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The effects of sanctions on the Muslims of Iraq
Lowry unrealistic about depleted uranium
MP in 'shouting match' over Gulf illness
INTERVIEW - UN wants to verify if Iran atomic plans peaceful
Blix warns Baghdad ahead of visit
Weapons Inspector Warns Iraq to Disarm or Face Grave Problems
Nuke Agency: Iraq Must Boost Cooperation
The Smoking Gun
Slovenia Says Iraq Wanted Nuke Equipment
Doubts Remain About Purpose Of Specialized Aluminum Tubes
Powell Lays Out Case Against Iraq
Work on New Drones, Missiles Called Example of 'Persistence'
Despite Defectors' Accounts, Evidence Remains Anecdotal
Data on Efforts to Hide Arms Called 'Strong Suit' of Speech
Powell offers 'irrefutable' arms proof
Classified data make case
In Their Words: The Security Council
Iraq Denounces U.S. 'Stunts'
U.S. has 'robust plans' if N.Korea attacks
Reactor Restarted, North Korea Says
US Says N.Korea Atomic Reactor Restart 'Dangerous'
U.S. Says It's Ready After N.Korea Warns of Attack
Bill gives airliners a missile defense
U.S.-Russia Atomic Arms Pact Wins Senate Panel's Backing
Moscow Treaty May Not Reduce Weapons
Nuclear weapons on the table in a Iraqi war
Indian Point Safety
Washington state nuclear alert deemed false alarm
Powell Sees Mideast Reshaped After Iraq War
At Council, Political Theater
MILITARY
Kuwait Mission Studies Chemical Threat
Speech Fails to Budge Europeans From Their Divergent Positions
Toting the Casualties of War
The Saddam Hussein Interview - Iraq
Iraqi military deploying near Kuwait border
Kurds Puzzled by Report of Terror Camp
Protecting Iraqi oil
Two Palestinian Nurses Killed as Helicopter Gunships Attack Hospital
Arab Envoys Look to Final Options for Averting War
NATO fails to agree on Iraq response
NATO May Protect Turkey in Case of War
Pakistani Chief Wants U.S. Out of Region
Reagan's space vision
Evidence a Rare Look at U.S. Intelligence
Mysterious 'Spy' Intrigues Japan
FBI: Accused Spies Had Classified Data
Turkey OKs upgrade of U.S. bases
Pentagon writing rules for use of non-lethal agents in Iraq war
STANDOFF WITH IRAQ
Army Readies Copters For Gulf
U.S. troop level reaches 113,000 in Persian Gulf area
E-Bombing Civilization
Funds in doubt for Pentagon's cyber-spy plan
101st Airborne Gets Deployment Orders
U.S. Forces in Persian Gulf Growing
They Call This Evidence
Net user group may aid terrorists
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
World Court Orders U.S. to Stay Executions Of 3 Mexicans
Scientists Face Security Dilemma
Risk of Terror Attack Climbs, U.S. Finds
U.S. to Accept Somali Bantu Refugees
Confidential Advisory Warns of Rise in Possible Terror Threats
Officials Worry About Agri - Terrorism
ENERGY AND OTHER
Bush, Environmentalists at Odds on Fuel Cell Plan
Lead Levels Linked to Male Infertility
Eighth Alternative to Lead Shot Approved
ACTIVISTS
N.Y. Antiwar March Blocked
The disquieted American
Anti-War Coalition Ready For A Fight
Corporations, War, You
INVOLVING CIVIL SOCIETY IN ADVANCING DISARMAMENT
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
The effects of sanctions on the Muslims of Iraq
Habib-ur-Rahman Khilafah.com Journal
06 February 2003
http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=6207&TagID=1#
Since 1991 a combination of sanctions, deteriorating health care provisions, contaminated water amongst others have caused a catastrophe in Iraq. These general sanctions have been equally as devastating as the continued military campaign waged against Iraq. Before the bombing in January 1991 started, many touted sanctions as an alternative to war. However after 12 years we see that sanctions actually augmented and prolonged the suffering and damage caused by the bombardment. Sanctions have shown to be an adjunct and not an alternative to war.
The following is a variety of sources that each highlight the intentionally devastating effects of the 12 years of US/UK led sanctions upon the Muslims of Iraq.
Destroying a whole society
The UN sanctions, have added to the death toll since 1991 and are estimated to be close to 1 million deaths with mass starvations and disease. Whilst Saddam Hussein has remained unaffected.
Denis Halliday a top UN official who resigned in protest over Iraq's sanctions wrote, "because the policy of economic sanctions is totally bankrupt. We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that ... Five thousand children are dying every month ... I don't want to administer a programme that results in figures like these."
In the same interview (with John Pilger, Squeezed to Death, Guardian, March 2000 4) Halliday said, "I had been instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults. We all know that the regime, Saddam Hussein, is not paying the price for economic sanctions; on the contrary, he has been strengthened by them. It is the little people who are losing their children or their parents for lack of treated water. What is clear is that the Security Council is now out of control, for its actions here undermine its own Charter, and the Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention. History will slaughter those responsible."
UNICEF published an independent report on the impact of sanctions and UNICEF's perspective, in1998 . It included the following table that details the multitude of impacts that sanctions have had:
Direct effects (immediate)
1. Decreased Imports - Medicines; Food Imports; Agricultural Inputs - fertilizer, pesticides, spare parts; Industrial/Commercial inputs/parts; Other spare parts; Fuel; Educational materials Water Purification/supply inputs.
2. Decreased Exports - Impact on export earnings, access to foreign currency, etc.
3. Decrease in Communications - Including telecommunications, media
4. Impact on Diplomatic Efforts
Short term effects (intermediate)
1. Health - Deterioration in health status; Increased: Morbidity and mortality (esp. child), Maternal and perinatal [sic] mortality, Low-birth-weight babies, Infectious diseases, Epidemics, Malnutrition; Deterioration in water quantity and quality; Deterioration in health services; Decrease in available medicines, vaccines laboratory and diagnostic tests; Breakdown of medical, Xray, lab equipments.
2. Food Security - Higher market prices for basic foodstuffs; Entitlement" problems in obtaining food; Shortages of basic food items; Decrease in household diet and caloric intake; Decreased agricultural and production; Decrease in livestock production; Black market purchases
3. Economics - Decreased export earnings; Decreased trade leading to closure of business and industry; Inflation; Unemployment; Emergence of black market; Decreased wages, purchasing power; Increase in personal/household loans; Decreased economic activity (industry, commerce, agriculture, etc) due to lack of trading partners, resources, funds, inputs.
Long term effects (Chronic)
1. Health - Reduction in the overall (general) health status of the population; Deterioration in health services and diminished national capacity to provide care; Loss of previous gains in preventive and curative care services; Resurgence of illness and disease associated with poverty (e.g. epidemics, infectious disease)
2. Economic - Chronically decreased economic activity; Decline in revenue from all sources; Decline in GDP, GNP, per capital income; Loss of trade partners, regional/international trade interests; Chronically high unemployment; Collapse of public and private infrastructure; Decline in public education.
3. Social - Increased poverty; Increase in social inequality (Income gap between rich and poor); Social upheaval, violence distress; Decrease in social cohesion; Psychosocial impact difficult to measure
Source: The Impact of Sanctions: A Study of UNICEF's Perspective, Table 3, Eric Hoskins, MD Consultant, UNICEF New York February 1998
Despite the assault on the people of Iraq from sanctions, Collin Powell, the U.S. Secretary of State claims these sanctions help them: Powell explained that he would work with U.S. allies to "energize the sanctions regime" against Iraq.
After more than a decade of sanctions, no one on the Security Council wants them, except the United States and Britain. The French foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, has called them "cruel, because they exclusively punish the Iraqi people and the weakest among them, and ineffective, because they don't touch the regime". Had Saddam Hussein said on television "we think the price is worth it", referring to Unicef's figure of half a million child deaths, he would have been called a monster by the British government. Madeleine Albright said that. Whitehall remained silent. Iraq: the great cover-up: John Pilger
Even the most conservative, independent estimates hold economic sanctions responsible for a public health catastrophe of epic proportions. The World Health Organization believes at least 5,000 children under the age of 5 die each month from lack of access to food, medicine and clean water.
Malnutrition, disease, poverty and premature death now ravage a once relatively prosperous society whose public health system was the envy of the Middle East. I went to Iraq in September 1997 to oversee the U.N.'s "oil for food" program. I quickly realized that this humanitarian program was a Band-Aid for a U.N. sanctions regime that was quite literally killing people. Feeling the moral credibility of the U.N. was being undermined, and not wishing to be complicit in what I felt was a criminal violation of human rights, I resigned after 13 months.
To understand the gravity of the situation in Iraq, one must understand the damage inflicted by the 1991 Gulf War. The allied forces destroyed sewerage systems, water purification plants, electrical grids, hospitals, schools, grain silos-in short, the entire civilian infrastructure.
The consequences for Iraq have been disastrous. Raw sewage flows in the streets, contaminating the water, causing an upsurge in diarrhea, typhoid and cholera as the result. Electric power runs at less than 40 percent of pre-1990 levels. A major health problem is the sharp increase in cancers, leukemia and birth defects. This is most likely due to the use of depleted uranium weapons by allied forces during the Gulf War. Sanctions have wreaked havoc on the economy. To survive, families are forced to sell their belongings and to resort to begging and crime. School drop-out rates and childhood illiteracy have soared. Archeological sites, many of them bombed in the Gulf War, have been looted and their treasures sold overseas.
We are destroying an entire society. It is as simple and as terrifying as that. ...What makes the sanctions especially shocking is that the member states of the Security Council have all along been fully aware of their devastating effects.
"End the catastrophe of sanctions against Iraq" by Denis Halliday for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer February 12, 1999. Denis J. Halliday is the former U.N. assistant secretary-general and U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Relief in Iraq. He served with the United Nations for34 years, after which time he resigned from the U.N. in protest over the humanitarian cost of economic sanctions.
The Systematic Persecution of Children & Families
Studies show that the child mortality rate in Iraq has increased in government controlled areas of Iraq. Reports such as that by UNICEF say that child deaths have actually doubled in the last ten years. "The change in 10 years is unparalleled, in my experience," said Anupama Rao Singh in 2000, Unicef's senior representative in Iraq. "In 1989, the literacy rate was 95%; and 93% of the population had free access to modern health facilities. Parents were fined for failing to send their children to school. The phenomenon of street children or children begging was unheard of. Iraq had reached a stage where the basic indicators we use to measure the overall well-being of human beings, including children, were some of the best in the world. Now it is among the bottom 20%. In 10 years, child mortality has gone from one of the lowest in the world, to the highest."
UNICEF in its 1998 report The Impact of Sanctions reviewed the Impact of Sanctions on Children ...In sanctioned countries, as elsewhere, adversity weighs most heavily on the poor. And among the poor, children are the most vulnerable. They are least able to resist deprivation, most susceptible to malnutrition and disease, and rely wholly on their families' ability to cope with hardship and misfortune.
In both Iraq and Haiti, sanctions resulted in dramatic increases in the price of staple foods. In Iraq, 1995 market prices had increased to more than 1,000 times their pre-sanctions levels. More costly food directly contributed to rising rates of malnutrition. In Iraq, from 1991 to 1995, wasting among under-5's quadrupled to 12 percent, while stunting doubled to 28 percent.
The immunization of children also suffers in countries affected by sanctions...In Iraq, vaccination programs were suspended in late 1990 due to shortages of syringes and other consumables, and vaccine coverage did not regain pre-sanctions levels until late-1991. The incidence of vaccine-preventible diseases, including pertussis, measles, diphtheria and polio all increased in Iraq during 1991/92.
Furthermore, the increase in infectious diseases uniformly observed in all sanctioned countries has been partly attributed to the deterioration of water and sanitation services, made worse by long delays in obtaining Security Council approval for spare parts and shortages of purification chemicals.
The above impacts have been associated with measurable increases in infant and child deaths... In Iraq, under-5 mortality rates had tripled by late 1991, due to the combined influences of sanctions and war...
The impact of sanctions, however, is perhaps most visible upon entering the households of affected families. Faced with higher prices for food, medicines and other essential items, sanctioned families are increasingly unable to cope. Unemployment, loss of income, and inflation make household survival even more difficult. Foodstores are quickly depleted, family possessions (including property) are sold, and loans are undertaken to provide much-needed income. In Iraq, 48percent of households surveyed as early as September 1991 had already incurred heavy sanctions-related debts. Stress-related anxiety, depression, and violence are other manifestations of a family's growing inability to cope with hardship.
To supplement family incomes, children in sanctioned countries often leave school to seek employment, increasing school drop-out rates. Meanwhile women burdened with greatly increased household responsibilities face increasing difficulties in providing care for themselves and their families. Women's reproductive health and pre-natal care also suffers from the general decline in health services due to the ill-effects of sanctions. In Iraq, the proportion of babies born with low-birth-weight more than quadrupled (to 22 percent) between 1990 and 1995...
Finally, sanctions have a great impact on children with special needs. For example, in Iraq, children disabled by war were unable to procure prosthetics and other rehabilitative materials. Financial hardship led to child abandonment and increased begging. Other reports attest to the significant psychological impact of sanctions on children, the future impact of which is difficult to ascertain. UNICEF 1998 report "The Impact of Sanctions"
Not so smart sanctions
At the beginning of 2001, Britain hinted towards some "smart" sanctions in order to deflect criticism on the impact sanctions were having. Smart sanctions were passed in May 14, 2002 at the UN Security Council as the ninth revision to the original economic sanctions passed against Iraq in 1990. Yet, as von Sponeck commented, yet another UN official who resigned, "Like all previous revisions, "smart sanctions" leave the root cause of their troubles -- strangulation of the civilian economy -- unaddressed.". The proposed changes were nowhere near what was needed. As The Economist, the conservative British weekly, said, "The British proposal of 'smart sanctions' offers an aspirin where surgery is called for" (The Economist, 24th February 2001).
It was proposed that under these "smart" sanctions, Iraq would not have control over its own major source of income -- oil. The UK proposal required that the money Iraq earns from oil sales continue to be deposited into an escrow account controlled by the UN Security Council. Thus the US and the UK would retain the power to make decisions about when, where and most importantly, whether resources could be purchased to restore the health of Iraq's people and economy. The US and UK had at the time $3.71 billion in goods on "hold," preventing them from reaching the Iraqi people (S-G report, 18 May 2001, para 18). Smart sanctions were therefore an attempt by the U.S. and U.K. governments to spin things so that they are no longer blamed for the suffering that will certainly continue in Iraq under their plan.
In the book Iraq Under Siege, South End Press, 2002 the campaign group Voices in the Wilderness remarked "Resolution 1409 (the "smart sanctions" resolution) is a hollow solution to an urgent humanitarian crisis. ...the change was mostly aimed at winning a public relations battle, not relieving ordinary Iraqis' suffering.
"The resolution was intended to blunt any drive to end the sanctions altogether and to deflate criticism that the measures are hurting ordinary Iraqis more than their leader," Somini Sengupta reported in the New York Times. "It also seemed part of the diplomatic groundwork the Bush administration is seeking to lay as it presses its case that Mr. Hussein should be removed from power, perhaps by force."
In the words of the New York Times Magazine, the UN sanctions were "creating a P.R. nightmare of hungry children," particularly for the US government, "but smart sanctions created the impression of doing something."
At the time Resolution 1409 was adopted, $5 billion in contracts were "on hold," largely because of holds placed by the United States in the UN sanctions committee. Still, US and British officials place all of the blame on the Iraqi government,
UN workers on the ground in Iraq have a very different perspective, "The [oil-for-food] distribution network is second to none," Adnan Jarra, a UN spokesperson in Iraq, recently told the Wall Street Journal. "They [the Iraqis] are very efficient. We have not found anything that went anywhere it was not supposed to." Iraq Under Siege, South End Press, 2002
U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water Supply
Thomas J. Nagy writes in The Progressive Magazine that he "discovered documents of the Defense Intelligence Agency proving beyond a doubt that the U.S. government intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the country's water supply after the Gulf War. The United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children, would pay..."
The primary document, "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," is dated January 22, 1991. It spells out how sanctions will prevent Iraq from supplying clean water to its citizens. The document goes into great technical detail about the sources and quality of Iraq's water supply. The quality of untreated water "generally is poor," and drinking such water "could result in diarrhea," the document says. It notes that Iraq's rivers "contain biological materials, pollutants, and are laden with bacteria. Unless the water is purified with chlorine, epidemics of such diseases as cholera, hepatitis, and typhoid could occur." The document notes that the importation of chlorine "has been embargoed" by sanctions. "Recent reports indicate the chlorine supply is critically low." Food and medicine will also be affected, the document states. "Food processing, electronic, and, particularly, pharmaceutical plants require extremely pure water that is free from biological contaminants," it says. ...In cold language, the document spells out what is in store: "Iraq will suffer increasing shortages of purified water because of the lack of required chemicals and desalination membranes. Incidences of disease, including possible epidemics, will become probable unless the population were careful to boil water." The document gives a timetable for the destruction of Iraq's water supplies. "Iraq's overall water treatment capability will suffer a slow decline, rather than a precipitous halt," it says. "Although Iraq is already experiencing a loss of water treatment capability, it probably will take at least six months (to June 1991) before the system is fully degraded." This document, which was partially declassified but unpublicised in 1995.
Recently, I have come across other DIA documents that confirm the Pentagon's monitoring of the degradation of Iraq's water supply. These documents have not been publicized until now. The first one in this batch is called "Disease Information," and is also dated January 22, 1991. At the top, it says, "Subject: Effects of Bombing on Disease Occurrence in Baghdad." The analysis is blunt: "Increased incidence of diseases will be attributable to degradation of normal preventive medicine, waste disposal, water purification/distribution, electricity, and decreased ability to control disease outbreaks. Any urban area in Iraq that has received infrastructure damage will have similar problems." The document proceeds to itemize the likely outbreaks. It mentions "acute diarrhea" brought on by bacteria such as E. coli, shigella, and salmonella, or by protozoa such as giardia, which will affect "particularly children," or by rotavirus, which will also affect "particularly children," a phrase it puts in parentheses. And it cites the possibilities of typhoid and cholera outbreaks.
The second DIA document, "Disease Outbreaks in Iraq," states: "Conditions are favorable for communicable disease outbreaks, particularly in major urban areas affected by coalition bombing." It adds: "Infectious disease prevalence in major Iraqi urban areas targeted by coalition bombing (Baghdad, Basrah) undoubtedly has increased since the beginning of Desert Storm. . . . Current public health problems are attributable to the reduction of normal preventive medicine, waste disposal, water purification and distribution, electricity, and the decreased ability to control disease outbreaks." This document lists the "most likely diseases during the next sixty-ninety days (descending order): diarrheal diseases (particularly children); acute respiratory illnesses (colds and influenza); typhoid; hepatitis A (particularly children); measles, diphtheria, and pertussis (particularly children); meningitis, including meningococcal (particularly children); cholera (possible, but less likely)."
The third document in this series, "Medical Problems in Iraq," is dated March 15, 1991. It says: "Communicable diseases in Baghdad are more widespread than usually observed during this time of the year and are linked to the poor sanitary conditions (contaminated water supplies and improper sewage disposal) resulting from the war. According to a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)/World Health Organization report, the quantity of potable water is less than 5 percent of the original supply, there are no operational water and sewage treatment plants, and the reported incidence of diarrhea is four times above normal levels. Additionally, respiratory infections are on the rise. Children particularly have been affected by these diseases."
The fourth document, "Status of Disease at Refugee Camps," is dated May1991 . The summary says, "Cholera and measles have emerged at refugee camps. Further infectious diseases will spread due to inadequate water treatment and poor sanitation." The reason for this outbreak is clearly stated again. "The main causes of infectious diseases, particularly diarrhea, dysentery, and upper respiratory problems, are poor sanitation and unclean water. These diseases primarily afflict the old and young children."
The fifth document, "Health Conditions in Iraq, June 1991," is still heavily censored... Source observed that the Iraqi medical system was in considerable disarray, medical facilities had been extensively looted, and almost all medicines were in critically short supply. In one refugee camp, the document says, "at least 80 percent of the population" has diarrhea. At this same camp, named Cukurca, "cholera, hepatitis type B, and measles have broken out." Protein malnutrition 'kwashiorkor' was observed in Iraq "for the first time," the document adds. "Gastroenteritis was killing children. . . . In the south, 80 percent of the deaths were children (with the exception of Al Amarah, where 60 percent of deaths were children)."
As these documents illustrate, the United States knew sanctions had the capacity to devastate the water treatment system of Iraq. It knew what the consequences would be: increased outbreaks of disease and high rates of child mortality. ...Over the last decade, Washington extended the toll by continuing to withhold approval for Iraq to import the few chemicals and items of equipment it needed in order to clean up its water supply. For more than ten years, the United States has deliberately pursued a policy of destroying the water treatment system of Iraq, knowing full well the cost in Iraqi lives. The United Nations has estimated that more than 500,000 Iraqi children have died as a result of sanctions, and that 5,000 Iraqi children continue to die every month for this reason. No one can say that the United States didn't know what it was doing.
Increases in Cancer
The journalist John Pilger in his January 2001 article entitled 'Iraq the great cover up' wrote ... In 1991, the UK Atomic Energy Authority warned that, if particles from merely 8 per cent of the DU used in the Gulf were inhaled, there could be "300,000 potential deaths". ...For the Iraqi people, however, the cover-up continues. What has been striking about the political and media reaction over the past fortnight is that most of the victims of depleted uranium (DU) have rated barely a mention. Yet Tony Blair himself was made aware of their suffering when he was sent, in March 1999, UN statistics, published in the British Medical Journal, showing a sevenfold increase in cancer in southern Iraq between 1989 and 1994.
In Basra's hospitals, the cancer wards are overflowing. Before the Gulf war, they did not exist. "The dust carries death," Dr Jawad Al-Ali, a cancer specialist and member of Britain's Royal College of Physicians, told me. "Our own studies indicate that more than 40 per cent of the population in this area will get cancer in five years' time to begin with, then long afterwards. Most of my own family now have cancer, and we have no history of the disease. It has spread to the medical staff of this hospital. We are living through another Hiroshima. Of course, we don't know the precise source of the contamination, because we are not allowed [under sanctions] to get the equipment to conduct a proper scientific survey, or even to test the excess level in our bodies. We suspect depleted uranium. There simply can be no other explanation."
The Sanctions Committee in New York has blocked or delayed a range of cancer diagnostic equipment and drugs, even painkillers. Professor Karol Sikora, as chief of the cancer programme of the World Health Organisation, wrote in the British Medical Journal: "Requested radiotherapy equipment, chemotherapy drugs and analgesics are consistently blocked by United States and British advisers [to the Sanctions Committee]. There seems to be a rather ludicrous notion that such agents could be converted into chemical or other weapons." Professor Sikora told me: "The saddest thing I saw in Iraq was children dying because there was no chemotherapy and no pain control. It seemed crazy they couldn't have morphine, because for everybody with cancer pain, it is the best drug. When I was there, they had a little bottle of aspirin pills to go round 200 patients in pain." Although there have since been improvements in some areas, more than 1,000 life-saving items remain "on hold" in New York, with Kofi Annan personally appealing for their release "without delay". John Pilger Jan 2001; Iraq the great cover up.
Oil & Colonial Motivations
This is longstanding Anglo-American policy. Contrary to the propaganda version about protecting Iraq's ethnic peoples, the objective is to prevent a Kurdish secession in the north and the establishment of a Shi'ite religious state in the rest of the country, while maintaining the west's dominance of the region and its access to cheap oil. Iraq: the great cover-up: John Pilger: 19 Jan 2001
Iraq possesses the world's second largest proven oil reserves, currently estimated at 112.5 billion barrels, about 11 percent of the world total, and its gas fields are immense, as well. Many experts believe that Iraq has additional undiscovered oil reserves, which might double the total when serious prospecting resumes, putting Iraq nearly on a par with Saudi Arabia. Iraq's oil is of high quality and it is very inexpensive to produce, making it one of the world's most profitable oil sources. Oil companies hope to gain production rights over these rich fields of Iraqi oil, worth hundreds of billions of dollars. In the view of an industry source it is "a boom waiting to happen." As rising world demand depletes reserves in most world regions over the next 10 to 15 years, Iraq's oil will gain increasing importance in global energy supplies. According to one industry expert: "There is not an oil company in the world that doesn't have its eye on Iraq."
Geopolitical rivalry among major nations throughout the past century has often turned on control of such key oil resources. Five companies dominate the world oil industry, two US-based, two primarily UK-based, and one primarily based in France. US-based Exxon Mobil looms largest among the world's oil companies and by some yardsticks measures as the world's biggest company. The United States consequently ranks first in the corporate oil sector, with the UK second and France trailing as a distant third. Considering that the US and the UK act almost alone as sanctions advocates and enforcers, and that they are the headquarters of the world's four largest oil companies, we cannot ignore the possible relationship of sanctions policy with this powerful corporate interest.
The US and the UK governments also see control over Iraqi and Gulf oil as essential to their broader military, geostrategic, and economic interests. At the same time, though, other states and oil companies hope to gain a large or even dominant position in Iraq. As de-nationalization sweeps through the oil sector, international companies see Iraq as an extremely attractive potential field of expansion. France and Russia, the longstanding insiders, pose the biggest challenge to future Anglo-American domination, but serious competitors from China, Germany and Japan also play in the Iraq sweepstakes.
During the 1990s, Russia's Lukoil, China National Petroleum Corporation and France's TotalFinaElf held contract talks with the government of Iraq over plans to develop Iraqi fields as soon as sanctions are lifted. Lukoil reached an agreement in 1997 to develop Iraq's West Qurna field, while China National signed an agreement for the North Rumailah field in the same year. France's Total at the same time held talks for future development of the fabulous Majnun field.
US and UK companies have been very concerned that their rivals might gain a major long-term advantage in the global oil business. "Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas - reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to," enthused Chevron CEO Kenneth T. Derr in a 1998 speech at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, in which he pronounced his strong support for sanctions. Sanctions have kept the rivals at bay, a clear advantage. ...Direct military intervention by the US-UK offers a tempting but dangerous gamble that might put Exxon, Shell, BP, and Chevron in immediate control of the Iraqi oil boom, but at the risk of backlash from a regional political explosion.
In testimony to Congress in 1999, General Anthony C. Zinni, commander in chief of the US Central Command, testified that the Gulf region, with its huge oil reserves, is a "vital interest" of "long standing" for the United States and that the US "must have free access to the region's resources." "Free access," it seems, means both military and economic control of these resources. This has been a major goal of US strategic doctrine ever since the end of World War II. ...A looming US war against Iraq is only comprehensible in this light. For all the talk about terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and human rights violations by Saddam Hussein, these are not the core issues driving US policy. Rather, it is "free access" to Iraqi oil and the ultimate control over that oil by US and UK companies that raises the stakes high enough to set US forces on the move and risk the stakes of global empire. As Investor's Business Daily notes, if the US were to occupy Iraq, it would not only "gain a central staging base for future [military] operations," but "It would take control of11 percent of the world's oil reserves, too. That 11 percent would help pay for the occupation" and "could also be leverage against oil-dependent Arab nations -- just as the U.S. used cheap oil in the 1980s to bankrupt the USSR." Voices in the Wilderness, Sanctions: Myth & Reality. Originally published in Iraq Under Siege, South End Press, 2002
Habib-ur-Rahman Khilafah.com Journal 06 February 2003
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Lowry unrealistic about depleted uranium
By ROGER LONGLEY GUEST COLUMNIST
Thursday, February 6, 2003
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/107382_uranium06.shtml
The Jan. 28 column by Rich Lowry on the hazards of depleted uranium tops my list for disinformation ("Depleted uranium effective but not politically incorrect"). He is in the ballpark when he says 300 tons of depleted uranium was used in the first Gulf War, but he is confusing the issue, and perhaps himself, when he says DU is depleted.
Most of the radiation in natural uranium comes from Uranium 238 (U-238). What largely remains in DU is U-238, its decay products and other contaminants from irradiation of uranium. Gamma radiation from this mix can be dangerous when a large quantity of DU is finely divided, even without ingesting or inhaling it.
It is highly misleading to say that living next to a ton of U-238 is harmless because the issue is not the hazard of DU as a metal but its effect as a gaseous, dispersed oxidized material after it has been used as an armor piercing weapon. DU burns as it passes through armor.
Lowry further confuses the issue when he says no adverse health effects have been found for DU. There have been no studies where DU has been used as a weapon so this statement is meaningless.
A decaying U-238 atom presents the same danger as a decaying Plutonium 239 (Pu-239) atom but U-238 is considered harmless because it decays about 200,000 times slower than Pu-239. Where Pu-239 is dangerous if you ingest a fraction of a millionth of a gram, you have to consume about 0.025 grams of U-238 to produce the same hazard.
Possibly 100 tons of the 300 tons of DU used in Iraq were converted on impact into gaseous uranium oxide or a finely divided uranium powder. Both the oxide and the powder will settle out on the ground locally or drift in the wind. In terms of grams, this is 100,000,000 grams, enough to be harmful to hundreds of millions of people if it is ingested.
Inhalation of U-238 into your lungs is much more serious than ingestion. Inhalation is considered dangerous if the air concentration of U-238 is greater than a millionth of a gram per cubic meter. If 100 million grams of U-238 oxide and finely divided U-238 particles were spread out on the ground and stirred into the air up to a height of 1 meter, it would cover more than 10 million square miles at this concentration.
In fact DU is not spread that far in Iraq and exists locally in much higher, more dangerous concentrations. Even today one can measure gamma radiation levels up to 3.5 millirad/hour around the tanks on the "Highway of Death," a separate hazard from inhaling or ingesting DU.
Defenders of DU like to say uranium is everywhere, that we all have a little uranium in us. This is true. There is a lot of uranium in the ocean, but you would have to drink about 25 tons of seawater before you would need to worry. If you dug up all the dirt in your back yard, it's doubtful you would be able to detect any uranium.
The issue with DU as a weapon is all about concentration. We should understand from such places as Hanford, it is the localized concentration of radioactive materials that presents problems. Even though DU is weakly radioactive, its use as a weapon in multi-ton quantities raises the level of radioactivity in the area of use to dangerous levels.
This use of DU in armor-piercing ammunition effectively puts us in the same class as someone who would use a "dirty" bomb to contaminate an area with radioactivity. The difference is that we do it, and have done it, on a much grander scale than a terrorist could possibly realize.
Roger Longley of Friday Harbor was a senior nuclear engineer for nine years at General Dynamics/Fort Worth.
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MP in 'shouting match' over Gulf illness
February 6, 2003
EDP 24 (UK)
http://www.edp24.co.uk/Content/Forums/ExPatsHome.asp
Norwich MP Ian Gibson was involved in a Commons "shouting match" with a defence minister yesterday after his scientific credentials were questioned in a debate about the dangers to health that British troops may face in a new war against Iraq.
The spat occurred when the minister, Lewis Moonie, asked what Dr Gibson - the chairman of the Commons Science Committee and the former Dean of Biology at the University of East Anglia - and other critics of the Government's attitude to "Gulf War illness" actually knew about isotopes.
The Norwich North had been intervening in a debate to voice concerns about the effect on troops of the use of depleted uranium shells in a war against Saddam Hussein's forces, and referred to evidence that they cause cancer.
Asked afterwards if Dr Moodie knew of his expertise in the subject, Dr Gibson replied: "He knew exactly." He admitted that he was "furious" about the minister's "patronising attitude".
He and the minister twice locked horns in a debate - led by Liberal Democrat MP Paul Tyler - in which the Govern-ment was warned that British troops could be exposed to the "chemical equivalent of friendly fire" while engaged in hostilities against Iraq.
Members from all sides claimed those deployed in or near the region could face unnecessary health risks because the Government had not learned lessons from the 1991 Gulf War.
They also complained of a lack of compensation for veterans and inadequacy of research into possible Gulf War syndrome, and said US authorities had adopted a "much more sympathetic approach".
Mr Moonie said no one denied some veterans were sick and insisted there was no attempt to "push it under the carpet".
Mr Tyler raised concerns about exposure of Gulf War troops to organophosphate pesticides - which can lead to acute poisoning.
He emphasised that "the failure of the Ministry of Defence to even acknowledge the existence of specific Gulf War illness has been especially scandalous". Even worse, he warned, would be a failure to learn lessons. "If British troops are deployed on our behalf it would be truly scandalous if they are also exposed to unnecessary risk to their health by their own military planners in the MoD - the chemical equivalent of friendly fire."
-------- iran
INTERVIEW - UN wants to verify if Iran atomic plans peaceful
REUTERS AUSTRIA:
February 6, 2003
Story by Louis Charbonneau
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19719/newsDate/6-Feb-2003/story.htm
VIENNA - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said he plans to urge Iran to sign an agreement giving the U.N. the power to thoroughly inspect its nuclear facilities to verify that Tehran is not secretly developing atomic weapons.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei heads to Iran later this month with a team of United Nations experts to discuss Iran's nuclear intentions, as well as the United States' allegations Tehran wants to make atomic arms.
"I would like to discuss with Iranian officials the possibility of Iran joining the Additional Protocol," ElBaradei told Reuters in an interview on Monday.
"That's a new authority given to us after the Iraq Gulf War, enabling us to do more, get more information and more access to facilities," he said.
"That I think would clearly create additional assurance with regard to the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme."
Parties to the Additional Protocol agree to grant IAEA inspectors access to all their facilities. If the IAEA deems it necessary, U.N. experts can carry out inspections with virtually no prior notification.
The protocol was created after the IAEA uncovered Iraq's covert atomic weapons programme in 1991.
"I have been assured by the Iranian authorities that all Iranian activities are for peaceful purposes," ElBaradei said.
The U.S. has said Iran intends to use the Russian-built Bushehr light-water reactor, as well as two new plants under construction, to develop nuclear weapons.
Tehran rejected the U.S. allegations and said Bushehr and the two plants near the central Iranian towns of Natanz and Arak were intended for peaceful purposes.
"I'm going to visit (the new plants) with my colleagues when we go there on February 25," ElBaradei said.
ElBaradei welcomed Russia's agreement to take all of the spent fuel from the Bushehr plant to prevent it being diverted to a weapons programme. Experts had said Iran could turn spent fuel rods into a "dirty" bomb to disperse radioactive material.
"(Bushehr) is under IAEA safeguards and Russia is going to take back the spent fuel. So the question of proliferation per se out of Bushehr should not arise," ElBaradei said.
ElBaradei said he understood the U.S. concerns and wants to verify Iran's protests of innocence.
"For the agency, our role is to verify that all the nuclear facilities in Iran are under safeguards and that Iran's programme is dedicated to peaceful purposes," he said.
The IAEA has a mandate to ensure nuclear facilities around the world are used solely for civilian purposes as well as coordinating global nuclear power safety.
-------- iraq
Blix warns Baghdad ahead of visit
February 6, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030206-121447-9891r.htm
Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix warned Thursday his report to the U.N. Security Council on Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction would not be positive unless Iraq comes completely clean about its WMD program.
"What has not worked is for the Iraqi side either to present prohibited items for destruction or present evidence that they are finished," he said after meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London.
He urged further cooperation from Baghdad.
"We hope at this late hour ... that they will come to a positive response," he said. "If they do not do that, then our report next Friday will not be what we would like it to be."
Blix and his counterpart at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, are to present to the Security Council details of further inspections carried out by weapons experts of sites in Iraq believed to conceal proscribed WMD.
The two men were to be in Baghdad for meeting with top Iraqi officials this weekend.
"It is important we have a good conversation before we go to Baghdad," ElBaradei said before his meeting with Blair in London.
Their comments came a day after U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the U.N. Security Council the most detailed case yet that Iraq has attempted to hide from U.N. inspectors its existing stocks of chemical and biological weapons and continued attempts to produce more.
In his show-and-tell presentation, Powell also gave new details of the alleged link between the Iraqi regime and al Qaida network and reiterated U.S. claims -- disputed by some experts -- that Iraq had sought materials to build uranium enrichment equipment to help make nuclear weapons.
Iraq on Thursday dismissed Powell's presentation.
