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NUCLEAR
Officials: Safe Room Is Not No. 1 Priority
INDIA: Cruise missile test worries Pakistan
Panel: Iraq Broke Limit on Missiles
Special Operations Units Already in Iraq
Experts Confirm New Iraq Missile Exceeds U.N. Limit
Japan Assents to U.S. View on N. Korea
For a small number of South Koreans, peninsula has a second crisis
N. Korea Standoff Sent to U.N. Council
North Korea cited for 'noncompliance'
North Korea Wants Arms and More Aid From U.S
Tougher Inspections Urged at Nuke Plants
Indian Pt. Report Said to Overstate Terrorism Risk
Knoxville Group Takes War Protest to the Air
Suit questions Bush's war powers
Bush Says He Will Use 'Every Ounce' of Power to Disarm Iraq
Shield Us From War
US seeks 'someone like Jimmy Carter'
US seeks to give Iraq exit strategy
US already knew of Bin Laden tape
MILITARY
New Civilian Deaths Reported in U.S. Bombing in Afghanistan
New hi-tech weapons provide more ways to kill
Anthrax jabs mutiny widens amid fears of cancer, sterility
UK Police Quiz Man Found with Grenade in Luggage
Iraq Chemical Arms Condemned, but West Once Looked the Other Way
Getting Paid in China
U.S., Colombia Reach Deal on Anti - Drug Flights
Austria Blocking Movement of U.S. Troops - Rumsfeld
Second Iraq battle: 'morning after'
Human shields set to deploy in Baghdad
Kurds say terrorists make poison in zone
Sharon Faces Belgian Trial After Term Ends
In Kuwait, a Rehearsal for War
Turkish Politician Holds Out on U.S. Request
Turkey denies British troops role on border
France Pledges to Defend Turkey
Torn Over Iraq, NATO Forced to Wait for Blix
Philippine Army Says It May Have Killed 140 Rebels
CIA Officer on the Agency's Days of Shame
The myth of international law
Air strategy for war 'timid'
Iraqi human rights are not the issue
Hysteria runs riot; networks fuel the fear
Arabs ignore bin Laden war call
Bin Laden-Hussein Link Hazy
U.S. Tries E-Mail to Charm Iraqis
U.S. forces drop propaganda bombs on Iraq
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
'Supersnoop' scheme blocked pending review
Anti-aircraft missiles deployed to bases, around D.C.
Some Pilots Oppose Gun Rules
Lack of Attack Readiness Laid to Financing Delay by U.S.
Schaefer Seeking Arrest Powers
Senator Edwards Proposes Homeland Intelligence Agency
Activists Seek Access to U.S. Detainees
Tips on What To Do in a Terrorist Attack
Terror Experts Skeptical About Duct Tape
Bin Laden Tape May Hint at Attack, C.I.A. Says
Federal Terrorism Prosecutions Increase
ENERGY AND OTHER
Fuel cells promise bright future for platinum
Dutch Nuon plans to quadruple renewable energy output
US lawmakers push for development of hydrogen cars
Brown resists renewable energy spending hike - FT
California weighs move to smaller power plants
Arctic experts say UN sea treaty could benefit US
Conoco chairman advocates N. American energy pact
Emissions Reduction Plan Touted
Voluntary Pacts Reached to Curb Greenhouse Gases
Killings, Slavery Rise in Rural Brazil - Church
ACTIVISTS
Boone County (Missouri) GOP chairman under fire for anti-war stance
Denial of March Cost Antiwar Protesters Symbol
Large Anti - War Protest Set for London
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Officials: Safe Room Is Not No. 1 Priority
By John Mintz and Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 13, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A225-2003Feb12?language=printer
Creating a safe room in a private residence is of limited utility in some kinds of terror attacks, and people should focus first on some of the more mundane steps of emergency preparation such as food and water supply, a family communication plan and evacuation scenarios, U.S. officials and civil preparedness specialists said.
The prospect of a family barricading itself in a plastic-wrapped safe room, highlighted this week by the Department of Homeland Security, has captured public attention, sending many people to hardware stores in search of the plastic sheeting and duct tape officials suggested they should have.
"I'm not going to tell people not to [prepare to construct a safe room], but there are so many other things that people have not done," said Randall Larsen, director of the private Anser Institute for Homeland Security and a retired Air Force colonel. "Creating a communications plan, having an extra supply of important prescription drugs, getting a good supply of diapers or infant formula if you've got infants."
There is no single strategy for Americans scrambling to protect themselves in an age of terror. The best advice depends on the attack's circumstances, civil defense and terrorism experts say -- what kind of weapon is used, the proximity and even factors as uncontrollable as wind direction.
Staying in a room sealed in duct tape and plastic sheeting could provide significant protection if terrorists attacked with toxic chemicals -- by blowing up a tanker truck, for example -- because the plume could dissipate in as little as an hour. Plastic sheeting could provide an effective shield for at least that long, though remaining in a well-sealed room for longer than a few hours would be impossible because the oxygen would run out, public health specialists said.
But if a nuclear weapon or radiological "dirty bomb" were used, seeking refuge in a plastic- and tape-sealed upstairs room in a house would be a poor tactic for avoiding radiation. In that event, the best place to hole up is in the basement of a large building, a subway tunnel or an underground home cellar. Plastic sheeting would not help, and people could be advised to stay indoors for days -- or weeks in a nuclear blast.
The federal announcement Monday unnerved people in Washington and New York. Although domestic defense officials wanted to avoid panicking people, they believe releasing even such disturbing advice is the responsible course given the government's conclusion that there is now a "high risk" of terrorist attack. Many Americans had remained in denial about the potential danger, even as the national threat index was raised Friday, they said.
"We're pleased people are heeding the advice," said a senior domestic security official. "But we know this information has to be given out in doses" to avoid a public stampede.
Officials said their Monday briefing was just the first stage in a highly orchestrated, long-term public education campaign that will provide information about the wide variety of possible terror attacks and how to respond to each.
Government officials acknowledged that they must communicate more clearly with the public about safe rooms. Under some terrorist attack scenarios, even those involving toxic chemicals, it would be ill-advised to flee into such a room. If terrorists sabotaged a chemical tank so that it released poisonous gas over several hours, the toxic plume likely would linger for a longer period than people could stay in the room, experts said.
In most cases of chemical or biological attack, the best idea is to get upwind of the source of danger. Paying attention to officials' advice on news reports is the way to determine how to do that, officials said.
Some news reports have said it is best to seek refuge from chemical attack in an upstairs room, but that isn't necessarily true, officials said. Although most toxic chemicals are heavier than air and tend to settle to the ground after release, they reach the buoyancy of the air around them when traveling downwind. Officials advised choosing the best room, not necessarily the highest, for "sheltering in place" from chemical releases.
To seal a room, officials advise pre-cutting plastic to cover room vents, doors and windows. Windowless rooms are best. "Turn off all ventilation, including furnaces, air conditioners, vents and fans," said a guide published by the Federal Emergency Management Agency several months ago.
"Ten square feet of floor space per person will provide sufficient air to prevent carbon dioxide buildup for up to five hours," the FEMA guide said.
Chemical vapors eventually will seep into even sealed rooms.
John Sorensen, a top emergency preparedness researcher at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, said that in the 1990s, officials conducted detailed experiments in which people duct-taped plastic sheets to seal up rooms. They did it efficiently, reducing chemical infiltration by as much as 90 percent during the first hours, he said.
But the experiments yielded a second conclusion, as well.
"It had a very positive psychological effect," he said. "People said they really felt better doing the taping, that they weren't just sitting around waiting" to die. Officials said preventing panic and ensuring that the public remains focused enough to follow officials' instructions is paramount in civil emergencies.
If a terrorist attack spews radioactive particles into the air, experts say, three concepts should be kept in mind: Seek the heaviest possible shielding and the greatest possible distance from the radioactive material and stay away as long as possible.
FEMA's guidebook recommends "heavy, dense materials -- thick walls, concrete, bricks, books and earth -- between you and the fallout particles. . . . An underground area, such as a home or office building basement, offers more protection than the first floor of a building. A floor near the middle of a high-rise may be better, depending on what is nearby at that level on which significant fallout particles would collect. Flat roofs collect fallout particles, so the top floor is not a good choice, nor is a floor adjacent to a neighboring flat roof."
For biological attacks, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a physician and public health expert, recommended in his recent book, "When Every Moment Counts," that people have masks for each family member rated "N95" or better.
One option that a number of scientists said holds promise for protection is the installation in homes and office buildings of air-handling machinery. The High Efficiency Particulate Air, or HEPA, filter pumps filtered air into an area faster than the air can escape through cracks in the walls, creating "overpressure." This pressure imbalance makes it impossible for toxins in the outside air to enter the sealed area.
Marketers of the equipment, which sells for about $1,500 a home, say it could protect against a chemical or biological attack.
One proponent is Richard L. Garwin, a physicist with decades of government experience in technology and security. "The first and most practical defense against biological warfare attack is to maintain 'positive' air pressure of filtered air within buildings," he wrote in the New York Review of Books two years ago.
-------- india / pakistan
INDIA: Cruise missile test worries Pakistan
World Scene
February 13, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20030213-94380089.htm
NEW DELHI - India yesterday test fired a cruise missile capable of hitting major cities in Pakistan, officials said.
The Brahmos missile, jointly developed with Russia and based on the Russian Yahont anti-ship missile, has a range of 185 miles and a payload of 440 pounds.
Pakistan said the missile test was part of India's policy of "massive militarization." Both nations have nuclear weapons.
-------- iraq
Panel: Iraq Broke Limit on Missiles
Finding May Lead to Tough Blix Report
By Colum Lynch and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 13, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A216-2003Feb12?language=printer
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 12 -- A team of international missile experts assembled this week by chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix has concluded that a major Iraqi ballistic missile program is in clear violation of United Nations mandates prohibiting Iraq from building medium- and long-range missiles, U.S. and U.N. officials said today.
The unanimous finding of the team, which included experts from six countries, is expected to set the stage for a confrontation between the Iraqi government and Blix over the probable destruction of Iraq's Al Samoud 2 rocket program. It is also likely to lead Blix to present a tougher assessment of Iraq's cooperation with inspectors at a critical briefing for the U.N. Security Council on Friday.
The Bush administration intends to cite Iraq's ballistic missile program as another justification for the council to declare that Iraq is in violation of its disarmament obligations and that the use of military force is justified, officials said.
Attention on Blix's presentation to the Security Council intensified today as the foreign ministers of Russia, France, China and Germany -- which have been pushing for continued inspections to ward off an early move to war -- announced that they will attend the session. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he, too, will travel to New York to challenge the four governments to declare that Iraq has squandered the "final opportunity" to disarm voluntarily that it was granted by the council in a Nov. 8 resolution.
"Nobody wants war, but sometimes it's necessary when you need it to maintain international order," Powell told the House International Relations Committee. "There are some of my European colleagues right now who are resisting the natural flow of this resolution. They want to have more inspectors. More inspectors aren't the issue. The question I put to them is: Why more inspectors and how much more time? Or are you just delaying for the sake of delaying in order to get Saddam Hussein off the hook?"
Powell delivered the most detailed account to date of what he said were U.S. efforts to persuade Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his inner circle to seek political asylum outside of Iraq.
Powell said the United States is "in touch with a number of countries" in a bid to negotiate a peaceful transition in Baghdad. He suggested that any deal would ultimately require U.N. endorsement to "entice" Hussein and his senior aides to leave the country. "One way to avoid a lot of suffering is for the regime to step down -- Saddam Hussein and his cohorts," Powell said.
CIA Director George J. Tenet, meanwhile, faced a storm of criticism from Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee who charged that the administration has sabotaged the U.N. weapons inspections by not fully cooperating with the United Nations. They also accused Tenet of misleading them about the intelligence on Iraqi weapons that the CIA had turned over to the inspections teams.
In testimony before the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday, Tenet surprised senators by saying that the agency had given U.N. inspectors all the information it had on weapons sites of "high" and "moderate" interest, meaning those sites that are likely to contain weapons or remnants of weapons. Today, Tenet told the Senate defense panel that he had been wrong. In fact, he said, there are "one handful of sites which may not have been known" to the U.N. inspectors.
Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, have pressed the Bush administration to provide timely and accurate intelligence on Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear weapons sites. U.S. officials maintain that they have, although the inspectors have raised questions about the quality of some of the U.S. intelligence.
Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) challenged Tenet's statements in an interview after the testimony, saying the CIA director continued to mislead lawmakers on the extent of the agency's cooperation. Levin cited classified letters from the CIA dated Jan. 24 and Jan. 28 in which the CIA said it had not shared information about what he characterized as "a large number of sites" of "significant" value. Levin said the CIA informed him on Tuesday that it planned to hand over more information within the next few days. "When they've taken the position that inspections are useless, they are bound to fail," Levin said. "We have undermined the inspectors since the beginning."
Iraq admitted in a recent declaration to the weapons inspectors that it had developed two missiles, the Al Samoud 2 and the Al Fatah, and that they narrowly exceeded the U.N.-imposed limit of 150 kilometers (93 miles) in dozens of tests flights. Iraq maintains that the missiles will not exceed the limit when they are weighted down with conventional explosives and guidance systems. "Iraq declared that the missiles are of a range of less than 150 kilometers," said Mohammed Douri, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations. "If that's the case, no one can ask us to destroy them."
Blix told the Security Council on Jan. 27 that the two missile programs "might well represent prima facie cases of proscribed systems." Blix ordered Iraq to freeze the programs until he could convene a panel of experts.
The panel, which included missile experts from the United States, Britain, France, Ukraine, Germany and China, concluded that the Al Samoud is capable of exceeding the U.N. limit. But panel members were unable to agree on whether the Al Fatah -- a solid-fuel missile that Iraq admits reached 100 miles in a test -- is in violation of U.N. resolutions.
The limit on Iraqi ballistic missiles was set under the terms of the 1991 cease-fire agreement that ended the Persian Gulf War. That agreement also barred Iraq from producing biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.
The missile limit was intended to prevent Iraq from developing missiles capable of threatening its neighbors while enabling it to defend itself from attack. U.N. diplomats and missile experts maintain that the current ranges of Iraq's missiles do not significantly alter the military balance in the region. But U.S. and U.N. officials say they are concerned that the missile programs may be part of a long-term effort to significantly extend the range of Iraqi missiles.
"My understanding is that one of the two missiles that is being analyzed definitely has a capacity that exceeds the range of 150 kilometers," said John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. "That is something that our own intelligence sources have been telling us for months. But, apparently, now it's a matter of agreement among the experts."
In the latest indication of Baghdad's mixed record of cooperation, U.N. inspectors were permitted today to destroy a declared stockpile of mustard gas and artillery shells at a former weapons site in Al Mutanna, 90 miles north of Baghdad. But U.N. efforts to conduct an unmonitored interview with a biologist failed after the scientist refused to be questioned without the presence of an Iraqi official.
Priest reported from Washington. Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
----
Special Operations Units Already in Iraq
Weapons, Defectors, Communications Links Sought
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 13, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A331-2003Feb12?language=printer
U.S. Special Operations troops are already operating in various parts of Iraq, hunting for weapons sites, establishing a communications network and seeking potential defectors from Iraqi military units in what amounts to the initial ground phase of a war, U.S. defense officials and experts familiar with Pentagon planning said.
The troops, comprising two Special Operations Task Forces with an undetermined number of personnel, have been in and out of Iraq for well over a month, said two military officials with direct knowledge of their activities. They are laying the groundwork for conventional U.S. forces that could quickly seize large portions of Iraq if President Bush gives a formal order to go to war, the officials said.
The ground operation points to a Pentagon war plan that is shaping up to be dramatically different than the one carried out by the United States and its allies in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Instead of beginning with a massive aerial bombardment, the plan envisions a series of preliminary ground actions to seize Iraqi territory and effectively encircle Baghdad before a large-scale air campaign hits the capital, defense officials and analysts said.
"It's possible that ground movements could come in and occupy large portions of Iraq almost unimpeded," said one person familiar with Pentagon planning. In northern Iraq, the source said, "we might get to the outskirts of Tikrit without firing a shot." Tikrit, a city north of Baghdad, is Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's ancestral home and a major base of his power.
Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the U.S. commander for the Middle East, is scheduled to go to the White House today for a review of his war plans with Bush. Franks is expected to depart soon afterward to Qatar, where his Central Command has established its regional headquarters for an attack on Iraq.
The buildup of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region continues, even as the Bush administration pursues last-minute diplomacy to win support for war at the United Nations. The Pentagon announced the activation of nearly 40,000 more reservists yesterday, bringing the total to more than 150,000, the highest number since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
There are more than 135,000 U.S. troops in the vicinity of Iraq, and that is expected to grow by next week to 150,000 -- the number cited by military planners as the minimum required to launch a full-scale assault.
Military officials familiar with the war plan say it is possible that a fairly substantial ground operation could take place not after the air campaign, as in the Gulf War, but either before or simultaneously with it.
The Special Operations forces operating in Iraq have several distinct missions. Some are establishing relations with opposition groups and setting up airstrips into which U.S. forces could be flown, the officials said. Others are focused on preventing Iraq from launching missiles or drone aircraft against Israel. Those troops are believed to move in and out of Iraq from neighboring countries.
In addition to the ground operations, a small-scale air war against Iraq also continues. U.S. and British aircraft patrolling "no-fly" zones in northern and southern Iraq have conducted airstrikes several times a week for months, hitting antiaircraft sites, military communications lines and other government facilities. On Tuesday, U.S. warplanes dropped more than a dozen bombs on a medium-range missile launcher system in southern Iraq. Yesterday, they returned to bomb the radar system for that launcher.
A psychological operations campaign also has been underway, with leaflets and broadcasts preparing Iraqis for military action, telling them, among other things, that "coalition forces do not wish to harm the noble people of Iraq."
"The strategic war has already begun," said retired Marine Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, an expert in war planning.
Early moves of U.S. forces into northern, southern and western Iraq could substantially reduce the obstacles faced by the large-scale ground operations that would follow, military planners said. In the north, Kurdish militias already have achieved considerable autonomy while the south is overwhelmingly populated by members of the Shiite sect of Islam who widely resent Hussein's Sunni-dominated leadership. Western Iraq is largely uninhabited desert.
As a result, military planners said, U.S. ground forces could seize as much as 75 percent of Iraqi territory in the early phase of a war, leaving Hussein in control of Baghdad and the area from the capital north to Tikrit, bounded on the west by the Euphrates River and on the east by the Tigris -- a region less than 50 miles wide and about 150 miles long.
Assaulting that area still presents a formidable challenge, especially in Baghdad and other cities. But by radically reducing the combat zone, the war plan promises to substantially lessen the impact on the Iraqi population. That in turn would ease humanitarian problems.
For many of the same reasons, people familiar with the Pentagon's war plan said, the military also will move quickly to secure major oil fields either before the formal outset of war, or as it begins.
Pentagon officials said the plan under contemplation would not resemble the Gulf War, where the opening signal was cruise missiles and bombs hitting downtown Baghdad. Rather, they said, widespread aerial attacks on the capital may be among the last major moves by the United States.
In 1991, it was essential to hit targets in and around Baghdad to cut communications of the national antiaircraft network. But in contrast to 12 years ago, the antiaircraft system in northern and southern Iraq has been substantially degraded by years of airstrikes. While Baghdad remains protected by surface-to-air missiles, many of them withdrawn into the capital region from the "no-fly" zones, much of the rest of the country is relatively open to U.S. aircraft.
Military experts cited tactical and strategic reasons for beginning the war in a way that almost inverts the opening of the Gulf War.
"If Saddam Hussein has the oil fields wired for destruction and is prepared to blow the dams and dikes of the lower Tigris and Euphrates, which would slow down our forces, you can't go through a week of bombing that gives him the chance to do that," said Andrew Krepinevich, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank. Also, the Bush administration worries that global patience with a war would begin running out after a few weeks of fighting. Arab governments have sent the message to the U.S. government that "if you do it, it's got to be done quickly," said Michael Eisenstadt, an expert on the Iraqi military at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. So it is advantageous, he said, for the military to win some strategic breathing space by achieving some of its war aims before the major air campaign begins.
----
Experts Confirm New Iraq Missile Exceeds U.N. Limit
February 13, 2003
New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON with ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/international/middleeast/13IRAQ.html
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 12 - A panel of arms experts convened by United Nations weapons inspectors has confirmed that a missile Iraq has developed exceeds range limits set by the Security Council.
The panel's conclusion will add fuel to the United States' argument that Iraq is defying Security Council disarmament resolutions, and it is likely to deepen the discord here over whether to go to war against Iraq or allow inspections to continue, as several critical Council nations insist.
In an atmosphere of tension, Germany, France and Russia surprised the United States today by laying plans for an open meeting of Council foreign ministers on Friday to hear the report of the chief weapons inspectors, Hans Blix and Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei.
In Washington, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said the Council was "reaching a moment of truth" with the meeting on Friday and confirmed that he would attend.
"Nobody wants war, but sometimes it's necessary when you need it to maintain international order," he said.
Pentagon officials asserted today that Iraqi forces had moved explosives into the southern part of the country in preparation for blowing up bridges, bursting dams and igniting oil fields in a strategy to slow an American attack. The officials said the tactic would impede an allied effort to provide emergency food and relief to millions of Iraqi civilians.
Military officials said they detected suspicious movements of explosives by rail and other means in recent days, and interpreted it as part of a strategy by President Saddam Hussein to create havoc in the opening moments of a war. Top American commanders say their war plan includes measures to prevent or mitigate Iraqi sabotage and will not hinder their assault, but some senior officers have expressed doubts privately.
The panel of independent missile experts at the United Nations reached its conclusion on Iraq's Al Samoud 2 missiles after meetings Monday and Tuesday in New York. The panel, including one American, was convened by Mr. Blix to provide additional technical support in analyzing the missile.
Mr. Blix has already told the Council that the missiles, with a range of about 180 kilometers, or 114 miles, appeared to be a "prima facie" case of a violation by Iraq of the range limit of 150 kilometers, or about 90 miles, established by the Council. The missiles have already been given to the Iraqi armed forces, he said. The panel did not reach a conclusion about a second missile, Al Fatah, but said it required further study.
Until now, the United States' argument for war has been based mainly on negatives, particularly its contention that Iraq has failed to cooperate with Council-mandated inspections and has not provided thorough proof that it destroyed weapons it was known to have in the past. Mr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei have said repeatedly that they found no "smoking gun."
The conclusion about the missile violation seems certain to provoke new controversy. The inspectors learned of the range of the missiles from test results that were provided in the 12,000-page arms declaration Iraq delivered at the start of the inspections. The missile data was part of the relatively small amount of new useful information the inspectors found in the vast document.
Resolution 1441, the Council measure that set up the inspections, does not spell out what should be done if the inspectors find active illegal weapons. United States officials have argued that any prohibited weapons that emerge would be proof of Iraq's cheating, while French officials, among others, contend that the conclusion on the missiles is proof that the inspections are working and should be allowed to continue.
