier near the Korean peninsula as a prelude to war.
Ambassador Pak Gil Yon said the non-aggression pact must take the form of a treaty ratified by the U.S. Congress because the word of the Bush administration could not be trusted.
While Bush had promised not to attack, ``the American military is now moving toward the Korean peninsula,'' he said.
He said the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk was now sailing for seas off Korea. ``This is real action to stifle the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) by military action.''
In Washington, a U.S. navy official said the Kitty Hawk was on a routine training mission in the western Pacific, was not near the Korean peninsula and had received no orders to deploy to waters near Korea.
Pyongyang also dismissed U.S. statements that it was prepared to talk, but not to negotiate.
``The deceptive U.S. dialogue ploy is a desperate measure designed to breed conflict between North Korea and international society and isolate us, as well as to buy time before attacking Iraq,'' the Rodong Sinmun said.
``This ploy won't work on us.''
-------- south africa
S. Africa Touted for 'Real Disarmament'
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-South-Africa-Inspectors.html
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- When then-President F.W. de Klerk stood in front of Parliament in 1993 and confirmed that South Africa had built, and then dismantled, nuclear weapons, he immediately invited inspectors to verify his claims.
Within months, International Atomic Energy Agency officials had finished their inspections, determined there was no reason to believe the nuclear program had not been dismantled and praised the ``transparency and openness of the South African authorities.''
Now, U.N. inspectors and U.S. officials are using those smooth and swift inspections to chide Iraq for its refusal to fully cooperate with officials looking into its chemical and biological weapons program.
``Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance -- not even today -- of the disarmament, which was demanded of it,'' chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said Monday in his report to the United Nations.
Secretary of State Colin Powell reinforced that point, using South Africa as an example of ``real disarmament.''
``We see none of the telltale signs of real disarmament, honest disarmament, in Iraq,'' he said Monday.
Others say the political situations in the two countries make it difficult to expect similar cooperation.
``South Africa had grasped disarmament as an opportunity to speed up its acceptance into the international community,'' said Greg Mills, director of the South African Institute of International Affairs.
Iraq has a more adversarial relationship to the West and could lose its standing in the Middle East if it is seen to be capitulating, Mills said.
South Africa's nuclear program began sometime in the 1970s. It was intended as a deterrent against neighboring states opposed to apartheid and Cold War instability that was fueling the war in nearby Angola.
``Should the war spread, the thinking was maybe we could say to the Europeans or the Americans or the other developed countries, 'Look. You'd better come and intervene, or we could use this stuff,'' then-Foreign Minister Pik Botha said Tuesday.
In the late 1980s, the government decided there was no benefit to keeping the weapons and began dismantling them, Botha said.
``There was no way we could ever use them. It was very expensive, and if you were never going to use them, I don't think it would really have a deterrent effect,'' he said.
De Klerk's announcement -- that South Africa had six bombs and a seventh partially assembled -- came as South Africa began to be welcomed back into the international community. The government had lifted a ban on the African National Congress opposition party, released anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela from prison and begun preparations for the nation's first all-race elections.
Botha said the decision to open up the program to inspections was made to cement the government's international acceptance. Others believe it was trying to reassure the world the bomb would not fall into the hands of the African National Congress government, which was sure to win the 1994 elections.
Waldo Stumpf, former chief executive of South Africa's Atomic Energy Corp., said accusations about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction following the first Gulf War may have inspired the move.
``Mr. de Klerk felt that the world would not understand the difference between South Africa and Iraq,'' he said.
After de Klerk's announcement, the government told Stumpf to be completely open and cooperative with the roughly 20 inspectors as they traveled around the country inspecting nuclear plants, test sites and uranium stocks, he said.
``Our mandate was that we should try to gain maximum credibility with the inspectors,'' he said.
``When they asked for something, we gave it to them,'' he said.
There were actually two inspections of South Africa. The first began in 1991, when the country signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency sent ``safeguard officials'' to account for all its nuclear material, not to look for evidence of a defunct weapons program.
The government cooperated fully with those inspections, but did not reveal its former weapons program.
When de Klerk made his revelation, the U.N. nuclear agency sent a new team to investigate the weapons program, said Peter Rickwood, an agency spokesman.
In five months, they had finished their work and praised the South African government for its ``active cooperation.''
``I don't think in any way at all there were obstacles put in our way,'' Rickwood said.
The inspectors were allowed to visit all facilities they wanted to. They were given extensive briefings on the history of the program. They were able to conduct lengthy, private interviews with scientists and technicians, Rickwood said.
``South Africa had nothing to hide at that point. What's the purpose of supervising these interviews?'' Stumpf said.
The U.N. nuclear agency maintains seals on South Africa's stores of highly enriched uranium and has cameras watching the vaults holding the material. Officials still come for frequent inspections.
In April 1994, Botha ceremoniously handed a small model of a plowshare crafted from one of the dismantled bombs to the then head of the International Atomic Energy Agency -- Hans Blix.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
As U.S. Girds for Worst in Iraq, Retaliation Isn't Clear-Cut Issue
Nuclear Response to Chemical or Bio-Attacks Has Pitfalls
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57395-2003Jan28?language=printer
As they prepare for the possibility that Iraq would unleash chemical or biological weapons against invading U.S. forces, Bush administration officials have remained deliberately vague about how the United States would respond. Officials have refused to rule anything out, including the use of nuclear weapons to counter or forestall the release of chemical or biological agents.
In reality, however, U.S. authorities face few clear-cut options, and a retaliatory strike with nuclear weapons would be especially problematic, according to current and former military officers who have dealt with the issue.
On the one hand, U.S. authorities could be expected to feel a strong desire to exact punishment and set an example in the interest of deterring a repeat attack by Iraq or the future use of nonconventional weapons by other adversaries. On the other hand, the United States would want to avoid a response that appeared excessive and that risked large numbers of civilian casualties or extensive damage to Iraqi facilities that might be helpful in reconstituting the government and the economy after the war.
A senior military officer involved in the war planning confirmed a report in the Los Angeles Times by defense analyst William Arkin that the range of possible retaliatory responses includes nuclear weapons. But the officer stressed that conventional bombs would be sufficient in a retaliatory strike. He suggested that the most likely response would involve intensified attacks on Iraqi leadership targets and those forces involved in firing chemical or biological weapons.
"If you want me to go get them with blast and steel and fire, I can do that without resorting to nuclear weapons," the officer said. "The nuclear option is on the table not to meet a military need but a potential political one."
In addition to threatening a severe military response, U.S. officials have taken other steps aimed at preventing a biological or chemical attack. The Pentagon has publicized preparations to equip U.S. troops with protective suits and inoculate them against biological warfare agents. President Bush and other officials have warned of war crimes prosecutions for any Iraqi officers who use chemical or biological weapons..
"Before the 1991 war that evicted Iraqi forces from Kuwait, U.S. officials also struggled with how they would respond if Iraq used weapons of mass destruction. Buster Glosson, a now-retired three-star Air Force general who played a leading role in planning the air campaign then, said three options received serious consideration.
One involved the use of nuclear weapons. A second advocated widening the target list for U.S. airstrikes to include oil fields and a broader array of industrial plants and presidential palaces. And a third, which Glosson favored, proposed targeting several dams on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The destruction of the dams, the proposal calculated, would flood Baghdad with several feet of water and destroy much of the country's industrial base.
In "Crusade," his book about the Persian Gulf War, journalist Rick Atkinson reported that Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of U.S. and coalition forces, recommended in late 1990 to Gen. Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the United States send a demarche to the government in Baghdad threatening to use nuclear weapons if it unleashed chemical weapons. "His reasoning was that [Iraqi President Saddam] Hussein only understood brute force, and while the United States might never intend to use nuclear weapons, it wouldn't hurt to register the threat," Atkinson wrote.
In a prewar meeting in Geneva with Iraqi diplomat Tariq Aziz, James Baker, then secretary of state, also hinted at the possible use of nuclear weapons and cautioned that a chemical attack could cause the allies to amend their war aims and put the Iraqi government's existence at risk. But this and other U.S. threats were kept deliberately vague, reflecting the ambiguity within the administration over just how U.S. forces should respond.
Senior officials at the time worried that an overzealous retaliation, particularly a reliance on nuclear weapons, would bring disastrous political consequences in the Middle East and rob coalition forces of the moral advantage in the aftermath of an Iraqi biological or chemical attack on them. Most policymakers reportedly preferred some middle ground that would widen the Iraqi target base but not appear excessive.
Many of the same considerations exist now.
"It's not like this issue is brand-new," said a senior official who has participated in talks on the matter.
The specific options under review remain classified, but comments by several officials in recent interviews suggest the range of feasible alternatives is even more constrained this time by an overriding objective to limit civilian casualties and damage to nonmilitary targets. One high-level source, for instance, said top war planners do not favor the dam option that Glosson advocated in the 1991 war, viewing it as counterproductive.
Besides, the war plan already calls for bombing most militarily significant targets in the first few days of the air campaign, according to officials. This would leave only targets of secondary or tertiary importance to hit in some kind of retaliatory strike.
Still, senior commanders are understood to be preparing a retaliatory hit list that would attempt to focus even more firepower on those responsible for ordering a biological or chemical attack and those forces who fired the weapons.
"The idea would be to hit them with greater velocity and greater force," the senior officer said.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Compensation for Nuclear Workers
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Sick-Workers-Glance.html
Statistics from the federal compensation program for Department of Energy and contractor workers made sick from beryllium, silica or radiation exposure in the nation's nuclear weapons program.
Claims nationally through Jan. 9:
Filed -- 37,975
Approved -- 7,022
Denied -- 6,711
Awaiting dose reconstruction -- 10,292
Compensation paid -- $441.8 million
Medical bills paid -- $5.8 million
Source: U.S. Department of Labor
-------- new mexico
Fired Los Alamos Probers Return
2 Investigators to Help Inquiry on Problems at Laboratory
By Leslie Hoffman
Associated Press
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57961-2003Jan28?language=printer
SANTA FE, N.M. -- The tables have turned for two Los Alamos National Laboratory investigators who were given 30 minutes to pack up and leave their jobs in November under armed guard.
The University of California, which has managed the lab for 60 years, hired Glenn Walp and Steven Doran as advisers this month to fill officials in on problems they uncovered at the lab.
For the first time, university officials are hearing Walp and Doran's tales of internal business turmoil and allegations of coverup, the pair said during an interview last week.
Walp and Doran say they expect more information to emerge on problems at one of the nation's premier nuclear weapons design centers as various probes continue.
The two were originally hired by the lab to investigate the handling of government property but were dismissed in November after they reported on the alleged misuse of lab credit cards and on $2.7 million in missing computers and equipment.
Lab spokesman Jim Danneskiold said he couldn't say why Walp and Doran were fired. But he said the lab did not need a reason because both were still in their probationary phase of employment.
Five top lab managers have been toppled since the pair's firing, including then-Director John Browne, who resigned and was replaced this month by retired Navy Vice Adm. Pete Nanos.
On Jan. 17, the university hired Walp and Doran -- with back pay to November -- to aid UC President Richard Atkinson in investigating the lab's problems.
Nanos has said the lab wants to work with the investigators. "If they have information we need, get it," he said. The FBI, Energy Department and Congress are also investigating the lab.
Almost immediately after Walp was hired by Los Alamos a year ago, the former Pennsylvania State Police commissioner began getting tips about possible theft. He started collecting inventory reports and interviewing employees.
By March, he had detailed $2.7 million worth of equipment lost or stolen from 1999 through 2001, including 263 computers. Lab and university officials are now conducting their own inventory audits and will not comment until their reviews are done.
Lab spokesman Kevin Roark said an inventory for fiscal 1999 through 2002 turned up 414 missing computers, most of them outdated and none containing classified information.
More than theft or fraud, Walp said, lab managers feared bad publicity would endanger the university's management contract -- and their jobs.
Doran joined the lab in July. His first assignment targeted two workers suspected of buying $50,000 of camping gear and other merchandise with lab purchase orders.
Lab rules require property valued at more than $5,000 or judged an attractive theft target to be bar-coded and inventoried. But Doran -- a former police chief and corporate consultant on white-collar crime -- said pieces of equipment worth less than $5,000 were rarely tracked, and managers often didn't pay much attention to lesser purchases.
Walp said lab officials continued to keep information from investigators. They didn't immediately alert him when the Bank of America reported to procurement staff that a woman tried to charge a souped-up Ford Mustang on her lab purchase card.
As investigations mounted, so did resistance from upper managers, Walp and Doran said.
Walp said he and Doran were later fired because they spoke with outside investigators, an assertion the lab has denied. "There is no doubt in our minds that it was in retaliation for talking," Walp said.
--------
Energy Dept. Discusses Worker Suspension
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Los-Alamos-Safety.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Energy Department officials say a federal safety officer's suspension from Los Alamos National Laboratory was unrelated to his having called attention to radioactive material stored improperly at the lab.
Christopher Steele, a senior safety officer for the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, was put on administrative leave by the department in November. Steele had disagreed with lab managers over safety issues at Los Alamos, including the plutonium storage.
NNSA spokesman Anson Franklin said the violations at Los Alamos had nothing to do with disciplinary action against Steele. Franklin could not elaborate since it is a pending personnel matter.
``I think some people are trying to make some connections that aren't there,'' Franklin said.
Los Alamos managers have been under intense scrutiny in a separate scandal stemming from claims of $2.7 million worth of missing computers and other equipment and misuse of lab credit cards. Two whistleblowing lab investigators, who were fired by the lab, were recently hired as advisers to the University of California, which manages the lab.
Five top lab managers have been toppled since the allegations came to light, including former Director John Browne. The FBI, Energy Department and Congress are investigating the lab and congressional hearings are expected next month.
Steele works for an Energy Department agency. Franklin said Steele's claims are not tied to the other management issues at the lab.
The Project on Government Oversight, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group, contends lab officials pressured the Energy Department to suspend Steele for refusing to sign off on waste storage plans at the lab.
``He was finding problems and they didn't like it,'' POGO investigator Peter Stockton said Wednesday.
In 2001, Los Alamos officials discovered plutonium-tainted trash had been improperly stored in a building that did not meet the Energy Department's safety guidelines.
NNSA issued a notice of violation to the university last month that could have resulted in a $220,000 fine, but the lab is exempt by law from civil penalties.
University of California spokesman Michael Reese said lab officials had a productive relationship with Steele and DOE's decision to put him on leave is unrelated to lab issues.
``The fundamental point here was that he was doing his job. The lab understood that and never would have gone to his superiors and asked that any action be taken against him,'' Reese said.
Steele didn't respond to telephone messages left at his home Wednesday.
House Energy and Commerce Committee spokesman Ken Johnson said the committee, which is investigating other whistleblower allegations, is aware of the Steele incident.
``We have been told that Steele's suspension was for reasons unrelated to his investigation, but if that proves to be untrue someone is going to be in big trouble,'' he said. ``Congress simply will not tolerate recriminations against whistleblowers.''
AP reporter Leslie Hoffman contributed from New Mexico.
On the Net:
Los Alamos National Laboratory: http://www.lanl.gov
National Nuclear Security Administration: http://www.nnsa.doe.gov
--------
Los Alamos Whistle - Blower Suspended, Group Says
January 29, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-science-losalamos.html
LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico (Reuters) - The Department of Energy has suspended a senior safety manager at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) without explanation after he criticized the lab for the unsafe storage of plutonium-contaminated waste, a watchdog group said on Wednesday.
DOE officials deny the suspension had anything to do with the employee's safety investigation, but critics of the lab say the action is another example of whistle-blower retribution at the nuclear lab that developed the first atomic bomb.
Christopher Steele worked for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) and was in charge of ensuring the laboratory followed federal nuclear safety requirements. He was put on administrative leave without pay in November, said the Project on Government Oversight, which has made public charges about a number of problems at the lab.
A spokesman for NNSA confirmed that Steele was on administrative leave but said the move had nothing to do with the charges outlined by the watchdog group. Officials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory would not comment and Steele was not immediately available for comment.
``LANL was unhappy with him because he wasn't signing off fast enough on safety requirements,'' said Peter Stockton, a senior investigator with the group in Washington, D.C.
Steele charged in a memo in August 2001 the lab had conducted unauthorized and unsafe storage of nuclear waste, Stockton said.
``They believed he was a thorn in their side, and bang, he's gone,'' Stockton said.
Steele was investigating, among other things, the storage of radioactive waste -- mostly clothing, tools and other contaminated items -- that was being kept temporarily in a steel shed. The storage did not meet federal safety requirements, Stockton said.
The Energy Department fined the lab $220,000 in late December for a serious breach of safety.
Dennis Martinez, deputy director for Energy Department's NNSA office in New Mexico, said he could not release information relating to Steele's administrative leave, calling it ``a personnel matter.''
``There is absolutely no connection between Chris Steele's status today and the (nuclear safety violation),'' Martinez said.
In a separate incident, two lab investigators were fired in November after issuing a report that charged the lab with extensive corruption and mismanagement.
Former Los Alamos Director John Browne and other top managers resigned about a month ago, following security mishaps, theft and corruption allegations that tarnished the reputation of the famed nuclear lab.
-------- tennessee
Scant Compensation for Sick Nuke Workers
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Sick-Workers.html
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) -- Jerry Tudor never survived the wait.
He was one of the first people to apply for a federal program designed to atone for illnesses suffered by Cold War-era nuclear plant workers who were exposed to toxic chemicals.
Tudor waited and waited for compensation as cancer ate away at his body. He died Jan. 4.
``My husband wasn't advocating money for himself,'' said his widow, Ruby Tudor. ``He said from the beginning that it would be a death benefit ... because the federal agencies were dragging their feet.''
Tudor's case highlights the frustration thousands of nuclear workers and their families are experiencing as compensation gets caught up in the slow wheels of the federal government.
Nearly three years after the government launched the Department of Energy Employee Occupational Illness Compensation Program, two-thirds of almost 38,000 claims are unresolved.
Announced in 2000 by the Clinton administration, the compensation program was intended to help ailing government and contract employees exposed to cancer-causing radiation or the lung-damaging metals silica and beryllium, often without their knowledge.
Program director Pete Turcic at the Department of Labor said the program covering 600,000 workers at 317 sites in 37 states was daunting to set up, but is now making headway.
The government so far has paid nearly $442 million in restitution and $5.8 million in medical bills on 6,100 claims. About half of the claims were filed by workers, the rest by families of those who are deceased.
The government doesn't track how many workers have died while waiting for benefits.
Each worker or surviving family gets $150,000 in cash. The total payout could reach $1.7 billion over 10 years, according to estimates.
To date, 6,700 claims have been rejected, mostly because the worker's illness or work site was not covered under the program. A total of 13,950 cases are pending.
The largest block -- 10,292 claims, including Tudor's -- were sent into a bureaucratic purgatory to decide how much radiation each cancer-stricken worker received and what part played in their illness.
Only 14 of these ``dose reconstructions'' are complete. Turcic said the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which is conducting the dose studies, should be picking up the pace and have all 10,000 completed within a year.
Turcic stressed this is a ``claimant friendly process'' in which a sick worker ``does not have to prove any exposure at all,'' only that he is ill and worked in an area where there was a ``99 percent confidence level'' that he was exposed.
But it was an ordeal for Tudor, according to his widow and Harry Williams, president of Coalition for a Healthy Environment, an Oak Ridge sick worker group.
Tudor worked for 28 years in an electroplating unit at the weapons plant known as Y-12 in Oak Ridge, about 25 miles west of Knoxville. Built to help develop the atomic bomb in World War II, the plant today makes parts for every nuclear warhead in the U.S. arsenal.
Tudor's work was classified and he held a top-security ``Q'' clearance. When officials handling his sick worker claim called to get his work history over the phone, he said he could only talk about it face-to-face. They consented, but it caused delays.
Williams, 57, worked throughout the DOE complex for 20 years before going on disability in 1996 with a litany of illnesses -- from heart disease to nerve damage.
He credited Tudor with bringing sick workers from the Oak Ridge weapons plant and Oak Ridge National Laboratory into the sick workers movement that began in 1999 at the K-25 plant. More than 8,000 of the 38,000 claims have come from Oak Ridge.
Tudor, who suffered from chronic depression, heart disease and other illnesses, went on disability in 1995, then spent years looking for a doctor willing to help him link the illnesses to his workplace.
``Nobody would help him,'' Ruby Tudor said. ``We hit a brick wall everywhere we turned.''
Two years ago, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. ``It was all over his body, in his bones and lymph nodes before they caught it,'' his widow said.
Last year, Tudor expressed doubt about ever getting money from the government. ``I don't believe I will live to see the compensation,'' he said at a rally in May.
He entered Methodist Medical Center on Dec. 10, his 37th wedding anniversary. He celebrated his 56th birthday Dec. 12. Three weeks later, he died.
``He was just an awfully young man to have all of that,'' Ruby Tudor said, but the sick worker movement ``gave Jerry something to focus on besides himself. He spoke up every chance he got.''
Department of Labor: http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/owcp/eeoicp/main.htm
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/homepage.html
Department of Energy: http://www.energy.gov/
-------- us politics
Ashcroft away from Capitol as precaution during speech
From combined dispatches
January 29, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030129-6291514.htm
President Bush designated Attorney General John Ashcroft to stay away from his State of the Union speech last night, making Mr. Ashcroft the successor to lead the government should catastrophe strike at the Capitol.
Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, hospitalized for a back condition, was also absent. The absence of a Cabinet secretary maintained a long-standing tradition that one member not attend presidential addresses to Congress.
In another move, related to post-September 11 worst-case scenarios, 800 masks were kept ready in case of a chemical or bioterrorism attack during Mr. Bush's State of the Union speech, officials said.
Police took no chances before Mr. Bush's arrival, sealing off roads around the Capitol building while every room was checked by bomb-sniffing dogs.
Journalists covering the speech were shown a short police video on how to use the masks in case of a gas or chemical attack.
A House of Representatives press gallery official said 800 masks were stocked in the corridors around the chamber before Mr. Bush spoke.
"It is extremely important that you do not panic," said an expert in the video presentation.
All levels of the Capitol were filled with uniformed and undercover security. All traffic would be kept away from a three-block radius around the Capitol and the Capitol area. Other key parts of Washington were designated no-fly zones, police officials said.
Mr. Ashcroft stayed in an undisclosed location as the rest of Mr. Bush's Cabinet, top military aides and three Supreme Court justices gathered for the State of the Union address.
Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao and Housing Secretary Mel Martinez don't have to worry about being designated the "missing Cabinet member" at such speeches. Both are naturalized citizens, barred by the Constitution from serving as president.
----
'We will disarm' Saddam
By Bill Sammon and Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 29, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030129-21029668.htm
President Bush used his State of the Union address last night to give Iraq one more week to disarm before presenting a final indictment of evidence to the U.N. Security Council as a precursor to war.
After months of refusing to set a timetable for compliance by Saddam Hussein, Mr. Bush made clear that his patience was almost exhausted, called Iraq "the gravest danger facing America" and branded Saddam as an "evil" man who has squandered "his final chance to disarm."
He told American troops to be ready for action and vowed to dispatch Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to the United Nations for a final consultation.
"America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, our friends and our allies," Mr. Bush told a joint session of Congress. "The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene on February 5 to consider the facts of Iraq's ongoing defiance of the world.
"Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraq's illegal weapons programs; its attempts to hide those weapons from inspectors; and its links to terrorist groups.
"We will consult, but let there be no misunderstanding," Mr. Bush added. "If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people, and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him."
The tough rhetoric came at the end of a 60-minute speech that was interrupted by applause 77 times.
In his speech, the president also called for an end to partial-birth abortion; proposed new initiatives to provide $6 billion for vaccines and treatments against anthrax, Ebola and plague; asked Congress to commit $15 billion to "prevent 7 million new AIDS infections" worldwide; and pledged an additional $400 billion to reform and strengthen Medicare.
In the Democratic response, Gov. Gary Locke of Washington accused the president of being fixated on tax cuts and Iraq and ignoring the home front.
"To be strong abroad we need to be strong at home. And today, in too many ways, our country is headed in the wrong direction," he said.
Mr. Bush did in fact reserve his most soaring rhetoric for the war against terrorism, which he said included the looming conflict with Iraq.
"Our war against terror is a contest of will, in which perseverance is power," he said. "In the ruins of two towers, at the western wall of the Pentagon, on a field in Pennsylvania, this nation made a pledge, and we renew that pledge tonight.
"Whatever the duration of this struggle, and whatever the difficulties, we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men - free people will set the course of history," he added.
Mr. Bush left little doubt that the first step on that historic course would be to disarm Saddam. Without mentioning them by name, he called on Germany and France to quell their doubts or risk ending up on the wrong side of history.
"All free nations have a stake in preventing sudden and catastrophic attack," he said. "We are asking them to join us, and many are doing so.
"Yet the course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others," he warned, prompting one of the most thunderous standing ovations of the evening. "Whatever action is required, whenever action is necessary, I will defend the freedom and security of the American people."
Yet the president implicitly acknowledged the threat from Saddam was not imminent. But he said that merely bolstered his case to strike now.
"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent," he said. "Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?
"If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late," he added. "Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option."
In a bow to the post-September 11 environment, 800 masks were kept ready in case of a chemical or bioterrorism attack during Mr. Bush's speech. Attorney General John Ashcroft was the Cabinet member designated, per custom, to stay away from the speech to head the government in the event of a catastrophe.
Mindful of growing anti-war sentiment, the president argued that the United States has a moral obligation to topple dictators who posed threats to other nations.
"Our Founders dedicated this country to the cause of human dignity - the rights of every person and the possibilities of every life," he said. "This conviction leads us into the world to help the afflicted, and defend the peace, and confound the designs of evil men."
The reference to "evil men" was the closest Mr. Bush came to reprising his "axis of evil" line from last year's State of the Union - a reference to Iraq, North Korea and Iran. He repeated the word several times to describe widespread torture, rape and murder of Iraqi citizens by Saddam's forces.
"If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning," the president said.
Mr. Bush briefly mentioned the other two nations in the "avis of evil" - North Korea and Iran. He chided Pyongyang for defying the international community by pursuing nuclear weapons programs.
"The North Korean regime will find respect in the world, and revival for its people, only when it turns away from its nuclear ambitions," he said. "Nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic stagnation and continued hardship."
Mr. Bush called the Tehran regime "a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror. We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty, human rights and democracy," he added.
In a move that recalled his own father's call on Iraqis to rise up against Saddam - which resulted in bloody crackdowns - the president urged ordinary Iraqi citizens to be patient.
"Tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country - your enemy is ruling your country," he said. "And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation."
But the president acknowledged such a liberation could cost American lives.
"Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a president can make," he said. "For the brave Americans who bear the risk, no victory is free from sorrow.
"This nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost," he added. "And we dread the days of mourning that always come."
The only time Mr. Bush became visibly emotional was when he directed his words to American forces massing around Iraq.
"Some crucial hours may lie ahead," he warned. "In those hours, the success of our cause will depend on you.
"Your training has prepared you; your honor will guide you," he added. "You believe in America, and America believes in you."
The president spent the first half of his speech addressing domestic concerns and laid out an ambitious domestic agenda, outlining four goals he hopes to achieve - with the help of Congress - in the next year.
He said he would try to strengthen the economy by creating jobs; provide affordable health care for all Americans and prescription drugs for seniors; protect America from attack and ensure the safety and security of Americans; and tap into the compassion of Americans to solve the nation's "deepest problems."