"Well, all that is fiction," said Gen. Amer al-Saadi, Iraqi science adviser. "It is simply not true."
He said Iraq would present a detailed letter of rebuttal of the U.S. claims to the Security Council.
Calling the presentation "mainly for home consumption, for the uninformed," al-Saadi said he was heartened "that a lot of people around the world are of the same opinion that it was intended mainly for the uninformed."
He called parts of Powell's presentation "misquotes and fabrications unworthy of a superpower."
"They don't need to do that," he said.
Also Thursday, European members of the U.N. Security Council remained split over how to disarm Iraq, with Britain, Spain and Bulgaria urging military action and France, Germany and Russia pressing for U.N. inspections to continue.
France, the strongest opponent of the U.S. drive to use force to disarm Saddam, acknowledged Thursday that Baghdad must respond to the demands of the international community.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said, however, the time was "not yet right" for a U.N. resolution authorizing force.
Britain, Washington's closest ally on its Iraq position, said Iraq could still avoid military conflict, but time is fast running out.
"The Iraqi regime must decide whether it will comply with its obligations or face the consequences," Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana welcomed the U.S. evidence.
"Its content and also the way it was presented were very solid," he said in a statement. "It has to be taken seriously by everybody. Everybody should reflect after this report."
Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the 15-member EU, said time was running out for Baghdad, but "there is still hope for a diplomatic resolution of the issue."
In other developments, Turkish parliamentarians voted to approve giving the United States permission to renovate its bases and ports in the country. The move is seen as the closest indication that Turkey, one of Washington's closest allies in the Muslim world, backs the U.S. position in the event of a war with Iraq.
NATO leaders, however, did little to bolster Turkey's position in the event Iraq attacks it during any military conflict. NATO ambassadors meeting in Brussels failed to reach an agreement on measures to protect Turkey in the case of an attack by Iraq. For the third week in a row France, Germany and Belgium insisted contingency plans were premature while inspections continued.
Since resuming searches on Nov. 27 after a four-year hiatus, more than 100 inspectors from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency have visited over 500 sites across Iraq that are suspected of involvement in Iraq's programs to develop WMD.
A team from the UNIMOVIC visited the Educational Laboratories Directorate at Saddam Medical Center in Baghdad on Thursday.
The inspectors arrived at 9:00 a.m. and met with Jasim Tumah, director of the laboratories, before conducting their inspections.
"They were comfortable because they did not any find any violations," Tumah said. "They also made sure that these laboratories extend services to patients in the hospital and others visiting the consultative clinic."
He said the visit was the first by inspectors to the facility since 1998.
During the 2-1/2 hour meeting, the U.N. experts inspected all the floors and the bacteriology, immunity, genetics, blood diseases, tissue, and clinical chemistry laboratories.
Iraq maintains that it possesses no WMD and denies any links with terrorist groups.
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Weapons Inspector Warns Iraq to Disarm or Face Grave Problems
February 6, 2003
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
International Herald Tribune
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/international/middleeast/07IRAQ.html
WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 - A top United Nations weapons inspector exhorted Iraq today to "show drastic change" in cooperating to disarm or be prepared for grave problems. But several important countries continued to hold out for further United Nations inspections, and not war.
The call by the inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, came amid signs of a possible wavering in France's outspoken opposition to military action against Iraq. After a closely watched report on Iraq on Wednesday at the United Nations by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, France urged an early deadline of Feb. 14 for Iraq to provide urgently sought answers to arms monitors, and declined to rule out military force.
But Russia indicated today that its support for continued inspections had not been budged by Mr. Powell's presentation, and French officials said they agreed. The comments followed a phone conversation between President Vladimir Putin and President Jacques Chirac.
China expressed a similar view.
Iraq said that it would send the United Nations a detailed letter refuting Washington's allegations that Baghdad had actively moved to displace and conceal banned weapons of mass destruction.
Other developments increased the sense that war might be growing closer: the Turkish Parliament voted to allow the United States to renovate military bases for a possible invasion of northern Iraq; the NATO secretary-general predicted a favorable response to American requests for Iraq-related assistance; and Britain said it would boost its air force presence in the Gulf to about 100 aircraft, a level similar to that deployed in the 1991 war there.
Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said that diplomatic efforts would continue.
But Secretary Powell, whom many critics of a possible war had looked to to defend that position within the Bush administration, indicated today that he saw dwindling prospects for diplomacy.
"I don't like war," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Nobody likes war. The president doesn't like war, doesn't want a war. But this is a problem we cannot walk away from."
President Putin and President Chirac agreed during a telephone call today that the Iraqi crisis should be solved without force, Agence France-Presse reported from Moscow. The "positions of Russia and France correspond, and stand in favor of solving the Iraqi problem through political-diplomatic means," the Kremlin said in a statement.
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said that Mr. Powell's evidence against Iraq had placed the burden squarely on Baghdad. But he insisted that inspections should continue and added that "one or several" more United Nations resolutions might be required before the Security Council would authorize force.
He again left open a door, nonetheless, for a Russian turn-about. No final decision should be made, he said, until all the freshly offered American intelligence had been thoroughly analyzed.
In another sign of shifting positions, reporters at a regular White House briefing raised several questions about how a postwar Iraq would be administered and tellingly, Mr. Fleischer, answered rather than deflecting them as premature.
"The plan is for a government to emerge both from inside and outside Iraq," he said, apparently alluding to exile groups. He said that administration would be handled by "a number of agencies, including international." All this would happen under an umbrella of United States military protection.
And Mr. Fleischer added that in the aftermath of any war, humanitarian relief to Iraq would be a priority for the United States.
With events gaining pace, Mr. ElBaradei and the chief United Nations weapons inspector, Hans Blix, met in London with Prime Minister Tony Blair, then headed for a weekend of meetings in Baghdad that they have described as crucial.
Both inspectors said that Iraq must dramatically improve cooperation if it is to avert war.
"The message coming from the Security Council is very clear: that Iraq is not cooperating fully, that they need to show drastic change in terms of cooperation," Mr. ElBaradei said. If Baghdad's response is not dramatically positive, Blix "then our report next Friday will not be what we would like it to be."
"Time is very critical," he continued. "We need to show progress."
Mr. Blair has suggested that Feb. 14 - the date when the weapons inspectors are to make their next report to the Security Council - could be a deadline for deciding on war; American officials have hinted at a similar timetable.
Belgium called today for an emergency meeting of the European Union, 13 of its candidate states, and Iraq's neighbors to discuss the crisis after that date.
The crisis has severely divided Europe, with a growing list of countries lining up in support of the United States and Britain, but two of Europe's historical powers, France and Germany, standing in opposition to war.
But Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, dismissed French calls, made after Mr. Powell's speech, for bolstering weapons inspections. What was needed, he said, was not more inspectors, but "more, much, much more cooperation from the Iraqi regime."
The United States and Britain have said that Iraq already is in "material breach" of United Nations resolutions, justifying its forcible disarmament unless Baghdad becomes much more forthcoming immediately.
In Brussels, the North Atlantic Council, NATO's executive group, again deferred a decision on a United States request for military assistance, mainly to defend Turkey in event of war. But the alliance's secretary-general, Lord George Robertson, said that unless any member objected formally by Monday, the military aid would be authorized automatically.
France, Germany and Belgium, which had resisted the request as premature, appeared unlikely to take the step of formally opposing the request by NATO's most powerful and influential member.
The planned measures would include the deployment of AWACS surveillance planes, Patriot anti-missile systems, in-air refueling planes and NATO's anti-chemical, biological and nuclear weapons center.
Mr. Powell said earlier on CBS-TV that only a substantive change in policy by President Saddam Hussein could now avert war, "not just another way to play cat-and-mouse with the inspectors."
"So, in my judgment," he added, "it will not be enough for him to simply say, `Okay, I'll now start to allow the U-2 flights' that inspectors want in support of their ground efforts.
"He needs to come clean."
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Nuke Agency: Iraq Must Boost Cooperation
February 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Inspectors-Iraq.html
LONDON (AP) -- Iraq must show ``drastic change'' in its cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors, the U.N.'s chief nuclear inspector said Thursday.
``Iraq is not cooperating fully, they need to show drastic change in terms of cooperation,'' said Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
ElBaradei spoke after meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. At his side was Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, who also met with Blair.
ElBaradei and Blix were in London to brief Blair on their search for banned weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They are traveling to Baghdad this weekend to meet with senior Iraqi officials and are to report to the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 14.
``We need to show progress in our report,'' ElBaradei said. ``Our mission in Baghdad this weekend is crucial. We hope we will secure full, 100 percent cooperation on the part of Iraq.''
-------- iraq
The Smoking Gun
Khidhir Hamza Tried to Help Iraq Make a Nuclear Bomb.
Now He's Trying to Stop It.
By Richard Leiby
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page C01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32095-2003Feb5?language=printer
Married 32 years, the nuclear physicist and his wife share a typical brick-and-siding home in Northern Virginia, with a big-screen TV in the family room and a bowl of cashews beckoning on the coffee table. A photomontage shows their three sons, dark-haired, handsome and grown. Here's the family on a vacation at Luray Caverns.
Something's missing, though. Where are the wedding pictures? The cute childhood photographs?
All left behind in Baghdad, says Khidhir Hamza, the highest-ranking government scientist to escape from Iraq and live to tell the tale. To take a family album risks being found out as a defector, and death: "You must bring along nothing that could implicate you," he says.
Hamza, 64, has only old passports to document his previous life. One bears a treasured date stamp: Sept. 15, 1995, the day he made it to the United States.
Anybody who wonders why Iraqi scientists have not been cooperating with United Nations inspectors, or how instrumental they are in concealing banned weapons programs, need only consult Hamza. For nearly 20 years he worked to arm the Iraqi regime with atomic weapons, while Hussein denied to the world that he wanted the Bomb. Two years ago he published a book about the Faustian bargain he struck as Hussein's "personal nuclear adviser." Its title is "Saddam's Bombmaker," and Hamza says on the opening page, "I am lucky to be alive."
Before sliding behind the wheel of his aging American luxury car, Hamza pauses in his driveway. "That house," he says, pointing down the block, "a deputy sheriff." It's security by coincidence, but gives Hamza and his wife, Souham, a measure of comfort.
The defector is highly visible -- he made the rounds on TV and radio yesterday after Secretary of State Colin Powell's U.N. address -- but requests that his home town not be identified, citing "possible enemy resources here." A few years after defecting, he feared that he was being shadowed by an Iraqi agent; a reporter who wanted to interview Hamza at home had to agree to arrive blindfolded.
"We are living normally," he says now. He's been giving speeches, consulting with government officials, meeting with a Hollywood scriptwriter. Sales of his autobiography -- co-written with spy-tale flourish by Washington journalist Jeff Stein -- have accelerated with the tempo of U.S. war drums.
The book's revelations have been invoked repeatedly by the Bush administration as part of the rationale for invading Iraq. Alluding to Hamza, the president said in an October speech to the nation, "Information from a high-ranking Iraqi nuclear engineer who had defected revealed that despite his public promises, Saddam Hussein had ordered his nuclear program to continue."
Bush didn't mention that Hamza effectively retired from Iraq's nuclear program in 1991, then spent the next few years plotting his escape through northern Iraq. To hawks, Hamza qualifies as a smoking gun because he can attest to a historical pattern of deceit. As Powell showed yesterday, multiple defector sources and the cumulative weight of their statements help build the case against Hussein at a time when U.N. inspectors are discovering little in the way of hardware or documents.
In 1995, "as a result of another defector," the United States discovered Hussein's "crash program," initiated after the invasion of Kuwait, to complete a crude nuclear weapon, Powell said yesterday.
"He was referring to me," Hamza says. The crash program goal, he told U.S. intelligence officials, was to rush a nuclear bomb into production, most likely for a doomsday attack on Israel if U.S. forces threatened Saddam's survival. Baghdad and the Bomb
Schooled in the 1960s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Florida State University, Hamza has a doctorate in nuclear physics, an easy command of English, and the ability to deploy an arsenal of frightening technical details about uranium enrichment, aluminum cylinders, centrifuges, diffusion and "dirty bombs." On TV news shows and in congressional hearings, he echoes suggestions that Hussein will possess enough fissile material to make a bomb in two to three years.
Iraq's nuclear capabilities remain a matter of dispute, but Powell could have been summarizing Hamza's book when he declared yesterday, "Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb." Helping realize that goal -- whether shopping for a reactor in France or securing complicated equipment in Germany -- was Hamza, who writes that it all started in 1972, when he and others "scratched out our first memo for a bomb."
Some of those pioneers were jailed or tortured after questioning Hussein's intentions. The dictator's son-in-law Hussein Kamel was executed when he unwisely returned to Iraq after defecting to Jordan and spilling his guts about banned weapons programs. Kamel was Hamza's boss.
In his speech, Powell suggested that Iraqi officials routinely intimidate scientists or conceal their whereabouts. "A dozen experts have been placed under house arrest, not in their own houses, but as a group at one of Saddam Hussein's guesthouses," he said, with a seemingly sarcastic emphasis on "guest."
So it doesn't surprise Hamza that scientists are not flocking into the arms of the current U.N. inspection team, despite U.S. assurances of asylum. Cooperation is a potential death sentence, he says. "Talking to an Iraqi scientist inside Iraq is an endangerment. Even asking him to talk is an endangerment." 'Saddam and Me'
The son of a rice farmer, Hamza was born in 1939, in a village ravaged by disease. "Only five of the 14 children survived," he writes, "and the last one killed my mother in childbirth."
By 1962, thanks to assistance from the Iraqi government, Hamza arrived in Cambridge, Mass., to study nuclear physics -- with the understanding that he had to repay Iraq with one year of service for every year of subsidized schooling.
His book confronts a paradox about Iraq: How did such a cultured, intellectual society end up at the mercy of a fiendish lout like Saddam Hussein? Perhaps the question arises because of the way co-writer Stein decided Hamza should organize the narrative. He recalls making the scientist put two Post-It notes on his computer screen as reminders.
The one on the left said "Me and Saddam." The one on the right said "Saddam and me."
Despite his penchant for numbing technicalities in conversation, Hamza wanted to produce a page-turner. He says he planned to write a book from the day he defected, turning down a CIA resettlement and witness protection program in part so that he could write freely.
The resulting manuscript won a six-figure advance and stirred a film deal thanks, perhaps, to its focus on Hamza's personal life. It details his first carefree eight years in America -- when he quaffed beer, played poker, dated girls, "bought a car and Beach Boys eight-tracks" -- and his return to Iraq, his arranged marriage to Souham. He was 32 and she was not yet 16.
"I chose him," she says, standing near the stove where dinner is simmering. Dressed in a purple top and flowered slacks, she reminds her husband with a fetching smile that he was but one of her "many" suitors.
"Always he was talking about America," she adds, remembering how he said, "Someday I'll take you to America." See No Evil
As a government scientist in Iraq, Hamza piled up prestige and perks, including ranches, trips abroad, fancy cars. The Baath Party purges, the executions and deportations of political enemies -- communists and Shiites -- did not ping his conscience. As long as he wasn't the target, things were fine.
"We turned a blind eye," Hamza says quietly, sitting in his living room. "Yeah, we turned a blind eye but there is actually also nothing we could have done."
And, as he puts it in the book, "I was too old, too comfortable, too scared to risk my wife and children and leave everything behind."
Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, coupled with his demand for a "crash program" aimed at nuking Israel, ultimately pushed Hamza over the edge.
"That told us we were really working in a lunatic asylum," he says.
He eased himself out of the nuclear program, took a university job, and grew rich as an insider in Iraq's stock market. He escaped alone, leaving his family vulnerable for several months, but eventually a CIA "exfiltration" team helped to smuggle them into the Kurdish-ruled north.
"My tortuous journey had a happy ending," Hamza writes. "But I left behind scores of unhappy Iraqi scientists. . . . Most of them, I am sure, would like to get out. It is the civilized world's urgent duty to help them." The Top Tier
In the summer of 1998, when Hamza first went public with his story about Saddam's relentless desire for the Bomb, much of the press ignored him. The country was transfixed by the saga of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
But in March 2001, the scientist found himself sitting next to an influential Republican named Richard Perle at a seminar at George Washington University. He briefed Perle, one of the earliest and most vehement proponents of regime change in Iraq, about his past.
"I came away very impressed, thinking this is a sensible, sober fellow," says Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's advisory Defense Policy Board. Hamza said he'd been debriefed only by low-level "civil servants" in the Clinton years. Perle soon introduced the defector to the top tier of the Bush administration, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
On Tuesday afternoon, Hamza and Perle are sitting side by side in a garish dining room at the Willard Inter-Continental, joining a panel of former arms inspectors and other hawks. They dutifully denounce Saddam Hussein as a dangerous maniac and urge support for an invasion.
Afterward, this odd, portly pair -- Perle the Washington insider, Hamza the former paladin of Saddam's palace -- get down to the details. They delight in swapping the latest intelligence about how Iraq may have modified aluminum tubes to enrich uranium.
It's something of a preview of Powell's U.N. assertions: that those tubes, which Iraq said were for ordinary missiles, were crucial to building a nuclear weapon. "This was part of the deception program," Perle says. Hamza nods in agreement. "I know, I know." The Marquee Defector
Once he dined and drank at Saddam's private club. Now he orders a $4.25 steak sandwich for lunch at a strip mall sub shop. With one son still in college, Hamza lives modestly. For the first time, Souham has taken a job.
He thinks the United States could have lured more high-level scientists from Iraq in the past if they'd treated them more generously, like the Soviet defectors. He summarizes the American attitude as "Tell us what you know, and goodbye, thank you." Because of what he calls "horrible" foul-ups by the INS, he and his family only recently became citizens.
"I'm not suffering financially," Hamza says, but mainly that's because of the book, a recent History Channel documentary and the movie deal. Trying out Hollywood lingo with an Arabic inflection, he says, "Hopefully next month it will get the green light."
Dan Gordon, who scripted "The Hurricane" with Denzel Washington and "Wyatt Earp" with Kevin Costner, has finished the screenplay. Peter Kalmbach, who heads BBC Films in Los Angeles, calls Hamza "a wonderful subject for a film" and describes him as "the smoldering gun."
"The tricky part is casting him. You know, Brad Pitt as an Arab?"
It's doubtful, but would be the perfect ending to this weird story: Saddam's bomb builder becomes an American idol.
----
Slovenia Says Iraq Wanted Nuke Equipment
February 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Slovenia-Iraq-Powell.html
LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (AP) -- Iraq tried in 1999 and 2000 to buy equipment that can be used to enrich uranium from Slovene companies, but Slovenia's government prevented it, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a speech Wednesday to the U.N. Security Council that Iraq had approached firms in Slovenia, Romania, India and Russia to buy equipment for magnet production and other technology that could be used to produce nuclear weapons.
Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel confirmed that Iraq had approached Slovene private firms to buy materials that can be used to enrich uranium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons, ministry spokesman Rok Srakar told The Associated Press on Thursday.
``There were attempts (by Iraq) of commercial dealings, but we were quick in preventing them,'' Srakar quoted Rupel as saying.
Rupel offered no other details. He argued that Powell's mention of Slovenia was a recognition of the country's efforts to help the U.S.-led war on terror.
Iraq is required to eliminate long-range missiles, biological, chemical and nuclear weapons under a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted after the 1991 Gulf War. Iraq has insisted it has destroyed all such weapons.
Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana said Wednesday that Iraq in 1995, 1996 and 1999 had tried to buy uranium-enriching equipment from his country. The Romanian secret services foiled the attempts, acting on tips from their U.S. counterparts, Geoana said.
Slovenia, which declared independence in 1991 and has been invited to join NATO, is one of 10 Eastern European nations that on Wednesday issued a declaration supporting Washington's drive to disarm Iraq.
Slovenia also aspires to join the European Union. The country also supports the EU stance that more time is needed for U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq before an attack, Rupel said.
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Doubts Remain About Purpose Of Specialized Aluminum Tubes
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32110-2003Feb5?language=printer
More than ever, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein remains "determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told the United Nations yesterday. But he failed to settle a dispute over whether an intercepted batch of aluminum tubes constitutes proof of Iraq's nuclear ambitions.
Iraq's attempt to import tens of thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes over the past two years is at the core of the Bush administration's case against the Iraqi leader.
Powell yesterday sought to bolster the argument that Iraq intended to use the tubes to make enriched uranium, not artillery rockets, as Iraq has claimed. During its well-documented nuclear weapons program in the 1980s, Iraq used imported aluminum tubes to build gas centrifuges -- fast-spinning machines used to enrich uranium.
"There is no doubt in my mind," Powell said, "that these illicit procurement efforts show that Saddam Hussein is very much focused on putting in place the key missing piece from his nuclear weapons program, the ability to produce fissile material."
Powell released a few additional details about the attempted acquisition, revealing that Iraqi officials had ordered tubes with unusually exacting specifications and high tolerances for heat and stress.
Over a period of months, the Iraqi invoices called for "higher and higher levels of specification," including metallic coatings on inner and outer surfaces, he said.
Powell argued that Iraq would not have gone to such trouble and expense if the tubes were intended for ordinary rockets that "would soon be blown to shrapnel."
"It strikes me as quite odd that these tubes are manufactured to a tolerance that far exceeds U.S. requirements for comparable rockets," Powell said. "Maybe Iraqis just manufacture their conventional weapons to a higher standard than we do, but I don't think so."
Powell's arguments were a direct challenge to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which after weeks of investigation concluded that the tubes were likely intended for Iraq's artillery rocket program. In a report to the U.N. Security Council last month, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said the tubes were not suitable for uranium enrichment without significant modification.
Other sources said the tubes exactly matched the dimensions of Iraq's existing arsenal of 81mm artillery rockets. Iraq had ordered the same type of aluminum tubes in the 1980s to replenish its rocket stockpile.
U.S. and international nuclear experts have been divided about the nature of Iraq's new -- and ultimately unsuccessful -- attempts to purchase the aluminum parts. Powell's additional evidence appeared to have only widened the disagreement.
One former scientist in Iraq's nuclear program called Powell's arguments "persuasive." Khidhir Hamza, a physicist who defected to the United States in 1994, acknowledged that the tubes sought by Iraq were not ideal for centrifuges, but he suggested that Iraq may have tried to throw off U.S. intelligence agents and disguise its true intentions. After extensive machine-tooling of the tubes, Iraq could have used them to make enough uranium for up to two bombs a year, Hamza said.
"Of course Iraq would not order cylinders with exact specifications for centrifuges, because such tubes would never have been shipped," Hamza said. "This is a standard Iraqi ploy."
But another expert familiar with Iraq's previous nuclear program said it was also typical of Iraq to "over-specify" when ordering common weapons materials and parts. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said Iraq's use of increasingly higher standards in ordering aluminum tubes stemmed from technical problems with its rocket production: Rockets made of lesser grades of aluminum were getting stuck in the launcher tubes.
"The tubes are an important indicator, but they are not specific to centrifuges," Albright said. "I would not feel comfortable arguing on this basis that Iraq has a nuclear program -- even though I personally believe it does."
The IAEA's ElBaradei, who is ultimately responsible for determining the truth about Iraq's nuclear program, declined to pass judgment on Powell's analysis. "We have listened to Secretary Powell's presentation," he said, "and will factor it into our analysis."
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Powell Lays Out Case Against Iraq
Evidence Shows Hussein Foiled Inspections, Secretary Tells U.N.
By Glenn Kessler and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32103-2003Feb5?language=printer
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 5 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented the U.N. Security Council today with satellite images, intercepted telephone conversations and information from Iraqi defectors in a bid to convince the American public and the world that new weapons inspections have failed to halt Iraq's banned weapons programs and that the hour was approaching for a decision on confronting President Saddam Hussein with force.
Speaking before a packed council chamber, Powell cited what he called an "accumulation of facts and disturbing patterns of behavior" to charge that Iraq does not intend to comply with last year's unanimous U.N. resolution giving Baghdad one last chance to disarm and to outline new alleged links between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network.
While inspections may continue for some weeks, Powell warned the council that the United Nations has little choice but to act in the face of such evidence of Iraqi behavior, in effect serving notice that the Bush administration has made up its mind and is ready to launch an invasion of Iraq to force Hussein from power with or without formal U.N. backing.
"This body places itself in danger of irrelevance if it allows Iraq to continue to defy its will without responding effectively and immediately," Powell said.
As Powell addressed the Security Council, the Pentagon announced the mobilization of an additional 16,979 military reservists and National Guard members, bringing the total activated to 111,603, the largest number since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. And at Fort Campbell, Ky., the Army's 101st Airborne Division -- likely a key component of any Iraqi invasion -- stepped up preparations for what appeared to be an imminent deployment order.
In his nearly 90-minute address, Powell accused Iraq of constructing an elaborate deception scheme that enabled officials to conceal programs to produce biological weapons in mobile trucks and trains, to build prohibited long-range missiles and to construct unmanned aerial vehicles capable of spreading biological or chemical agents over vast tracts of territory.
In an effort to broaden the indictment against Iraq, Powell also detailed new evidence of apparent links between Iraq and affiliates of al Qaeda. Powell noted that some of the ties may have a role in terrorist incidents in France, Britain, Spain and Russia -- all represented on the Security Council.
Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohamed Douri, was invited to attend the session and he dismissed Powell's assertions as "utterly unrelated to the truth."
"No new information was provided, mere sound recordings that cannot be ascertained as genuine," he said. "There are incorrect allegations, unnamed sources, unknown sources."
But Powell's statement, which was televised live to audiences around the world, appeared to generate new support for the Bush administration within Congress, with even critics of President Bush's Iraq policy saying that Powell made a compelling case. Overseas, the reaction was more mixed. Powell's performance was widely praised, but many governments said he made a case for enhanced inspections, not war.
Powell also appeared to sway few minds on the Security Council.
Immediately after Powell spoke, the foreign ministers of France, Russia and China -- all of which hold veto power -- rejected the need for imminent military action and instead said the solution was more inspections. "Let us double, let us triple the number of inspectors. Let us open more regional offices. Let us go further than this," said French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, a vocal opponent of war, supported the French proposal to extend the inspections. But, he pointedly noted, Germany does not "hold any illusions on the inhuman and brutal nature of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. The regime is terrible for the Iraqi people." Fischer added that he lacked the technical expertise to assess whether the intelligence presented to the council by Powell was convincing.
In a statement sure to annoy the Germans, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in testimony before Congress today, lumped Germany with Libya and Cuba as countries that have ruled out any role in a U.S.-led attack or postwar reconstruction of Iraq. "I believe Libya, Cuba and Germany are ones that have indicated they won't help in any respect, I believe," said Rumsfeld, who last month angered the German and French governments by referring to them as "old Europe."
The foreign ministers' council statements, however, had mostly been written before Powell spoke, and U.S. officials said afterward they believe the impact of Powell's presentation will become more apparent in the days ahead. Proponents of more inspections, officials said, will need to address the evidence of Iraqi deception outlined by Powell.
"The issue before us is not how much time we are willing to give the inspectors to be frustrated by Iraqi obstruction," Powell said. "But how much longer are we willing to put up with Iraq's noncompliance before we, as a council, we, as the United Nations, say: 'Enough. Enough.' "
One U.S. official noted with satisfaction that de Villepin, who two weeks ago threatened to veto an imminent military strike, today appeared to open the door to military action. "We rule out no option, including in the final analysis the recourse to force," he said.
After lunch, Powell raced through individual meetings with 11 foreign ministers whose countries are represented on the council, reinforcing the idea that the United Nations cannot wait much longer before acting. The United States has not committed itself to seeking a second U.N. resolution authorizing military action, but Powell's speech was designed to test the waters for whether it was possible to win approval for such a measure.
Powell may have picked up support from some of the smaller countries on the council. In the meetings with Powell, Angola was very supportive of the U.S. position, while Guinea said there were "no big gaps" between it and the United States, a U.S. official said. Spain, Bulgaria and Chile -- along with Britain, the closest U.S. ally -- also expressed support for a tough line on Iraq.
"We'll see what happens after the inspectors come back from Baghdad," Powell told reporters before departing for Washington. The chief weapons inspectors are scheduled to travel to the Iraqi capital this weekend in an effort to seek more cooperation, and are due to report to the council again Feb. 14.
Powell is held in high esteem abroad, partly because of the perception that he is a reluctant warrior in an administration filled with hawks. Today, he used that reputation to bolster the administration's case. With CIA Director George J. Tenet seated behind him, Powell frequently emphasized that the facts he was presenting were his own conclusions from reviewing the intelligence.
Using large screens erected in the chamber, Powell displayed photographs, diagrams and translations from intercepts, moving quickly from the images and sounds to a detailed explanation of their meaning.
In one theatrical touch, he held up a vial with a teaspoon of simulated anthrax provided by the CIA. Less than a teaspoon of anthrax in an envelope, he noted, caused havoc in the U.S. postal system in 2001, and Iraq has not accounted for as much as 16,500 liters of anthrax, enough to "fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons."
A senior State Department official said that Powell spent Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon at CIA headquarters in Virginia, which is only minutes from Powell's home in McLean. He reviewed slides and transcripts and closely questioned photo and other intelligence analysts to understand how they reached their conclusions. Some pieces of intelligence were withheld to not compromise the sources of the information or the means by which it was gathered, the official said. Powell rejected some information if he felt it was too difficult for nonexperts to understand.
The official said Powell hoped to win over his audience by the wealth of information, saying he wanted to win like the 1963 Dodgers rather than the 1927 Yankees. "We hit a series of line drives, rather than go for a big out-of-the-park home run."
One senior council diplomat said Powell had delivered a skillful presentation of the risks posed by Iraq's weapons program. But he said that key elements, particularly the communications between Iraqi officials allegedly trying to hide nerve agents and mobile biological weapons facilities, were less convincing.
Syria, the Security Council's only Arab nation, said that there was nothing in Powell's remarks that would justify military action against Iraq. Syria's U.N. ambassador, Mikhail Wehbe, faulted the administration for creating a media spectacle in the council.
Powell said that intelligence sources had described an elaborate system of Iraqi concealment, replacing computer hard drives at weapons sites, and moving documents, computers and banned weapons around the country. He showed satellite photographs allegedly showing chemical weapons bunkers and convoys of Iraqi cargo trucks preparing to move ballistic missile components from a missile facility two days before inspections resumed. "We saw this kind of housecleaning at close to 30 sites," he said.
He acknowledged differences between the United States and the IAEA over the threat posed by Iraq's ambitions to develop nuclear weapons. But he said "there is no doubt in my mind" that Iraq is seeking the ability to produce fissile nuclear fuel.
He also detailed new intelligence alleging that Iraq has been harboring the Baghdad cell of a global terrorist network run by Abu Musab Zarqawi, whom he described as an associate of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.
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Work on New Drones, Missiles Called Example of 'Persistence'
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31968-2003Feb5?language=printer
Describing Iraqi efforts to develop missiles and aircraft for delivering chemical or biological warfare agents, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made two new allegations. He disclosed that Iraq had flight-tested a drone that could fly 310 miles. And he asserted that Iraq was attempting to build a liquid-fueled ballistic missile with a range of 745 miles.
The rest of Powell's remarks about Iraqi missile and drone development echoed what U.S. and British intelligence analysts have reported in recent months, according to defense specialists. But mention of the drone was especially intriguing to experts, who said it represented a significant advance for Iraq and appeared to provide concrete evidence of the potential danger Iraq poses to its neighbors.
"This is the kind of thing that Iraq could use to attack Israel with," said Joseph Cirincione, a weapons proliferation specialist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It is a very effective example of the persistence of Iraq's efforts."
Iraq's work on ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, is important to the administration's case that Iraq constitutes a threat to its neighbors and potentially to nations far beyond its borders. By all accounts, Iraq still lacks a delivery system that can reach beyond Iran, Turkey, Egypt or Saudi Arabia. But U.S. officials have been concerned about Iraq's determined pursuit of longer-range UAVs and its ability to rebuild missile-producing facilities bombed by U.S. warplanes.
The development of an effective drone would appear to present the most immediate threat, analysts said. Although much less sophisticated than ballistic missiles, UAVs offer the most efficient way to disseminate chemical or biological weapons over large, distant areas.
Powell's discussion of Iraq's experimentation with UAVs began with previously cited evidence -- attempts over the past decade to design drones by modifying two manned aircraft, the Russian-made MiG-21 and the Czech-made L-29, a light trainer jet. But Powell then reported that Iraq had moved away from these attempts and focused more recently on developing smaller UAVs. He showed a photograph of one provided by U.N. inspectors.
He also produced U.S. intelligence collected on June 27 that he said "graphically and indisputably demonstrated" Iraq had lied about the range of its UAVs. In its Dec. 7 declaration to the U.N. Security Council, Iraq listed drones with ranges limited to 50 miles. But Powell said the United States had detected "one of Iraq's newest UAVs" performing a test flight that went 310 miles "un-refueled and on autopilot."
He displayed an aerial photo of the Samarra East airfield where the flight took place. On the photo was drawn a racetrack pattern, eight miles long and five miles wide, that Powell said the UAV had flown.
"That was a nice graphic, and the most up-to-date information that the government had released on the subject of Iraq and UAVs," Cirincione said.
On Iraqi missiles, Powell cited "numerous intelligence reports over the past decade from sources inside Iraq" indicating that Iraq has managed to hide "up to a few dozen" variants of the Scud missile used during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, with ranges of about 400 to 560 miles. He also repeated earlier intelligence findings that Iraq had violated a U.N.-imposed, 93-mile limit on the ranges of two missiles, which he identified as Al Samoud 2 and Al Fatah. The reference to Al Fatah puzzled some experts, who said that no weapon by that name is listed in published intelligence reports about Iraqi missiles. The other short-range missile in addition to Al Samoud 2 cited in those reports is Al Ababil.
Powell mentioned evidence reported by U.N. weapons inspectors that Iraq had imported 380 SA-2 rocket engines -- some as recently as December -- for extending the range of Al Samoud missiles. He echoed previous assertions by U.S. and British intelligence officials that Iraq was trying to produce even more powerful missiles, with ranges in excess of 600 miles.
But he went further by citing a liquid-fueled missile that some U.S. analysts believe Iraq is designing to fly 745 miles. Defense officials said this was a reference to a program that Iraq began in the late 1980s, but was set back by U.S. airstrikes in December 1998.
As evidence, Powell showed a picture of a new test stand at the Al Rafah Liquid Engine Test Facility. The stand, Powell noted, has an exhaust vent five times longer than an older stand nearby that was used for testing the shorter-range Al Samoud. Similar photos have appeared in previous published U.S. and British intelligence reports.
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Despite Defectors' Accounts, Evidence Remains Anecdotal
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31744-2003Feb5?language=printer
U.N. officials have suspected since the late 1990s that Iraq possesses mobile bioweapons facilities, some disguised as ordinary trucks to shield them from U.N. inspectors and spy satellites. But Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday reached into the U.S. intelligence dossier and disclosed for the first time significant details of what he called "biological weapons factories on wheels."
"These are sophisticated facilities," Powell said, referring to diagrams purportedly showing the interior of one such lab. "They can produce enough dry biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people."
At least seven of the mobile labs are on trucks or in rail cars in Iraq, and all were deliberately designed for stealth, Powell said. But lacking photos or other hard evidence, he based the claim on reports by at least four human sources -- defectors or other "eyewitnesses."
The descriptions of the facilities were sufficiently detailed that several independent weapons experts said the existence of such facilities was plausible, though some of the points in Powell's presentation drew skepticism. The truck-mounted biological weapons labs were not captured on camera but were presented in artists' renderings.
"It was the strongest case the administration has made that there has been significant biological weapons production since 1998," when the previous round of U.N. weapons inspections ended, said Jonathan Tucker, a former weapons inspector and currently a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace. "But the sources apparently were defectors, who have not always been reliable or credible. . . . I would be more comfortable if there were photos."
The mobile labs were the highlight of a presentation on biological weapons that otherwise yielded little new information.
The rest of Powell's report focused on much-debated discrepancies in Iraq's accounting for munitions and materials it produced before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Powell criticized Iraq, for example, for failing to account for hundreds of 400-pound bombs that it has admitted filling with anthrax bacteria.