"An exceeding of the range was declared," said Yuri V. Fedotov, a Russian disarmament specialist who attended a meeting here today with Mr. Blix. It should be taken "precisely as an example of cooperation" by Iraq, he said.
Council diplomats said Mr. Blix seemed to be moving toward demanding that Iraq turn over the missiles to the inspectors for destruction, a concession many diplomats expect that Mr. Hussein will be unwilling to make as the prospect of an American-led attack grows imminent.
The plans for the Friday report by Mr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei were made in a closed Council session this morning led by Germany, which holds the rotating Council presidency for the month. Envoys from France, Russia and China - all permanent members with veto power - strongly supported the plan for a session open to the media where their foreign ministers would be able to counter charges against Iraq and make their appeals for more time for the inspections.
Dominique de Villepin of France, Igor S. Ivanov of Russia and Tang Jiaxuan of China as well as Joschka Fischer of Germany, which is a nonpermanent member, are the foreign ministers who today confirmed their participation in the meeting. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain also said he would attend. Mr. Powell confirmed his participation later in the day.
Until today, the meeting was scheduled to be a closed session where the chief inspectors would present their report and Council envoys would immediately discuss in private their reaction to the report. American and British diplomats warned that the new format would allow little time for closed debate, where views are expressed with more candor, and said they feared that the tactic could be a new effort to postpone the discussion about whether to go to war.
Several nonpermanent Council members, including those that support France's reluctance to go to war soon, were dismayed by the plans.
"It's a mess," one envoy said, adding that he feared more posturing than substance at such a critical juncture. "We are supposed to be getting work done," he said.
United States officials said they had stepped up work this week, together with British diplomats, on a new resolution to declare that Iraq is once again in "material breach" of its Council obligations.
The Bush administration has not yet decided whether to go forward with the resolution, American officials said. But Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, made it clear that the administration was not considering an extension of inspections.
"Well, given the fact that several weeks ago the president said this is a matter of weeks, not months, I think the timetable remains locked in at what the president said," Mr. Fleischer said.
Mr. Powell, appearing again in Congress, said he still thought that the disputes at the Security Council and within NATO could be worked out. "I hope that in the days ahead we will be able to rally the United Nations around the original resolution and what other resolutions might be necessary in order to satisfy the political needs of a number of countries," he said.
But if this cannot be done, he added, the United States would lead a "coalition of the willing" against Iraq, and it would be "a good coalition, a strong coalition."
The Pentagon officials' account of events unfolding in Iraq supported predictions by top American intelligence officials this week.
"If hostilities begin, Saddam is likely to employ a `scorched earth' strategy, destroying food, transportation, energy and other infrastructure, attempting to create a humanitarian disaster significant enough to stop a military advance," Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in testimony prepared for the Senate Armed Services Committee today.
Meantime, American and allied troops continued to flow into the Persian Gulf region. More than 150,000 American forces are now in or near the gulf, including 70,000 ashore in Kuwait. About 45,000 British forces are also on the ground in the region or en route.
Four aircraft carriers, each with 50 attack planes, and their accompanying armadas of missile-firing ships and submarines are now in the gulf or the Mediterranean Sea. The Pentagon said today that nearly 40,000 additional reservists were activated in the last week, bringing the total number of reservists on active duty to 150,000.
Stepping up its psychological operation in Iraq, coalition aircraft dropped tens of thousands of leaflets near Baghdad, the closest the allied airdrops have come to the Iraqi capital. The leaflets, written in Arabic, warn civilians to avoid areas occupied by the Iraqi military, and tell which radio frequencies the allies are broadcasting on.
Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of American forces in the Persian Gulf, flew to Washington today for meetings this week with President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
One of the major topics on the agenda, officials said, is predicting Mr. Hussein's response to any American-led attack, an issue that is proving to be one of the biggest planning challenges facing Mr. Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld and their military commanders.
At the Pentagon today, Mr. Rumsfeld held a war-planning session with his British counterpart, Geoff Hoon. Afterward, Mr. Hoon acknowledged the reports that Iraqi forces were rigging explosives to destroy their oil fields.
"Clearly, we are aware of some preparations," he said. "But obviously, there are areas of concern, not least given his track record of having destroyed oil wells in Kuwait. It must be something that we have to be prepared for and have to deal with."
In Congress, lawmakers pressed Admiral Jacoby and George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, about Mr. Hussein's response to an American attack.
Admiral Jacoby predicted that Mr. Hussein would unleash his chemical and biological weapons on his own people and blame the United States. But he expressed less certainty about whether and when the Iraqi leader might use the same weapons against American troops.
Also in Congress, Mr. Powell was asked about efforts to offer asylum to Mr. Hussein and others, and he said the United States was "in touch with a number of countries that have expressed an interest in conveying this message to the Iraqi regime that time is up."
Mr. Powell was questioned extensively about the possibility of the Arab world's exploding into violence in the event of an Iraq war, or of Osama bin Laden's attacking the United States in retaliation.
"I'm sure there will be disturbances," he said. "I'm sure there will be some blowback, as you mentioned. And that is to be expected. But we can't say that because there's going to be blowback, we shouldn't act, either with or without U.N. permission."
Asked if American policies were not bringing Iraq and Mr. bin Laden closer together, he said he disagreed. "What's bringing them closer together is their common hatred of the United States and the nexus between terrorist organizations who would love to get their hands on weapons of mass destructions," he said.
-------- japan
Japan Assents to U.S. View on N. Korea
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 13, 2003; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A425-2003Feb12?language=printer
TOKYO, Feb. 12 -- Japanese intelligence analysts agree with their American counterparts that North Korea seeks to become a nuclear-armed power and is not simply raising stakes to bargain away in negotiations, a top Japanese intelligence official told a parliamentary panel here today.
Until now, Japan has been reluctant to embrace Washington's grim view of North Korea's nuclear intentions, instead calling its nuclear program a chip that would be given up for aid and better relations with the United States.
But the chief of Japan's military intelligence agency told a closed meeting of the ruling party's defense policy committee today that the evidence supports the U.S. conclusions, defense officials and legislators said.
The Japanese official, Fumio Ota, gave the committee briefing papers tracing the background of North Korea's nuclear moves, concluding, "North Korea is pursuing nuclear weapons development." A spokesman for Ota confirmed his statement.
North Korea has said that its plutonium and uranium programs are intended for electricity production.
Since October, government and private analysts in the region and in the United States have hotly debated whether those programs represent a determined effort to make a nuclear bomb.
Differing opinions have helped create a split between the United States and its closest Asian allies, Japan and South Korea. Washington has refused to negotiate with North Korea over its nuclear program; Japan and South Korea have balked at that inflexible approach, insisting the North Korean government is merely raising tensions to bring Washington to the bargaining table.
South Korea still holds that position. Prime Minister Kim Suk Soo said Monday that there was no evidence North Korea has an atomic bomb, contradicting U.S. assessments.
But Japan is gradually taking a more hard-line stance. Ota told the committee that North Korea may be trying to develop nuclear weapons because its conventional forces are increasingly outmatched by the U.S. and South Korean militaries.
Special correspondent Sachiko Sakamaki contributed to this report.
-------- korea
For a small number of South Koreans, peninsula has a second crisis
Thursday, February 13, 2003
By Soo-Jeong Lee,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-02-13/s_2655.asp
SEOUL, South Korea -- While the United States worries about North Korea's efforts to develop nuclear weapons, some South Koreans say there's another nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula. They fret about their own government's new plan to deposit nuclear waste near their towns.
Last week, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Energy said it has selected four coastal counties as potential sites for the country's first-ever nuclear waste dumps. Two counties will be selected after a yearlong survey. Each county has at least 60,000 residents.
"We feel our problem is more urgent than the Northern nuclear issue because this directly involves our lives," said Lee Hwa-hyun, an official in Yeonggwang county, site of six nuclear reactors.
Many South Koreans don't believe North Korea is a serious threat, even though the North recently took steps to restart frozen nuclear facilities that U.S. officials say were used to make one or two bombs.
In Ulchin, a county that is home to four nuclear reactors, about 2,000 civic activists and residents peacefully demonstrated on Wednesday against the waste dump idea in front of the county's main office. The protesters said in a statement that Ulchin was "sentenced to death penalty" last week and pledged to fight until it is removed from the candidate list. Ulchin residents are especially angry because the government pledged in 1994 not to build a nuclear waste dump in the county.
South Korea, which lacks oil and other natural resources, gets 40 percent of its energy from nuclear power plants. It tried to develop nuclear weapons three decades ago but shelved its plans under U.S. pressure.
Although it first introduced nuclear power in 1978 and now has 18 nuclear power plants in operation, South Korea has not built a nuclear waste dump because of opposition from residents. The government, which has tried in vain to find a nuclear waste storage site since 1986, says time is running out because temporary storage facilities of reinforced concrete at nuclear power plants will be full in 2008.
The government says it will give $247 million in subsidies to the two counties where the waste dumps will be built. It also issued a statement asking South Koreans for their understanding.
In 1990, the government designated an island in South Chungcheong province as a waste dump site but withdrew its plan several months later because of violent protests by residents. Several people were arrested, and the science and technology minister stepped down.
One Yeonggwang county resident welcomed the government's latest plan, saying the subsidies will help the region prosper. "I think it's only right to have a nuclear waste dump if there are nuclear plants in the area," Kim Young-deuk said. "We can all be better off."
----
N. Korea Standoff Sent to U.N. Council
Plutonium for Weapons Said Weeks Away
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 13, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A152-2003Feb12?language=printer
The U.N. nuclear agency said yesterday that North Korea may have secretly diverted nuclear material for weapons in violation of international treaties, and raised the stakes in the crisis by sending the issue to the Security Council.
Bush administration officials have long sought the referral to the Security Council, believing it would increase pressure on North Korea and provide a multinational forum for resolving the standoff with the reclusive regime. The North Koreans have demanded direct talks with the United States, but the Bush administration has refused to negotiate unless the government in Pyongyang first takes steps to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs.
One complicating factor for the administration is that few of its regional allies agree with this strategy; China, Russia and South Korea have repeatedly urged the administration to talk to the North Koreans. Officials hope that forcing the issue into the Security Council will require its partners to also grapple with the problem.
"The current situation sets a dangerous precedent," said Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, after the IAEA's 35-nation governing board met in Vienna to approve the referral. He said North Korea was only weeks away from producing "a significant amount of plutonium" that could be used in weapons, putting at risk the international regime to control nuclear weapons if no action was taken.
The CIA has estimated Pyongyang already has one or two nuclear weapons. Many U.S. officials appear to have resigned themselves to the possibility that North Korea will produce weapons-grade material from a nuclear facility recently restarted by the regime, or possibly launch a missile test to escalate the crisis even further.
But one senior U.S. official said yesterday that, through back-channel communications with U.S. officials, the North Koreans have sent signals they will not produce material for weapons and are prepared to "wait and wait" for the United States to come to the negotiating table. "I don't discount it entirely," the source said of the reports.
U.S. officials have little hope that Security Council action by itself will put enough pressure on North Korea to pull back from the brink of confrontation. Russia and China at this point appear certain to block any effort to impose sanctions on the North Korean regime. U.S. officials said they would seek either a relatively mild resolution or a statement from the Security Council president deploring North Korea's action and urging compliance with international obligations.
"We certainly thought the matter belonged in the Security Council for a long time," said Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton. "It is hard to judge what gets through to the North Koreans," he said, but "this is the appropriate place to talk about it."
Bolton added that, despite tactical differences with other nations in the region, "the fundamental bottom line is that everyone agrees there should be a nonnuclear Korean Peninsula."
While no countries voted against the IAEA resolution, Russia and Cuba abstained on the grounds that it was not necessary to involve the Security Council yet. Russia, which has political and economic ties with North Korea, said, "We consider the sending of this question to the U.N. Security Council to be a premature and counterproductive step."
U.S. officials have been especially annoyed at China's reaction, because they believe China, as North Korea's prime source for food and energy, has major leverage over North Korea.
"The Chinese position is the Korean Peninsula will be denuclearized," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told the House International Relations Committee yesterday. "So we are saying to them, 'Fine -- then why do you just turn to us to make it happen? You should be a part of this effort.' "
The crisis began in October, when North Korea admitted that it had a secret program to enrich uranium for possible use in weapons. After North Korea disclosed the uranium project, the United States pressed its allies to join it in suspending fuel oil shipments provided under a 1994 agreement to freeze Pyongyang's nuclear programs. In response, North Korea evicted international weapons inspectors, moved to restart a plutonium reactor that had been closed as part of the 1994 accord, withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and threatened to restart missile tests.
Yesterday, U.S. intelligence officials in testimony on Capitol Hill appeared to disclose new information about the range of an untested North Korean ballistic missile, dominating the midday news shows. But officials later backtracked, saying there is no new intelligence on North Korea's missile capabilities.
U.S. officials, preoccupied with the looming war with Iraq, have repeatedly resisted setting a "red line" that North Korea cannot cross without prompting action. The Bush administration also has all but ruled out a military response, though the Pentagon has put some forces on alert for possible deployment in the Korean theater, where 37,000 U.S. troops are based.
Richard N. Perle, head of an advisory group to the Pentagon, told reporters yesterday that it was unrealistic to think North Korea would ever give up nuclear weapons, no matter what pressure came from other nations, because "it's like making a deal in which the other side gives up its ration card . . . it's all they have."
He said it was time for the administration to start thinking of ways "to neutralize" the firepower possessed by the North Koreans in order to give the United States a better range of military options.
Staff writer Vernon Loeb contributed to this report.
----
North Korea cited for 'noncompliance'
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030213-7667875.htm
The U.N. nuclear agency yesterday declared North Korea in "noncompliance" with its international treaty obligations and sent the matter to the Security Council for consideration.
The decision, which had been sought by the United States, was likely to infuriate Pyongyang even though International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials said there was no immediate interest in imposing economic sanctions on the reclusive state.
The Bush administration promptly welcomed the resolution, adopted at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria, with 31 of 35 votes.
"We anticipate that the president of the Security Council will call for consultations on the issue, but it is premature to speculate on what the council may do," a State Department official said after the decision yesterday.
The U.S. representative to the IAEA, Kenneth Brill, said that "the time is right for the Security Council to begin considering this issue" because Pyongyang's "nuclear-weapons program poses a direct threat to international peace and security."
He added that the danger that the North "will sell fissile material to rogue states and terrorists is too great to ignore."
However, Russia, which abstained from yesterday's vote, said it was "premature and counterproductive" to take the matter to the United Nations.
The IAEA decision "will not lead to a constructive and honest dialogue between the concerned sides, who are aiming to find a peaceful solution to the situation on the Korean Peninsula," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Cuba was the only other IAEA member to abstain, and the representatives of two countries were absent from the meeting.
The agency declared North Korea "in further noncompliance with its obligations under its [nuclear] safeguards agreement" and called on Pyongyang "to remedy urgently its noncompliance."
North Korea said last month it was withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is policed by the IAEA.
In late December, the North expelled the two IAEA inspectors based at its Yongbyon nuclear complex and removed all monitoring equipment. Last week, it said it was restarting a nuclear reactor that it shut after a 1994 agreement with the United States.
The IAEA said in a resolution yesterday that it decided to report North Korea's "noncompliance and the agency's inability to verify non-diversion of nuclear material subject to safeguards to all members of the agency and to the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations."
It also expressed its "desire for a peaceful resolution" of the issue and "support for diplomatic means to that end."
"The message today is we want to make use of the Security Council, to make use of all of the options available to the Security Council to find a diplomatic solution," IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters in Vienna.
"It doesn't mean that we are automatically jumping to sanctions. In fact, all members of the board made it clear that it is not the intention to jump to sanctions right now," he said.
But Mr. ElBaradei said the pursuit of a diplomatic solution did not mean that the members "are foreclosing other options in the future."
The Bush administration had been pressing the IAEA to refer the North Korea matter to the Security Council since Jan. 20, in an attempt to show Pyongyang that it considers the issue not simply a bilateral matter but one between the North and the world.
Engaging the Security Council would internationalize the problem, U.S. officials said, at a time when many regional powers - and Pyongyang - are urging bilateral talks between the United States and North Korea.
The State Department official yesterday said Washington is willing to engage in "multilateral talks."
Meanwhile, senior intelligence officials said yesterday that North Korea has an untested ballistic missile capable of reaching the western United States.
The North's missile is a three-stage version of the Taepo Dong 2, said Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. But it is not clear whether Pyongyang is able to successfully launch the missile, because it has not been flight-tested, he said.
CIA Director George J. Tenet, who joined Adm. Jacoby in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, repeated that statement.
But soon after the hearing, officials sought to play down the pronouncements, saying that North Korea has shown no new missile capabilities in the past year.
The officials said the statements were based on the same information that led U.S. intelligence to conclude a little more than a year ago that Pyongyang was close to being able to flight-test a three-stage Taepo Dong 2.
"This old news is why it's important to proceed with deployment of missile defense and also why the president is focused on multilateral diplomatic talks to deal with North Korea," said White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.
"Technology and time means regimes like North Korea will increasingly have the ability to strike at the United States," he said.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
----
NUCLEAR STANDOFF
North Korea Wants Arms and More Aid From U.S
February 13, 2003
New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON with FELICITY BARRINGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/international/13KORE.html
WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 - The nation's intelligence chief said today that North Korea had settled on a twofold strategy of keeping its nuclear weapons program even as it seeks to improve ties with Washington.
The director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, said North Korea was likely to process the spent nuclear fuel from its Yongbyon reactor, which would provide it with enough plutonium for several additional weapons.
He also cautioned that the United States could face "a near term" intercontinental missile threat from North Korea, repeating warnings that the Central Intelligence Agency has made for several years that North Korea may test and deploy the Taepodong 2 missile. North Korea is currently observing a moratorium on missile flight tests.
Mr. Tenet's assessment came as the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to refer the North Korean issue to the United Nations Security Council. The decision was made after the governing board of the I.A.E.A., the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, passed a resolution at a meeting in Vienna that formally recognized that North Korea's actions represented a major security threat.
The board's vote came after Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency's director general, said "my numerous and repeated efforts to engage"North Korea had "been in vain."
Since last fall, North Korea has expelled I.A.E.A inspectors, renounced its participation in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and begun to accelerate its nuclear efforts, prompting wide speculation about its strategy.
One school of thought holds that North Korea is trying to create a new bargaining chip to induce Washington to offer economic aid and provide formal assurance that it will not attack. A competing theory holds that North Korea has determined that its security would be best assured with a potent nuclear arsenal.
Today, Mr. Tenet said North Korea's strategy was a subtle blending of both aims.
"Kim Jong Il's attempts to parlay the North's nuclear program into political leverage suggest he is trying to negotiate a fundamentally different relationship with Washington, one that implicitly tolerates the North's nuclear weapons program," Mr. Tenet told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Mr. Tenet warned that North Korea's nuclear program combined with the weakening of international controls would encourage other nations to follow suit. They may conclude, he said, that nuclear weapons provide the best way to keep up with their neighbors and deter threats from more powerful nations.
"The desire for nuclear weapons is on the upsurge," Mr. Tenet said. "Additional countries may decide to seek nuclear weapons as it becomes clear their neighbors and regional rivals are already doing so. The `domino theory' of the 21st century may well be nuclear."
Mr. Tenet provided no clues as to how the Bush administration planned to react if North Korea moved ahead with its nuclear program. The C.I.A. has said that North Korea probably has enough plutonium for one or two nuclear weapons. By reprocessing spent fuel from the Yongbyon reactor, North Korea could acquire about five bombs' worth of plutonium in six months or less, current and former American officials say.
Restarting the reactor itself could churn out enough plutonium for one bomb a year. North Korea could also increase its arsenal by completing the construction of two larger reactors and by proceeding with its uranium enrichment efforts.
North Korea could have a system to enrich uranium by the middle of the decade, the C.I.A. says, producing material for two bombs a year.
The Bush administration is hoping China and other nations will use diplomatic pressure to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear efforts. The administration has sent conflicting and often confusing signals about its eagerness to engage in direct talks with North Korea.
Asked if Washington had a negotiating strategy to dissuade North Korea from pursuing nuclear weapons, Mr. Tenet said the policy was still under review.
In Vienna, Dr. ElBaradei emphasized the need for diplomatic solution. He did not rule out economic sanctions, though Washington says it is not pressing for them.
"The message is that, let us first try a diplomatic solution, as we are trying in Iraq, as we are trying everywhere else," Dr. ElBaradei said. " But if it doesn't work, I haven't heard any member who is saying that the Security Council will not consider other options."
Two members of the nuclear agency's governing board, Russia and Cuba, abstained from the vote and two others were absent. In a statement after the vote, the Russian envoy, Grigory V. Berdennikov, said Moscow believed that direct talks between Washington and North Korea should have preceded the decision to send the report to the Security Council, a step he called "untimely and counterproductive."
John R. Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said yesterday that North Korea's "nuclear weapons programs are a threat to the global nonproliferation regime."
"That's why a multilateral institution like the Security Council is the appropriate place for this," he said. But he also said the United States would not push for sanctions as a result of today's I.A.E.A. vote.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Tougher Inspections Urged at Nuke Plants
February 13, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Plant-Damage.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators told operators of the nation's nuclear power plants to conduct tougher inspections beginning this week in response to acid corrosion found on the reactor cap at an Ohio plant.
All 69 plants with pressurized water reactors, including Davis-Besse in northwest Ohio, must add either chemical or ultrasonic tests to visual inspections for cracks or leaks in reactor heads. Plants identified as being at high risk of acid corrosion must perform the tests more often.
The order arose from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's internal investigation of how it handled corrosion at Davis-Besse, the agency's chairman, Richard Meserve, told a Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee Thursday.
Years of visual inspections at the plant, operated by FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron, Ohio, missed boric acid leaks that nearly ate through the 6-inch-thick steel cap that covers the reactor vessel.
The plant has been shut down since February 2002, when it was closed for maintenance. The corrosion was discovered last March.
Both the NRC and FirstEnergy made mistakes in looking for boric acid corrosion on plant reactor heads, Meserve said. The hole at Davis-Besse could have been prevented and FirstEnergy's actions before its discovery were ``unacceptable,'' he told members of the subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change and Nuclear Safety.
Sen. George Voinovich, who leads the subcommittee, challenged the NRC commissioners on what they are doing with regard to restarting the plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio, and to ensure plant safety nationwide.
``That the plant's safety could have been compromised really troubles me,'' said Voinovich, R-Ohio.
The commissioners said safety mechanisms would have prevented a catastrophe at Davis-Besse despite reported flaws in the reactor's coolant system, which protects against a meltdown. The current system is susceptible to clogging and commissioners are working with the plant to improve it, they said.
``There was not an impending disaster,'' commissioner Nils Diaz said. ``It might not have been perfect, but they were there.''
On the Net:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee: http://epw.senate.gov/cleanair--108.htm
-------- new york
Indian Pt. Report Said to Overstate Terrorism Risk
February 13, 2003
New York Times
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/nyregion/13NUKE.html
The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday criticized a state-commissioned report on emergency planning at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester County for possibly giving "undue weight" to the impact of a terrorist attack.