"Jobs are created when the economy grows; the economy grows when Americans have more money to spend and invest; and the best, fairest way to make sure Americans have the money is not to tax it away in the first place," Mr. Bush said to resounding cheers and a standing ovation from Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress.
He has proposed a $674 billion, 10-year tax-cut plan which would eliminate taxes on dividends, accelerate scheduled across-the-board income-tax-rate cuts and provide a $400-per-child increase in the tax credit for families with children.
"Under my plan, as soon as I have signed the bill, this extra money will start showing up in workers' paychecks," he said.
All 92 million taxpayers will get relief, and "a family of four with an income of $40,000 would see their federal income taxes fall from $1,178 to $45 per year," he said.
Mr. Bush pledged to commit an additional $400 billion over the next decade to reform and strengthen Medicare.
"Leaders of both political parties have talked for years about strengthening Medicare - I urge the members of this new Congress to act this year."
The Bush administration has prepared a plan to provide prescription drug benefits and catastrophic illness coverage to seniors as an inducement for them to leave the traditional fee-for-service Medicare program and join private but government-subsidized health care plans.
The president stepped up his call to rein in medical malpractice awards by establishing a nationwide cap on noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering to $250,000.
"Instead of bureaucrats, and trial lawyers, and HMOs, we must put doctors, and nurses, and patients back in charge of American medicine," he said.
To put a point on his proposals, Mr. Bush filled the executive box in the House chamber with six persons who would benefit from Mr. Bush's tax-cut proposal, two doctors hurt by high malpractice insurance costs and several people who work for or run aid organizations.
Several of those sitting with first lady Laura Bush were there as examples of how the president's tax-cut proposals would benefit average Americans.
For example, Richard "Bud" Beck and Georgia Louise Beck, retired seniors from Colorado, would save $418 on their taxes under Mr. Bush's proposal. But Democrats did their own analysis and said the Becks would do better under their tax-cut proposal, receiving a one-year rebate of $600, according to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat.
Also present was recently retired Washington Redskins cornerback Darrell Green, a guest of new Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee.
Mr. Bush called on Congress to pass his faith-based initiative to allow the federal government to help religious groups deliver social services.
"Tonight I ask Congress and the American people to focus the spirit of service and the resources of government on the needs of some of our most vulnerable citizens - boys and girls trying to grow up without guidance and attention - and children who have to go through a prison gate to be hugged by their mom or dad," he said.
Mr. Bush asked Congress to budget $450 million "to bring mentors to more than a million disadvantaged junior high students and children of prisoners."
He also asked lawmakers to set aside $600 million for a new drug treatment program that would welcome the participation of religious groups. The program would give 300,000 participants over the next three years vouchers to seek drug treatment at the centers of their choice, including religious programs.
Mr. Bush proposed further environmental spending - $1.2 billion over an unspecified period to speed the development of hydrogen-powered, zero-emission fuel-cell vehicles.
The president said his budget - to be sent to Congress in February - will include almost $6 billion to establish "a major research and production effort to guard our people against bioterrorism called Project Bioshield."
The money will go to "quickly make available effective vaccines and treatments against agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, Ebola, and plague. We must assume that our enemies would use these diseases as weapons, and we must act before the dangers are upon us," he said.
Mr. Bush also announced he was instructing the leaders of the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center.
The agency will "merge and analyze all threat information in a single location. Our government must have the very best information possible, and we will use it to make sure the right people are in the right places to protect our citizens," he said.
Touching only briefly on abortion, Mr. Bush said, "We must not overlook the weakest among us."
"I ask you to protect infants at the very hour of birth, and end the practice of partial-birth abortion. And because no human life should be started or ended as the object of an experiment, I ask you to set a high standard for humanity and pass a law against all human cloning," he said, drawing applause from all Republicans and a large number of Democrats.
In a major international announcement originally scheduled to be announced in South Africa during a trip set for this month but canceled at the last moment, Mr. Bush asked Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years "to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean."
"Ladies and gentlemen, seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many ... This nation can lead the world in sparing innocent people from a plague of nature," the president said.
----
Democrats challenge Bush to turn attention to home front
ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 29, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030129-37817002.htm
Excerpts of the Democratic response to President Bush's State of the Union address, as delivered last night by Gov. Gary Locke of Washington state:
Tonight, President Bush spoke about the threats we face from terrorists and dictators abroad. ...
Al Qaeda still targets Americans. Osama bin Laden is still at large. As we rise to the many challenges around the globe, let us never lose sight of who attacked our people here at home.
We also support the president in working with our allies and the United Nations to eliminate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il of North Korea. Make no mistake: Saddam Hussein is a ruthless tyrant, and he must give up his weapons of mass destruction.
We support the president in the course he has followed so far: working with Congress, working with the United Nations, insisting on strong and unfettered inspections. We need allies today in 2003, just as much as we needed them in Desert Storm and just as we needed them on D-Day in 1944, when American soldiers, including my father, fought to vanquish the Nazi threat. We must convince the world that Saddam Hussein is not America's problem alone - he's the world's problem. We urge President Bush to stay this course, for we are far stronger when we stand with other nations than when we stand alone.
I have no doubt that together we can meet these global challenges. But to be strong abroad we need to be strong at home. And today, in too many ways, our country is headed in the wrong direction. We are missing the opportunity to strengthen America for the future. Democrats have a positive, specific plan to turn our nation around.
Today, the economy is limping along. Some say it's a recovery, but there's no recovery in our states and cities. There's no recovery in our rural communities. There's no recovery for working Americans and for those searching for jobs to feed and clothe their families. After gaining 22 million jobs in eight years, we've now lost 2 million jobs in the last two years since President Bush took office - 100,000 lost last month alone.
Two years ago, the federal budget was in surplus. Now, this administration's policies will produce massive deficits of over a trillion dollars over the next decade. These policies have powerful and painful consequences. States and cities now face our worst budget crises since World War II. We're being forced to cut vital services from police to fire to health care, and many are being forced to raise taxes. We need a White House that understands the challenges our communities and people are facing across America.
We Democrats have a plan to restore prosperity so the United States once again becomes the great job engine it was in the 1990s. It's rooted in three principles. It must give our economy an immediate jump-start; it must benefit middle-class families rather than just a few; and it must be fiscally responsible, so we have the savings to strengthen Social Security and protect our homeland.
Our plan provides over $100 billion in tax relief and investments, right now: Tax relief for middle -class and working families - immediately. Incentives for businesses to invest and create jobs - this year. Substantial help for cities and states like yours and mine - now. Extended unemployment benefits - without delay for nearly a million American workers who have already exhausted their benefits. And all without passing on the bill to our children and grandchildren through exploding budget deficits for years to come.
Now, as you heard tonight, President Bush has a very different plan. We think it's upside down economics. It does too little to stimulate the economy now and does too much to weaken our economic future. It will create huge, permanent deficits that will raise interest rates, stifle growth, hinder homeownership and cut off the avenues of opportunity that have let so many work themselves up from poverty.
We believe every American should get a tax cut. That's the way to create broad-based growth. But we shouldn't spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a plan that helps neither the economy nor the families that need it most, while making it harder to save Social Security and invest in health care and education. Think about it: Under the president's proposal to eliminate taxes on stock dividends, the top 1 percent - that's people who earn over $300,000 - would get more tax relief than the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. That's wrong. And it's irresponsible. Let's choose the right course, the successful and fair course, for our economy.
We have another urgent priority: homeland security. In this unprecedented fight against terror, the front lines are in our own neighborhoods and communities. This one hits home. In 1999, an al Qaeda operative tried to enter my state with a trunk full of explosives. Thankfully he was caught just in time. Now, a year and a half after September 11, America is still far too vulnerable. Last year Congress authorized $2.5 billion in vital new resources to protect our citizens - for equipment for firefighters and police, to protect ports, to guard against bioterrorism, to secure nuclear power plants and more. It's hard to believe, but President Bush actually refused to release the money. Republicans now say we can't afford it. The Democrats say: If we're serious about protecting our homeland, we can and we must.
Now, to strengthen America at home, there's much more to do. You and I know that education is the great equalizer, the hope of democracy and the key to the information industries of the future. In my state we have raised test scores, cut class sizes, trained teachers, launched innovative reading programs, offered college scholarships even as the federal government cut its aid to deserving students. Democrats worked with President Bush to pass a law that demands more of our students and invests more in our schools. But his budget fails to give communities the help they need to meet these new, high standards. We say we want to leave no child behind, but our schools need more than kind words about education from Washington, D.C.; we need a real partnership to renew our schools.
Tonight, we also heard the president talk about health care. Too many seniors can't afford the remarkable new drugs that can save their lives - some are skimping on food to pay for needed medication. On this issue, the contrast is clear. Democrats will insist on a Medicare prescription drug benefit for all seniors. President Bush says he supports a prescription drug benefit. But let's read the fine print: His plan only helps seniors who leave traditional Medicare. Our parents shouldn't be forced to give up their doctor or join an HMO to get the medicine they need. That wouldn't save Medicare; it would privatize it. And it would put too many seniors at too much risk just when they need the security of Medicare.
And, finally, let's talk about the environment and energy. Environmental protection has been a tremendous bipartisan success story over three decades. Our air and water are cleaner. In communities in my state and yours, conservation is a way of life. But the administration is determined to roll back much of this progress. Our nation should lead global efforts to promote environmental responsibility, not shun them. And instead of opening up the Alaskan wilderness to oil drilling, we should be committed to a national policy to reduce our dependence on oil by promoting American technology and sustainability.
Yes, the Republican Party now controls the executive branch and both houses of Congress. But we Democrats will hold the administration and congressional leaders accountable. We will work to create jobs and strengthen homeland security. We will fight to protect a woman's right to choose, and we will fight for affirmative action, equal opportunity and diversity in our schools and our workplaces. Above all, we will demand that this government advance our common purpose and not pander to narrow special interests.
That's the vision of the Democratic Party - in statehouses, in Congress, and in the homes of millions of Americans. We believe it's the best course for our nation. It is the vision we will work for, and stand for, in the coming year.
This is not an easy time. ... There are millions of families like mine, people whose ancestors dreamed the American dream and worked hard to make it come true. They transformed adversity into opportunity.
Yes, these are challenging times, but the American family - the American dream - has prevailed before. That's the character of our people and the hallmark of our country. The lesson of our legacy is, if we work together, and make the right choices, we will become a stronger, more united and more prosperous nation.
Good night, and God bless America.
----
By Amy Fagan and James G. Lakely
January 29, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030129-830534.htm THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Democrats said President Bush failed to make his case for military action against Iraq during his State of the Union address last night, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said he will introduce another war-approval resolution before Congress.
"Much has changed in the many months since Congress last debated war with Iraq," Mr. Kennedy said last night, pointing to the work of U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq and to the nuclear crisis in North Korea. "To ensure that we are protecting the American people at home and abroad, another vote is necessary if the time has come for war."
The Massachusetts Democrat said he will introduce a resolution to require the president to present evidence to Congress of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's defiance before going to war.
Congress approved a resolution in October allowing Mr. Bush to use force against Iraq to implement U.N. resolutions on Iraqi disarmament. But the resolution did not make explicit U.N. approval necessary for military action.
Democrats also called on Mr. Bush to take care of domestic issues by backing up his words with funding - something they said he has failed to do during the first two years of his presidency.
"To be strong abroad, we need to be strong at home," Gov. Gary Locke of Washington said in the Democratic response. "Today, in too many ways, our country is headed in the wrong direction. We are missing the opportunity to strengthen America for the future."
"Tonight the president used all the right rhetoric - but he still has all the wrong policies," said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat. "The real test of the president's speech isn't how many promises he makes, it's whether he provides the leadership to make good on those promises. We'll know better next week when the president sends his budget to Congress."
But Republicans said the president presented a strong challenge to Congress and the nation as he laid out his administration's agenda, which focused on tax cuts, providing prescription-drug benefits to seniors and defending the United States from outlaw regimes, terrorists and weapons of mass destruction.
"President Bush gave a speech tonight befitting a strong leader of a great nation," said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican. "Some may question the threats arrayed against us. Some may doubt the path that we must follow. And some may wish that this whole business of war would just go away. But unless we stand fast and stand strong, the forces of evil will not disappear. They will only grow stronger. This is not the time for the timid leadership offered by the naysayers. This threat calls for the strong leadership of a resolute leader."
Democrats were particularly concerned that Mr. Bush seems headed toward war against Iraq without providing a compelling justification for military action.
"He kept saying, 'If war is forced upon us,' " said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Democrat and the new chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. "War has not been forced upon us. I don't think he made a sufficient case for us to go to war without allowing the inspectors to do their job."
But Republicans said Mr. Bush succeeded in making his case. "The longer Saddam Hussein remains in power, the more those freedoms we enjoy are at risk. He's been given every opportunity to leave Iraq freely and peacefully," said House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican. "The world's been playing cat-and-mouse with him for too long, and the president tonight laid out reasons why he represents a clear and present danger."
Republicans said Mr. Kennedy's resolution may not even be brought to the floor for a vote.
Democrats' criticism of Mr. Bush was much more pointed this year than in 2002, when the polls found the president to be immensely popular because of his handling of the September 11 attacks and the war in Afghanistan. Several Democratic presidential candidates for 2004 weighed in yesterday as well. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut said the state of the union "continues to be unsteady" nearly a year and a half after September 11.
Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat and another candidate for president, said: "He talked about fighting AIDS in Africa but pulled the rug out from under [Tennessee Republican Sen.] Bill Frist and me last fall when he had the chance to make America the world's leader in fighting that pandemic."
Not all Democrats were critical of the president, however. "I like what I heard tonight," said Sen. Zell Miller, Georgia Democrat, who said he plans to support "each and every tax cut that comes before the Senate."
•Stephen Dinan contributed to this story.
----
BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH
Ignore the First Chickenhawk's "State of the Union" - listen, instead, to General Schwarzkopf
January 29, 2003
Justin Raimondo
If you think I'm going to miss EastEnders in order to hear the "State of the Union" address you are wrong, wrong, wrong. Why bother, when I know the state of the union sucks?
No sooner did Hans Blix open his mouth then the Dow started tanking; our war birds had hardly begun their latest chorus of banshee-like screeching when speculation began as to how Saddam would strike back. So we're going to hear about how some until now totally unknown Al Qaeda "affiliate," Ansar al-Islam, is supposedly backed by the Iraqis - in the U.S.-protected quasi-independent statelet of Kurdistan. I might as well go to Debka.com and get the latest Israeli propaganda straight from the horse's mouth.
Yawn.
I'm sorry, but I just can't get up even a modicum of enthusiasm for the incoherent squawking of our marionette-in-chief. I hate it when he scrunches up his forehead and squints out at us with that simian belligerence, like General Ursus in "Planet of the Apes." Helen Thomas is right: he is the worst President we've ever had, in every respect. His presidency will go down in history as the last gasp of the old Republic, right before it degenerated into an empire more vulgar than Rome, and more short-lived than Alexander's.
Who wants to see the nation's number one chickenhawk "rally the nation" to war, as one breathless news report put it? No thanks, I'll pass. I choose to ignore the baboonish Bush, and instead urge you to heed the words of Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of our 1991 drive-by shooting in the Gulf.
In an extraordinary interview in the Washington Post, Schwarzkopf continues the Pentagon's offensive against this war, much more effectively than all the peace demonstrations from here 'til kingdom come. Skeptical of the administration's rationale for war, the General is said to be
"Worried about the cockiness of the U.S. war plan, and even more by the potential human and financial costs of occupying Iraq. And don't get him started on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld."
Schwarzkopf's resentment of Rumsfeld, who seems to enjoy his reputation as a blowhard - albeit an entertaining one - is palpable. The General complains that the objections among senior military personnel were simply brushed aside in the rush to war. That heedless arrogance was entirely absent when Dick Cheney was in charge, but
"Rumsfeld, by contrast, worries him. 'It's scary, okay?' he says. 'Let's face it: There are guys at the Pentagon who have been involved in operational planning for their entire lives, okay? . . . And for this wisdom, acquired during many operations, wars, schools, for that just to be ignored, and in its place have somebody who doesn't have any of that training, is of concern.'"
This is not just a fight over turf, however, but over two polar opposite conceptions of military and foreign policy. Schwarzkopf shares the opposition of many officers to the post-9/11 military strategy of this administration, which is to pit the U.S., Israel, and possibly Turkey against the entire Arab world:
"It's obviously not a black-and-white situation over there" in the Mideast, he says. 'I would just think that whatever path we take, we have to take it with a bit of prudence.'"
The General also isn't buying the idea that we can turn Iraq into a Jeffersonian democracy any time soon:
"I would hope that we have in place the adequate resources to become an army of occupation, because you're going to walk into chaos."
Never to walk out of it.
Schwarzkopf's critique is fixed, not on the short-term prospect of an American "victory," but on the inevitability of defeat in the long run. It is a fundamental difference between the old-line pre-imperial era senior officers, who see their task as defending America, and the civilian leadership imbued with a vision of conquest. The Vietnam syndrome is supposed to be dead and buried, but it lives on in the military, which knows, from bitter experience, that the politicians will take credit for the victories, however Pyrrhic, while the grunts take the heat in defeat.
As Georgie Chickenhawk rallies the nation behind yet another American incursion onto the Asian landmass, the horrified and increasingly vocal reaction of Schwarzkopf and his allies in the top ranks of the military is not hard to fathom. They have opposed this war from the beginning, and it is not too late for the President to heed their wisdom. He may be the slave of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, he may be Ariel Sharon's gofer, but even a sub-literate reformed drunk, whose brains have been sautéed in alcohol, knows he can't win a war without the top brass.
We keep hearing that war is "inevitable," but you'll notice how they keep pushing back the date. First it was going to happen right around Christmas, and then at the end of January, and now they're saying the Ides of March. If so, then perhaps one of the President's more historically-inclined advisors will tell Caesar to beware.
To the soldiers out there, consider General Schwarzkopf's warning next to the ignorant ravings of our bellowing Boy Emperor, who slithered out of the draft and is now striking a Napoleonic pose. Which one do you trust to make the decision to go to war?
Listen up, soldier. You have the power to stop this war before it starts. Imagine the panic that would set in if the ranks started echoing and acting on the warnings of their senior commanders. The President may be a slave to the War Party, but you sure as hell aren't: you're an American citizen who has the right to speak out. Isn't that what they're supposedly sending you overseas to fight and die for?
Or is it?
To all who agree with General Schwarzkopf, and side with prudence over Rumsfeldian recklessness, here is how you can spread the word. Just download the speeches and statements of the generals who have spoken out against this war, and share them with your friends. The speeches of former Secretary of the Navy James Webb, General Anthony Zinni, and retired Marine colonel Larry Williams can't get you in any trouble: if they start treating Colonel David Hackworth like some kind of subversive, then we know we're in big trouble.
The most "subversive" activity you can engage in, however, is to keep yourself informed. Having arrived at this site, you're already on the right track....
POSTSCRIPT
Okay, so I did watch the speech, and taped EastEnders, and wasn't I right? The phony connection made between Iraq and Al Qaeda, even murkier than I imagined: the braying bellicosity, the furrowed brow, the mean squint. I must say, however, that I was taken aback when the President opined:
"Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations ... built armies and arsenals ... and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world. In each case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder had no limit."
A Freudian slip? An antiwar mole among the speechwriters? Or a single moment of honesty amid a fusillade of lies? What Bush is describing is his own rotten regime, up to and including the neoconservative cabal that has seized the reins of power in Washington, and set us rushing off to war. The whole point of the President's demagogic tirade was to intimidate the world, and most of all the American people. Conjuring up the self-fulfilling prophecy of an Iraqi attack on the U.S., the Bushies expect us to quake in fear - and surrender ourselves helplessly to their war plans.
After this display of demagogy, Helen Thomas must be feeling vindicated. Yes, he's "the worst President in all of American history," as the state of the union, 2003, demonstrates beyond any doubt.
--------
Bush's 3 Bogus Reasons for War on Iraq
Commentary, Michael T. Klare,
Pacific News Service,
Jan 29, 2003
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=95dbf53f9e3fdb9c4914298f20b91265
The stated reasons for war on Iraq can be boiled down to three phony assertions, writes PNS contributor Michael Klare, who examines each in turn and offers one real reason for the rush to war.
In his State of the Union Address and other speeches, President Bush has attempted to articulate the reasons for going to war with Iraq and ousting Saddam Hussein. Stripped of rhetoric, these can be boiled down to three main objectives: (1) to eliminate Saddam's weapons of mass destruction (WMD); (2) to diminish the threat of international terrorism; and (3) to promote democracy in Iraq and surrounding areas.
To determine if these powerful motives are actually behind the rush to war, each must be examined in turn. (1) Eliminating WMD: The reason most often given by President Bush for going to war with Iraq is to reduce the risk of a WMD attack on the United States. Such an attack would be devastating, and vigorous action is appropriate to prevent it.
If the threat of WMD attack is, in fact, Bush's primary concern, then he would surely pay the greatest attention to the greatest threat of WMD usage against the United States, and deploy available U.S. resources -- troops, dollars and diplomacy -- accordingly. But this is not what the president is doing.
North Korea and Pakistan pose greater WMD threats to the United States than Iraq for several reasons. Each possesses a much bigger WMD arsenal. Pakistan has several dozen nuclear warheads along with missiles and planes capable of delivering them hundreds of miles away; it is also suspected of having chemical weapons. North Korea is thought to possess sufficient plutonium to produce one to two nuclear devices along with the capacity to manufacture several more; it also has a large chemical weapons stockpile and a formidable array of ballistic missiles.
Iraq, by contrast, possesses no nuclear weapons today and is thought to be several years away from producing any, even under the best of circumstances.
A policy aimed at protecting the United States from WMD attacks would identify Pakistan and North Korea as the leading perils, and put Iraq in a rather distant third place.
(2) Combating terrorism: The administration has argued at great length that a U.S. invasion and "regime change" in Iraq would mark the greatest success in the war against terrorism so far. Why this is so has never been made entirely clear. It is said that Saddam's hostility toward the United States somehow sustains and invigorates the terrorist threat to America. Saddam's elimination would thus greatly weaken international terrorism and its capacity to attack the United States.
There simply is no evidence that this is the case. If anything, the opposite is true. From what we know of al Qaeda and other such organizations, the objective of Islamic extremists is to overthrow any government in the Islamic world that does not adhere to a fundamentalist version of Islam. The Baathist regime in Iraq does not qualify; thus, under al Qaeda doctrine, it must be swept away, along with the equally deficient governments in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
It follows that a U.S. effort to oust Saddam Hussein and replace his regime with another secular government -- this one kept in place by American military power -- will not diminish the wrath of Islamic extremists, but rather fuel it.
(3) The promotion of democracy: The ouster of Saddam Hussein, the administration claims, will allow the Iraqi people to establish a truly democratic government and serve as a beacon and inspiration for the spread of democracy throughout the Islamic world.
But there is little reason to believe that the administration is motivated by a desire to spread democracy in its rush to war with Iraq.
First of all, many of the top leaders of the current administration, particularly Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, happily embraced Hussein's dictatorship in the 1980s when Iraq was the enemy of our enemy (Iran), and thus considered our de facto friend. Under the so-called "tilt" toward Iraq, the Reagan-Bush administration decided to assist Iraq in its war against Iran during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88.
Under Reagan, Iraq was removed from the list of countries that support terrorism, thus permitting the provision of billions of dollars' worth of agricultural credits and other forms of assistance to Hussein. The bearer of this good news was none other than Rumsfeld, who traveled to Baghdad and met with Hussein in December 1983 as a special representative of President Reagan.
The Department of Defense provided Iraq with secret satellite data on Iranian military positions. This information was provided to Saddam even though U.S. leaders were informed by a senior State Department official on Nov. 1, 1983 that the Iraqis were using chemical weapons against the Iranians "almost daily," and could use U.S. satellite data to pinpoint chemical weapons attacks on Iranian positions.
Dick Cheney, who became Secretary of Defense in 1989, continued to supply Iraq with secret satellite data.
Not once did Rumsfeld and Cheney speak out against Iraqi use of these weapons or suggest that the United States discontinue its support of the Hussein dictatorship during this period. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the current leadership has a principled objection to dictatorial rule in Iraq.
Besides, the United States had developed close ties with the post-Soviet dictatorships in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan -- all ruled by Stalinist dictators who once served the Soviet empire. And there certainly is nothing even remotely democratic about Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, two of America's other close allies in the region.
Other motives must be at work. Control of Iraq could give the United States de facto control over the Persian Gulf area and two-thirds of the world's oil -- an unrivaled prize in the historic human struggle for power and wealth.
Perhaps these ulterior motives do justify war on Iraq, even if the three stated reasons do not. If that is the case, the President should make this claim to the American public, and let us determine if we want such a war.
Klare (mklare@hampshire.edu) is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and the author of "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict" (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 2001).
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Hundreds of US troops locked in fiercest Afghan battle for nearly a year
By Phil Reeves Asia Correspondent
29 January 2003
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=373636&host=3&dir=71
Hundreds of American soldiers, backed by B-1 bombers and Apache helicopters, were locked in their largest and fiercest battle in Afghanistan for nearly a year yesterday.
As Washington pushed forward with preparations for war against Iraq, the upsurge in fighting served as a reminder that its business in Afghanistan, begun in the aftermath of 11 September, is not over.
American officials told reporters that the fighting in hills near the Pakistan border was their biggest engagement with armed opponents since "Operation Anaconda", when 1,500 American troops spent eight days trying to winkle out hundreds of Taliban and al-Qa'ida fighters from mountain caves in eastern Afghanistan.
The battle yesterday saw the American forces call in B-1 bombers, AC-130 gunships, F-16s and Apache helicopters in an attempt to crush a large band of fighters, who American intelligence analysts believe are loyal to the former Afghan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar - a man who fought in the American-backed mujahedin against the occupying Soviet forces in the 1980s.
Norwegian warplanes joined yesterday's bombardment, dropping their first bombs since they flew from British bases to attack Nazi positions in German-occupied Norway in the Second World War. According to Colonel Roger King, a US military spokesman, up to 350 troops - mainly Americans from the special forces and 82nd Airborne Division but some allied Afghan militiamen - were taking part in the battle against an estimated 80 armed followers of Hekmatyar, an ethnic Pashtun and Sunni Muslim fundamentalist.
The Americans believe Hekmatyar and his Hezb-e-Islami militia - who are violently opposed to the government of Hamid Karzai - have been forging ties with elements of al- Qa'ida and Taliban to wage war against America and its friends. The Taliban has been regrouping in southern and eastern parts of the country, from where it has mounted regular, usually small, attacks on US and Afghan government positions. It killed an American army sergeant last month.
Col King said at the US Army's headquarters at Bagram that warplanes and bombers were in action for more than 12 hours, dropping 2,000lb bombs and firing several smaller guided missiles. Reports suggested that the fighting began when Apache helicopters were fired on as they followed up an informant's tip-off that there was a large group of militants on a mountain about 15 miles north of the town of Spin Boldak.
Col King said at least 18 militants had been killed but there were no casualties from the US-led coalition forces. Asked how long the fighting would go on, the colonel replied: "I would be very, very hesitant to put a deadline. There is a lot of ground to cover. It's a relatively large area and it is rough terrain. It could take a considerable period of time."
There have been reports from United Nations officials that al-Qa'ida and Taliban fighters have set up mobile military training units near the Pakistan border. Other reports suggest that Hekmatyar is organising suicide squads. Matters are further complicated by the depth of anti-American and pro-Taliban sentiment across the border in Pakistan - including within the Pakistani security forces with whom the US is supposed to be jointly waging the "war on terror".