"The Iraqis never accounted for all the biological weapons they had admitted they had, and we know that they had," Powell said. Noting that a single teaspoon of dry anthrax spores shut down the Capitol in October 2001, he said Iraq had the capacity to "fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons."
The mobile labs depicted in Powell's diagrams could potentially enhance that capability, according to weapons experts who reviewed the evidence. The drawings showed an assembly line for bioweapons -- starting with the growth of large quantities of cells to the drying and refining of lethal spores for bombs -- fitted into three tractor-trailers of average size.
A key intelligence source, described as an Iraqi chemical engineer, helped supervise one of the labs and knew intimate details of the project, Powell said. For example, Powell added, Iraqi scientists would often begin producing pathogens on Thursday nights and complete the process on Fridays, believing that U.N. officials were unlikely to conduct inspections on the Muslim holy day, Powell said.
But such anecdotes did not ring true with some weapons experts. Raymond Zilinskas, a microbiologist and former U.N. weapons inspector, said a 24-hour production cycle was insufficient for creating significant amounts of pathogens such as anthrax. "You normally would require 36 to 48 hours just to do the fermentation," said Zilinskas, director of Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "The short processing time seems suspicious to me."
Zilinskas and other experts said the schematic presented by Powell as an example of Iraq's mobile labs was theoretically workable but that turning the diagram into a functioning laboratory posed enormous challenges -- such as how to dispose of large quantities of highly toxic waste.
"The only reason you would have mobile labs is to avoid inspectors, because everything about them is difficult," Zilinskas said.
"We know it is possible to build them -- the United States developed mobile production plants, including one designed for an airplane -- but it's a big hassle. That's why this strikes me as a bit far-fetched."
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Data on Efforts to Hide Arms Called 'Strong Suit' of Speech
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32595-2003Feb5?language=printer
To trick U.N. weapons inspectors, Iraqi authorities hauled away prohibited materials, bulldozed weapons sites and intimidated Iraqi weapons experts -- in one case ordering a dozen scientists confined to a guesthouse, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told the U.N. Security Council today in illustrating what he called "a policy of evasion and deception that goes back 12 years."
Powell made a series of new allegations about Iraqi behavior, at times linking President Saddam Hussein to specific tactics intended to defy U.N. weapons inspectors. He said that in one case Hussein ordered a death certificate issued for a scientist who was then sent into hiding. In another, Hussein ordered a warning be sent to Iraqi scientists that cooperation with the inspectors would be punishable by death, Powell said.
One of Powell's most dramatic new charges was that the Iraqi military distributed rocket-launchers and warheads filled with biological agents in western Iraq, where they were hidden in palm groves. Citing "human sources," he said orders were given to move the weapons every one to four weeks to prevent discovery. The Iraqi government denies it has any biological or chemical weapons.
Outside analysts said the credibility of Powell's case requires faith in U.S. interpretations of satellite photographs and intercepted conversations between Iraqi officials, as well as significant trust in the unidentified informants cited frequently by the secreatary.
But these experts put special significance on the newly released satellite photographs said to show deceptive activity at alleged weapons sites, noting that previous inspection teams uncovered similar efforts to hide or remove evidence. The intercepted telephone conversations were suggestive, they said, but not decisive.
The evidence of Hussein's deception was the "strong suit" in Powell's presentation, said Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. "He really presented an overwhelming case. There have been numerous examples in the past of Iraqis cleaning out inspection sites."
Powell displayed a satellite image of a truck caravan at a facility he said was related to germ warfare. He said the image, taken two days before U.N. inspections resumed, revealed activity at a regularly monitored site where such movement is rare.
A photograph taken the same day showed five cargo trucks and a crane at a missile facility, which Powell described as evidence that Iraq intended to move the missiles out of the range of inspectors. A third image, he said, showed a cargo truck preparing to move ballistic missile components. By Powell's account, another showed special vehicles and chemicals being taken away from a chemical weapons facility before inspectors arrived on Dec. 22.
Powell said U.S. analysts saw "this kind of housecleaning" at 30 sites, although he acknowledged that they did not know what Iraq was moving at all of those sites. He also reported that computer hard drives had been inexplicably replaced at Iraqi weapons facilities and said that Hussein's son Qusay ordered the removal of banned weapons from his father's many palaces.
The amount of deduction in some of Powell's examples, some analysts said, detracted from the overall strength of his argument. "I love imagery," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official, "but I don't know what I saw."
But David Kay, the former chief U.N. nuclear inspector in Iraq, said Powell had effectively woven together information from human sources and intercepts.
In one conversation, an Iraqi general tells a subordinate to make sure a "modified vehicle" from the Al-Kindi factory in Mosul is removed before inspectors arrive the next day.
The conversation rings true, Kay said, because inspectors learned of a very similar exchange that preceded a visit to a facility in September 1991. The Iraqis failed to removed critical evidence in that case, however, leaving inspectors with a bonanza of documents on Iraq's nuclear program.
"My initial reaction was Yogi Berra's 'deja vu all over again,' " Kay said.
Arguing that Iraq has engaged in "a deliberate campaign to prevent any meaningful inspection work," Powell said that "many sources" corroborated information that Hussein participated directly in the effort to prevent inspectors from interviewing Iraqi weapons scientists. He said Hussein decreed that any scientist who agreed to leave Iraq to meet inspectors would be treated as a spy.
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Powell offers 'irrefutable' arms proof
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 6, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030206-50736184.htm
NEW YORK - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday provided intelligence photographs, audiotapes and a raft of other evidence in an attempt to convince a skeptical U.N. Security Council that Iraq is still developing weapons of mass destruction, in violation of U.N. resolutions.
Mr. Powell enumerated Baghdad's efforts to sanitize chemical arms storage bunkers, weaponize biological poisons, muzzle scientists with threats and detainment and brew weapons in mobile labs mounted inside trucks and rail cars.
"I believe that Iraq is now in further material breach of its obligations" to disarm, he said in a 78-minute address illustrated with visual aids. "I believe this conclusion is irrefutable and undeniable. Iraq has now placed itself in danger of the serious consequences called for in U.N. Resolution 1441."
Mr. Powell, citing new intellgence details, also sought to establish a link between Iraq and terror network al Qaeda.
As he made public a flood of information assembled through electronic means and defectors, CIA Director George J. Tenet and John D. Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, closely observed the proceedings sitting behind him.
The intelligence is based on "sources, solid sources," Mr. Powell said.
He said members of a group affiliated with Abu Musab Zarqawi, who has had contacts with al Qaeda, have been operating freely in Baghdad for eight months.
A senior defector, one of Saddam Hussein's former intelligence chiefs in Europe, says the Iraqi leader sent his agents to Afghanistan sometime in the mid-1990s to provide training to al Qaeda members on document forgery, according to Mr. Powell.
"From the late 1990s until 2001, the Iraqi Embassy in Pakistan played the role of liaison to the al Qaeda organization," he said.
France, Russia and China, all armed with a veto in the council, continued to show a deep reluctance to support the tough U.S. stance against Iraq.
Few of the dozen foreign ministers who had gathered at the United Nations - most for the second time in less than two weeks - departed from scripts that had been written, translated and photocopied before Mr. Powell spoke.
But the leaders of 10 Central and Eastern European countries issued a statement in support of the U.S. posture, similar to an opinion article by eight European heads of state and government that appeared in U.S. and European newspapers less than a week ago.
Mr. Powell attempted to build a convincing case against Baghdad and tried to show that complicity in its pattern of lies and evasions goes all the way to Saddam and includes high-ranking military figures and a vast intelligence network.
"I cannot tell you everything that we know, but what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling," he said.
"What you will see is an accumulation of facts and disturbing patterns of behavior. The facts on Iraq's behavior ... demonstrate that Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort, no effort to disarm as required by the international community."
Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed al-Douri, rejected Mr. Powell's presentation as "untruthful allegation."
But many council nations took the presentation as confirmation of the need for further work by U.N. weapons inspectors, whose chiefs - Hans Blix of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency - return to Baghdad this weekend.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, one of the most vocal opponents of war with Iraq, advocated beefing up the international effort.
"Let us double, let us triple the number of inspectors. Let us open more regional offices," he said yesterday. "Could we not, for example, set up a specialized body to keep under surveillance the sites and areas that have already been inspected? Let us very significantly reinforce the capacity for monitoring and collecting information in Iraq."
He thanked Mr. Powell for the presentation but noted that "no trace of chemical or biological agents has been detected by inspectors."
Asked later if he found any portion of the presentation compelling or credible, Mr. Villepin indicated that he was not convinced.
"In this matter, it is very difficult to have absolute proof," he told reporters. "We cannot base our opinions on suspicions, but need facts."
Even before Mr. Powell spoke, there were signs of a shift in opinion within the European Union, which has been divided on how to deal with Iraq. A statement issued by Greece, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said Resolution 1441 "gave Iraq a final opportunity to disarm peacefully. If it does not take this chance it will carry the responsibility for all the consequences."
There also were reports of growing pressure on France and Germany to drop their objections on a support role for NATO in any war in the Persian Gulf.
But Germany remained closely aligned with the French position yesterday, while British Foreign Minister Jack Straw and Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio expressed confidence in the material presented by Mr. Powell.
All council members urged more cooperation from Baghdad on the weapons inspections, and most repeated pleas to let the inspectors complete their tasks.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov refused to comment on the presentation.
"The information given to us today definitely will require serious and thorough study," he said. "Experts in our countries must immediately get down to analyzing it and drawing the appropriate conclusions from it." He said it also must be handed over to the inspectors for "direct, on-site verification."
Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, in a brief note, also advocated letting the inspectors work for as long as they deem it productive.
"Security Council members should decide together what to do next on the basis of inspections," he said. "As long as there is still the slightest hope for political settlement, we must pursue that."
With none of the foreign officials budging publicly from their prepared remarks, U.S. officials expressed hope that a marathon series of brief one-on-one meetings with Mr. Powell could help sway some of the ministers.
Mr. al-Douri repeated Baghdad's assertion that it has no weapons of mass destruction.
"The presentation was composed of unverifiable voice recordings, untruthful allegation, unnamed and unknown sources, imaginative diagrams and presumptions," he said.
"Programs of weapons of mass destruction are not an aspirin pill that can be easily hidden but rather require huge production facilities."
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Classified data make case
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 6, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030206-72170710.htm
U.S. intelligence intercepts on Iraq's efforts to hide banned weapons from the United Nations were the highlight yesterday of new information made public to bolster the Bush administration's case for military action to disarm Saddam Hussein.
In an extraordinary public display of intelligence data, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented to the U.N. Security Council highly classified communications intercepts, along with satellite photos of weapons facilities and information from defectors of Saddam's regime.
Mr. Powell also disclosed new intelligence details showing Iraq's support for al Qaeda terrorists, including a key figure who was involved in the recent murder of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan.
The intelligence made public is based on "sources, solid sources," Mr. Powell said during a meeting before a session of the U.N. Security Council in New York. CIA Director George J. Tenet sat behind Mr. Powell during the 83-minute briefing.
The information shows Iraq is in "further material breach" of U.N. Resolution 1441, which was unanimously passed by the Security Council in November. The resolution calls on Baghdad to disarm or face military action.
One key communications intercept revealed by Mr. Powell involved a conversation between an Iraqi colonel and a "Capt. Ibrahim" within the 2nd Corps of the Iraqi Republican Guard. The intercept showed how the officers discussed removing "the expression ... 'nerve agent' ... whenever it comes up ... in wireless communications."
Mr. Powell said the conversation showed "the senior officer is concerned that somebody might be listening."
"Well, somebody was," he said, noting that U.S. intelligence estimates Iraq has stockpiled between 100 tons and 500 tons of chemical weapons.
Mr. Powell also presented detailed intelligence showing an Iraqi government connection to international terrorists, including the al Qaeda network and Palestinian terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
"Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network, headed by Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda lieutenants," said Mr. Powell.
Al-Zarqawi ran a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan until the Taliban regime was ousted in November 2001. He recently "helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp ... located in northeastern Iraq," Mr. Powell said, providing the world body with a satellite photo of the camp.
"The network is teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons," he said.
Al-Zarqawi also was treated in Baghdad for wounds suffered in Afghanistan, and while he was in Iraq, some two dozen al Qaeda operatives set up a base of operations in that country starting in May, said Mr. Powell.
"These al Qaeda affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they've now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months," said Mr. Powell.
He also revealed that al Qaeda associates have been in regular contact with al-Zarqawi and had described Iraq as a "good place" for terrorist groups to maneuver.
Mr. Powell revealed that the murder in Jordan last year of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley was carried out by al Qaeda terrorists using funds and weapons provided by al-Zarqawi.
The electronic intercepts were the most dramatic evidence of Iraqi efforts to evade and deceive U.N. weapons inspectors.
One audiotape, gathered by the U.S. National Security Agency, recorded two Iraqi officers discussing the upcoming visit of Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"We have modified this vehicle," one Iraqi official says in the intercepted message. "What do we say if one of [the inspectors] sees it?"
The Iraqis then discuss the activities of the Al-Kindi Co., an Iraqi firm that Mr. Powell said is involved in Iraq's banned weapons programs.
The two Iraqis then have the following recorded exchange: "I'll come to see you in the morning. I'm worried you all have something left," one official says.
"We evacuated everything. We don't have anything left," the other official states.
The exchange recorded on Nov. 26 - one day prior to weapons inspectors entering Iraq - was used by Mr. Powell to show that Saddam is not cooperating with the latest round of U.N. inspections.
A second intercept on Jan. 30 overhears an Iraqi Republican Guard officer at his headquarters discussing with a field officer the visit of inspectors to search a site for banned weapons.
"Yes," the headquarters officer says. "And we sent you a message yesterday to clean out all of the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there. Remember the first message - evacuate it."
The use of electronic intercepts is rare and the disclosure was opposed by some officials in the CIA and NSA, U.S. officials said. The disclosure could jeopardize further gathering of such intercepts if the Iraqis take steps to prevent their communications from being overheard, such as using communications equipment with scramblers.
Mr. Powell told the Security Council during yesterday's presentation that the intercepts reveal Iraq's "policy of evasion and deception that goes back 12 years, a policy set at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime."
Saddam's chemical arsenal could fill at least 16,000 rockets that could cause mass casualties in an area five times the size of Manhattan, said Mr. Powell.
"And we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorized his field commanders to use them," Mr. Powell said. "He wouldn't be passing out the orders if he didn't have the weapons or the intent to use them."
Mr. Powell also revealed that Iraq has set up 18 truck-mounted "biological-agent factories" that can be used to make anthrax and ricin weapons. The trucks are designed to be hard to find, Mr. Powell said.
Additionally, the Iraqis have worked on dozens of biological weapons including poisons that cause gangrene, plague, typhus, tetanus, cholera, camel pox, hemorrhagic fever and smallpox.
"Just imagine trying to find 18 trucks among the thousands and thousands of trucks that travel the roads of Iraq every single day," said Mr. Powell.
Mr. Powell also documented Saddam's arsenal of chemical weapons. He said the Iraqis were shown to have produced tons of the deadly nerve agent VX, and a satellite photo from May showed weapons activity at a chemical-arms factory known as Al-Musayyib. The chemical weapons at the plant were confirmed by a human agent, said Mr. Powell.
On nuclear arms, Mr. Powell stated that an Iraqi defector revealed in 1995 that Saddam initiated a crash program to build a nuclear bomb. The focus toward building nuclear weapons has been to make or acquire enriched uranium to fuel a nuclear bomb.
A key element of Baghdad's nuclear weapons drive has been to buy special aluminum tubes used in centrifuges that can enrich uranium, Mr. Powell said, showing photographs of the tubes.
Most experts believe the tubes will be used for making nuclear weapons, but some believe they are for missiles, he said.
Mr. Powell also said that information existed that showed that steps were taken by Saddam's officials to remove banned weapons from the dictator's presidential palaces, as well as hiding them in private homes. He also said that files on weapons programs were placed into cars that were driven around the country by Iraqi agents to avoid being discovered by inspectors.
Also, a satellite photograph of Taji, a suburb north of Baghdad, showed 15 chemical-weapons bunkers, including four sites that are "active," Mr. Powell said.
He also suggested that Iraqi intelligence had learned in advance that U.N. weapons inspectors were planning to visit the Taji site and may have succeeded in planting agents inside the weapons-inspections teams.
Mr. Powell said U.S. intelligence discovered that the Iraqis began hiding missile components and biological weapons goods shortly before U.N. weapons inspectors were to search the facilities.
Mr. Powell also revealed the links between Iraq and the al Qaeda network. He said that members of al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence have met at least eight times since the 1990s. One captured al Qaeda member disclosed that Saddam became more interested in cooperating with al Qaeda after the group bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and the USS Cole in 2000.
"Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and al Qaeda together, enough so al Qaeda could learn how to build more sophisticated bombs and learn how to forge documents; and enough so that al Qaeda could turn to Iraq for help in acquiring expertise on weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Powell said.
Mr. Powell disclosed testimony from a captured senior al Qaeda leader who said bin Laden turned to Iraq for support in acquiring chemical and biological weapons. Baghdad provided poison gas training to al Qaeda operatives between 1997 and 2000, the secretary of state said.
----
In Their Words: The Security Council
February 6, 2003
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/international/middleeast/06CTEX.html
Following are excerpts from a meeting of the United Nations Security Council yesterday after the address by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, as recorded by Federal News Service Inc. A full transcript is online: nytimes.com/international.
FOREIGN MINISTER TANG JIAXUAN OF CHINA . . . The inspections have been going on for more than two months now. The two agencies have been working very hard and their work deserves our recognition. It is their view that now they are not in a position to draw conclusions, and they suggested continuing with the inspections. We should respect the views of the two agencies and support the continuation of their work.
We hope that the upcoming trip to Iraq by Chairman Blix and Director General ElBaradei on the 8th would yield positive results. The two agencies pointed out not long ago some problems in the inspections. We urge Iraq to adopt a more proactive approach, make further explanations and clarification as soon as possible and cooperate with the inspection process. . . .
It is the universal desire of the international community to see a political settlement to the issue of Iraq within the U.N. framework and avoid any war. This is something the Security Council must attach due importance to. As long as there is still the slightest hope for political settlement, we should exert our utmost effort to achieve that. China is ready to join others in working toward this direction. . . .
FOREIGN MINISTER JACK STRAW OF BRITAIN . . . Three months ago, we united to send Iraq an uncompromising message: Cooperate fully with weapons inspectors or face disarmament by force. After years of Iraqi deception, when resolutions were consistently flouted, Resolution 1441 was a powerful reminder of the importance of international law and of the authority of the Security Council itself. . . .
By Resolution 1441, we strengthened inspections massively. The only missing ingredient was full Iraqi compliance: immediate, full and active cooperation. The truth is, and we all know this, without that full and active cooperation, however strong the inspectors' powers, however good the inspectors, inspections in a country as huge as Iraq could never be sure of finding all Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Now, Mr. President, sadly, the inspectors' reports last week and Secretary Powell's presentation today can leave us under no illusions about Saddam Hussein's response. Saddam Hussein holds United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 in the same contempt as all previous resolutions in respect of Iraq. . . .
Paragraph 1 of 1441 said that Saddam was and remained in material breach of Security Council resolutions. Paragraph 4 of 1441 then set two clear tests for a further material breach by Iraq. First, that Iraq must not make false statements or omissions in his declaration. But the Iraqi document submitted to us on the 7th of December, as we've heard from Secretary Powell, was long on repetition but short on fact. It was neither full nor accurate nor complete. And by anyone's definition, it was a false statement. . . .
Paragraph 4 goes on to set a second test for a further material breach, namely, and I quote, "a failure by Iraq at any time to comply with and to cooperate fully in the implementation of Resolution 1441."
Following the presentation by the inspectors last week and today's briefing by Secretary Powell, it is clear that Iraq has failed this test. . . .
The United Nations' prewar predecessor, the League of Nations, had the same fine ideals as the United Nations, but the League failed because it could not create actions from its words; it could not back diplomacy with a credible threat, and where necessary, the use of force. So small evils went unchecked. Tyrants became emboldened. Then greater evils were unleashed. At each stage, good men said, "Wait, the evil is not big enough to challenge." Then, before their eyes, the evil became too big to challenge. We slipped slowly down a slope, never noticing how far we'd gone until it was too late. Mr. President, we owe it to our history, as well as to our future, not to make the same mistake again.
FOREIGN MINISTER IGOR S. IVANOV OF RUSSIA . . . We are convinced that maintaining the unity of the world community, primarily within the context of the U.N. Security Council, and our concerted action in strict compliance with the United Nations Charter and Security Council resolutions, are the most reliable way to resolve the problem of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq through political means. . . .
The information provided today by the U.S. secretary of state once again convincingly indicates the fact that the activities of the international inspectors in Iraq must be continued. They alone can provide an answer to the question to what extent is Iraq complying with the demands of the Security Council. They alone can help the Security Council work out and adopt carefully balanced, best possible decisions. . . .
Recently, when it comes to the Iraqi settlement, we often hear the phrase that "time is running out." Of course, Resolution 1441 is geared to speedily achieving practical results, but any concrete time frames are absent from it.
The inspectors alone can recommend to the Security Council how much time they need to carry out the tasks entrusted to them.
In this connection, we must not - we cannot rule out the possibility of the Security Council that at some stage it may need to adopt a new resolution and perhaps more than one resolution. . . .
The international community in the 21st century is confronting new global threats and challenges requiring a unified response from all states. A graphic example of this approach was the creation of the broad coalition which is combating the main, the most dangerous threat of our time - international terrorism. It is precisely because of the unity of the world community that initial success has been achieved in combating this scourge. . . . We are just at the beginning of a very difficult battle with terrorism and the information provided by the U.S. secretary of state about the activities of Al Qaeda is further corroboration of this fact. . . .
FOREIGN MINISTER DOMINIQUE DE VILLEPIN OF FRANCE . . . By unanimously adopting Resolution 1441, we chose to act through the inspections. This policy rests on three fundamental points: a clear objective, on which we cannot compromise, the disarmament of Iraq; a method, a rigorous system of inspections requiring of Iraq active cooperation and which affirms at each stage the central role of the Security Council; a requirement, finally, that of our unity, it gave full force to the message that we unanimously addressed to Baghdad. . . .
Regarding the chemical area, we have indications about a capacity to produce VX and mustard gas. In the biological area, the evidence suggests that there are significant stocks - there is the possible possession of significant stocks of anthrax and botulism toxins, and possibly a production capacity today. The absence of long-range delivery systems reduces the potential threat of these weapons. But we have disturbing indications about the continued determination of Iraq to acquire ballistic missiles with a range exceeding the authorized range of 150 kilometers.
In the nuclear area, we need to fully clarify any attempt by Iraq to acquire aluminum tubes. This is a démarche which is difficult, but it is anchored in Resolution 1441, which we should conduct together. If this approach fails and leads us to an impasse, we will not rule out any option, including, as a last resort, the use of force, as we have said all along. But in this kind of scenario, several responses must be clearly given to all governments and all peoples of the world in order to limit uncertainty. To what extent do the nature and scope of the threat justify use of force? How can we see to it that the considerable risks of this kind of intervention can truly be kept under control? This clearly requires a collective démarche of responsibility by the international community. . . .
For now, the inspections regime, favored by Resolution 1441, must be strengthened, since it has not been completely explored. The use of force can only be a final recourse. Why go to war if there still exists some unused space in Resolution 1441? Consistent with the logic of this resolution, we must move on to a new stage and further strengthen the inspections. Given the choice between military intervention and an inspections regime that is inadequate because of a failure to operate on Iraq's part, we must choose the decisive reinforcement of the means of inspection. And this is today what France is proposing. . . .
----
Iraq Denounces U.S. 'Stunts'
Powell Presentation Proves Nothing, Hussein Adviser Asserts
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31743-2003Feb5?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 5 -- Saddam Hussein's government tonight dismissed the tape recordings, satellite photos and other evidence Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented to the U.N. Security Council as "stunts and special effects" aimed at undermining the work of arms inspectors and pressuring other nations to support a U.S.-led military invasion.
Gen. Amir Saadi, Hussein's top adviser on weapons issues, called Powell's pronouncements "a typical American show" and argued that the U.S. government instead should have given its evidence to the U.N. inspectors, who could have verified the accuracy of the material.
"What we heard today was for the general public and mainly for the uninformed in order to influence their opinion and to commit the aggression on Iraq," Saadi said at a news conference convened less than two hours after Powell finished delivering evidence that he said led to the "irrefutable and undeniable" conclusion that Iraq was in "further material breach" of U.N. demands to disarm.
Saadi, an articulate, British-trained chemist, offered no new evidence to refute Powell's detailed presentation. Instead, he responded with tart rhetoric, attacking Powell's various allegations as untruths, exaggerations and fabrications.
Although Iraq betrayed no hint tonight of what action, if any, it might take in response, the Security Council session appeared to increase pressure on Hussein to accede to at least some of the weapons inspectors' demands. The two chief inspectors, who plan to travel here this weekend for meetings with government officials, want Iraq to ensure that its scientists consent to private interviews, to guarantee the safety of U-2 surveillance flights and to provide more information about its past weapons programs.
In the news conference, Saadi scoffed at tapes of what Powell said were intercepted phone conversations between Iraqi military officers. In one of the tapes, the officers were purported to be talking about removing a reference to nerve agents from written instructions.
"From what we've heard, any third-rate intelligence outfit could produce such a recording. . . . It is simply untrue and not genuine," Saadi said.
He maintained that satellite photographs Powell showed the council to allege that Iraq had recently moved stocks of chemical weapons "prove nothing." He said the inspectors had visited the site in question and found no indication of suspicious activity.
"Everything was explained, and it's in their reports," Saadi said. "It's unfounded."
In a brief statement read to reporters before Saadi's news conference, Iraq's information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahaf, dismissed the satellite images as "no more than cartoon films."
Saadi said he would present a more detailed refutation of Powell's presentation on Thursday evening in Baghdad. A senior Information Ministry official said Foreign Minister Naji Sabri would send a formal response to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and each of the 15 nations on the Security Council.
Powell's presentation was not broadcast here on television, which is controlled by the government. The main state-run channel instead aired an interview Hussein gave recently to a former member of the British Parliament in which the Iraqi leader denied that his government possessed weapons of mass destruction or had links to the al Qaeda terrorist organization.
Powell argued that Iraq had engaged in an extensive effort to hide suspicious and incriminating material from inspectors. He alleged that computer hard drives at weapons sites had been replaced and "numerous human sources" had reported that biological and chemical weapons had been scattered in remote locations.
But Saadi noted that the inspectors had searched many of the locations mentioned by Powell and had not uncovered evidence of banned arms. He called Powell's comments "a deliberate attempt to undermine the credibility and professionalism of the inspection bodies . . . by making allegations that directly contradict their assessments or cast doubt on their credibility."
Saadi said Powell's statements about the biological and chemical warfare agents Iraq produced before the 1991 Persian Gulf War "exaggerated their volume and significance." Powell asserted that Iraq manufactured vast quantities of anthrax bacteria and VX nerve agent and has failed to produce sufficient evidence to support claims that it destroyed those products. Iraqi officials have insisted that the anthrax and VX the country produced in the 1980s were not refined enough to remain potent for more than a few years.
Saadi said Powell was lying when he said Hussein had created a high-level committee to obstruct the work of the inspectors. Powell said the group includes Saadi, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan and one of Hussein's two sons, Qusay Hussein.
Powell also made special mention of Saadi, saying his job "is not to cooperate, it is to deceive" the inspectors.
Saadi lashed out at that contention as "absolute nonsense" and "simply untrue." He said he received an order from the president to "tell everything as it is."
-------- korea
U.S. has 'robust plans' if N.Korea attacks
By Richard Tomkins
UPI White House Correspondent
February 6, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030206-044826-1827r.htm
WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- The White House Thursday dismissed North Korea's threat of "pre-emptive" war against the United States, saying it was prepared with "robust plans for any contingencies."
"We've heard much talk from North Korea before," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. "Obviously the United States is very prepared with robust plans for any contingencies."
An official from North Korea's Foreign Ministry told Britain's Guardian newspaper Pyongyang reserved the right to launch a pre-emptive attack against Washington.
"The United States says that after Iraq, we are next," Ri Pyong-gap, deputy director at the ministry, said. "But we have our own countermeasures. Pre-emptive attacks are not the exclusive right of the U.S."
Earlier Thursday, North Korea warned that if the United States attacked a nuclear facility, reopened a day earlier, the result would be disaster to Koreans on both sides of the peninsula.
"If the United States launches a surprise attack on our peaceful nuclear facilities, it will spark a full-scale war," said Rodong Sinmun, North Korea's state-run newspaper. "A U.S. attack will lead to a nuclear war. All Koreans not only in the North but also in the South will become a victim of the war."
North Korea Wednesday said it had restarted a nuclear reactor that could be used to make radioactive materials for weapons. Fleischer dismissed Pyongyang's war talk.
"This type of talk and the type of actions North Korea has engaged in and ... is engaging in only hurt North Korea and further isolate the North Korean people from the modern world," he said. "...We will always have contingency plans."
He said Washington was working with Japan, South Korea and China to ease the tensions with Pyongyang.
South Korea said it was deeply concerned about the escalating nuclear standoff but said the North's move did not necessarily mean it would go nuclear.
North Korea said its reactor operations were proceeding "on a normal footing."
"The DPRK (North Korea) is now putting the operation of its nuclear facilities for the production of electricity on a normal footing after their restart," a foreign ministry spokesman said.
Officials in Seoul said they could not confirm the restart of North Korea's nuclear facilities and added the Wednesday announcement may have been a move by Pyongyang to draw Washington's attention as the United States stepped up war preparations against Iraq.
Pyongyang's state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted the foreign ministry spokesman as saying that North Korea "solemnly" stated that its nuclear activity would be limited to peaceful purposes, including the production of electricity "at the present stage."
North Korea said its atomic facilities would be used to produce electricity, insisting its resumption of nuclear activity was a consequence of the U.S. decision to cease shipments of heavy fuel oil to the country.
But nuclear analysts say 5-megawatt reactors at a nuclear plant in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, are too small to generate much electricity. They fear that North Korea's move is part of efforts to producing weapons-grade plutonium. Confirmation of those concerns would come if and when North Korea restarts is refining facility at Yongbyon.
In 1994 North Korea shut down the Yongbyon site and halted construction on two larger reactors of 50 and 200 megawatts as part of a U.S.-brokered deal to build two light-water reactors, which do not produce plutonium to refine for nuclear weapons, at international expense.
In Seoul, President Kim Dae-jung again urged Pyongyang to drop its nuclear ambitions and accept international nuclear inspectors "for the sake of peaceful co-existence of both Koreas."
A Foreign Ministry official told United Press International that "the text of the North Korean report looks more like language saying it was about to restart the facility, rather than they had actually restarted it."
But the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the possibility is high that North Korea will eventually move to reactivate the nuclear facility if indeed they have not already.
The North's announcement came less than five days after U.S. officials said American satellite surveillance had shown North Korea was moving fuel rods around the Yongbyon reactor complex. It came the same day U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell made a dramatic presentation before the United Nations Security Council about Iraq and its violations of disarmament agreements.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is to meet next Wednesday to discuss the nuclear standoff. Officials said IAEA's 35-nation board of governors are almost certain to send the dispute to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions. North Korea has said any sanctions on it would be tantamount to a declaration of war.
North Korea said it would no longer recognize the Security Council if it decides sanction Pyongyang.
(With Jong-Heon Lee in Seoul, South Korea)
----
Reactor Restarted, North Korea Says
Plutonium Could Be Used for Bombs
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A31
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31745-2003Feb5?language=printer
SEOUL, Feb. 5 -- North Korea said today it had carried out its vow to restart a small nuclear power plant that U.S. officials suspect will be used to produce plutonium for weapons.
In an announcement carried by its state-run news agency, North Korea said the plant had resumed "normal footing" operation. The government earlier evicted international inspectors who had watched the plant since it was closed under an agreement with the United States in 1994.
Today's move was another sign of defiance by the government in the capital, Pyongyang, which has reacted to pressure from the Bush administration by declaring itself the first nation to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and resuming work that foreign analysts say is aimed at developing nuclear weapons.
"We are now increasingly on a slippery slope away from negotiations and toward potential confrontation," said C. Kenneth Quinones, a former State Department specialist who helped oversee the plant's closing in 1994.
"I don't see anything being put in place to slow that process," he said today in a telephone interview from Virginia. "Pyongyang is certainly not slowing it. And the Bush administration right now is in a very hard-nosed stance."
The North Korean statement said the small research plant at Yongbyon, 55 miles north of the capital, would produce electricity for the power-starved nation. But experts say the five-megawatt plant is not large enough to provide any meaningful electrical power.
By their account, its main purpose would be to irradiate natural uranium rods to produce plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons. Experts say it would take about one year of operation for the small plant to produce enough fuel for a bomb of the size dropped on Hiroshima.
More immediately worrisome for the analysts is the disposition of about 8,000 fuel rods produced when the nuclear plant was operating and stored at the site since it was closed. That material can be processed at a reopened plant nearby into weapons-grade fuel in two to four weeks, nuclear experts said. U.S. officials said last week that satellite reconnaissance has observed North Korean trucks that may have been moving the fuel rods from a storage pool to the eight-story reprocessing plant a half-mile away. There has been no confirmation that reprocessing has begun, which Quinones said would be "a red line" for the United States that might bring "forceful action."
Nancy Beck, a State Department spokeswoman, said the North Korean reports, if true, would be a serious development that would only serve to further Pyongyang's "international self-isolation." She said the administration called on North Korea to "reverse this action and other steps it has taken in violation of its international commitments."
North and South Korea, which have slowly upgraded their ties since the 1994 agreement, marked another milestone today when construction officials inspected a new road leading across the Demilitarized Zone, which has separated the peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
The road is only the second route for overland passage -- the other is at the Panmunjom truce village in the DMZ where delegates from North and South have periodically met for talks. The new road stretches 18 miles over the DMZ along its easternmost section and connects the South to Mount Kumgang, a historic scenic destination in North Korea.
Later this month, the road is scheduled to open to carefully monitored trips by South Korean tourists, who now must take a lengthy trip by ferry to reach the resort.
While South and North Korea take reconciliatory steps, the Japanese government is considering sending two destroyers equipped with the Aegis air defense system to the Sea of Japan to watch for North Korean missile launches, Kyodo news service reported.
The report said Japan is becoming convinced that the communist state may resume test-firing ballistic missiles as part of brinkmanship diplomacy in the nuclear impasse. Deploying the destroyers would be an unusual show of military activity by Japan.
Staff writer Peter Slevin in Washington contributed to this report.
----
US Says N.Korea Atomic Reactor Restart 'Dangerous'
February 6, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-korea-north.html
WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea says it has restarted -- or is poised to restart -- the atomic plant at the heart of its suspected nuclear arms program, a move Washington called dangerous but no cause to abandon diplomacy.
The latest twist in a crisis that began in October came in an English-language North Korean Foreign Ministry statement late on Wednesday, indicating the reactor had been started to generate electricity for the energy-starved communist country.
In a separate development, Britain's Guardian newspaper cited a warning from a senior Foreign Ministry official in Pyongyang that North Korea might strike U.S. forces pre-emptively rather than wait for an American attack.
``The United States says that after Iraq, we are next,'' the Guardian Web site quoted ministry deputy director Ri Pyong-gap as saying on Wednesday. ``But we have our own countermeasures. Pre-emptive attacks are not the exclusive right of the U.S,'' said Ri, according to the Guardian.
The North's ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun ratcheted up the rhetoric even further, vowing in a commentary that ``when the U.S. makes a surprise attack on our peaceful nuclear facilities it will spark off a total war.''
The Foreign Ministry statement on the reactor, carried overnight by KCNA, said: ``The DPRK (North Korea) is now putting the operation of its nuclear facilities for the production of electricity on a normal footing after their restart.''
U.S. ambassador to South Korea Thomas Hubbard said he had no confirmation about the state of the reactor in Yongbyon.
An unnamed South Korean official told the South's Yonhap news agency the North's statement was less clear in Korean and could be taken to mean ``poised to restart.''