In a letter to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Richard A. Meserve, the chairman of the commission, which oversees nuclear plants, said it would await a report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, due later this month, before passing judgment on how well the emergency plan could cope with a disaster.
But Mr. Meserve, whose commission has the authority to decide whether the plant stays open, nevertheless offered its most extensive remarks on the state report in his six-paragraph letter, which answered Mrs. Clinton's request for comment on the state report.
Mr. Meserve focused on the plant's security and the potential effect of terrorism, finding fault with the draft report last month by James Lee Witt, a former director of FEMA. Mr. Witt's report said the emergency plan, which includes steps for evacuating people within a 10-mile radius of the plant, in Buchanan, N.Y., could not protect the public from a large, fast release of radiation, as from a terrorist attack.
"While we appreciate and recognize the effort that went into the draft report, we believe the draft report appears to give undue weight to the impact of potential acts of terrorism on emergency planning and terrorism," Mr. Meserve wrote, hours before meeting Mrs. Clinton and other members of New York's Congressional delegation.
"Emergency preparedness programs are designed to cope with a spectrum of accidents, including those involving rapid, large releases of radioactivity," Mr. Meserve said, echoing a point made by the Entergy Corporation, which owns the plant 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan.
Mr. Meserve went on to say that nuclear plants across the country for years have been required to guard themselves against well-armed attackers and "numerous additional steps have been taken since September 2001 to thwart terrorist acts."
Mr. Witt, whose firm plans to release a final version of the report by March 1, declined to comment. Spokesmen for Gov. George E. Pataki, who commissioned the report in response to rising anxiety over the plant, did not answer requests for comment, and a spokesman for Mr. Meserve said he would not comment beyond the statements in his letter.
Members of Congress who met with Mr. Meserve bristled at what they saw as a defense of the plant and the plan.
Representative Eliot L. Engel, the Westchester Democrat who arranged the meeting with Mr. Meserve, called Mr. Meserve's position absurd.
"For him to sort of disregard terrorism or put it in place with everything else is absolutely absurd," Mr. Engel said, noting that the Witt report had criticized the standards that the N.R.C. and FEMA use to assess emergency plans.
"I think after Sept. 11 the equation changed," Mr. Engel said. "For them to talk about a terrorist attacking having no difference from any other disaster on its own is just plain silly. It defies common sense."
Representative Sue Kelly, a Republican from Katonah whose district includes the plant, said after her own meeting with Mr. Meserve yesterday, "If we have learned anything since Sept. 11, it is to expect the unexpected. The N.R.C. needs to examine the unique consequences of a terrorist scenario, not ignore it or brush it off."
Mrs. Kelly sought and won a Congressional hearing on the emergency plan to be held this month or next.
Mrs. Clinton said "there is a significant difference between an accident and a terrorist attack" and that Mr. Meserve had failed to recognize that.
The Witt report said the N.R.C. and FEMA standards that guide the emergency plan, prepared by the state and localities in conjunction with the plant owner, do not adequately address the "unique consequences of a terrorist attack." Mr. Witt suggested, among other things, that volunteer emergency workers might not respond, roads might be clogged by residents dashing to get away and the plant's computer technology might fail to predict where the radiation was headed.
Entergy officials have disputed those points and say the emergency plan does adequately address how to respond to a large release of radiation, though company disaster specialists say they cannot conceive of a rapid release of large amounts of radiation that would render the emergency plans unworkable. The N.R.C. did not file a formal response to Mr. Witt's consulting firm, which until Feb. 7 had asked for comments from the public as it prepared a final version of the report to be released this month or next.
Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the commission, said it did not file a response because "in our view we have been engaged in trying to improve emergency planning for Indian Point with the state, the counties and the local communities for a long time and will continue to do that."
Mr. Meserve's letter and meeting came on a day when opponents of the plant demonstrated outside FEMA's Manhattan office to press the agency to reject the emergency plan for the plant.
Such a move could lead the N.R.C. to pull the plant's operating license, which requires a FEMA-approved emergency plan. The commission has never closed a plant over emergency planning problems.
-------- tennessee
Knoxville Group Takes War Protest to the Air
February 13, 2003
By AMY RUTLEDGE
WATE-6 News Anchor/Reporter
http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?s=1128964
KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- If you were in West Knoxville Thursday, you may have seen a message hanging on a billboard at Kingston Pike and Gallaher View. War protestors are securely harnessed to it, perched high above the ground.
The East Tennessee group called Earth First says it has a message for President Bush. As Meagan Carter puts it, "An invasion of Iraq is increasing a danger to the world and the U.S. citizens especially."
Earth First says it wants all of Knoxville to see the sign reading, "Frodo has failed. Bush has the ring." It's a reference from the blockbuster films, "The Lord of the Rings."
To Earth First, the billboard is a sign of the times. "Frodo is the character who kind of symbolizes regular people battling against this leader gone mad trying to build an empire. And he's battling for the future of the planet," Abigail Singer explains over her cell phone while she sits with the sign.
Earth First says the future of the U.S. and its relationship with other countries initiated the protest. "By invading a country that we're saying we know supports terrorism, we know we're only inviting that kind of response to our invasion," explains Meagan Carter.
The group says it will stay on the billboard throughout Thursday.
But members have company from Knoxville police, stationed below. "We're concerned about their safety," says police spokesman Darrell DeBusk. "But we want to prevent anyone else from climbing up there as well."
If the sign company decides to take action, members could face trespassing, vandalism or disorderly conduct charges.
But members say, hopefully, charges will only come after their message gets across. "We're willing to face whatever consequences come of that," Abigail Singer says.
6 News called the Promo Sign Company to find out if it plans on taking any action against the protestors, however, no one was available for comment.
Earth First says on Saturday, members will join other protestors for a rally at West Town Mall called the International Day of Action.
-------- us politics
Suit questions Bush's war powers
By David D. Haskell
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
February 13, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030213-093506-8792r.htm
BOSTON, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- A lawsuit filed in federal court in Boston Thursday seeks to prevent President Bush from going to war against Iraq without congressional approval.
A coalition including six House members, several U.S. soldiers and parents of servicemen claims only Congress has that power under the Constitution.
"We have a message for President Bush today. Read the Constitution," John Bonifaz, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, said at a news conference announcing the suit.
"A war against Iraq without a congressional declaration of war will be illegal and unconstitutional," he said. "It is time for the courts to intervene."
The representatives joining the suit, all Democrats, are John Conyers of Michigan, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, James McDermott of Washington, Jose Serrano of New York, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois.
The U.S. Attorney's office said it had no comment on the suit.
The plaintiffs asked for a preliminary injunction against the president and for a hearing on their request that Bush be barred from launching a military invasion against Iraq without a congressional declaration of war.
The lawsuit cites Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which reads: "Congress shall have power... (to) declare war."
The suit argues the resolution on Iraq that Congress passed in October did not declare war and unlawfully ceded the decision to Bush.
The suit contends the framers of the Constitution sought to ensure that U.S. presidents would not have the power of European monarchs of the past to wage war.
"The Founding Fathers did not establish an imperial presidency with war-making power," Conyers said. "The Constitution clearly reserves that for Congress."
"The president is not a king," said Charles Richardson, a plaintiff whose Marine son is stationed in the Persian Gulf.
"If he wants to launch a military invasion against Iraq, he must first seek a declaration of war from the United States Congress. Our Constitution demands nothing less," Richardson said.
Richardson and two other plaintiffs -- Nancy Lessin and Jeffrey McKenzie -- are co-founders of Military Families Speak Out, an organization of people opposed to war against Iraq and who have family in the military.
"A full and complete congressional discussion of the issues and all options must precede any move towards war," Lessin said, "because of the irreparable harm that would result."
At the news conference, Lessin said she worried about her son, Joe, a Marine stationed in the Gulf.
"We worry about Joe," she said. "We don't want him to be wounded or die. We don't want him to be forced to wound or kill innocent Iraqi civilians. That would kill part of him and part of us."
----
Bush Says He Will Use 'Every Ounce' of Power to Disarm Iraq
February 13, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush.html
MAYPORT NAVAL STATION, Fla. (AP) -- Preparing the nation for possible war in Iraq, President Bush promised Thursday the United States would ``use every ounce of our power to defeat'' Saddam Hussein if force is necessary to rid his country of weapons of mass destruction.
Bush, clad in a bomber jacket over his shirt and tie, challenged the United Nations to ensure its continued credibility by backing his call for confronting Saddam.
``The United Nations Security Council can now decide whether or not it has the resolve to enforce its resolutions,'' Bush declared from a pier at this naval base. ``I'm optimistic that free nations will show backbone and courage in the face of true threats to peace and freedom.''
The White House set up the event as a display of American military might, with the president surrounded by a sea of sailors in Navy caps and light blue shirts and flanked by a frigate and guided missile cruiser -- their decks lined with seamen standing in smart formation.
Bush's trip to the state where his brother, Jeb Bush, is governor, had a dual purpose: rallying troops and promoting economic policy. Earlier, Bush defended his proposed $1.3 trillion in new tax cuts, telling a forum with small business owners the proposal is just the push the struggling economy needs.
The two stops -- only minutes and a few miles apart -- allowed Bush to reassure Americans he hasn't forgotten their financial woes amid the buildup to a military confrontation with Saddam. It was the president's first visit to a Navy base since military forces started deploying to the Persian Gulf in early January.
Some of the sailors and other Navy personnel at the Mayport Naval Air Station have recently served in the Gulf region. The base is home to the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy, returned to port last summer after its pilots flew missions over Afghanistan. The USS Philippine Sea, a guided missile cruiser on which Bush had lunch with about 75 sailors after his speech, came back to Mayport just last week, also from the Afghan theater.
``Thanks for the hospitality,'' Bush said, as he entered the ship's mess and quipped that he was having a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich instead of the taco salad, Mexican rice and refried beans already piled high on the assembled sailors' plates.
In his speech outside, Bush pressed his case against Saddam, saying he ``is not disarming, he's deceiving'' as he set the stage for war.
``Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the greatest danger facing America and the world is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror, mass murder,'' he said. ``That's what we're going to use every ounce of our power to defeat.''
Earlier, arguing for his tax cuts on the shop floor of a family-operated commercial printing shop in nearby Jacksonville, Bush said, ``We need a little further wind at the back of this economy.''
Democrats who oppose the package have seized upon statements Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made earlier this week warning against such a move. Greenspan told Congress that Bush's proposal would swell the budget deficit and said he didn't think the economy needs further stimulus.
As part of an aggressive counteroffensive, the White House departed from usual procedure and completely opened to reporters Bush's remarks to the round-table and exchanges with its hand-picked participants. The panelists were cited as examples of entrepreneurs who would see tax reductions under his plan.
``This is a realistic plan. It is a hopeful plan. It is a plan based upon sound principle. It is a plan which will work,'' Bush said. ``But there are some who haven't gotten the message yet and they need to hear from you.''
He also modified his argument slightly. Although Bush originally billed the plan as aimed almost entirely at stimulating the economy, he declared Thursday it also would provide badly needed reform to the tangled federal tax code.
``It really would make the tax code more fair,'' Bush said.
The Florida visit was Bush's 13th to the political battleground since taking office.
----
Shield Us From War
By Mary McGrory
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A398-2003Feb12?language=printer
The pope, God bless him, has the right idea. He has sent a cardinal, his personal emissary, to Baghdad.
He is Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, and he is carrying a message to Saddam Hussein. May his eminence make a lengthy stay. And when he returns to Rome, the other 170 members of the College of Cardinals -- some of whom might welcome a chance to do good -- should follow him, one by one, to Iraq.
It is a papal variation on a theme composed by "Old Europe": wimpy, out-of-it Germany and France, which want to flood Baghdad with visitors whom the faith-based, hellbent White House hawk will dare not bomb.
Old Europe suggests a tripling of U.N. inspectors, who now number about 100. They require support staff -- helicopter pilots, medics and the like -- of about 160. They could sit on Saddam Hussein's head and clog the machinery for any aggression he might be plotting. The cost per year of the present complement is $80 million, and the beauty part is that it doesn't cost us a dime. All expenses are paid out of the U.N. oil-for-food program, which entails the sale of oil to buy food for Iraqis. That surely beats the $200 billion cost to Uncle Sam projected by former economic adviser Larry Lindsey.
I don't know about you, but I never felt more secure than when I was watching Peter Jennings broadcast from Baghdad. I knew that no missiles would fly with him on the ground. I propose an anchor relay: Tom, Peter and Dan could rotate and provide bomb insurance for all. It beats war. Americans may be ready to sacrifice, but offing the country's twilight companions borders on sacrilege. Human shields have been urgently needed since George W. Bush made his chilling statement about Iraqi troops being hidden among the civilians, which could provide justification for bombing urban neighborhoods and prepare us for shrieking babies and other horrors of "collateral damage."
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld -- who should, by the way, be renamed Secretary of Offense, as he inflicts insults not permitted in a president -- has labeled the pacific activities of France and Germany "disgraceful." Some applaud Germany for kicking its habit of starting world wars and causing untold agony and misery for millions.
Rumsfeld is not a student of history; he thinks that time began in 2000. He has been remiss in one respect, however. While he has been hurling sneers and epithets at countries refusing to understand that Bush must win his stare-down with Saddam Hussein, he has failed to castigate Belgium, which had the nerve to stop a move in NATO to compensate Turkey in advance for its cooperation (which has commanded big bucks from us). How come Brussels gets off while Berlin gets a comparison with Cuba and Libya?
These measures may not cancel the bloody enterprise that consumes the White House. They may only delay it, and not for long. But everyone needs a respite from the encircling apprehension and dread. Beginning with the president, all should take a deep breath and reassess. Colin Powell is working overtime to close the loop on Iraq's ties to al Qaeda. In his masterly U.N. speech he made the case against Saddam Hussein, but not the case for war. He needs a rest. The orange alert has worn everybody out.
People are storming their hardware stores for duct tape to seal their windows against a germ attack; or they are negotiating with their local CVS to get an extra supply of prescription drugs -- a hilarious concept to regulars.
The president needs an interlude to reconfigure his "axis of evil." The variety of approaches went from bewildering to weird.
Iraq, which wants nukes, gets invasion and occupation. North Korea, which has them, gets lectures from neighbors. But strangest of all, the third member, Iran, which is forging ahead with a nuclear factory, gets treated like a lodge brother or a fellow Kiwanian. A U.S. delegation visited Iranian counterparts in Europe recently and asked them to lend a hand with Iraq: Lie low while we invade, take in refugees and rescue downed pilots. And did our side ask, "Shall we put you down for a couple of tables at our spring victory fundraising gala?"
Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote a letter accusing the president of "turning a blind eye" to more proliferation in return for Iran's help.
It's more proof that nothing matters more to Bush than war with Iraq. Proliferation, logic, reason are also-rans. One glimmer of hope could be detected in the gloomy Capitol. At the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a pair of hapless bureaucrats testified on postwar Iraq. The undersecretaries of state and defense were clueless, and the members noticed. Gen. Anthony Zinni, a retired Marine, brilliant and forthright, said we may have planned for war, but not for peace.
Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) suggested we put off one until we had a grip on the other. It's our only hope.
----
US seeks 'someone like Jimmy Carter' to oversee administration after overthrow of Saddam
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
13 February 2003
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=377891
Establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission, creation of an international body to control oil supplies and introduction of martial law are among plans for the transformation of Iraq after a military strike against Saddam Hussein.
Britain and America have been working for months on detailed proposals on how to rebuild Iraq after President Saddam. Documents obtained by The Independent outline the conclusions of some of the 17 US State Department working groups examining issues ranging from transitional justice to agricultural reforms.
The proposals do not represent a complete blueprint, but they reveal a previously undisclosed level of planning that is intensifying as the prospect of a war looms nearer. The plans will harden when US planners know which other countries will be involved.
"None of the issues comes into sharp focus until you know if you have a coalition or whether it is just the US alone," a State Department official said. "Waging the war without a coalition will be easy but waging the peace will be very difficult because the legacy of America is not particularly auspicious."
Experts from the UN development programme believe reconstruction of Iraq could cost $30bn (£18.5m) in the first two years. Individual countries will meet much of that though there is an agreement that money from Iraq's UN-supervised "oil for food" programme would pay some of it.
The future of Iraq's oilfields, which have reserves of at least 112 billion barrels, is perhaps the most contentious of the issues regarding the country's future. While the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has insisted the oilfields will be protected for the "people of Iraq", there are concerns in the international community that American companies will be given first access to them.
To counter this, one plan being considered is to establish an international body, possibly supervised by the UN, to oversee the operation of Iraq's oil industry. "They could name a blue ribbon panel of experts, maybe put someone like [former US president] Jimmy Carter in charge of it," a Bush administration official said.
The modernisation of the oil sector will be made more difficult if President Saddam adopts a "scorched earth" policy as he did when his forces were forced from Kuwait in 1991, setting fire to oilfields as they left. "[If he] utterly destroys the oil industry it will make for a horrific reconstruction project," Douglas Feith, the US under-secretary of defence told a Senate hearing this week.
In the initial aftermath of any war, Iraq would be governed by a senior US military officer, probably General Tommy Franks, with a civilian administrator. Names cited as possible administrators include Surin Pitsuwan, Thailand's former foreign minister and Bernard Kouchner, the former French health minister, who headed the UN civilian administration in Kosovo.
Iraqis would act as advisers to this administration before gradually taking control in a series of transitional authorities and the UN would oversee the transition to build a broad-based government. All plans emphasise the need to include Iraqis in all decision-making and utilise their expertise. "We want to leave as soon as Iraqi people are able to this themselves," the State Department official said.
While General Franks would initially impose martial law there are plans to set up civilian courts as soon as possible. Officials have also proposed a truth and reconciliation commission, similar to the one in South Africa, as a way of trying to bring Iraqi people together. This might enable elements of the present Iraqi government to remain.
Officials from the State Department, the Pentagon, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development realise the rebuilding will be massive. They need to spend $6.2bn simply to upgrade the country's electricity supply.
Experts have also identified the need to modernise Iraq's agriculture and raise yields. Pest control equipment - restricted because of sanctions on pesticides - better seeds and spare parts for machinery would be needed. There are also plans to replant date palms in the south and fruit trees in the north for "important psychological value".
Plans to clean up Iraq's environment include restoration of the southern marshes, home of Iraq's marsh Arabs. President Saddam destroyed up to 84 per cent of the marshes in the early 1990s.
----
US seeks to give Iraq exit strategy
From James Doran in Washington
February 13, 2003
UK Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-576202,00.html
A way out
THE United States is poised to ask the United Nations to help to persuade President Saddam Hussein and his closest lieutenants to flee into exile in an effort to avert war in Iraq.
Mauritania is top of the shortlist of likely destinations where Saddam could make a new home for himself and his family.
Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, gave the strongest hint yet yesterday that the US Government is prepared to give the Iraqi leader a chance to leave the country to spare his people unnecessary suffering.
Asylum has been suggested by America and Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt many times in recent months, but the idea was thought to be unworkable without the UN's intervention.
Speaking to the House International Affairs Committee yesterday, General Powell outlined the possibility of UN assistance in persuading Saddam to leave Iraq.
"We are not only discussing asylum, we are in touch with a number of countries that have expressed an interest in conveying this message to the Iraqi regime that time is up and the way to avoid a lot of suffering is for the regime to step down - Saddam Hussein and his cohorts," General Powell said. "It (asylum would ultimately require some kind of United Nations participation in order to make sure that we can do it in a way that would actually entice him to seek asylum."
A Bush Administration source said that Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, had already approached General Powell to discuss how the UN could help to convince the Iraqi leader to flee.
It has been suggested that Saddam could flee to one of the former Soviet states if he agreed to leave Iraq, but it is growing increasingly likely that Mauritania, in North Africa, could offer a home to the Iraqi leader if he chooses to go into exile. The country used to have close ties with Iraq, but recently has tried to become more active on the international scene.
Most sources close to the asylum discussions believe, however, that Saddam is unlikely to flee before a conflict begins, if at all.
----
US already knew of Bin Laden tape
Julian Borger in Washington and Brian Whitaker
Thursday February 13, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,894482,00.html
The US knew about the latest Osama bin Laden tape five days before it was broadcast by the Qatar-based TV station al-Jazeera, according to a US intelligence source.
The Qatari government had been provided with a copy of the tape by the channel's management and passed it on to Washington, the source told the Guardian yesterday.
This may clear up the mystery of how Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, had access to a transcript of the tape long before staff at al-Jazeera even became aware of its existence. Early on Tuesday Mr Powell told a Senate panel that the tape provided evidence of Bin Laden's "partnership with Iraq" and would be shown by the Arab channel later that day.
Although al-Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar, the station insists that it is editorially independent.
But according to the US source, al-Jazeera's management has to clear broadcasts of such controversial material with the authorities.
"They have to cooperate with the Qatari government. They have to give them a copy of tapes like that before they broadcast it, and we have good relations with the Qataris," said the intelligence source.
While the station is noted for broadcasting outspoken views and has become famous for a series of tapes purporting to come from Bin Laden, the government of Qatar has been quietly developing good relations with Washington.
The US switched its command centre for the expected war with Iraq to the tiny Gulf state after Saudi Arabia quibbled about letting American forces use its territory.
After previous Bin Laden broadcasts, Washington put pressure on Qatar to rein in al-Jazeera, saying the tapes were being used to whip up anti-Americanism and were possibly being used to send coded messages to al-Qaida cells.
The US source would not say whether the bilateral talks produced an agreement under which Washington would at least be given the opportunity to view Bin Laden tapes before they were broadcast.
News of the tape reached Washington by last Thursday. It is unclear whether the US influenced the timing of the broadcast and, if not, why it was delayed until Tuesday.
Yesterday, al-Jazeera staff appeared surprised at the arrangements for submitting Bin Laden tapes to the US via the Qatari government. "I'm not aware of this procedure at all," said a spokesman. "We got the tape at the station literally two hours before it was aired. A group of us huddled round and listened to it, and discussed what to do with it in the light of Mr Powell's statement."
Washington's possession of an advance copy may also explain why US officials were able to declare so soon after the broadcast that they believed it was indeed Bin Laden. German security sources said they also believed it was genuine.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
New Civilian Deaths Reported in U.S. Bombing in Afghanistan
February 13, 2003
New York Times
By CARLOTTA GALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/international/asia/13CND-KABU.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 13 - Afghans today reported new civilian deaths in American bombing raids in a mountainous region of southern Afghanistan, where United States Special Forces have been fighting rebels since Monday.
An aide to the governor of Helmand Province said an unknown number of civilians died in raids on Wednesday night. The aide, Haji Mohammad Wali, said this was in addition to the deaths of at least 17 civilians, including women and children, already reported since the raids began.
"I know there have been casualties last night," Mr. Wali told Reuters by telephone from the Helmand capital, Lashkar Gah, "but I do not know how many."
The United States military said it was unaware of any civilian deaths, but a villager said he had seen the bodies of eight people, all members of one family. He told Reuters the eight died in an air attack on Wednesday carried out by an American B-52 bomber and AC-130 gunship in northern Helmand's Baghran Valley.