----
Allies Rout Rebels in Afghanistan
At Least 18 Killed In Major Battle
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57509-2003Jan28.html
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Jan. 28 -- U.S. and allied forces, including B-1 bombers and AC-130 gunships, surrounded and pummeled a group of about 80 Afghan guerrillas on a mountainside in southeastern Afghanistan, killing at least 18 in the largest battle in the country since spring, military officials said today.
No U.S. casualties were reported, according to Col. Roger King, a spokesman at U.S. military headquarters here.
The battle, near the Pakistani border in the southern province of Kandahar, was fought through Monday night and continued sporadically today north of Spin Boldak, an Afghan trading town about 15 miles west of the border. The clash, which erupted after the guerrillas were taken by surprise, involved the largest concentration of hostile forces that U.S. and allied forces have detected in the past nine months.
King said that based on intelligence from a captured fighter, the group is believed to be associated with former Afghan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a militia leader who opposes the U.S.-backed government in Kabul and has announced his intention of joining al Qaeda and Taliban forces to fight against the American presence.
King said that U.S. AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were fired on by a group of about 18 Afghans Monday afternoon after a captured fighter directed the choppers to a mountainous area near the Pakistani border. He said the military believed that Apache fire soon killed most or all of that group and that an aerial bombardment that followed might have killed many others in the area.
"We do our operations in the hopes of catching the enemy in a position where we can have maximum effect on him while he has minimal effect on us," King said. "So far, that's what we've got here."
King said that about 350 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division and from U.S. Special Forces took part in the operation. He said they and allied Afghan militiamen continued to search the area, making what he described as "intermittent" contact with hostile forces around Adi Ghar mountain.
Lt. Col. Michael Shields, operations officer for the 82nd Airborne, said there were indications that some of the entrances to the caves being searched were camouflaged, the Associated Press reported. "The number of caves is far greater than we anticipated," Shields said, adding that U.S. forces had been unaware of the cave network before fighting began.
Reports from Spin Boldak said that some residents stood on rooftops and shipping containers to watch flames and smoke rising from the mountain, which is about 15 miles to the northeast.
The United States and its allies began a military campaign against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan 15 months ago. In recent weeks, there have been persistent reports of concentrations of Islamic militants regrouping along the Pakistani border and restarting some training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The militants, who are believed to include foreigners as well as Afghans, have been making small-scale attacks on U.S. bases, inflicting limited damage and causing casualties, but most often missing their targets.
King said today's battle occurred far enough into Afghanistan that the sensitive issue of whether U.S. troops would chase the hostile guerrillas into Pakistan did not come up. He also said civilian casualties were unlikely because the battle was fought in a largely uninhabited area.
The region is populated largely by Pashtuns, the ethnic group that formed the core of the Taliban, the fundamentalist Islamic group that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until it was driven from power by U.S. forces in late 2001. Many Taliban and al Qaeda fighters who had taken residence in Afghanistan slipped across the border into the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan.
U.S. military officers say that Pakistan has been unable, or unwilling, to keep some of those fighters from returning to Afghanistan in recent months. Because the Afghan government has little authority in the area, it has fallen to the U.S. and coalition forces to try to fend them off.
Hekmatyar has been at the center of Afghan politics for decades, as head of the fundamentalist and once widely popular Hezbi Islami, or Islamic Party of Afghanistan, and as the largest recipient of U.S. covert aid during the Afghan war against the Soviets in the 1980s. After the communists were defeated, however, Hekmatyar became involved in deadly intra-party combat and initiated battles that destroyed large sections of Kabul, the capital.
He fled to Iran after the Taliban took power, but in the past year has tentatively joined forces with the Taliban and al Qaeda. His followers are widely believed to have been behind a number of attacks against U.S. soldiers and some Afghan civilians, including a Sept. 5 car bombing in Kabul that killed 30 people and wounded hundreds.
As described by King, the battle with Hekmatyar's men began with a Special Forces sweep of a mud-walled compound about eight miles north of Spin Boldak. Men inside fired on the team and a gunfight ensued. One of the Afghans was killed, one was wounded and one captured.
The captured man told the soldiers about a grouping of about 80 armed Afghans in the mountains nearby. Apache helicopters were sent in Monday afternoon and were fired on from the ground. They then went into attack formation and fired back. The fighters were described as largely in the open. King said that some of their bodies had been recovered.
That Apache attack was followed by heavy bombardment of the area with 19 J-DAMS 2,000-pound bombs, two 500-pound GBU bombs and other assaults using B-1 bombers, F-16s and AC-130s, King said. The Norwegian government announced that a pair of its F-16s took part, which officials in Oslo described as the first bombing by Norwegian forces since World War II.
Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division were also deployed to scour the area and search through caves where men could be hiding. King said that efforts were being made to cut off escape routes for the remaining militants.
King described the battle as the largest since Operation Anaconda, an allied assault on al Qaeda and Taliban forces in March. But it was much smaller than that conflict, which took place in the Shahikot Mountains about 150 miles to the northeast. More than 3,000 U.S. and coalition soldiers were sent into that battle, compared with the roughly 350 near Spin Boldak. As many as several thousand Taliban and al Qaeda fighters also were believed to be in the area when that battle began.
-------- africa
Ethiopia's Proud Heritage
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57906-2003Jan28?language=printer
Although it is commendable that Mary McGrory brought attention to the drought in Ethiopia [op-ed, Jan. 16], I was appalled by her characterization of Ethiopia as "one of those loser countries."
Ethiopia has an ancient culture, with its roots in pre-Western civilization. It is one of the oldest countries in the world with continued independence (it was only briefly occupied by Benito Mussolini's forces during World War II and was never colonized), and it has preserved its culture for nearly 3,000 years. For all these reasons and despite our current difficulties, we are proud to be Ethiopian.
Chronic food shortages are common in our troubled region, and they are being exacerbated by climate change. The Ethiopian government that fell in 1991 did nothing to address these shortages; instead it labored to hide the 1984-85 famine from the world. Visible results have been achieved in the 12 years since the current government took power. Unfortunately, the government's development efforts were disrupted by the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict (which was not of Ethiopia's making).
Without quick action by the international community, the drought crisis will endanger millions of our citizens. Americans can assist Ethiopia's development efforts by visiting its ancient sites and parks and by investing in its emerging market economy.
KASSAHUN AYELE
Ambassador
Embassy of Ethiopia
Washington
----
Cannibalism reported in Congo
By Rodrique Ngowi
ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 29, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030129-18128966.htm
BENI, Congo - Amuzati Nzoli, a middle-aged Pygmy, watched hiding in the bushes in northeastern Congo as rebel soldiers turned from killers into cannibals. His 6-year-old nephew was their victim.
Human-rights activists and investigators from the United Nations say rebels cooked and ate at least a dozen Pygmies and an undetermined number of people from other tribes during recent fighting with rival insurgents.
Pygmies have no calendar, so Mr. Nzoli can't say exactly when the rebels from the Congolese Liberation Movement invaded his forest camp and slaughtered the dozen persons found at the camp.
As Mr. Nzoli returned from hunting, he saw the rebel fighters butcher his nephew, Kebe Musika. They roasted his body parts over an open fire, grabbing pieces from the smoldering embers.
"They even sprinkled salt on the flesh as they ate, as if cannibalism was all very natural to them," Mr. Nzoli said.
"I don't remember any of their faces, but the one thing that I won't ever forget is the sight of their eyes as they ate," Mr. Nzoli said. "They looked wild, evil and unlike any I have ever seen."
It is not the first time cannibalism has been reported in Congo. It generally occurs during great upheaval, such as the Simba rebellion in 1964.
The latest upheaval is the country's 4-year civil war, which has left an estimated 2.5 million people dead, the vast majority from starvation.
The cannibalistic attacks are fueled by a mix of tribal animosities, a desire to spread fear in the region and a belief among some that eating one's foes is a source of power.
The rebels used cannibalism "to provoke terrible fear in their foes and pave the way to dramatic success in the battlefield," said the Rev. Apollinaire Kighoma, a Roman Catholic priest in Mangina, 19 miles northwest of Beni.
The priest has heard accounts about the practice from hundreds of people displaced by fighting who have taken refuge at his church.
Most of the reported acts of cannibalism took place in November and December, when the Congolese Liberation Movement began a successful offensive to retake Mambasa, a town about 70 miles northwest of Beni.
The group had previously lost the town to a rival rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement, which was allied with Mai-Mai tribal fighters. The Mai-Mai believe witchcraft endows them with supernatural power to transform bullets into water.
Witch doctors reportedly told troops from the Congolese Liberation Movement that the Mai-Mai were vulnerable to bullets fired by people who had eaten the hearts of young men, said Jackson Basikania, coordinator of the Program for Assistance to Pygmies in Congo.
The rebels also killed several members of Nande, the tribe from which most of the leadership of the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement is drawn.
Many in northeastern Congo - a fertile and resource-rich region of the vast Central African country - regard Pygmies as less than human. Original inhabitants of Congo, they live deep in the forests, eking out an existence by hunting and gathering food from small nomadic base camps.
Jean-Pierre Bemba, the leader of the Congolese Liberation Movement, says he is "shocked" by reports that his troops ate people. "I don't even know how to explain it," he said by telephone from his headquarters in Gbadolite, about 630 miles northwest of Beni.
-------- arms sales
Jordan Receives First Batch of F - 16 Jets
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Jordan-US-Jets.html
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- Jordan received six F-16 fighter jets on Wednesday, the first batch out of 16 attack aircraft donated by the United States to its longtime Arab ally.
The previously unannounced donation is the second since 1997, when former President Clinton granted Jordan $300 million worth of military equipment under a program to award the Arab kingdom for its 1994 peace treaty with Israel.
That donation included 16 F-16 jet fighters, troop carriers, attack helicopters and other military gear, such as night vision goggles.
``The six aircraft delivered today comprise the initial delivery of a full F-16 squadron, with the remainder to follow,'' said a statement from the U.S. Embassy. A squadron comprises 16 attack aircraft.
The statement said the donation was made up of ``excess defense articles from U.S. Air/National Guard inventories and transferred to Jordan as part of an ongoing bilateral military assistance program.''
Jordanian officials were not immediately available for comment.
Last week, Jordan's army chief asked Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. Central Command, to provide the kingdom with an anti-missile battery to bolster Jordanian air defense.
Jordan had negotiated a similar deal with Russia, which failed to deliver on time, forcing the kingdom to turn to European arms firms -- mainly in Germany and the Netherlands -- for the S-300 surface-to-air missile system.
Jordan, wedged between Iraq to its east and Israel to its west, wants to deploy an anti-missile battery before any U.S.-led war on Iraq. In the 1991 Gulf war, Iraq violated Jordanian airspace when it launched 39 Scud missiles at Israel.
The U.S. aircraft were delivered to Muafaq al-Salti air force base in Azraq, about 60 miles east of the Jordanian capital Amman, the U.S. Embassy statement said. The desert air base is about 155 miles west of the Iraqi frontier.
Jordan has had close military cooperation with the United States for decades. That includes an active calendar of joint military exercises.
-------- business
Northrop Reports Earnings Gains
Acquisitions, U.S. Defense Spending Boost Bottom Line
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page E05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57239-2003Jan28?language=printer
Defense giant Northrop Grumman Corp. yesterday reported a 71 percent jump in profit in the fourth quarter, driven by strong revenue from its recent string of acquisitions.
The builder of Navy ships and Global Hawk drones reported net income of $224 million ($1.72 a share) during the quarter that ended in December. During the same period in 2001, Northrop reported net income of $131 million ($1.28).
The defense sector has been buoyed by the increase in spending related to homeland security and the war in Afghanistan. Lockheed Martin Corp. last week reported a narrower loss of $347 million during its fourth quarter, compared with $1.5 billion in the year-earlier quarter as increased defense spending offset one-time charges. Profit increased more than sixfold at United Defense Industries Inc. of Arlington in the fourth quarter, to $43.2 million, as its ship-repair business offset other losses, the company reported this week.
"Northrop Grumman really had an outstanding 2002 both strategically and financially," Kent Kresa, the company's chairman and chief executive, said during a conference call with analysts.
Los Angeles-based Northrop, which has more than 20,000 employees in the Washington area, has been on a buying spree that has more than doubled its size but has also raised investor concerns about its ability to digest the acquisitions. Its latest deal -- the $7 billion purchase of TRW Inc. -- closed last month. The quarter's results do not include TRW earnings.
Northrop wasn't even in the shipbuilding business until 2001, when it bought Litton Industries Inc. and then Newport News Shipbuilding, but those acquisitions have turned into a growth engine for the company, Northrop officials said. Revenue in the shipping unit grew to $1.38 billion in the fourth quarter, from $803 million last year, largely fueled by the addition of Newport.
The company's information technology business, which includes several units from the Litton Industries acquisition, reported revenue of $1.17 billion for the quarter, up from $1.13 billion a year earlier.
For all of 2002, Northrop reported a 32 percent jump in revenue, to $17.21 billion from $13.01 billion in 2001. Net income fell sharply, to $64 million (34 cents) from $427 million ($4.80) last year. The 2002 shortfall was related to Northrop's sale of Component Technologies, a unit that sells commercial electronic components and that was included in the Litton Industries acquisition. Northrop is selling Component in pieces, and the difference between how the company was valued when it was purchased and what Northrop gets for it in the sale was $432 million.
Like many defense companies, Northrop Grumman also reported that its pension accounts have turned into an expense as financial markets remain sour. Pension income fell to $90 million in 2002, from $335 million in 2001. Northrop officials are forecasting that they will make a cash contribution of $260 million.
"They did extremely well as far as their operations are concerned," said Paul Nisbet, a defense analyst for JSA Research. "The only bad note is the pension."
Shares of Northrop yesterday rose $3.34, or 4 percent, to $91.86, on the New York Stock Exchange.
-------- europe
EU starts 'navy' to stop influx from Africa
By Isambard Wilkinson
LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH
January 29, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030129-68223038.htm
MADRID - The European Union yesterday launched its own "navy" to patrol the southern shores of Europe and head off the flotillas that ship illegal immigrants from North Africa.
The scheme, called Operation Ulysses, involves five European nations, including Britain, which will contribute a customs cutter, Seeke. The flotilla is viewed as the first step toward a common EU border guard.
The quasi-military fleet is one of a host of measures being sought by countries such as Spain and Italy, which have complained of bearing the bulk of the costs of policing EU borders.
It is made up of naval vessels such as those belonging to Spain's militarized Guardia Civil. Italy, France and Portugal have each sent a vessel to join the fleet, each carrying about 30 sailors.
Altogether seven vessels will now be on patrol in the Mediterranean with the aim of stopping the wave of mafia-operated boats that ply the coasts.
The European Union says it is also seeking to reduce the death toll of immigrants, up to 10,000 of whom have died making the crossing in the past decade.
"We are surely seeing the birth of a common police force for the European Union to protect our borders. If we have enough success and co-ordination, this can be the base, the pillar of a future border police," said Spanish Interior Minister Angel Acebes.
Operation Ulysses is based in Algeciras, on the Strait of Gibraltar, just a few miles from the coast of Africa.
In two weeks, the vessels will also operate on the Atlantic seaboard, as in recent years the main route for sub-Saharan Africans wanting to enter Europe has shifted to Spain's Canary Islands, off the northwest coast of the western Sahara.
The patrols will form a "rectangular filter" of 6 nautical miles wide and up to 84 miles long depending on the number of vessels involved at any one time. Any boat within that rectangle can be detected.
The scheme will complement the EU-funded cordon of security towers that are being erected along Spain's coast.
A spokesman for Britain's Customs and Excise Department said the British cutter Seeke had a crew of 12 and would be based in Algeciras, from where it will first set off on a return voyage to Palermo, skirting the coast of Africa. The crew will be mainly involved in "observation and reporting."
The Strait of Gibraltar will now be one of the world's most closely watched stretches of water. In recent weeks, NATO countries such as Britain and the United States have stepped up security measures in response to a warning of an al Qaeda attack on shipping.
Six al Qaeda suspects are on trial in Morocco on charges of planning to blow up U.S. and British shipping in the strait.
Britain has recently deployed two fast-patrol vessels to Gibraltar, where it is stepping up preparations to supply and fuel naval vessels heading to the Persian Gulf region.
--------
Ireland Debates U.S. Military Stopovers
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Ireland-US-Iraq.html
DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- Opposition lawmakers in Ireland demanded the government stop allowing American military planes headed to the Middle East to refuel on Irish soil, hours after an anti-war activist was arrested Wednesday on charges of attacking one U.S. Navy aircraft.
Unveiling a banner that read ``No to War,'' left-wing lawmakers argued the stopovers violate Ireland's traditional neutrality and could make the country a terrorist target. They also said they are worried some planes might be carrying dangerous cargo, such as nuclear weaponry.
Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said Ireland had provided landing facilities for American military aircraft for 40 years, and he had no intention of withdrawing the privilege as long as the United States observed United Nations mandates.
But he said Ireland would be in ``a new position'' if the United States took military action in Iraq without a specific mandate from the U.N. Security Council.
The debate is to continue Thursday.
The stopovers began ahead of the war in Afghanistan and have intensified as the United States prepares for military action in Iraq. Currently about two U.S. planes a day use Shannon Airport in Ireland's southwest for refueling.
Earlier Wednesday, an Irishwoman with a hatchet was arrested at the airport for hacking at the nose, hydraulics and front wheels of a U.S. Navy 737 transport plane, police said.
Mary Kelly, 50, was charged with causing an estimated $550,000 in damage to the aircraft and ordered held for a week after she refused bail on condition she leave the area. Kelly has been living in a tent beside the airfield along with other peace activists.
The plane, which was supposed to depart Wednesday afternoon, remained at Shannon overnight because of fears it was too damaged to fly safely.
``The motivation behind (Kelly's) action is well understood and expresses the level of frustration which I share,'' said Trevor Sargent, leader of the environmentalist Green Party.
It was the second attack on a U.S. aircraft at Shannon. In September, a Green Party activist was caught spray painting anti-U.S. slogans on another cargo plane.
Outside the Dail, Ireland's parliament, the ultranationalist Sinn Fein party led a small protest against a war in Iraq.
Sinn Fein lawmaker Aengus O Snodaigh said the protesters wanted ``to let the government know that Ireland's involvement with the U.S. war machine is not being done in their name.''
Ireland, which won independence from Britain in 1922, remained neutral in World War II -- denying its ports for Allied convoys under attack from German U-boats -- and has declined to join NATO. It maintains strong support for the United Nations and has deployed troops in U.N. operations since 1962.
-------- iraq
It Is a War for Oil
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Washington Post; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57901-2003Jan28?language=printer
Thomas W. Lippman ["It's Not a War for Oil," op-ed, Jan. 24] bases his arguments about the impending war against Iraq on the assumption that the oilmen in the White House would want to lower oil prices. Yet if I owned substantial but finite holdings of a necessary and nonrenewable commodity, I would want the price to increase so that I could sell my stock more slowly at a higher price and over a longer period.
A war with Iraq likely would:
• Damage Iraqi oil fields and possibly cause other disruptions of the flow of oil from the Middle East.
• Cause a rise in oil prices and higher profits for American oilmen.
• Lead to lucrative contracts for reconstruction of the Iraqi oil fields.
I think these factors combine for a plausible motive.
MARSHALL GROSSMAN
Silver Spring
----
Russia U-turn could signal backing for Iraq invasion
FRASER NELSON WESTMINSTER EDITOR
Wed 29 Jan 2003
Scotsman
http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=113192003
RUSSIA yesterday prepared to switch sides on the Iraq debate, saying it could well support an invasion if Saddam Hussein continues to defy the United Nations weapons inspectors.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, whose vote in the UN Security Council is seen as the key to securing a resolution for war, said yesterday that his patience with Saddam could snap. His change of tack came as Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, started a fresh round of diplomacy, telephoning world leaders in an attempt to rally support for war ahead of what is seen as a Valentine's Day deadline.
Mr Putin, who did not speak to Mr Blair yesterday, said he had been disturbed by the report from Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, which said Saddam was continuing to deceive inspectors.
He said: "If Iraq begins to make problems for the work of the inspectors, then Russia may change its position and agree with the United States on the development of different, tougher UN Security Council decisions."
His comments were greeted with delight in Downing Street, which said Mr Blix's report was enough to change the minds of those currently opposed to war. This is the message Mr Blair will take to Spain tomorrow, before he flies to meet George Bush, the US president, in Camp David.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, hardened his stance yesterday, saying Iraq is already "in material breach" of Resolution 1441 and that time has "run out" for Saddam.
Although Downing Street later corrected this to "time is running out", his comment was seen to reflect the message Mr Blair will be taking on tour tomorrow.
Mr Straw laid down a list of ten questions thrown up by Mr Blix's report. The unspoken implication was that they should be answered by the time the chief weapons inspector reports back to the UN on 14 February.
Mr Straw also said that every country which signed UN Resolution 1441 knew the "severe consequences" mentioned were a reference to military action. This logic is used by US hawks to argue that a second UN resolution on war is not necessary.
Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, yesterday dismissed Mr Blix's complaints and denied Iraq has any anthrax.
----
Saddam: Iraq Is Ready for U.S. Attack
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Saddam Hussein, in remarks televised Wednesday, said Iraq ``has huge capabilities'' and is ready to face a U.S. attack, ``destroy it and defeat it.'' A senior Baghdad official condemned President Bush's State of the Union speech, saying it was filled with ``cheap lies.''
``When faced with an attack, we always put in our calculation the worst case scenario and we build our tactics on that,'' Saddam told military commanders. ``We know that they are coming with large forces of infantry and armored units to storm our defensive positions. But we will absorb the momentum of the attack, destroy it and defeat it.''
Saddam said the Americans have no right to attack Iraq ``and every one of them, from the top down to the smallest soldier, is coming as an aggressor with ambitions.''
``We will have long successive defense lines with continued support of equipment,'' Saddam said. ``Iraq is not Afghanistan. Iraq has huge capabilities and throughout history, Iraqis never allowed foreigners to stay on their homeland.''
As the crisis with the United States escalates, Iraqi television has been frequently broadcasting scenes of Saddam conferring with military commanders and senior lieutenants. It was unclear when the meeting aired Wednesday took place.
The broadcasts appear aimed at rallying the Iraqi population at a time of crisis and sending out the message that Saddam remains in firm control of the military and civilian leadership.
On Wednesday, a top Iraqi official took issue with Bush's address to Congress.
``Banned weapons are not small objects that Iraq can hide,'' Maj. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, head liaison to U.N. arms inspectors, said on Iraqi television. ``Iraq has gotten rid of all these weapons.''
Iraqi leaders also rejected Bush's allegation of past or potential links between Baghdad and the Sept. 11 terrorists. ``There's no connection between al-Qaida and Iraq,'' said lawmaker Hazem Bajilan, a foreign affairs specialist in the National Assembly.
Ordinary Iraqis, meanwhile, voiced growing fears of a new U.S. war, a conflict one doctor saw as a ``catastrophe'' in the making for civilians.
International arms inspection teams pressed on with their unannounced rounds Wednesday, dropping in on an Iraqi missile-fuel plant, an ammunition depot and other sites, as their chiefs prepared to meet behind closed doors with the U.N. Security Council in New York.
Those chiefs, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, reported to the council Monday that Iraq was cooperating on practical matters in the 2-month-old inspection process, but was not offering evidence to allay suspicions it retains chemical or biological weapons missed by previous U.N. inspectors in the 1990s.
Iraqi officials said they would submit their own rebuttal to the United Nations by Thursday, ``clarifying'' points raised by the chief inspectors.
Under U.N. resolutions dating to Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, the Baghdad government is forbidden to pursue nuclear or other programs to make weapons of mass destruction. If inspections certify Baghdad's full compliance, the Security Council will consider lifting 12-year-old international economic sanctions on Iraq.
The U.S. and British governments contend Iraq has hidden programs, and they threaten a military invasion if, in their view, it doesn't comply and disarm. But most other governments, including those of close allies, are reluctant to grant U.N. authorization for such an attack.
In his State of the Union speech, Bush asserted that such Iraqi weapons would be a threat to America, and ``sometimes peace must be defended'' -- through war.
The U.S. president's address was not available to ordinary Baghdadis through television or radio, but such threats are familiar to Iraqis.
``Under sanctions, even now, the health situation for Iraqi children is bad,'' Dr. Ahmed Abdul Fattar told a reporter at a Baghdad children's hospital on Wednesday. ``You can imagine if a war breaks out. This would be a health catastrophe.''
War worries are weighing on all Iraqis, said Hussein Fadel, a high school physics teacher. ``All people here are tired of thinking -- they're thinking all the time whether Iraq is going to face attack or not,'' he said in English.
In his speech, Bush referred to biological agent anthrax, the nerve agent VX and other weapon types, and said, ``The dictator of Iraq'' -- Saddam -- ``is not disarming.''
The U.N. inspectors of the 1990s certified the destruction of thousands of munitions containing such agents, but open questions remain about some, because of discrepancies and gaps in Iraqi accounts of arsenals and numbers destroyed.
The Bush administration has said for months it has ``solid'' evidence such weapons remain hidden in Iraq, but it has yet to produce anything concrete. Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to appear before the Security Council on Feb. 5 to present what is billed as new such intelligence information.
The Iraqi deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, was dismissive. ``The accusations of Mr. Bush in his statement last night are baseless, simply baseless,'' Aziz said in an ABC interview.
``Now people are more unconvinced about the Bush allegations than any time before.''
Amin, a general, said on Iraqi TV that Bush's speech was full of ``cheap lies with a political purpose.'' He went on, ``We deeply regret that Little Bush'' -- an epithet frequently used here for the second President Bush -- ``is relying on lies. He knows that Iraq has respected all resolutions.''
Chief nuclear inspector ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tuesday his experts have yet to receive any ``actionable'' intelligence from the Americans.
In fact, in his State of the Union address, Bush revived an old allegation that ElBaradei's IAEA concluded was wrong -- that aluminum tubes Iraq sought to import were meant for equipment to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs.
``They're not looking for the truth,'' another senior Iraqi, presidential adviser Amer Rashid, said of the Bush administration. ``What they're looking for is to distort the truth.''
--------
Iraqi Diplomat Says U.S. Is 'Blinded by Oil Fever'
January 29, 2003
New York Times
By TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/29/international/middleeast/29cnd-nati.html
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 29 - As the Security Council met to consider its position on possible war with Iraq and ongoing weapons inspections there, Baghdad's ambassador to the United Nations offered a harsh assessment of President Bush's State of the Union address, likening it to British colonial aspirations of a century ago and dismissing the idea that the White House can present credible evidence next week that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.
"Last night we heard business as usual from President Bush," said the ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri. "You can accuse us as much as you'd like but you cannot provide a shred of evidence."
Noting that the British were eventually driven out of Iraq, and criticizing the Bush administration as "blinded by oil fever" Mr. Aldouri struck a defiant and hawkish tone in remarks to reporters before he joined the Security Council meeting.
"I would like to remind the Bush administration that the Iraqi people struggled through the first half of the last century to gain their independence from colonialism and strived through the second half of the century to preserve their independence," he said. "Our independence is too dear to us - we will spare nothing to defend it. The American invasion did not succeed in Vietnam and it will never succeed in Iraq."
President Bush said in his annual address on Tuesday night that the United States was prepared to act unilaterally against Iraq if necessary and that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will appear before a special session of the Security Council on Feb. 5 to provide "information and intelligence about Iraq's illegal weapons programs, its attempts to hide those weapons from inspectors, and its links to terrorist groups."