Daniel Pinkston of the Monterey Institute of International Studies had a similar assessment. He said he would be shocked if the Yongbyon reactor was already up and running.
``What they are saying is that they are in the process of normalizing, of restarting operations. It could be very soon now,'' he said by telephone. ``It's just a matter of time.''
Nuclear experts say the reactor, with just five megawatts of capacity, is too small to generate much power but could produce weapons-grade plutonium for nuclear weapons.
WORRISOME THING
While officials pondered the semantics and regional powers expressed concern, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said bellicose bluster was nothing new from Pyongyang and the United States had no intention of overreacting and abandoning diplomacy.
``(Saber)-rattling statements coming out of North Korea are not new,'' he told reporters. ``Obviously the United States is very prepared for robust plans for any contingencies. But this type of talk and the type of actions North Korea has engaged in or says it's engaging in only hurt North Korea.''
President Bush believes the best way is to join with Japan, South Korea, Russia and China and resolve the situation through diplomacy, Fleischer said.
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Colin Powell said no options had been taken off the table, including the military option, ``although we have no intention of attacking North Korea as a nation ... or invading North Korea.''
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday called North Korea's latest move dangerous and said U.S. forces were ready to confront the ``terrorist regime'' if necessary.
He told a congressional committee U.S. forces could respond if needed despite preparations for possible war with Iraq. The United States has 37,000 troops stationed in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea.
The news that North Korea had raised the temperature of the nuclear crisis drove South Korea's benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index to close down 1.86 percent at 589.50 on Thursday, its third day-to-day decline in a row.
``Investors are worried that the situation may lead to an extreme level as Washington and Pyongyang continue to stand off while Seoul is not properly doing its job as a mediator,'' said Oh Hyun-seok, an analyst at Hyundai Securities.
Japan's Kyodo news agency, quoting government sources, said Japan might deploy two destroyers to detect any missile test launches by the North. Unnamed U.S. officials have also said U.S. aircraft and ships could be deployed if needed.
Officials in the South Korean capital, Seoul, declined to comment on the North's reactor announcement. Seoul is an hour's drive from the heavily fortified DMZ that bisects the peninsula and is within range of 11,000 North Korean artillery pieces.
LIMITED U.S. OPTIONS
``We are all aware that North Korea has the capability to devastate Seoul and neighboring areas through conventional weapons alone,'' Ambassador Hubbard said, repeating that Washington had no intention of attacking the North.
A year ago President Bush bracketed North Korea with Iran and Iraq in an ``axis of evil.''
Washington said in October Pyongyang had admitted to enriching uranium in violation of a 1994 accord, under which the North froze its nuclear program in exchange for two electricity-generating reactors and free fuel.
Since December, North Korea has expelled International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, withdrawn from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, restarted the mothballed Yongbyon complex and threatened to resume missile tests.
U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said North Korea was ``very far along'' in its nuclear program. ``It does begin to limit your options,'' she told ABC's Nightline news program, adding that a diplomatic solution remained possible.
Five days ago, U.S. officials said satellite surveillance had shown North Korea was moving fuel rods around the Yongbyon reactor complex, including possibly some of the 8,000 spent fuel rods experts consider a key step in building bombs.
But the U.S. officials added that there was no sign crucial reprocessing of those spent rods had begun -- a step that would enable North Korea to begin bomb-making in weeks, adding to the arsenal of two bombs the West suspects it has already built.
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said that, without inspectors in North Korea, the IAEA could not certify any alleged activity. The IAEA is considering handing the nuclear crisis to the U.N. Security Council.
Powell pointed out that while North Korea has said it would restart a nuclear reactor, traffic began moving on Wednesday between North and South Korea through one of the openings in the DMZ, something ``we have been working to achieve and to get worked out between the two sides.''
--------
U.S. Says It's Ready After N.Korea Warns of Attack
February 6, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-korea-north.html
SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said it was ready for any contingency after North Korea issued threats of pre-emptive attack and suggested it may have restarted an atomic reactor central to its suspected drive for nuclear arms.
But as Washington warned Pyongyang it was only isolating itself with its saber-rattling, there were growing signs the United States was moving toward talks over the second nuclear crisis provoked by the communist state in a decade.
North Korea's state media issued a barrage of bellicose statements on Thursday and a senior communist official told British reporters in Pyongyang that ``pre-emptive attacks are not the exclusive right of the U.S..''
The North's ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun vowed that ``when the U.S. makes a surprise attack on our peaceful nuclear facilities it will spark off a total war.''
Those North Korean threats followed a statement from the energy-starved communist country's foreign ministry late on Wednesday, indicating it had restarted a reactor it is thought to have used in the past to produce plutonium for weapons.
Washington said the developments were dangerous but no reason to abandon diplomacy to resolve the four-month-old crisis.
``Obviously the United States is very prepared for robust plans for any contingencies,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters, adding that President Bush ``believes that diplomacy is the way to handle the situation.''
U.S. SEEKS ``COMPLETE SOLUTION''
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Colin Powell said a diplomatic solution was possible. ``We have tried to lower the rhetoric.''
Powell said no options had been taken off the table, including the military option ``although we have no intention of attacking North Korea as a nation ... or invading North Korea.''
But Bush and his senior foreign policy aides say they are looking for a diplomatic solution, working through U.S. allies in the region as well as China and Russia.
North Korea, however, insists the nuclear issue can only be settled in direct negotiations with the United States.
Powell said South Korea had asked the United States to do more to resolve the confrontation with the North.
``We are prepared to do more, but at the same time we have to find a complete solution to this problem'' so it doesn't reoccur three or four years from now, Powell said.
Washington says it is willing to talk to Pyongyang about dismantling nuclear programs that include a uranium enrichment plant and a nuclear complex capable of producing plutonium.
The United States said in October North Korea had admitted to enriching uranium in violation of a 1994 accord, under which the North froze its nuclear program in exchange for two electricity-generating reactors and free fuel.
Since December, North Korea has expelled International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, withdrawn from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, restarted the mothballed Yongbyon complex and threatened to resume missile tests.
Last week, U.S. officials said satellite surveillance had shown North Korea was moving fuel rods around the Yongbyon reactor complex, including possibly some of the 8,000 spent fuel rods experts consider a key step in building bombs.
But the U.S. officials added that there was no sign crucial reprocessing of those spent rods had begun -- a step that would enable North Korea to begin bomb-making in weeks, adding to the arsenal of two bombs the West suspects it has already built.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog will meet in Vienna on February 12 and is expected to refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council.
-------- missile defense
Bill gives airliners a missile defense
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
February 6, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20030206-16875680.htm
Lawmakers yesterday introduced legislation to fit civilian aircraft with anti-missile protection similar to that used on military transport planes to protect them from terror attacks like that against an Israeli jetliner last year. "Shoulder-fired missiles are a serious threat to our airlines, our economy, and the personal safety of every American airline passenger," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, California Democrat and a sponsor of the bill. Mrs. Boxer, toting a shoulder-fired missile launcher, said available systems installed on U.S. C17s and C5As can identify when a plane is threatened, detect the source of the threat, jam the guidance system of the incoming missiles and steer it off its flight path. The bill would require surface-to-air missile protection on all 6,800 commercial jetliners, at an estimated cost of between $7 billion to $10 billion and require that installation begin by the end of the year. "This is a relatively small cost to address a very big threat," said Mrs. Boxer, adding that the money could come from the administration's missile-defense budget. Until the installation began, the bill would direct President Bush to use the U.S. National Guard and U.S. Coast Guard to patrol airport perimeters to prevent attacks by shoulder-fired missiles. On the morning of Nov. 28, two shoulder-launched missiles narrowly missed a packed Israeli charter flight carrying 261 passengers that had taken off minutes before from Mombassa, Kenya.
-------- terrorism
U.S.-Russia Atomic Arms Pact Wins Senate Panel's Backing
February 6, 2003
New York Times
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/international/europe/06MOSC.html
WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 - The Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously endorsed a treaty today that obliges the United States and Russia to cut their strategic nuclear arsenals by two-thirds over the next 10 years, granting President Bush a long-delayed foreign policy victory.
The 19-to-0 vote sends the treaty, which was signed by Mr. Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow last May, to the Republican-controlled Senate, which is expected to approve it later this month.
Along with the administration's withdrawal last year from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 and its decision to build a missile defense system, the arms reduction accord is a centerpiece of Mr. Bush's efforts to redefine American-Russian relations.
The pact, known as the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, will reduce Russia's and America's deployed nuclear arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads, from about 6,000 each.
Mr. Bush has argued that the two countries are no longer enemies and therefore no longer need cumbersome treaties involving detailed verification programs to keep their nuclear arsenals in check. Mr. Bush vowed to cut the American arsenal even if Russia did not match the reductions.
But Russia did agree to cuts, provided that they were enshrined in a treaty. The result was an extraordinarily simple three-page pact that gives both countries wide latitude about how and when they dispose of their warheads, just as Mr. Bush insisted. The Start I treaty signed by President Bush's father and President Mikhail S. Gorbachev of the Soviet Union in 1991 ran more than 700 pages.
The new accord does not require the actual destruction of the warheads. Instead it allows both sides to keep the weapons in storage, so they can be reactivated and reinstalled on missiles or bombers on relatively short notice.
The Pentagon has said it intends to keep a bit more than 2,000 warheads on "active reserve," in case of new nuclear threats, and nearly 5,000 inactive weapons that would take longer to redeploy.
Unlike past arms control pacts, the treaty does not set out a timetable for cuts, requiring only that the total number of strategic weapons does not exceed 2,200 on Dec. 31, 2012. The treaty expires on that day if the two sides do not choose to renew it.
In addition, both countries reserve the right to terminate the agreement on three months' notice, half the notification period of most previous arms control treaties.
"The Moscow Treaty recognizes that the U.S.-Russian relationship has turned the corner," said Senator Richard Lugar, the Indiana Republican who is the Foreign Relations Committee chairman. "Our countries are no longer mortal enemies engaged in a worldwide cold war. Our agreements need not be based on mutual suspicion or an adversarial relationship."
Though the treaty's approval has never been seriously in doubt, Democrats had held up its approval last fall, when they still controlled the Senate. Republicans accused them of seeking to deny Mr. Bush a legislative triumph before the November elections, but they insisted that they merely wanted to strengthen some of the treaty's provisions.
In fact, the resolution that gained committee approval today does include several provisions intended to expand the treaty's reach.
Those include conditions requiring the administration to send to Congress annual reports describing progress toward weapons reductions in both countries and outlining the status of programs to help Russia dispose of its weapons.
The resolution also includes six nonbinding declarations that urge the administration, among other things, to make cuts as quickly as possible and to assist the Russians in securing their nonstrategic nuclear weapons.
But Democrats and many arms control groups still criticized the treaty as too bare-boned. They said it would have been far more effective if it had included procedures for verifying reductions, required the destruction of weapons and placed more weapons on low-alert status.
"This treaty doesn't do anything," said Christopher Paine, a senior analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which will fight against ratification.
Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, accused the administration of "lofty rhetoric and little real accomplishment," and questioned whether Russia could effectively safeguard its arsenal. But he voted to send the treaty to the Senate floor.
Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said the treaty should be followed with more stringent follow-up accords. And Senator Russell D. Feingold, a Democrat from Wisconsin, said he would offer an amendment to the treaty requiring Senate authorization before a president can withdraw from it.
-------- treaties
Moscow Treaty May Not Reduce Weapons
WASHINGTON, DC,
February 6, 2003
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2003/2003-02-06-09.asp#anchor3
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved a treaty between the U.S. and Russia aimed at reducing both nations' stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
Critics of the Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions say it has "serious flaws," and would allow both nations to maintain massive numbers of weapons while removing only the oldest and most obsolete.
According to the administration's own "article-by-article analysis," submitted with the treaty, the effective date of the treaty's only constraint - a reduction in "operationally deployed strategic" weapons that must occur "by December 31, 2012,"- lags by just a microsecond the expiration of the overall treaty, which remains in force only "until December 31, 2012."
The treaty's advertised "two-thirds" reduction in deployed strategic arsenals thus never enters into legal force and effect. "The only substantive provision in the treaty is a sham," warns Christopher Paine, a senior analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
The Moscow Treaty does not require the governments to meet any interim milestones for implementing reductions and assessing compliance, Paine noted. According to the administration's article by article analysis, "prior to December 31, 2012 each Party is free to maintain whatever level of strategic nuclear warheads it deems appropriate."
"This same freedom obviously exists on or after December 31, 2012, but for a different reason - the treaty expires before compliance with the phantom reductions provision can even be assessed," Paine said.
The treaty's voluntary limit on operationally deployed strategic weapons excludes strategic nuclear systems that are being overhauled, but the treaty contains no corresponding cap on the number of deployed warheads that may be claimed to be in overhaul at any given time. The result is that the 1,700 to 2,200 warhead limit, even if voluntarily observed by each side, is also reversible.
The treaty lacks verification and inspection provisions of any kind, and does not mandate the elimination of a single nuclear missile silo, submarine, missile, warhead, bomber or bomb. It allows unlimited production and deployment of new nuclear warheads and delivery systems, both tactical and strategic.
"It even lacks an agreed definition between the parties of what, if anything, is being 'reduced'," Paine added.
Under the Moscow Treaty, in 2013, the U.S. president would still command a nuclear force consisting of:
- 954 strategic launchers;
- 3,000 "operational" strategic and "substrategic" nuclear weapons;
- 2,100 "active reserve" nuclear weapons ready for re-deployment;
- 4,900 intact but "inactive" reserve weapons (i.e. not ready for immediate deployment);
- nuclear components for some 5,000 additional weapons;
- an aggregate potential for 15,000 weapons.
Under the Moscow Treaty, the Bush administration is planning to maintain "enhanced readiness" to resume nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site, and senior officials are contemplating the possibility of resuming nuclear test explosions within the decade.
President George W. Bush, who negotiated the treaty with Russian President Vladimir Putin last May, welcomed the unanimous vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in favor of the pact, and urged to full Senate to move forward on the resolution "at its earliest opportunity."
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Nuclear weapons on the table in a Iraqi war
By LANCE GAY
February 6, 2003
Knoxville News
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/world/article/0,1406,KNS_351_1727182,00.html
The Bush administration won't take nuclear weapons off the table as military planners sketch out a war in Iraq and weigh whether Saddam Hussein would likely lash back with chemical or biological weapons if cornered.
In a policy publicly unveiled in December, the White House said America's strategy is to consider all options against any use of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons on American troops or U.S. allies.
"The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force - including through resort to all of our options - to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, or forces abroad, and friends and allies," it says.
Critics say the new policy removes nuclear weapons from their special classification, and makes the Pentagon consider wider use of them. The Pentagon has already studied the possibility of using low-yield nuclear bombs to destroy underground bunkers or buried stockpiles or chemical or biological weapons.
In a report sent to Congress last year, the military concluded that new generations of laser-guided conventional weapons were so accurate they could do a better bunker-busting job than nuclear weapons, which aren't as accurate. Furthermore, nuclear explosions could create so much damage they might spread chemical or biological weapons to surrounding civilian areas, and make it more difficult to clean up contaminated areas once the war is over, the military concluded.
Some military analysts say the Bush administration is forcing a shift in how the military would use nuclear weapons.
"There is a greater willingness to entertain a nuclear response," said Michael Levi, deputy director of the strategic security project at the American Federation of Scientists. Levi contended that it's possible under the new doctrine that the U.S. military could respond to a chemical weapons attack with nuclear weapons, although he expects that any decision would hinge on how many people were killed in an Iraqi attack.
President Bush said Thursday that Saddam recently authorized his troops to use chemical weapons. "Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons, the very weapons the dictator tells the world he does not have," Bush said in a statement at the White House.
Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, and also has used the weapons against Iraqi Kurds. But he did not use them during the Persian Gulf War, or install chemical weapons on Scud missiles he sent to Israel.
Levi said he expects Saddam will use chemical weapons, both against U.S troops and Israel, this time. "It is difficult to deter someone who has nothing to lose," he said.
Francois Boo, an analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington think tank, said a new war with Iraq would be different because President Bush has repeatedly declared his intention this time to depose Saddam and his regime. U.N. weapons inspectors say they have not yet had an accounting for vast stocks of VX nerve gas, chemicals used to make mustard gas, or stockpiles of anthrax that Iraq has hidden.
"The restrictions are gone, and he will try to create as many casualties as possible," Boo said. Boo said he also expects Saddam would order the use of chemical weapons in a last-ditch effort to blunt an American attack.
But responding to a chemical attack with nuclear weapons "would cause more harm than good," and would send a message to other countries that the nuclear threshold has been lowered. "It's very unlikely we would turn Iraq into a giant glass bowl," he said.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said using nuclear weapons in Iraq would also cause a backlash against the United States in the Arab world, and be a recruiting tool for terrorists. "Our nation, long a beacon of hope, would overnight be seen as a symbol of death, destruction and aggression."
The Pentagon says it is prepared for a chemical and biological attack, and is equipping the military forces with new protective gear. But a recent investigation by the congressional General Accounting Office found the military lost track of 250,000 suits that were defective, and found that troops weren't properly trained in how to wear the new suits while fighting.
One thing has been ruled out: the United States would not respond to Iraqi use of chemical weapons by using chemical or biological weapons itself. The United States signed a treaty promising never to use chemical weapons, and the Pentagon has been destroying the weapons stockpiles built up during the Cold War.
Analysts say the threat that Saddam will unleash chemical weapons will alter the U.S. military strategy in the opening hours of any war, as the Pentagon will use electronic warfare and bombs to try and prevent Saddam and his inner circle from issuing orders to Iraqi troops.
Stephen Bryen, who worked as a deputy undersecretary of defense in the Reagan administration, said that Iraq's military forces are well-trained in using chemical weapons, but have no guidance on precautions needed to safely handle biological weapons like anthrax.
Although U.S. troops are inoculated against anthrax, Iraqi defectors say they do not get inoculations against the bacteria in Baghdad. Bryen said that during the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq used chemical weapons mixed with biological agents, which complicated Iranian efforts to clean up after an attack.
On the Net:
www.whitehouse.gov
www.globalsecurity.org
(Contact Lance Gay at gayl(at)shns.com or visit SHNS on the Web at http://www.shns.com.)
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new york
Indian Point Safety
February 6, 2003
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/L06INDI.html
To the Editor:
Re "To All the Nuclear Fears Swirling Around Indian Point Plant, Add Fear Itself" (news analysis, Feb. 2):
The most damning information supporting the need to close Indian Point has come from within its own walls.
An internal report by Entergy Corporation, the plant's owner, showed that 81 percent of the guard force believed that they could not adequately defend the plant against a terrorist attack.
This greatly increases the likelihood that the public might actually be forced to use the emergency plans deemed inadequate by James Lee Witt, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Ignoring information about safety at and around Indian Point is the worst misuse of information related to this nuclear plant. I hope that FEMA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission take a realistic approach in the certification process for emergency plans for Indian Point by considering all relevant information.
NITA M. LOWEY
Member of Congress, 18th Dist., N.Y.
Washington, Feb. 5, 2003
-------- washington
Washington state nuclear alert deemed false alarm
Thursday, February 06, 2003
By Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-02-06/s_2527.asp
RICHLAND, Wash. -- Emergency crews found no evidence of radiation leaks at the nation's largest nuclear dump Wednesday after a false alarm triggered evacuations and a lock-down of hundreds of employees, spokespersons for the site said.
The alarm went off in an area of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation where spent reactor fuel is stored in liquid-filled basins overseen by the U.S. Department of Energy and a team of private contractors led by California-based Fluor Corp.
"All indications that we have right now is that this was a false alarm. We are still waiting for some survey information to come back, but all reports are negative so far," said Kim Ballinger, spokeswoman for the site.
Emergency workers blamed "instrument malfunction" for the alarm, which is designed to warn of any airborne radiation release at the Hanford site in rural Eastern Washington state near Richland.
As a precaution, officials briefly evacuated a 20-mile stretch of the nearby Columbia River, which contains no towns or significant settlements. Hundreds of plant workers were quarantined until they could be screened for contamination.
The complex produced plutonium for the nation's first atomic bombs under the Manhattan Project 60 years ago and has stored a variety of nuclear waste since then.
-------- us politics
Powell Sees Mideast Reshaped After Iraq War
Thu February 6, 2003
By Jonathan Wright and Vicki Allen
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=2184071
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday overthrowing the Iraqi government could reshape the Middle East in ways that enhance U.S. interests, and that the confrontation with Iraq should start to come to a head in a matter of days.
Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that attacking Iraq could cause "some difficulties" for the United States in other areas in the Middle East during the conflict and in the months immediately after a war.
But he added, "I think there is also the possibility that success could fundamentally reshape that region in a powerful, positive way that will enhance U.S. interests, especially if in the aftermath of such a conflict, we are also able to achieve progress on the Middle East peace."
The Bush administration has usually confined its argument for attacking Iraq to the alleged threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the possibility that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government could pass them on to extremists hostile to the United States.
But Powell said Washington's problem with Iraq was not just over Iraqi cooperation with the United Nations in giving up any weapons of mass destruction it might have, but also with threats it poses to its neighbors.
Appearing before the committee the day after his dramatic presentation to the United Nations on alleged Iraqi weapons violations, Powell said he thought the showdown with Iraq "will start to come to a head" when top U.N. weapons inspectors return next week from a trip to Baghdad and report to the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 14.
From that, he said it should be apparent "if there's any chance of serious progress, and not just progress on process, but a serious change of attitude," in Baghdad on the inspections.
"I think we are reaching an endgame in a matter of weeks, not a matter of months," he added.
While France continued to signal it would not be easily moved into backing a war with Iraq, Powell insisted to the committee that his U.N. presentation was starting to sway allies.
"Later in the day when I spoke to each and every one of them and they heard what I said there was some shift in attitude ... that suggested more and more nations are realizing that this cannot continue indefinitely," he said.
President Bush has threatened a war against Iraq if it does not give up suspected weapons of mass destruction, promising action with or without U.N. Security Council backing.
Powell said he thought there may be more support "than some might think" for a second U.N. resolution to disarm Iraq by force if necessary. Bush has said he is open to seeking the second resolution to provide firmer backing, although he said the earlier resolution provides the authority to attack Iraq.
France, Russia and China, who with the United States and Britain represent the five permanent members of the Security Council, have said they would prefer U.N. weapons inspections continue rather than to see war.
Committee members generally praised Powell for the U.N. presentation that most said showed convincing evidence that Iraq was thwarting the inspections and had banned weapons. But Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, complained that he appeared to have "given up on inspections" prematurely.
PRAYERS OFFERED
Earlier on Thursday, Bush said the United States faced a decisive period with U.S. troops building up in the Gulf against Iraq.
"This is a testing time for our country," Bush said at the 51st annual National Prayer Breakfast, which brings together lawmakers, foreign leaders and spiritual leaders in prayer.
Bush referred to the confrontation with Iraq, the "war on terrorism," apparently the challenge offered by North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and the tragedy of the space shuttle Columbia crash as he offered prayers for the country.
"At this hour we have troops that are assembling in the Middle East. There's oppressive regimes that seek terrible weapons. We face an ongoing threat of terror. One thing is for certain, we didn't ask for these challenges. But we will meet them," Bush said.
CIA Director George Tenet told the breakfast, "God teaches us to be resolute in the face of evil, using all of the weapons and armor that the word of God supplies."
----
At Council, Political Theater
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32172-2003Feb5?language=printer
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 5 -- As Secretary of State Colin L. Powell laid out the evidence that Iraq has been concealing weapons of mass destruction before the U.N. Security Council today, few of the people who listened to him were left in any doubt that the Bush administration is committed to war, barring a capitulation by President Saddam Hussein.
Up until recently, Powell was widely viewed at the United Nations as the administration's most prominent dove, a beacon of hope for advocates of a peaceful, diplomatic solution to the Iraqi crisis. Today, he argued the case for military confrontation, asserting that Hussein had failed to seize "its one last opportunity to come clean and disarm."
Accompanied by CIA Director George J. Tenet -- a powerful endorsement by the intelligence community of the secretary of state's presentation -- Powell laid on a multimedia slide show for the 15 member states of the Security Council and a worldwide television audience. There were photographs of secret Iraqi weapons factories projected on overhead screens, tapes of intercepted telephone conversations between Iraqi officers and charts showing alleged links between Baghdad and operatives of the al Qaeda terrorist organization.
The point of today's Security Council meeting, at least from the U.S. point of view, was rammed home by the headline that remained up on the video screens long after Powell finished his 90-minute presentation: "Iraq, Failing to Disarm, Denial and Deception."
It is unclear whether the United States can muster the nine-vote majority on the council to pave the way for military action against Iraq. Much will depend on how a resolution is worded. But there was little argument with Powell's central conclusion: that Hussein has failed to cooperate fully with U.N. weapons inspectors, as required by Security Council resolutions.
Powell "hit all the right points and produced a significant amount of extra evidence" about Iraqi weapons programs, said Thomas E. Pickering, who was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. He predicted that the presentation would have a bigger impact on American public opinion than on the council.
"Everybody seemed to stick to their old positions," said Pickering, referring to other U.N. ambassadors' responses, which were limited to seven minutes. "They all had their speeches written in advance. That is very typical of Security Council debates."
Powell's use of intelligence evidence to make the administration's case against Iraq was reminiscent of a speech by U.N. envoy Adlai E. Stevenson in October 1962. Stevenson displayed poster-size aerial reconnaissance photographs of Soviet missile installations to demonstrate that the Kremlin was lying when it claimed not to have deployed offensive nuclear weapons in Cuba. But in terms of theatrical drama, Powell's presentation lacked the spontaneity and surprise that made Stevenson's speech such an iconic moment in Cold War history.
As the secretary of state accused Iraq of concealing its weapons of mass destruction, there was little overt reaction from the other envoys gathered around the Security Council's horseshoe table. Only British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, representing America's most dependable ally, nodded in agreement. Everyone else wore the poker faces of professional diplomats.
The French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, leaned forward in his chair, paying careful attention as Powell produced slide after slide of alleged Iraqi weapons factories. Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan of China was practically immobile, his face bearing the enigmatic half-smile of a Cheshire cat. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan clasped his fingertips together thoughtfully, as though in prayer.
Most indecipherable of all was the council president, Joschka Fischer of Germany, who with France has been leading European opposition to a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. As Powell was speaking, the German foreign minister twiddled with his pen, drummed his fingers on the table, chatted with aides and carefully cleaned his spectacles. Asked by reporters later what he thought of the case made by Powell, he replied: "I am not an expert in intelligence. The experts will have to look at this, and we will then make up our mind."
The only semi-spontaneous speech was made by Iraqi envoy Mohamed Douri, a balding university professor who scribbled notes furiously as Powell was speaking. Invoking "God the merciful and compassionate" and "His Excellency Saddam Hussein," Douri accused the Bush administration of fabricating the tape-recorded phone conversations of Iraqi officers in order to justify "a war of aggression against Iraq without moral or legal justification."
It was a far cry from the dramatic confrontation between Stevenson and Soviet envoy Valerian A. Zorin at the height of the Cuban missile crisis. "The stakes were much higher then," said historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a White House aide to President John F. Kennedy, who was in the Security Council when Stevenson made his speech. "It was a very tense atmosphere. We were all aware of the possibility of nuclear war."
After watching a live television broadcast of today's Security Council debate, Schlesinger said he believed Powell's performance was "more high-tech than Stevenson's," but not as convincing. He noted that the aerial surveillance pictures produced by Stevenson provided "indisputable evidence" of the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. By contrast, said Schlesinger, Powell had to make do with "a parade of horribles and worst-case interpretations" of Iraqi attempts to confuse and deceive U.N. weapons inspectors.
Designed by the United States and other victors of World War II as a forum for resolving international crises, the Security Council has rarely lived up to the hopes of its founders in its 57-year-old history. The council was deadlocked for much of the Cold War and powerless to make important decisions because of the right of veto enjoyed by the five permanent members: the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France.
According to Pickering, the council enjoyed a brief resurgence of authority after the collapse of communism in Europe. It culminated in the decision to authorize a U.S.-led invasion of Kuwait in 1991, ending a brief Iraqi occupation. But it soon "overextended itself" by authorizing controversial nation-building operations in such countries as Somalia, Pickering added.
As a backdrop for political theater, the Security Council is unrivaled. Powell is the latest in a long line of U.S. envoys who have used the chamber to reach international public opinion and stage dramatic diplomatic confrontations with U.S. enemies.
When the Soviet Union denied shooting down a Korean Airlines plane in 1983, the Reagan administration played tapes of the instructions to the pilot of a Soviet interceptor aircraft ordering him to "destroy the intruder." After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, Pickering brought several Kuwaiti citizens to the council to testify to Iraqi human rights abuses. In 1996, the council provided the forum in which Madeleine K. Albright, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, accused the Cuban government of committing "cold-blooded murder" by downing a Cessna piloted by Cuban Americans.
"Frankly, this is not cojones," Albright said at a news conference afterward. "This is cowardice."
-------- MILITARY
-------- chemical weapons
Kuwait Mission Studies Chemical Threat
February 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Kuwait-Germans.html
CAMP DOHA, Kuwait (AP) -- U.S. and German troops are cooperating closely in a special mission to deal with the threat of chemical, biological and nuclear attacks in Kuwait -- even as President Bush and the German chancellor disagree over whether to invade Iraq.
Fifty-nine German soldiers are in this oil-rich emirate as part of a U.S.-led task force that was set up after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to help countries respond to terrorism.
The Germans, specialists in decontamination and reconnaissance, have brought six sophisticated ``Fox'' vehicles for use in detecting chemical and radiological agents.
They are a key part of the Combined Joint Task Force for Consequence Management, along with 160 Americans and 250 Czechs, because of their expertise in detecting lethal agents, especially industrial chemicals that can be used in attacks.
If there is a chemical or biological attack, the German troops would mark off affected areas and collect samples to assess damage and identify lethal agents.
The mission was conceived as a response to global terrorism. But if the United States invades Iraq from Kuwait, and Saddam Hussein retaliates by using chemical or biological weapons on its southern neighbor, the Germans could find themselves involved.
The government of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has refused to support the U.S. threat to disarm Iraq by force if Saddam refuses to surrender weapons of mass destruction -- which he denies possessing.
Germany, like France, Russia, China and others, argues that U.N. inspectors require more time to verify Iraq's assertion that it no longer possesses weapons banned by the United Nations.
But during a demonstration of their capabilities on Thursday, German soldiers said they would be on hand to help Kuwaitis no matter how events unfold.
``Our minister of defense clearly stated that Germany will help respond to an attack on Kuwait because this would also be a threat to us,'' said Lt. Col. Michael Obermeyer, who leads the German contingent here.
The Germans have no mandate to enter Iraqi territory and say they will not do so unless their parliament approves it. The German legislature has authorized a maximum of 800 troops to assist in Kuwait, 250 of whom are on standby in Germany and 59 of whom are already here.
Despite the friction between their respective governments over Iraq, American and German soldiers interviewed Thursday near a U.S. military base in Kuwait said they were working well together.
``Decisions made at high levels,'' are one thing, said German army Capt. Torsten Ukena. ``But there's no point to have bad feelings here.''
The Fox vehicles displayed Thursday are sealed and pressurized so those inside need not wear protective suits. Mechanical probes collect samples from the ground, and a rubber sleeve with spaces for five fingers allows specialists to reach outside the vehicle.
``One thing we appreciate is their professionalism,'' said Lt. Col. Charles Chase, a 46-year-old Marine from Chino, Calif., and the task force's operations officer. ``They are a well-trained, well-supported organization.''
Chase said that although the U.S.-German cooperation grew out of the anti-terror war, not the Iraq crisis, he expected German assistance to continue no matter what happens.
``Throwing in the Iraq situation does confuse things, but our mission does not change,'' he said. ``We really don't care where a threat comes from, how it gets here or who does it.''
An estimated 100,000 U.S. troops have already been dispatched to the Persian Gulf region in anticipation of a strike against Iraq. Kuwait would be a key launch pad because of its location and its pro-American stance following the 1991 Gulf War in which a U.S.-led coalition drove out Iraqi invaders.
-------- europe
Speech Fails to Budge Europeans From Their Divergent Positions
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A30
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31874-2003Feb5?language=printer
PARIS, Feb. 5 -- Reaction to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's presentation to the U.N. Security Council today appeared to indicate that he did not change many minds in Europe. Opponents of imminent military action in Iraq said Powell provided only more proof that U.N. weapons inspectors needed additional time, while U.S. allies in Eastern Europe contended that he gave compelling evidence that justified a military strike.
Officials in France, which has consistently called for the inspections teams to be reinforced and given more of a chance to find weapons, privately called Powell's remarks "a solid presentation, very honest" but said they represented only "the American view."
"We profoundly, honestly think we can do it through inspections -- at least for now," a French official said. "It is too early to say the inspection regime has failed." The official stressed that the French view was not a tactical position or a negotiating point, or even an effort to be reflexively anti-American, but a sincere belief that inspections can succeed in disarming Iraq.
Officials here said they were least impressed by Powell's evidence linking the Iraqi government to al Qaeda. Their own intelligence agencies discounted any links, the officials said, asserting that the al Qaeda operative who Powell said was coordinating with the Iraqi government was actually in a Kurdish area of northern Iraq, outside government control.
"I have my doubts," one official said after Powell's presentation.
In Eastern Europe, however, 10 U.S. allies -- countries newly invited to join NATO or aspiring members -- jointly issued a strong statement of support for the U.S. position, saying Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, represented a "clear and present danger" that required "a united response from the community of democracies."
The 10 countries of the Vilnius group -- Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Macedonia and Albania -- had largely decided before the address to issue their statement of support but held off until after Powell spoke. "Our countries understand the dangers posed by tyranny and the special responsibility of democracies to defend our shared values," the group said in their statement.
The statement highlighted the division that the Iraq crisis has created in Europe, with the "old Europe" -- as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld dubbed France, Germany, Greece and others -- pitted in its opposition to war against the more pro-American East European countries, as well as Britain, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Portugal.
The division continued today to prevent NATO from agreeing to a U.S. request to aid Turkey, a NATO member, in the event of a war. NATO agreed to debate the question again Thursday. The United States is asking for NATO radar surveillance planes and Patriot missiles to help defend Turkey in case of a retaliatory attack by Iraq. Turkey is the only NATO nation bordering Iraq.
-------- iraq
Toting the Casualties of War
Beth Osborne Daponte talks about how her estimates of Iraq's Gulf War dead got her in deep trouble with the White House
Edited by Douglas Harbrecht,
FEBRUARY 6, 2003
Business Week
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/feb2003/nf2003026_0167_db052.htm
NEWSMAKER Q&A
Beth Osborne Daponte was a 29-year-old Commerce Dept. demographer in 1992, when she publicly contradicted then-Defense Secretary Richard Cheney on the highly sensitive issue of Iraqi civilian casualties during the Gulf War. In short order, Daponte was told she was losing her job. She says her official report disappeared from her desk, and a new estimate, prepared by supervisors, greatly reduced the number of estimated civilian casualties.
Although Cheney said shortly after the 1991 Gulf War that "we have no way of knowing precisely how many casualties occurred" during the fighting "and may never know," Daponte had estimated otherwise: 13,000 civilians were killed directly by American and allied forces, and about 70,000 civilians died subsequently from war-related damage to medical facilities and supplies, the electric power grid, and the water system, she calculated.
In all, 40,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed in the conflict, she concluded, putting total Iraqi losses from the war and its aftermath at 158,000, including 86,194 men, 39,612 women, and 32,195 children.
"FALSE INFORMATION"? Daponte was finishing her doctorate in sociology at the University of Chicago at the time and had been assigned to update an annual world-population survey by Commerce's Census Bureau of Foreign Countries. That required her to estimate how many Iraqis had died from the war and its aftermath, including the rebellion of Shiites in the South and Kurds in the North (an additional 30,000 deaths, she estimated). Daponte used a 1987 Iraqi census and U.N. figures as her base of comparison. (The Defense Intelligence Agency eventually estimated 100,000 Iraqi military were killed in the war, plus or minus 50,000.)