The United States Army spokesman, Col. Roger King, said in a briefing that several suspected Taliban militants had been killed and wounded in the raids after American soldiers came under fire.
"Battle damage assessment conducted in support of operation Eagle Fury has not indicated any noncombatant casualties to date," he said today at coalition headquarters at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul.
Colonel King said a B-52 aircraft dropped a 2,000-pound "smart bomb" at caves in the Baghran Valley on Wednesday night and that an AC-130 gunship fired 10 105-millimeter cannon rounds.
He said the rebel death toll was "something less" than the 30 rebels believed linked to the ousted Taliban regime who were spotted in caves and on ridges.
The fighting in the mountainous Baghran region began when American Special Forces were attacked in an ambush and called in coalition planes to bomb the area.
The fighting has underscored the American military's difficulty in operating in remote areas of Afghanistan, where hamlets or settlements are populated by civilians.
-------- arms
New hi-tech weapons provide more ways to kill
Associated Press -
February 13 2003
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/13/1044927703662.html
They loiter. They sleep. They hide. And when an enemy sticks his neck out, they kill.
The US Department of Defence is preparing new weapons that can loiter over a battlefield or sneak into enemy territory and "sleep" until an appropriate military target blunders into their sights.
Some weapons envisioned are mere concepts and may never be produced. Others, like Lockheed Martin's 1.5-metre-long Loitering Attack Missile, are already being tested.
The idea, developers and contractors say, is that the best way to hit an elusive target is to hide a weapon inside enemy territory ahead of time.
In the Gulf War, US forces were unable to find and strike a single Iraqi mobile Scud missile launcher, a failure that has catalysed a slew of new military technology aimed at narrowing the time delay between spotting and destroying a target.
Loitering weapons are "the next big step in combat effectiveness," said Glenn Buchan, a RAND expert in unmanned aerial vehicles and satellites. "You hang around an area so you can see the target before it shoots, and kill it before it hides."
The Lockheed missile, for example, sprouts wings and fins and flies to a map coordinate, then can wander above the area for 45 minutes, directing a laser-radar seeker to search the ground for a target to destroy, said Steve Altman, development manager at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Dallas.
If a tank or mobile artillery battery were detected on a hillside, the LAM could be dispatched to search the whole hill until it found and destroyed it, Altman said. The LAMs are fired from a rectangular launch box that can sit on the back of an Army Humvee, Altman said.
"These missiles are at your side, almost like a sidearm," Altman said. "It's nice to find your enemy while he's way far away from you, before he starts shooting at you."
Lockheed flew the first prototype at Eglin in November. It plans a second test flight. Lockheed hopes to deliver the missile to the Army in time to be part of its Future Combat System, a new generation of battle vehicles expected to go into service in 2008, Altman said.
The LAM's 45 minutes of loiter time doesn't allow it the patience of an unmanned aerial vehicle, which can hover over a battlefield for hours, waiting for a target. UAVs armed with air-to-ground missiles have already killed people targeted by US forces in Afghanistan and Yemen.
For the next generation of UAVs, the Pentagon wants still longer dwell time so they can "sit above an area for a very long time, to track a small band of terrorists or watch for an armoured column," said Michele Flournoy, a senior adviser at Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
At the Army's Aviation and Missile Command in Fort Eustis, Virginia, officials have proposed a small UAV that could ferry supplies to forward troops - or fly small bombs into enemy targets.
The Pentagon is considering whether to fund the programme, called Quick Delivery, for rapid development, according to a pamphlet from Fort Eustis. Pentagon spokesman Lt Cmdr Don Sewell declined to discuss the proposal.
Sleeping weapons under consideration by the US Air Force would, ironically, spend most of their time on the ground - as simple sensors that can transmit electronic data.
The sensor-bombs would be dropped from airplanes onto enemy territory and would hide until detecting a target and being commanded to destroy it. One version under consideration wakes up, pops open and fires a missile, said Steve Butler, engineering director at the Air Armaments Centre at Eglin Air Force Base, near Pensacola, Florida.
"If you had an area that you believed was a launch site for Scuds or other time-critical targets, you might drop some of these things into the area," Butler said. "The concept of loitering is to dig a little burrow and hide out until you're called to act."
The design requires adding a weapon and firing mechanism to ground sensors already in use. For instance, US forces already hide sensors that transmit pictures, recordings, vibrations or metal composition of enemy vehicles.
"If you want to listen to a remote runway, to be aware of planes coming and going, you could drop one of these sensors in the woods nearby and have it wake up every time a plane flies in or out," said Butler. "Add a weapon to one of them and you've got a whole new concept."
The Air Force has no program to build one yet, but "it's not that far fetched, you could do it if you wanted to," he said.
-------- biological weapons
Anthrax jabs mutiny widens amid fears of cancer, sterility
By Craig Skehan
February 13 2003
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/12/1044927665050.html
Members of the 101st US Airborne Division stand in line to receive their Anthrax shots. Photo: Reuters
The anthrax rebellion in the armed forces has widened, with another eight sailors en route to or already in the Persian Gulf refusing inoculations - bringing the total to 11.
The protests have been prompted by fears of serious health problems despite assurances from the Federal Government.
The Australian Defence Force confirmed yesterday that the eight were being sent back to Australia. Three sailors on HMAS Kanimbla who earlier refused the protective jabs are already back in the country.
Dozens of other Australian personnel have expressed serious concerns, fuelled by internet reports linking the anthrax vaccine to sterility in men and serious diseases like cancer.
There have been documented cases of major allergic reactions experienced by about one in 100,000 people being vaccinated. Other serious short-term results have also shown up among a very small proportion of the millions inoculated worldwide.
Claims of other, longer-term dangers have not been established, with some experts arguing that there is not enough evidence.
Rumours are circulating among service personnel that at least one Defence Force member has had a serious adverse reaction, but the force has denied this.
An anti-vaccination group, the Australian Vaccination Network, claimed yesterday that a Defence Department official had said privately that the affected person had been on board HMAS Darwin.
The Defence Minister, Robert Hill, maintained yesterday that there was no danger. "There have been some service personnel that have been reluctant to be vaccinated, which I don't quite understand because I am advised that it's a perfectly safe vaccination," he told ABC Radio.
About 2000 Defence Force personnel are being sent to the Gulf, and all must have an anthrax inoculation to serve in the area.
In the United States, there has been a campaign against the compulsory vaccination of military personnel. More than half of the 16,000 British forces being sent to the Gulf have refused the anthrax vaccine.
One of the three sailors sent home from the Kanimbla, Able Seaman Simon Bond, said there had been threats to the careers of those refusing, even though the vaccinations were supposed to be voluntary.
"All my mates are still on board the Kanimbla and they've still got concerns about this and there's nothing they can do about it," he said. "They've definitely created a morale issue. No one was happy about it."
The Defence Force chief, General Peter Cosgrove, denied at a Senate estimates committee hearing yesterday that there had been unfair pressure on service personnel. He did not want to discuss the numbers of those resisting because continuing "sympathetic discussion" was reducing the level of concern.
The Defence Force has acknowledged that originally 25 sailors on the Kanimbla objected to receiving the vaccine. Senior officers said yesterday that the inoculations did not begin until February 5, when the ship was already en route, because medical personnel had been waiting for educational material.
But the Opposition's spokesman on defence, Senator Chris Evans, last night criticised the delay, saying: "This increased risks faced by those on the Kanimbla. As a result those on board could not make the decision with the support of family and friends.
"Labor is very concerned about reports that sailors were subjected to pressure to take the vaccine."
-------- britain
UK Police Quiz Man Found with Grenade in Luggage
February 13, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-britain-security.html
LONDON (Reuters) - British anti-terrorist police were questioning a Venezuelan man on Friday to find out how and why he flew halfway across the world to London with a live hand grenade in his luggage.
The man was arrested at Gatwick airport on Thursday after stepping off a British Airways flight which took off from the Venezuelan capital Caracas and stopped off in Colombia and Barbados en route to London.
It was unclear where the 37-year-old man boarded the plane.
British police, already on a heightened state of alert following reports of an imminent terror attack, closed the airport's north terminal and evacuated hundreds of passengers.
The terminal remained closed for over four hours, wreaking havoc at Britain's second busiest airport and forcing hundreds of travelers to sleep in the south terminal or find hotel rooms.
``We've had to cancel 32 flights in all, which would probably affect around 2,500 passengers,'' a British Airways spokesman said, adding that the delays were bound to drag on through Friday morning. Other airlines were similarly affected.
BA re-routed its scheduled Friday departure to Caracas, saying the plane would fly only to Colombia and Barbados.
The BA spokesman said the measure had been taken ``as a precaution'' and added that the airline was conducting its own investigation into how the grenade passed undetected through South American security checks.
PATROLS AT HEATHROW
British police have been on a state of alert since Tuesday when they warned that al Qaeda, the network run by Osama bin Laden and blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities, might use the Muslim Eid al-Adha as a pretext to attack.
Britain has been President Bush's closest ally in Washington's self-declared war on terror and many people here fear the country might be targeted by terrorists -- especially if Britain and the United States attack Iraq.
Armed police and soldiers in tanks were patrolling London's Heathrow airport for a fourth consecutive day on Friday as part of the largest security operation ever mounted by Britain's Metropolitan police force.
Two men were arrested near Heathrow on Thursday although detectives stressed the arrests were precautionary and did not appear to be significant.
At Stansted airport, to the northeast of London, police were due to close a main approach road to the passenger terminal.
A police spokesman described the move as ``as temporary measure and part of our routine security arrangements.''
Government ministers were treading a fine line between informing the public of what they describe as a serious and genuine terror threat, and urging people to stay calm.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was due to travel to Scotland for a speech to a conference of his Labour Party on Saturday, said on Thursday it was vital ``to do absolutely everything we can to root these terrorists out.''
An Interior Ministry spokesman, giving the other side of the government's message, said: ``It is not uncommon for people in airports to be discovered with some form of weaponry. It doesn't mean they are all al Qaeda terrorists.''
One British newspaper said the man arrested at Gatwick was a Bangladeshi while another said he was carrying a copy of the Koran. However, Scotland Yard insisted he was a Venezuelan and declined to detail what he was carrying in his luggage.
-------- chemical weapons
THE IRANIANS
Iraq Chemical Arms Condemned, but West Once Looked the Other Way
February 13, 2003
New York Times
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/international/middleeast/13IRAN.html
ISFAHAN, Iran - His breath was loud and hard, his mouth open wide as he struggled to force air into his lungs. "I am," said Muhammad Moussavi, a "living martyr."
Almost 15 years after Iran's war with Iraq ended, Mr. Moussavi and thousands of others like him are painful reminders of the long-lasting effect of Iraq's use of chemical weapons in that eight-year conflict.
His story is typical of a war generation that fervently believed, after Iraq invaded in 1980, in the need to defend Iran and, later, to overthrow Saddam Hussein. So Mr. Moussavi took time off from his engineering studies for months at a time to serve as a volunteer with martyr brigades. In March 1988, four months before Iran declared a cease-fire, he was badly wounded on the battlefield, not by bombs or bullets but by mustard gas.
"We were wearing gas masks because we expected Saddam to use chemical weapons," he recalled. "But there was too much gas. I suddenly felt a bitter taste in my mouth, and then my mouth filled with blood. I put on a new mask but the gas had already affected my body."
Today, at 40, Mr. Moussavi is chained to an oxygen concentrator. His lungs and air passages are permanently scarred, his vision blurred, his skin susceptible to peeling and rashes. When the breathing nearly stops, he chokes and his chest heaves. Two inhalators bring only partial relief. Words come slowly and, when they do, the sounds are brittle and cracked.
"This is a very burdensome illness, both for me and my family," he said. "I never feel I'm getting enough oxygen. The phlegm I cough is filled with blood and hard like bricks." The perennial feeling of being oxygen-deprived, he said, produces headaches, fatigue and body pain.
During the war, about 100,000 people were killed or wounded in chemical weapons attacks by the Iraqis, said Dr. Hamid Sohrabpour, a pulmonary specialist and the director of Iran's chemical treatment program, who studied at New York's Mount Sinai hospital. Iran has compiled records for about 30,000 of them.
One in 10 of these victims died before receiving treatment, he said. About 5,000 to 6,000 still receive regular medical care under government-financed programs.
In building an argument for war against Iraq, President Bush has stressed the need to rid the world of whatever may be left of Iraq's ballistic missile arsenal and its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
The fear that Iraq still might have such weapons drove the Security Council last November to approve unanimously a resolution calling on the Iraqi regime to disarm or face "serious consequences."
But there is deep resentment and anger here that it was Western companies that helped Iraq develop its chemical weapons arsenal in the first place and that the world did nothing to punish Iraq for its use of chemical weapons throughout the war.
"The world knew," Mr. Moussavi said. "Iraq developed these weapons with the help of the United States and the West. No matter how many times Iranians shouted that Iraq was using chemical weapons, they were ignored. I don't know why the United States has suddenly become kinder than a mother for the suffering of us chemical weapons patients."
Dr. Sohrabpour, who has lectured around the world about chemical weapons patients, is equally frustrated. "We took patients to Germany, to Britain, to France, but no one stopped Saddam's regime from using these terrible weapons," he said. "The United States let him develop, stockpile and use these weapons. Now suddenly it's changed. The fact is that the United States is only after its own interests. It doesn't care about what has happened to people."
In the early 1980's, Iranian diplomats visited the United Nations and the capitals of the world armed with disturbing photographs of wounded and dead Iranian soldiers, their bodies swollen, blistered and burned.
By early 1984, Iraq was making no secret of its war tactics. In one broadcast, Baghdad's Voice of the Masses radio gave a hint, speaking of "a certain insecticide for every insect," adding ominously, "We have this insecticide."
After a small group of American and European journalists visiting the war front in February 1984 independently verified the use of chemical weapons, the State Department publicly stated that available evidence suggested that Iraq had used the lethal weapons. It was the first confirmed use of the banned substances since World War I. But the United States, which tilted toward Iraq after it decided that Iran was a more dangerous country, did nothing.
Two years later, Iraq began using chemical weapons as an "integral part" of its battlefield strategy and a "regular and recurring tactic," according to a declassified report by the Central Intelligence Agency. Iranian soldiers often went into battle without gas masks or with masks that did not fit properly. The widespread use of the weapons also overwhelmed Iran's poorly trained and equipped medical personnel, who were themselves sometimes contaminated during rescue efforts. A move led by some Senate Democrats to impose sanctions on Iraq after it used chemical weapons on Iraqi Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988 went nowhere.
The Iraqis used both liquid and dry forms of mustard agent, which burns body tissue and causes blindness, severe blistering, skin discoloration and lung damage, and nerve agents like sarin and tabun, which paralyze the muscles and cause convulsions and vomiting before death.
Nerve gas victims usually died on the spot unless they were immediately treated with antidotes. But many mustard gas victims survived, developing ailments that worsened over time and often led to death.
The 12,000-page weapons declaration that Iraq delivered to the United Nations in December identifies 31 major foreign suppliers for its chemical weapons program, including 2 companies based in the United States that are now defunct, 14 from Germany, 3 each from the Netherlands and Switzerland and 2 each from France and Austria.
The plight of chemical weapons patients in Iran is complicated by the fact that it has manipulated the legacy of the war for its own purposes. Even now, a number of power centers in Iran use the "blood of the martyrs" as a mechanism to hold on to power, demand sacrifice and impose limits freedom. But a generation born since the war has vowed not to be controlled or terrorized by this ideology or by the voluntary, state-protected militias that continue to try to control the streets.
Although there is deep sympathy for victims of chemical weapons attacks, there is resentment toward the Foundation for the Deprived and the War Disabled, a huge state-affiliated organization that disperses aid to the victims and that has long been accused of corruption and cronyism.
Mr. Moussavi, who was interviewed in the presence of two officials from the foundation, praised the organization for its constant support and said his sacrifice was worthwhile. "I'm very happy for the sacrifices I've made," he said. "I'm happy I defended my religion and my revolution."
Then, anger overtook him. "My anger is not targeted at anyone in particular," he said. "It's because I can't breathe. All those who are suffering from gas exposure have the same anger."
Mr. Moussavi's father, Reza, by contrast, is angry at the foundation. He has been lobbying for years for a special oxygen maker made in the United States that does not need to be refilled. "We've waited such a long time for the new machine," he told a representative of the foundation. "It will make so much difference for my son. You promised us one. You promised."
Other chemical weapons victims have accused the foundation of ignoring them because of their political beliefs.
The sentiment that the government is not doing enough is so deeply felt that it has been explored in films about the war. The 1998 award-winning film "The Glass Agency," for example, deals with the government's abandonment of the volunteer military forces by not sending a dying war veteran abroad for special treatment. But the film also explores the lack of public sympathy for the volunteers and the privileges disabled war veterans enjoy.
For Dr. Sohrabpour, the issue is more complicated. "Some patients agree with whatever the government tells them," he said, "but others feel they were used by the government as a tool and now they have been neglected. Then there are those who believe that because they are war wounded all their demands should be met, even when we know there is no cure or special treatment for them.
"My experience with all these patients is that they're very demanding. They get nervous and depressed. And they have a right to be so."
-------- china
Getting Paid in China: Matter of Life and Death
Suicide Threats Rise as Employers Deny Wages
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 13, 2003; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64875-2003Feb12?language=printer
GUANGZHOU, China -- Yao Xinde sat dazed on the roof of the student dormitory he helped build, gazing into the dark sky with his legs dangling over the edge of the 10-story building. It was a cold night, and he shivered as the wind cut through his thin black jacket. On the ground below, a large crowd gathered to see if he would jump.
For six frustrating months, Yao had been trying to get one of this southern Chinese city's largest and best-connected construction firms to pay him and his crew of 80 workers for fitting the interior of the peach-tiled dorm. Now, the 40-year-old foreman and a colleague were threatening to throw themselves off the building if they didn't get their money.
Police arrived quickly, followed by ambulances and emergency workers who unfolded a large net, witnesses said. Two tense hours later, officers accompanied one of the firm's managers to the roof with a package of cash wrapped in newsprint. Police passed the money to Yao and his friend, then pulled them to safety.
"There was no other way to get what the company owed us," Yao explained a few weeks later, chain-smoking during an interview in his cramped, run-down apartment as his young son dozed nearby. "At the time, I was so exhausted and numb, I was really ready to die."
Suicide threats by workers seeking to collect unpaid wages have become increasingly common in many parts of China, a telling sign of the frustrations felt by the nation's working class as the ruling Communist Party presses ahead with efforts to build a market economy while limiting political reform.
The phenomenon is concentrated largely among the nearly 200 million workers who have left China's impoverished countryside for jobs in the cities, where they are treated as second-class citizens. And it is most pronounced in the winter weeks before the Lunar New Year, when these laborers collect their earnings and migrate en masse to their villages.
In the run-up to the holiday this year -- it began Feb. 1 -- local Chinese newspapers carried several reports about workers "treating their lives lightly" in disputes over wage arrears, sometimes with photos of men perched precariously on towering construction cranes. In central Hubei province, one worker spent six hours threatening to leap from a crane before getting his money. In eastern Shandong province, another set himself on fire.
Because most such incidents go unreported by China's state-run media, it is difficult to say how often they occur or how most are resolved. But one Chinese labor researcher who has studied the subject estimates that at least 100 migrant workers, most in construction, threaten to kill themselves over unpaid wages each year in just the Pearl River Delta, the manufacturing region that includes this booming city 75 miles northwest of Hong Kong.
These suicide threats are acts of desperation as much as depression, made by men and women who have concluded -- with good reason -- that China's courts, trade unions and government agencies are unable or unwilling to help them. These institutions are underfunded and understaffed, and often controlled by party officials who have close ties with local employers.
"These workers know the official channels don't work well," said the labor researcher, who asked not to be identified. "But as soon as they threaten to jump, they get attention. And in many cases, they get some money."
The problem is serious enough that police in many Chinese cities have adopted a policy of jailing for up to two weeks workers who threaten to commit suicide, regardless of whether their labor grievances are justified.
The central government has also acknowledged the difficulties that migrant workers face, and last month ordered localities to step up efforts to protect workers' rights and ensure that employers pay wages on time. But it is unclear whether local officials who depend on these businesses for taxes and bribes will respond.
A survey published recently by the official New China News Agency found that nearly three in four migrant workers have trouble collecting their pay. A majority of those polled said begging from, bargaining with or intimidating their employers were the best ways to get their money, while barely a quarter considered seeking help from the government and less than 2 percent said going to court was a good option.
Like most workers in China's corrupt and poorly regulated construction industry, Yao and his crew were not given formal contracts when the Huangpu No. 2 Construction Co. hired them for the dormitory project, and they were to be paid only after the building was finished. But because there is fierce competition for jobs, they agreed to the conditions.
For nearly two months last spring and summer, Yao and his crew labored to meet the developer's strict deadlines, working seven days a week and more than 18 hours a day. But when the building was finished in June, they didn't get paid.
Other crews at the site had the same problem. "We worked day and night to finish the project on time," said a crew foreman, who asked to be identified by only his surname, Xiong. "All of us were exhausted. But what did we get? Nothing!"
The company owed Yao's crew about $10,000, and Xiong's crew of 140 men about $25,000, the workers said.
Yao, a thin, sinewy man who first left his impoverished village in Sichuan province in search of construction jobs at age 13, said he exhausted other options before climbing to the roof of the dormitory at Guangzhou's Technical Institute of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce. Week after week, Yao visited the developer's offices and demanded payment. At first, managers told him the money was coming, but they needed to make deductions for materials and other costs, he said. Months later, they told him they weren't going to pay his crew anything because the deductions exceeded their salaries.
Foremen such as Yao and Xiong were caught in the middle because they were responsible for distributing wages to the workers. Angry and suspicious workers often showed up at their homes, demanding that they be paid and sometimes threatening violence, they said.
Yao and Xiong said they tried getting help from the city labor department. They were transferred from office to office, and never received a response to their complaint. They were also told it would be difficult to prove their case because they did not have written contracts.
The men also considered going to court. But Yao had sued three different employers for back wages over the past decade, and each case had dragged on so long that he ended up losing money even when he won the judgments. "We can't win in court, because the bosses have the money and the power," he said. "We're just ordinary workers. We don't have human rights."
Yao said he tried intimidating the company into paying him, leading his workers in rowdy protests in the firm's office. But that didn't work either.
As the Lunar New Year approached, pressure from the workers intensified.
Then, on Jan. 2, Yao learned his ex-wife had died, and he made plans to return home to settle her affairs. He called the construction firm, and managers agreed to see him and Xiong on Jan. 4.
The meeting did not go well. "They told us they didn't have any money," Xiong said. "Finally, Yao said to them, 'You're pushing us to jump from the building, is that what you want us to do?' And the deputy manager said, 'Go ahead and jump! Go!' "
Yao had read about workers threatening to kill themselves over unpaid wages, but only then did he understand how they felt. "After I left the office, I decided to die. I didn't see any other way," he recalled. "Too many workers were asking me for money, and I didn't know where to get it. I didn't know if my family was safe. But if I died, the workers couldn't come after me anymore."