The White House said today that it will use Mr. Powell's appearance to initiate a second phase of Resolution 1441, the Security Council decree issued last November mandating a weapons inspection program in Iraq. The White House said this new phase will center on a war debate and that the Bush Administration will not support issuing a second resolution against Iraq.
The British ambassador to the United Nations, Jeremy Greenstock, spoke with reporters about halfway through today's Security Council meeting, saying that "the debate will go on" over Iraq. But he said that the terms and tenor of that debate have been recast as a result of a highly critical report issued Monday by Hans Blix, the chief chemical and biological weapons inspector for the United Nations. Mr. Blix castigated Baghdad, saying that the Iraqis have failed to adequately comply with weapons inspectors and detailing evidence of potentially dangerous weapons capabilities.
"The question is, does Iraq realize the game is up or doesn't it?" Mr. Greenstock said, noting that the Security Council debates today had a renewed emphasis on whether Iraq is attempting to keep weapons inspectors at bay.
Striking his own hawkish tone, President Bush said in a speech in Michigan today that weapons inspections alone may not be enough to contain Saddam Hussein, saying that Iraq could support and use terrorist groups to attack America.
"In my judgment you don't contain Saddam Hussein," President Bush said. "You don't hope that therapy will somehow change his evil mind."
"Because of Al Qaeda connections, because of his history, he's a danger to the American people, and we've got to deal with him before it is too late," the president added. "What's changed for America, besides the fact he's still dangerous, there's now a shadowy terror network which he could use as a forward army, attacking his worst enemy and never leaving a fingerprint behind."
In his State of the Union address, President Bush said Baghdad had not accounted for as much as 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulin toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard gas and VX nerve agent and about 30,000 munitions capable of being armed with chemical weapons.
Sergey Lavrov, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, said he looked forward to Mr. Powell's appearance before the Security Council next week.
"I certainly welcome the statement that information would be provided," Mr. Lavrov said. "We have been stressing all along that if countries have persuasive proof that Iraq continues its W.M.D. program, that this proof should be presented either to the council or to the inspectors."
Mr. Lavrov also took issue with reports that Russia is ready to change its current position and end support of weapons inspections in favor of war with Iraq, asserting that comments by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia suggesting just that had been misinterpreted.
"We believe that inspections must continue, and that if Iraq stops cooperating with inspectors and starts blocking the inspectors then certainly the Security Council would have to look into it," he said.
Meanwhile, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, reiterated his request that weapons inspectors be given more time to complete their assessment of Baghdad's nuclear capabilities. In comments to reporters before the meeting, he also pressed for much greater Iraqi compliance with the inspections, noting that "the international community is getting impatient" with Iraqi intransigence.
"We need, and Iraq should understand, that we need to make quick progress on all fronts," Mr. ElBaradei said. "Iraq needs to show more proactive support in the next few weeks, because we all know time is running out."
John Negroponte, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, offered a similar assessment of the timetable Iraq faces. "We feel a time for decision making is fast approaching," he said. "The window is closing in on us."
--------
Air Base Reopens in Kurdish Northern Iraq
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Kurds.html
HARIR, Iraq (AP) -- In a fertile plain in Kurdish northern Iraq, a black, paved air strip runs between a patchwork of fields dotted by dozens of new, white tents.
The bustle at this remote airfield -- controlled by people without any planes -- has convinced many residents that U.S. forces are preparing to use it for a war against Saddam Hussein.
At the Pentagon on Wednesday, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked whether U.S. ground forces had entered Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.
Myers said he did not want to discuss the disposition of U.S. forces, but then added, ``There are not significant numbers of military forces in northern Iraq right now.''
Over the past weeks, residents here have reported a sudden increase of movements, such as late-night convoys of trucks and Humvees, a vehicle preferred by the U.S. military.
On Monday afternoon, a Humvee all-terrain vehicle could be seen on a nearby hilltop. Trucks with commercial markings were also moving through the area.
All this has led to speculation that the airport is being readied for use by the Americans for a northern front against Baghdad's forces, which lie less than 60 miles away. The runway at Harir is 8,500 feet -- long enough to accommodate military transports and fighter jets.
Asked about reports of U.S. military cargo planes arriving in northern Iraq recently, Myers said he was not aware of any planes there.
Officials of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which runs the northwestern section of the autonomous Kurdish zone, denied knowledge of any U.S. military presence and say the Harir airstrip might be used for humanitarian flights.
But a high-level Kurdish official said U.S. specialists were expected to staff airfields in three northern provinces, including Irbil, where Harir is located. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
The privately owned Turkish television station NTV reported Wednesday that if Turkey does not permit American troops to use its bases, the United States plans to airlift troops to the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. Presumably, airfields such as Harir would fit into such plans.
Saddam's government built the Harir airfield in 1983 and used it to launch airstrikes during the war against Iran. Baghdad abandoned the airfield in 1991 with the establishment of the U.S.-British enforced no-fly zone and the autonomous Kurdish-controlled enclave in northern Iraq.
The base reopened about four months ago.
Abdul Vahid Kheder, a local official of the Kurdish Democratic Party, said reports of new activity were overblown. ``It's an international roadway,'' he said. ``Trucks are free to come from Iran, Syria, Turkey. It's no big deal.''
But the high-level Kurdish official said 2,000 U.S. military and intelligence specialists are scheduled to enter northern Iraq via the Turkish border to staff and protect the airfields in Dohuk, Irbil and Sulaiymania provinces.
At Harir, military officials would not allow The Associated Press to enter the heavily guarded air base through the main gate. A German camera team attempting to film the site was briefly detained.
But at the air base's ramshackle kitchen -- accessible via a nearby dirt road -- several Kurdish soldiers said they'd been ordered to Harir a few days ago in preparation for a possible U.S. arrival.
Kurdish officials briefly closed the main road passing by the airstrip Monday, as they have reportedly done several times over the last few months. Desert-camouflage vehicles and soldiers in tents guarded access roads.
``Everyone is waiting for the Americans to come,'' says Abdul Samad Ismail, a customer at the Shirwan restaurant in Harir. ``We know they're coming.''
Officials in the Kurdish enclave have long told of occasional visits by American military personnel planners, mostly to survey airfields. According to Kurdish authorities in Sulaiymania, U.S. Special Forces visited the area several months ago.
The U.S. presence was far greater from 1991 to 1996, Kurdish officials say, when both the State Department and Pentagon had offices here as part of Operation Provide Comfort, in which some 5,000 American troops were deployed.
They left, however, during the civil war between rival Kurdish factions.
Some Kurdish Democratic Party officials said the reopening might be unrelated to any U.S. plans.
``It is the most realistic method of providing humanitarian assistance in a very urgent situation,'' Fawzi Hariri, a high-level KDP official said Tuesday. ``We hope that the U.N. and aid agencies will take advantage of it.''
But a Kurdish military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, insisted that the Kurds reopened the base to ``secure the runway themselves to prevent unauthorized foreign aircraft from landing.''
The different accounts of why the airfield has been reopened may stem from political sensitivities. Iraqi Kurds recently have been trying to placate neighboring countries such as Iran, Turkey and Syria, which have Kurdish minorities of their own and which are hostile to the self-rule experiment lest it encourage unrest in their countries.
The reopening of the air base at Harir -- less than 100 miles from the Iranian border -- and other signs of military activity in the Kurdish region have already caused concern in Iran, whose state-controlled Arabic-language satellite television reports such operations with alarm.
Iran, which President Bush designated a member of an ``axis of evil,'' fears its territory could become the target of an American military assault following a possible attack on Iraq.
--------
Mission Iraq
By JAMES RETARIDE, Editor,
Hamden Chronicle,
January 29, 2003
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1636&dept_id=8977&newsid=6864246&PAG=461&rfi=9
It is a city amidst the smog.
It is known for its consistently warm temperatures and sprawling city grid complete with palm trees, Memphis-style shotgun houses and even a 119-story building with a revolving rooftop restaurant and lounge.
Though Hamden resident Dr. Kelly Anthony was told that the climate of this modern city was similar to Southern California, she was not in Los Angeles at all.
She was on her way to Baghdad.
Anthony, a visiting professor at Wesleyan University, was the only Connecticut representative to join a delegation of academics to the University of Baghdad in efforts to understand more about the current state of Iraq and its people.
It all started when Anthony signed a petition against going to war with Iraq along with 33,000 other academics. Faculty at Harvard, the University of Minnesota and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology started the petition.
Anthony says that a few months later she received a letter from Dr. Muhammed Al-Rawi, the president of the University of Baghdad.
"Dr. Al-Rawi invited us to come to the University of Baghdad and I think I was one of the first people to respond," Anthony said. "At first people were frightened and a lot of people thought it was a hoax."
Anthony immediately responded to Al-Rawi and spearheaded an email roundtable discussion with her colleagues from other universities to address their fears and concerns.
"Most were concerned with their safety in Baghdad, which (Al-Rawi) was extremely capable of providing," Anthony said. "We were as protected as Saddam Hussein, I am certain of that."
Anthony said that the delegation had military escorts and "handlers," government agents whose sole purpose was to protect them. Although these escorts did keep a close eye on the group, Anthony said she was allowed plenty of time to speak freely with the city's residents.
"Our visit was heavily scripted, coordinated and tightly choreographed," said Anthony. "But when we went into the Soukh (bazaars) we were allowed to walk up to anyone on the street and speak to them for hours, privately. There would just be two of us, with no one listening."
She estimates that almost half of the people she encountered in Iraq spoke English. Anthony paints a picture of the average Iraqi, seldom, if ever, depicted by the American media.
"First of all, they love Americans and spoke freely of their desire for a western-style democracy," said Anthony, referring to the people she encountered while in Baghdad. "That was probably the most astounding thing, their lack of enmity toward us. They were amazing sympathetic to the American people."
Anthony said that, almost instinctively, the Iraqis she encountered were able to distinguish between governments, administrations and average people, not at all what she anticipated.
"I didn't expect such kindness from the people on the streets," she said. "I was prepared for nasty looks, slogans, rallies, maybe even rocks. But there was nothing."
She added that the consensus was against a dictatorship, yet they are forced to act in support of Hussein fearing repercussions from his regime.
According to Anthony, one can not walk for two minutes in any direction down the streets of Baghdad without encountering images and icons of Hussein. As a social psychiatrist, Anthony said she was on a fact-finding mission, trying to attain a better understanding of exactly what tactics Hussein uses to influence the Iraqi people. She said they were mind control tactics, purely intended to scare people into submission by depicting himself almost as a demigod.
"There were huge sculptures (of Hussein), complete with hair and veins," Anthony said. "One holding two enormous swords crossing into an arch by the entrance of the city's civic arena. There were images of him everywhere."
She said photos; depictions and statues of Hussein were spread all over Baghdad. Images of him holding machine guns, handguns, in a cap and gown looking scholarly. In others he would be looking athletic, spry and nimble and at the pediatric hospital there was a representation of Hussein holding a baby, appearing to be nurturing.
"It was comical," Anthony said.
What was not comical, according to Anthony, was the state of disrepair the pediatric hospital was in when the delegation paid it a visit.
"You know going in, that any pediatric hospital is going to be a sorry sight," Anthony said. "But what struck me was the use of incubators dating back to 1986, held together with duct tape. An incubator is vital to the survival of a premature baby and they did not have adequate sanitation either."
She saw the human condition in Baghdad though Iraqis are for the most part dehumanized by the Western media, Anthony said.
"They do not exist as a people, and I do mean that psychologically," Anthony said. "They are intellectually vaporized and there is a very real fear that physical vaporization is imminent there as well."
During her visit, she encountered some American media. Dan Rather was on the same flight to Iraq, and during her week in Baghdad, she spoke with reporters from 60 Minutes and the Chicago Tribune. She referred to media as being a profound disappointment thus far, saying that the images of real Iraqis have been suppressed from the American public.
Anthony believes that silencing dissent with accusations of anti-patriotism is neither healthy nor productive. "I continue to have concerns about how the world sees the United States," Anthony said. "It is kind of like addressing the wrongs against African-Americans when they get to college with affirmative action. It is too late if they haven't had equal education throughout their lives. Leveling the playing field at that point is too little, too late."
She said that the U.S. is placing a lot of emphasis on border and airline security, but is not addressing why much of the world has become extremely hostile toward us.
Anthony openly shared stories of her own experiences with Iraqi people with the Chronicle.
"The media has really let down those who are anti-war, anti-sanctions," Anthony said. "We are not a group of apologists for Hussein. We abhor the dictatorship. We do not support it; we condemn it."
While at the University of Baghdad, Anthony said she encountered a high-ranking academic that told his voting age children to vote against Hussein or suffer the wrath of their father. The professor changed his mind, however, when he saw a number of armed guards at the polls. He had no choice but to tell his children to vote for Hussein. Anthony said she also heard tales of people disappearing under conspicuous circumstances for voting against Hussein, and was told that scholars who were not in support of Hussein's regime were purged from the university, their careers ended.
"The universities are not private; they are government supported so the academics have to be slanted toward Hussein," she said. "Human rights experts (in Iraq), said they supported a western-style democracy over any other governmental structure. They recognize that a democracy is not perfect but indicated that they though it was a best available system."
Anthony worries that war with Iraq, at this point, is pretty much a forgone conclusion and fears it will be an unmitigated disaster for the Iraqi people.
"It will not be much of a two-way war," she said. "They do not have the capabilities...to stand up to us."
She says the most common misnomer is that the Iraqi people are supporters of al-Qaida.
"The grossest misrepresentation of the Iraqi people by the western media is his face," said Anthony referring to Hussein.
As a result, Anthony believes Iraqi people are not seen as distinct, and are clumped together with supporters of Usama bin Laden.
"I know people that actually believe this impending war is to get at al-Qaida," she said. "That's lunacy, al-Qaida is not from Iraq. They came from Saudi Arabia, our ally."
She said most of the people, including the professors at the University of Baghdad, despise bin Laden for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In fact, she said 50 percent of the faculty at the school was educated in the United States, France or the United Kingdom and said their years in the west were the best of their lives.
"That is our influence," Anthony said. "People ask what the solutions of war are and that is one. Not one of (the professors that came to the U.S.) was thankful to return to Iraq. Beyond nostalgia, they expressed clear sadness; they missed the United States."
Not only did those professors reenter a state of oppression where they were under the constant watchful eye of the regime, forced to work three jobs just to stay economically afloat, they also returned to the extremely polluted environs of Baghdad. Anthony compared the smog situation to Houston, saying she could actually see the particles of pollution prior to breathing them in.
"You could only imagine what it was doing to your lungs," Anthony said. "New exhaust systems are out of the question in Iraq. If your muffler goes, you are going to have to do without a muffler."
Any kind of piping is views as a possible duel-use-item, she said. The fear is that the second use would be as a weapon of mass destruction.
"You can't even get (exhaust piping) into the country, so it is a pretty filthy place," Anthony said. "I also have very serious concerns about the several-thousand-tons of depleted uranium in the soil."
As a result, she said, Iraqis have seen rates of pediatric leukemia skyrocket in recent decades as well as autoimmune disorders.
Among other items not allowed in Iraq are machines that are used for blood testing, chlorine and other cleansing agents because they are also viewed as materials that could potentially be used as weapons of mass destruction. Though it seems depriving the people of these common technologies would also mean the suppression of items promoting western ways; Anthony said what she found was quite the contrary.
"I didn't expect it to be so modern," she said. "But you would walk into stores and Brittany Spears would be piped in through the radio." She added that American shoes and Levi's were worn by most of the Iraqi youth, no doubt a symbol of American pop-culture infiltrating Iraq.
"From what I understand, there is even someone attempting to open a McDonald's franchise in Baghdad," she said.
The only buildings in the city that were more than 12 floors were military installations and Saddam Tower, a 119-story structure complete with views of his palaces. Anthony says she was not permitted to photograph Hussein's estates. After speaking with the Dean of Architecture at the university, she discovered that the Iraqi people refuse to live in or work in buildings with more than 12 floors.
"It think it is a result of (the Gulf War) and the desire of the Iraqi people to have a garden and some land."
The delegation also met with official members of the ruling Ba'ath party while in Baghdad.
"We made it clear that we thought they needed to push for change," Anthony said. "They cannot just sit back silently and enjoy the fruits of their labors and the advantages of being members of the elite. That is what I gather that they want and it does not seem unreasonable. We might want to check with the people before deciding on their government."
Anthony recommends that the United States should focus instead on creating a more stable government in Iran.
"Other than the conservative clerics that have a stranglehold on that country, they are just chopping at the bit for a democracy," Anthony said. "We have found ways to encourage democracies around the world."
Anthony made reference to the former Soviet Union, calling it a nuclear powerhouse that could have blown us out of the water.
"They succumbed to Coca Cola in marketing," she said. "We didn't have to blow up Russia to get them to consider a more democratic system."
One of the biggest threats to creating a democracy in Iraq is the increasing isolation from knowledge of the Iraqi people, she said.
"There are computer science professors that have no journals past 1989," Anthony said. "They are not allowed to have journals. They can't attend conferences and have to go to Jordan to copy a few pages from a book to get information."
She presented a stark contrast to conditions in the west where people can view unlimited information just by referring to an online search engine.
"They are not allowed the resources to compete intellectually," Anthony said. "Maybe the answer is to keep them informed."
Anthony says the result of this lack of information has led to a rise in fundamentalism.
"More people are turning to mysticism and conservative forms of Islamic practice," she said. "As a result: isolation. We are increasing ignorance."
-------- mideast
Arab Nations Unconvinced by Bush's Reasons for War
January 29, 2003
New York Times
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/29/international/middleeast/29CND_ARAB.html
CAIRO, Jan. 29 - President Bush's belligerent recapping of the need to remove Saddam Hussein from power sounded to Middle Eastern ears today more like a domestic pep rally for war than a convincing argument to validate such a drastic step.
Those Arabs actually paying attention to the speech found troubling both the lack of damning evidence against Baghdad and the lack of any articulated plan for postwar Iraq, leaving them bracing for yet another American misadventure in a region they think has seen far too many.
"So far any evidence presented has not made a case for war," said Hesham Youssef, the spokesman for the Arab League. "The international community is not convinced, so they need to make a better case if they want support."
Arab governments in general, especially those in moderate states with close ties to Washington, prefer avoiding the topic of a United States war against Iraq whenever possible. So there was little official reaction. The speech came too late to make the papers in the Arab world and in countries like Syria, where the government also controls the broadcast media, it was virtually ignored as something for U.S. consumption.
"It was a rallying speech, a speech by an unbalanced man preparing the Americans for war, not for peace," said Imad Fawzi Shueibi, a Damascus University professor and political commentator.
"Bush as usual has his own double standard, accusing Iraq of flaunting the U.N. while the United States despises the U.N. and all Security Council resolutions" about Israel.
Those countries that did respond directly were those specifically mentioned - Iraq and Iran.
Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi deputy prime minister, denied the resurrected charge that Iraq has any connection with Al Qaeda or other terrorist networks.
"Until now, this false accusation was repeated many times and no evidence was presented," Mr. Aziz told ABC News from Baghdad. "Everybody in the region and in the world knows Iraq has no connection with Al Qaeda."
Iran, also criticized by Mr. Bush as trying to develop weapons of mass destruction and lacking freedom, accused the president of interfering in the Islamic republic's internal affairs.
"Bush's statement shows that the United States is continuing its erroneous policies by wanting to create an atmosphere of security tension, both domestically and abroad, especially in the Middle East," Kamal Kharazi, the Iranian foreign minister, told reporters in Tehran. He denied any attempt by Iran to develop such weapons.
Those hoping to stave off war were at least heartened by the idea that Mr. Bush promised to send Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to the United Nations on Feb. 5 with the promise of disclosing new evidence concerning Iraq's development of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
"We are not in complete opposition with the United States, but think it should respect the U.N. role because this is the only safety valve for stability and security in the world," said Muhammed Abdella, a university professor and former chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Egypt's Parliament.
Some Arab governments, especially Egypt, began to switch tacks this week, rolling out accusations that Mr. Hussein is to blame for any catastrophe that befalls Iraq for failing to cooperate with the inspectors.
But there are also signs of fatigue with the United States repeatedly saying it has evidence while failing to produce any. "We have been listening to this story for the past six months: evidence is coming, evidence is coming," said Mr. Youssef of the Arab League.
What many also find troubling is that Mr. Bush, in addressing the Iraqis, said the day that Mr. Hussein was removed from power would be the day of their liberation, while again failing to present what the United States has in mind after Mr. Hussein.
"I doubt you could find one person who would agree that the Americans are coming just for the sake of the region and they want to bring democracy," said Khaled M. Batarfi, the managing editor of Al-Madina newspaper in Jidda, Saudi Arabia. "We think it's oil, we think it's Israel, we think it's control. They want a police station in Baghdad like they have in Kabul."
Even those who support the removal of Mr. Hussein find troubling the idea that the United States, especially if it goes alone, would be the one to do it. Newspaper columns have been highlighting the failure of Amferican intervention to establish working democracies in places like Haiti and Somalia.
Iraq is a complicated country with distinct tribal and ethnic differences that many feel the United States shows no sign of understanding.
"My concern is the day after," said Sawsan Shair, a columnist in the Bahrain daily Al-Ayam. "Are the Americans prepared for this? No."
She compared American Middle East policy in general to the work of a surgeon who always leaves before the job is done. "They open the abdomen, remove the diseased organ and then they leave the abdomen open and walk away."
-------- nato
NATO Delays Iraq Military Plan Again
By PAUL AMES
Associated Press Writer
Jan 29, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NATO_IRAQ?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- NATO delivered another setback to the United States Wednesday as four allies again blocked plans for the alliance to send planes and missiles to defend Turkey if there is war with Iraq.
Officials said the U.S. proposals to start preparations to support Turkey in the event of a war in neighboring Iraq were not even discussed at a meeting of the alliance's policy-making North Atlantic Council, after the 19 allies failed to agree in private talks Tuesday.
France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg say they do not oppose the U.S. proposals as such. But they feel it is too early to start the military planning while there is still hope of avoiding a war through diplomacy and the U.N. weapons inspections process.
The American proposals include sending AWACS surveillance planes and Patriot missiles systems to Turkey, intensifying naval patrols in the Mediterranean, filling in for European-based U.S. troops sent to the Gulf and an eventual role for NATO in humanitarian or peacekeeping operations in a postwar Iraq.
The decision was first blocked last week. Officials at NATO headquarters said it now could come after Feb. 5, when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to present the U.N. Security Council with intelligence about Iraqi weapons programs and alleged links to terrorist groups.
Although NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson insisted this week there was "no bust up" over the issue, diplomats said the debate was becoming tense.
On Monday, Robertson said the alliance must consider the request for "prudent, deterrent and defensive measures" to be ready to help Turkey.
"If you have a neighbor like Saddam Hussein, you're wise to get involved in at least prudent defensive measures for your own safety, and as member of an alliance it has a right to ask for and expect support," Robertson told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
U.S. officials said they had been hoping for movement after Monday's report by the U.N. weapons inspectors, which was sharply critical of Iraq for failing to offer full cooperation.
However reaction to the report underscored differences among the allies, with Britain and the United States stressing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's failure to comply, while Germany and France took up the call for the inspectors to be given more time.
The dispute is raising doubts about NATO's role just two months after alliance leaders at a summit in Prague, Czech Republic, proclaimed the Cold War alliance was reinventing itself to tackle modern threats from terrorism and rogue states.
"NATO is on the sidelines and that's no surprise," said Sir Timothy Garden, of London's Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Garden said NATO's military role was decreasing as the United States increasingly looked to build tailor-made coalitions for conflicts rather than rely on NATO, where all decisions need unanimous support among the 19 members.
--------
Divided NATO Makes No Headway on Backing Iraq War
January 29, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-nato.html
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO remained divided on Wednesday over whether to start planning indirect military support for a possible U.S.-led war on Iraq, diplomats said.
While NATO Secretary General George Robertson wants the alliance to make some contingency plans, European heavyweights France and Germany still want to give the United Nations more time to find a peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis.
In a blow to U.S. efforts to build a military coalition against Iraq, there was no discussion of the planning issue at Wednesday's formal session of the 19-nation policy-making North Atlantic Council.
Belgium and Luxembourg joined France and Germany at last week's council meeting in blocking a decision to start preparations in the event of war in Iraq.
Diplomats said these countries had already made it clear at an informal meeting of NATO ambassadors Tuesday, ahead of Wednesday's meeting, that their position had not changed.
Although they are not opposed to the U.S. requests for assistance, which include protecting NATO member Turkey against possible Iraqi attacks, they believe publicly handing planners such tasks now could look like an endorsement of military action before diplomatic efforts to avoid war have been exhausted.
``We haven't moved forwards or backwards, we're just where we were last week,'' said one diplomat. ``Those countries which had sensitivities about the timing still have them.''
``They feel we are at a sensitive stage of the U.N. process and a NATO decision would appear to be support for military action, and could somehow undermine the U.N. process.''
France and Germany have opposed any rush to war against Iraq and say U.N. weapons inspectors should be given more time to try to disarm Iraq peacefully.
NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said after last week's meeting that there was no ``bust-up'' over the Iraq question and that the only disagreement was over timing.
DEFENDING TURKEY
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Monday Robertson made it clear he believed NATO should plan for a possible Iraqi strike on Turkish territory.
``If you have a neighbor like Saddam Hussein, I think you're wise to get involved in at least prudent defensive planning for your own safety, and as a member of the alliance ithas the right to act and expect for support to take place,'' he said.
The U.S. proposals include defending Turkey with Patriot missiles and AWACS radar planes as well as deploying patrol ships and minesweepers in the Mediterranean Sea.
Washington also proposed the use of NATO planning facilities for any campaign and pooling equipment such as fighter planes and refueling tankers.
A NATO official said that although there was no debate at Wednesday's council meeting on NATO's possible support role in a war, the U.S. envoy to the alliance briefed his counterparts on President Bush's State of the Union address.
``He highlighted parts of the speech to do with 1441 and the risk of not acting,'' he said, referring to the U.N. Security Council Resolution which warns of ``serious consequences'' if Iraq does not give up alleged weapons of mass destruction.
-------- pakistan
Pakistani's Tough Talk: Not Just for India
By Nora Boustany
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Washington Post; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58124-2003Jan28?language=printer
K hurshid Mahmud Kasuri, foreign minister of Pakistan, was in Washington this week and had blunt words all around -- for India, his country's chief rival; for U.S. policymakers seeking to walk away from Afghanistan; and for U.S. officials requiring Pakistani citizens to submit to special registration.
A scion of one of Pakistan's most illustrious families, the 61-year-old Kasuri sat down to breakfast with Washington Post editors and reporters Monday, spoke expansively and ate heartily, something most other such visitors almost never manage to do simultaneously.
Kasuri bristled when questioned about Pakistan's nuclear and missile programs, declaring that they were "India-specific" and holding the United States partially responsible for the nuclear race in South Asia, saying U.S. administrations hadn't stood by Pakistan sufficiently in its confrontation with India.
On Kashmir, he challenged India to allow international monitors and human rights investigators into the zone it controls in the region. "India does not want United Nations observers. What is it that India wants to avoid? . . . This movement is largely indigenous," he said, speaking of the Muslim insurgents fighting Indian control in Kashmir. He rejected criticism that Pakistan had not done enough to reduce infiltration across the Line of Control dividing the region.
"Indians cannot be allowed to be accusers, prosecutors and judges in their own cause," he said. "We are prepared to do anything the U.S. suggests for monitoring, but on both sides."