After a reporter called Daponte and included her estimates in a story about war casualties, her boss informed Daponte in writing that she was being dismissed for releasing "false information." A Commerce spokeswoman denied that the cause of Daponte's firing was retribution, saying the information had been released prematurely.
Daponte consulted lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union and Covington & Burling. The American Statistical Assn. weighed in on behalf of her methodology. Eventually, the Census Bureau backed down, and Daponte continued her work until she left for Pittsburgh in 1992.
INDIRECT DEATHS. She has since published two studies in scholarly journals about the effects of economic sanctions on Iraqi children, and casualties from the 1991 Gulf War and its aftermath. Her final estimates were higher than her original ones: 205,500 Iraqis died in the war and postwar period, she believes today.
"In modern warfare, postwar deaths from adverse health effects account for a large fraction of total deaths," she wrote, an inclusion that continues to be debated. "In the Gulf War, far more persons died from postwar health effects than from direct war effects." And casualties this time, while virtually impossible to predict, will depend on the kind of war the U.S. wages.
BusinessWeek Washington Correspondent Paul Magnusson recently reached Daponte at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where she's a senior research scientist. Here are edited excerpts from their conversation:
Q: How, exactly, are war casualties estimated if you can't count all the bodies?
A: Demographers break a problem down into its components. One is civilian deaths from direct war effects, such as missed bombs and misdirected bombs. Indirect war effects come from the destruction of infrastructure.
There are direct casualties to the military as well. For Iraq, there was another category of casualties -- people killed after the war during the uprisings [by Shiites and Kurds]. The contribution I made was in looking at civilian casualties from indirect war effects. It was hard to separate some of these from the economic sanctions. But there was damage to the electrical grid, health-care facilities, roadways and the distribution system, and, most importantly, the sewage system. When you contaminate the water, you cause all kinds of health problems.
Relatively few bombs missed their targets. I went to different human-rights sources and created a database of death in each incidence of a missed bomb. Often there were reports on who died. That gave us figures for direct deaths. We calculated indirect deaths in part from age distributions.
Q: What's usually the greatest danger for civilians? A: If it's a bombing war, being a refugee is the most dangerous aspect. Refugees are in tremendous danger. Refugees are exposed to the elements, bad sewage, cholera, outbreaks of diarrhea. The youngest and oldest are most vulnerable and generally don't have the strength to begin with.
Q: After you were fired, you appealed and won reinstatement. Whatever happened to your estimate of war casualties?
A: I took a leave of absence because I wasn't being given any worthwhile work to do. I went to Greenpeace, and they funded a follow-up study. I spent a whole summer redoing the estimates and submitted it to a professional publication for peer review and then went to Carnegie Mellon. What I had done at Census was the best that could have been done in a short time period. By the time I went to Greenpeace, more data was available.
Q: Was your estimate of Iraqi civilian deaths confirmed by later demographers?
A: The Commerce Dept. rewrote the report to the point that if you'd read it, you'd have thought it was impossible to make inferences about civilian deaths in war.
Q: Any idea whether the civilian casualties in a current war would be lesser or greater? What factors would be important?
A: There's no way to tell now. You'd need a crystal ball. If the allies target infrastructure like they did last time, civilians will suffer. The last time, we targeted the electrical grid and bridges. Even military targets can have an effect on civilians -- say a plant producing truck tires for the military is attacked. That can end up affecting civilians, too.
Q: Any views on the current crisis with Iraq?
A: I don't think we've exhausted effective diplomacy. It's very early. I don't think war should be on the table yet.
Q: What saved your job in 1992?
A: The lawyers were incredible, but so was the social-science community. Many professional academic people got involved and stood up for me. A lot of [Census] colleagues stood up for me and went in and protested, even though they were risking their jobs.
----
The Saddam Hussein Interview - Iraq
Interview Tony Benn with Saddam Hussein,
Feb 6th 2003
Reporter: Channel 4 News (UK)
http://www.channel4.com/news/home/z/stories/20030205/saddam_benn.html
We present a world exclusive - Saddam Hussein in his own words.
At the weekend, the veteran labour politican Tony Benn travelled to Baghdad to meet and interview the Iraqi President. Tonight we hear why - according to Saddam - Iraq has no interest in war and possesses NO weapons of mass destruction.
Here is the transcript:
Interview background:
Saddam -- rarely interviewed, rarely appears in public, knows he's a target, assassination a permanent fear.
Tony Benn -- focus of the anti-war cause in Britain, though he's no longer in Parliament
When last they met, on the eve of the first Gulf War, the Allies were preparing to liberate Kuwait. Their meeting didn't stop the war, though Mr Benn returned with 15 British hostages held by Saddam as human shields.
This time, the die already appears cast. Mr Benn arrived in Baghdad this weekend in the wake of the Bush/Blair summit. Still time for diplomacy, they said, but no one doubts the Americans willingness to go to war.
As Colin Powell takes his much trailed "new evidence" to the UN, the pressure's mounting on Saddam to convince Hans Blix and his team of inspectors of a new and sudden era of cooperation. Barring that, or his sudden demise, war seems inevitable.
What we normally see of Iraq's President are staged Cabinet meetings - fed to the world by Iraqi TV.
This is the first time in this crisis Saddam Hussein has faced questions from a foreign visitor - albeit one known to be anti-war. Every word, every nuance will be eagerly scrutinised across the world.
Tony Benn knew full well the interest in his promised encounter. The questions are his. and he thinks the answers make war less likely.
Saddam continues to turn down all requests from journalists, but he wanted his interview with Mr Benn to appear worldwide.
An Iraqi camera-crew filmed the interview and the tapes were given to a London-based television production company ATV.
Channel 4 News paid ATV for access to the material to prepare this broadcast.
Tony Benn: I come for one reason only - to see whether in a talk we can explore, or you can help me to see, what the paths to peace may be. My only reason, I remember the war because I lost a brother. I never want to see another war.
There are millions of people all over the world who don't want a war, and by agreeing to this interview, which is very historic for all of us, I hope you will be able to help me, be able to say something to the world that is significant and positive.
Saddam Hussein: Welcome to Baghdad. You are conscious of the role that Iraqis have set out for themselves, inspired by their own culture, their civilisation and their role in human history. This role requires peace in order to prosper and progress.
Having said that, the Iraqis are committed to their rights as much as they are committed to the rights of others. Without peace they will be faced with many obstacles that would stop them from fulfilling their human role.
Tony Benn: Mr President, may I ask you some questions. The first is, does Iraq have any weapons of mass destruction?
Saddam Hussein: Most Iraqi officials have been in power for over 34 years and have experience of dealing with the outside world. Every fair-minded person knows that when Iraqi officials say something, they are trustworthy.
A few minutes ago when you asked me if I wanted to look at the questions beforehand I told you I didn't feel the need so that we don't waste time, and I gave you the freedom to ask me any question directly so that my reply would be direct.
This is an opportunity to reach the British people and the forces of peace in the world. There is only one truth and therefore I tell you as I have said on many occasions before that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction whatsoever.
We challenge anyone who claims that we have to bring forward any evidence and present it to public opinion.
Tony Benn: I have another which has been raised: do you have links with Al Qaeda?
Saddam Hussein: If we had a relationship with Al-Qaida and we believed in that relationship we wouldn't be ashamed to admit it. Therefore I would like to tell you directly and also through you to anyone who is interested to know that we have no relationship with Al Qaeda.
Tony Benn: In relation to the inspectors, there appears to be difficulties with inspectors, and I wonder whether there's anything you can tell me about these difficulties and whether you believe they will be cleared up before Mr Hans Blix and Mr Elbaradei come back to Baghdad?
Saddam Hussein: You are aware that every major event must encounter some difficulty. On the subject of the inspectors and the resolutions that deal with Iraq you must have been following it and you must have a view and a vision as to whether these resolutions have any basis in international law. Nevertheless the Security Council produced them.
These resolutions - implemented or not - or the motivation behind these resolutions could lead the current situation to the path of peace or war. Therefore it's a critical situation. Let us also remember the unjust suffering of the Iraqi people.
For the last thirteen years since the blockade was imposed, you must be aware of the amount of harm that it has caused the Iraqi people, particularly the children and the elderly as a result of the shortage of food and medicine and other aspects of their life. Therefore we are facing a critical situation.
On that basis, it is not surprising that there might be complaints relating to the small details of the inspection which may be essential issues as far as we are concerned and the way we see the whole thing. It is possible that those Iraqis who are involved with the inspection might complain about the conduct of the inspectors and they complain indeed.
It is also possible that some inspectors either for reasons of practical and detailed procedure, or for some other motives, may complain about the Iraqi conduct. Every fair-minded person knows that as far as resolution 1441 is concerned, the Iraqis have been fulfilling their obligations under the resolution.
When Iraq objects to the conduct of those implementing the Security Council resolutions, that doesn't mean that Iraq wishes to push things to confrontation. Iraq has no interest in war. No Iraqi official or ordinary citizen has expressed a wish to go to war. The question should be directed at the other side. Are they looking for a pretext so they could justify war against Iraq?
If the purpose was to make sure that Iraq is free of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons then they can do that. These weapons do not come in small pills that you can hide in your pocket. These are weapons of mass destruction and it is easy to work out if Iraq has them or not. We have said many times before and we say it again today that Iraq is free of such weapons.
So when Iraq objects to the conduct of the inspection teams or others, that doesn't mean that Iraq is interested in putting obstacles before them which could hinder the efforts to get to the truth. It is in our interest to facilitate their mission to find the truth. The question is does the other side want to get to the same conclusion or are they looking for a pretext for aggression?
If those concerned prefer aggression then it's within their reach. The super powers can create a pretext any day to claim that Iraq is not implementing resolution 1441. They have claimed before that Iraq did not implement the previous resolutions. However after many years it became clear that Iraq had complied with these resolutions. Otherwise, why are they focusing now on the latest resolution and not the previous ones?
Tony Benn: May I broaden the question out, Mr President, to the relations between Iraq and the UN, and the prospects for peace more broadly, and I wonder whether with all its weaknesses and all the difficulties, whether you see a way in which the UN can reach that objective for the benefit of humanity?
Saddam Hussein: The point you raised can be found in the United Nations charter. As you know Iraq is one of the founders and first signatories of the charter. If we look at the representatives of two super powers - America and Britain - and look at their conduct and their language, we would notice that they are more motivated by war than their responsibility for peace. And when they talk about peace all they do is accuse others they wish to destroy in the name of peace.
They claim they are looking after the interests of their people. You know as well as I do that this is not the truth. Yes the world would respect this principle if it was genuinely applied. It's not about power but it is about right and wrong, about when we base our human relations on good, and respect this principle. So it becomes simple to adhere to this principle because anyone who violates it will be exposed to public opinion.
Tony Benn: There are people who believe this present conflict is about oil, and I wonder if you say something about how you see the enormous oil reserves of Iraq being developed, first for the benefit of the people of Iraq and secondly for the needs of mankind.
Saddam Hussein: When we speak about oil in this part of the world - we are an integral part of the world - we have to deal with others in all aspects of life, economic as well as social, technical, scientific and other areas.
It seems that the authorities in the US are motivated by aggression that has been evident for more than a decade against the region. The first factor is the role of those influential people in the decision taken by the President of the US based on sympathy with the Zionist entity that was created at the expense of Palestine and its people and their humanity.
These people force the hand of the American administration by claiming that the Arabs pose a danger to Israel, without remembering their obligation to God and how the Palestinian people were driven out of their homeland.
The consecutive American administrations were led down a path of hostility against the people of this region, including our own nation and we are part of it. Those people and others have been telling the various US administrations, especially the current one, that if you want to control the world you need to control the oil.
Therefore the destruction of Iraq is a pre-requisite to controlling oil. That means the destruction of the Iraqi national identity, since the Iraqis are committed to their principles and rights according to international law and the UN charter.
It seems that this argument has appealed to some US administrations especially the current one that if they control the oil in the Middle East, they would be able to control the world. They could dictate to China the size of its economic growth and interfere in its education system and could do the same to Germany and France and perhaps to Russia and Japan.
They might even tell the same to Britain if its oil doesn't satisfy its domestic consumption. It seems to me that this hostility is a trademark of the current US administration and is based on its wish to control the world and spread its hegemony.
People have the right to say that if this aggression by the American administration continues, it would lead to widespread enmity and resistance. We won't be able to develop the oil fields or the oil industry and therefore create worldwide co-operation as members of the human family when there is war, destruction and death.
Isn't it reasonable to question this approach and conclude that this road will not benefit anyone including America or its people? It may serve some short-term interests or the interests of some influential powers in the US but we can't claim that it serves the interest of the American people in the long run or other nations.
Tony Benn: There are tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people in Britain and America, in Europe and worldwide, who want to see a peaceful outcome to this problem , and they are the real Americans in my opinion, the real British, the real French, the real Germans, because they think of the world in terms of their children.
I have ten grandchildren and in my family there is English, Scottish, American, French, Irish, Jewish and Indian blood, and for me politics is about their future, their survival. And I wonder whether you could say something yourself directly through this interview to the peace movement of the world that might help to advance the cause they have in mind?
Saddam Hussein: First of all we admire the development of the peace movement around the world in the last few years. We pray to God to empower all those working against war and for the cause of peace and security based on just peace for all.
And through you we say to the British people that Iraqis do not hate the British people. Before 1991 Iraq and Britain had a normal relationship as well as normal relations with America. At that time the British governments had no reason to criticise Iraq as we hear some voices doing these days.
We hope the British people would tell those who hate the Iraqis and wish them harm that there is no reason to justify this war and please tell them that I say to you because the British people are brave - tell them that the Iraqis are brave too.
Tell the British people if the Iraqis are subjected to aggression or humiliation they would fight bravely. Just as the British people did in the Second World War and we will defend our country as they defended their country each in its own way.
The Iraqis don't wish war but if war is imposed upon them - if they are attacked and insulted - they will defend themselves. They will defend their country, their sovereignty and their security.
----
Iraqi military deploying near Kuwait border
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO jtamayo@herald.com
Thu, Feb. 06, 2003
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/5116262.htm
KUWAIT - Iraq is moving troops and artillery closer to its southern border with Kuwait and deploying them astride highways in preparation for U.S. attacks, according to military officers with access to the region.
U.S. and Iraqi forces are also increasing intelligence activities along the demilitarized zone, sending tough-looking Iraqi ''civilians'' and American ''engineers'' with crew cuts to visit the area, the officers added.
Most Iraqi troops look ragged, however, with some complaining that they are eating only bread and not being paid, said officers in the 32-nation U.N. Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission, or UNIKOM, based on the border.
''Some say their families were put under protective custody'' to make sure they fight, said a UNIKOM officer who traveled recently on the Iraqi side of the 150-mile border.
Tens of thousands of U.S. troops gathering in Kuwait would use the oil-rich sheikdom as a springboard for a ground attack on Iraq if President Bush decides to go after Baghdad's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
U.S. military experts have long predicted that U.S. troops would get little resistance from Iraq's ill-trained and equipped regular army, largely stationed far from Baghdad while elite Republican Guard units guard the capital about 280 miles north of the border with Kuwait.
But UNIKOM officers who patrol the nine-mile-wide demilitarized zone -- created after the 1991 Gulf War -- and can travel in southern Iraq provided a firsthand and independent look at war preparations and troop morale in the region.
''They are terrified,'' one army captain said. ``They won't surrender at the first shot. They will surrender when they hear the first American tank turn on its engine.''
Officers from four UNIKOM nations said a few thousand Iraqi troops moved closer to the border in recent weeks and began digging trenches on either side of the three north-south roads in the region.
Iraq also deployed a half-dozen 105mm artillery guns and several antiaircraft machine guns in fire bases, surrounded by 15-foot-high sand berms, on the northeastern end of the border, near the port of Umm Qasr, they said.
An army division based in Basra, 28 miles north of the border, has established a new combat command post near Umm Qasr, they added. All asked for anonymity because of their U.N. assignments.
POSSIBLY MILITIAS
Some of the Iraqi soldiers were seen armed with British pre-World War II machine guns, prompting speculation that they may be part of militias mobilized to the southern front to bear the first impact of any U.S. attack.
Iraqi troops mostly are unkempt and wear tattered uniforms, sometimes with sandals instead of boots, and some complain that they were paid only half a month's salary in the past three months, officers said.
Soldiers have told visitors that they receive one pizza-like piece of bread at each meal and that they sometimes beg for food from passing civilians and UNIKOM personnel, the officers added.
One UNIKOM officer said he had also spotted two groups of suspected Iraqi soldiers, in civilian clothes and vehicles, cruising the demilitarized zone in apparent intelligence-gathering missions.
Four young Iraqi men are slowly building a house in the demilitarized zone, on high ground from where they can easily observe western Kuwait, the officer said. What appears to be a radio antenna sprouts from the house on some nights.
Several groups of American civilians have also visited the zone recently, the officer added, ``some with crew cuts and young enough to be my son, not the oil engineers they claim to be.''
No Iraqi army deserters have reached the zone, but U.N. humanitarian agencies are considering establishing a refugee camp near Umm Qasr because Kuwait has said it would not allow Iraqis to cross the border in case of war.
DEMILITARIZED ZONE
A few thousand Iraqi and even fewer Kuwaiti civilians live on their sides of the demilitarized zone, 3.1 miles wide on the Kuwaiti side and 6.2 miles on Iraq's. Civilian traffic from one country to the other is banned.
Iraqi and Kuwaiti troops are banned from the demilitarized zone, but police officers armed with sidearms are stationed at observation posts on either side of the zone.
UNIKOM troops, who come from armed forces in Europe, Africa, Asia and North and South America, are based in the zone but can go into Iraq to coordinate with officials there.
U.S. and British troops stay out of Iraq to avoid incidents, however, because American and British warplanes not attached to UNIKOM regularly bomb antiaircraft positions in southern Iraq.
A Bangladeshi battalion provides armed security in the zone, while other countries provide support services like road maintenance, mess halls, electricity, water, communications and medical units.
The international border is marked by several layers of sand berms and ditches too wide and deep to be breached by any vehicles, plus an electrified fence on the Kuwaiti side.
UNIKOM officers said they have quietly advised their nations' troops to be ready to evacuate the demilitarized zone quickly in case of war, and to watch UNIKOM's U.S. members because they might get advance warning.
''But I don't think there will be much fighting here,'' one UNIKOM captain said while sitting at a coffee shop. ``That waiter there looks more together than any soldier I have seen in southern Iraq.''
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Kurds Puzzled by Report of Terror Camp
By C. J. CHIVERS
February 6, 2003
New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/international/middleeast/06ANSA.html?ei=1&en=74ae0f77bed509f4&ex=1045550702&pagewanted=print&position=top
ERBIL, Iraq, Feb. 5 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's assertion today that Islamic extremists were operating a poisons training camp and factory in northern Iraq appeared to surprise Kurdish officials, who greeted the claim with a mix of satisfaction and confusion.
The officials were pleased to hear an American effort to discredit their Islamist enemies, and to sense momentum toward war to unseat Saddam Hussein. But some also wondered if the intelligence Mr. Powell presented to the United Nations Security Council was imprecise.
As part of his presentation to the Security Council, Mr. Powell said a terrorist network run by Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, an operative of Al Qaeda, had "helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp, and this camp is located in northeastern Iraq."
As he spoke, a monitor displayed a photograph with the caption: "Terrorist Poison and Explosives Factory, Khurmal."
The network that Mr. Powell referred to appeared to be Ansar al-Islam, an extremist group controlling a small area of northern Iraq. Ansar has been accused of dispatching assassins and suicide bombers, of harboring Qaeda fighters from Afghanistan and of training several hundred local fighters.
The secular Kurdish government has been battling the group since 2001, and, since December, there have been indications that Mr. Zarqawi may have spent time in Ansar's territory last year.
But no Western officials had gone as far with claims of Ansar's danger as Mr. Powell did when he showed a photograph of the Khurmal factory. Mr. Powell also said that Baghdad has a senior official in the "most senior levels" of Ansar, a claim apparently intended to build a case that Baghdad is collaborating with Al Qaeda and, by extension, in a chemical factory.
Some here quickly seconded Mr. Powell's opinion. "We have some information about this lab from agents and from prisoners," Kamal Fuad, the Parliament speaker, said.
But Mr. Powell's assertion also produced confusion tonight. One senior Kurdish official, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan who is familiar with the intelligence on Ansar, said he had not heard of the laboratory Mr. Powell displayed.
"I don't know anything about this compound," he said.
Kurds also questioned whether Mr. Powell was mistaken, or had mislabeled the photograph. Khurmal, the village named on the photo, is controlled not by Ansar al-Islam but by Komala Islami Kurdistan, a more moderate Islamic group.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which is allied with Washington and has been hosting an American intelligence team in northern Iraq for several months, maintains relations with Komala. It has been paying $200,000 to $300,000 in aid to the party each month, in an effort to lure Komala's leaders away from Ansar.
So Mr. Powell's photograph raised a question: Is the laboratory in Komala's area, meaning the Kurdish opposition might have inadvertently helped pay for it, or has the United States made a mistake?
"My sources say it is in Beyara," one Kurdish official said. "Not in Khurmal." Ansar has a headquarters in Beyara, a village several miles from Khurmal.
Abu Bari Syan, an administrator for Komal Islami Kurdistan, the party that controls Khurmal, took an even stronger stand about Mr. Powell's claim. "All of it is not true," he said.
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Protecting Iraqi oil
By H. Josef Hebert
ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 6, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20030206-25198776.htm
Toppling President Saddam Hussein may be the top priority in a war with Iraq, but protecting the country's oil fields is not far behind.
A U.S. task force is conferring with energy specialists, industry executives and Iraqi opposition leaders on how to revive and expand Iraq's multibillion-dollar oil empire if Saddam is removed.
With Iraq's oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia's, the Bush administration views revenue from oil exports as essential to rebuilding the country once the fighting stops.
Government officials also believe that the less said publicly about Iraq's oil the better, lest they stoke criticism, already heard in much of the Arab world and Europe, that a war with Saddam is as much about oil as about terrorism. Similar concerns were heard during recent anti-war demonstrations in Washington.
"A heavy American hand will only convince [the Iraqis] and the rest of the world that the operation against Iraq was undertaken for imperialist, rather than disarmament reasons," according to Edward Djerejian, director of the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. He co-authored a report - with the Council on Foreign Relations - on dealing with a post-Saddam Iraq.
That report said the Iraqis should be allowed to keep control of their oil sector and that U.S. officials should work to assure "a level playing field" for international companies competing for repair work and future exploration and development.
Meanwhile, Pentagon planners were spending long hours on a strategy for protecting the oil fields, fearing that Saddam might torch many of the 1,500 wells - as he did to Kuwaiti oil fields in 1991. Although declining to give details, one senior defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said planners intend to secure and protect the fields as rapidly as possible.
The options reportedly range from dispatching special forces into the Iraqi fields during the early fighting to using electronic jamming equipment to hinder a coordinated destruction of hundreds of wells. U.S. planners also hope that those who run Iraq's oil industry would balk if ordered to destroy their own wells.
"It's one thing to set the wells of another country on fire, and another to set your own on fire," said Robert Ebel, an energy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
CSIS has studied Iraqi war scenarios and how they may affect future oil production. Mr. Ebel ventures no solid prediction because "we don't know what kind of Iraq we're going to have in the morning after."
What is certain, he said, is that "there will be a massive investment program to get the [Iraqi oil] industry first back on its feet and then to top it off with expansion."
The cost could reach $40 billion, according to the report Mr. Djerejian co-authored.
Energy service companies such as Halliburton and Bechtel, which oversaw the repair of Kuwait's fields, could earn billions of dollars in deals to upgrade wells, pipes, pumping stations and terminals in Iraq.
The world's oil giants - from Exxon Mobil Corp., and ChevronTexaco to Russia's Lukoil - are looking for a chance to negotiate lucrative development deals with Iraq and reap part of what some believe eventually could be a 6-million-barrel-a-day stream of oil. Last year, Iraq exported about a third of that under a U.N.-sponsored "oil for food" program.
That many of these companies have close ties to top Bush administration officials - including Vice President Richard B. Cheney, who once ran Halliburton, and the president himself - has further fueled speculation among some critics that an attack on Iraq is more about oil and imperialism than about weapons of mass destruction.
The administration strongly rejects any such intent.
"The oil fields are the property of the Iraqi people," and they will be protected and developed for the benefit of Iraq's future, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has said in response to such views.
With total reserves estimated at 112 billion barrels, Iraq's major producing fields are in two areas: About 500 wells are 250 miles north of Baghdad, and about 1,000 wells are in the far south of the country. The southern fields are spread across an area about the size of New Jersey, while the northern fields are smaller, about the size of Rhode Island, Pentagon officials said. Iraq's undeveloped western desert region also is believed to contain vast amounts of undiscovered oil.
Who would run the oil industry in a post-Saddam Iraq and decide which companies receive lucrative contracts to repair its infrastructure and develop new fields are unanswered questions. Saddam's regime funneled its oil contracts primarily to Russian and French oil companies that are determined to press their continued stake in Iraq.
Also unanswered is how a cash-starved Iraq, under pressure to pump as much oil as possible, will deal with the strategy of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to limit production. The Saudis and other OPEC members will not let Iraq overproduce and drive down world oil prices, one source close to the Saudi oil industry said in an interview, asking not to be identified further.
How the United States deals with these questions will be critical, Middle East and energy industry analysts said.
-------- israel / palestine
Two Palestinian Nurses Killed as Helicopter Gunships Attack Hospital
February 6, 2003
Islam Online
http://www.islam-online.net/english/news/2003-02/06/article01.shtml
A Palestinian vendor tries to save some of his fruit after Israeli forces destroyed his stall http://www.islam-online.net/english/news/2003-02/06/images/pic01.jpg
GAZA CITY, February 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Two Palestinian male nurses were killed early Thursday, February6 , when an Israeli helicopter gunship opened heavy machinegun fire on a hospital compound in eastern Gaza City, Palestinian medical sources said.
They said Omar Hassan,26 , and Abed Al-Karim Loubed,41 , were killed in the compound surrounding the Al-Wafaa hospital for the elderly where they both worked in the Al-Shajiyeh district in eastern Gaza City, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
When the shooting started, the two men went outside into the courtyard where they were immediately gunned down, dying on the spot, the sources said.
Several bullets also penetrated the hospital building, but no one else was injured.
An Israeli military source acknowledged helicopter gunships had been firing in the area to deter "fighting in the street".
"As part of the ongoing activity in Gaza, helicopters have been firing into open spaces to deter people from going out into the street to fight, but we have no knowledge of any injuries," he claimed.
Witnesses said several Israeli occupation tanks moved into an area east of Al-Shajiyeh district, but it was not clear why.
The two deaths raised to2 , 923the number of people killed since the start of the29 -month-old Palestinian uprising, including2 , 180Palestinians and 687 Israelis.
Israeli Troops Beat French MSF Worker
Meanwhile, a French national working with the French aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders- MSF) was beaten up by three Israeli occupation soldiers Wednesday, February5 , at a checkpoint in the southern Gaza Strip, the group's security officer told AFP.
For its part, the Israeli army said the man was a known troublemaker who attempted to cross a checkpoint in direct defiance of military orders and had to be restrained.
The incident occurred Wednesday morning when a group of four MSF workers, including a field coordinator, a doctor, a translator and their driver, tried to enter the Al-Mawasi coastal district near Khan Yunis, MSF security officer Massimiliano Cosci said.
Soldiers at a checkpoint refused them entry, so the field coordinator got out of their vehicle and walked towards a second group of soldiers on the far side of the checkpoint to find out why they were not allowed to pass, Cosci said.
The field worker was wearing a clearly-marked MSF jacket and carrying the group's distinctive flag in his hand as he approached three soldiers.
But when he reached them, they grabbed him by the shoulders and punched him in the back and face, Cosci said, saying the field worker was not allowed to even make a phone call until a more senior Israeli officer arrived at the scene.
However, an army spokesman said the group turned up at the checkpoint, knowing they had been refused a permit to cross and that one of them tried to defy the soldiers and cross anyway.
"The head of the group turned up and tried to cross the checkpoint against the orders of the soldiers, so they chased after him," he said. "He tried to attack them but they managed to control him.
"This is not the first time he has bluntly ignored army orders," the spokesman said, adding the man had leveled similar "disturbing statements" against the army in the past.
But MSF's Cosci, who filed a complaint with the army, said the incident was "very unusual.
"It's quite common that we are prevented from entering this area, but this has never happened before - that someone who approaches a group of soldiers carrying an MSF flag in their hand is beaten up," he said.
Mawasi is a Palestinian community located on the Mediterranean coastline surrounded by the Jewish settlement bloc of Gush Khatif, home to the largest number of settlers in the Gaza Strip
Two Palestinians, Two Israelis Killed in West Bank
In the West Bank, two armed Palestinian resistance fighters were killed in exchanges of fire with the Israeli army during an attack that killed two Israelis early Thursday just south of the city of Nablus.
The bodies of the Palestinians were being held by the Israeli army, Israeli military sources said without giving further details.
The attack was claimed by two Palestinian resistance groups in a phone call to AFP.
The caller said the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, and the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the secular Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), were responsible for the shooting.
The Israelis were gunned down by resistance fighters in an ambush near Mount Gerizim on the southern outskirts of Nablus, the caller said, without giving further details.
Earlier that day, three Palestinians - a policeman, an elderly woman and a teenager -- were killed by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip and the reoccupied West Bank.
Also in the West Bank town of Al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli occupation troops destroyed several stalls in a Palestinian market Wednesday.
-------- mideast
Arab Envoys Look to Final Options for Averting War
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31785-2003Feb5?language=printer
DOHA, Qatar, Feb. 5 -- Arab foreign ministers have agreed to meet in Cairo on Feb. 16 to prepare for a summit of their countries' leaders that would make a final effort to head off a U.S.-led attack on Iraq, diplomats said today.
While Arab officials acknowledge that they have few options left -- and some have already begun turning their attention to the war's aftermath -- the meetings would likely appeal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to cooperate with U.N. inspectors, an Arab diplomat said. Another order of business could be to consider a mission to Baghdad, possibly led by Amr Moussa of Egypt, the Arab League's secretary general.
"We want to send a message to Iraq and a message to the United States," the diplomat said, on condition of anonymity. "The message is for Iraq to cooperate and for the United States to hold its horses."
Publicly, Arab countries remain opposed to a U.S.-led attack, at least without the blessing of another U.N. Security Council resolution, and in recent weeks, they have scrambled to find a solution short of war. Saudi Arabia, in particular, has pushed the idea of a broad amnesty for Hussein's top commanders, partly in hopes of inspiring a coup against him, and Arab officials continue to float what they privately acknowledge is the unlikely prospect of exile for Hussein and his family.
This week, efforts have turned toward moving up an Arab League summit scheduled for March 24. The foreign ministers will meet to discuss the summit, with informal discussions preceding the meeting, said Hisham Youssef, spokesman for the secretary general.
A summit of the league's 22 members would then convene in early March, diplomats said. That probably would not be too late to prevent war, they contend, but if one is underway, the leaders would focus on stopping it. Bahraini officials have agreed to move the summit from their country, headquarters of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, to Cairo, where the Arab League is based, the diplomats said.
Already, though, some Arab officials are dismissing the prospects for any breakthrough. In contrast to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Arab diplomacy toward Iraq has been noticeably reserved. Some Arab officials wryly noted that it took a non-Arab country, Turkey, to convene a meeting of Arab foreign ministers last month.
"What are we going to talk about?" said one senior official in the Persian Gulf region who did not want to be identified. "We'll just sit there and vent our feelings. But nothing will be done."
From Egypt to the Persian Gulf, there remains deep anxiety among Iraq's neighbors over a war, particularly its impact on a public deeply resentful of U.S. policy in the region. But officials acknowledge they have little influence with Hussein, and even less with the Bush administration. One senior official said the only options left appeared to be a coup or exile, and neither was likely. Moussa, in an interview Tuesday with Egypt's al-Akhbar newspaper, expressed "extreme pessimism" that a conflict could be avoided.
Given the limited options, some officials have pressed for Arab governments to turn their attention to a postwar Iraq. Arab officials say they believe the Bush administration has not sufficiently prepared for what would follow the overthrow of Hussein's government and might leave Iraq's neighbors to pick up the pieces of a broken country.
On one hand, officials say, a U.S. occupation of Iraq would be crucial to keeping the country intact and preventing such neighbors as Iran and Turkey from intervening. But those same officials say it would only intensify anti-American sentiments that have surged because of Washington's support for Israel against the Palestinian uprising that began in September 2000.
"The only reasonable formula is an American occupation of Iraq where you can safeguard the integrity of Iraq and prevent a civil war," a senior Arab official said. "But believe me, it would be a problem for America, not only in the Arab world."
The official said that an Arab peacekeeping force, with the mission of preventing Iraq's disintegration, would prove more palatable. He said candidates might include Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country, and some of Iraq's Arab neighbors, such as Jordan.
But no country has committed to the idea, and it is unlikely that any will do so soon, the official and an Arab diplomat said. Some neighbors, such as Syria, would probably shy from involvement with the United States. Others, such as Kuwait, have deep-seated animosities toward Iraq that predate the 1991 war.
"This is an idea that has been floating around," the diplomat said.
But he added: "This should not be the message we're sending out to the public. Until the last minute, we should be fighting against military action. Even if military action starts, we should be fighting to end it."
Although U.S. officials say they would welcome the idea of a postwar Arab occupation force, some doubt whether Arab states have the political will for such a mission, given the popular anger a war would probably generate.
Correspondent Peter Baker in Kuwait City contributed to this report.
-------- nato
NATO fails to agree on Iraq response
By Gareth Harding
UPI Chief European Correspondent
February 6, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030206-121638-7975r.htm
BRUSSELS, Belgium, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- NATO ambassadors meeting in Brussels Thursday failed to strike a deal on how to defend Turkey in the case of an Iraqi attack after France, Germany and Belgium continued to insist that planning for war was premature while weapons inspections continued.
At the end of what he termed a "robust debate," the alliance's secretary-general, George Robertson, said: "There is complete agreement among the NATO countries about their commitment to defend Turkey...Where there has been a disagreement is over when to formally task this military planning."
The United States made a formal request for the alliance's 19 members to open their airspace and military bases to U.S. forces on Jan. 15. Washington also tabled a raft of measures, such as deploying surveillance planes and surface-to-air missiles, aimed at protecting Turkey if the predominantly Muslim state is attacked by its neighbor Iraq.
France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg blocked the move on Jan. 22 and Jan. 29, although officials indicated Luxembourg has since lifted its objections.
Despite the North Atlantic Council's third setback in as many weeks, Robertson said he remained "confident" an agreement could be reached Monday.
In a bid to increase pressure on the three countries to back down, NATO ambassadors Thursday invoked the "silence procedure." This means that if no state formally objects to the measures proposed to the United States by 6 a.m. ET Monday, the package will automatically be adopted.
It remains unclear, however, whether staunchly anti-war countries, such as Belgium, will drop their opposition to contingency planning.
"It is premature to take a decision now already about the possible involvement of NATO in the Iraq crisis," Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel said Thursday. "The United Nations road must continue to be followed with the view to a diplomatic and peaceful solution."
In a separate move, the Turkish parliament Thursday gave the United States the green light to renovate its military bases and ports ahead of a possible war with Iraq. Although Ankara has traditionally opposed the use of military force to disarm Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the vote is being seen as the first signal that Turkey could back Washington in the event of a second Gulf conflict.
--------
NATO May Protect Turkey in Case of War
February 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=518&u=/ap/20030206/ap_on_re_eu/nato_iraq_10&printer=1
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-NATO-Iraq.html
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- Stepping up pressure to end three weeks of stalling, NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson gave France, Germany and Belgium until Monday to decide whether to stop blocking a U.S. request for the alliance to protect Turkey in case of war with Iraq.
Under a so-called ``silence procedure'' agreed upon Thursday, military planning would begin automatically to deploy early warning planes, missile-interceptor batteries and anti-germ warfare units to Turkey -- unless any of the allies raises an objection by 10 a.m. Monday.
``There is continuing disagreement on the timing issue ... but I am confident that we will reach a decision early next week,'' Robertson told reporters after a heated meeting of ambassadors from the 19 nations.