Yao and Xiong climbed the stairs to the roof of the dormitory. They wept as they called friends and relatives on their mobile phones to say goodbye.
Yao said he told friends to avenge his death by murdering the construction firm's boss and his family. They tried to persuade him to come down. He refused. "If they didn't give me the money, I was going to jump," he said. "Then the company would be punished. Its reputation would be ruined, and it would lose contracts."
Sitting on the roof about 30 yards away, Xiong was thinking about his family: his wife, an 8-year-old daughter, a 5-year-old son, and his aging parents. "I was worried no one would take care of them if I died," he said.
But he, too, was determined to follow through. "We had tried everything, but no one would help us. That made us very desperate," he said. "I thought we had no choice but to choose to die."
Even after the company agreed to pay them, they said, it took a while for police to convince them it was not a trick, that they were safe and had finally won.
Reached by telephone, an official at Huangpu denied withholding wages from Yao and Xiong. "The matter is already resolved," said Chen Haiyang, project manager for the dorm. "Those workers who tried to jump from the building were out of their minds. They made trouble out of nothing."
"They got their money back, of course," he added. "We even gave them more than they deserved."
Researcher Jin Ling contributed to this report.
-------- colombia
U.S., Colombia Reach Deal on Anti - Drug Flights
February 13, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-colombia-usa-drugs.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Colombia and the United States have reached a tentative agreement on safety procedures that would allow them to resume anti-drug flights halted after the accidental deaths of a U.S. missionary and her baby in Peru in 2001, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
The officials said it will take time -- perhaps months -- before the agreement has been vetted by both governments and is referred to President Bush for a decision on restarting the ``Air Bridge Denial'' interdiction flights.
Equipped with high-powered scanners, the CIA-sponsored flights sought to detect small aircraft loaded with cocaine so local air force jets could intercept and, if necessary, shoot them down.
They were stopped April 2001 after the Peruvian air force shot down a small plane it mistakenly believed was carrying drugs, killing missionary Veronica Bowers and her daughter, Charity.
The program is being redesigned and, if it resumes, its management would be shifted to the State Department, which has pushed for a ``safety checklist'' to prevent such accidents.
FRUSTRATION
Peruvian and Colombian officials, who view the flights as a crucial way to crack down on the cocaine and heroin trade, had hoped they would be restarted by the end of last year and the delays have frustrated some officials in the region.
Colombia produces about 80 percent of the world's cocaine, but U.S. citizens are the biggest consumers of the drug, which largely finances a war with paramilitary groups that claims thousands of lives in Colombia each year.
``They (the United States) should help us by controlling the level of consumption, they should help us, as they have promised, with aerial interception,'' Colombian President Alvaro Uribe told Reuters in an interview last month.
U.S. officials said that the tentative agreement, which was struck on Feb. 1, must be vetted by both sides, with various agencies of the U.S. government, including the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency and others, likely to weigh in.
``Everybody has to scrub it. That takes a bit of time,'' said one U.S. official who asked not to be named. Asked how long it would be before the deal was approved, he suggested it could take as long as two months. ``I wouldn't say it's imminent.''
In addition to the internal review, Colombian pilots and other officials will have to undergo training and a U.S. team of experts will have to visit and certify that revised safety procedures are in place, said another U.S. official.
The United States has yet to hammer out an agreement on safety procedures with Peru, the U.S. officials said.
-------- europe
Austria Blocking Movement of U.S. Troops - Rumsfeld
February 13, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-usa-austria.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday accused Austria of blocking the movement of U.S. troops from Germany by rail through that neutral country to Italy, apparently part of a buildup of American forces preparing for possible war against Iraq.
He complained that it would take additional days to get the troops where they were going and told the Senate Armed Services Committee it was an example of problems in stationing more than 100,000 U.S. troops in Europe, including 70,000 in Germany.
``Right now, for example, we're trying to move some forces from Germany down to Italy, and Austria is causing a difficulty with respect to moving the forces through Austria by rail,'' Rumsfeld said.
``Which means we may have to go up to Rotterdam (in the Netherlands) or possibly by train through two, or three, or four countries. It's better (to move) directly,'' he said.
A spokesman at the Austrian Embassy in Washington confirmed that the movement of U.S. troops was being temporarily blocked by his country. Austria is a neutral state and restricts the movement of foreign military equipment across its territory.
Rumsfeld, questioned by reporters after the committee meeting, refused to say whether the troops in question were part of contingents of armored and other U.S. forces being sent from Germany toward the Gulf.
MAJOR CONTROVERSY IN EUROPE
The looming prospects for a possible U.S.-led war with Iraq have caused sharp political splits in Europe, where NATO members Germany and France have thrown up barriers at both alliance headquarters in Brussels and at the United Nations in New York to slow any progress toward war in Iraq.
``I just heard about it this morning,'' Rumsfeld told reporters of the Austria situation. ``And they (the U.S. military) have already developed two work-arounds -- two by rail, one by sea -- all of which take extra days.''
Christoph Meran, press counselor at the Austrian Embassy in Washington, told Reuters he understood that movement of the U.S. troops was being at least temporarily blocked because his country had rules allowing the movement of equipment and troops, but only under certain circumstances.
``Austria has been asked for some materiel to be moved down, but it turned out to be troops,'' Meran said.
Rumsfeld repeated comments by the White House earlier this week that the United States was closely studying the possible realignment of American forces around the world, possibly bringing some home and establishing well-protected military ``hubs'' through which troops could be quickly deployed overseas from the United States.
``It's clear: It's better for us probably not to have such a heavy concentration'' of troops in many countries, the secretary told the committee.
Rumsfeld stressed that any changes in basing of U.S. troops would only be done ``over a reasonable period of time'' and in close consultation with allies.
The open opposition by Germany and France to war with Iraq, including a move in NATO to halt alliance protection for Turkey in any such war, has raised anger in the U.S. Congress and sparked demands from some lawmakers to slash U.S. troop basing in Germany.
But Rumsfeld said the United States would not shift troops simply to retaliate.
``It would be a mistake to suggest that if we do end up reducing some of those forces by moving them to other countries that it had anything to do with our relationships with those countries. Because it simply doesn't,'' he said.
------- iraq
Second Iraq battle: 'morning after'
Tuesday's tape, thought to be by bin Laden, urges Muslims to use guerrilla tactics against US troops.
By Philip Smucker
The Christian Science Monitor
February 13, 2003
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0213/p06s01-woiq.html
DAMASCUS, SYRIA - Do not expect to see Islamic warriors mounted on camels, turbans flowing in the wind, charging across the Arabian desert to defend Baghdad.
More likely, say Western military analysts, a slow, stealthy infiltration of extremist groups could wreak havoc on US, British, and allied armies during and after a coalition invasion of Iraq.
Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of jihadis - holy warriors - will view US and British forces in Iraq as prime targets, say these analysts. They say coalition forces could wind up fighting two campaigns: one to disarm Saddam Hussein and the other to maintain security afterward - putting down skirmishes between tribal factions while defending against possible terrorist attacks (see story, page 1).
In a new audiocassette released on Tuesday, a voice believed by US officials to be that of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden calls on Muslims around the Arab world to take up just such stealthy, guerrilla tactics against "infidels" on Arabian sands.
"True Muslims should act, incite, and mobilize...." the tape said. "We advise about the importance of drawing the enemy into long, close, and exhausting fighting, taking advantage of camouflaged positions in plains, farms, mountains, and cities."
Western military analysts warn that while Iraq is today a mostly "secular" Islamic regime run by Mr. Hussein's ruling Baath Party, Western armies are likely to act as magnet that would draw Al Qaeda across porous borders into Iraq.
"There is a real possibility that an occupation of this nature will suck in all sorts of jihadis from all over," says Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies in London. "A Western occupation almost certainly invites them in from Saudi Arabia and other countries where they are currently ensconced."
Abu Omar, an Iraqi businessman here, says that he was pleased to see Mr. bin Laden, a personal hero, taking an interest in Iraq. But he said that he also wanted to see Hussein removed from power, albeit not with the help of the US military.
"Osama had hit the Americans one time in a very big way, when he attacked the World Trade Center," he says. "That was much more than any Arab leader has ever done, and for this reason we love him. But this war will involve the Iraqi people fighting the US and, while Osama will try to inspire his members to fight with them, I don't expect Al Qaeda to be a major factor."
Syrian computer technician Imad Sakkal agrees that there is little love lost between Hussein and bin Laden, but he praises bin Laden for sacrificing a life of luxury to fight for Islam in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. "Even if he and his people die fighting the Americans, they will be martyrs."
Few leading Western military analysts doubt any US-led invasion of Iraq will end in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's undemocratic regime. It is the "morning after" that raises red-flag security issues, they say.
In the "new Iraq," say analysts, Shiite Muslims in the east and south of the country, and Kurds in the north, are likely to seek quick revenge against the Baath Party, thus precipitating the need for coalition troops to stop the ethnic strife even as the tortuous heat of an Arabian summer closes in.
At the same time, however, the US-led stabilization efforts are likely to be frustrated by the need to fight a parallel, but not necessarily related, war on terror. US forces will face major challenges and limits to their mobility as peacekeepers because of the Pentagon's heightened "force protection" requirements, add the British analysts.
"As more terrorist groups emerge around Baghdad, it will become considerably harder to keep the peace," says Alexandra Ashborne, director of Ashborne-Beaver Associates, a defense-analysis institute in London. "There will be so much instability on the borders. I think Iran could pose the most danger. There will be a threat both from Al Qaeda and other groups that have yet to emerge. There could be kidnapping, hostage taking, and bomb threats."
Indeed, terrorists veiled as Bedouins trekking through the desert is one likely scenario. Few of the region's nomadic Bedouin tribesmen bother going through border checkpoints, and with Iraq's 3,500 miles of border, mostly with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, it will not be possible to keep up a constant guard at all crossing points, analysts warn.
The US military has concrete experience fighting Al Qaeda on the ground in Afghanistan, but using far different tactics than its top brass say they plan to employ in Iraq. Early in the Afghan conflict, the Pentagon's civilian and military leadership decided not to inject large numbers of conventional forces into the fray. The rationale was that the US did not want to get "bogged down" as the Soviet Army did in the 1980s, or become a target for extremists.
"My permanent mission was to bring down the Taliban regime, to destabilize and deny sanctuary to Al Qaeda, and we did that," says Col. John Mulholland, the Green Beret 5th Group commander who headed "Task Force Dagger," the Special Operations unit that led the Afghan campaign. "In the course of the war, we killed thousands of these [guys] across the country, some in close contact and others in air strikes." Colonel Mulholland's forces have currently infiltrated northern Iraq to prepare small bases of operation.
In a curious twist, the new audiocassette, which was released by the Al Jazeera TV station based in Doha, Qatar, suggests the Iraqi people should take heart from Al Qaeda's Afghan experience.
The speaker says that US bombs work effectively against stationary and known targets, but fail miserably when disguises and decoys are employed. At Tora Bora and at a later battle, Operation Anaconda, the terror network successfully dodged US bombing by setting up empty tents and by hiding in deep bunkers.
The speaker also encourages the use of suicide attacks on Westerners.
----
Human shields set to deploy in Baghdad
By Dalal Saoud,
February 13, 2003
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030213-102845-9875r.htm
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- The first group of Western volunteer "human shields" prepared Thursday to deploy at vital installations in Baghdad in an attempt to deter the United States from going ahead with plans for war on Iraq.
"We are the first wave of a tide. We want to stop the war," said Dr. Marino Andolina, an Italian pediatrician.
Andolina told United Press International that by posing as human shields, they want to make the cost of war on Iraq higher for the United States.
"If they kill one European, the cost is higher. If they kill an Arab, the cost is very low," he explained.
The group was set to visit a water purification plant and an electricity facility in Baghdad Thursday. Hospitals and schools are also among the sites they will seek to protect.
Andolina was among a group of 14 Canadians, Italians and Spanish who traveled to Baghdad to oppose war in Iraq. They brought with them a big dog.
Their spokeswoman, Roberta Tamam, said they want to organize a peaceful stand at strategic points where they would raise "No War" signs.
"We want to stand peacefully and ask for peace in Iraq," Tamam said. She noted that they were consulting with the Iraqi authorities to help define their targeted sites.
She denied any pressure from the authorities who, she said, told the protestors there were free to go to the sites of their choice.
Tamam urged similar actions in various parts of the world that would culminate on Feb. 16, two days after the U.N. Security Council would convene on the Iraqi crisis.
A Spanish volunteer, whose government supports the United States against Iraq, said decisions to make war should not be taken against the will of the population.
"In Spain, Turkey and Italy, populations don't want to go to war and the governments do," he said. "So we have to change the mind of our governments because they are not representing us at this moment."
Another protestor, a 31-Canadian computer analyst, said: " My heart goes out for the people of Iraq and I believe if war takes place, security and human rights will be compromised."
He said war would affect people in Canada, Britain and elsewhere and that was why it was very important to protest.
Dr. Andolina was on his fifth mission, having previously gone to Lebanon, Bosnia and Afghanistan. He wanted to be in Baghdad, he said, to witness any crime that may committed against the population.
"We will be there where the bombs are to fall," he said. "Next week, we will be hundreds; lots of people are coming."
Asked if they are afraid that they would be caught in the hostilities, one of the human shields said: "We will cross that bridge when we get to it."
----
Kurds say terrorists make poison in zone
By Borzou Daragahi
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2003
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20030213-19153052.htm
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq - Kurdish leaders say they have eyewitness accounts, prisoners' confessions and seized evidence to support claims by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that an al Qaeda-linked group backed by Saddam Hussein has established a "poison factory" in northeastern Iraq.
They also say they have captured Iraqi military officers sent by Saddam to liaise with the Islamic radicals, providing evidence of a direct link between al Qaeda and the Iraqi leadership.
Mr. Powell, in his dramatic presentation to the United Nations Security Council Feb. 5, said an extremist group was running a terrorist-training center and poison factory in the small area of Iraq it controls near the Iranian border.
He said the program was supported by Abu Musaab Zarqawi who has been identified as a lieutenant of Osama bin Laden and implicated in the killing of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan in October.
As Mr. Powell spoke, a monitor displayed a photograph with the caption: "Terrorist Poison and Explosives Factory, Khurmal."
Mr. Powell was referring to Ansar al-Islam, a militant group of 600 to 700 fighters, many of them trained in bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan before making their way to the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan in 2001.
An Ansar attack in December killed scores of troops of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which runs the eastern half of the autonomous zone enforced in northern Iraq by U.S. and British aircraft since the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
Sadi Ahmad Pire, a high-level official of the PUK, pinpointed the village of Sargat near the Khurmal district as the site of the chemical-weapons plant.
"Only the Afghan Arabs and not the local Kurds are allowed to be in the factory, which is surrounded by houses and buildings and inaccessible to all but a few," said a Kurdish intelligence chief, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The intelligence officer also said the PUK has captured "several" former Iraqi military and intelligence officers who confessed to being sent from Baghdad-controlled parts of Iraq to meet with Ansar al-Islam. The seized evidence, PUK officers said, includes poison cigarettes and paint.
Ansar al-Islam's leader, Najm al-Din Faraj Ahmad, commonly known as Mullah Krekar, has vehemently denied any links with al Qaeda or Baghdad, and independent analysts say they have been unable to verify American claims of a link.
"It's not corroborated by other sources," said Robert Malley, Middle East director for the International Crisis Group in Washington. "That does not mean there have not been some contacts ... but given the geography, Ansar would appear to be more dependent on certain groups in Iran."
The Kurdish claims, if confirmed, would support U.S. claims that Saddam is directly helping and backing Ansar al-Islam.
The Kurds also say they have linked the group to Qeyes Ibrahim Qader - an Islamic militant captured while trying to assassinate PUK-region Prime Minister Barham Salih last year.
The say Qader admitted he was acting on orders received in the town of Biyare from a man he later identified as Zarqawi.
-------- israel / palestine
Sharon Faces Belgian Trial After Term Ends
February 13, 2003
New York Times
By MARLISE SIMONS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/international/europe/13BELG.html
THE HAGUE, Feb. 12 - Belgium's highest court said today in Brussels that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel could be tried for war crimes under the nation's laws, but not as long as he enjoyed the immunity of his office.
The ruling, while blocking the case against Mr. Sharon, did allow a Belgian court to hear the case against Mr. Sharon's co-defendant, Amos Yaron, the former Israeli Army chief of staff.
In its summary, the high court said investigations and a trial could proceed even if a suspect was not physically present in Belgium. Several cases involving foreign leaders, past and present, had been on hold for almost a year, pending the high court's decision.
The case against Mr. Sharon and Mr. Yaron dates back to 2001, when survivors of the 1982 massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut filed a criminal complaint, holding the two Israelis responsible for the deaths of their relatives. Christian militias, backed by Israel, did the killing, but an Israeli commission of inquiry in 1983 concluded that Mr. Sharon, then the defense minister, had a personal responsibility for the events.
By filing their case in Belgium, the survivors hoped to make use of the country's 1993 law that allows the courts "universal jurisdiction" over crimes against humanity or war crimes anywhere.
Many states have given their courts universal jurisdiction over some crimes. But until now, Belgium's so-called antiatrocity law went further by barring immunity claims and by allowing the courts to investigate crimes committed anywhere, regardless of the nationality of the victims or the perpetrators. Today's ruling recognized the immunity of high public office, like the posts of prime minister, president and foreign minister. But the judges implied that the case against Mr. Sharon could be pursued after he left office, lawyers said. Citing that ruling, Luc Walleyn, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, hailed the decision as a victory.
Daniel Shek, the Israeli Foreign Ministry's director of European Affairs, described the decision as "very problematic," according to Reuters.
The Israeli case is one of many pending in Belgium involving charges of grave human rights violations. Lawyers handling the cases said they were elated with today's ruling, because it overturned a decision last year in a lower court that held that an accused person had to be present in Belgium to be investigated.
"This was a big breakthrough, a big step forward," said Georges-Henri Beauthier, a human rights lawyer. "Cases had been blocked in several courts, awaiting the high court's ruling." Mr. Beauthier said he could now continue pursuing the case against Hissène Habré, the former ruler of Chad, who lives in exile in Senegal. Today's decision effectively means that prosecutors can issue international arrest warrants and apply for a suspect's extradition, he said.
Belgium's antiatrocity law has made the country into a magnet for grave human rights violations, and cases against two dozen current or past leaders are still pending in Belgian courts.
Critics in Belgium have attacked the law, arguing that Belgium could not become the "world's court." Several legislators have said they want Parliament to "reinterpret" the law.
But changes appear unlikely soon. Now that the high court has ruled, the Belgium's prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, said today that there was no need for Parliament to intervene.
-------- mideast
In Kuwait, a Rehearsal for War
Marines Land on Beaches as Simulated Exercises End
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 13, 2003; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64877-2003Feb12?language=printer
KUWAIT CITY, Feb. 12 -- More U.S. Marines came ashore on the beaches of Kuwait today and, at the U.S. military's command center, generals wrapped up a five-day computer-simulated exercise in what amounted to a dress rehearsal for war.
The exercise, called Lucky Warrior, used the computers to examine how various U.S. military units on the ground just south of Iraq would coordinate and communicate during combat. The idea was to make sure that when artillery is firing, helicopters are flying and war planes are bombing, they do so in concert.
The exercise was the first of its sort since Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who heads the U.S. Army's Central Command, which has responsibility for the Middle East, led the war-gaming exercise Internal Look from his new regional base in Qatar two months ago. Overseen by Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, who would lead U.S. and British land forces in any invasion of Iraq, the exercise involved about 2,000 officers and key personnel from different services. Unlike recent training drills in the desert, it took place on the computer display screens of command centers in Kuwait.
While calling it successful, officers would not disclose details of the scenario tested by this week's exercise or permit reporters to observe. "It allowed us to refine our command-and-control capabilities," said Marine Capt. David T. Romley, a military spokesman.
As the virtual exercise wound up, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, a premier amphibious force that fought in Afghanistan and can conduct Special Forces operations, arrived from California, splashing through the surf with tanks and armored vehicles. At the same time, Arab neighbors began dispatching forces to Kuwait to help defend the tiny emirate against any Iraqi attack.
The United States has more than 50,000 troops in Kuwait to prepare for a southern thrust into Iraq if President Bush gives the order. Tens of thousands more are on the way. British forces have begun arriving as well, and Australia has dispatched a small detachment. Germany and the Czech Republic have small units here to help respond to chemical, biological or nuclear attacks.
The Arab contingent is part of a Persian Gulf regional force called Peninsula Shield, which was ordered to Kuwait during a weekend meeting in Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates is sending 4,000 troops as well as tanks, armored vehicles, a couple of ships and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. Bahrain said it was sending a frigate and ground troops. Kuwait's defense minister, Jaber Mubarak Sabah, said he expected the forces to arrive in days.
Other gulf countries, notably Saudi Arabia, did not disclose whether their soldiers would join the deployment. Some officials in the region have discussed the possibility of an Arab force that would move into Iraq to prevent an all-American occupation after U.S. troops topple President Saddam Hussein , but gulf officials stressed that the troops being sent to Kuwait would be there to defend a fellow Arab country.
"These forces will not take part in any military operation against Iraq," Prince Khalid bin Sultan, the assistant Saudi defense minister, told the newspaper Okaz . "The deployment of these troops in Kuwait, at this country's behest, is aimed at protecting its territory."
As the U.S. buildup continued, about 2,000 Marines arrived with the expeditionary unit that staged the amphibious landing at an undisclosed Kuwaiti beach. The Marines, who left San Diego on Jan. 6 aboard the USS Tarawa, USS Duluth and USS Rushmore, were the first expeditionary unit to land in Kuwait and would give commanders another tool in an attack against Iraq. Two separate amphibious task forces from the East and West coasts are also en route to the region.
Along with the Marines came 29 aircraft, including AV-8B Harrier jets and AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters, as well as M-1A1 tanks, Amtrack amphibious armored vehicles and TOW and Javelin anti-tank missiles.
Military officials provided pictures showing Marines and their equipment launching off the ships in hovercrafts or aboard the Amtracks and rolling onto the beach 15 or 20 minutes later. "They add a small but potent powerful force that have the capability to do a wide range of missions," said Romley.
----
Turkish Politician Holds Out on U.S. Request
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 13, 2003; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64878-2003Feb12?language=printer
ISTANBUL, Feb. 12 -- When the Turkish parliament voted last week to allow the United States to upgrade military bases and ports, Goksal Kucukali, a lawmaker from the ruling Justice and Development Party, announced on television afterward that he had defied party leaders and voted no.
The appearance was startling not only because parliament's deliberations were supposed to be kept secret, but also because strict party discipline is a hallmark of politics in Turkey. With the cameras rolling, Kucukali went even further: If Justice and Development backs deployment of U.S. troops in Turkey in a vote expected about Tuesday, he said, he would resign from the party.