Advocacy and plain speaking come naturally to the Oxford and Cambridge graduate, who is also a barrister at Gray's Inn, one of the four Inns of Court that admit independent lawyers to serve in the courts of England and Wales. He comes from a family with credentials as fighters against British colonial rule and who have often challenged Pakistan's political leaders.
Dressed to the nines in a three-piece wool suit, with gold cuff links and matching tie and suspenders, Kasuri said that Pakistan did not want to isolate itself from the United States, Europe or Japan, because India would take advantage of that.
He said U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan should not be seduced into chasing people identified as terrorists by self-serving tribal warlords along the Pakistani border. He said there should be no "hot pursuit" of suspects into Pakistan, but rather the Pakistani army should be made aware of the suspects and relied on to do its job. Otherwise, he said, there will be an impression "that there is lack of trust between the Pakistani army and the United States, and that is suicide."
With Washington now focusing so closely on Iraq, he warned that U.S. distraction or disengagement from the process begun in Afghanistan would be "disastrous." "That's our real nightmare," he said. "Iraq or no Iraq, Iraq is just the latest topic. Afghanistan needs to be cleansed and rebuilt democratically for the people there to have a stake in stability."
Because Pakistan has taken big risks in behalf of the United States, Kasuri said, Washington should remove Pakistan from a list of countries whose male citizens over age 16 who are in the United States are generally required to register with the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
"Take us off the list," the minister said, "or at least use administrative discretion -- available under the law -- in favor of Pakistanis."
----
PAKISTAN - Militants seek to fingerprint Americans
World Scene
January 29, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030129-25770808.htm
ISLAMABAD - Muslim militants, in a reflection of growing outrage against the United States, called yesterday for the fingerprinting of Americans and compulsory AIDS testing of U.S. visitors.
A coalition of Islamic parties, which gained considerable political clout in October general elections, presented its demands in a list to the government and threatened nationwide demonstrations to push for them.
-------- spies
CIA Report Sought in 9/11 Trial
Hamburg Cell Member's Statements Called Crucial for Defense
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57250-2003Jan28?language=printer
BERLIN, Jan. 28 -- Attorneys for a Moroccan on trial in Germany for alleged involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks are pinning hopes of acquittal on securing last-minute access to a secret CIA interrogation report.
The German government received the report from the CIA and has shown it to prosecutors in the case. But the government is resisting defense attorneys' efforts to obtain it. The report details statements of a leading member of the Hamburg-based cell that plotted the attacks, Ramzi Binalshibh, who was captured in Pakistan last September and is now in CIA custody at a secret location.
Attorneys for Mounir Motassadeq, 28, who is being tried on 3,000 counts of accessory to murder, argued that statements Binalshibh gave to the CIA will show that their client did not know of plans to hijack the U.S. airliners that were subsequently flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That would mean he is innocent of the accessory charges, they said.
As the trial nears its end, the defense attorneys have filed emergency motions with three German appeals courts seeking the report's release to them.
"The witness Binalshibh is not only the closest witness to the crime," the attorneys said in court filings, "but also the only living, available witness for the proceedings." Earlier, the defense tried unsuccessfully to call him to testify in person.
U.S. and German officials have not said what Binalshibh told his interrogators about Motassadeq's role.
The German government contended that the transcripts are secret and that releasing them would violate an agreement with the United States. "They were provided through an intelligence agency in the U.S., but with the strict limitation that they may only be evaluated by intelligence agencies and security officials," said a filing by the office of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. It argued that German intelligence officials would be "shut out" by the U.S. government if Binalshibh's testimony were made public.
But defense attorneys argued that because the transcripts were handed over to trial prosecutors for review, they are legitimately part of the court proceeding and not protected intelligence material. They also noted that prosecutors have admitted destroying their copies of the transcripts after reading them, a potentially illegal act.
Legal experts here said prosecutors have a legal and ethical obligation to turn over to the defense any exculpatory material or material open to interpretation on the question of innocence or guilt.
The defense has argued throughout the case that Motassadeq, who acknowledged having known the Hamburg-based hijackers, was an unwitting, bit player in the Sept. 11 plot, with no knowledge of what the hijackers were going to do. Motassadeq has admitted, however, to training at terrorist camps in Afghanistan, which would expose him to conviction on the lesser charge of membership in a terrorist organization, which carries a five-year term.
Legal analysts said the clash over the transcripts is likely to go to Germany's highest court and could delay the outcome of Motassadeq's trial. The fact that prosecutors have admitted destroying potentially relevant material could lead to the declaration of a mistrial, experts said. The case is the first prosecution of a suspected participant in the attacks on the United States.
On the accessory charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years, prosecutors must show that Motassadeq had prior knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot, according to German law professors and lawyers.
"If . . . there are no indications of proof that a person knew what was planned, then a person cannot be convicted as an accessory to murder," said Peter-Alexis Albrecht, professor of criminal law at Frankfurt am Main University. "The person, if aware that something -- but not aware of what that something is, specifically -- would take place, could be convicted for not reporting a crime, but not as an accessory to murder."
Investigators have said Binalshibh played a key organizational role in planning the attacks, acting as liaison between the leadership of the al Qaeda terrorist network and the hijackers. The defense argued that because Binalshibh knew the details of each part of the plot and its participants, he could clarify Motassadeq's exact role and level of knowledge before Sept. 11.
Binalshibh and two other suspected members of the cell fled Germany shortly before the attacks. Motassadeq, however, remained in Germany, as did a number of other suspects, and his attorneys have offered this as evidence that he did not know the attacks were about to happen.
Another terrorism suspect, Mohammed Haydar Zammar, said by investigators to have been al Qaeda's chief recruiter in Hamburg, told Moroccan and U.S. officials after his arrest in Casablanca in late 2001 that he did not know about the attacks until he saw them on television.
"He knew nothing specific," a Moroccan official said in a recent interview detailing Zammar's 15-day interrogation in Morocco. The official added that he believed Motassadeq was also outside the inner circle. "They knew [the hijackers] were doing something, but not to the point of doing what they did in the U.S.," the official said.
-------- un
U.S. Fails to Sway U.N. Council on Iraq
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Iraq.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Key members of the U.N. Security Council said Wednesday that the United States has so far failed to convince them that time has run out for a peaceful resolution to the crisis with Iraq.
At a crucial council meeting a day after President Bush's State of the Union speech, 11 of the 15 members supported giving more time to weapons inspectors to pursue Iraq's peaceful disarmament, council diplomats told The Associated Press.
Calling for continued inspections were France, Russia and China, which all have veto power, as well as Germany, Mexico, Chile, Guinea, Cameroon, Syria, Angola and Pakistan. Only Bulgaria and Spain backed the United States and Britain in focusing on Iraq's failures rather than the inspections process.
In Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said diplomacy was in its ``final phase.'' Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States would try to help find a haven for Saddam Hussein, his family and close aides if he would agree to go into exile.
``That would be one way to try to avoid war,'' Powell, who will address the Security Council next Wednesday, said at a news conference.
State Department officials, however, said an exile scenario was not under serious consideration.
Saddam, in remarks televised Wednesday in Iraq, was defiant. He said his country ``has huge capabilities'' and is ready to face a U.S. attack, ``destroy it and defeat it.''
``When faced with an attack, we always put in our calculation the worst case scenario and we build our tactics on that,'' the Iraqi leader told military commanders. ``We will have long successive defense lines with continued support of equipment.''
At the daylong Security Council meeting, held behind closed doors, Britain remained squarely in Washington's camp.
``There are members of the council who are asking for time, but it isn't a matter of time. It's a matter of whether Iraq realizes that the game is up, or whether it is trying to keep the inspectors at bay,'' British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said during a break in the meeting.
U.S. diplomats had hoped the meeting would signal increased international support for military action in Iraq. But neither the largely negative reports from weapons inspectors on Monday nor Bush's address on Tuesday altered the positions of some of America's key allies, including France.
``The majority of the council thinks we should continue inspections,'' said French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere. ``This is what they think today, and I think it is important to say so.''
Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov said Russia wanted ``undeniable proof'' that Iraq was rearming, and he dismissed reports that Moscow was shifting to a more pro-American stance.
Still, U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte warned that the ``the time for decision-making is fast approaching.''
He said the United States would conduct intense negotiations, both at the United Nations and between capitals, ahead of the special Feb. 5 council meeting where Powell is expected to present evidence of Iraq's secret weapons programs and links to terrorist groups.
The foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud, was rushing to Washington to meet with Bush and Powell on Thursday. Bush also planned to meet Thursday with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy and on Friday at Camp David with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain.
Security Council diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity said the possibility of a second resolution paving the way toward war was being widely discussed. The most likely scenario would set a relatively short deadline for Baghdad to meet certain steps to avert military action, the diplomats said.
Bush said Tuesday that he would use the ``full force and might of the U.S. military'' if needed to disarm Iraq.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the top nuclear inspector in Iraq, disputed other comments Bush made on the inspections, including claims that Iraqi intelligence agents are posing as scientists.
In a wide-ranging interview with AP, ElBaradei stood by his inspectors' findings that aluminum tubes the Iraqis had tried to import were for rockets and not for a nuclear program, as the president reasserted in his speech Tuesday night.
``We believe the tubes were destined for the conventional rocket program,'' ElBaradei said. He said the tubes could be modified for uranium enrichment but that the process would be expensive, time-consuming and detectable.
In his annual speech, Bush said: ``Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as the scientists inspectors are supposed to interview. Real scientists have been coached by Iraqi officials on what to say, and intelligence sources indicate that Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who cooperate with U.N. inspectors in disarming Iraq will be killed, along with their families.''
ElBaradei said it was unlikely his inspectors ``could be fooled.''
``We know all the scientists from the past and I think our people could easily detect if that person is a scientist or not.''
ElBaradei and the other chief U.N. inspector, Hans Blix, spent Wednesday answering questions from Security Council members regarding their reports on the first 60 days of inspections.
Their differing -- but ultimately negative -- reports issued Monday were used by Bush to strengthen arguments for possible war, and could persuade reluctant allies to support military action to disarm Saddam.
In a letter to be published Thursday in newspapers including The Wall Street Journal and the Times of London, the leaders of Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Denmark pay homage to the ``bravery and generosity of America'' in ensuring peace in Europe.
And in a veiled attack on current dissidents France and Germany, the leaders call for ``unwavering determination and firm international cohesion on the part of all countries for whom freedom is precious.''
The letter highlighted divisions among European allies -- among them key council members unconvinced by the reports and Bush's address.
German Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said inspectors should be given ``a realistic opportunity to discharge their mandate. Let us not put aside an instrument we only recently sharpened.''
Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri dismissed Bush's allegations as ``lies'' and said his government will fully cooperate with inspectors to show ``that these baseless allegations are nothing but fabrications.''
In a seven-page letter to the United Nations, Iraq disputed much of the inspectors' claims that Baghdad had placed obstacles in their way and was hiding pertinent information.
Lavrov of Russia said the letter was one of several signs of Iraqi cooperation with inspectors.
----
Iraq May Chair Disarmament Conference
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Iraq-Disarmament.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Iraq is in line to take over as chairman of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in May, prompting one U.S. official Wednesday to say: ``The irony is overwhelming.''
Richard Grenell, spokesman for U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, issued the comment as officials realized Iraq was in line for the rotating post. India now holds it and will be followed by Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland and Israel as countries take the job in alphabetical order.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said on Tuesday that the choice of conference leaders is ``a purely automatic rotation by alphabetical order'' with five or six conference presidents each year, each serving a term of about four weeks.
``I think you could expect that from time to time a letter would come up that might raise questions in certain quarters, but it has no political significance, I would say,'' said Eckhard, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, when asked if Iraq holding the job did not seem odd.
The 66-nation Conference on Disarmament, based in Geneva, is the world's top disarmament forum. It meets annually for 24 weeks in three sessions beginning in January.
The U.N. General Assembly established the conference in 1979 with 40 members to consolidate the work of several Geneva, Switzerland-based negotiating bodies that had been set up in the 1960s.
The conference, which adopts its decisions by consensus, has negotiated such major multilateral arms limitation and disarmament agreements as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. It also steered talks on the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.
AP correspondent Jonathan Fowler in Geneva contributed to this report.
On the Web:
Conference on Disarmament:
http://www.unog.ch/disarm/disconf.htm
-------- us
Gulf war II to be much quicker
By Richard Pyle
ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 29, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030129-38329037.htm
One lingering image from the 1991 Persian Gulf war was of terrified Iraqi soldiers waving their arms in surrender to an unmanned Navy reconnaissance drone as it skimmed overhead, videotaping the desert terrain.
That incident underscored a vast difference between the two sides - the battlefield technology that enabled a U.S.-led coalition to easily defeat a million-man army, then billed as the world's fourth-largest, in six weeks.
Twelve years later, American surveillance and "smart weapon" technology is far more sophisticated and reliable, and the key to what U.S. planners hope would be an even swifter, more decisive and less bloody victory than Desert Storm.
Despite an already big buildup of U.S. combat forces in the Gulf region, experts say a new war will not be a throwback to the desert tank battles of 1991. Nor will it be another Afghanistan, although "special operators" - Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs or Air Force commandos - could play crucial roles in trying to capture or kill Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.
"What we can expect this time is some increased kind of mobility from the U.S.," said Francois Boo, an analyst at Global Security.org, an Alexandria-based think tank. "The objective of this war is not to recapture some land, but to remove Saddam Hussein from power. That's the center of gravity, and that means Baghdad."
Even if Saddam anticipates that, "the idea is that the U.S. force will be so powerful, and so fast, and take him by so much surprise that the regime will collapse by itself," Mr. Boo said. This "plausible scenario," as he calls it, anticipates that Iraq's forces, much weaker than in 1991, can be bypassed without a serious fight.
As in 1991, any attack is sure to begin with precisely targeted U.S. air attacks to blind Iraq's air defenses, destroy communications and cripple Saddam's ability to fight back.
This time, the weapons are guided by GPS - global positioning satellites - rather than lasers, and will comprise far more than the 10 percent of all explosives unleashed on Iraq the first time around. They include the Predator, the Air Force's multipurpose unmanned aerial vehicle; the Navy's long-range Tomahawk cruise missile used in the Gulf war and against al Qaeda in Afghanistan; and new or upgraded missiles that can be guided from air to target from as far as 15 miles away. They have already been tested in Afghanistan, Kosovo and against Iraqi air defenses in the "no-fly zones."
"There will be an increased reliance on surveillance and intelligence means, and on precision-guided munitions. The point is not to destroy everything in sight but to take out specific installations and facilities," Mr. Boo said.
In making Iraq's anti-aircraft defenses the top priority, U.S. officials cannot dismiss the potential threat of chemical and biological weapons, which are hard to detect and can be delivered by several means, including the Scud missiles of Gulf war notoriety.
As for ground action, Mr. Boo said, the objective will be to "drive straight to Baghdad," and with overwhelming forces at the city limits, wait for Saddam's regime to crumble under the pressure. "Anything else will just be a diversion."
While protracted World War II-type street fighting is the Pentagon's "nightmare scenario," Mr. Boo doesn't expect it. "The whole theory is that by the time the U.S. military reaches the gates of Baghdad, Saddam will have surrendered, or will be floating in the Euphrates as the result of the Iraqi people revolting."
Other experts are skeptical of that - or of a coup d'etat, given Saddam's record of purging aides he suspects of disloyalty. Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said that if Saddam's generals tried to topple him, "they'd all be dead" before they succeeded.
In a defiant speech on Jan. 17, Saddam appeared to reject any idea of compromise or abdication of power, and said an attack on Baghdad would be "suicide." He also asserted - as he has before - that Iraq actually won the 1991 Gulf war.
That conflict came after Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990, accusing the neighboring emirate of using "slant drilling" to infringe on Iraq's oil fields, and of cheapening Iraqi oil by overproducing its own. He nullified debts owed Kuwait from Iraq's eight-year war against Iran, and "re-annexed" Kuwait as Iraq's 19th province.
By that lightning stroke, the Iraqi dictator gained control of 20 percent of the world's oil reserves, and hinted at a further drive into eastern Saudi Arabia, which holds another one-fifth of the world's known oil deposits.
Declaring that Iraq's "aggression will not stand," President George Bush gained U.N. backing for sanctions and armed action to drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait.
Threatened by Saddam's move, Saudi Arabia invited U.S. military intervention. Mr. Bush assembled a 33-country coalition that included not only traditional U.S. allies like Britain and France, but a dozen Islamic nations.
After a five-month buildup of nearly a half-million allied troops, "the mother of all battles" promised by Saddam turned out to be a one-sided air campaign - 48,000 strikes on 1,200 targets in 42 days - and a fast-moving ground war that lasted only 100 hours, a little longer than a holiday weekend.
Baghdad, a city of 4 million people, was bombed at the outset, but allied forces stopped short of invading Iraq, on grounds that was not their mandate. Postwar critics charged that Mr. Bush and his generals failed to complete the job, and misled anti-Saddam factions in Iraq with empty promises of support.
Since then, many analysts have said the allies wanted to preserve Iraq, even in a weakened state, as a buffer against Iranian dominance of the region.
Threats to the world's oil supply being the issue in 1991, some anti-war groups say oil is what also motivates George W. Bush, despite his avowed concern about the dangers of suspected Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear "weapons of mass destruction."
The younger Mr. Bush also has U.N. backing, but only in trying to prove through inspections that those weapons exist. Instead of heading a coalition of many flags, the United States may be acting alone or with a small number of allies.
Its state-of-the-art weaponry and forces would go up against an Iraqi foe that analysts now estimate at 400,000 troops - less than half the 1991 strength - and filled with reluctant conscripts; aging tanks beset by parts shortages; and an air force that fled to Iran in 1991 and remains there.
Estimates of Iraqi losses have been repeatedly scaled back since the war, reflecting the fact that thousands of Saddam's front-line soldiers fled or surrendered and were sent home, and "many were never there in the first place," Mr. Boo said.
In Desert Storm, 10 percent of bombs were guided and overall target accuracy was less than half. Four percent of allied losses - which included 148 Americans killed - were from "friendly fire," and hundreds of Iraqi civilians were killed or wounded in several high-profile incidents, including a U.S. attack on a Baghdad site that had been targeted as a command center.
In Kosovo in 1999 and Afghanistan two years later, 60 percent of the bombs were guided - 87 percent in the Navy's case - and three-fourths hit the target, Pentagon studies said.
Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, called that "the most accurate bombing campaign ever."
Even satellite-guided weapons are imperfect - as shown in Afghanistan, where human error was blamed for misdirected bombs that killed civilians and allied troops. But officials say technical improvements, and the use of GPS-equipped commandos to identify targets will minimize chances of unintended casualties.
----
Marines in Desert Marshal the Tools of War
By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57248-2003Jan28.html
SOUTH OF THE IRAQI BORDER, Kuwait, Jan. 28 -- At a vast desert supply depot with columns of armored vehicles stretching across the horizon, newly arrived troops from the 1st Marine Division today began drawing the gear they would use if ordered to invade Iraq.
For the past week, about 500 Marine logistics specialists have worked around the clock, unloading, repairing and assembling enough equipment to supply a division of 17,000 for a month-long operation. This phase of the U.S. military buildup in Kuwait, although unglamorous, is among the most important should the troops be sent to war, Marines here said.
"We have a saying that amateurs talk tactics and professionals talk logistics," said Maj. David Nathanson, 33, of Newark, a logistics officer for the 7th Marine Regiment who is supervising the equipment assembly line. "The work often falls outside the spotlight, but behind the scenes is a huge effort that can make all the difference. Without all the right parts, a tank is just 70 tons of steel."
Hundreds of Marines, many of whom arrived in Kuwait just three days ago, spent the day testing their gear and taking inventory to make sure everything they will need is in place. They are joining several thousand Marines already in Kuwait from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Many of the Marines seemed excited about getting their hands on the equipment for the first time. "It's like getting a new car," said Lance Cpl. Brandon Hillenbrand, 22, from San Diego, as he sat on the front of his M-1A1 Abrams tank, tearing through sealed packages of tank tools and brand new .50-caliber machine guns. "Having newer stuff should mean it's more likely to work."
The Marines have staged thousands of tons of equipment in areas where it can be more quickly transported to deploying troops than if it were stored at bases in the United States. Civilian container ships loaded with such pre-positioned gear steamed into the Persian Gulf from the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean and arrived at a port near Kuwait City early last week. Marine logistics specialists met the ships and hauled away the cargo, which included: stuffed shipping containers and steel mesh "shark cages" for bundling in smaller equipment, Abrams tanks, Amtrak Amphibious Assault Vehicles, seven-ton trucks, M-198 howitzer artillery pieces and hundreds of Humvee four-wheel drive vehicles. They brought the equipment to this staging area, called the Arrival Assembly Operations Element, in the northern Kuwaiti desert.
The Marines had dipped deeply enough into their stores to include green camouflage gear, better suited for use in Europe or Africa, in addition to desert tans more appropriate for the Persian Gulf region. By the time units arrived today to pick up their gear, most of the vehicles had been inspected and marked with chalk as "good to go" or, in a few cases, as needing new parts.
This marks the first time the Marines have made use of pre-positioned equipment in a non-training operation since the invasion of Somalia in 1993, Nathanson said. Under a program started in the early 1980s to make them more mobile, the Marines maintain three pre-positioned squadrons, numbering four to six vessels each. One squadron is based in the Indian Ocean on the island of Diego Garcia, one in the Mediterranean and the other in the Pacific Ocean at Guam. The gear goes to Marines deploying far from their main bases on the East and West coasts of the United States and in Okinawa, Japan. Logistics specialists have unloaded equipment from one squadron and have begun work on a second.
Logistics officers said that because the pre-positioned equipment is regularly upgraded but less frequently used than gear that Marines train with at home, it is generally in impeccable condition. Nathanson said that of the gear that has been offloaded over the past week, more than 96 percent was found to be in full working order.
As the new troops arrived, the assembly point was among their first stops and a precursor to any major training. Today, two companies from the 1st Tank Battalion, comprising 64 Abrams tanks, carefully inspected their armored behemoths and swapped parts before driving them off to their posts in the desert.
Overseeing the 16 tank crews of Delta Company was Gunnery Sgt. Scott Martin, 36, of Manhattan, Kan., who was last in Kuwait as a tank commander in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "The tanks we bring into battle are the best in the history of warfare," he said. "But to get the most out of them, this period of checking them and testing them is critical. We go over them backwards and forwards."
Once all the Marines from the 1st Division have collected their equipment, the logistics specialists' job changes. In the event of an invasion, they would be responsible for working with each unit to ensure it has enough equipment as the operation unfolds. "We'd be involved all the way through, providing support for the frontline units," Nathanson said. "We figure out where is the best place to deliver things, so that when a unit says 'we need this,' we're right there to hand it to them."
During the Gulf War, U.S. forces spent months in the desert preparing to expel Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait. But many of the Marines drawing gear today said the massive offloading of equipment was a sign that this time they might see action sooner, rather than later.
"The Marines don't uncoil all their gear lightly," said Alpha tank company Staff Sgt. Alfonso Davis, 41, of Mobile, Ala. "Once we lay it all out like this, things tend to get going pretty quick. We're hoping a decision is made soon, so we know our course of action."
----
KUWAIT - 2 Americans injured in training accident
World Scene
January 29, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030129-25770808.htm
KUWAIT CITY - A round of ammunition exploded inside the turret of a fighting vehicle at a training site used by U.S. forces in Kuwait, injuring one American soldier and an American civilian contractor, a military spokesman said yesterday.
The incident occurred early Monday when a 25 mm round exploded inside a Bradley Fighting Vehicle turret after live-fire training exercises.
--------
The Empire Strikes Back
The Tribal Rites of America's Military Leaders. No Wonder They're Bullish on War.
by Ian Urbina
January 29 - February 4, 2003
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0305/urbina.php
(With apologies to Maurice Sendak) (illustration: Jeff Crosby) http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0305/urbina.gif
his Saturday, more than a thousand of America's top military and government leaders and their guests are scheduled to gather at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., for a secretive tribal rite called the 103rd Annual Wallow of the Military Order of the Carabao. And they won't be singing "Kumbaya."
In fact, on what these days feels like the eve of war, nothing says "imperialism" better than the annual Wallow, which celebrates the bloody conquest of the nascent Philippine Republic a century ago in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War.
The exclusive Military Order of the Carabao (named after the mud-loving water buffalo) was founded in 1900 by American officers fighting in the Philippines, so naturally there will be a lot of singing and cigar smoking by the 99.9 percent male crowd. Recent guests have included Colin Powell and General Richard B. Myers, current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many of the country's top military leaders are listed as members. (You have to be an officer to even be considered for membership.)
Acting like a cluster of Klingons, the guys will toss around revered imperial slogans, such as "Civilize 'em with a Krag!" referring to the rifles used by Americans to kill thousands of Filipinos, who had fought Spain for their freedom and didn't want to be handed over to another colonial power.
And there will be rousing speeches, like last year's address by top honoree James Schlesinger, the Nixon-era CIA director and defense secretary, who decades later is still an influential hawk urging a new war with Iraq.
A place was reserved at the head table for President George W. Bush, who was a no-show, but Schlesinger, who received the Carabaos' Distinguished Service Award, delivered an appropriately bellicose speech, telling the crowd, "Someone once said that war is hell, and peace is heaven. But we know that the opposite is true: War is heaven, and peace is hell."
An aide to Schlesinger told the Voice late last week that Schlesinger said he recalls saying, "You know, General Sherman had it all wrong. It's not war that's hell, it's peace that's hell." The aide added that Schlesinger didn't have time to talk further about the Wallow but that what he told the crowd was a "humorous remark made in reference to the defense budgetary situation."
The conclusion is the same in both versions: "Peace is hell." As more than a thousand Carabaos and their guests roared approval of that notion, it wasn't difficult for an observer to conclude that an imperial renaissance is upon us.
The Carabaos rarely rear their heads in public, even though war correspondents can be chosen as "associates" and a few mainstream reporters attend their events. But a guest who had been attending the Wallow for several years was fully debriefed right after the 2002 bash last February and furnished the evening's seating chart, song lyrics, and other documents.
As our mole reported, the mood of the Wallow varies from year to year, depending on how much military spending is going on. The February 2002 crowd, basking in the second year of Bush's rule, was enthusiastic. "This year was totally different," one attendee said at the time. "With the current White House and all the overseas activity, military confidence is way up. I can't tell you how many excited comments there were about the new budgetary reality."
This Saturday, after another year of even more frenzied military spending, the Carabaos ought to be friskier than the bulls in Pamplona. "This year is extremely packed," Rear Admiral Ralph Ghormley, a Carabao official, told the Voice last week. "In fact, we had to turn away over 100 people who wanted to attend."
One thing that fires up the bulls never changes: the bellowing of the Carabao anthem, "The Soldier's Song." At the 2002 Wallow, the room was already thick with smoke-every place setting had been adorned with (forget that embargo) an authentic Cuban cigar-when a voice said, "Gentlemen, please turn to your songbooks," and the U.S. Marine Band, seated to the side, struck up a tune. The Carabaos, most of whom seemed to know the words by heart, lustily sang the first stanza's story of the dreaded "bolo" (the Filipino revolutionaries' machete-they had few guns) and deceitful "ladrones" ("thieves"):
In the days of dopey dreams-happy, peaceful Philippines, When the bolomen were busy all night long. When ladrones would steal and lie, and Americanos die, Then you heard the soldiers sing this evening song:
And then the bulls and their guests rhythmically banged their fists on the tables during each rendition of the chorus:
Damn, damn, damn the insurrectos!
Cross-eyed kakiac ladrones!