The deadline cranks up pressure on the French, Germans and Belgians, who argued it was premature to start the military planning while U.N. efforts to avert war continued.
The other 16 allies had hoped an appeal for help from Turkey and Secretary of State Colin Powell's indictment of Iraq's arms programs at the United Nations on Wednesday would have swayed the holdouts, but again they forced a delay of the decision.
Robertson stressed there ``is complete agreement on the substance'' of the measures to defend Turkey, and differences only concerned the timing of a decision to order military experts to begin planning.
``NATO's solidarity with Turkey is not in doubt,'' Robertson insisted.
The continued objections from the three nations came despite a dilution of the original list of possible support measures by NATO in an eventual war that was put forward by the United States last month.
On the table for agreement on Monday are plans to send to Turkey AWACS surveillance planes based in Germany, Patriot anti-missile defense systems from the Netherlands and military units specialized in responding to chemical, biological or nuclear attacks.
The proposals also call for other NATO allies to defend U.S. bases in Europe and replace troops sent to the Persian Gulf from NATO's peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Robertson called the options ``prudent, deterrent and defensive.''
Plans for NATO to prepare a peacekeeping role in a postwar Iraq or to offer logistical support, such as airlift or secure communications, to any ally that decides to participate in a U.S.-led attack on Iraq were removed, although officials said they could be reactivated later.
It was unclear whether the holdouts would change their position. In a statement issued just before the end of the NATO meeting, Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel said ``it is premature to take a decision now already about the possible involvement of NATO in the Iraq crisis.''
However, Michel said Belgium did not ``reject that possibility out of hand.''
There was no immediate reaction from Berlin or Paris.
Turkey is the only NATO nation that borders Iraq and may be a springboard for U.S. troops opening up a northern front in any attack, prompting fears it could be the target for retaliatory strikes.
The Turkish parliament voted Thursday to allow the United States to begin renovating military bases and ports for a possible Iraq war, a first step toward allowing in U.S. combat troops.
A senior NATO diplomat who attended Thursday's special meeting of the policy-setting North Atlantic Council said France, Germany and Belgium would eventually have to agree to Turkey's request for help.
``There is no question NATO is going to do this, the question is when,'' said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``We are a treaty organization where members have a commitment to each other ... there is no other alternative.''
Diplomats fear continued disagreement beyond the Monday deadline could seriously undermine the alliance.
``If the response is not given, then the credibility of the military alliance will collapse,'' Turkish Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis said in Ankara last weekend. ``If this is not done, then the credibility and deterrence of the military alliance will come to zero.''
-------- pakistan
Pakistani Chief Wants U.S. Out of Region
KATHY GANNON
Associated Press
Thu, Feb. 06, 2003
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/5120889.htm
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - The chief minister in charge of Pakistan's border regions insisted Thursday there are no al-Qaida or Taliban terrorists in the area and the U.S.-led coalition must wind down its war on terrorism.
"We don't have any al-Qaida or Taliban here," Akram Durrani, who heads a conservative Islamic coalition that won power in the North West Frontier Province, said in a rare interview with a foreign journalist. "Absolutely there is nothing here."
The U.S. military disagrees.
In December, 22-year-old Army Sgt. Steven Checo died in a gunfight in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province. Barely a week later, a Pakistani security man fired at U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan after they told him to leave the area, prompting the Americans to call in B-52 bombers.
A small number of U.S. special forces are working with Pakistani troops in the tribal regions on the border with Afghanistan, and FBI agents have been on raids with Pakistani forces in the frontier province.
Durrani wants the Americans to go.
"We don't want any foreigners here," he said.
In the hour-long interview with The Associated Press, Durrani warned that a war in Iraq would set off protests not only in his deeply conservative province, but throughout Pakistan.
"It's time for the United States to rebuild its relationship with Pakistan," Durrani said from the chief minister's palatial brick residence in Peshawar. The provincial capital is at the foot of the famed Khyber Pass, 120 miles northwest of the federal capital of Islamabad.
Durrani's ultraconservative religious alliance has sympathies with the deposed Taliban and its strict brand of Islam.
Already, many movie posters have been torn down, music banned on public transportation, and a singer pulled from a wedding and beaten by police. Durrani even grew a beard after being chosen chief minister, in keeping with ultraconservative beliefs that Muslim men should imitate Islam's prophet Muhammad in appearance as well as deeds.
Durrani's six-party coalition is composed of parties opposed to the war on terror in Afghanistan. Durrani's Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam was among the most vocal opponents. Supporters attending political rallies often waved posters of Osama bin Laden.
These days, while the Pakistani military patrols the border region and small numbers of U.S. special forces are there, checkposts have been reduced and fewer men are manning them.
Former Taliban interviewed by AP say they travel more freely across the border. Western intelligence says there has been an increase in activity at camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Durrani says his government does not support terrorism, but disagreed that the Taliban are terrorists. Some within the religious coalition say the al-Qaida network is an American creation.
"In fact we believe that America wanted to defame Islamic movements by saying Muslims are involved in terrorism, and they used Sept. 11 as an excuse to attack Afghanistan and to achieve this goal," said Ameer-ul Azeem, a spokesman for Jamaat-e-Islami, a partner in the ruling coalition.
"There are no al-Qaida men in Afghanistan, there is no al-Qaida in Pakistan, it's all the propaganda of America that al-Qaida people are operating from Afghanistan or Pakistan."
Human rights activists say religious extremism is on the rise in the region.
Asfandyar Khattak, chairman of Pakistan's independent Human Rights Commission, said attacks against moderates in the frontier have increased, backed by the police.
"The signs of extremism are increasing," said Khattak, noting that a singer, Gulzar Alam, was pulled from a wedding several weeks ago, taken to a police station and beaten.
A Pashtu writer, Fazal Wahab, was shot and killed by suspected militants in northwest Pakistan. His crime was to write a book about the "politics of mullahs" and how they used the Islamic religion to gain power, Khattak said.
Amnesty International condemned the killing, saying it "follows a series of measures by local authorities in the North West Frontier Province to bring the suspected perpetrators to justice."
-------- space
Reagan's space vision
John B. Roberts II
February 6, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20030206-94429322.htm
The Columbia's destruction is a tragedy, but thanks to former President Reagan it is not a space crisis. This was not so in 1986, when the Challenger's loss was one of a series of space program setbacks that created a national security crisis. In less than 12 months, the Shuttle, the Delta, the Atlas-Centaur and the Titan programs all had catastrophic launch losses. Subsequent probes and groundings delayed deployment of vital national security satellites, including the Global Positioning System, and created a multi-year backlog for commercial and communication satellite launches.
Moreover, the ability to recover quickly by building new rockets was hampered because NASA had stalled privatization of expendable launch vehicle production lines. They had been mothballed and skilled workers let go. The spare rocket parts left in various warehouses around the country amounted to less than a dozen rockets.
The cause of this crisis of spacelift was NASA's effort to monopolize U.S. space access with its overly ambitious and always-flawed shuttle program. The shuttle is an amazing feat of engineering, but it has never fulfilled its original promise. The shuttle was NASA's plan to create a routine "space transportation system." It would help pay for itself by charging other countries and commercial companies for satellite launches. NASA would also recoup money from other government agencies like the Pentagon or National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for launching their payloads. NASA managers projected up to 24 shuttle launches annually.
Before the Challenger explosion, Mr. Reagan signed off on a policy that made NASA the government's exclusive agency for space launch services. Mr. Reagan tried to keep expendable rocket factories running by privatizing them. NSDD-94, signed in May 1983, set a policy of commercialization so that private companies could operate the rocket factories and sell launch services. Unfortunately, Mr. Reagan left the power to implement the policy in NASA's hands.
NASA didn't want private companies competing with the shuttle for satellite customers. Despite strong interest from private companies, from 1983 through 1986 NASA never turned over a production line. So, when the Challenger exploded, America faced a space lift crisis. NASA's desire to monopolize space access and compete for satellite customers helped cause the Challenger tragedy. The Rogers Commission final report says "the nation's reliance on the shuttle as its principal space launch capability created a relentless pressure on NASA to increase the flight rate. Such reliance on a single launch capacity should be avoided in the future."
(Much of the pressure was self-generated. Even after the Challenger accident, NASA briefed Reagan White House officials that it had the capacity to fly off the backlog of satellites on its manifest in record time. Never mind that the shuttle had never achieved its projected flight rate before the Challenger crisis. NASA confidently told the NSC it could exceed past performance.)
After the Challenger disaster, Mr. Reagan ordered a broad review of national space policy. The resulting national security decision directive fundamentally altered the space program's future.
Wisely, Mr. Reagan rejected NASA's bid to maintain the space status quo. Instead, he authorized the Air Force to acquire its own fleets of expendable rockets and build up its Space Command. To encourage use of expendable rockets and minimize risks on the shuttle from mishaps during satellite launches - one astronaut called the procedure the equivalent of arming a bomb inside the cargo bay - Mr. Reagan barred all commercial satellites from the shuttle except those already built exclusively for the STS cargo hold.
The shuttle had only been operational for four years, but already it was far less than the routine space transportation system its creators envisioned. Since Challenger, our nation's commercial and military reliance on space-based systems has grown. So has our launch capacity. Our expendable rockets have been upgraded. Production lines are no longer mothballed. The shuttle can be grounded for months or years, and we will still have access to space.
Unlike the Rogers Commission, which operated in the spotlight, Mr. Reagan's new national space policy drew little notice outside government and aerospace circles. But it is the sole reason that our space program today is sufficiently robust to weather the Columbia's loss and possible long-term grounding of the shuttle fleet without damaging our ability to field military and intelligence satellites.
The Bush White House would do well to emulate Mr. Reagan's example and thoroughly re-examine our space policy. There are alternatives to the shuttle that can give us a robust space program that includes manned flight. Now is the time to explore them fully.
John B. Roberts II served in the Reagan White House. He is an author and television producer.
-------- spies
Evidence a Rare Look at U.S. Intelligence
February 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Powells-Evidence.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The intelligence information, in the U.S. view, is damning: Satellite images of almost 30 suspected weapons sites being cleaned up before U.N. inspectors arrive. Intercepted phone conversations that suggest Iraqi officers are hiding evidence from inspectors. Reports that biological weapons are already in the field.
Disclosing intelligence gathered by the government, Secretary of State Colin Powell, with CIA Director George J. Tenet at his side, laid out some of the specific reports that drive President Bush's case against Iraq.
The bottom line: The government of Saddam Hussein is making prohibited biological and chemical weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, and maintains contact with terrorists, including those linked to al-Qaida.
Key to Powell's presentation Wednesday were satellite pictures and intercepted telephone conversations that he said showed Baghdad cleaning up suspected weapons sites days before inspectors were to show up.
Some of the material had not been given to the U.N. weapons inspectors. In clearing material earlier, the Bush administration concentrated on what could be of immediate help in the searches. Now, the inspectors will get more, Powell said.
Iraqi officials dismissed Powell's presentation as a collection of ``stunts,'' ``special effects'' and ``unknown sources.'' ``It's obvious that Mr. Powell's remarks did not achieve the results the U.S. administration intended,'' Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri said at the United Nations.
The release of such specific intelligence -- and, in some cases, details about whom it came from -- is extremely rare. Officials worried that Saddam's security agencies might identify the turncoats who provided intelligence to the United States or its allies, although they said steps were taken to prevent this.
Powell described some sources as ``people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam Hussein is really up to.''
Playing intercepted communications is almost unheard of. The recordings undoubtedly alerted those Iraqi military officers that their conversations had been monitored.
Of the audio recordings, captured by the National Security Agency, one was a purported discussion between two Iraqi officers about hiding prohibited vehicles from weapons inspectors. Another dealt with removing a reference to nerve agents from written instructions. In a third, the officers discuss ``forbidden ammo.''
Another report, cited by Powell, could be particularly worrisome for the tens of thousands of U.S. and British troops assembling around Iraq: Saddam's military already has biological weapons in the field -- something Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has often asserted.
``We know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was dispersing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agents ... to various locations in western Iraq,'' Powell said. ``Most of the launchers and warheads have been hidden in large groves of palm trees and were to be moved every one to four weeks to escape detection.''
Powell sent teams of aides to the Central Intelligence Agency last Thursday, as he began drafting his presentation. He paid three secret visits to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., between Friday and Sunday, sifting through data and weighing the risks of disclosure. Tenet then joined Powell twice at the U.S. mission to the United Nations in New York on Tuesday to review the material and rehearse its presentation.
Powell and Tenet decided to delete some material, rather than risk compromising their sources or revealing too much about U.S. intelligence-gathering, an administration official said. On Tenet's advice, Powell included some material he had been undecided about disclosing.
As a number of U.S. officials already privy to the information said, many of Powell's reports are circumstantial and open to interpretation -- in Powell's words, no single report constitutes the long-sought ``smoking gun.''
The evidence is, at its roots, made up of pictures taken from orbit of trucks and buildings, recordings of suspicious words between Iraqi military officers and reports from unidentified human sources.
Taken together, they form a conclusive picture, American officials say. Powell also said this is only part of the intelligence the government has collected.
Powell detailed intelligence that purports to link Saddam to supporters of al-Qaida. Post-Sept. 11, the alleged links center on a Jordanian named Abu Musab Zarqawi, whom U.S. officials describe as affiliated with Osama bin Laden.
Zarqawi left Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks and has traveled to Iran, Iraq and Syria. He spent two months in Baghdad last spring and summer receiving medical treatment, Powell said.
He has left, but followers remain in the city with Saddam's apparent consent, Powell said. Zarqawi is tied to the assassination of a U.S. diplomat last year, and the attempted bombing of a tourist hotel in Jordan during millennium celebrations. Zarqawi's group is also tied to a network of extremists recently arrested in Europe, Powell said.
Zarqawi is further linked to a Kurdish Islamic extremist network in northern Iraq that has experimented with ricin, a biological weapon, as well as extremist groups in nearby countries, Powell said.
U.S. counterterrorism officials have said this Kurdish group is not tied to Saddam's government, although Powell said an Iraqi agent ranks high in the organization. That agent also offered safe haven to al-Qaida operatives passing through Iraq, Powell said.
Powell also alleged that Iraq had maintained ties to al-Qaida before Sept. 11 through Iraq's embassy in Pakistan, and said there is some evidence of a long-standing nonaggression pact between bin Laden and Saddam. He did not offer sources for much of this information, although he said some came from al-Qaida detainees.
Powell's evidence also included:
--Satellite pictures, taken in May and June 2002, that Powell said showed Iraq ``bulldozed and graded to conceal chemical weapons evidence'' at the Al Musayyib chemical complex, and had cargo vehicles and a decontamination vehicle moving around at the site.
-- Satellite pictures, taken in April 2002, of a missile research facility that Powell said showed Iraq was developing missiles that can hit Israel, Turkey, and parts of Russia. But Powell didn't say that U.N. inspectors have visited that facility regularly and found no prohibited activities taking place.
--Precision-made aluminum tubes, confiscated on their way to Iraq, that Powell said most U.S. experts believe were intended for a program to make enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. The Iraqis contend these are for conventional artillery weapons, and U.N. inspectors have said the tubes they saw were not for a nuclear program.
--Satellite pictures that he said showed 15 munitions bunkers. Powell said four of them had active chemical munitions inside.
--Reports from four Iraqi informants and defectors that allege that Iraq has at least 18 trucks that it uses as mobile biological weapons labs. Powell also said the Iraqis use train cars as mobile labs.
--Old video of an Iraqi Mirage fighter jet spraying what Powell said was simulated anthrax. A defector said remote-controlled drones were capable of attacking with biological weapons.
--Reports from informants that Saddam has personally given orders to prevent his weapons scientists from speaking to U.N. inspectors.
--U.N. figures that suggest Iraq had enough material to produce 6,600 gallons of anthrax.
--Reports from witnesses that Saddam tested chemical and biological weapons on death row prisoners.
--------
Mysterious 'Spy' Intrigues Japan
February 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Spying-for-Pyongyang.html
KASHIWA, Japan (AP) -- He wears a wig, refuses to have his face photographed and says he has moved 12 times in the past three years. He calls himself Kenki Aoyama, but that's a made-up name.
This is one chain smoker who has reason to be edgy.
For decades, he says, he was an engineer developing missile technology for North Korea. After that, his story continues, he worked as a spy in China, stealing industrial secrets. Now, he's on the run -- but he hasn't been silent.
Since returning in 1999 to his native Japan, Aoyama has been telling Japanese officials -- and the public -- about their secretive communist neighbor, both as a paid informer and as the author of two popular books on his life in North Korea.
Aoyama says his main reason for speaking out instead of lying low is to warn that North Korea poses a serious threat.
In Japan, that message is highly controversial.
Late last year, amid heightened tensions over North Korea's nuclear weapons development and its abductions of more than a dozen Japanese citizens for use as spies, Aoyama was supposed to speak before Japan's Parliament.
Ruling party politicians scuttled the event, citing legal questions about Aoyama's passport. But opposition leaders claimed the ruling conservatives were afraid of embarrassment for not getting tougher on North Korea.
Aoyama strongly advocates a hard line against Pyongyang, and says it is already too late to stop it from becoming a nuclear power.
He claims North Korea's nuclear weapons programs began in the 1960s, when dozens of his classmates and thousands of experts were sent to Yongbyon, a major nuclear facility north of Pyongyang.
``I'm convinced that North Korea has already made A-bombs,'' he said in a recent interview near Tokyo. ``No matter how slow they were, there must be several of them by now.''
He also claims North Korea provided missile technology to Pakistan, Iran and Iraq in exchange for nuclear weapons technology and 30-40 experts regularly visited each other's country. After the fall of Soviet Union, North Korea offered dozens of Russian scientists jobs, he added.
A Japan-born Korean, Aoyama left for North Korea in 1960 at age 21.
He was among 93,000 Koreans, most of them originally from the South, who went to North Korea between 1959 to 1985 on a North Korean government-backed repatriation campaign, hoping to escape the poverty and discrimination they face in Japan.
What they found was even worse.
Aoyama remembers his shock at seeing North Koreans in ragged clothes, ``as if they were all beggars.''
He says he graduated in 1962 from a Pyongyang technical college with a degree in mechanical engineering and began work as a researcher and teacher at a science institute, where he conducted a national geological survey and developed missile launch pads.
He married a Japanese-born Korean woman and has two sons -- all of whom have also escaped from North Korea.
Aoyama said that in 1996 he became an industrial spy in China, obtaining sonar technology for North Korea.
He said he returned to North Korea in 1998, and was allowed to enter Japan the following year.
Since then he has -- ``for a small payment'' -- provided Japan's Foreign Ministry with information ranging from Pyongyang's nuclear development to its involvement in drug trafficking and abductions.
Today, he lives primarily on the royalties from sales of the two books he has written about his life in North Korea. He is awaiting a decision by the government on whether he will be given official status as a political refugee.
Toshio Miyatsuka, a professor at Yamanashi Gakuin University who specializes in North Korea, said most of what Aoyama says is trustworthy, except for some details of his personal data.
``What he says about North Korea is mostly accurate, the kind of things that only someone who has lived there can tell,'' he said.
Aoyama believes about 50 people like him have fled North Korea and are hiding in Japan. He wants to find them and form a support group.
``Here, I can speak out about things that I could never say in North Korea,'' Aoyama said. ``You don't know what freedom is unless you are deprived of it.''
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FBI: Accused Spies Had Classified Data
February 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-National-Guard-Espionage.html
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- A former National Guard officer and his ex-wife, charged with possessing national security documents, illegally obtained top-secret information related to U.S. chemical, nuclear and biological capabilities, authorities said Thursday.
The stolen documents still have not been recovered, an FBI agent testified at a detention hearing for Rafael Davila, 51, and Deborah Davila, 46. Prosecutors said that because many of the documents are secret or top secret, they could not specify what they contained.
``They are worth, on the black market, millions of dollars, and would be of huge interest to militias and terrorist organizations,'' FBI agent Lee McEuen testified. ``Based on that, I believe they are a huge danger to the United States.''
Assistant U.S. Attorney Earl Hicks said there was no evidence the documents had reached foreign governments.
U.S. Magistrate Cynthia Imbrogno decided the two would remain in jail until a bail determination is made Friday.
Defense lawyers argued that the Davilas had cooperated with the government, and were not a danger to the community or a flight risk.
Deborah Davila, a special education teacher, ``has not tried to secret herself,'' said Chris Phelps, her attorney.
Roger Peven, a federal defender assigned to Rafael Davila, said his client was a decorated Vietnam veteran who had cooperated with authorities.
In arguing for their continued detention, Hicks pointed to Rafael Davila's alleged theft of boxes of documents, and Deborah Davila's alleged sales of them. McEuen said she sold three batches of documents for $2,000 each.
Hicks also said the suspects have not divulged where the documents are.
If convicted, the Davilas face a maximum 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
Rafael Davila is a retired major in the Washington Army National Guard. He was an intelligence officer when he left the service in 1999. He was married briefly to Deborah Davila in the 1990s.
He was arrested Tuesday at his parents' home in Ontario, Ore. His ex-wife was arrested at her home near Walla Walla.
A federal indictment charged Deborah Davila with lying to federal agents when she said she did not know Kirk D. Lyons of Black Mountain, N.C., a lawyer who has represented the Ku Klux Klan.
Lyons is not charged with any crime, and said Wednesday that he did not know Rafael Davila, barely knew Deborah Davila and considered the allegations ridiculous.
The indictment also said that from January through mid-August of 1999, the Davilas had unauthorized possession of sensitive documents. Deborah Davila was also charged with trying to deliver the documents to an unidentified person who was not authorized to receive them.
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Turkey OKs upgrade of U.S. bases
By Seva Ulman
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
February 6, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030206-113335-9871r.htm
ANKARA, Turkey, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- Turkish parliamentarians Thursday approved a measure granting the United States the authority to repair its bases and ports in Turkey ahead of a possible war on Iraq.
The vote on the authorization, which will be valid for 3 months, was taken in a closed session. The government-backed proposal had 308 votes in favor and 193 votes against. Nine deputies in the 550-seat parliament abstained.
The authorization allows the arrival of some 4,000 U.S. engineers and logistics experts to work on the upgrading of military bases, particularly the southern ports of Iskenderun and Mersin. The cost of the expenditure is expected to be some $50 million.
Prime Minister Abdullah Gul's government, however, held off on submitting until Feb.18 another proposal allowing the deployment of U.S. combat troops. Gul, who heads the Islam-rooted Justice and Development Party, asked for a closed-door vote because of the strong anti-war sentiment in the country.
Defending his government's proposal, Gul said the authorizations did not mean Turkey was taking part in any war against Iraq.
"Turkey will not enter (the) war," he told reporters before the vote.
He later added: "We will continue to effort for peace until the very end."
Secular Turkey, which shares a border with Iraq, is NATO's only predominantly Muslim member and is a key regional ally of Washington. Washington seeks Turkey's active cooperation and wants to open a northern front in any combat with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's troops.
Turkey has begun deploying and moving artillery along its around 200-mile border with the Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.
Washington believes Iraq is deceiving the international community and possesses proscribed weapons of mass destruction. It says Saddam poses an immediate threat to the region and the world and so must be disarmed with force if necessary. Turkey's approval of a U.S.-led war would be a key victory for the Bush administration's efforts to win worldwide support for military action.
In a related development, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan visited Ankara Monday, the daily Hurriyet said Thursday. Ramadan reportedly met Gul in a closed-door session for three hours.
Also Thursday, Baghdad's ambassador in Ankara, Talip Abid Salih, warned Turkey against cooperating with the United States.
"For us, allowing any bases to be used or helping the United States would mean taking part in the war," he said. "It is only a friendly advice to Turkey."
U.S. Undersecretary of Treasury John Taylor is expected to arrive in Ankara later Thursday to discuss and possibly sign a deal to offset Turkey's financial losses in the case of war.
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Pentagon writing rules for use of non-lethal agents in Iraq war: Rumsfeld
AFP
Feb 06, 2003
http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030206003622.q4l6qyzw.html
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is writing rules of engagement to allow US forces to use non-lethal riot control agents to minimize civilian casualties if the United States goes to war in Iraq, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday.
But Rumsfeld said treaty restrictions and other laws that bar the use of riot control agents in warfare without a presidential waiver have made the process "very complex."
"We are doing our best to live within the straitjacket that has been imposed on us on this subject," he said at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.
US military planners fear that US forces may have to contend with massive movements of panic-stricken civilians if Iraq uses of chemical or biological weapons, or hostile crowds if an invading force meets popular resistance.
Army General Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces in the region, has drawn up a plan that seeks to achieve US military objectives with the least interference with civilians, Rumsfeld said.
The plan deals with "a host of very unpleasant contingencies," he said.
"Absent a presidential waiver, in many cases our forces are allowed to shoot somebody and kill them but they are not allowed to use a non-lethal riot control agent under the law," he said. "It is a very awkward situation.
The 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention bars the use of riot control agents as a method of warfare, and the Geneva Conventions place other restrictions on the military's treatment of civilians.
A 1975 US executive order, however, says the use of riot control agents would be permissible in certain situations, for instance when civilians are used to mask or screen attacks and civilian casualties can be avoided.
Although intended to save civilian lives, the use of non-lethal agents is controversial.
Russian authorities discovered that last November when they tried to end a Chechen hostage-taking at a Moscow theater by pumping in opiate gas to put the hostagetakers to sleep. The gas killed 129 captives. President George W. Bush, however, defended the Russian action.
Rumsfeld said the use of non-lethal agents was "perfectly appropriate" in some situations encountered by US forces in Afghansitan: transporting dangerous prisoners on airplanes, or flushing out caves where fighters were hiding with women and children.
But he said writing simple rules for what were often complex and stressful situations has proven difficult.
"We have tangled ourselves up so badly on this issue," he said.
He and General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrestled for more than hour last week trying to fashion rules that were clear enough that a soldier on the front line could "in a second or two make a decision about what they can do, what they can't do."
Myers said military commanders also were working out ways of dealing with the potential use of civilians as human shields at Iraqi targets, or Iraqi civilians taking up arms against US forces.
"If the regime were to use civilians as human shields and so forth it's a different matter and you would have to address that differently. If they take up arms, they are combatants. They will be treated as such," he said.
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STANDOFF WITH IRAQ
2/6/2003
AP
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-02-06-gulf-forces_x.htm
U.S. Gulf force may reach 150,000 this month WASHINGTON - The buildup of American land, sea and air forces in the Persian Gulf is accelerating, with two and possibly three more aircraft carriers likely to head for the region in the next few days, officials said.
In addition to the three carriers within striking range of Iraq and a fourth on its way, the Navy is prepared to dispatch the USS Kitty Hawk from its station in Japan and the USS Nimitz from San Diego. If still another were needed, to total seven, it likely would be the USS George Washington from Norfolk, Va.
The number of U.S. troops in the region now stands at about 113,000 - nearly half of them in Kuwait, the main launch point for a U.S.-led ground invasion - and it is expected to reach 150,000 by Feb. 15, a senior official said Wednesday.
President Bush says he has not made a decision on using force to disarm Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday, in arguing the administration's case against Saddam Hussein before the U.N. Security Council, that the time is approaching for the world to declare "enough is enough."
U.S. forces have been assembling in the Gulf region since December, including a seven-ship Navy fleet that entered the Red Sea this week carrying about 7,000 Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade at Camp Lejeune, N.C. A similar size group of California-based Marines is en route to the Gulf on seven other ships.
There are about 50,000 troops in Kuwait and that number will climb further, officials said.
A senior defense official who is familiar with U.S. military planning for possible war in Iraq said the Navy will have six or seven aircraft carriers within striking distance of Iraq by the end of this month. Three are within range now - the USS Harry S. Truman in the Mediterranean Sea and the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Constellation in the Persian Gulf or Arabian Sea - and a fourth, the USS Theodore Roosevelt is en route.
If the Kitty Hawk went to the Gulf, the USS Carl Vinson would replace it in the Pacific to maintain a carrier presence within striking distance of North Korea, several defense officials said. During the war in Afghanistan the Kitty Hawk operated in the Arabian Sea with a contingent of special operations forces aboard. This time it would be expected to play the more conventional role of launching air missions over Iraq.
Mid-February is widely thought to be the earliest date that U.S. forces would be ready to launch an invasion of Iraq, but officials - all of them speaking on condition of anonymity - said Wednesday that they may need some weeks beyond that. By early March, the size of the U.S. force is likely to exceed 200,000 troops.
Also Wednesday, a veteran analyst of the Iraqi military, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a new report that Iraq is building a two-ring defense of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. Iraq also is erecting an extensive structure of barrier and other defenses in key cities, he wrote.
"There are also indications that some elements of the Republican Guards may be training in urban warfare to fight in civilian dress, and that Iraq will deliberately mix such loyalist elements, the security services and popular forces in civilian dress to fight urban battles under conditions where the U.S. and British may find it impossible to distinguish combatants from civilians," Cordesman wrote.
There is no reliable estimate of Iraq's exact military strength, Cordesman said. He estimates there are 389,000 full-time active duty troops, 2,200 to 2,600 battle tanks, 3,700 other armored vehicles, 2,400 major artillery weapons and 300 combat aircraft. He estimates Iraq has 850 surface-to-air missile launchers and about 3,000 anti-aircraft guns.
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Army Readies Copters For Gulf
Rumsfeld Reveals New Budget Crisis
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A31
Preparing to deploy to the Persian Gulf region, the Army's 101st Airborne Division started moving helicopters from its headquarters in Kentucky to the Port of Jacksonville yesterday before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell began his address on Iraqi arms violations to the U.N. Security Council.
The air mobile division, equipped with more than 200 gunship and transport helicopters, has not received a formal deployment order from the Pentagon, a spokesman said at the division's Fort Campbell, Ky., headquarters.
But military analysts said the pre-deployment activity was a likely sign that deployment was imminent. It came on a day when the Pentagon announced a mobilization of an additional 16,979 reservists and National Guard members, bringing the number to 111,603. That total is the largest since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, although still less than half of the 265,000 mobilized for the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Leaders of the House Armed Services Committee, holding their first hearing on the Defense Department's proposed $379.9 billion budget for fiscal 2004, expressed concern about over-reliance on reserve forces since Sept. 11, 2001, saying they believe the global war on terrorism and impending military action in Iraq underscore the need for a larger active-duty military force.
But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld insisted under questioning that the current 1.4 million-member active-duty force, augmented by 1.2 million reservists, is large enough to fight in Iraq and respond to any aggressive behavior by North Korea, which has restarted its nuclear weapons program.
Rumsfeld did, however, reveal a looming budget crisis at the Pentagon, saying that Congress has not fully funded the war on terrorism. The war, Rumsfeld said, is costing about $1.6 billion a month in the current budget, meaning that defense officials are now borrowing from third- and fourth-quarter funds to keep current operations going.
Part of this "robbing Peter to pay Paul," Rumsfeld said, also involves $2.1 billion spent to date deploying forces to the Persian Gulf region for a possible invasion of Iraq. There are now 113,000 U.S. troops in the region, with that number expected to reach 150,000 by Feb. 15.
"We're going to have to come in for a lot more money in a supplemental; there's no doubt about it," Rumsfeld said.
He also noted that his $379.9 billion budget proposal -- which works out to a military spending rate of $42 million an hour -- includes neither the projected $19.2 billion cost of continuing the global war on terrorism nor the cost of any military action in Iraq, which has been estimated at $50 billion to $100 billion.
On Iraq, Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) questioned Rumsfeld about reports that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has trained and armed more than 1 million civilians. Meehan asked whether, in the event of war, U.S. forces could use non-lethal weapons against such civilian forces.
Rumsfeld replied that current laws and treaties would actually make it more difficult for U.S. forces to use non-lethal weapons -- .32-caliber rubber ball munitions, "stingball" grenades and the like -- than it would be to shoot and kill armed civilians.
Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who appeared at the hearing with Rumsfeld, added that he doubted civilians would take up arms against U.S. forces in any large number. But if they did, he said, "they are combatants and will be treated as such."
The budget hearing began with Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), the committee's chairman, lauding Rumsfeld for the Bush administration's commitment to increased defense spending. He noted that the Pentagon's budget proposal is $94 billion higher than the final defense budget of the Clinton administration.
But Hunter, who has already called for $42 billion in additional defense spending, said the budget is inadequate, noting that $72 billion for defense procurement is $18 billion less than the Congressional Budget Office says is needed and more than $28 billion less than the Joint Chiefs of Staff say they need.
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U.S. troop level reaches 113,000 in Persian Gulf area
ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 6, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030206-57886448.htm
The buildup of American land, sea and air forces in the Persian Gulf is accelerating, officials said yesterday, as the Bush administration made its case at the United Nations that Iraq must be disarmed.
The number of U.S. troops in the region now stands at about 113,000 - nearly half of them in Kuwait, the likely main starting point for a U.S.-led ground invasion - and is expected to reach 150,000 by Feb. 15, a senior official said.
President Bush says he has not made a decision on using force to disarm Iraq, but Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told the U.N. Security Council that the time is approaching for the world community to declare that "enough is enough."
Mid-February is widely thought to be the earliest date that U.S. forces would be ready to begin an invasion of Iraq, but officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said they may need some weeks beyond that. By the latter part of February the size of the U.S. force is likely to exceed 200,000 troops.
The force has been assembling in the Gulf region since December, including a seven-ship Navy fleet that entered the Red Sea this week carrying about 7,000 Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade at Camp Lejeune, N.C. A similar size group of California-based Marines is en route to the Gulf on seven other ships.
A senior defense official who is familiar with the planning for potential war said the Navy will have six or seven aircraft carriers within striking distance of Iraq by the end of this month. Three are within range now - the USS Harry S. Truman in the Mediterranean Sea and the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Constellation in the Persian Gulf or Arabian Sea - and a fourth, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, is en route.
The Navy is prepared to add the USS Kitty Hawk, which is stationed in Japan, as well as the San Diego-based USS Nimitz, which finished its predeployment at-sea training several days ago, although no final decisions have been made. If the Kitty Hawk went to the Gulf, the USS Carl Vinson would replace it in the Pacific to maintain a carrier presence within striking distance of North Korea, several defense officials said.
If a seventh carrier were needed for the Gulf buildup, it probably would be the USS George Washington, from Norfolk.
The Pentagon also is accelerating the mobilization of National Guard and Reserve forces. It announced yesterday that an additional 16,979 reservists had been called to active duty over the past week. The total number on active duty, including those assigned to homeland defense, stands at 111,603, said Army Lt. Col. Dan Stoneking, a Pentagon spokesman. Of those, 80,002 are Army National Guard and Army Reserve.
Also yesterday, a veteran analyst of the Iraqi military, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a report that Iraq is building a two-ring defense of Baghdad. The Iraqis also are erecting an extensive structure of barriers and other defenses in other key cities, he wrote.
"There are also indications that some elements of the Republican Guards may be training in urban warfare to fight in civilian dress, and that Iraq will deliberately mix such loyalist elements, the security services and popular forces in civilian dress to fight urban battles under conditions where the U.S. and British may find it impossible to distinguish combatants from civilians," Mr. Cordesman wrote.
There is no reliable estimate of Iraq's military strength, Mr. Cordesman said, but he estimates there are 389,000 full-time active duty troops, 2,200 to 2,600 battle tanks, 3,700 other armored vehicles, 2,400 major artillery weapons and 300 combat aircraft. He estimates Iraq has 850 surface-to-air missile launchers and about 3,000 anti-aircraft guns.
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E-Bombing Civilization
by Daniel McCarthy
February 6, 2003
LewRockwell.com
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There's a new weapon of mass destruction, one designed to destroy critical electronic infrastructure. It shorts out everything from office computers to traffic lights to pacemakers, crippling the machines that run a modern economy - not to mention those that run a modern hospital. Although not intended as an anti-personnel device, the side-effects that this weapon has upon human beings caught within its blast radius are devastating: those lucky enough to suffer a direct hit are more or less instantly vaporized. The less fortunate on the periphery of the blast, or those caught by a ricochet, suffer severe burns and damage to the internal organs, including the brain.