"What I am saying is, please do not drag us into war," Kucukali said in an interview, explaining why he had disobeyed his party and voted against the United States, and would do so again. "Our people are already hungry. There are already thousands of suffering people. We say no not because we are against the U.S.A., but because we care for our people. Wherever we go, the whole nation says no to war."
Kucukali's position reflects a deep antiwar sentiment among the Turkish public and among legislators who voted in favor of the U.S. base renovations on the order of their leaders. The request was approved in the 550-member parliament 308 to 193, with others absent or abstaining. By many estimates, between 30 and 50 members of the ruling party, which controls 362 seats, joined Kucukali in defying their leaders.
What is surprising, some analysts said, is that even more members did not defect. A poll released Sunday showed that 94 percent of the Turks surveyed opposed a U.S. war against Iraq, Turkey's neighbor to the south, and only 2.5 percent said Turkey should support the United States by offering military facilities and forces.
With that level of opposition, analysts and politicians here said, the Turkish parliament, whose approval is constitutionally required before foreign troops can be based here, could vote against admitting U.S. troops or delay the vote. A rejection of a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq, authorizing use of force, could complicate the vote for some Turkish lawmakers, who insist that any war have "international legitimacy." But many analysts said approval seems likely.
For the Pentagon, the stakes are high. U.S. war planners have said that a northern front against Iraq, which shares a 218-mile border with Turkey, is considered vital to draw Iraqi forces away from the south and protect oil fields in northern Iraq.
Lawmakers said that before last week's vote, they met with Prime Minister Abdullah Gul and Recep Tayyib Erdogan, the Justice and Development leader, who ordered them to vote in favor of allowing the United States to renovate military bases and ports. The two leaders promised U.S. economic aid with written guarantees. But for many members, impassioned pleas that Turkey was over a barrel were even more important. They had explored options for peace and would continue to do so, they said, but Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, was not complying with U.N. resolutions and the United States seemed committed to a war.
According to five lawmakers who attended private sessions with Gul and Erdogan, the pair argued that the United States was a strategic ally and the relationship had to be preserved. Turkey was not going to fight a war against Iraq, they promised, but they had to prepare the country. If the United States was going to fight no matter what, they said, Turkey had to make sure it protected its security concerns in northern Iraq, particularly to prevent a rush of refugees into southeastern Turkey and to quash any attempt by Iraqi Kurds to create an independent state.
Many members of parliament "felt that, against their consciences, they had to vote to allow the United States to enlarge the bases," said Fehmi Koru, a leading newspaper columnist with close ties to the ruling party who, like other journalists, was banned from reporting the details of the vote last Thursday. "I met with many of them, and they were really hesitant -- not just individual members of parliament, but even ministers I spoke with were not happy or comfortable with what they were going to do."
Several economic and military sticking points must be ironed out before the vote on U.S. troops. Some involve troop levels -- the number of U.S. soldiers that would be allowed in Turkey and the number of Turkish soldiers to be stationed in northern Iraq -- and others involve command issues. A U.S. special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, said last week that any Turkish troops sent to Iraq would be under U.S. command. But Erdogan earlier this week dismissed the idea of foreign command of Turkish troops as "humiliating" and "insulting."
Many analysts and politicians here agreed that because of the long and close military ties between the United States and Turkey, the military issues would likely be the easiest to resolve quickly. More difficult, they said, are outstanding issues surrounding the size and guarantees of an economic package to compensate Turkey for what it would spend in any war and to protect it from losses resulting from a conflict.
Previously, officials have said the package of loans, grants and other aid could be as much as $14 billion. But several Turkish lawmakers and media accounts in recent days have termed that amount inadequate, saying the price tag could balloon to as much as $25 billion.
More important than the size of the package, officials here say, is how the U.S. will guarantee its delivery. Increasingly, lawmakers, other Turkish officials and opinion-shapers are demanding action by the U.S. Congress to guarantee that money promised by the Bush administration is actually given. The debate reflects distrust by Turks who say the United States promised economic relief during the 1991 Persian Gulf War but broke its word.
According to Egemen Bagis, an adviser to Gul and a member of parliament, U.S. economic commitments "better be made public, better be very convincing, and better be before the 18th," when the vote is expected. Officials familiar with the negotiations said Turkey's estimates of its exposure were much higher than independent market estimates, which put the figure between $4 billion and $15 billion. A diplomatic source noted that Bush cannot guarantee the congressional action that the Turks seek.
Negotiations are continuing over what kind of assurances the United States can give to protect the postwar territorial integrity of Iraq and to prevent any move by Kurds in the country's north to break away and declare independence. Turkish officials are also seeking U.S. guarantees to protect Iraq's ethnic Turks and Iraqi oil fields during and after any war.
----
Turkey denies British troops role on border
Tension raised by conflict with Kurds
Owen Bowcott and Ian Black in Brussels
Thursday February 13, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/turkey/story/0,12700,894488,00.html
Turkey is withholding permission for the deployment of British troops in support of American ground forces preparing a northern front against Saddam Hussein's regime. A formal request made three weeks ago has still not been answered.
News of the delay emerged as Turkey's foreign minister, Yasar Yakis, flew to Washington to smooth its troubled military cooperation with the US. The row within Nato over deploying troops to the Turkish border with Iraq last night also remained deadlocked.
One Istanbul newspaper has reported Turkish military sources as saying that senior officers are reluctant to accept British troops because they fear the British "are trying to influence the Iraqi Kurds to create distrust for Ankara".
The formal request was made in late January when the chief of the defence staff, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, met his Turkish counterpart, General Hilmi Ozkok and visited the Turkish airbase at Incirlik, where a British squadron of Jaguars enforces the no-fly zone over northern Iraq. The 16 air assault brigade, several thousand strong, consists of two battalions of the Parachute regiment as well as commando units, helicopters and engineers.
The delay reflects growing anxiety about the turmoil which might erupt in northern Iraq in the event of a war. Washington insists Turkish forces in northern Iraq should be under the command of American generals; Turkey, which has up to 15,000 soldiers in the Kurdish semi-autonomous enclave, has dismissed the request.
There are fears of clashes between Turkish forces and Kurdish groups. Turkish soldiers are likely to begin search and destroy missions against the last mountain refuges occupied by Kadek, formerly known as the the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.
The threat of Turkish military intervention has already triggered a threat from Kadek - on ceasefire for the past three years - that it may resume its terror campaign. Earlier this week Osman Ocalan, the brother of the group's jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, said militants would reinfiltrate Turkey if Turkish troops entered the region.
"If Turkey sees the issue as a vendetta and starts an annihilation war, the [Ankara] government will seal its own end," Ocalan said. "The armed resistance will be carried out in the widest possible area."
In Brussels, Nato's 19 ambassadors met for the third day of a crisis that has shaken the alliance to its foundations and risked rendering it irrelevant as the US loses patience with its European allies.
France appeared determined to block a possible compromise over the issue of defending Turkey in case of attack by Iraq despite proposals by the secretary general, George Robertson, to drop earlier requests that European al lies replace US troops serving in the Balkans. France, Germany and Belgium vetoed the original proposals on Monday. The view in Brussels is that they are unlikely to budge until after the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, reports to the security council tomorrow.
Turkey, invoking Nato's protection in anticipation of war with Iraq, has formally requested the deployment of Awacs early-warning planes, Patriot anti-missile batteries and specialised infantry units trained to resist attacks by chemical and biological weapons. Some commentators suggest Nato's deployments could be used for offensive as a well as defensive operations.
Along the Turkish border with Iraq, householders have begun putting plastic sheeting over doors and windows or creating sealed, safe rooms to protect them against possible Iraqi gas attacks.
Mr Yakis's talks in Washington will focus on Turkey's request for extra cash for agreeing to open its bases to US forces. The Turkish parliament will vote next Tuesday on whether to formally authorise military cooperation.
-------- nato
France Pledges to Defend Turkey
Reuters
Thursday, February 13, 2003; Page A32
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A434-2003Feb12?language=printer
PARIS, Feb. 12 -- France assured Turkey today that it would help defend it if there were a war in neighboring Iraq, even though it shot down a compromise aimed at breaking NATO's deadlock over planning protection for Turkey, dashing hopes for a quick end to the alliance's damaging crisis.
French President Jacques Chirac telephoned Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to pledge support and protection in the event of war, his spokeswoman said. "Chirac assured the Turkish president of France's full solidarity and said France would fulfill its obligations if Turkey was threatened," said a spokeswoman, Catherine Colonna .
Sezer told Chirac, who has repeatedly said that military action in Iraq should be a last resort, that he also backed a peaceful solution to the crisis in Iraq.
Earlier yesterday, France shot down a compromise aimed at breaking the NATO deadlock over Turkey, and diplomats said France, Germany and Belgium were unlikely to budge until after the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, reported to the Security Council on Friday.
The French and German foreign ministers held talks in Paris, and both later met Chirac. The two foreign ministers reaffirmed their wish for U.N. inspections in Iraq to be stepped up and their opposition to a war, a diplomatic source said.
France, Germany and Russia joined forces this week to call for reinforced inspections in Iraq and for all possible peaceful means to be tried to eliminate any banned weapons Iraq might possess. Iraq denies possessing such weapons.
----
Torn Over Iraq, NATO Forced to Wait for Blix
February 13, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-nato.html
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO put on hold its wrangling over preparations for a possible U.S.-led war against Iraq on Thursday after France and Germany refused to budge before the chief U.N. inspectors' report to the Security Council on Friday.
An emergency meeting of ambassadors to the 19 nations of the alliance -- which would have been the sixth in four days of hectic diplomacy -- was called off at just 30 minutes' notice.
NATO spokesman Yves Brodeur told reporters it had become evident ``that we wouldn't be able to make progress in a formal setting.''
On Monday, France, Germany and Belgium formally blocked proposals to start planning for the defense of ally Turkey, a likely launchpad for any war which fears retaliation by Baghdad.
Triggering one of the deepest crises in NATO's 54-year history, they argued that such a move now would imply implicit acceptance that war is inevitable.
In a clear indication that Germany was increasingly uncomfortable blocking a majority of allies, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said on Thursday he had been working hard to win French agreement on NATO planning.
``Our goal is to take France along in NATO as far as possible and to hold together,'' he told parliament.
German Defense Minister Peter Struck raised the prospect of a solution by Saturday to the stand-off, which has deepened rifts across the Atlantic and within Europe over Iraq.
``We will reach a decision in the NATO council at the latest on Saturday after the sitting of the Security Council,'' he said.
FRANCE STICKS TO GUNS
Struck was referring to Friday's report by weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei to the Security Council on their latest talks in Baghdad on trying to eliminate Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction.
France stuck to its guns. Asked to respond to Struck's comment, foreign ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau told a news briefing: ``No, France's position has not changed.''
French ambassador to London Gerard Errera said Paris could not back NATO involvement in a war before the use of force had been put to the Security Council, let alone authorized by it.
``This would mean putting the NATO cart before the U.N. horse,'' he wrote in the British daily The Independent.
Diplomats said Berlin felt obliged to stick with Paris but it was far more concerned than its ally about the damage the deadlock was inflicting on transatlantic relations.
``The Germans are worried about the domestic impact of all this,'' one diplomat said. ``It's all very well being against war, but they don't want to be seen to be breaking the alliance after benefiting from it for so long during the Cold War.''
``Today's comments may well be a signal to France that they have held the line for as long as they could and now need to find a way out.''
The European trio's dissension has blocked planning for the deployment of Patriot air defense missiles, early warning planes and special anti-chemical and germ warfare teams to Turkey.
Turkish Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis told reporters after talks with Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington that their position had hurt the alliance's credibility but Ankara would get what it needed to protect itself anyway.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate panel that NATO was examining ways to deploy AWACS surveillance planes and missile defense assets ``in a way that would not require political approval.''
``They think they may have that legal authority without going through the political process,'' he said.
Diplomats said he may have been referring to NATO's Defense Planning Committee, of which France is not a member since it withdrew from the integrated military structure in 1966.
But unless Germany and Belgium broke ranks with France this route, briefly considered earlier this week, would not work.
-------- philippines
Philippine Army Says It May Have Killed 140 Rebels
February 13, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-philippines-rebels.html
PIKIT, Philippines (Reuters) - The Philippine military said on Thursday it may have killed nearly 140 Muslim guerrillas in three days of heavy fighting that shattered a shaky cease-fire on the southern island of Mindanao.
Four soldiers and five civilians were killed as troops pursued fleeing rebel bands in three provinces after pounding their stronghold on the outskirts of Pikit town with bombs, rockets and cannon fire, military reports said.
Soldiers rescued 10 villagers used as human shields by rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) as they tried to flee the offensive, field commanders said.
``The enemy is on the run,'' Colonel Essel Soriano told reporters. ``They have gone into splinter groups.'' He said the fighting had spread from Pikit to villages in the neighboring provinces of Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat, about 560 miles southeast of the capital Manila. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said the target of the offensive was not the MILF but the Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom gang -- composed of former guerrillas turned bandits -- which she said had sought sanctuary in a MILF camp.
``They are birds of the same feather,'' an army officer told Reuters. ``When they kidnap people, the MILF says they are not with them. But they all band together when they fight us.''
The United States has blacklisted Pentagon, which has seized several foreigners in recent years, as a terrorist group.
The MILF, with an estimated 12,000 fighters on Mindanao, is the biggest of several groups fighting for an Islamic state in the mainly Roman Catholic country. Intelligence agencies have accused it of links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
THOUSANDS OF VILLAGERS FLEE
The three-day confrontation between thousands of troops and 2,000 MILF guerrillas and allied groups has forced 32,000 people to flee their homes.
``Our count of enemy dead is 138,'' army division commander Major Generoso Senga said by telephone. ``This includes 50 bodies seen in one area, but we are still verifying the report.''
Tallies of rebel casualties were based on body count, reports from villagers and intercepted radio messages, the military said.
Fifteen soldiers have been wounded.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said the rebels suffered 34 dead. The scene of the fighting is about 185 miles east of Zamboanga City, where hundreds of U.S. troops are due to begin the second phase of exercises on February 24 aimed at improving the counter-terrorism skills of Philippine soldiers.
The clashes have shattered a fragile cease-fire in force since 1997 peace talks started in a bid to end a 31-year-old separatist conflict that has killed more than 120,000 people.
Early on Thursday, about 40 guerrillas took control of part of a major highway linking the main southern cities of Davao and Cotabato. Soldiers drove them away after an exchange of fire.
Fighting escalated after Arroyo lifted her order for a cease-fire on Wednesday.
``The rebels tried to extricate themselves from the area, but one of our attacking forces blocked them. It was a swift attack and there was fairly heavy fighting,'' Senga said.
The bloodiest clash on Thursday occurred in Lambayong town where 41 guerrillas were killed in two hours of combat, he said.
Abu Sayyaf, another militant Muslim group which also specializes in kidnapping foreigners, operates around Zamboanga. The United States has also blacklisted the group.
-------- spies
CIA Officer on the Agency's Days of Shame
George Tenet Caves In
By RAY McGOVERN,
Former CIA analyst
CounterPunch
February 13, 2003
http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern02132003.html
Gas masks, so insiders joke bitterly, were issued this week to analysts at CIA headquarters in Langley. Not because of Code Orange, but to help staunch the stench. The analysts have been holding their noses ever since CIA Director George Tenet's February 11 testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Tenet caved in to administration pressure to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Equally important, he retracted key intelligence judgments of barely four months ago on Iraq.
As I watched the TV cameras pan Tenet sitting like a potted plant behind Secretary of State Colin Powell during Powell's briefing at the UN on February 5, the subliminal message came through loud and clear: the CIA stands, or sits, four-square behind what Powell is saying.
Never mind that CIA analysts and the president's father's national security adviser, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, consider the evidence tying Iraq to al-Qaeda "scant." Never mind that a British intelligence report described by Powell as "exquisite," was based mostly on an old paper of a US graduate student.
When the cameras turned their focus away from Powell and Tenet to Powell's briefing screen, I imagined that Tenet need to hold his own nose. His testimony to the Senate committee suggests, though, that he did not wince once.
Briefing the Senators, Tenet demonstrated high tolerance for cooking intelligence to the recipe of policy-a tolerance much higher than that of his analysts, who have been taken in by the verse chiseled into the marble at the entrance to CIA Headquarters-"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.".
With no evident embarrassment, the CIA director backtracked on key judgments on Iraq that he gave the Senate committee in a letter of October 7, 2001. Those conclusions were call-them-as-you-see-them judgments in the best tradition objective CIA analysis. But, alas, they caused much reflux pain at the White House and Pentagon among those who prefer to damn the torpedoes and press full speed ahead to invade Iraq.
Tenet's October 7 letter asserted, for example, that the probability is low that Iraq would initiate an attack with weapons of mass destruction or give them to terroristsUNLESS: "Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorists action."
An inconvenient judgment, to say the least, for those pressing for precisely such an attack.
Since Tenet adduced no credible reporting warranting change in that judgment, his decision to blow smoke when questioned on this key point was astounding-and, for CIA analysts, demoralizing in the extreme. Tenet is fortunate that CIA's Inspector General is an old crony and that so many CIA analysts have mortgages and kids in college. Otherwise, the outrage among analytic ranks would spell revolution.
With his February 11 testimony Tenet wins the dubious distinction of joining the club of predecessor CIA directors who, in the words of the widely respected CIA alumnus/historian, Harold Ford, "felt they had to adjust what might be called 'pure' intelligence judgments to 'practical' political considerations, lest they lose their place at the president's table."
Who does lose? The integrity of the intelligence process is one casualty. But the real losers are the young men and women we send into battle and whose names we later chisel into a wall.
Take Vietnam, for example. In early 1967, CIA analysts, led by young analyst Sam Adams demonstrated that there were more than twice as many Vietnamese Communist forces as the US military listed on its books. General William Westmoreland's staff had reduced the numbers for political reasons.
The general was adamant, so CIA Director Helms caved. In November 1967 Helms signed and gave to President Johnson a formal National Intelligence Estimate enshrining the Army's count of between 188,000 and 208,000 for enemy strength. My CIA analyst colleagues were aghast; their best estimate was 500,000.
Had Helms told the truth, the war could have ended much sooner. But it dragged on for seven more years, filling the entire left half of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington with the names of those killed or missing in action.
I have a vivid memory of Sam Adams telling me at the time of a comment made to him by one of the most senior CIA officials. "Have we gone beyond the bounds of reasonable dishonesty?" he asked. "We" had indeed.
The question speaks volumes regarding the willingness of senior agency officials to politicize intelligence analysis at a time when it is critically necessary to speak truth to power-a time like now. Déjà vu.
Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years and is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is co-director of the Servant Leadership School, an outreach ministry in the inner city of Washington. He can be reached at: mcgovern@counterpunch.org.
-------- un
The myth of international law
Frederick Grab
February 13, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20030213-17270620.htm
On New Year's Eve, I applied Mailer's construct of the factoid to the historical existence of a Palestinian state. I would now like to use the same focus to examine a far more critical chimera, international law.
My view of international law mirrors Gandhi's famous response when asked his opinion of Western civilization: "I think it would be a very good idea." A lawyer by trade, if not by inclination, I know firsthand the best and the worst of bench and bar. And despite literature's all-too-accurate pejurations, it is a far, far better thing to suffer delay, contumely, uncertainty and even occasional injustice than to descend into self help, vigilantism and eventually barbarism. Law is all that stands between us and the Saddams, the Stalins and the Hitlers. But, we must remember, each of these tyrants had what passed for law in their own empires. And so, we must distinguish between law and the appearance of law.
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED) defines law, among other definitions, as the "body of rules...which a particular State or community recognizes as governing the actions of its subjects or members and which it may enforce by imposing penalties." Similarly, Black's Law Dictionary (BLD) renders law as "That which must be obeyed by citizens subject to sanctions or legal consequences. Law is a solemn expression of the will of the supreme power of the State." I believe that the fallacy, the factoidal nature of international law in general, and its embodiment in the U.N. Security Council, is self-evident in these definitions.
To begin with, to echo the "paranoid" cries of the John Birch era, there is no world government, and hence no "state" or "community" which is the sovereign upon whose will the so-called "law' emanating from the United Nations is predicated. This is no small matter. As U.S. citizens, each of us is entitled to have our governmental decision making based upon the structure described in the Constitution. Nowhere in that magnificent document is provision made for the relegation of authority to foreign governments for matters such as war-making, movement of armed forces, conduct of diplomacy, etc, much less to a hodgepodge assembly of such governments thrown together a little over 50 years ago. As U.S. citizens, we have the constitutional right to have our president and Congress conduct our business in conformity with our best interests, regardless of what an aggregate of other states think in pursuit of their own.
There is no true political process within the United Nations. We, as U.S. citizens, have no vote in the General Assembly or the Security Council. Somehow, we are supposed to think of the United Nations as a "council of nations." But as the map of the world changed in the 1960's, as the engine of imperialism came crashing to a halt, the old colonies rose up in anger and were wooed , first by the Soviets and then by radical Islam. Now, we, the United States, have become the victims of a Three Stooges prank. The real villains, the true colonialists -Germany, France, Russia (but with less ability) - worn out from years of idiotic warfare on their own soil, fearful of Islamic attack at home and looking at bad economic numbers, whistle like Moe and Larry as they put a lit stick of dynamite in Curly's back pocket. And guess who Curly is.
So, now for a definition of international law: 1. The customary law which determines the rights and regulates the intercourse of independent nations in peace and war. (BLD) 2. A body of rules established by custom or treaty and agreed as binding in the relations between one nation and another. (SOED) It is clear that the Security Council and its resolutions have none of the characteristics that would give rise to the dignity of international law. For one thing, Saddam Hussein has been free to disregard resolution after resolution for 12 years without the imposition of meaningful sanctions or penalties, the underlying requirement for any system to qualify as law in the first place. He's been selling his oil and getting the arms and other supplies he needs to and from nations within the greater community of nations. Next, let's face it, the United States or China will never be deterred by a U.N. resolution. If the Security Council declares that a war with Iraq or an invasion or Taiwan is a violation of international law, what is the result? And then there's North Korea. Why hasn't the Security Council made Kim Jong-il stop his nasty little extortion scheme? Simple: there is no provision in the U.N. charter for enforcement of anything like this.
In short friends, the Birchers were right. The United Nations is a debating society. It was set up to prevent conflagrations between superpowers: The United States, the USSR, Great Britain, France, China and eventually Germany and Japan after World War II. It was never meant to be a world legislature, and certainly not in a world with today's demographics. To think otherwise would be like allowing a referendum of European nations to decide the outcome of World War II on December 7, 1941. Talk about infamy.
Frederick Grab is a former California deputy attorney general.
-------- us
Air strategy for war 'timid'
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030213-69206024.htm
The Bush administration's desire to spare dual military-civilian targets in Iraq has produced an air war plan that is too timid and does not properly prepare the battle space for ground troops, according to interviews with military officers.
But a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which will run the operation, called the war plan "comprehensive, modern and flexible."
The officers said the plan, as of a few weeks ago, would largely spare infrastructure targets, such as bridges, and most, if not all, telephone communications.