Underneath the starry flag, civilize 'em with a Krag,
And return us to our own beloved homes.
The chorus originally began: Damn, damn, damn the Filipinos! The U.S. soldiers chanted the second line's surviving racial slur about Filipinos as "khaki-colored thieves" while marching through the jungle. Some accounts say that, as the Americans marched and sang, some of them carried ears they had lopped off the Filipinos' heads and kept as souvenirs.
Bloody ears aren't part of the rites of a modern-day Wallow, but most of the Cara-baos' other traditions have survived intact. And if this year's mud-fest holds true to form, the revelry will be even more enthusiastic than usual, and it will no longer simply feel like nostalgia. The drumbeats of war against Iraq will sound to this crowd like the rebirth of an American Empire.
A typical Wallow features parody songs by members of the Herd that satirize politicos and often smack liberals who try to slash the Pentagon's budget. "It's the military-industrial complex's answer to the Gridiron," as one regular described it, referring to the annual dinner put on by D.C. journalists and politicians.
The Wallows' guest lists often include not only the most powerful money people in the nation's vast military industry, but also the top political figures. An aide to Secretary of State Powell said the general didn't make last year's Wallow but confirmed his presence at the 2000 bash and told the Voice that he has often attended them.
Ancient Strom Thurmond was plunked down at the 2002 Wallow's head table, where he was assigned a cigar alongside those reserved for Schlesinger, General Myers, Pete Aldridge (the Pentagon's chief of acquisition, technology, and logistics), Dov Zakheim (the Pentagon's comptroller), Gordon England (top deputy to Homeland Security czar Tom Ridge), Sean O'Keefe (the NASA director), and other bigwigs. Marine General Peter Pace, the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs, and Air Force Secretary James Roche, both Carabaos, were assigned the roles of hosting tables of their own.
Among the assigned greeters was last year's Grand Paramount Carabao, General P.X. Kelley, a retired commandant of the marine corps, whose last real tour of duty was the 1992 GOP presidential primaries, when his pro-war TV pitches helped deliver the South for George Bush the Elder against isolationist Pat Buchanan. Joining Kelley on the Reception Committee were General Alfred M. Gray Jr., the marine commandant during the previous war with Iraq; Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, a chairman of the Joint Chiefs during Vietnam; and an assortment of other admirals and generals.
Last year's Grand Paramount Carabao- Elect, presumably the bull who will lead the charge this Saturday, is Admiral James M. Loy, a former coast guard commandant who heads the Transportation Security Administration, the agency now responsible for U.S. airport security. His experience in making fun of Filipinos may come in handy when his security personnel run into dark-skinned travelers: Last August, Loy told The Boston Globe that the controversial practice of profiling "has the capacity to serve as one of the growth elements" of his brand-new agency.
Carabaos pop up in other situations involving minorities or others fighting discrimination. The last all-male Advisory Council at the Citadel, the South Carolina school that was the scene of serious gender discrimination battles in the '90s, was chaired by retired army general Jack Merritt, a Carabao, and included at least three other bulls: Moorer, retired marine commandant General Carl Mundy, and retired Atlantic Fleet chief Admiral Wesley McDonald. Under Merritt's watch, the Citadel's Advisory Council was finally prodded into adding its first women members.
All four of those Carabaos were listed as members of the 2002 Wallow's Reception Committee. When it comes to gays, however, Merritt, for one, has not been so welcoming. In 1993, during the furor over the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, Merritt, in his role as president of the Association of the U.S. Army, spoke out against "avowed homosexuals." In July 1993, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on whether to lift the formal ban on gays in the military, Merritt testified, "The dynamic of the marine and a squad leader, the soldier and his lieutenant, is one of trust. The first time the lieutenant helps a suspected homosexual, he is in trouble."
Merritt and the other Carabaos also have the ear of that committee during more relaxed times. One of the guests assigned a cigar at the head table at the 2002 Wallow was Missouri's Ike Skelton, the ranking Democrat on House Armed Services.
Sometimes it's difficult to tell who's working for the government and who's working for the defense contractors. Pentagon official Aldridge, who decides which defense contractors get the boodle, used to head a big defense contractor, the Aerospace Corporation. Schlesinger not only has ties to Wall Street, but is also chairman of the board of trustees of the Mitre Corporation, a huge quasi-public operation, registered as a nonprofit organization, which runs an array of research facilities working with both the government and defense contractors and which has received billions of dollars in government contracts.
The Carabao gatherings remain a good place for all these people to meet because, even though the Philippine war's combatants may have died out, the organization has relaxed its admission rules so it can always find high-flying hawks it can turn into bulls. In 1993, any officer who served in any overseas war, specifically Desert Storm, was deemed eligible to at least submit an application to join the exclusive group and wallow around every February in black tie, military dress uniforms, or even kilts.
Saddam Hussein, of course, is likely to dominate this Saturday's sketches, skits, and songs. Last year's villain was an obvious choice, sparking such ditties as "Big Bad Bin Laden" and "An Afghan Lullaby." The Carabaos, founded by officers who thought of themselves as fun-loving, poked fun at their own obsessions with the "Contractor's Ode to Joy." (Ernie Sult, a featured voice in that one and a member of the evening's "Taliban Boys Choir," reportedly brought down the house at a 2001 Gridiron Club gathering with a Joe Lieberman shtick.) The Carabaos' Star Wars medley featured songs by "Rummy Skywalker," "Darth Biden," "Mediadroids," "Industrydroids," and even "Princess Condoleia"-though her ode to unilateralism was sung by a white guy.
The most fiery musical manifesto, however, remains the original one, "The Soldier's Song." In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson, hardly noted for a progressive stance on race, publicly flogged the Carabaos for their insults to Filipinos. The song already had been softened by the substitution of "insurrectos" for "Filipinos."
Despite such songs, the Carabaos have their defenders. "The historic songs do reflect a racism prevalent in the military and in society at large at the beginning of the 20th century," one person heavily involved in the Philippine Scouts Heritage Society acknowledged to the Voice. (The society honors those Filipinos whom the U.S. convinced to fight against their revolutionary brethren.) That person said he has attended a Wallow "and saw absolutely no evidence that such attitudes toward Filipinos exist."
The general public isn't able to see a Wallow, or even read stories about one so that it can make up its own mind about that. For the most part, the Herd thunders only in closely guarded seclusion.
"Look, we have never given out press passes," Ghormley, the group's official historian, told the Voice. "We have never been fond of having press there. Now, some journalists have come-in fact some are even members-but we do not give out passes to any of the press."
Apart from brief mentions in obituaries, just about the last time a Carabao reared his horned head publicly was in 1985, when General Dynamics Corporation was caught billing the government a little more than $1000 so that its employees could wallow with the Herd. But with so many government officials openly donning desert gear and strapping on six-shooters these days, the Carabaos may not need to be so circumspect on Saturday night when the U.S. Marine Band strikes up the tune to "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," a popular World War I anthem for solders who were pining for the gals back home. The Carabaos' version is "It's a Long Way to Old Manila," in which they pine for "the happy Empire Day."
Ian Urbina is a journalist based at the Middle East Research and Information Project in Washington, D.C.
Sidebar: "The Forgotten History of U.S. Imperialism in the Phillipines" by Luis H. Francia
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0305/francia.php
-------- propaganda wars
[Yesterday's "death penalty" section shows how hypocritical this is. et]
CHINA - Execution of Tibetan criticized by U.S.
World Scene
January 29, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030129-25770808.htm
BEIJING - The United States yesterday said it was concerned that a Tibetan man executed in China for a spate of bombings and a monk given a suspended death sentence in the same case were not fairly tried.
"We join the international community in raising concerns over the reported execution of Lobsang Dhondup and the suspended [death] sentence of Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche," a U.S. Embassy spokesman said in Beijing.
China had denied a U.S. request to let an observer attend the trial, the embassy spokesman said.
----
Inhuman Enemy
Demonizing Opponents Has Long Been a Hallmark of War
By Michael S. James
ABCNEWS.com
Jan. 29, 2003
http://printerfriendly.abcnews.com/printerfriendly/Print?fetchFromGLUE=true&GLUEService=ABCNewsCom
- During World War I, the German threat was depicted as a mad, marauding gorilla with a bloody club.
Recently, an American political cartoon asked the question, "What Would Mohammed Drive?" and answered it with a drawing of a man dressed in Muslim garb driving a rental truck with a missile hanging out the back.
"For most human beings, it takes an awful lot to allow them to kill another human being," said Anthony Pratkanis, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "The only way to do it is to justify the killing, to make the enemy look as evil as possible."
Propaganda, both by governments and the private media, has evolved over the years as media has evolved. But, some say, the principle remains the same.
"The secret in propaganda is that when you demonize, you dehumanize," said James Forsher, a film historian and documentary filmmaker who has studied propaganda films, and who is an assistant professor of mass communications at California State University, Hayward.
"When you dehumanize, it allows you to kill your enemy and no longer feel guilty about it," he said. "That is why during World War II, a lot of caricatures became animals. ... You can kill a monkey a lot more easily than you can kill a neighbor."
Fake Atrocities and Propaganda Films
Tales of atrocities also can dehumanize, as readers of William Randolph Hearst's newspapers learned when they got whipped up for the Spanish-American war with fake stories and sketches of Spanish atrocities that probably never happened. Arguably, it set a pattern for phony or embellished American wartime propaganda that would last at least through the Gulf War.
• Demonizing Saddam
The Spanish-American War also delivered, perhaps for the first time, films gloriously recreating war events, Forsher said, and, "The government looked at it and went, 'Wow.'"
For World War I, the United States government created a propaganda office, and made sure to deploy movies in its propaganda arsenal. A cooperative Hollywood responded with films such as The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin, To Hell With the Kaiser! and D.W. Griffith's Hearts of the World, which showed Germans throwing babies out windows, Forsher said.
On the other hand, an unfortunate group of filmmakers in 1917 put out The Spirit of '76, an epic about the American Revolution.
"Bad timing, as we were joining the war on the side of the British," Forsher said. "The Americans confiscated every print and threw the producer in jail."
Much of World War I's demonization propaganda seems blunt to modern eyes. A U.S. Army recruitment poster depicted a crazed gorilla wearing a German spiked war helmet, holding a bloody club in one hand and a half-ravished woman in the other, and stepping onto the shores of America. It said, "Destroy this Mad Brute."
In fact, the anti-German propaganda began even before America entered the war.
"In 1914, when war broke out, within weeks the image of Germans and Germany became filled with every symbol of barbarism that people could think of," said Jay Winter, a Yale University history professor whose specialty is World War I. "It had to be something where the war was the sons of light against the sons of darkness. And the reason was to muzzle dissent."
"There were ... Belgians and French who were killed as the Germans invaded," Winter said. "Within days, the image wasn't good enough. It had to be amplified by children having their hands chopped off and women having their breasts chopped off."
alt tag Propaganda posters abounded during both World Wars. (Hand Out) The problem was, it wasn't true, Winter said. Nor, apparently, was another story that World War I's Germans were boiling down enemies to make soap, said Pratkanis, co-author of Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion.
Nevertheless, "This mobilization of hatred was so effective and powerful, that during the Second World War it made it difficult to believe the stories about the Holocaust," Winter said.
Buck-Toothed Japanese, Fanatical Arabs
World War II posters showed shadowy Nazism looming over America and its citizens, and racist stereotypes of the Japanese with thick glasses, buck teeth, and sometimes animal-like features.
One amateur poster showed a stylized Japanese man carrying a limp, naked white woman over his shoulder and was emblazoned with the words, "This Is the Enemy." A poster produced by an American corporation showed a giant Hitler with a handgun and a Japanese man with a bloody knife looming on either side of the globe, with North America between them. "Warning!" the poster said. "Our Homes Are In Danger Now!"
Hollywood again spooled out patriotic films. This time, they included animated shorts that portrayed the Germans and, especially, the Japanese as ridiculous or racist caricatures, said Stefan Kanfer, author of Serious Business: Cartoons and America, from Betty Boop to Toy Story. Often, the cartoons featured well-known animation characters, such as Popeye in Scrap the Japs, he said.
Some believe such caricatures, and the racist attitudes they fostered, allowed America to tolerate the internment of Japanese-Americans during the war.
"I think our sensibilities are a little different, but not that different," Forsher said. "I don't think we're showing an Arabic population carrying knives and stabbing Americans. But then again, who is the villain in the new James bond film? North Koreans."
"Hollywood, when they search for a plot line, you've got to have an enemy," he said.
Some believe the Sept. 11 attacks, hostility toward Iraq and Iran, and an alliance with Israel, has caused significant backlash against Arab-Americans and Arabs around the world.
"I think the demonization of Islam and the Arab world is identical to what happened 100 years ago," Winter said. "The Arab is now a stock figure, a caricature, a symbol of fanaticism, of infinite cruelty and no regard for human rights."
"If things turn nasty [with Iraq], God knows what's going to happen to them," Forsher said. "It worries me. It worries me for the country and for Americans who have Middle Eastern ancestry."
Metaphorical Films
The Cold War also produced propaganda films, Forsher said, though they often took the form of metaphorical science fiction films like Invaders from Mars, about alien invaders wanting to consume American civilization. The tone contrasted with films about the Russians from World War II.
"When we were with the Russians, there were a number of films to show they weren't so bad," he said. "Then five years later, it was the opposite."
The Korean and Vietnam wars may have seen less Hollywood propaganda, Forsher said, though both produced patriotic films, including The Green Berets starring John Wayne.
"It has to do with the studio system," Forsher said. "Back in the late teens and the early '20s, Hollywood, which was very new at that point, was deadly afraid of censorship. ... They went out of their way to help the government, to work with the government with sort of an agreement of we'll work with you if you leave us alone."
"That started breaking down in the early to mid-'60s," he said. "At this point, they're comfortable the government is not going to step in and tell them what to put in as far as content."
'Somebody to Hate'
Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh also fell into the Cold War's anti-Communist rogues' gallery.
"You need somebody to hate," Winter said. "It was true of Hitler, it was true of the Kaiser, it was true of Ho Chi Minh."
And it was true of Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. "The Butcher of Baghdad" was compared to Hitler and demonized as a voracious spider in cartoons.
Even before the Gulf War, the American campaign to invade Panama and seize its dictator, Manuel Noriega, a.k.a. "Pineapple Face," on drug charges, proved the idea of demonizing America's enemies was not dead. As Noriega was dragged out of Panama to face charges in Miami, word leaked out about his portrait of Adolph Hitler, his pornography collection, his bloody voodoo ceremonies, and the red underwear he allegedly wore to ward off his enemies' "evil eye."
And it was not hard for America to demonize its enemies after it was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. President Bush took to calling Osama bin Laden "the evil one," and said he was wanted "dead or alive," like a mass killer on a Wild West poster.
The "What Would Mohammed Drive?" cartoon came more than a year later, playing off the "What Would Jesus Drive?" anti-SUV campaign. It's creator, Doug Marlette, wrote in the Jewish World Review that it was not meant to demean Arabs, Muslims or even Mohammed, but rather to attack "the distortion of their religion by murderous fanatics and zealots" acting in the name of Islam.
'The Blacktop Illusion'
Saddam again is the object of American ire, though subhuman depictions of Iraqis seem rare or nonexistent.
"The kind of stories that are being portrayed today about Iraq are a little different than the ones that were done, say, in World War I," Pratkanis said. "World War I was about the people of Germany, whereas the ones today are what is known as the blacktop illusion. The images in the news media show the people of Iraq as decent people, and that the evil resides at the top, in Saddam Hussein."
Winter said that will make it easier for Americans to understand kind treatment of Iraqis after Saddam is gone.
"Right now, the idea is that one either totally evil or totally insane leader, or both, is using murder and torture to dominate a population that can be liberated by a benevolent West," Winter said. "In order to fulfill the policy of regime change ... it is necessary to separate a population that will be liberated ... from the population that is oppressing them."
Few say they doubt Saddam is evil, but how much about the allegations about him are true? It's often not easy to tell until years after the fact.
"That's part of the rub," Pratkanis said. "In hindsight, when you know it's false, it looks over the top and outrageous."
----
Demonizing Saddam
Sure He's Evil - But Does It Matter We've Heard All About It Before?
By Michael S. James
ABCNEWS.com
Jan. 29, 2003
http://printerfriendly.abcnews.com/printerfriendly/Print?fetchFromGLUE=true&GLUEService=ABCNewsCom
- Back in the Gulf War days, the first President Bush compared Saddam Hussein to Adolph Hitler - both bullies who gassed their own citizens, invaded weaker neighbors and committed atrocities.
Saddam even allowed babies at a Kuwaiti hospital to be "pulled from incubators and scattered like firewood across the floor," the president said.
America's blood boiled. The president's popularity soared. The "Butcher of Baghdad's" mug was the bull's-eye on posters at gas stations. A Republican senator called him "a wolf knocking at our door." T-shirts and political cartoons showed Saddam as a gigantic, voracious spider consuming Kuwait and threatening America.
Some called it "Iraqnophobia," a play on Arachnophobia, the then-hit movie about killer spiders.
But despite a year of tough "axis of evil" talk from the current Bush administration and a troop buildup in the Persian Gulf, polls show support for war with Iraq far from unanimous, and particularly weak if fought without international support.
Scholars of wartime propaganda say the new Saddam-the-demon message is playing more like "Iraqnophobia II" - a dull sequel with recycled plotlines, and few compelling new allegations or surprises.
"To be quite honest with you, I'm confused by it," said Anthony Pratkanis, co-author of Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion. "I don't understand the Bush administration's thinking on this. If they want a war with Iraq, they basically need to sell that war."
That means details on fresh atrocities, fresh images of enemy depravity and enough public proof to convince the world.
"It is hard to demonize [Saddam] when he hasn't really done anything [new] lately," said Garth Jowett, co-author of the book, Propaganda and Persuasion.
• Demonizing the Enemy a Hallmark of War
"I think the White House is losing its grip in the sense that its stories are no longer capturing the minds of the American public," added Jowett, director of the school of communication at the University of Houston. "It's not happening, I think, to any great extent because they are finding the public is ho-humming about it. Everybody knows Saddam is a bad guy."
Depraved Enemy
That could be a problem for the Bush administration, which faces skepticism from foreign governments and a rising domestic anti-war movement, and which insists Iraq, not America, bears the burden of proving it meets conditions to avert an attack, Jowett and others say.
But demonizing the enemy with names, ridicule and allegations - and making it stick - amounts to more than just schoolyard-style trash talk when selling a war. Such techniques are time-tested methods for governments to move the public to action with bloodthirsty war fever or bloodcurdling fear of the enemy threat.
"War propaganda in the 20th century is getting the consent of the population for going on with the killing, and muzzling the population that feels otherwise," says Jay Winter, a history professor at Yale University.
Dehumanization allows people psychologically to throw their support behind a fight, because it's easier to approve of squashing a spider or a monster than human beings, propaganda scholars say. In World Wars I and II, for example, the U.S. government and private groups put out posters showing the enemy as looming giants or vicious animals.
Effective demonizing is often not limited to government sources, but also comes from the private media - as during earlier wars when Hollywood churned out patriotic movies and cartoons that demonized the enemy, often in what would now be considered racist ways, or during the Gulf War when the news media fed the war frenzy.
'A Bunch of Cold-Blooded Killers'
The Bush administration has spent a year trying to get some traction on an effective anti-Saddam information campaign. In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush declared Iraq to be part of "an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world." He later called Saddam "a grave threat," and "a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al Qaeda as a forward army."
At every opportunity he has called Saddam "evil," accused him of hiding "weapons of mass destruction" and painted him as the most dangerous kind of American enemy.
"In America, we say everybody is precious, everybody counts, everybody is equal in the eyes of the Almighty," Bush told American troops at Fort Hood, Texas, this month. "That's not what the enemy thinks. They don't value innocent life. They're nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers, and that's the way we're going to treat them."
Even outside the administration, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., was quoted calling Saddam, "a monster ... a vile man with a reckless and brutal history." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has compared Saddam obliquely to Hitler, and Undersecretary of State John Bolton said post-war Iraq would need "de-Nazification."
Is Saddam the Same as Hitler?
But the administration's Hitler argument was undermined by the Gulf War, Pratkanis believes, because, "The allies would not have marched up to the border of Germany in World War II and said, 'OK, war over. Hitler stays in power. He's a stabilizing influence.'"
"You had people believing he was Hitler saying, 'What happened?'" said Pratkanis, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "You had other people saying, 'If he's not Hitler, why should I have believed you in the first place?' ... So when Bush says, 'axis of evil,' many people are skeptical. He has to live with that."
Another key bit of the old Gulf War demonization also fell apart. Historians now believe the story about the babies being pulled from incubators was untrue, made up by a Kuwaiti diplomat's daughter.
In the past, exaggerations of alleged World War I atrocities caused public skepticism of World War II Holocaust allegations, though the falsehood of the incubator story does not seem to loom large in the American imagination, many concede.
This time, as in the past, the popular media has taken up some of the administration's cues and taken a few fresh stabs at Saddam. In an ABCNEWS interview, Saddam's alleged mistress described him as a Viagra-taking, Hitler-invoking fan of Godfather movies, who likes to watch videos of his enemies being tortured.
In the past year, Saddam has been depicted in political cartoons hugging warheads, or dehumanized as a cat on the last of his nine lives, as a rhinoceros whose horns are nuclear, chemical and biological warheads, or a tornado sweeping toward the front porch of an oblivious Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., a critic of the Bush administration.
But, most observers agree, the current evil-Saddam messages have not led to a rousing war frenzy like America saw before the Gulf War or after Sept. 11.
"I remember watching the interview with his former lover and saying, 'Oh man, what a reach,'" Jowett said.
"What [officials] are failing to do is to convince the public that this sinister, evil guy has to be gotten rid of at a cost of $60 billion," he said.
In fact, it seems at least as common in recent cartoons for Bush to be the butt of the joke - whether depicted as a reckless cowboy, a ridiculous demonizer, or a parrot repeating snippets of his father's words on Iraq. One cartoon shows Bush as "Mini-Me," sitting next to his father's "Dr. Evil": "Lucky in war, unlucky in the economy. I shall call you ... 'Mini-Me!'" says the caption.
Bush, America as 'the Great Satan'
Abroad, predictably, the balance swings further against Bush. In a South African cartoon, Dubya is "Dr. Evil" being spurned by his own "Mini-Me," British Prime Minister Tony Blair. And a German official was fired for comparing Bush's tactics to Hitler's.
Iraq has done plenty of anti-American demonizing, such as last month when the daily newspaper Al-Iraq, according to The Associated Press, denounced "the forces of evil and aggression, led by the great Satan - the United States - and its arrogant idiot President Bush." It may sound ridiculous to American ears, but Jowett says the foreign demonization cannot simply be laughed off.
"The American public, I don't think, understands the incredible depth of feeling and hostility that this has created," he said. "We are going to start to see ... people killing Americans indiscriminately."
Experts say a fresh blatant atrocity on Saddam's part could whip up a war frenzy in America quickly, and public proof of explicit Iraqi malfeasance could raise support abroad.
But there is something else that probably could get Americans behind the war.
"The moment he sends the troops in, it will be replaced by a syndrome called yellow ribbonitis," Jowett said. "If George sends the troops in tomorrow, 95 percent of the American people will back him, simply because he's our president. And as good Americans, which I am, we will support him."
But Pratkanis believes any immediate groundswell of support could be temporary.
"If it's a short war, no problem," he said. "But if it's a long war, that third [of the population] that's in opposition will continue to grow."
--------
Scientists say bioterror threat 'exaggerated'
By Clive Cookson, Science Editor
January 29 2003
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1042491314998&p=1012571727162
Politicians and the media have greatly exaggerated the likely consequences of any use of biological or chemical weapons for terrorism, scientists said on Wednesday. Advertisement
Even the most feared weapons, such as smallpox or nerve agents, would cause far fewer casualties that most people imagine, according to experts at a press briefing in London.
John Oxford, professor of virology at Queen Mary's medical school, London, said: "The smallpox virus is an old plodder, not a sure-footed fast-moving virus like 'flu or measles."
Prof Oxford, an expert on smallpox, said he did not recognise "the virus I know" in some scenarios presented, particularly in the US, in which a smallpox epidemic started by terrorists could end up killing millions of people.
According to Prof Oxford, smallpox can be passed on from person to person only by close physical contact, not simply by being in the same room as someone who is infected, and the number of cases in historical outbreaks of the disease built up quite slowly. And he said that people who were vaccinated against smallpox before the disease was officially eradicated in the 1970s would still have residual immunity 30 or 40 years later.
Prof Oxford acknowledged that it was reasonable to take some precautions against bioterrorism, for example by building up stocks of smallpox vaccine, but added: "It would not take much to divert all of us [infectious disease specialists] into anthrax and smallpox, when we should be focusing on the great natural killers such as HIV, TB and influenza."
Tom Inch, who chairs the UK chemical weapons convention advisory committee, told the meeting that if terrorists used a chemical agent in a confined space such as the London Underground, "some people would die but not a huge number - high explosives would be far more dangerous." Fear and panic would probably do more harm than a nerve agent or toxin such as ricin.
The problem for terrorists, Dr Inch said, is that even the deadliest chemicals are extremely difficult to distribute in a way that causes mass casulties.
Steve Emmett, an expert on nerve agents at Oxford University who now works for Synaptica, a university spin-out company, agreed. "It's easy to play up the risks and encourage panic," he said. "In fact the risks of mass poisoning [from any chemical agent] are very low."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
The FBI Says, Count the Mosques
Investigators: FBI Director Robert Mueller has launched a potentially controversial initiative
By Michael Isikoff
NEWSWEEK
1/29/03
http://www.msnbc.com/news/864367.asp?cp1=1
Frustrated that his troops are still not aggressive enough in hunting down terrorists, FBI Director Robert Mueller has launched a potentially controversial initiative aimed at making sure that field agents finally get the message-and are held accountable.
AS PART OF the effort, NEWSWEEK has learned, Mueller's top aides have directed chiefs of the bureau's 56 field offices to develop "demographic" profiles of their localities-including tallying the number of mosques. Those profiles are then being used, along with other factors, to set specific numerical goals for counter terrorism investigations and secret national-security wiretaps in each region. Top bureau officials have signaled that if field offices don't meet their pre-established goals, they may be subjected to special reviews by inspection teams from headquarters.
Field offices learned of the new project earlier this month when they received a six-page questionnaire that, in a section headlined VULNERABILITY, asked about the number of mosques in their communities. When FBI executive assistant director Wilson Lowery Jr. briefed congressional staffers on the project last week, and explained that mosque tallies would be used to help set investigative goals, "there were a lot of eyebrows that went up," said one of those present. The approach raised concerns that the FBI was engaging in a new form of religious "profiling." "It's frightening to hear that this is actual policy," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations. "This just shows how they are viewing every Islamic community in the country with suspicion."
FBI officials acknowledged that the initiative could be politically dicey. But they said the move is justified given continuing concerns about undetected "sleeper cells" and troublesome evidence that some mosques may be serving as cover for terrorist activity. "This is not politically correct, no question about it," said one top FBI official. "But it would be stupid not to look at this, given the number of criminal mosques that may be out there." Other FBI officials stressed that mosque tallies are only one of several criteria used to assess the terrorist threat in each region. Among others, they said, are the number of "vulnerable assets" in an area (such as bridges, dams and nuclear plants), flight schools and Islamic charities that have been linked to terrorism. "This is part of a larger evaluation process," said one senior official. "We're trying to set performance goals and objectives for a particular field office. We're not targeting mosques."