The weapon is the "e-bomb," or microwave bomb, and as you may have guessed, this new marvel of terror is brought to us by the same folks who gave the world the atomic bomb and weaponized anthrax. Yes, it's a creation of the United States federal government and its "defense" contractors. Victorino Matus writes about the e-bomb on the Weekly Standard's website; Matus cannot quite conceal his enthusiasm, but he does at least mention the humanitarian concerns about the device. Of course, he concludes by reiterating that the purpose of the bomb is actually to spare lives: to destroy electronics without also killing people. This is a humanitarian weapon.
Something here doesn't add up. Several news sources have reported that the e-bomb may see its first use in the attack on Iraq. That's understandable as far as it goes; Iraq is not really a stone age country, despite years of sanctions. It may still have enough electronics to make the bomb an effective weapon in the U.S. arsenal (although then again, it may not). But think about this in the long term. The real danger to the United States at present comes from terrorist organizations, not from "rogue states," which are only significant to the extent that they harbor and support terrorists. How do you use an "e-bomb" against al Qaeda? It's not a weapon of much use against people hiding in caves. Nor is it of any use in stopping a hijacked airplane - it could bring down an aircraft, of course, but so could a conventional missile, and the e-bomb would run the additional risk of shorting out any other electronics nearby, including other planes and systems on the ground. Even its usefulness against Iraq will be very limited. To put it bluntly, an anti-technology weapon is most useful against a target dependent on high technology. That doesn't mean Iraq, and it certainly doesn't mean Afghanistan or al Qaeda. It means countries like the United States.
By its very nature, the e-bomb poses more of a danger to the United States and other first world countries than it does to terrorists or rogue states. So why is the US developing this weapon? One explanation would be that the military-industrial bureaucracy is still fighting the last war. The e-bomb might work fine against the aircraft and mechanized infantry divisions of a large nation state such as the Soviet Union. It would be a useful weapon to deploy against cities as well, to scramble communications and handicap the economy. But this kind nation-to-nation warfare is not what America or the world currently faces. Even apart from al Qaeda, most of the fighting in the world today is within, not between, states. Outside of Africa, what warfare there still is between states typically now takes the form of the United States and its allies fighting a single, smaller foe of extremely limited conventional forces (Serbia, Iraq, etc.). In such engagements the e-bomb has limited practical value. It's a bunker-buster, and one of a highly specialized sort, in an age characterized by fewer and fewer bunkers. It might have applications in Iraq, but it would have had few indeed in Serbia - except, again, as a weapon for use against cities.
On the other hand, the e-bomb would be a very convenient weapon for anyone who wanted to attack America. There are ways to shield, or "harden," electronics against electromagnetic pulses, but microwaves are the most difficult radiation to harden against. No doubt some of the most highly sensitive military technology might be proofed against an e-bomb, but civilians would have little protection. In addition to hospitals and traffic lights, power grids, air traffic control systems, and telecommunications could all be crippled or destroyed. The loss of life and economic damage would be bad enough in Belgrade or Baghdad; in an American city it would be far worse. The microwave bomb really is a weapon of mass destruction, one particularly tuned to the weaknesses of a modern, computer-reliant city.
Will the government's development of this weapon come back to haunt us? In twenty years' time we may have President George P. Bush threatening war with Bhutan unless the Bhutanis can prove that they haven't been developing an e-bomb. Meanwhile our own military-industrial complex will be busily at work creating yet another weapon of mass destruction. It's happened before and now it's happening again.
Daniel McCarthy [send him mail] is a graduate student in classics at Washington University in St. Louis.
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Funds in doubt for Pentagon's cyber-spy plan
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 6, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030206-6831109.htm
Privacy advocates from the political left and right are joining forces with Congress to stop funding of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, a cyber-surveillance system labled by critics as a "supersnoop" system.
A measure blocking the program passed the Senate last month but must survive the House and Senate conference committee this week. The measure was added as an amendment to a 2003 omnibus spending bill.
"The folks behind this amendment aren't exactly a group that flocks together for every possible issue," said Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat and the amendment's sponsor.
"Democrats, Republicans, liberals and conservatives are raising their voices and saying they don't want their government snooping on law-abiding Americans. The program amounts to unleashing virtual bloodhounds," Mr. Wyden said.
The TIA data-mining program seeks to collect public and private records, such as credit-card transactions and cell-phone usage, to identify terrorists.
Several civil liberties groups, dubbed the "Right-Left Coalition," participated in a teleconference call yesterday to raise awareness with House and Senate conference committee members on the need to retain the legislative language.
The coalition includes the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans for Tax Reform, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Eagle Forum, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Free Congress Foundation, and People for the American Way.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican, has expressed concerns over privacy, and his spokesman said the program's fate is questionable.
The amendment would block funding until the defense secretary, attorney general, and CIA director submit a report to Congress explaining the program in detail and any threats to privacy or civil liberties. It also requires congressional approval on the technology used.
TIA was initiated last year and is run by retired Vice Adm. John Poindexter, whose conviction for deceiving Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal was later overturned. After the coalition criticized the administration's choice to lead the agency, Adm. Poindexter's name and biography were removed from the program's Web site.
The program's original logo - a pyramid with an all-seeing eye focused on the world - and its slogan translated from Latin, "knowledge is power," further raised speculation as to the agency's mission and have also been redesigned. The new logo is an open pyramid with a ribbon running through it.
Mr. Wyden said the Web site changes are encouraging and indicate the administration is stepping away from the program as proposed.
Also, the White House on Tuesday sent congressional appropriators a letter outlining cuts and additional spending that would trigger a veto from President Bush. Maintaining the TIA program was not listed among the administration's main concerns or objections to the omnibus spending bill.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, has criticized the program, but Republicans have remained mostly mum on the issue, letting Democrats take the lead to block the program.
The Free Congress Foundation's Lisa Dean said the "bit of indecision on the Republican side of the aisle" comes from their inclination to support the Bush administration wholly in the war against terrorism.
Because the measure passed unanimously in the Senate however, conservatives expect Republicans to join ranks to kill the program.
"It is doubtful Republicans will jump up and support TIA and track law-abiding citizens. They know it would jeopardize their own re-election," said Lori Waters with the Eagle Forum.
Added Robert Fike with Americans for Tax Reform: "While we would like to see a bipartisan assortment of lawmakers come out against the TIA program in a more vocal fashion, what really matters is how they vote. And at the end of the day, we hope they vote the right way."
Chris Westphal, chief executive officer of Visual Analytics, said his company trademarked the phrase "total information awareness" and had begun proceedings to fight the Pentagon for using it.
However, the phrase has taken on such a negative connotation that Mr. Westhpal said they are no longer pursing ownership of the phrase, which is printed on the reverse side of his business card.
"I don't want to say it's tainted, but it's not something we now want to embrace as a slogan," Mr. Westphal said.
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101st Airborne Gets Deployment Orders
Feb 6, 2002
AP
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/1/101ST_AIRBORNE_DEPLOYMENT?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. -- The Army's 101st Airborne Division received orders Thursday to deploy overseas.
The legendary division - along with its 270 helicopters - will "support possible future operations in the global war on terrorism," according to a statement released by the public affairs office at Fort Campbell, where the division is based.
The division will deploy to the U.S. Central Command area of operations, the statement said.
The exact location and number of soldiers deploying was not disclosed. The 101st has about 20,000 soldiers.
"The president of the United States has made no decision about any future military operations," said Maj. Carl Purvis, reading from a prepared statement. "These deployments are prudent steps to increase military capabilities and enhance flexibility."
The 101st "will provide Central Command substantial operational flexibility and combat power, as well as the ability to conduct long-range helicopter attacks and air assault operations should those capabilities be required to successfully prosecute the global war on terrorism," the statement said.
The 101st is the Army's only air assault division, trained to rapidly deploy anywhere in the world within 36 hours. It parachuted at Normandy, fought on "Hamburger Hill" in Vietnam, and hunted suspected Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in the mountains of Afghanistan.
The entire division - then about 16,000 strong - deployed to the Middle East in anticipation of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
On Jan. 17, 1991, fire from 101st Apache helicopter took out Iraqi radar sites at the start of the Gulf War. In the ground war, the 101st made the longest and largest air assault in world history into enemy territory.
About 4,500 soldiers from the 101st's 3rd Brigade, 187th Regiment, deployed to Afghanistan to fight in Operation Enduring Freedom, America's war on terrorism. The soldiers, who returned in August after a six-month deployment, fought in Operation Anaconda, one of the fiercest battles in Afghanistan.
Purvis said the 101st will deploy out of Jacksonville, Fla., via plane and ship.
On Wednesday, the 101st sent an undisclosed number of Black Hawk, Apache and Chinook helicopters to Jacksonville, for what it said was a training exercise.
The 101st said the helicopters were to be dismantled and placed on a ship as part of a readiness drill.
The Jacksonville port was used by the 101st before the Persian Gulf War to transport equipment.
On the Net:
Fort Campbell: http://www.campbell.army.mi
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U.S. Forces in Persian Gulf Growing
February 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Iraq-Military.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The buildup of American land, sea and air forces in the Persian Gulf is accelerating, with two and possibly three more aircraft carriers likely to head for the region in the next few days, officials said.
On Thursday, the Army's 101st Airborne Division received orders to deploy to the Persian Gulf region, an Army statement said. The statement did not say where the division was going or how many of its 20,000 soldiers would be on the move. The division is outfitted with 270 helicopters.
In addition to the three carriers within striking range of Iraq and a fourth on its way, the Navy is prepared to dispatch the USS Kitty Hawk from its station in Japan and the USS Nimitz from San Diego. If still another were needed, to total seven, it likely would be the USS George Washington from Norfolk, Va.
The number of U.S. troops in the region now stands at about 113,000 -- nearly half of them in Kuwait, the main launch point for a U.S.-led ground invasion -- and it is expected to reach 150,000 by Feb. 15, a senior official said Wednesday.
President Bush says he has not made a decision on using force to disarm Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday, in arguing the administration's case against Saddam Hussein before the U.N. Security Council, that the time is approaching for the world to declare ``enough is enough.''
U.S. forces have been assembling in the Gulf region since December, including a seven-ship Navy fleet that entered the Red Sea this week carrying about 7,000 Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade at Camp Lejeune, N.C. A similar size group of California-based Marines is en route to the Gulf on seven other ships.
There are about 50,000 troops in Kuwait and that number will climb further, officials said.
A senior defense official who is familiar with U.S. military planning for possible war in Iraq said the Navy will have six or seven aircraft carriers within striking distance of Iraq by the end of this month. Three are within range now -- the USS Harry S. Truman in the Mediterranean Sea and the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Constellation in the Persian Gulf or Arabian Sea -- and a fourth, the USS Theodore Roosevelt is en route.
If the Kitty Hawk went to the Gulf, the USS Carl Vinson would replace it in the Pacific to maintain a carrier presence within striking distance of North Korea, several defense officials said. During the war in Afghanistan the Kitty Hawk operated in the Arabian Sea with a contingent of special operations forces aboard. This time it would be expected to play the more conventional role of launching air missions over Iraq.
Mid-February is widely thought to be the earliest date that U.S. forces would be ready to launch an invasion of Iraq, but officials -- all of them speaking on condition of anonymity -- said Wednesday that they may need some weeks beyond that. By early March, the size of the U.S. force is likely to exceed 200,000 troops.
Also Wednesday, a veteran analyst of the Iraqi military, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a new report that Iraq is building a two-ring defense of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. Iraq also is erecting an extensive structure of barrier and other defenses in key cities, he wrote.
``There are also indications that some elements of the Republican Guards may be training in urban warfare to fight in civilian dress, and that Iraq will deliberately mix such loyalist elements, the security services and popular forces in civilian dress to fight urban battles under conditions where the U.S. and British may find it impossible to distinguish combatants from civilians,'' Cordesman wrote.
There is no reliable estimate of Iraq's exact military strength, Cordesman said. He estimates there are 389,000 full-time active duty troops, 2,200 to 2,600 battle tanks, 3,700 other armored vehicles, 2,400 major artillery weapons and 300 combat aircraft. He estimates Iraq has 850 surface-to-air missile launchers and about 3,000 anti-aircraft guns.
On the Net:
Pentagon at http://www.defenselink.mil
Cordesman's report at http://www.csis.org/burke/mb/iraq--edgeofwar.pdf
-------- propaganda wars
They Call This Evidence
Jimmy Breslin,
February 6, 2003
Newsday, Inc.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/columnists/ny-nybres063118829feb06,0,1080808.column?coll=ny-li-columnists
The firefighter was in the World Trade Center wreckage when he found a perfectly knotted necktie. He took it to a cop who was running his section of recovering things and the cop was unimpressed and the firefighter got mad, left the tie and walked off.
On a Saturday morning, he was at Our Lady of Hope Church in Middle Village for the funeral of Mike Weinberg, a fellow firefighter. After it, the firefighter was across the street, still talking about the necktie.
"You know what it means when you find a knotted necktie, don't you?" he said.
I waited.
"Somebody's neck and head were inside it," he said.
That was his smoking gun.
I thought of that yesterday when Colin Powell was so sure of everything he was saying about Iraq, and sitting behind him, as incontrovertible proof, was George Tenet, the head of the CIA.
The CIA was a floor full of incompetents who did not warn the people of the nation's and the world's most important city that they were going to be hit by an attack on the Trade Center by Osama bin Laden's suicide bombers. We now have our knotted neckties.
The CIA, as Tenet's presence said yesterday, now is sure it knows everything, or what passes as everything for them, about Iraq, knows it right down to the 18 trucks that suddenly threaten us and the world.
That Powell was down to pointing to 18 trucks as the possible end of the world showed that he was at the UN with a case that would have difficulty in Criminal Court on Queens Boulevard. He put his soul on the line for the Republicans and it showed. He had three wiretap transcripts that were weak enough, until I realized that the conversations were in Arabic and I would like to meet the translator before accepting the copy.
Powell says that this intercept is of a colonel and brigadier general from Iraq's Republican Guard. They speak in Arabic. Powell pointed out that when the conversation took place, a UN inspector was coming the next day and expected these officers to cooperate. The American translation reads:
"We have this modified vehicle. What do we say if one of them sees it?"
[Powell says, "The general is incredulous." How does he know that? you ask.]
"You didn't get a modified? You don't have one of those, do you?"
"I have one."
"Which, from where?"
"From the workshop. From the al-Kindi Company?"
"What?"
"From al-Kindi."
"I'll come to see you in the morning. I'm worried. You all have something left."
"We evacuated everything. We don't have anything left."
Powell said they found 12 empty chemical warheads on Jan. 16. He played a conversation between two officers that took place last week.
"They're inspecting the ammunition you have, yes?"
"Yes."
"For the possibility there are forbidden ammo?"
"For the possibility there is by chance forbidden ammo?"
"Yes."
"And we sent you a message yesterday to clean out all of the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there."
Powell then brought up what he said was specific instructions from headquarters.
"After you have carried out what is contained in this message, destroy the message because I don't want anyone to see this message."
"OK. OK."
Whatever it is, and you could get any number of people to dispute every word of this and have the conversations in doubt from start to finish, it still is about small items, one vehicle, ammunition that was still around as of the past two weeks.
That is hardly enough reason to blow up the city of Baghdad with its civilians, with its women and its children in school. The only thing as crazed as this was the start of the Vietnam War.
We lost 58,000 young Americans in Vietnam, of the total of close to 100,000 lost since World War II, because of a night in August of 1964 when the secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, reported to President Lyndon Johnson that two American destroyers, the Turner Joy and the Maddox, had been attacked by a North Vietnamese PT boat in the Gulf of Tonkin, which is the waters off Haiphong, east of Hanoi in North Vietnam.
"McNamara was sending messages to the president that one or both of the destroyers had been fired on," Bill Moyers, who was in the White House that night, was saying yesterday. He was in his WNET-TV office on West 57th Street. "Everybody was perplexed and confused. Johnson was persuaded by McNamara that there was an attack on the destroyers. Johnson had a predisposition to take a stand."
Johnson moved too swiftly for discoveries. He got a resolution from Congress and immediately ordered North Vietnam to be bombed. That was the start of a war in which we lost 58,000 young Americans.
"After some time, we didn't really know what had happened that night," Moyers said. "Then after a long time, we saw that maybe there was no attack at all. What did you learn out of that? That you have to take time and build up more evidence than you need before you go to war."
Based on yesterday, Powell has a long way to go and Bush even further, because his notion of compelling evidence is personal pique.
The other 37,000 dead young Americans, other than those lost in Vietnam, were killed in the war with North Korea. Which undoubtedly has a nuclear bomb now and yesterday announced that it is making more reactors, which in Korean means "bombs."
Powell counts Iraq's 18 trucks as deadly dangerous. North Korea might have more trucks than that to drive around its army, which is 1 million men.
----
Net user group may aid terrorists
NBC: 'Crusader' details security information, U.S. air bases, photos
Feb. 6, 2003 -
By Lisa Myers
NBC NEWS
NBC's Lisa Myers and the NBC News investigative team have uncovered an Internet presence that terrorists could use to mount new operations.
Feb. 6 - As the United States braces for a possible war with Iraq and the potential for renewed terror attacks, the NBC News investigative team has uncovered a disturbing user group on the Internet that terrorists could be accessing to mount new operations.
THE USER GROUP features detailed security information on U.S. military facilities, including close-ups of checkpoints and satellite photos of Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia; air bases in Oman; a Navy port in the United Arab Emirates; and the air base at Qatar - with special attention paid to the security perimeter. The name of the user group on Yahoo! roughly translates as "Crusader." Mostly in Arabic, it's full of incendiary anti-American rhetoric - including the accusation that the "infidels" are trying to change religious education in Saudi Arabia. There is a board of honor for al-Qaida martyrs and photos of dead fighters. "It provides really the ultimate tactical information for a would-be suicide or homicide bomber," said Evan Kohlmann, who monitors militant Islamic Internet activity for The Investigative Project, an anti-terrorism group. "This is the most specific incidence of targeting U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf that I have seen in four years of working the subject."
INSTANT TARGETS
Former CIA officer Robert Baer, a Middle East terrorism expert, agreed, saying the site provides an instant targeting list. "The only purpose for this Web site that I can see is terrorism," Baer said. Rick Francona, a former military intelligence officer who speaks Arabic, says though most of the photographs are publicly available, the fact that they're organized for one-stop shopping should be alarming to U.S. commanders in the Middle East. "Some of the more troubling things that were on there were photographs of individual American military personnel," Francona said. There are images in which nametags are clearly visible. The business cards of American diplomats in Saudi Arabia are especially ominous, given recent attacks on U.S. diplomats and soldiers in the region.
FBI NOTIFIED
"If I was trying to mount an operation against the Americans, this is probably the first place I'd go," Francona said. "Somebody, I hope at this point, in the U.S. government has looked at those pictures and decided whether they are a threat to our soldiers," Baer said. The FBI was notified of the user group late last year. Thursday night, an official said Crusader and projects like it are being investigated - and are taken very seriously. And a senior Pentagon official said the U.S. military is taking all appropriate measures to protect troops overseas.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- courts
World Court Orders U.S. to Stay Executions Of 3 Mexicans
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A32
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32339-2003Feb5?language=printer
MEXICO CITY, Feb. 5 -- The International Court of Justice ruled today that the United States must stay the executions of three Mexicans on death row while the court considers Mexico's complaint that the condemned men's rights were violated.
"It's a great day," said Sandra Babcock, a Minnesota lawyer advising the Mexican government, which filed suit last month demanding that the court order the United States to commute the death sentences of all 51 Mexicans facing the death penalty.
Mexico contends that U.S. officials violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which guarantees people access to their country's diplomatic missions when accused of a crime in a foreign country. It contends that none of the Mexicans were informed of that right.
In a unanimous decision by its 15 members, the U.N. court in The Hague ordered temporary stays for the three men whose executions are most imminent: Texas inmates Cesar Fierro Reyna and Roberto Moreno Ramos and an Oklahoma prisoner, Osvaldo Torres Aguilera.
"This is a clear indication that the World Court will not allow the execution of any Mexican nationals while the case is pending," Babcock said. "And I fully expect the United States to comply."
Charles Barclay, a State Department spokesman, today said the United States was "still studying" the ruling. He noted that the court had not yet ruled on the substance of Mexico's case.
"If the United States were to ignore the ruling, I think it would send a dangerous message and create a dangerous precedent," Babcock said. "It does not cost the U.S. anything to comply with the order, but it could cost a great deal if the United States sends a message that it doesn't care one whit about the opinion of the most distinguished group of jurists in the world."
Babcock said ignoring the ruling could be dangerous for Americans accused of crimes in other countries. She said if the United States did not honor the treaty, other countries would ignore it.
The death penalty is an emotional issue in Mexico, which has neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment. Mexicans have long believed that capital punishment in the United States is applied disproportionately to Hispanics and other minorities.
Mexicans were furious when Texas last August executed a Mexican man, Javier Suarez Medina, after President Vicente Fox called President Bush and Gov. Rick Perry (R) to argue that Suarez's rights had been violated. Mary Robinson, the top U.N. human rights official, the European Union and various human rights groups also asked for a stay, but Suarez was executed by lethal injection. In protest, Fox canceled a scheduled visit with Bush at his Texas ranch.
-------- homeland security
Scientists Face Security Dilemma
Need for Openness, Secrecy Debated Amid Bioterror Threat
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32065-2003Feb5?language=printer
In the late 1990s, the University of Pennsylvania's Ariella Rosengard made a protein from the smallpox virus to help her investigate the microbe's ability to evade the human immune system. She found that the protein was much better at attacking humans than other species.
Rosengard was looking for ways to help the immune system cope with transplants, but when her work appeared last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it gained attention for very different reason: She had built and used part of the germ that has arguably caused more deaths from disease than any other in human history.
In a nation consumed by the threat of bioterrorism, was it prudent to publish how she had done it?
Yes, said Cambridge University's P.J. Lachmann in a commentary that accompanied the Rosengard article: "The work is far more likely to stimulate advances in vaccinology or viral therapy than it is to threaten biosecurity."
Perhaps, but not everyone agrees. For nearly a year, a Bush administration nervous about national security has been designing restrictions on the dissemination of what it calls "homeland security information that is sensitive but unclassified."
The administration has not figured out just what information would fit this description, but scientists -- particularly microbiologists -- "have become more worried and confused," said David Goldston, chief of staff of the House Science Committee, which has tried to serve as an honest broker in the debate. "Everything is still in a state of flux."
It is a difficult dilemma. Scientists say their work can advance only through full and open communication and the ability to test and replicate each other's work. But in a dangerous world, some of what scientists publish might be used to cause harm on a vast scale.
Microbiologists know this, and after the anthrax attacks in late 2001, they themselves were quick to raise questions about the material they were publishing. Many said controls might be needed, but not if they were going to be imposed from above.
"We would prefer a self-policing regime," said microbiologist Ronald Atlas, graduate school dean at the University of Louisville and president of the American Society for Microbiology. "Imposing criminal penalties would have a chilling effect on the free exchange of information."
Last month, the National Academy of Sciences and the Center for Strategic and International Studies convened a one-day workshop to discuss "Scientific Openness and National Security" and to open a dialogue between the government and the life sciences.
White House science adviser John H. Marburger acknowledged in a speech that "science is a social activity," and he endorsed openness, but he also warned that "disease can be used as a weapon" and that "society expects its government to take reasonable steps against bioterrorism."
The government is considering the idea of issuing of "guidance" on "how to handle and disseminate homeland security information," said Shana Dale, chief of staff and general counsel for Marburger's White House Office on Science and Technology Policy. It is not yet clear what kinds of information would be affected by such an initiative.
"The intention is to focus on federally controlled information," Dale said. "The guidance is in the discussion stages," she added, with no indication when it might be published.
Dale said, however, that the administration is "encouraging universities to self-police." The Office of Management and Budget, charged with writing the guidance, has issued a statement describing its intent to "very narrowly target" a "very small subset of government information."
Overall, the atmosphere thus far has been conciliatory.
"My own sense is that we've caught it early enough, so we are on the right track," National Academy of Sciences President Bruce Alberts said. "We need to be on the same team with the security folks instead of in opposition."
Concern about the potential misuse of life sciences research escalated quickly after the anthrax attacks.
"Many scientists were working with government, and they were worried about what they could or could not publish," said Atlas, whose group publishes 11 scientific journals. "We heard a lot of concern that we really needed to do something."
Since 1985, the government's position on publishing scientific information has been articulated by a Reagan-era National Security Decision Directive stating that "to the maximum extent possible, the products of fundamental research be unrestricted." In the case of information that poses a national security risk, specific materials would be classified as "confidential," "secret" or "top secret."
It was apparent to many experts in both science and security, however, that the nuclear security concerns that prompted the 1985 directive were far different from the dangers posed by biological warfare agents.
A nuclear weapons program requires an enormous infrastructure investment that individuals or small organizations cannot undertake. Biological weapons also require sophisticated technicians but need relatively little equipment. In this environment, many scientists agreed, information could be more important than infrastructure.
But while this consideration might argue for more secrecy, many biologists also noted that developing effective biodefenses demands greater openness. Rosengard's research may be sensitive, but other scientists must have access to it to counter biological threats.
"The public must know about this -- I am adamant," said microbiologist Eckard Wimmer of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. "Only then can we prepare ourselves."
Wimmer earned instant notoriety last year for leading a team that synthesized the polio virus from ordinary chemicals, reporting his results in the online journal Science Express.
His message was that "in 10 years it may be rather easy to synthesize viruses, and we need to be prepared for that," Wimmer said. "The government has provided generous funding for anti-terror, and it will be up to the scientific community to use it for antiviral drugs and vaccines."
The problem of "dual use" crops up all the time in microbiological research, said University of Texas Medical School microbiologist Sam Kaplan, chairman of the microbiology society's publication board. "There are no smoking guns in biology. Everything's done incrementally, building on the work of those who have gone before."
Late in 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice allayed scientists' early concerns by endorsing the Reagan-era formulation, but last March, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. issued a memo to Cabinet members and agency chiefs not to "disclose inappropriately" government information related to weapons of mass destruction. He also created a category of "sensitive but unclassified" information that could not be disseminated.
The Card directive appeared aimed primarily at getting agencies to pull from the public domain information that could be used by terrorists -- locations of chemical plants, pipeline diagrams and the like.
"That was certainly the core of it," said David Heyman, director of science and security for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "But that's a little flat. They also had to decide if there is a methodology that we can put in place so that publishing information can't hurt us."
Shortly after the Card directive, Atlas and other concerned scientists met with OMB representatives, who told them that any effort to codify the Card pronouncement would focus on government-owned information only.
"That lowered my concern," Atlas said, "but others were more concerned. They wanted to know what do they [the government] own, and what are they going to try to own?" Government and universities collaborate and overlap in countless ways.
Since then, scientists have grappled with the question of what should be done. Massachusetts Institute of Technology aeronautical engineer Sheila Widnall, a former secretary of the Air Force, dismissed the notion of "sensitive but unclassified" as a "slippery slope."
"Who defines it?" she asked. "I have no question that there are some things that should be classified," she added, but the standard classification regime should suffice.
The microbiology society appears more flexible. Kaplan said editors early on refused to publish articles with "sensitive" parts blacked out. Instead, editors are reviewing manuscripts and, if they have national security concerns, are urging authors to modify them before publication or withdraw them. Two of 14,000 manuscripts have received this treatment so far, he said.
But Kaplan, like Wimmer, said the best answer to bioterrorism is aggressive public science that finds solutions faster than terrorists can pose problems: "The one thing we have going for us is an infrastructure in biomedical research which is far ahead of the ability of the bad guys to use it," he said.
----
Risk of Terror Attack Climbs, U.S. Finds
Officials Split on Issuing General Warning
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31960-2003Feb5?language=printer
Senior U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that the risk of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil has increased significantly in recent weeks, but policymakers disagree deeply about whether to issue a general warning to the public about the danger, sources familiar with the debate said.
The FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies have documented a rise in intelligence information over the past two weeks indicating an increased possibility of attacks. As a result, the FBI is planning to warn law enforcement agencies by today that there is a heightened danger of attack on apartment buildings, hotels and other "soft targets," said sources who have seen draft copies of the bulletin.
A similarly wary assessment of heightened risk was issued by the CIA last week and circulated among senior U.S. intelligence officials, sources said. The warning also comes as FBI officials prepare to submit a classified report to Congress next week that concludes that the al Qaeda terrorist network remains the most significant threat to domestic security, sources said.
But administration officials are divided on the significance of the surge in threats reported by detainees or obtained by intelligence methods and have been unable to reach agreement on how to respond, knowledgeable sources said.
Many intelligence analysts in the Pentagon and White House believe that the surge in activity is cause for serious alarm, especially because the prospect of war with Iraq heightens the risk of attacks by Iraqi agents, al Qaeda operatives or others eager to take advantage of the political climate. Many of these officials favor issuing a general alert to the public in the next week, sources said.
"When you start looking at the whole broad spectrum and look at it all together, you come up with a synergistic kind of thing that raises a whole lot of concern," said one Defense Department official. "There is a definite upswing in chatter out there about attacking our targets."
FBI and CIA officials have taken a more cautious position, however, arguing that the threat information -- while clearly troubling -- is vague and contains no specific, credible evidence of an impending attack, sources said. One Justice Department official said the volume of reports is larger than normal, but does not approach the levels seen in the days leading up to the July Fourth holiday or to the first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Many of these officials believe that issuing a general terrorism alert would alarm the public without providing any usable information, and would be viewed with undue skepticism because of U.S. preparations for war with Iraq.
"There is some feeling that parts of the administration would like to push this to get people geared up" for Iraq, one law enforcement official said. "It's not that we've learned specific information that needs to be communicated to the public. If we did a public warning, it would have to be very general."
One defense official said that the Defense Intelligence Agency has collected information overseas indicating a possible attack within the United States. But FBI officials have not been able to confirm those reports and are skeptical of their veracity, the official said.
A decision on whether to issue a general alert has been delayed in part so the FBI and other authorities can investigate several specific threat reports that might be corroborated or discounted, either through interrogations of U.S. military detainees overseas or through traditional law enforcement work, one official said.
The nation's color-coded threat index remained at yellow yesterday, signifying an elevated risk of terrorist attack. That level has been upgraded only once to orange, which signifies a "high" risk of attack, and officials said there were no immediate plans to increase the level. "We remain concerned about continued al Qaeda activity overseas as well as al Qaeda sympathizers here in the United States," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for the threat index. "Should additional information and analysis develop requiring the threat level to be raised, we will keep the American public informed as always."
This week's National Intelligence Bulletin, issued by the FBI to about 17,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide, is expected to include cautions about particular buildings and events that could be inviting targets for Islamic extremists, sources said. One example that may be cited is the 90th anniversary celebration of the Anti-Defamation League, a national Jewish organization, which begins today in Palm Beach, Fla., officials said.
The bulletin was originally scheduled to be released yesterday afternoon but, after delays for additional review, may not be released until today, officials said.
Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism official who maintains contacts with the U.S. intelligence community, said that despite the debate over a public warning, intelligence officials throughout the government agree that the volume of threats is alarming.
"They can't focus that concern on any one specific area, but they are reading the same material and saying it's quite possible something big is going to happen," Cannistraro said. "There is a lot of worry. They have intelligence indicating that something is planned for this year, but they don't know where or how or exactly when."
Staff writers John Mintz and Dana Priest contributed to this report.
-------- immigration / refugees
U.S. to Accept Somali Bantu Refugees
Reuters
Thursday, February 6, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31737-2003Feb5?language=printer
The United States said yesterday it would proceed with a plan to take in as many as 12,000 Somali Bantu refugees, starting this spring, despite delays in many other U.S. refugee resettlement programs.
The Somali Bantus, descendants of slaves from Mozambique and other parts of southern Africa, have been living in camps in northeastern Kenya for most of the past decade because of the violence in Somalia.
The State Department said the first group would arrive in the United States in the spring after interviews to find out if they are eligible. Those eligible will then undergo rigorous security checks, medical examinations, literacy training and cultural orientation, it said in a statement.
The United States agreed to consider them for resettlement in 2000 but all U.S. refugee programs were disrupted by the tighter security imposed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
The State Department said the Bantus would be placed in extended family groups in as many as 50 cities and towns across the United States throughout 2003 and 2004.
In October, a U.S. official in East Africa said the United States was likely to exclude families in which the women have recently undergone genital mutilation, a common practice among some ethnic groups in the region.
A State Department official said the U.S. government strongly condemned the practice of female genital mutilation, but she did not take a position on whether the families who have practiced it would be excluded.
-------- terrorism
Confidential Advisory Warns of Rise in Possible Terror Threats
February 6, 2003
New York Times
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/politics/06TERR.html
WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 - American authorities have spotted a recent upsurge in possible terrorist threats and are warning law enforcement officials to be alert to the prospect of attacks by Al Qaeda in the United States and abroad as early as within several weeks, officials said today.
The C.I.A is concerned that Al Qaeda "plans to launch major attacks" against Americans in the United States and in the Middle East "as early as mid-February 2003," law enforcement and intelligence officials were warned by a confidential advisory circulated this week.
Based on what was deemed "reliable information" from recent intelligence reports, officials said they were concerned that a wave of terrorist attacks could be timed to coincide with the end of hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, and the approach of a possible war with Iraq.
The rising concern also reflects new assessments of Al Qaeda's interest and ability to produce radiological or chemical weapons. In particular, investigators have expressed concern about Al Qaeda's ability to strike with a "dirty bomb," a device that would use conventional explosives to spew radioactive material into the air.
In a recent re-evaluation, intelligence analysts have concluded that Al Qaeda may be closer to developing a dirty bomb than was thought after the arrest last May of Jose Padilla, an American convert to Al Qaeda, who the authorities said plotted to build such a device.
Mr. Padilla, who was arrested as he arrived in Chicago on a flight from Pakistan, was believed to have lacked the technical knowledge or organizational skills to have organized a credible plot. After his arrest, counterterrorism officials seemed to play down the threat.
But since then, interviews with detainees like Abu Zubaydah, one of Al Qaeda's chief recruiters, and a fuller examination of materials seized in Afghanistan have led the authorities to suspect that a dirty bomb might well be within Al Qaeda's grasp.
It was Mr. Zubaydah who initially confirmed the existence of a dirty bomb plot and acknowledged that someone had been recruited to oversee the project, in which radioactive material would have been wrapped around a conventional explosive and detonated in the United States.
Concern about terrorists' potential use of ricin has also been growing since small amounts of the deadly poison were found in Britain in an apartment rented by four Algerians.
Some American and British officials suspect there is a link between the discovery of the poison and Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, whom Secretary of State Colin L. Powell described today as a Qaeda operative and poison expert at the center of terror ring based in Iraq.
The recent surge in intelligence information about possible attacks has not pointed to any specific targets, officials said.
Nonetheless, law enforcement officials said the Federal Bureau of Investigation was likely to alert local police in coming days to be on guard.
With hostilities in Iraq heating up, "people think this is a good time for a reminder that the threat is up and the chatter is up, but there's nothing we can act on," said an F.B.I. official who demanded anonymity.
Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, officials in Washington have sought to monitor intelligence leads aggressively and to make periodic warnings to avoid the type of missteps and communication breakdowns that preceded the Sept. 11 attacks.
Some local police officials around the country complain that the warnings are too vague to be of much use and have only fanned public fears. A Justice Department official said today that the authorities were mindful of the need to strike a balance between informing and alarming the public.
The official, who demanded anonymity, cautioned that while intelligence "chatter" has in fact climbed in recent days, it has not reached the heights seen in prior periods, such as in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, or before July 4, 2002, when officials urged "increased vigilance" because of the symbolism of the Independence Day holiday.
"Nobody's getting ready to raise the threat level," the official said, referring to the nationwide alert system instituted last year by the White House. The alert status now stands at yellow, or an "elevated" threat level, which is in the middle of the five-tier system.
Next week, the F.B.I. plans to deliver to Congress its first National Threat Assessment, and officials said it was expected to conclude that Al Qaeda remains a potent terrorism force.
Robert S. Mueller III, director of the F.B.I., and George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence, are also expected to appear before members of Congress to update them on the terrorist threat and to discuss continuing changes. Officials said their remarks were likely to reflect the urgent tone that each man had taken in recent public appearances.