The officers said the plan deviates in significant ways from the 1991 38-day air campaign during Operation Desert Storm, in which telephone communications, power systems and bridges were targeted from the first day to isolate Saddam Hussein and his military forces.
The reason for the change: The Bush administration wants to spare hardships to Iraqi civilians and to show that the real target of the bombing campaign is Saddam.
It hopes that Iraqi citizens, in return, accept U.S. military rule during an interim period leading to the establishment of a democratic government. Bush officials also want, to the extent possible, to avoid civilian casualties.
But not all senior Air Force officers agree with the limited target list approved by Gen. Tommy Franks, chief of the Central Command, who will direct the air war and the land invasion.
The officers, who have been briefed informally in recent weeks about the target list, say it risks not creating sufficient chaos within the Iraqi Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard, Saddam's most loyal units.
These officers said they were told that the plan spares most or all of the country's bridges, including those in Baghdad, and leaves the lights on in the capital city.
If this strategy becomes part of the final plan, it means the Iraq bombing campaign will be similar to the air war that began in Afghanistan in October 2001. There, Gen. Franks, who commanded the effort, also spared bridges and electrical power systems in the capital, Kabul, as a way to ease rebuilding efforts once the Taliban regime was ousted.
But Air Force officers counter that Iraq is a far tougher foe, with a 350,000-troop army that has been trained against the tactics the United States used in the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
"Air Force senior officers believe air power is being used in such a timid way it is unnecessarily exposing ground troops," said one officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He named several generals who do not like the plan but asked that their names not be disclosed.
"There are so many political restrictions placed on the air-plan part of this they should just march the troops and let air power help ground troops wherever they can," the officer said.
In Desert Storm, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, then the head of the U.S. Central Command, gave Air Force planners wide latitude in picking targets for 38 days of bombing that paved the way for a 100-hour ground war to liberate Kuwait.
But in this plan, Gen. Franks and his staff are taking a more active role in picking targets. "He is micromanaging at a level that is mind-boggling," said another officer on the condition of anonymity.
Jim Wilkinson, director of strategic communications at Central Command, responded by saying, "We don't discuss plan specifics for reasons of operational security. However, I can tell you the plan is comprehensive, modern and flexible, and Gen. Franks continues to work closely with all the services."
A senior military official added: "Sometimes service preferences become more important to some than the overall military plan."
Some analysts say Gen. Franks simply has a different view of air power than some Air Force officers.
"Franks doesn't look at air power as dominant as it can be, as Schwarzkopf did," says retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney. "If you look at Desert Storm, the Air Force was the supported service and the Army was in the supporting role. Schwarzkopf - that didn't bother him."
Gen. McInerney said he is not against a restricted target list as long as it does not impose hardships on the Army and Marine Corps ground troops.
Whenever disputes on targeting come up, officers are reminded of the Vietnam War, wherein President Johnson so micromanaged the air campaign that he picked individual targets from the Oval Office.
The current war plan calls for less than 10 days of air strikes before a ground force of 60,000 to 80,000 invades Iraq from Kuwait and Turkey. One of the air campaign's first goals is to take out what is left of Iraq's integrated air defense system and to bomb troops loyal to Saddam.
"It is a war of liberation versus an invasion," Gen. McInerney said. "So it will be different. ... I don't have as big a problem with that as some would. I think the important point is to separate Saddam from the people."
He said leaving electrical power and phone lines in place would be a signal to Iraqi civilians that the U.S. goal is to liberate them from Saddam's harsh rule, not to destroy the country.
"We're not going to take out classical targets," he said, adding that Washington must explain to the Iraqi people during the course of the war why it has left some targets alone.
Gen. McInerney said the message should be: "You're not the target. It's Saddam."
----
Iraqi human rights are not the issue
Washington Times
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
February 13, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20030213-95764628.htm#4
Accosting Saddam Hussein's human rights record, as did Kathryn Cameron Porter ("Living and dying in despair," Op-Ed, Tuesday), is like shooting fish in a barrel: Of course his record is abysmal.
However, the great hypocrisy here is that this is the same evil, sadistic Saddam Hussein whom the United States (and many in the present administration) not only counted as our ally in the 1980s but actively supported with more than $1 billion worth of technology used toward his chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
This upcoming war has little to do with human rights. If that's what this nation is concerned about, we would have stepped in to save the millions who died in the genocides of Rwanda and Cambodia, instead of turning the other way.
By the way, perhaps Miss Porter can explain how human rights are served by plans to fire some 800 cruise missiles on a city the size of Los Angeles?
TERRENCE FAGAN
Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.
-------- propaganda wars
Hysteria runs riot; networks fuel the fear
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030213-11870357.htm
Where is our citizen war footing?
Sixty years ago, enterprising and patriotic Americans saved tinfoil and bacon grease to help defeat Hitler during World War II, heeding the old Office of War Information motto, "Use it up. Wear it out. Make it last."
Some pockets of panic in California did develop immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7, 1941. However, when Japanese balloon bombs drifted near the West Coast or Nazi U-boats were spotted off New Jersey, Americans learned how to extinguish an incendiary bomb or spot the silhouettes of enemy submarines.
They were not making a run on the local supplies of bottled water and duct tape in a hysteria somewhere between snowstorm panic and the last shopping day before Christmas.
But then, the good folks on the home front were not pummeled by a 24-hour media with time to fill.
"Are you ready?" asked ABC News yesterday, trotting out a "Good Morning America" home-improvement editor to demonstrate how to turn a laundry room into a fallout shelter with duct tape and plastic dropcloths.
"Duct tape sales rise amid terror fears," noted CNN.
MSNBC offered mixed messages, saying that "jittery Americans were stocking up for disaster" while offering an online poll that said 71 percent of the respondents were "doing nothing" to ready themselves for terrorist attacks.
Some were already weary of the fear-mongering.
"I'm not afraid of these jerks," said one Westwood One Radio Network host yesterday. His listeners concurred, many saying they would not join the race to hoard duct tape.
Others used the stuff to shore up their agendas.
"Washington is urging people to prepare for chemical attack by purchasing duct tape, while it fails to provide fire departments with funds for protective suits or bioterror detectors," a New York Times editorial said yesterday.
Though the Federal Emergency Management Agency revamped its "Are You Ready?" citizen-preparedness guide after the September 11 attacks, the media pounced upon the same information rereleased Friday as "breaking news."
TV reports were immediately emblazoned with orange "high alert" banners and rife with talk about poison gas, microbes and imminent threats. Even pet owners were advised to pack an emergency kit for their dogs, complete with "bottled water and food supply."
Syracuse University broadcast analyst Robert Thompson says news organizations have slipped into the instant "bunker mentality" they adopt during bad weather.
"Americans are subjected to split-screen broadcasts which show the terrorist alert symbol on one side and weather and fashion on the other," Mr. Thompson said yesterday. "What do they focus on? Many buy into fearful hype."
Indeed, some news coverage has centered on consumer panic and the sudden appearance of "homeland security" sections in local hardware stores.
"The trouble is, if we connect the dots between some of the really serious news events - the possible dissolution of NATO or divisiveness within the United Nations - then that gets scary," Mr. Thompson said.
"We have reached a new era which requires us to go on living life knowing the 'big event' may be just around the corner," he said. "That's what people do in other countries."
News coverage in dire national moments is still a work in progress, however.
"There is a massive difference between a crisis and a catastrophe, and in the case of a bioterror attack, the effect of media coverage on public perception could be the deciding factor between the two," notes Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio Television News Directors Association.
The group issued its own practical guidelines on bioterrorism, terrorism and war coverage two months ago, urging members to "present the facts as clearly, objectively and dispassionately as possible."
Charles Figley, a Florida State University trauma psychologist who has studied media disaster coverage for two decades, faults federal offices for issuing guidelines open to interpretation by both the media and the public.
"Ideally, you want the vast majority of people to be on alert, but not dramatically alter their daily routines," Mr. Figley said yesterday. "People should already have an emergency plan in place anyway for bad weather, industrial accidents or the like."
Changing disaster scenarios requires flexibility, he said.
"We learned there's no magic bullet, no one way to modulate public information to prompt people to do the right thing, at the right time," Mr. Figley said. "But if unsubstantiated warnings go out, people don't pay attention after a while."
----
Arabs ignore bin Laden war call
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030213-23201618.htm
Arab and other Muslim governments yesterday brushed aside a new tape by Osama bin Laden calling for a regionwide Islamic war against the West, and Saddam Hussein's regime said the United States was unfairly using the tape to link Iraq to bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network.
Few Middle East governments offered any official response to the new 16-minute bin Laden tape, broadcast Tuesday on the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network and considered authentic by U.S. intelligence officials.
In the call to arms, bin Laden said Muslims should rise against any U.S.-led military strike on Iraq and "liberate renegade ruling regimes" in Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Saudi Interior Minister Nayef Ibn Abdul-Aziz said his agency had picked up no hints of the terrorist strikes promised in the bin Laden message. And a leading member of the Iraqi Shi'ite opposition to Saddam was one of many in the Arab world who accused bin Laden of trying to capitalize on Iraq's situation to boost his own organization.
"There is a contradiction in bin Laden's speech," Mohammed Hariri, head of the Lebanese branch of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, told the Reuters news agency.
"He is calling for war while the Iraqi people are in a crisis and need peace."
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told reporters in Kuala Lumpur that there was no justification for linking the standoff in Iraq to any larger Muslim struggle.
"It's a stupid idea. We want to fight a holy war if we can win. If we go in just to be killed, that's not [holy war]," Mr. Mahathir said.
In Baghdad, Iraqi officials sharply challenged Bush administration contentions that the new tape proved Saddam and bin Laden were cooperating in a global campaign of terror.
"America is working on dragging the world toward a great catastrophe by insisting on launching an unjust aggression on Iraq," Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told the official Iraqi News Agency.
Saddam has consistently denied any collaboration with al Qaeda, but Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in his presentation at the United Nations earlier this month, detailed some of the links established by U.S. and foreign intelligence sources.
A Saudi lawyer working in the United States said yesterday that the bin Laden message was proving less inflammatory in the Middle East than what he called the U.S. "spin" suggesting that the recording proved an Iraq-al Qaeda link.
"If you listen to the tape in Arabic, you can hear bin Laden calling Saddam an infidel," said the lawyer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Many of the people I talk to back home say it is outrageous that the U.S. is using the tape to justify a war."
The attorney said the deep unpopularity of a potential U.S.-led war against Baghdad has left many in Saudi Arabia more sympathetic to bin Laden's call to fight the "crusaders."
"The way Washington is spinning the tape has left many people convinced that the United States wants a war," he said.
The bin Laden message lends itself to diverse interpretations, and Bush administration officials yesterday stood by their contention that the Saudi-born terrorist leader has offered to work with Saddam against the West.
Bin Laden on the tape brands Saddam a "socialist" and "infidel" whose government must be overthrown, but in the next breath says "honest Muslims" should ally with Iraq for now in the greater struggle against the United States and Israel.
"Under these circumstances, there will be no harm if the interests of Muslims converge with the interests of socialists in the fight against the crusaders, despite our belief in the infidelity of the socialists," he concludes.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters, "If that is not an unholy partnership, I have not heard of one. This is the nightmare that people have warned about - the linking up of Iraq with al Qaeda."
Beyond its murky message, several aspects of the tape's release remained hazy yesterday.
Mr. Powell first disclosed the tape's contents at a Senate hearing Tuesday morning, discussing it in detail hours before Al Jazeera even confirmed it was going to broadcast the message.
U.S. officials refused to say how Mr. Powell had received a copy of the message.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, in an interview Wednesday evening on Al Jazeera, said, "We're a government. We do collect information. We talk to a lot of people. We want to know things."
Administration officials also were trumpeting excerpts from the message even though they had warned U.S. media outlets against running raw, unedited messages from bin Laden.
In a meeting with television executives a month after the September 11 attacks, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had cautioned that the tapes were not only propaganda for a proven terrorist, but also could include coded messages from bin Laden to al Qaeda operatives worldwide.
CNN and MSNBC decided to air excerpts of the latest audiotape after it was reviewed by senior executives, but Fox News Channel broadcast a full English translation as the tape was being released.
Fox News anchor Shepard Smith said on the air that since Mr. Powell already had discussed the contents of the message being heard on Al Jazeera, "it would not be irresponsible, so to speak, to take it live to air, as was already happening throughout the Arab world."
----
Bin Laden-Hussein Link Hazy
U.S. Officials Qualify Statements on Possible Terrorist Ties
By Dana Priest and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 13, 2003; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A134-2003Feb12.html
In the past two days, administration officials have appeared to qualify their case that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have paired up to threaten the United States, a key argument for going to war against Iraq.
CIA Director George J. Tenet twice told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that Abu Musab Zarqawi, an al Qaeda associate who last year sought medical care in Baghdad and then disappeared, is in the Iraqi capital. But after the hearing, intelligence officials said they did not know where Zarqawi was because he moves around a lot.
On Tuesday, Tenet said at another hearing that Zarqawi was not "under the control" of Hussein. Yesterday, he added that "it's inconceivable" that Zarqawi and two dozen Egyptian Islamic Jihad associates "are sitting there without the Iraqi intelligence service's knowledge of the fact that there is a safe haven being provided." The CIA director said Zarqawi took money from bin Laden, but he later said Zarqawi and his network were "independent."
Under questioning by Democratic senators about the strength of the link between al Qaeda and Iraq, Tenet said Zarqawi was "on my list of top 30 individuals" the CIA is targeting, a reference to a presidential directive the CIA has been given to kill these individuals.
On the matter of a new tape of bin Laden broadcast by the al-Jazeera network -- and considered authentic by U.S. officials -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Tuesday the tape showed the al Qaeda leader "is in partnership with Iraq." But intelligence analysts inside and outside the government said that bin Laden went out of his way in the recording to show his contempt for Hussein and his Baath Party regime, whom he referred to as "infidels" and one of several "infidel regimes" that should be aided not for themselves but for the "sake of Allah."
Tenet said yesterday that the tape "is unprecedented in terms of the way he expresses solidarity with Baghdad." But he added, "whether he is aligning himself with the Iraqi government, as it appears, or he is speaking to the Iraqi people . . . I need a little more time to do a little bit more work on that."
On the tape, bin Laden discussed the U.S. preparations for a possible coalition attack on Iraq and encouraged Iraqis to take up arms against what he called "crusaders" who were going to occupy Baghdad "to rob the wealth of Muslims and to appoint over you an agent government that follows Washington and Tel Aviv . . . in preparation for the founding of the greater Israel."
The "crusaders," bin Laden said, are targeting "Islam, irrespective of whether the Baath Party and Saddam were deposed or not."
Last week, Powell used sensitive intercepts to show the U.N. Security Council that Iraq was hiding chemical and biological weapons. But in two cases, senior administration officials said yesterday, they did not know what military items were discussed in the intercepts.
One tape of an intercepted message had two senior officers of Hussein's elite Republic Guard discussing a "modified vehicle" with IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei coming for an inspection. One officer asks what to do if ElBaradei sees it, and the other worries that it had not been evacuated from the facility along with everything else.
A senior administration official familiar with the intelligence said CIA analysts do not know what vehicle is being discussed. But because it came from a factory where weapons were built, he said, "it would be gullible to think something else" other than a proscribed weapon was involved. The official said the conclusion was it is illegal, "otherwise they would have explained it."
In another taped radio transmission, two Republican Guard officers talk about destroying a message that mentions "the possibility there are forbidden ammo" at a site where the message was sent. The original message was to "clean out all the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there." The radio order was to destroy that previous message.
Powell, in presenting this intercept, said the only reason to destroy the message was so "they can claim that nothing was there," not even the original message.
A senior official said yesterday that U.S. intelligence does not know whether there was "forbidden ammo" at the site where the radio message was received. The tape recording was included in Powell's presentation to show that there was concern such ammo could turn up.
----
U.S. Tries E-Mail to Charm Iraqis
By Michelle Delio
Wired
Feb. 13, 2003 PT
http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,57648,00.html
A campaign to reach out and touch the Iraqi people through e-mail apparently hasn't been as successful as the United States had hoped, because the Iraqi government censors all e-mail coming into the country.
Over the past month, the U.S. military has periodically sent e-mail to Iraqi military and government officials urging them to protect their families by helping U.N. inspectors and turning away from Saddam Hussein.
U.S. government officials won't comment on the campaign, but according to sources in Iraq and Iraqis living in the United States, each time the e-mails are sent, Internet access all over Iraq soon suffers a "service outage." Service resumes after the U.S. military missives have been purged from inboxes.
The e-mails, written in Arabic with the subject line "Important Information," are a new twist on the standard psychological war games conducted by U.S. special operations teams.
Such messages warning citizens of targeted countries about impending military actions are typically disseminated by way of leaflets or recordings broadcast from planes flying over the target country.
"This is the first acknowledged use of e-mail as part of an offensive information operation," said William Knowles, senior analyst with C4I.org, a security and intelligence site. "I suspect it's been used in the past in countries whose infrastructure included the Internet.
"While it's a neat tool, there's only so many times it can be used before the Iraqi leadership considers it as much of a nuisance as the Nigerian 419 scam mail," Knowles added.
The most recent e-mails, sent in early February, urge Iraqis to disobey any orders they may receive to deploy chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, and encourage them to identify instead the locations of such weapons to inspectors or to destroy the weapons.
Officially, e-mail and Net connectivity in Iraq is only available through the government-owned, heavily censored uruklink.net service.
Iraqi scholars, scientists and government officials pay $50 a year for e-mail subscriptions with uruklink, which in theory allows them private access to the Net and e-mail communications through their home or work computers.
The rest of the population gets online at one of about three dozen Internet centers across the country.
But according to sources who have lived in or who have family living in Iraq, obtaining Internet access in Iraq isn't difficult. All you need is a phone line, a government ID card and cash.
"It's the cash that gets in the way of people getting e-mail service. And the fact that Iraq is not a very computer literate land," wrote Salam, a blogger who claims to live in Baghdad.
Web-based e-mail accounts from U.S. providers are officially prohibited by U.N. sanctions, but Iraqis seem to have no problem signing up for Yahoo and Hotmail accounts.
However one connects, e-mail is neither private nor reliable in Iraq. Users expect the service to go down frequently, and assume that Iraqi officials are reading at least some of their e-mail.
According to Salam and other sources, within 15 minutes of the e-mails from the U.S. military arriving in inboxes, uruklink "went down while the contents of mailboxes were deleted."
"Everyone wants to see what was that e-mail like," Salam wrote in a recent blog entry. "Me thinks the entire Internet service will be axed soon."
Iraqis living in the United States also fear that Internet service might be shut off in Iraq soon. They said it has been particularly difficult to reach their families over the last week by e-mail.
Sharar Pachachi, an Iraqi living in New York, attempts to keep in touch with his sisters in Iraq by e-mail, but said that out of a dozen e-mails, only two or three typically get through.
"Lately it is even worse," he said. "I cannot say much to my sisters by e-mail, as I know it will be read by other eyes, but at least I can know they are alive and as well as God wills. But this week, I get no replies to any e-mails."
Iraq now blocks virtually all e-mail originating from U.S. Internet addresses. Some Iraqi immigrants sign up with non-U.S. ISPs to get around the policy.
Iraq also blocks access to vast portions of the Web using content-filtering software from 8e6 Technologies, an American company. The company has repeatedly denied selling the software to Iraq, but reporters and Iraqis said the Access Denied message that pops up on screens when they attempt to connect with forbidden websites contains a reference to 8e6 Technologies.
Iraq began offering its citizens access to the Internet three years ago. Before that, Iraqi newspapers described the Internet as "the end of civilizations, cultures, interests and ethics," and officials claimed the United States uses the Internet "to dominate the world by entering into every household," according to an Associated Press translation of an editorial in the Iraqi government newspaper Al-Jumhuriya.
Nevertheless, the Iraqi government wired the country's larger cities with high-speed fiber optic cable several years ago.
At Iraqi Internet centers, sending and receiving e-mail costs about 15 cents per message; an hour of Web browsing costs $1. The average Iraqi's salary is about $120 a month.
Despite sanctions prohibiting their import, personal computers are widely available in Iraq. A decent computer costs about $500.
----
U.S. forces drop propaganda bombs on Iraq
2/13/2003
By Donna Leinwand,
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-02-12-psyops_usat_x.htm
Aboard the USS Constellation in the Persian Gulf, cluster bombs primed inside this aircraft carrier and loaded onto jets explode every few days over southern Iraq. But these bombs release a hail of paper leaflets to remind Iraqis the first front of a war is underway.
The fliers warn Iraqis not to attempt to use biological or chemical weapons, not to help Iraqis fleeing the country and to be wary of their own leaders, who might poison the environment during combat.
The leaflets are the most visible part of a psychological battle meant to pave the way for a possible military operation to remove Iraq's leadership. Psychological operations seek to influence thinking and behavior with subtle and sometimes deceptive information.
Modern "psyops," as they are called in the military, use leaflets, radio and television broadcasts, recordings, face-to-face meetings, e-mails and cell phone calls. The goal is to persuade enemy soldiers, leaders and civilians to surrender or at least remain neutral during a war.
During the past month, the Pentagon has intensified its leaflet campaign. Coalition aircraft made 11 leaflet drops in January. That's double the number in the last three months of 2002. This month, there have been five drops.
New messages that will be dropped, including one with a poorly drawn caricature of Saddam Hussein holding a map of Iraq, warn Iraqis in Arabic that helping escaping Iraqi soldiers or taking them into their homes will "expose yourselves and your people and your businesses to danger. If you see escaping Iraqis, notify allied forces. Do not allow Saddam's regime to escape justice."
A flier depicting an Iraqi family warns that Saddam will attempt to poison the environment by dumping oil and will ruin Iraqi families' livelihood.
On a psyops mission acknowledged by the Pentagon's Central Command in Tampa, aircraft dropped 840,000 leaflets Jan. 31. A day earlier, aircraft dropped 480,000 informational leaflets. U.S. pilots have dropped leaflets within 70 miles of Baghdad, the Pentagon says. The drops have covered most of southern Iraq and the far outskirts of Baghdad.
"We've dropped a significant number of leaflets. The messages will change over time," says Rear Adm. Barry Costello, who runs the USS Constellation battle group in the Persian Gulf. Pilots fly into southern Iraq and drop retrofitted Vietnam-era cluster bombs in which the bomblets have been replaced by fiberglass canisters designed to come apart and spew the paper over wide areas.
The U.S. military is expected to drop new leaflets soon warning that anyone who uses chemical or biological weapons will face dire consequences.
The U.S. military also conducts daily radio broadcasts in Arabic from 6 to 11 p.m. on five frequencies. The radio broadcasts discuss a United Nations resolution requiring Iraq to end its banned weapons programs. They criticize Saddam Hussein's policies and explain the U.S. role in the region.
A senior spokesman at Central Command says the aim is to expose Iraqi civilians to the truth and to prepare them for war. The spokesman says the intent is to limit harm to Iraqi civilians.
Psyops officers say it is U.S. policy to be truthful in their literature, broadcasts and public advisories.