Mueller and his top deputies have been touring field offices and telling agents, in no uncertain terms, they need to focus more on terrorism cases, including developing undercover informants, and put aside less important cases such as drug and relatively minor white-collar fraud cases. "They don't want to hear whether we've got a great bank-robbery program going," said one top agent.
-------- drug war
Bolivia coca protests end as government agrees to talks
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
By Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-01-29/s_2376.asp
LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Thousands of Bolivian troops returned to their barracks, and protesters lifted road blocks Tuesday after the government and farmers agreed to talks over a U.S-backed crackdown on coca crops.
Nine civilians and two members of security forces were killed in 13 days of protests in the Chapare jungle region when coca farmers and troops fought pitched battles to control the South American country's most important highway.
"Blockades are suspended, but farmers should be vigilant," said Evo Morales, an Indian farmer who leads coca protests and who came in a close second as a leftist presidential candidate in last year's elections. Talks started Sunday, but Morales only began to lift the blockades Tuesday.
President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, a key U.S. ally in the war against drug trafficking, wants to eradicate illegal coca. Coca is the raw material used to process cocaine, and Bolivia is Latin America's second largest producer after Colombia.
Poor Indian farmers can cultivate up to 30,000 acres of coca for traditional uses to ward off hunger and altitude sickness. But Morales says that is not enough.
The talks with the government will encompass other grievances of farmers such as free trade policies with the United States and plans to allow foreign firms to develop a massive natural gas field in the landlocked country.
Since the late 1990s, some 50 people, the majority farmers, have been killed in protests amid anticoca campaigns by U.S.-trained soldiers.
Indian movements in Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere and where a majority of the 8 million population are Indians, have grown in popularity recently.
-------- homeland security
Bush unveils terror intelligence analysis center
By Patricia Wilson
29 Jan 2003
Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N28293118
WASHINGTON, Jan 28 - President George W. Bush announced on Tuesday the creation of an intelligence center to provide seamless analysis of foreign and domestic terrorist threats facing the United States.
The new Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), to be headed by CIA Director George Tenet and include the CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon, would "deal with connecting the dots" to better protect Americans against a repeat of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, a senior administration official said.
The CIA and FBI have been criticized for missing clues and not adequately sharing information that if pursued might have led to unraveling the plot Washington has blamed on Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization.
The House and Senate intelligence committees last year conducted a joint inquiry into Sept. 11 failures and a new national commission will follow that with a broader look at government shortcomings related to the attacks.
"Since Sept. 11, our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have worked more closely than ever to track and disrupt the terrorists," Bush said in his annual State of the Union address to the nation.
"And tonight, I am instructing the leaders of the FBI, Central Intelligence, Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center, to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location," he said.
CLEARINGHOUSE FOR INTELLIGENCE
The TTIC would act as a clearinghouse "to fuse and analyze" data from both domestic and foreign sources, the senior official said. It will have no operational capabilities, but will "marry up all elements so intelligence is seamless."
Bush does not need congressional approval to set up the new center. A multi-agency task force is working on budget and staffing requirements.
The new Homeland Security Department, working with the FBI, will be responsible for ensuring that information about threats is disseminated quickly to the public, private industry and state and local governments as appropriate, the official said.
The TTIC grew out of the joint congressional inquiry and other investigations into post-Sept. 11 intelligence failures.
The congressional panel called for a new Cabinet-level intelligence director to better protect the nation against another major terror attack attempt. Lawmakers spent 10 months examining how the U.S. intelligence community failed to block the Sept. 11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The panel's report cited communication and other failures in U.S. agencies that led to key clues being overlooked and information bottled up. Beside the new intelligence chief, it recommended a number of structural and operational changes for the CIA, FBI and other agencies to better coordinate their efforts.
A special commission headed by former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, also is to study the Sept. 11 disaster.
There have been previous calls to create a net position to oversee the intelligence community that sprawls among 14 agencies, including the CIA, the FBI, the departments of Defense, State and Energy. But the efforts always stalled as agencies fought to keep their authority.
----
Fairfax to Confine Students In Case of Terrorist Attack
By David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57229-2003Jan28?language=printer
If the Washington area were hit by a chemical or biological attack, Fairfax County students would be kept in locked-down schools, inaccessible to parents, while teachers helped undress and shower any who needed decontamination, according to a plan adopted by school authorities.
In a throwback to the "duck-and-cover" exercises of the 1950s and '60s, schools will begin drills -- minus the shower scenario -- as early as this fall to prepare for potential attacks, Fairfax school security officials said.
While the county is the first in the Washington region to develop school procedures for dealing with chemical attacks, the U.S. Department of Education plans to recommend this spring that school systems across the nation do likewise, federal officials said.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, "that's what it has come to," said James McLain, security coordinator for Fairfax schools. "We have the federal government telling us that terrorist attacks are not a matter of if, but of when."
Recalling the drills that sought to prepare students for nuclear war decades ago, McLain remembered climbing under desks and seeing radiation symbols in elementary schools.
"We really are going back to a preparedness level that we used to be at," he said.
School administrators have begun briefing parents about the new procedures, and many parents said they would rather have the plan in place than be caught unprepared. Still, the idea of being separated from their children was unsettling to some.
"You know on a conscious level that that's the right thing to do. But when the time comes and you can't see your child, it's going to be tough on a lot of parents," said Diane Brody, president of the Fairfax County Council of PTAs, adding that she thinks children will understand.
"I think kids are so resilient," she said. "Unless they were not in school at all during 9/11, they've been through something, and I think they would be able to comprehend that it's for their own good."
While the thought of teachers undressing and showering students was uncomfortable to Robert Walters of the Alexandria area of Fairfax, the father of two students said he would support the school effort.
"It's not the school system's fault that we have to make these plans. It's the world situation that's putting this on us," he said.
Fairfax's security plan is of a type known as "Shelter in Place," and it is predicated on the notion that in a chemical attack, people are often safest if they remain inside. Such plans have been put in place by some school districts and local governments near nuclear plants, armories and chemical factories.
Almost two years ago, for instance, when a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed and caught fire in a Baltimore tunnel, authorities ordered a nearby assisted-living home to shelter-in-place until residents could safely evacuate the area.
If a similar accident or a biological attack occurred in Fairfax County, schools would follow rigorous procedures. Staff members would shut all vents and seal doors and windows with duct tape and wet towels to keep out contaminated air. Students who happened to be outside when the chemicals were released would be showered and then would change into gym clothes or a second set of emergency clothes kept by the school. The rest of the children would be sent to a safe room, McLain said.
The plan is designed to keep students safe for several hours until hazardous substances are carried off by the wind, said Mark Scott, president of the National Institute for Chemical Studies in Charleston, W.Va., a nonprofit group that has been promoting the program.
Even though contaminated air eventually will seep into buildings, Shelter in Place has proved effective, he said.
Scott had a firsthand look at the program in 1999 when a factory in Charleston began to leak dangerous chemicals. On an adjacent field, high school students were playing football. Administrators immediately implemented the program, using the gymnasium as a shelter. No one was hurt.
Other school districts said they would take a look at the Fairfax plan. In Montgomery County, administrators are discussing the Shelter-in-Place concept, said Edward A. Clarke, director of school safety and security.
This spring, the U.S. Department of Education plans to recommend the Shelter-in-Place concept for school systems across the country, said William Modzeleski, director of the safe and drug-free schools program.
Referring to the repeated warnings by federal officials of possible terrorist attacks, Modzeleski said, "I know that a lot of schools have focused in on school shooters, but we now know that's not the only thing that we have to plan for."
-------- immigration / refugees
More countries issue ID cards to illegal aliens in U.S.
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 29, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030129-94046601.htm
Guatemala, Honduras, Poland, Peru and El Salvador, aware of Mexico's success in getting identification cards to its citizens in the United States, including those here illegally, have begun or are considering issuing cards of their own, federal officials said yesterday.
Known as "matricula consular cards," the digitally-coded documents are being used by Mexican nationals in the United States as legal forms of identification, giving the holders the ability to apply for social services, open bank accounts, cash checks, sign lease and rental agreements, and board airplanes.
The laminated cards, which do not list the holder's immigration status, also are being used as a legal form of identification by those stopped or questioned by police. Nearly a million of the cards were issued last year by the Mexican government to Mexican nationals now in this country.
In the wake of the Mexican program, Guatemala began issuing similar identity cards last year known as the "Tarjeta de Identificacion Consular." It plans eventually to make them available to the estimated 327,000 Guatemalans living in the United States.
Honduras, Poland and Peru have the matter under serious consideration. El Salvador has begun issuing a secure, in-country identification card known as the Documento Unico de Identidad (DUI), but has not said whether it will expand the program.
While Mexican President Vicente Fox has been unsuccessful after the September 11 attacks on America in getting new amnesty agreements, he has overseen an active lobbying campaign by the Mexican government to persuade U.S. mayors, police chiefs and bank presidents to accept the cards as legal identification.
Hundreds of state and local governments, along with 798 police agencies and 74 banks, now accept the cards for identification purposes - despite warnings by federal law-enforcement authorities of potential widespread fraud involving the cards.
The Mexican lobbying effort first targeted U.S. banks that hope to cash in on some of the $9.5 billion sent home last year by the Mexican nationals in this country unable to open bank accounts because of a lack of proper identification.
Wells Fargo Bank was the first to accept the card, approving its use in 2001. At the time, the bank said the decision was made with the support of the Bush administration and the Treasury Department.
Ironically, no major bank in Mexico lists the "matricula consular card" among the official identification documents they accept to open an account, and the cards are recognized for identification purpose in only 10 of Mexico's 32 states and districts.
In a report released yesterday, the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) said the Mexican government undertook an aggressive grass-roots lobbying campaign to win acceptance of the cards, especially in areas where Mexican illegal aliens are concentrated.
The report, by Marti Dinerstein, said the objective was to achieve quasi-legal status for the 3 million to 5 million Mexican illegal aliens in the United States without waiting for now-stalled amnesty legislation.
According to the report, the card is useful only for illegal aliens, since legal immigrants, by definition, have U.S. government-issued documents. The report also said Mexico cannot guarantee the security of the cards since the government does not authenticate the documents used to obtain them against computerized data files in Mexico.
The report also said safeguards are not in place to prevent the issuance of multiple cards to the same person, noting that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service already has reported finding several cards in different names issued to the same person.
"Mexico's marketing of its consular cards is a direct challenge to U.S. sovereignty," Miss Dinerstein said at a press conference. "By aggressively lobbying state and local governments to accept them, Mexico is changing America's de facto immigration policy in lieu of congressional action.
"And it has been doing so while the U.S. government watched - or even gave its consent," she said, adding that acceptance of the cards sets a precedent that makes it almost impossible to reject similar cards from other countries.
The cards cost $29, are valid for five years and can be obtained from any of the 47 Mexican consular offices in this country with a birth certificate, official ID photo and proof of U.S. residence.
About the size of a driver's license, they contain the bearer's photo, name, address, date and place of birth, signature and the official seal of Mexico.
Last week, the General Services Administration suspended recognition of the cards at federal facilities pending an investigation. The GSA said once the probe is completed, a recommendation would be made to federal law enforcement and security agencies to ensure the cards' integrity and security.
-------- terrorism
Terrorism Agency Planned
Center to Integrate Intelligence, Analysis
By Walter Pincus and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58384-2003Jan29?language=printer
President Bush announced plans last night for a new center to integrate intelligence on terrorism collected at home and abroad, saying it was necessary to create the most comprehensive picture of possible threats to the United States and its citizens
A senior administration official said the new Terrorist Threat Integration Center will assess intelligence gathered by the CIA, Justice Department, Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security and provide "seamless" analysis of the information to the president and other senior policymakers.
The new center is expected to take over compilation of the integrated threat matrix -- a day-by-day accounting of potential threats -- given to President Bush and other senior national security officials each morning.
The new center is aimed at helping to eliminate remaining barriers between the nation's intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA and FBI, over sharing and analyzing intelligence. The center will be placed directly under the supervision of Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, reinforcing Tenet's role as Bush's senior intelligence adviser, officials said.
The idea for the new center came in part from Congress, which last year criticized the CIA and FBI for withholding information on potential terrorist threats from each other, the senior official told reporters. The two agencies have been "working very well together" since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the official said, but the sharing is "informal" and achieved by "brute force."
The center seems to parallel the intelligence analysis operation assigned to the new Homeland Security Department, which officially opened last Friday. But senior administration officials last night went out of their way to say this was not the case.
"Homeland Security will be a full partner and an important customer" of the center, one official said. The department will have its own intelligence analysis section, but its primary job will be "to address vulnerabilities" of the United States, the official said.
The threat integration center will analyze intelligence and ensure the information is shared throughout the federal government as well as with state and local authorities. It also will have the authority to set requirements for all intelligence agencies and assign collection operations to the CIA, the Pentagon, the FBI and, through Homeland Security, to state and local law enforcement authorities.
"This will be the first time in our history that all of these elements come together," the official said.
Bush has told aides he wants the center to be created "right away," the official said. An interagency task force is being formed to work out the details.
One idea is to take the CIA's counterterrorism center, now manned by more than 1,000 people and the oldest of the nation's integrated intelligence centers, and move it to a new facility outside CIA headquarters in Langley, according to one senior official. The new threat center, with senior terrorism analysts from the CIA, FBI, Pentagon, Homeland Security Department and other agencies, would be on one floor of the new facility. The CIA counterterrorism center would be located on other floors.
In another move to strengthen analysis of potential threats, the officials said, the FBI has given the collection and dissemination of intelligence the same priority that it has in the past applied to the collection of evidence for prosecution of crimes. A new FBI executive assistant director will be named and given authority to direct intelligence units to be established at all FBI field offices.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Nuon opens four Dutch wind parks of a total 54 MW
REUTERS NETHERLANDS:
January 29, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19603/story.htm
AMSTERDAM - Dutch utility Nuon opened four wind parks this week that add around eight percent to total wind energy capacity in the Netherlands.
The wind parks, jointly owned with a group of 23 farmers, add 54 megawatts of capacity, enough electricity to supply around 41,000 households, Nuon said in a statement.
The utility and the farmers' group each have a 50 percent stake in the wind parks in the Wieringermeer reclaimed land area, about 50 km (31 miles) north of Amsterdam.
The wind parks represent a total investment of 65 million euros ($70.33 million), with the Dutch government contributing a subsidy of 3.26 million euros.
Nuon has 412 megawatts of wind power capacity in Europe, not including the new wind parks, and in addition buys 133 megawatts from privately-owned windmills, it said.
It aims to increase its sustainable energy capacity to 2,000 megawatts by 2005.
--------
Hydrogen Fuel Cell Plan Seen as Long - Term
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Fuel-Cells.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Bush administration proposal to pump more money into hydrogen fuel cell research is aimed at finding an answer to one of the technology's most perplexing problems: how to get the fuel to where it can be used, when no such cars will be commercially available for years.
Without the fueling stations, nobody will want to buy the cars even when the get into showrooms a decade or more from now.
President Bush, in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, promised ``a new national commitment'' to take fuel-cell powered cars ``from laboratory to showrooms'' within the next 20 years.
He said the administration, if Congress goes along, will spend $1.2 billion to achieve that goal.
But administration officials, fleshing out the commitment on Wednesday, outlined a somewhat less grandiose sounding plan.
Of the $1.2 billion, only $720 million will actually reflect additional spending, beyond what already has been planned for fuel cell research. Also, the money will be spread over five years.
A year ago, the administration announced a 10-year program aimed at helping automakers develop fuel cell technology to replace the internal combustion engine. That ``Freedom Car'' program is getting about $50 million a year.
The new program -- called ``Freedom Fuel'' by the White House -- would focus on spurring research to develops the technologies and infrastructure needed to produce, store and distribute hydrogen for use in future fuel-cell vehicles or stationary electric generating facilities.
Last year about $31 million was spent on such programs. Congress already is planning to increase that to $45 million this fiscal year.
``With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showrooms, so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and (be) pollution-free,'' said Bush.
Democrats and environmentalists said Bush's commitment falls short of what will be needed and does little to reduce gasoline use in the short term.
``Converging America's automobile fleet to fuel cell vehicles isn't something that is going to happen overnight, but it's never going to happen if we don't dedicate the necessary resources and make it a priority,'' said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who offered a more ambitious program.
Dorgan called for ``an Apollo-like project'' -- referring to the early days of the space program. It would commit $6.5 billion in federal research funds over 10 years to develop a hydrogen distribution system and develop fuel cell cars and power stations.
A fact sheet distributed by the Energy Department acknowledged that hydrogen is still four times as expensive as gasoline and fuel cells are 10 times more expensive to build than a conventional automobile engine.
-------- environment
Bush mentions environmental initiatives in State of the Union address
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
By Environmental News Network
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-01-29/s_2410.asp
In his State of the Union address on Jan. 28 U.S. President George W. Bush focused largely on making a case for war against Iraq. However, in the first part of the speech, Bush addressed domestic issues such as the economy, healthcare, and the environment. Following are the environmental issues he mentioned:
+ Bush said his energy plan promotes energy efficiency and conservation, the development of cleaner technology, and the production of more energy at home.
+ He mentioned his clear skies legislation that mandates a 70 percent cut in air pollution from power plants over the next 15 years.
+ He said his healthy forest initiative will help prevent the catastrophic fires that devastate communities, kill wildlife, and burn millions of acres of forests.
+ Bush said environmental progress will come not through lawsuits and government enforcement of regulations but rather through technology and innovation.
+ He proposed $1.2 billion in research funding for hydrogen-powered automobiles, saying that bringing these cars to market will make the United States less dependent on foreign sources of energy.
-------- genetics
'Superman' Reeve Says Stem Cell Research Inevitable
January 29, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/arts/entertainment-health-australia-reeve.html
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Disabled ``Superman'' star Christopher Reeve said Wednesday that Washington's strict limits on stem cell research will eventually be overtaken by support from individual American states.
Reeve told Reuters by telephone that he expects the administration of President Bush to remain opposed to the research, which he maintains could free disabled people such as himself from the confines of their wheelchairs.
He said individual states would, one by one, follow the lead of California, which passed a law in September allowing therapeutic cloning -- which could help repair spinal injuries and cure Parkinson's and other degenerative diseases.
``Once that happens in about a half a dozen states with a vital research community and a vital pharmaceutical industry, a momentum will have been created that the federal government probably won't be able to stop,'' Reeve said.
Some groups, including anti-abortion conservatives, oppose the destruction of a human embryos for any reason and President Bush agrees with them.
Wednesday in his State of the Union message, Bush called for a law ``against all human cloning.''
Reeve, 50, played the title role in the 1978 hit film ``Superman'' and three sequels. He was thrown from a horse in 1995, an accident which left him wheelchair-bound and on a respirator.
But he has been very active since and is a self-appointed champion for one of the most controversial areas of science.
``One thing you learn when you're forced to sit still, and I've been sitting still for seven years, is patience,'' he said in Sydney, where he is raising money for research.
The government of New South Wales paid Reeve a fee of A$135,000 to go to Sydney for spinal injury forum, fund-raising dinner and other engagements.
Critics say the money would have been better used for research.
The actor, set to guest star next month in a television version of Superman called ``Smallville,'' is an active campaigner for nuclear transfer, or so-call therapeutic cloning. Reeve emphasizes that the practice, which involves the use of stem cells from adults or embryos, should not be confused with reproductive cloning, which he says should be criminalized.
He said Singapore, Switzerland and Britain were among countries developing legal and economic environments attractive to pharmaceutical companies and scientists.
-------- health
From Killer to Chronic Disease: Drugs Redefine Cancer for Many
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57393-2003Jan28.html
On most days, Virginia Garner forgets she has cancer.
"I feel great. I don't even remember I'm sick," said Garner, 57, a Claremont, Calif., high school English teacher who has been fighting leukemia for six years.
Garner's life was far different just a few years ago. She had lost all her hair, dropped more than 30 pounds, and was so weak she could barely make it across a parking lot. Sores in her mouth were so bad she could barely talk. Her husband had to liquefy her food in a blender so she could eat.
"It was a miserable existence," she said.
Today, Garner's life has been returned to her. She is back in her classroom and spending time enjoying her husband and two dogs. The only reminder of her cancer is the six yellow capsules she swallows every morning with a bowl of cereal or a piece of toast -- the new drug, called Gleevec, that has kept her leukemia in check for more than three years.
"I think of it as under control. It's sort of like diabetes. The insulin keeps the diabetes under control. It's like that. It's turned into a disease you can manage. It's a miracle. It's truly a miracle."
Garner is one of an increasing number of cancer patients who, while not cured, are not hobbled by their disease or facing imminent death, either. Instead, they live somewhere between the healthy and the dying -- still sick, but leading relatively normal lives. Today, an estimated 9 million Americans are cancer survivors, up from an estimated 6 million in 1990. Perhaps 1 million of them fall into this category -- living with cancer as a chronic disease, much like asthma, diabetes and, more recently, AIDS.
"Now, for the majority of people diagnosed with cancer, they can expect to live a long period of time. It's not necessarily an acutely fatal disease," said Julia Rowland, director of the National Cancer Institute's Office of Cancer Survivorship. "We're having this shift. People are living much longer with this thing we call cancer."
New tests are enabling doctors to find more malignancies very early on, when many are more treatable. New treatments such as Gleevec are enabling more people to survive for years after their diagnosis with cancer -- something that less than a generation ago was perceived as nothing short of a death sentence. The chances of surviving five years after diagnosis has risen steadily for decades, up from 52 percent in the 1980s to 62 percent today.
This trend is expected to become more pronounced, especially with the new generation of cancer therapies on the way. Advances in genetics have led to a rush of experimental drugs targeted at the genetic defects that make cells malignant. Some drugs may turn out to be cures, but most are likely to simply slow the cancer down.
"As we are approaching cancer more from our understanding of its fundamental mechanisms, the new therapies we are developing are designed to control and modulate those mechanisms," said Andrew von Eschenbach, director of the National Cancer Institute and himself a two-time cancer survivor. "We're moving from a paradigm that might be called 'find it and kill it' to the new paradigm of 'target and control it.' "
Colon cancer patients, who very recently might have died from infections when they became weakened by chemotherapy, instead survive by taking recently developed immune system boosters. When breast cancer victims suffer recurrences, instead of quickly spiraling downward, many go from one chemotherapy drug to another, and from one clinical trial to another, adding years or even decades to their lives. In a few cases, people are discovering they can live with their cancer without treating it at all. Men today often opt to live with their prostate cancer instead of risking impotence and incontinence from surgery and radiation, because they know they may very well die of something else before the cancer gets them.
"I often tell cancer patients the idea is to stay here and be as comfortable as possible and wait for the next advance to come along," said Vincent T. DeVita Jr., a former National Cancer Institute director who now runs the Yale Cancer Center. "The advances are coming along faster."
That is exactly what happened to Mel Goldstein, 57, a television meteorologist from New Haven, Conn. Goldstein was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1996. Chemotherapy kept his blood cancer under control for two years, but then it began to progress again. About that time, researchers reported promising results using the drug thalidomide, which stalled Goldstein's cancer for another three years. By the time that stopped working, researchers had developed a new, similar drug called Revimid, which he's still taking.
"I may be ready very soon to go on to the next stage. I just thank God I'm living at a time when there is a next stage," Goldstein said. "Thalidomide opened the door to all kinds of approaches to managing the disease -- not necessarily curing it right now, but making it so that one could have a life, a fairly good quality of life, and survive and live far longer and better than you might have thought was possible."
Experiences such as Garner's and Goldstein's are altering perceptions of the disease.
"It used to be so bad we didn't even use the word 'cancer.' For most people, when they first hear 'cancer' they think, 'Oh my God, I'm going to die.' There's a big stigma attached to the disease," said Jimmie C. Holland, chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute in New York.
"But today it's very often a chronic disease and not a death sentence. So people realize, 'Maybe I'm not going to die.' It often really is a chronic disease people live with just like they do with diabetes. It's taken away a lot of the stigma."
But it also means more people are dealing with pain, incontinence, infertility, paralysis and other disabilities caused by cancer and its treatments. That's become particularly clear for the survivors of childhood cancer. Many are experiencing secondary health problems from the effects of potent chemotherapy and radiation on their developing bodies and brains.
"There are survivorship issues that plague them the rest of their lives," said Ellen Stovall, president of the National Coalition of Cancer Survivorship.
And thousands of people spending years on often expensive long-term treatment are adding millions of dollars to the nation's already bloated medical bill. "The obvious question is, 'Who's going to pay for all this?' The implications for Medicare alone are staggering," Stovall said.
Some critics of the nation's war on cancer argue that the focus on cancer as a chronic disease is diverting attention from medicine's failure to develop real cures and prevent people from getting cancer in the first place.
Cancer still strikes about 1.3 million Americans each year, and kills an estimated 550,000 annually, according to the latest statistics from the American Cancer Society.
"By emphasizing the fact that one can live with cancer, this could be taken as part and parcel of a mindset which is fixated on damage control, namely diagnosis and treatment, as opposed to prevention," said Samuel S. Epstein, emeritus professor of environmental medicine at the University of Illinois Medical Center.
Stovall and others also worry that the new focus on just surviving will make the search for cures seem less urgent. "A lot of companies want to develop drugs that move the end point back to things like reduction in tumor size. There's a lot of money going into development of those kinds of products. I'd like to see companies rewarded more for trying to develop drugs that will prevent or totally get rid of cancer," Stovall said.
For example, the highly publicized "anti-angiogenesis" drugs, which are designed to cut off a tumor's blood supply, are the kind of therapy that probably would have to be taken indefinitely.
"In most cases where we continue to make great progress against cancer, it will be in the area of containment," said Richard S. Kaplan, chief of the clinical investigations branch of the National Cancer Institute. "Many of the new drugs are likely to be used for a long period of time, if not indefinitely. The issue may not be killing off the last cancer cells but keeping the cancer cells from growing large."
Not all types of cancer or all types of cancer patients have benefited equally from the advances in recent years. The improved cancer survival rates vary widely, and poor people and minorities historically have had poorer survival rates.
Still, the number of people considered to be living with chronic cancer will continue to grow as new advances redefine cancer to include the subtle genetic changes that precede the development of tumors, according to Harmon Eyre, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society.
"In the future, rather than relying on anatomical means of early detection, we will rely on molecular detection. We will have the ability . . . to detect these earlier stage molecular mutations and be able to intervene. In my mind, this is a huge part of the future of successful cancer control and part of what will be cancer as a chronic disease," Eyre said.
The full psychological impact of thinking of cancer as a chronic illness remains far from clear, said Alex Rothman, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Rothman led a panel that considered such issues for the National Cancer Institute.
"If you think an illness is acute and you start taking your medication and are all better, you might conclude you don't need to continue to take your medication. But if you think of it as chronic, then you might be more likely to continue taking your medication," Rothman said.
At the same time, if people think of cancer as something they'll have to live with the rest of their lives, they may put off getting mammograms or early detection tests, Rothman said. "It conceivably could have different implications for different behaviors at different points in the timeline of the disease," he said.
Cancer patients such as Garner and Goldstein are grateful for the chance to survive.
"I'm not a Pollyanna. I know the realities of this disease," Goldstein said. "But I know that each year that I'm here I know I'm getting closer to the time when this disease will be truly cured. But until we reach that finish line, we know that with each year that goes by we're getting closer to that point."
-------- ACTIVISTS
IMPORTATION OF DEADLY BIO-AGENTS TO THE UC DAVIS CAMPUS!!!
Subj: US Militarism targets UC at Davis!
Date: 01/29/2003
From: atoupadakis@prodigy.net
A student from UC Davis sent me the information below. It is appalling!