In a December speech, Mr. Tenet said Al Qaeda had continued to prepare for terrorist attacks even after the loss of several important leaders who were killed or captured. "We would be foolish to take these threats in any way other than with utmost seriousness," he said.
--------
Officials Worry About Agri - Terrorism
February 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Farm-Scene.html
LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) -- Could terrorists be lurking in fields and behind barns, ready to poison the plants and animals that provide the source of the nation's food?
It's not an outlandish scenario, says Michael Harrington, executive director of the Western Association of Agricultural Experiment Station Directors.
``Nobody thought anybody would crash a plane into the World Trade Center, either,'' Harrington said. ``If someone were intent on attacking the agricultural and food system it could be done.''
Agri-terrorism could damage the economy, kill people or make them sick, and cause the kind of upheaval the nation went through when anthrax was found circulating through the mail, he said.
``You don't have to be a rocket scientist,'' said Harrington, who gave the keynote address Tuesday at the 2003 International Chile Conference. ``You don't have to have access to nuclear materials.''
Harrington said there have been at least five acts of agri-terrorism in the United States and 17 worldwide.
In one attack, he said, a radical group claimed responsibility for releasing Mediterranean fruit flies in California. The quarter-inch Medfly attacks more than 250 varieties of fruits, nuts and vegetables.
In 1997, a Medfly infestation threatened Florida's nearly $7 billion agricultural industry.
Agriculture accounts for about $1 trillion in economic activity each year in the United States, he said. As an example, he said, destruction of New Mexico's chili industry could cause a local economic impact of at least $250 million.
Arturo Jurado, a Las Cruces pepper farmer who is chairman of the New Mexico Chile Commission, said the long-term impact would be at least 10 times greater.
``We have to be prepared for it,'' he said. ``The best thing is information ... knowing neighbors, know what they're doing and when they're doing it.''
Other vulnerable areas include processing and transportation of food, Harrington said.
``The United States has had and continues to have the safest food supply in the world, so people are a little nervous talking about this, including myself,'' he said.
Concern over terrorist acts has caused the U.S. Agriculture Department to invest $328 million in agri-security, he said.
Researchers are developing animal vaccines and looking at breeding animals and plants with resistance to some toxic agents. Agricultural extension service agents are developing emergency plans and educating themselves about potential risks.
Harrington said the USDA and state agricultural schools are forming another emergency response network.
Some see endless possibilities for farm- and food-related terrorist acts.
``I think one of the biggest places to start is the international foods coming in,'' said Wes Eaton, who works at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces and attended the conference. ``We need to guarantee that it's not laced with something.''
--
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- More than 120 invasive species, ranging from the well-entrenched red imported fire ant to the recently introduced channeled applesnail, are creating problems for Texas croplands, native plants and animals, according to a report from a group of scientists.
``Biological invaders are imposing serious costs on the state's agriculture, fishing and tourism industries and natural areas,'' said Dr. Phyllis Windle of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which released the report Tuesday.
The group said its report was based on contributions and reviews by 21 experts from Texas A&M University, the Texas Parks and Wildlife and Agriculture departments and other federal and state agencies.
The report said at least 122 alien species -- plants, mammals, birds, fish, insects, mollusks and crustaceans -- have invaded Texas and are causing harm.
Species can be introduced by ships carrying aquatic life in their ballast water, nurseries selling plants and pet stores selling animals that are later released into the wild.
``It could be a case of someone flushing fish down the toilet that survive and they grow,'' said Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman Tom Harvey.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Bush, Environmentalists at Odds on Fuel Cell Plan
February 6, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-energy-hydrogen-bush.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Thursday his $1.2 billion proposal to spur development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would cut pollution and enhance security, but the plan has left environmentalists steaming.
``If you're interested in our environment and if you're interested in doing what's right for the American people, if you're tired of the same old endless struggles that seem to produce nothing but noise and high bills, let us promote hydrogen fuel cells as a way to advance into the 21st century,'' Bush said at the National Building Museum in Washington.
At the museum, Bush toured exhibits of fuel cell technology -- pointing a hydrogen-powered television camera at reporters, making a phone call on a fuel-cell mobile phone, and inspecting a lineup of fuel-cell vehicles.
Outside, a small group of demonstrators carried signs protesting his energy policies and handed out leaflets denouncing the fuel cell proposal as a ``dirty energy plan,'' because part of the plan would seek ways to produce hydrogen using coal and nuclear power.
``The whole thing's a fraud,'' said Dan Becker, head of the Sierra Club global warming and energy program. ``He's going to try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by creating hydrogen out of coal, nuclear and gasoline.''
He said the plan obscured Bush's failure to seek stronger fuel-efficiency standards for today's cars and trucks, which would provide quicker energy savings.
Democrats gearing up to seek the 2004 presidential nomination also took shots at the plan, which could give Bush an environmental plank for his reelection campaign.
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts called the plan a ``smokescreen on energy security'' and Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut said it was ``nothing more than an exhaust pipe dream.''
Bush unveiled his hydrogen fuel initiative last week in his State of the Union speech, proposing $1.2 billion overall and new spending of $720 million over five years to develop technology and infrastructure to produce, store and distribute hydrogen for use in fuel cells and electricity generation.
A separate program previously launched to develop fuel cell vehicles raises the five-year spending total to $1.7 billion.
Fuel cells produce electricity from oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen to power them can be obtained from water, natural gas, coal or other resources, and the fuel cells emit only water as a byproduct.
White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said the research on using coal to produce hydrogen would seek ways to make it ``cleanly.''
A White House fact sheet said the proposal would lead to cost-effective fuel-cell vehicles by 2020.
``I don't know if you and I are going to be driving one of these cars, but our grandkids will,'' Bush said.
He said fuel-cell cars would not only cut air pollution, they would reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil, enhancing the country's economic security. ``If we develop hydrogen power to its full potential, we can reduce our demand for oil by over 11 million barrels per day by the year 2040,'' he said.
The United States currently uses about 20 million barrels daily, half of which is imported.
Becker said he was skeptical Bush's initiative would lead manufacturers to offer significant numbers of fuel cell vehicles because it does not require them to do so. An earlier program to promote gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles has so far failed to yield any production vehicles by U.S. car makers who took part, he said.
-------- environment
Lead Levels Linked to Male Infertility
MANHASSET, New York,
February 6, 2003
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2003/2003-02-06-09.asp#anchor1
Fertility experts today published the first conclusive evidence that lead is linked to male infertility.
A report a European medicine journal, "Human Reproduction," concludes that exposure to lead damages sperm function and may be one cause of unexplained male infertility cases. The findings have led principal investigator Dr. Susan Benoff to urge doctors to measure lead in semen samples when evaluating men from couples with unexplained fertility. She said she also believes there is a case for health and safety authorities to continue reevaluating environmental exposure safety limits for lead.
Benoff, director of the Fertility Research Laboratories at the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Research Institute in Manhasset, and colleagues from several other U.S. institutions, studied metal ion levels and sperm function in semen from the partners of 140 women undergoing their first attempts at in vitro fertilization (IVF).
They found that while lead levels in seminal plasma varied over a wide range, there was a strong association between high lead levels and low fertilization rates, with changes in lead levels accounting for a fifth of the variance in fertilization rates.
"From our tests on lead in the seminal plasma of the participants and control experiments on nine fertile donors, we have evidence that higher lead levels interfere both with the ability of the sperm to bind to the egg and with its ability to fertilize the egg," said Benoff.
In order to fertilize an egg, a sperm has first to bind to it. A sugar called mannose on the outer coating of the egg is crucial to binding. Mannose receptors located on the head of human sperm recognize the mannose on the coating of the egg and regulate the binding process.
Then the sperm has to penetrate the egg. Successful binding induces an event called mannose-induced acrosome reaction (MIAR) - the release of digestive enzymes from the sperm that ease its passage through the egg coating so that its nucleus can fertilize the egg.
The researchers found that in the 140 men whose partners were undergoing IVF, higher lead levels in the semen were correlated with low numbers of mannose receptors, and with an inability of sperm to undergo MIAR. Higher lead levels were also associated with a premature or spontaneous acrosome reaction that occurred before sperm-egg contact, which also blocks fertilization.
"To see whether this association between increased lead levels could be causal we exposed healthy sperm from nine fertile donors to increasing doses of exogenous lead to see what would happen. We got the same results," said Benoff.
"Our data suggest that lead is acting at multiple levels in testis and sperm to decrease human male fertility," she added. "Our data also confirm that increased seminal plasma lead levels can occur without any detectable effects on male reproductive hormone function and also that they are associated with decreased sperm concentration, sperm shape, form and movement, suggesting that lead also acts in the testis."
Benoff said previous studies have shown that elevated lead levels in rats' testes are associated with programmed cell death of sperm precursors. Studies of men with low or zero sperm counts that are not caused by a physical obstruction suggest that programmed cell death in the testes is a major determinant of sperm count in the ejaculate.
"This leads us to believe that lead is a contributory factor of declining sperm counts," she said. "In the light of these results, environmental exposure limits for lead might be reevaluated."
----
Eighth Alternative to Lead Shot Approved
WASHINGTON, DC,
February 6, 2003
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2003/2003-02-06-09.asp#anchor6
Hunters will now have a choice of eight non-toxic shots for waterfowl hunting, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has announced.
On January 10, the agency gave permanent approval to ENVIRON-Metal's HEVI-SHOT brand of non-toxic shot that contains a tungsten, iron, nickel and tin formulation (TINT). The shot had been given temporary approval, pending completion of toxicological studies and other evaluations.
"This will give waterfowl hunters another option for hunting," said USFWS Director Steve Williams.
After reviewing ENVIRON-Metal's application and supporting data, and evaluating public comment, the USFWS has determined that this shot "does not pose a significant danger" to migratory birds and other wildlife or their habitats.
Efforts to phase out lead shot began in the 1970s, but a nationwide ban on lead shot for all waterfowl hunting was not implemented until 1991. Canada instituted a complete ban on the use of lead shot in 1999, after banning its use near bodies of water and on national wildlife areas earlier.
In order to measure the effect of the ban on lead shot, researchers examined thousands of ducks harvested in the Mississippi Flyway during the 1996 and 1997 waterfowl seasons, the fifth and sixth seasons after the 1991 ban on lead shot.
Based on the survey's findings, researchers William Anderson of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and Stephen Havera and Bradley Zercher of the Illinois Natural History Survey estimate that the ban on lead shot reduced lead poisoning deaths of Mississippi Flyway mallards by 64 percent. Overall ingestion of toxic pellets declined by 78 percent over previous levels after the ban.
The report concludes that by reducing lead shot ingestion in waterfowl, the ban prevented the lead poisoning deaths of an estimated 1.4 million ducks in the 1997 fall flight of 90 million ducks. The researchers state that about 462,000 to 615,000 acres of breeding habitat would have been required to produce the same number of birds that were likely saved by nontoxic shot regulations that year.
With the ban now entering its twelfth year, ingestion of lead shot has continued to decline from the levels documented in the study, the USFWS said, preventing an increasing number of lead poisoning deaths.
-------- ACTIVISTS
N.Y. Antiwar March Blocked
Associated Press
Thursday, February 6, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31561-2003Feb5?language=printer
NEW YORK, Feb. 5 -- Organizations opposed to a war with Iraq sued the city of New York today after it denied permission for a rally and march past the United Nations next week.
A coalition called United for Peace and Justice asked a federal judge to order the city to issue a permit for a large antiwar march Feb. 15. It accused the city of denying protesters their First Amendment rights.
City officials have offered the group use of a plaza across the street from the United Nations. City lawyer Jeffrey Friedlander said the city tried to work with the event's organizers, but the plans proved too disruptive.
"We will not allow any event to jeopardize public safety or prevent people from going about their business," he said.
Chris Dunn, a staff attorney for the New York Civil Liberties Union who filed the lawsuit for the antiwar group, said the city had refused to permit a parade under any circumstances, and cited concerns over congestion and related issues.
The group noted the city routinely issues permits for large-scale marches in Manhattan, such as the St. Patrick's Day parade.
----
The disquieted American
Daniel Ellsberg's leaks from inside the Pentagon helped to end the Vietnam war. On the eve of another unpopular war, Chalmers Johnson holds out for an Ellsberg in the Bush administration in this latest essay from the LRB
Thursday February 6, 2003
UK Guardian (Books)
http://books.guardian.co.uk/lrb/articles/0,6109,890302,00.html
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers,
by Daniel Ellsberg, Viking, 498 pp.,
October 2002, 0 670 03030 9
The subject of Daniel Ellsberg's memoir is the decadence of American democracy. The conditions he began fighting in 1969 are much worse today and far more dangerous to many more people. Yet central casting could not have produced a more perfect foil for the American imperial Presidency than Ellsberg.
An infantry lieutenant in the Marine Corps with genuine battle experience in Vietnam, a PhD in economics from Harvard, and a defence intellectual employed by the Rand Corporation of Santa Monica, with the highest security clearances, Ellsberg is as good as the American system can produce in the way of a male citizen working in the foreign policy apparatus.
His odyssey from Pentagon staff officer to the man who spirited 47 volumes of top secret documents out of the Rand Corporation, copied them, and delivered them to the New York Times and a dozen other newspapers is breathtaking.
Ellsberg helped end the Vietnam War, but publication of this memoir now is not just a happy coincidence. The features of American government he documents - the cult of Presidential infallibility, the march of militarism, the executive's routine lying to the other two branches and to the people, and the cancerous growth of official secrecy - are just as relevant today as they were thirty years ago. The United States, even the world, desperately needs more Ellsbergs.
Sunday, 13 June 1971 is a day I remember very clearly: the day when excerpts from the History of US Decision-Making in Vietnam, 1945-68 (the actual title of the 'Pentagon Papers') began to appear in the press. I was serving as a consultant to the CIA's Office of National Estimates at the time. A collective sigh of relief went through the Agency: the truth was finally coming out.
CIA analysts, who had long known that the United States could not possibly 'win' the Vietnam War, would no longer have to pretend that victory was in sight. They had repeatedly warned the Government that things would only go from bad to worse.
His first full day at the Pentagon was 4 August 1964, the day the destroyer USS Maddox sent flash dispatches to Washington from the Gulf of Tonkin saying that it was 'under continuous torpedo attack'. President Johnson went on television to tell the nation that the ship was on a 'routine patrol in international waters', that the attack was 'unprovoked', and that the US was the victim of a 'deliberate pattern of naked aggression'. Johnson ordered the carrier USS Ticonderoga to launch air strikes against North Vietnam. On 7 August, by a vote of 416 to 0 in the House of Representatives and 88 to 2 in the Senate, Congress approved the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, setting the United States on a path to full-scale war against North Vietnam.
And yet, Ellsberg writes, 'I was learning from cables, reports and discussions in the Pentagon the background that gave the lie to virtually everything told both to the public and more elaborately to Congress in secret session.' The Vietnamese attack, if it had actually occurred at all, was assuredly provoked. The Maddox had been on a secret mission well inside Vietnamese territorial waters. The highest ranking officials of the US Government had approved the mission in advance. The director of Central Intelligence, John McCone, told the President that the North Vietnamese were 'reacting defensively'. Nonetheless, Johnson personally lied to Senator William Fulbright, the highly respected chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in order to get him to sponsor the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in Congress.
Ellsberg took all this calmly. He accepted Johnson's campaign slogan for the 1964 Presidential election - 'We seek no wider war' - even though he knew the President was moving in precisely the opposite direction. He believed that these deceptions were necessary ploys to defeat the Republican candidate, Senator Barry Goldwater, who wanted to use nuclear weapons against Vietnam and China.
In mid-1965, the legendary Major-General Edward Lansdale - 'legendary' for having thoroughly militarised the Philippine Government in the name of 'counterinsurgency' - was asked to return to Vietnam as special assistant to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. After hearing Lansdale talk in Washington, Ellsberg asked to join his team. He transferred from the Department of Defense to the Department of State at the same civil service grade, and set off for Saigon, still very much with the outlook of a Cold Warrior and a Marine infantry officer. Lansdale assigned him the job of visiting every province of South Vietnam and reporting on the 'pacification' efforts.
To do this, Ellsberg associated himself with another legendary figure, John Paul Vann, then working as an adviser to the US Agency for International Development. With Vann at the wheel of a jeep, they drove all over South Vietnam. Vann taught the neophyte Ellsberg many tricks of the trade: always drive fast because that makes it much harder for guerrillas to detonate a mine under your car, and always travel in the morning, after the previous night's mines have been blown but before they have all been replaced.
During these inspection tours, Ellsberg went on patrol with American units and often found himself in combat. Even though he was technically a civilian, he could not go along as a simple observer. He got a Swedish K submachine-gun from the CIA and revived his skills as an infantryman. He was surprised to discover that, with a little experience, you can usually tell from the sound when a bullet is coming directly at you. From walking around up to his neck in flooded marshes he caught hepatitis. In mid-summer 1967, after he had recovered somewhat, he left Vietnam and returned to Rand.
This tour of duty was very important to Ellsberg's political development. There was no pacification, since our South Vietnamese allies simply had no stomach for fighting their fellow Vietnamese. He discovered that the conflict was not a civil war, as so many academics around the world believed. One side, the South, was entirely equipped and paid for by a foreign power. As he writes, 'we were not fighting on the wrong side; we were the wrong side.'
Back in the US, Ellsberg was particularly incensed by the daily drumbeat of official statements from the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State and the high command in Vietnam, all of them insisting that the US was making great 'progress' in winning the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese people.
Then came the Tet Offensive of 29 January 1968 - simultaneous Vietcong attacks in almost every province of South Vietnam as well as in Saigon itself. The scale of the offensive strongly suggested that American leaders were either incompetent or lying. On 10 March, the New York Times published a leak from inside the Pentagon to the effect that General William Westmoreland, the commanding officer in Vietnam, was asking for 206,000 more troops. Neil Sheehan and Hedrick Smith reported this leak, which was accurate and had a devastating effect on Congress and the American people.
It did not come from Ellsberg, but 'as I observed the effect of this leak,' he recalls, 'it was as if clouds had suddenly opened. I realised something crucial: that the President's ability to escalate, his entire strategy throughout the war, had depended on secrecy and lying and thus on his ability to deter unauthorised disclosures - truth-telling - by officials.' It dawned on Ellsberg that, in the wake of Tet and the leak, President Johnson could not get away with his deceptions any longer.
Ellsberg was recalled from Rand to Washington to join a high-level working group evaluating the full range of options on Vietnam for the incoming Secretary of Defense, Clark Clifford. In the capital he learned that McNamara had ordered John McNaughton to organise the writing of an internal historical study of US involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to the present based on top secret documents. McNaughton assigned the project to his deputy, Morton Halperin, who in turn delegated leadership of the work to his deputy, Leslie Gelb. At the time neither Halperin nor Gelb had ever been to Vietnam.
They, in turn, hired Ellsberg to write one of the projected 47 volumes, and he chose to work on JFK and the year 1961. One of the first things he did was to obtain from the CIA all the National Intelligence Estimates for Indochina from 1950 to 1960. 'What was evident in each one of the years of major decision was that the President's choice was not founded upon optimistic reporting or on assurances of the success of his chosen course.' Ellsberg thus began to ask himself a forbidden question: why did every one of the Presidents from Truman to Johnson 'mislead the public and Congress about what he was doing in Indochina?' He had discovered part of the answer: it was not because the President's subordinates deceived him.
The Pentagon Papers do not take the story beyond 31 March 1968, the day Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election. The entire nation took his decision to mean that, whoever won the election, the new President would end the war through a negotiated withdrawal such as the one that had already been agreed in Laos. No one imagined that in the years to come the United States would drop enough bombs on Vietnam to equal just under three times World War Two's total tonnage.
Ellsberg returned to Rand, but his research on the history of American policy in Vietnam had intrigued him. He therefore arranged to have a complete set of the Pentagon Papers transferred out of channels to his top secret safe at the Rand Corporation in California, where he could continue to study them in detail.
The trigger that set in motion the biggest leak of classified documents in American history, a constitutional crisis over the First Amendment's protection of press freedom and Nixon's resignation, was an article by Ted Sell on the front page of the Los Angeles Times of 30 September 1969 entitled 'Murder Charges against Green Berets Dropped by Army'.
From it Ellsberg learned that the Secretary of the Army, Stanley Resor, had ordered the military commander in Vietnam, General Creighton Abrams, to suspend the courts martial of Colonel Robert Rheault, commander of all Special Forces in Vietnam, and five other intelligence officers. They had been charged with killing a Vietnamese who had worked for them for the previous six years and then dropping his body in a weighted bag into the South China Sea. Their defence was that they thought he was a double agent. Interestingly enough, though this is not mentioned by Ellsberg, the author of the original screenplay of Apocalypse Now, John Milius, has said that the character of Kurtz, the maniacal American officer played by Marlon Brando, was inspired by Rheault.
Ellsberg was enraged by all the lies Resor proffered in his defence and by the comments of various Congressmen on how bad it would be for morale should American troops face criminal charges 'just for killing one Vietnamese civilian in cold blood'. In his 1994 diary H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff, confirmed that it had been Nixon and Kissinger who gave the orders to stop the prosecution - which was exactly what Ellsberg had suspected. 'It occurred to me,' he writes, 'that what I had in my safe at Rand was seven thousand pages of documentary evidence of lying, by four Presidents and their Administrations over 23 years, to conceal plans and actions of mass murder. I decided I would stop concealing that myself.'
On 1 October 1969, aided by his Rand colleague Anthony Russo and using a primitive Xerox machine in the office of Russo's friend Lynda Sinay, the owner of a small advertising agency, Ellsberg began his monumental task. Working through the night, he and his friends would copy 47 volumes of the Pentagon Papers, cutting off the top and bottom markings on each page that read Top Secret so that they could later make more copies in commercial copy-shops. Once finished, he gave a full set of the Papers to Senator Fulbright and tried to interest Senators Gaylord Nelson and George McGovern in publicising them or printing them in the Congressional Record. But Congressional courage, then as now, was in short supply. No Senator, not even Fulbright, accepted his offer.
On 2 March 1971, Ellsberg called Neil Sheehan of the New York Times. Sheehan was interested but never gave Ellsberg any assurances that the Times would publish the Pentagon Papers either in whole or in part. He also insisted that Ellsberg give him a full set of the Papers to show his editors. Ellsberg realised that if he did that he would cease to have any control over what the Times did with them or with him - it was after all possible that he would be turned over to the FBI before he could get the Papers out.
Ellsberg heard nothing from Sheehan for several weeks. In the meantime, as Ellsberg later discovered, Sheehan had gone in secret to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ellsberg and his wife were living. Knowing the Ellsbergs were out of town and using a key Ellsberg had lent him (Ellsberg never explains why), Sheehan gained access to the apartment of Ellsberg's wife's younger brother, to whom Ellsberg had entrusted a set of Papers for safe-keeping. Sheehan removed the Papers and he and his wife photocopied them before returning them to the apartment.
Without saying anything to Ellsberg, the Times worked at a feverish pace to get the Papers ready for publication. On 12 June, a friend at the Times, assuming that Ellsberg already knew about it, called to say that the Papers were coming out the following day. Ellsberg was panic-stricken, thinking he might be arrested at any time. He hastily removed a set of the Papers from his own apartment and lodged them with Howard Zinn, a prominent anti-war activist. Ellsberg and his wife went into hiding and for 13 days managed to evade the FBI. Although he was pleased that the New York Times was publishing the Papers, Ellsberg found it easy to control his enthusiasm for the paper's integrity in its dealings with him.
For the first time in American history, an Administration successfully obtained an injunction against a newspaper to stop a story it did not like. The New York Times ceased publication of the Pentagon Papers. On 30 June, the Supreme Court by a vote of six to three voided the injunction on constitutional grounds and publication resumed. In the meantime, in order to ensure that as many copies of the Papers as possible became available to the public, Ellsberg spent his last few days of freedom sending them to 18 other newspapers, including the Washington Post, all of which began publishing them.
On 28 June Ellsberg surrendered to Federal authorities in Boston. He was charged with a variety of felonies, although after carefully researching the matter, his attorney told him that he had probably not violated any existing law. As it happened, his fate wasn't decided by a jury, but instead became enmeshed with the debacle at the White House and the scandal surrounding the Republican Party's burglary of the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office building.
Nixon was never enthusiastic about using legal means to try to stop the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers, or about getting Ellsberg convicted in a Federal court. He was, however, scared to death that Ellsberg had or was receiving more secret documents not just about previous Administrations but about his own. 'Daniel Ellsberg is the most dangerous man in America. He must be stopped at all costs,' Kissinger had said in the presence of the President.
In fact, Ellsberg did not have any materials touching on the Nixon Administration, but the President and Kissinger didn't know that. Nixon therefore ordered Charles Colson, an official on his staff, to come up with a plan to 'neutralise' Ellsberg. Colson in turn enlisted the services of a former CIA officer called Howard Hunt, who had been the mastermind behind the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba.
Hunt had several creative ideas. One was to send his agents to break into the offices of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, Dr Lewis Fielding, in Beverly Hills. They were hoping to find material they could use to blackmail Ellsberg into silence and perhaps also to embarrass Dr Fielding into testifying against his patient. However, the burglary of Dr Fielding's office on 3 September proved to be, in Hunt's words, a 'dry hole'.
Some months later, on 3 May 1972, on the orders of Colson, the White House arranged to fly some Cuban-American veterans of the Bay of Pigs to Washington from Miami. They were told that Ellsberg (now released on bail) would be attending an anti-war rally on the steps of the Capitol and were instructed to assault him - to 'break his legs'. The thugs did not go through with the plan when they realised that the crowd was too big to allow them to escape.
Meanwhile, the White House had invited Judge Matthew Byrne, the presiding magistrate at Ellsberg's trial, to Nixon's home in San Clemente, California. There Byrne met the President and his aide John Ehrlichman, who offered him the position of director of the FBI. It was an unspoken bribe to put Ellsberg away. But by then the Watergate investigation was gathering steam, and on 27 April 1973 the Watergate prosecutor sent Judge Byrne a letter telling him about the Fielding break-in.
On 30 April the judge received an FBI report of an interview with Ehrlichman, in which he admitted that the White House had ordered the burglary of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. That evening Ehrlichman and Haldeman resigned from the President's staff. Simultaneously, Richard Helms, the director of the CIA, revealed that on the President's orders the CIA had prepared a profile of Ellsberg, which by law it was forbidden to do where an American citizen was concerned. By now it was beginning to dawn on Judge Byrne that if this went much further, he rather than Ellsberg might end up in a Federal penitentiary. On 11 May, he accepted a motion for the dismissal of all charges against Ellsberg.
The story of the Pentagon Papers raises at least three questions of considerable contemporary relevance. The first derives from Ellsberg's interest in the matter of Presidential lying. Was the problem then, as it is again today, that all American Presidents prefer to lie rather than to tell the public what it has a right to know?
----
Anti-War Coalition Ready For A Fight
Group Working To Make Its Point
February 6, 2003
By LIZ HALLORAN,
Hartford Courant Staff Writer
http://www.ctnow.com/news/nationworld/hc-antiwar0206.artfeb06,0,4578582.story?coll=hc%2Dheadlines%2Dnationworld
WASHINGTON -- The crowded room in the historic Hiram W. Johnson house is strewn with coats and computer bags.
Cups of cold coffee and warm Coke litter tables lined with laptops, and Secretary of State Colin Powell's sober image beams out live from a small television.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Powell tells the U.N. Security Council and the watching world Wednesday morning, "these are not assertions. These are facts."
Snorts escape from more than one person in this anti-war movement's version of a strategic war room on Capitol Hill, and computer keys begin clacking. The latest war of words is on, and the Win Without War coalition is ready.
E-mails are flying, experts are being consulted and coalition members - from the National Council of Churches to the Women's Action for New Directions - are preparing their talking points.
No one in this elegant room, hung with posters of Osama Bin Laden pointing and saying "I want YOU to invade Iraq," will be convinced by Powell's words that war is necessary.
At 11:54 a.m., Powell finishes making his case for waging war on Iraq and national Win Without War director Ted Andrews is on his feet barking out instructions. Monitor the Internet, he says, to see what the "spinmeisters" are saying. "Call or e-mail local organizations for reaction, get experts in all areas on the horn," and most of all, Andrews says, "provide everyone with talking points."
Calls go out seeking support for Senate resolutions supporting U.N. inspections. Andrews huddles with a handful of other members to prepare a press statement and Jason Kafoury of United for Peace and Justice rushes in to report that his organization is appealing New York City's decision to block a Feb. 15 "The World Says No to War" peace march.
The coalition Wednesday opened its first joint anti-war room to the public in part to show members of 26 disparate groups sitting at a communal table in an effort to stop the nation's march to war. For an anti-war movement that often seems fractured and disjointed, the image of shoulder-to-shoulder solidarity was not accidental.
As Powell spoke of the "sinister nexus" between Iraq and al Qaeda, the Rev. Janet Horman of United Methodist Church's church and society board spoke quietly of her visit to Iraq in 1991, after the Persian Gulf War.
"The devastation was just tremendous," she said. "For a long time I carried a picture of a man who was killed in the bombing. His family wanted us to know of his uniqueness."
Of Powell's speech Horman said: "It's very sobering to be reminded of how deadly the weapons the world now owns are - the U.S., Iraq. We do need a structure such as the U.N to find a way to eliminate these weapons."
The Rev. Brenda Girton-Mitchell, a lawyer and official with the National Council of Churches, said she didn't hear anything new from Powell and characterized his speech as part of an effort to "frighten Americans" during a vulnerable time.
"I feel a little disturbed that many people will hear and see these pictures as something new," she said. "But everything of significance, we already knew.
"Now we just have graphics to go with it all," she said.
As the room filled, and the noise level grew, Andrews checked his scribbled notes and looked up from a call on his cellphone.
"Lots of bells and whistles," he said, noting that CIA Director George Tenet was sitting directly behind Powell during his speech.
Powell's burden, Andrews said, was to show that the U.N. inspections haven't worked.
"Quite the contrary was shown," he said. "No one has to die."
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Corporations, War, You
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
February 6, 2003
Corporate Watch
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2003/000144.html
One thing is clear about the Bush administration's current rush to war: It has nothing to do with protecting U.S. security.
There is no evidence nor reason to believe that Iraq possesses nuclear weapons. The Iraqi military is among the weakest in the Middle East. And the CIA says that Iraq does not pose a terrorist threat to the United States -- although it might, the CIA warns, if the United States launches an attack.
What is much less clear is the actual reason for war, especially because it poses real risks to U.S. corporate and geopolitical interests.
There are material interests served by war and the run-up to war, of course.
Big Oil: It should go without saying that the Bush administration, like administrations before it, obsesses about the Persian Gulf because it sits atop the world's largest oil reserves. The Washington, D.C.-based Sustainable Energy and Economy Network's Steve Kretzmann argues that central to the U.S. industry interest in Iraq is its potential role as a counterbalance to Saudi Arabia, which possesses the world's largest oil reserves by far.
The Military-Industrial Think Tank Complex I: A network of defense industry-backed think tanks have been instrumental in cooking up the rationale for invasion of Iraq, developing concepts such as "preemptive war." Many of the staff at these think tanks are now part of the Bush administration. Former defense company executives and consultants are also extremely well represented in the administration, and wield enormous influence. For the industry, war and hyped threats to national security mean greater expenditures on their weaponry. The Defense budget is set to hit $380 billion this year, rising over the next five years to a approach a staggering $500 billion.
The Ideology of Empire: The ideology and geopolitical strategy of the war-mongering extremist networks is, in a word, empire. They hope to demonstrate how awesome and dominant is U.S. military force, and that the United States is willing to use it routinely on whatever pretext it chooses. Their intended message: Cross the empire at your peril.
But more is going on here than just a corporate agenda.
There is no escaping the pathetic fact that a major impulse for war is the desire of President Bush and many of the key actors who served in his father's administration to "redeem" the failure of the first Bush regime to depose Saddam Hussein.
And there is the narrow political calculus that must have been undertaken prior to the 2002 election by Karl Rove and other White House strategists. They realized that the post September-11 boost for the president was rapidly fading and that the administration was losing control of the national agenda as the Enron, WorldCom and other financial scandals dominated the headlines. They ran the election on the war and, with the Democrats offering no coherent opposition, this proved a successful strategy.
Still, while these propulsions to war can be identified, there are substantial countervailing factors at play. A war brings with it enormous uncertainty. While few doubt that the United States will prevail quickly on the battlefield, there is the potential of U.S. soldiers suffering non-negligible casualties if there ends up being house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. There is the real risk of spurring new terrorist acts, either in the United States or against U.S. citizens abroad, whether these acts come from Iraq, al-Qaeda or others. (And if Saddam Hussein is as evil as President Bush suggests, and if his regime is collapsing, isn't it likely that he will lash out at the United States through any means possible?) There is the possibility that the U.S. invasion will generate political instability in other countries. There is the enormous uncertainty about how Iraq will be governed after Saddam is deposed.
These are not just concerns for common sense-minded citizens. They involve the uncertainties that intensely disturb corporations, which is presumably the reason the Dow falls as the drums of war beat louder. They even pose potential risks to the oil companies. (They may also pose risks to George Bush's re-election, which is why the last, best hope of averting war perhaps is that the White House political strategists pull the country back from the brink.)
But the administration appears to have shunted aside these countervailing concerns. The momentum for war -- fueled by a combination of corporate interest, ideology, personal pique and political expedience -- combined with the arrogance of power of the most hawkish wing of the administration, appear to have steamrolled saner voices urging caution.
President Bush is on the verge of launching a war that will kill untold thousands of Iraqis, and turn an already tempestuous world into a much more dangerous place. Every person in the United States should do everything and anything they can to stop this lunacy.
Here are four things to do for those in the United States:
1. Attend the massive demonstration against war in New York City on February 15, or in San Francisco on February 16. For more information, see: <http:www.unitedforpeace.org>.
2. Call your senators (1-800-839-5276 or 202-224-3121), and urge them to support Senate Resolution 32, which calls for another Congressional vote before the United States commences a war. (To see the text of the resolution, go to <http://thomas.loc.gov> and type in "SRes 32" (no quotes) in the box for the bill number.)
3. Make sure your city council has passed a resolution supporting peace. 67 cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit and Washington, D.C., already have. Check out <http://www.citiesforpeace.org>.
4. Give a day's worth of time to stop the war. If you're not sure what to do, sign up with Moveon.org (go to: <http://moveon.org/giveaday>) and they will supply you with plenty of ideas.
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press; http://www.corporatepredators.org).
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INVOLVING CIVIL SOCIETY IN ADVANCING DISARMAMENT ISSUES KEY, ANNAN TELLS ADVISORY PANEL
New York, Feb 6 2003
From: Felicity Hill <flick@igc.org>
Against a backdrop of rising military spending and a gradual erosion of established global norms on weapons of mass destruction, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today urged an advisory panel to focus on ways to involve civil society in advancing disarmament issues.
"Non-governmental organizations have long played a vital galvanizing role in this area, mobilizing public opinion and motivating political leaders to act with determination to promote disarmament," the Secretary-General said in remarks to his Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters, which is meeting at UN Headquarters in New York. "An alert and knowledgeable public can contribute greatly to convincing world leaders that a much better and safer world can be achieved by doing away with all weapons of mass destruction." http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=248
Mr. Annan noted that the Board is meeting at a time when the question of disarmament is at the very top of the international agenda, and the current dangers to the world posed by the spread of weapons of all kind have made its work more central and more urgent.
"An ominous cloud hangs over the Board's deliberations this year," he said. "This cloud represents the concerns of all humanity about the many dangers posed by weapons of mass destruction - especially nuclear weapons. Similar concerns inspired the leaders of the world, who gathered here for the Millennium Summit, to designate the elimination of such weapons as a key goal of the Millennium Declaration."
The Secretary-General also stressed the importance of working to preserve and consolidate existing multilateral norms through adherence to treaties and fulfilment of legal obligations. "As this board knows well - and the wider public is beginning to learn - there are serious challenges posed to international security and non-proliferation regimes," he said. "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Iraq are only the tip of the iceberg."
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