The NUCLEAR ADMINISTRATION is ready to start a shameful war risking global catastrophe. It is saying that it does so in order to disarm a nation from weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, they themselves are developing new nuclear weapons. Their intent now is becoming apparent even to many skeptics. The real face of the empire is becoming known to more people day after day worldwide.
Most of our youth and students will end up working for the war machine not only in the national labs but even at the universities. Not that the universities have not been involved in this work for a long time, but now it will intensify.
It seems that a plan is under way to completely militarize education. We are moving towards the abyss. Humanity's future is at risk as never before in the history of the world.
The plan to construct and operate a bio-warfare agent facility at the University of California at Davis should not be a surprise to anyone. On Dec. 16, the Dept. of Energy (DOE) gave itself the green light to construct and operate a bio-warfare agent facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, thus bypassing the nation's environmental laws regarding public hearings.
I wonder if the nazis under Hitler had reached this degree of militarization, but I seriously doubt it.
Kris O Mandatoforos
WE NEED TO STOP A CLASS 4 BIOTERRORISM LAB FROM COMING TO OUR CAMPUS!
Why the University is interested? Last year Congress allocated $6 billion dollars to research on bioterrorism. That's a pretty large pie and UCDavis has a good chance of getting a very large piece of that pie, a Class 4 Bio"Safety" Lab. The University is pushing this thing hard and fast, with meetings having been quickly set for this week and next. The proposal for the lab is due February 10th.
Why you should care? This lab will cost $50 million dollars of University monies initially, put your University and city at greater risk from incurable disease, and would further militarize your campus. The lab has the potential to increase the number of biological agents, destabilize bioweapons production worldwide, and make Davis a target for terrorist attacks.
There are only 3 Class 4 bio "Safety" labs in the US today. The anthrax sent by letters to Washington D.C. came from one of these labs in Fort Detrick, MD! Plans are to build more. UC Davis is preparing to submit a proposal on February 10th to bring a Class 4 bioterrorism lab that is 240,000 sq. ft. to Davis, 5-10 times larger than any existing Class 4 lab in the United States.
The Class 4 bioterrorism lab proposed to be built on campus are designed to work with Ebola, anthrax, smallpox and other deadly diseases in order to, ostensively, find new ways of stopping their spread should they get into the human population. It is now relatively easy to bioengineer existing diseases to get around existing or potential means of treatment. For this reason, class 4 bioterrorism labs will also be designing new forms of diseases in order to find new ways of counteracting them.
Unfortunately, the only difference between developing new deadly forms of diseases for defensive purposes and developing new forms of diseases for offensive purposes is "intent." New diseases could be employed into our county's stockpiles of biological weapons of mass destruction. Since the work at these laboratories will be secret, neither the individuals working at the labs not the general public will be apprised of the plans for these new diseases. Since the United States has vetoed international efforts to allow inspections of bioengineering and bioterrorism labs we, as citizens of this country, and the leaders of other countries can only guess at the intent of our government. This will lead to distrust, an escalation of research into weapons of mass destruction, the increased stockpiling of biological weapons, and the possible targeting of UC Davis by potential terrorists. . With an increase in the number of labs working on bioengineered diseases, the likelihood of a disease getting out to infect humanity is increased. For these reasons, to call these labs "biosafety" or "biocontainment" laboratories is a misnomer
Bringing a bioweapons lab to UC Davis will further militarize our campus due to an increased, and potentially growing, reliance on the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense funding. Increased security, including presumably, check stations, armed guards and razor wire, will be needed to thwart illegal entry in the proposed lab.
Currently all designs of new nuclear weapons in the United States, including the new battlefield-sized (read "town-sized") super penetrating nuclear bomb being developed, are being designed University of California employees. Los Alamos, where the nuclear bombs used on Japanese civilians were developed, and nearby Livermore Laboratory, which is a partner in the new proposed lab, are both under the supervision of the University of California under a long-term contract with the Department of Energy - the agency responsible for nuclear weapons development in the US. The question is, do we want the University designing the next generation of bioweapons as well as nuclear weapons (the University of Weapons of Mass Destruction)? The University has a history of poor management of both Livermore and Los Alamos. Do we want to add UC Davis to the list?
The president has let the world know his intention of using nuclear weapons against any adversary as he sees fit as a first strike weapon, regardless of whether that country has nuclear weapons or is a threat to citizens of this country. The makers of the first nuclear bombs at Los Alamos were dismayed that the weapons they help to design were used to kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Most thought the bombs would only be used as a demonstration of power off the coast of Japan in order to end World War II. Can we know what will be done with any bioweapons developed on our campus? Wouldn't the release of smallpox or Ebola, which could potentially kill 80-90% or more of humanity, dwarf the destruction of humans caused by the use of nuclear weapons in World War II? Is your insurance paid up?!
The University is proposing to put up $50 million dollars to help bring this dangerous lab to campus at a time of rapidly escalating student fees and the largest deficit in our State's history! The mission of the University of California is to educate and undertake research in the public interest. The principle at the heart of research is the open dissemination of information which provides scientists the opportunity to both verify and build on each others discoveries. Universities are built around this principle openness. Classified projects go against this principle and the mission of the University.
Rest assured, once a bioterrorism lab comes to Davis it will be nearly impossible to get rid of it. As I mentioned at the top of this letter, it is up to us to see that this situation is not taken lightly. There is a need for immediate, peaceful but forceful action to bring this issue to the attention of the citizens of Davis and our campus.
The University is trying to move through its proposal rapidly. The university is unveiling its plans for the proposed lab this Wednesday at 4 PM in Freeborn Hall. The City is having a discussion at 7:30 PM. There may be room for questions to be asked. It is essential that a large number of people show up to ask them and to speak out against the proposal. Signs will probably not be allowed in Freeborn. However, posters and pamphleting around the City of Davis and campus would be a great idea.
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO!
Organize and let people know what's going down, what's at stake. Let them know what THEY can do! Help table, pamphlet, and put up posters
4 PM THIS WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29th - Show up for the presentation by the University that will be in support of the lab and politely show your disagreement. Bring questions and follow-up questions to ask.
Davis will be conducting a Town Hall Informational Meeting on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 at 7:30 p.m. in the Community Chambers, 23 Russell Blvd. on the proposal by the University of California, Davis for a National Biocontainment Laboratory. Questions received via phone ((530) 681-8935) or email (townhall@cityofdavis.org) will be answered on the air
7 PM NEXT WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5TH - Do the same thing at the Town Meeting being held to allow the city to endorse the lab. Again, bring your questions AND friends. Be polite and rational as well as impassioned!
Visit http://www.simpalife.com/stopUCDBioLabNOW/ , the web site for a Davis coalition that has been gearing up to oppose the lab coming to Davis.
-- "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." -- Chinese proverb --
"I myself would wish neither; but if it were necessary either to do wrong or to suffer it, I should choose to suffer rather than to do wrong." -- Socrates --
----
15 Fort Benning Protesters Get Jail Time
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Military-School-Protest.html
COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) -- Fifteen protesters received prison sentences ranging from three to six months Tuesday for trespassing at Fort Benning during a demonstration against a U.S. training program for Latin American soldiers.
Twelve others received similar sentences Monday. Thirteen more people who also were tried this week got probation.
Eighty-five protesters were arrested during the Nov. 17 demonstration targeting the School of the Americas, which was based at the Army post.
In 2000, the program was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. It still trains soldiers, but also focuses on civilian and diplomatic affairs.
A group known as School of the Americas Watch demonstrates each anniversary of the 1989 killings of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador. Some of the killers trained at Fort Benning.
Several of last fall's protesters pleaded guilty and have already been sentenced. Others await sentencing or trial.
On the Net:
Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation: http://www.benning.army.mil/whinsec/
School of the Americas Watch: http://www.soaw.org/new/
----
Greenpeace blocks UK supply ship heading for Iraq
REUTERS UK:
January 29, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19610/story.htm
LONDON - Protesters from environmental group Greenpeace sailed into the approaches of a British military port this week and tried to block the departure of supply vessels bound for the Gulf.
The group said its flagship, Rainbow Warrior, had dropped anchor outside Marchwood port in the south coast city of Southampton and was blocking the exit.
Greenpeace activists from four accompanying inflatable boats locked themselves to the Rainbow Warrior's anchor chain to stop it being moved.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed the presence of the Rainbow Warrior at Marchwood but said it had not stopped any ships from leaving.
Only one supply vessel was due to leave Marchwood this week, a ministry spokeswoman said, adding: "It is continuing to load and will leave on completion." One protester was arrested after clambering ashore onto a jetty but the ministry said it did not view the protest as a threat.
"They're staging a peaceful protest, although they are refusing instructions from the...harbour master," the spokeswoman said.
"The ship was soon identified as a protest and not a terrorist threat and the minimum amount of force was used."
Greenpeace said in a statement it was trying to stop "the headlong rush to a war which places a higher price on oil than on blood."
Britain has deployed a flotilla including aircraft carriers, destroyers, frigates, support ships and a submarine to Asia in what the Ministry of Defence calls a routine deployment.
----
On America's Stage, Performance Protest
Activists Take a Role Outside the Capitol
By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page C01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57622-2003Jan28?language=printer
Inside the Capitol last night the annual great American political Kabuki starring the president, Congress and the media went off exactly as planned -- while outside strutted and fretted and spun an equally theatrical production called "The Sorry State of the Union."
The white dome gleaming in spotlights looked like one of those network television studio backdrops as the punk band 1905 took the stage at the Reflecting Pool.
"Just because I can't change everything," the lead singer shouted in a song that bespeaks the faith of the thousand or more who gathered, "doesn't mean I can't change anything!"
There were prebuttals and rebuttals to President Bush's speech, while a 14-foot screen showed video collages of warplanes, corporate logos, oil derricks, Ronald McDonald, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, bombed cities, dead bodies and the question: "Is this the world you want?"
The most surreal moment came when Bush started speaking inside, and outside his fuzzy pink face spread across the screen, lips moving silently. The words of his speech crawled in captions across the bottom, while music by the Clash and Bob Marley blasted over the Mall. The crowd scoffed when the president said, "There is never a day when I do not learn of another threat."
Two flags flew over the Capitol to show that both houses of Congress were in session. But were they listening to those outside? Nine television news crews showed up with microwave trucks, so the demonstrators hoped that word would get out.
There was talk of "no war for oil," but tall propane space heaters were welcome if inadequate protection against the freezing weather. Guitar players felt their fingers go numb.
"We want to let the American people know we're not all just sitting watching the president on TV," said Adam Eidinger, an organizer with the Shirts Off Coalition -- a group of Greens, anticapitalists and other left-leaning activists who say economic problems and the war buildup are related because: "Bush is taking the shirts off our backs to pay for this war."
"We want to make sure the American people know that people are thinking critically and they have an alternative to the Bush agenda," Eidinger said. Various peace groups sponsored the event.
In a city where demonstrations are a way of life, protests of the State of the Union address are rare, if not unprecedented. The National Park Service has not been asked to grant a permit for one in the last five years for which records exist.
Last night's spectacle was different from the usual displays of dissent. It wasn't exactly a rally, or a rock concert, or a march. It was a hybrid that organizers stitched together with satiric and serious video clips. Also on the bill was the Green Party's "response" to the State of the Union.
From start to finish, it was a sometimes brilliant, sometimes ragged piece of political performance art. It wouldn't have worked without the foil of the establishment theater going on inside the domed building.
The State of the Union is itself highly ritualized political performance art. The House sergeant-at-arms sounds Elizabethan as he heralds the arrival of the commander in chief. While the vice president, in his big chair, seems to slumber with his eyes open, the president's soliloquy follows strict rules. The last innovation came in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan perfected the homey salute to carefully planted real Americans in the gallery. At the end, God's blessing is requested, the scene cuts to Statuary Hall for the dueling spin doctors, then network correspondents sum up it all up in ways that never quite match your own impressions sitting at home.
Not that the message doesn't matter. A year ago President Bush uttered the phrase "axis of evil," which helped define the nation's foreign-policy priorities. The best political performance art always has a message.
Before the performance, the artists outside spoke of the effort to get their message across.
"One of the ways you can measure the pulse of a social movement is by whether it is actually producing music," said David Rovics, a folk singer from Boston.
He is one of the troubadours of the twin crusades against "corporate globalization" and U.S. military intervention. The logo on his Web site shows a guitar with its neck morphed into a clenched fist.
After 9/11, he wrote a song called "Hang a Flag in the Window," with the chorus:
So hang a flag in the window
And all hail to the chief
Follow the leader
And suspend your disbelief
Our country right or wrong
You know what to do
Sing God bless America
Oh that red, white and blue.
Mr. Lif, a hip-hop artist from Berkeley, Calif., on the bill last night, recently cut an album, "Emergency Rations," with a song called "Home of the Brave." He sang it a cappella last night:
Bush disguises blood lust as
Patriotism
Convincing the living to love
"Operation Let's Get 'Em" . . .
America supported the Taliban
To get Russia out of Afghanistan
That's how they got the arms, man.
"Music is incredibly powerful and does end up having an impact on people," Mr. Lif said. "If not open the minds of people, then put an example out there of someone who's trying to offer some alternative."
Bush was cast as a vicarious player in the protest performance. Last year's State of the Union was lampooned in a piece by videographers from Guerrilla News Network -- GNN, not CNN. They edited the clip to show the clapping and cheering lawmakers standing and sitting, standing and sitting, in comical rapid-fire ovations for the leader.
The videographers also found a physical or existential likeness between Bush and the ominous grinning, banjo-playing boy in the movie "Deliverance," whose performance they intercut with last year's speech.
When Bush came on the screen giving this year's speech, Thievery Corporation played politically charged tunes, including one from its recent album, a song called -- how perfect -- "The State of the Union." Vocalist Sleepywonder sang:
It's the State of the Union address
Broadcasting lies on the television screen
Trying to get us hooked on your American dream
We up on your games if you know wha' me mean
Eric Hilton of Thievery Corporation said political performance can still make a difference. "It's an opportunity to stop what probably is going to be a slaughter just like 1991."
In between the music and art, the stage functioned as the protesters' statuary hall. Speakers responding to Bush included representatives from Peace Action, Veterans for Common Sense and Code Pink (the women's peace vigil in Lafayette Square).
Natalie Johnson Lee, a Minneapolis city council member, was chosen to give the Green Party response because she is an elected official -- there are 170 elected Greens in America -- and because she is a dynamic speaker who is African American and from the heartland, perhaps dispelling some stereotypes about party membership, said a party spokesman.
She came on stage as Bush concluded.
"The State of the Union is lonely in the neighborhood of nations," she said.
"Who called President Bush and asked for this war? . . . I know the American people did not dial that number. . . . I've got a message for the CEOs of the oil corporations and of the weapons manufacturers. You're tying up the line. America is trying to get through."
Rising behind her was the shining Capitol, with all those people inside now looking for cameras -- also trying to talk to America.
----
Protesters say state of union is 'sorry'
By Jennifer Mehigan
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
January 29, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030129-121520-8636r.htm
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Hundreds of anti-war protestors gathered outside the Capitol for President George W. Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday, calling it "the sorry State of the Union."
The protestors gave speeches and showed film of the president calling for action against Iraq.
The event was organized by the Shirts Off Coalition and supported by the DC Statehood Green Party, Left Turn, Anti-Capitalist Convergence and Organized Coup.
Following the president's speech, protesters began marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. They were kept from advancing to 14th Street by Washington police and turn back to the Capitol.
Penny Howard of Baltimore said police assaulted her friend while she was marching.
"The police were trying to steer people off the sidewalk and yelled, 'Get off the street.' My friend was then thrown on the ground," she said.
The police reported no arrests and denied there had been any incidents of violence.
The event, a mixture of music, movies and speakers, was organized in five weeks, and all the performers volunteered their time. Mr. Lif, a rapper from Boston, Thievery Corporation, 1905, and Funk DC were among the groups performing.
Zoe Mitchell, an organizer of the rally and Washington resident, said: "The country is exploding. The lack of quality education is amazing. We want (Bush) to focus on the economy and help citizens in their daily lives."
Organizers expected 1,000 people to attend, with others coming and going.
"This is not an event that anyone should worry about. We are a non-violent group, putting on a rally and a concert in opposition to Bush," she said.
"I think it's an ingenious way to protest instead of being angry," said Washington resident Elizabeth Paynter.
(Christine Suh contributed to this story.)
----
Protesters Tell Bush, 'We're Not Buying It'
Hundreds Rally in Cold To Oppose Possible War
By Manny Fernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58784-2003Jan29?language=printer
Several hundred protesters voiced their opposition to the president's State of the Union address last night in a boisterous evening of demonstrations that began with a concert at the Capitol and ended with an unpermitted march through downtown Washington.
Protesters gathered in the cold at the West Front of the Capitol near Third Street NW for an evening rally, waving signs reading "Drop Bush, Not Bombs" and denouncing a possible U.S. military strike against Iraq. As President Bush delivered his address to Congress, activists huddled near patio heaters and read captions from the speech on a giant projection screen as local electronica duo Thievery Corporation performed on a stage.
"On a night when they're telling us we're supposed to sit in front of our TVs and passively consume their message of war, we're going to come out, leave our homes and say loud and proud that we're not buying it," said Dave Zirin, 28, a member of the International Socialist Organization.
Later in the evening, brief scuffles between police and protesters broke out during a march along Pennsylvania Avenue NW, police said. There were no arrests.
The demonstrations -- dubbed "The Sorry State of the Union" -- were part outdoor concert, part left-of-center political rally and part presidential roast. Speeches from activists critical of Bush's domestic and foreign policies gave way to punk rock performances. One man made the rounds in the crowd wearing a Bush mask as protesters booed video montages of recent speeches by the president.
The event was organized as an alternative to the evening's political discourse, typically dominated by party leaders and pundits, organizers said. "The State of the Union is always focused on the president and the Democratic or Republican response," said Adam Eidinger, 29, an organizer with the D.C. Statehood Green Party. "This time, there's going to be a protest response."
Eidinger said last night's permitted rally was the first time in recent memory that a major protest of a State of the Union address was held near Capitol grounds. A National Park Service spokesman said there was no record of any permitted State of the Union protest in the past five years.
After Bush's speech, Natalie Johnson Lee, a Minneapolis City Council member, gave the official response from the national Green Party. Lee told the audience that Bush had declared the state of the union strong. "I beg to differ," she said. "The state of the union is lowly in the neighborhood of nations."
Opposition to a war with Iraq was one of many issues drawing protesters' ire. Organizers also sought to draw attention to domestic issues -- including the economy, affordable housing and health care -- that "Bush has bumped off the agenda because of the current focus on Iraq," Eidinger said.
The rally and march were coordinated by the Shirts Off Coalition, made up of five Washington area and national groups, including SUSTAIN (Stop U.S. Tax-Funded Aid to Israel Now), the D.C. Statehood Green Party and the Anti-Capitalist Convergence. The Shirts Off Coalition was behind an October demonstration in which several men and women exposed their chests in downtown Washington to show that Bush had taken "the shirts off our backs" to pay for war with Iraq.
In yesterday's teeth-chattering cold, no one proposed repeating the tactic. Organizers served hot chocolate and coffee to the shivering crowd, in addition to setting up the portable heaters, and said the turnout of 1,000 was a message all its own. "This shows just how dedicated people are," said Zoe Mitchell, 22, a coalition organizer.
U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer said before the protests that about 1,500 officers would be dispatched around the Capitol building, including officers from other jurisdictions. U.S. Park Police and D.C. police also had officers in the area. Both D.C. and U.S. Park police had surveillance cameras on during the events.
Most security concerns centered on the unpermitted march, which began nearby on Pennsylvania Avenue NW shortly after 10 p.m. Asked about the march, D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said beforehand that "shenanigans" might take place. Some of the march organizers took part in September 2002 protests that led to sporadic vandalism, a controversial police cordon and mass arrests downtown.
The marchers, who numbered about 200, planned to snake around downtown making stops at the Department of Justice, a military recruitment center and other sites. At 10th and F streets NW, protesters tried to sprint ahead of a police motorcycle escort, and the march splintered in different directions.
Around 11th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, District police officials said motorcycle officers were hit with marbles and other objects thrown by protesters. A scuffle broke out between a half-dozen protesters and as many officers at the intersection. Tensions later eased as the remaining marchers returned to the rally site.
Staff writer Clarence Williams contributed to this report.
--------
Anti - War Protestors Disrupt Italy Senate Hearing
January 29, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-italy-bases.html
ROME (Reuters) - Protesters hurled anti-war leaflets from the gallery of the Senate Monday and shouted down the foreign minister as he defended Rome's decision to allow U.S. planes bound for the Gulf to stop at Italy's military bases.
About half a dozen people hurled leaflets reading ``Vote Against the War'' and unfurled a banner with an anti-war slogan.
Senate speaker Marcello Pera suspended the session and the demonstrators, who were guests of an Italian communist party, were taken away.
The protest took place as Foreign Minister Franco Frattini addressed the Senate on Italy's position on Iraq, backing the U.S. contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that they ``could end up in the hands of terrorist movements.''
Hours earlier, the government told the United States transport planes bound for the Gulf could use military bases in Italy for stopovers and refueling.
The decision, announced by Defense Minister Antonio Martino in a letter to parliament, was aimed at pressuring Iraq to comply with U.N. disarmament resolutions, his office said.
The United States has been moving thousands of troops to the Gulf to prepare for a possible conflict with Iraq.
Defense sources said the decision related only to transport and not fighter aircraft during what Martino called ``current operations.''
Frattini criticized Iraq for giving U.N. weapons inspectors what he called ``only passive collaboration.''
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, keen to support the United States but restrained by anti-war sentiment at home, was due to fly to Washington later Wednesday for talks with President Bush about the Iraq crisis.
Frattini told the Senate the government would ask parliament for permission for the United States to use military bases on Italian soil in the event of a war in Iraq.
Bush's spokesman Ari Fleischer last week cited Italy as one of the countries that might back an attack, angering center-left opposition politicians in Rome who accused Berlusconi of signing Italy up to a war without informing parliament.
-------
Bishop to Appear in Anti - War Commercial
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Anti-War-Commercial.html
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- A high-ranking Methodist bishop will appear in an anti-war commercial aimed at convincing President Bush, a fellow Methodist, that a U.S. attack on Iraq would violate ``God's law.''
The 30-second commercial, featuring Bishop Melvin Talbert and actress Janeane Garofalo, is expected to be broadcast beginning Friday to New York and Washington viewers of the CNN and Fox cable news networks, said Stephen Drachler, a United Methodist spokesman in Nashville.
The commercial begins with a warning that some scenes may not be suitable for children. Garofalo suggests that up to a half-million people could be killed or wounded if the United States invades Iraq.
``Do we have the right to do that to a country that's done nothing to us?'' Garofalo asks.
Talbert, former bishop of Seattle and San Francisco, teaches at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville. He is the chief ecumenical officer of the United Methodist Church, which has an estimated 8.4 million U.S. members.
``Iraq hasn't wronged us,'' said Talbert, who joined a 13-person delegation of religious leaders on a five-day peace mission to Iraq that ended Jan. 3. ``War will only create more terrorists.''
TrueMajority, an advocacy organization started by Ben and Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen, produced the commercial. It is sponsored by the National Council of Churches.
``It basically raises the issue of letting the inspectors do their work,'' said Bob Edgar, the council's general secretary and a former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania.
In a statement, Talbert criticized the Bush administration's push toward war to remove Saddam Hussein.
``No nation under God has that right,'' Talbert said. ``It violates international law. It violates God's law and the teachings of Jesus Christ.''
On the Net:
TrueMajority: http://www.truemajority.org
National Council of Churches: http://www.ncccusa.org
-------
Female Leaders Urge Peace on Iraq
January 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Anti-War-Women.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hundreds of female religious leaders from various faiths urged President Bush on Wednesday to use diplomacy rather than force in dealing with Iraq.
The women, representing groups of Buddhists, Jews, Muslims and Christians, have formed a coalition to press for a negotiated settlement.
``Women bring a different perspective and different sensibilities,'' said Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, chairwoman of the Global Peace Initiative of Women Religious & Spiritual Leaders. Women are more likely than men to witness civilians suffer in wars, she said.
Dena Merriam, vice chairwoman of the Ruder Finn public relations firm, helped organize the prayer breakfast.
Religious leaders generally hesitate to take political stands but feel compelled to speak out now, Merriam said.
``In a matter where lives are threatened you almost have to because it becomes a moral issue,'' she said. ``This is the struggle that many of the religious communities are dealing with. Without becoming political, they have to caution against risking lives.''
On Thursday, about a dozen women will head to Iraq on a peace-seeking mission. The group will join other all-female delegations from Europe, Australia and Rwanda.
``We are going to speak out as women about the terrible effects of war on women, children, families and the environment,'' said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and CodePink: Women for Peace. ``We are determined to stop the Bush administration from going to war against the people of Iraq.''
The women hope to meet with U.N. weapons inspectors to express their support. They also plan to visit an Iraqi orphanage and children's hospital.
The United Nations has said that more than 70 percent of casualties in armed conflicts are civilians, most of them women and children.
``What we women can call for is to slow down the process and explore all options available, which means working with the United Nations and the European governments and the international community to put pressure on Saddam Hussein, who none of us like,'' Merriam said.
Among those attending the breakfast were represenatives of the North American Council for Muslim Women, the United Methodist Church, the Christian Science Board of Directors, American Baptist Women's Ministries and the National Council of Catholic Women.
----
Anti-war protesters announce Feb. 15 rally for `millions'
AMY WESTFELDT
Associated Press
Wed, Jan. 29, 2003
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/5058881.htm
NEW YORK - Anti-war protesters on Wednesday predicted "literally millions" of people in New York, San Francisco and more than 30 international cities would march the weekend of Feb. 15 against war in Iraq.
A day after President Bush said in his State of the Union address that he was ready to disarm Saddam Hussein's Iraq, organizers brought politicians, church leaders and Oscar-winning filmmakers Jonathan Demme and Mercedes Ruehl out to announce the protest.
"We can, when we stand up together, actually stop this war from happening," said Leslie Cagan, a co-chairwoman of New York's United for Peace and Justice chapter.
Cagan wouldn't predict how many people would attend the New York demonstration, but said it would be the largest protest against Iraq to date.
Peace rallies on Oct. 26 drew 250,000 participants around the world, while tens of thousands rallied in Washington on Jan. 19 to protest the Bush administration's stance on Iraq.
The city has not yet provided a permit for the event, and Cagan said organizers were negotiating a march that would go past the United Nations.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, NAACP chairman Julian Bond, Martin Luther King III and performers Harry Belafonte, Mos Def and Danny Glover will be among the speakers, Cagan said.
San Francisco will stage a protest on Feb. 16, and more than 30 cities from London to Tokyo to Johannesburg would hold similar rallies, she said.
"Literally millions of people will march in countries around the world in a unified call for peace," she said.
Ruehl compared the intent to declare war on Iraq to giving "massive doses of chemotherapy with all its devastating effect to a body that hasn't been proven to have cancer."
Councilman Bill Perkins, whose cousin was killed in the World Trade Center attack, said declaring war in Iraq is not the right response to U.S. terrorism.
"This war should not be fought in my name," Perkins said.
Another peace organization, International Answer, planned an afternoon rally in New York City. Organizers said the group would also participate on Feb. 15.
United for Peace and Justice: http://www.unitedforpeace.org
International Answer: http://www.internationalanswer.org
-------
------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)
------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!
-----------
Posted
without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only,
in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.