"We only deal in the truth," says Ben Abel, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C. "We don't lie. The truth in the end is definitely more powerful than any lie, especially when the people we're targeting have only had lies directed toward them."
But psyops specialists admit they spin information to influence the audience to buy the U.S. version of the truth. In one radio broadcast, for example, Saddam is compared to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Another explains the U.N.'s oil-for-food program, which allows Iraq to sell its oil to purchase food and essential goods. "Saddam has exploited the oil-for-food program to illegally buy weapons and materials intended to produce nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and for lavish gifts for his elite regime members," a radio broadcast says.
U.S. psyops officials draw a distinction between the information campaigns and disinformation designed to fool enemy troops about U.S. intentions.
Disinformation or deceptive psyops tactics may be used to disguise an upcoming military attack. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, U.S. military helicopters equipped with huge speakers flew over the Iraqi front lines broadcasting recordings of an onslaught of tanks. The military wanted to trick enemy soldiers into believing an armored assault was about to roll over them. Real forces approached from another direction.
The military also uses the recordings during tank assaults as "force multipliers," sound effects to make the enemy think the forces are larger than they actually are.
"Harassment missions" include broadcasts from helicopters to keep enemy soldiers awake and edgy. "Dogs barking, babies crying, women screaming at the top of their lungs, it's very disturbing," Abel says. "People become less effective."
During the Gulf War, many Iraqi soldiers were holding coalition leaflets when they surrendered. Prisoners revealed during debriefings that the leaflets worked, particularly on the least disciplined Iraqi divisions, says Lani Kass, a professor of military strategy at the National War College in Washington.
"The leaflets were reinforced daily by action," Kass says. "We would drop leaflets saying, 'If you don't surrender, we will bomb your position tomorrow.' The next day, we would bomb that position. It's not just what you say, but the action you take."
Sometimes it's hard to know whether a psyops campaign works. "It is impossible to measure," Kass says. "You never know if a certain behavior was elicited by something you told them to do or they did it anyway."
Experts say that in a confrontation with Iraq, the information war will be critical for ensuring stability in the region afterward.
"Winning the immediate military victory doesn't mean squat unless you win the peace afterwards," says Dan Kuehl, a professor who specializes in psychological operations at the National Defense University in Washington. "Whenever a conflict is done, you don't want to be perceived by the populace as the conquering aggressors, the tyrants. You want to be perceived as the Americans and British were perceived after World War II by the Germans and the Japanese, who turned around a few years later to become allies."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
'Supersnoop' scheme blocked pending review
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030213-11724492.htm
Key lawmakers have agreed to block funding for the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project until Congress can review the technology's effect on privacy and civil liberties.
The provision was secured yesterday in a massive spending bill hammered out by House and Senate negotiators and cannot be amended when the bill comes up for final votes.
The Total Information Awareness system, or TIA, headed by retired Vice Adm. John Poindexter, is a data-mining program that would provide access to public and private records, such as travel and bank documents and cell phone usage particulars, to identify terrorists.
Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat and sponsor of the amendment blocking the program, said it is the most far-reaching government surveillance plan in American history.
"TIA crosses the line with respect to the balance people want to see struck. In a sense, this is a very powerful message that with a reach like this one, Congress has drawn a line in the sand and said it will not go forward unchecked," Mr. Wyden said.
The administration has 90 days after the bill is enacted to submit a report to Congress on the internal workings of the program or lose funding for it. The program was slated to receive $10 million this year and $20 million next year.
The measure was modified to permit ongoing intelligence gathering on non-U.S. citizens only, and Congress must approve all research and technology used in it.
"None of this has changed the objective I had from the beginning, which was to prevent snooping against law-abiding Americans on American soil," Mr. Wyden said.
In an effort to head off criticism, the Pentagon said last week that it was creating internal and external advisory boards to monitor the program to ensure that there were no privacy concerns or violations.
A coalition of civil liberties groups on the political right and left, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Eagle Forum, have fought to close the TIA.
Katie Corrigan, ACLU legislative counsel, said the program would "place millions of innocent Americans under government scrutiny in an epidemic of privacy invasions."
Attaching the measure to the fast-moving spending bill forced Congress to face the issue and judge the program in a timely manner, said Lori Waters at the Eagle Forum.
"We are very pleased that Congress has taken a step to put the brakes on TIA until they further investigate this. I couldn't find one member willing to jump up and down and say let [the Department of Defense] do whatever they want," she said.
But Paul Rosenzweig and Michael Scardaville, both of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, say the technology would serve as an important tool in the war against terrorism and should not be "strangled" by Congress.
"The threat of another horrific attack is simply too grave to justify prematurely cutting off such a promising anti-terrorism tool as TIA," Mr. Rosenzweig, senior legal research fellow, and Mr. Scardaville, homeland security policy analyst, wrote in a Feb. 5 legal memorandum.
Rejecting the technology would be premature, and Congress, instead, should legislate safeguards against intrusions on civil liberty, they said.
"The TIA program is no panacea. There is no guarantee that it will prevent further terrorist attacks against America. But neither is it an Orwellian monster whose construction will irretrievably alter the landscape of American liberty and freedom," they wrote.
-------- homeland security
Anti-aircraft missiles deployed to bases, around D.C.
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030213-78717040.htm
The Pentagon has deployed air defense missiles around Washington as the CIA warned yesterday that Osama bin Laden's latest audio message could presage a major attack.
Defense officials said vehicle-mounted Avenger anti-aircraft missiles were deployed after the Bush administration elevated the national terrorism alert last week.
"As we increase force protection concerns, we are increasing air defense concerns in a similar way," a defense official said. "And that means a much more robust air defense package in the national capital area."
The vehicles have been moved to several military bases and locations around the city, including near the Pentagon.
The Avenger is a jeep-mounted version of the shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missile. The deployment is a sign that U.S. security officials anticipate that a future al Qaeda terrorist attack could involve hijacked airliners or other aircraft.
CIA Director George J. Tenet told Congress yesterday that a major al Qaeda attack could be carried out in the United States or the Middle East as early as this week.
Mr. Tenet said during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that "multiple sources" of intelligence reported that al Qaeda is planning an attack on the United States or the Arabian Peninsula.
"It points to plots timed to occur as early as the end of the hajj, which occurs late this week, and it points to plots that could include the use of radiological dispersion devices as well as poisons and chemicals," Mr. Tenet said. The hajj is the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
The Arabic language Al Jazeera satellite television network broadcast an audio message it said was from bin Laden.
Mr. Tenet said the tape could signal that an attack is imminent. Earlier bin Laden messages were followed by terror attacks in October and November, he said.
"I believe the tape represents an exhortation to his followers," Mr. Tenet said. "I believe he is trying to raise their confidence and we know from previous tapes that previous tapes occurred roughly prior to previous attacks that have occurred, so the surface is very concerning to us."
This is the second time air defense missiles have been deployed. The last time Avengers were posted around the city was September, when the national terrorism alert also was raised.
The Pentagon said in a statement at the time of the first Avenger deployments that the missiles were not fielded in response to any specific threat.
This time, however, defense officials said the missile deployments are related to the danger of a major terrorist attack.
The missiles are linked to warning radar used by the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, in Colorado, which tracks aircraft in and around the United States.
Officials did not say how many of the Avengers were deployed or to what locations.
The Pentagon last weekend ordered all military forces to increase their security status. The threat level for military forces was raised over the weekend from a status known as "force protection condition alpha" to "bravo," the next highest level, a defense official said.
Some defense facilities are on an even higher alert status as a result of terrorist threats.
The increase coincided with the raising of the national terrorism alert status Friday.
The U.S. Northern Command also has stepped up combat air patrols over major cities, including Washington. The patrols include F-16 jets from Andrews Air Force Base that are patrolling the skies over Washington. Helicopters also are being used in security patrols.
Other nations were doing the same yesterday, with the British government deploying 1,500 police and troops with armored vehicles around London Heathrow Airport. The Ministry of Defense did not deny reports that jets were guarding the skies over London.
The government had considered closing Heathrow in response to security concerns but rejected the plan for fear of inflicting "catastrophic" damage on the economy, the London Daily Telegraph said in today's editions.
Asked about increased domestic defenses in the United States, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that taking steps to defend against attack is "the prudent thing to do."
"To the extent those steps are described in great detail, it advantages nobody other than the terrorists," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon.
Mr. Tenet repeated earlier warnings about an impending attack he said was based on intelligence from multiple sources close to the al Qaeda terrorist network.
Mr. Tenet said the intelligence is not "idle chatter" and is "the most specific we have seen."
----
Some Pilots Oppose Gun Rules
Screening Intrusive, Security Group Says
By Keith L. Alexander
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 13, 2003; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64766-2003Feb12?language=printer
An airline pilots group said yesterday that the federal agency in charge of air security is setting unacceptable requirements for pilots to qualify to carry guns during flights.
In a message to its members, the Airline Pilots' Security Alliance said the requirements proposed by the Transportation Security Administration, including exhaustive psychological evaluations, were "intrusive" and "obscene." The group said the TSA wants each pilot who wants to carry a gun to submit to a wide-ranging background investigation, including interviews with neighbors, relatives, friends and co-workers, an interview with a TSA psychiatrist, a second government psychological exam and a medical evaluation.
The pilots said that many of the requirements were redundant. The Federal Aviation Administration conducts physical and psychological exams of pilots every six months.
"They're requiring us to jump through so many hoops so that we can't meet the requirements," said Tracy W. Price, a spokesman for the pilots group.
TSA spokesman Robert Johnson said the background-check requirements are similar to those that other federal law enforcement officers, including air marshals, undergo. "It's reasonable to expect that putting a firearm in an aircraft environment would include some kind of prior evaluation," Johnson said. "The only limiting factor to this program is funding."
The TSA has set aside $500,000 to train an initial group of 50 pilots and the agency requested $25 million in its fiscal 2004 budget. Johnson said the TSA is designing a training program that will "attempt to reduce as much as possible any liability issues that may arise."
Congress voted last year to allow the training of pilots to carry firearms on flights. The program calls for volunteer pilots to become "federal flight deck officers." The TSA has until Feb. 25 to implement its firearm-training program and finalize its requirements.
Not all pilots oppose the TSA rules. John Mazor, a spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association, the union that represents 66,000 pilots, said his members support stringent investigations. He said the union lobbied for extensive background checks and screening of its members.
"I'm somewhat surprised at this announcement from the group," Mazor said. "There was no secret that there would be these kind of requirements."
Mazor said Price's group wanted to arm pilots faster than the government and the union thought was feasible.
Price said pilots should have been armed immediately after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The screening process should require only proof that the pilot is employed and does not have a criminal background, he said.
Price's group objected to some of the language in a draft of the TSA's guidelines for arming the pilots. According to the draft provided to The Washington Post by the group, pilots had to "have the requisite mental, psychological and cognitive abilities as well as the discipline and judgment" to possess the firearms. The pilots also must "conduct themselves with maximum regard for the safety and security of the traveling public, crew" and federal air marshals.
"Our position is if you don't have those traits in abundance already, you have no business being an airline pilot," Price said.
----
Lack of Attack Readiness Laid to Financing Delay by U.S.
February 13, 2003
New York Times
By PHILIP SHENON
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/politics/13HOME.html
WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 - Many state and local governments say they are unprepared to deal with a major terrorist attack because of Washington's delay in providing them with billions of dollars in emergency-response aid that was promised shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The promised aid - a $3.5 billion package that President Bush announced more than a year ago, most of it intended to provide equipment and training to local police and fire departments - has been tied up on Capitol Hill since fall, a victim of partisan squabbles and Congress's failure to complete a 2003 budget.
While a budget that includes something close to the $3.5 billion was finally approved today by Congressional negotiators, it will take months for most of the money to reach state and local governments.
Because of the delay, many large police and fire departments that expected to receive the extra federal aid last year say they have been forced to postpone or cancel the purchase of protective suits, biochemical detectors and communications equipment that would be used to respond to an attack that included weapons of mass destruction.
Some cities say they have delayed counterterrorism training sessions for police officers and firefighters.
"The bottom line for us is that we are no better off than we were on Sept. 11, that we're not ready for a terrorist strike," said Mayor John DeStefano Jr. of New Haven, where only about 10 percent of the city's 380 firefighters have received the protective equipment and specialized training needed to deal with a chemical or biological attack.
The concerns of state and local governments have grown keener since Friday, when the Bush administration raised the national terrorism alert to "high," warning that Al Qaeda might try to use chemical or biological weapons against American targets.
In smaller cities and suburban areas, local government leaders say they feel vulnerable as they learn of the much-strengthened precautions being taken in Washington, where antiaircraft missiles have been deployed, and a few other major cities.
Chief R. Gil Kerlikowske of the Seattle Police Department said he had to delay buying several protective suits that could be used to save the lives of officers called to respond to the release of the deadliest nerve gas or biological weapons; each suit costs up to $25,000.
"We're incredibly concerned about getting this money from Washington," Chief Kerlikowske said.
Missouri's domestic-security director, Tim Daniel, said he still lacked the sophisticated communications equipment that would allow state and local law-enforcement agencies to talk to one another during a terrorist attack even if they have different radio systems. "We wanted to have purchase orders out for that by now," Mr. Daniel said.
Senior Bush administration officials, including Tom Ridge, the secretary of homeland security, acknowledged that the situation for local governments had become grave.
"They still haven't seen dime one," Mr. Ridge said after being sworn in last month, referring to the federal aid the state and local governments were promised.
"They're frustrated, they're disappointed, they aren't happy," he said, adding that local leaders around the country had "`every reason" to be angry with Washington.
Ridge aides say that, according to the department's tabulation, state and local governments had received about $900 million in counterterrorism federal assistance since Sept. 11, most of it from programs that existed before the attacks.
But they conceded that the aid had come nowhere near the levels the administration promised in January 2002, when it announced the $3.5 billion package for "first responders" - state and local police, firefighters and emergency medical teams.
"We find ourselves in a moment of history where we, as leaders, have to respond," President Bush said then. "We've got to remember first responders. The first minutes or hours after an attack are the most hopeful minutes for saving lives."
The recent warnings about state and local unpreparedness are backed up by a new federally financed study that found that only 13 percent of the nation's fire departments were prepared to deal by themselves with a chemical or biological attack involving 10 or more injuries.
The study by the National Fire Protection Association, a nonprofit group that develops local fire codes, also found that only 11 percent of the nation's fire departments were prepared to deal with the collapse of buildings of 50 or more occupants, and that only about a quarter of the departments had equipment for easy communication with state and federal emergency-response agencies.
"At this moment in history, it's shocking," said James M. Shannon, a former Democratic congressman from Massachusetts who is the organization's president. "Our fire departments don't have the equipment and the training they need to respond to terrorism."
Some large-city police and fire departments, including those in New York and Los Angeles, say they are better prepared than ever to deal with terrorist attacks, thanks in part to a shifting of budgets to counterterrorism from other law-enforcement and public-safety programs.
Elsewhere, though, especially in smaller cities and suburban and rural areas, officials say the situation is dire.
"This is a matter of national security," Mayor DeStefano, a Democrat, said in New Haven. "But cities and towns are being told that they are on their own."
Harold Schaitberger, the president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, a union representing 250,000 firefighters and emergency-response workers, said firefighters across the country had felt abandoned by the federal government.
"I find it ironic that my members are being asked this week to respond to a heightened threat to terrorism, and yet we haven't received a meaningful dollar in the last 16 months of promises," Mr. Schaitberger said.
"People have a sense that they are being protected, that they are more secure," he said. "But this government has yet to provide our domestic defenders with the equipment and training they need to fight the war on terrorism on the home front."
While agreeing on the final outline of the budget package, Congressional negotiators said today that they were still trying to hammer out the final details on the appropriations to state and local government for counterterrorism programs.
Administration officials said it appeared that virtually all of the $3.5 billion that had been requested would be provided.
Congressional Democrats were not so sure, saying their early tabulations suggested that some critical programs to help local fire and police departments deal with terrorist threats had not received enough money.
In a statement, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said he and his fellow Democrats would seek a supplemental appropriations bill "to provide more than duct tape to cover homeland security."
----
Schaefer Seeking Arrest Powers
By Lori Montgomery
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Washington Post; Page B04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A485-2003Feb12?language=printer
The General Assembly is considering giving the state's comptroller the power to arrest tax cheats without a warrant.
As comptroller, William Donald Schaefer (D) is charged with collecting state taxes. Now he wants a 15-member team to be able to arrest those who cheat on income and sales taxes. Last year, the bill passed the House and Senate but was vetoed by then-Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D), whose bitter relationship with Schaefer is legendary.
This year, the bill has support in both Democrat-controlled chambers. Ultimately, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), who touts his close relationship with Schaefer, may have to decide between the comptroller and a wing of his party that worries the bill will create what one House member yesterday called "super tax cops" able to barge into people's homes.
Del. Kenneth D. Schisler (R-Talbot), the deputy minority whip, tried unsuccessfully yesterday to weaken the bill, saying the small team would do better to focus on its current mission -- which includes policing cigarette smuggling -- and leave arrest powers to prosecutors. Other foes said the bill runs counter to GOP efforts at the federal level to limit the power of the Internal Revenue Service.
Some Republicans, however, spoke in favor of the bill. "I hate taxes," said Del. Herbert H. McMillan (Anne Arundel), "but we all have the responsibility to pay them.
Staff writers Jo Becker and Craig Whitlock contributed to this report.
--------
Senator Edwards Proposes Homeland Intelligence Agency
Thursday, February 13, 2003
John Edwards
Press Release
http://www.johnedwards2004.com/homeland-intel-agency.asp
WASHINGTON -- Senator John Edwards on Thursday introduced legislation to create a Homeland Intelligence Agency to replace FBI units that failed to uncover the September 11 terrorists and still cannot find suspected al Qaeda operatives in the United States.
"We need to be smarter to make America safer," Senator Edwards said. "The FBI is the best law enforcement agency on the planet, but September 11 showed how it has failed as an intelligence gathering agency."
The urgency of the terrorist threat and inability of the FBI to track down cells in the United States was underscored at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday, when Director Robert S. Mueller III admitted that the FBI does not know the identities or whereabouts of many of the hundreds of suspected al Qaeda operatives plotting attacks on the United States.
Senator Edwards, who serves on both the intelligence and judiciary committees, called Director Mueller's FBI reform proposals 17 months after the September 11 attacks "too little, too late."
Under Senator Edwards' legislation, the new agency would focus on intelligence, not law enforcement. That focus would let the agency do a better job than the FBI has done tracking terrorist operatives in this country and coordinating intelligence with local law enforcement officials and other federal agencies. The measure also would safeguard civil liberties by preventing privacy abuses and requiring court approval before information may be gathered on religious or political groups.
"Intelligence and law enforcement are such fundamentally different functions that they should not be performed in the same agency," said Jeffrey Smith, a former CIA general counsel. "Senator Edwards' proposal will enhance our ability both to collect and analyze intelligence that is critical to our domestic security."
The bill to create the Homeland Intelligence Agency is the centerpiece of a series of six homeland security measures proposed by Senator Edwards in the six weeks since Congress convened.
Senator Edwards also faulted President Bush for sending Congress a budget that shortchanges homeland security needs. "The president has chosen tax breaks for 226,000 millionaires over homeland security for 290 million Americans," he said.
The five other bills in the homeland security package would help neighborhood watch programs, improve emergency warning systems, make government computer systems less vulnerable to attack, strengthen potential terrorist targets like skyscrapers and stadiums, and give local first responders more access to classified intelligence information.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Activists Seek Access to U.S. Detainees
February 13, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Guantanamo-Detainees.html
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) -- U.S. military officials on Thursday denied any mistreatment of terrorism suspects after two human rights groups asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to intervene on behalf of detainees.
The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and the International Human Rights Law Group petitioned the Washington-based commission, asking it to ensure the prisoners were neither tortured during interrogations nor transferred to other countries for questioning.
``Some have been blindfolded and thrown into walls by U.S. military personnel as well as being subjected to loud noises and deprived of sleep,'' the groups claimed in the petition.
The rights groups want the commission to send inspection teams to U.S. bases where detainees are being held, including Guantanamo Bay and Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
The U.S. military denies it has violated the human rights of those it has detained as part of the war against Osama bin Laden and the alQaida terrorist network.
``Every detainee is being treated humanely to the extent appropriate and in a manner consistent to the principles of the Geneva Conventions,'' said Army Maj. Paul Caruso, a spokesman for the detention mission on the Guantanamo base.
The petition comes a day after the U.S. military disclosed that half of the Guantanamo prisoners were being rewarded for their cooperation and that the rewards were boosting the amount and quality of information gleaned during interrogations.
There are about 650 detainees from 41 countries at the base in eastern Cuba. All are accused of links to Afghanistan's Taliban regime or al-Qaida, though none have been charged with a crime.
Some Guantanamo detainees have complained in letters to their families that they have been subjected to late-night interrogations and forced to kneel for long periods of time.
The only independent group with direct access to the Guantanamo prisoners has been the International Committee of the Red Cross. But the group no longer has a permanent presence in Guantanamo.
Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller said Tuesday that the interrogation process is a 24-hour operation but declined further details.
The petition by the human rights groups also asked that detainees not be transferred to third countries, such as Jordan, Egypt and Morocco for interrogations.
The activists said some prisoners appear to have already been sent to those countries. Military officials declined to comment on the movement of any prisoners.
``This is like a secret world,'' said Michael Ratner, of the Center for Constitutional Rights. ``When people are in the custody of a specific state, I don't think it should be like that. That's what law is about. It's about being accountable.''
-------- terrorism
Tips on What To Do in a Terrorist Attack
February 13, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terror-Tips.html
Tips from a federal government handbook available on the CIA Internet site on how to recognize and react to a terrorist chemical, biological or radiological attack. The handbook, developed by 45 government agencies, is intended for emergency personnel, first responders and key industry officials.
PERSONAL SAFETY
--If outside, approach the suspected area from upwind.
--Cover all exposed skin and protect nose, throat and lungs.
--If inside and incident is inside, evacuate contaminated area and try to stay away from it.
--If inside and incident is outside, stay inside, turn off air conditioning.
--Once clear of incident, remove all clothes, shoes, gloves or hats and leave outside.
--Thoroughly wash with soap and water. If available, use one part bleach and 10 parts water as decontaminant.
CHEMICAL INCIDENT INDICATORS
--Numerous dead animals, birds or fish. Lack of normal insect life.
--People with blisters, choking symptoms, rashes. Illnesses confined to a geographic area.
--Unusual liquid droplets, large patches of dead trees, grass and the like.
--Unexplained smells: fruity or flowery, garlic/horseradish-like, bitter almonds, newly mowed hay.
--Low-lying clouds or fog that are not explained by surroundings.
BIOLOGICAL INCIDENT INDICATORS
--Unscheduled and unusual spray disseminated, especially at night.
--Abandoned spray devices.
RADIOLOGICAL INCIDENT INDICATORS
--Unusual metal debris.
--Containers displaying radiation symbols.
--Material emits heat with no sign of external heating source.
--Strongly radioactive material may glow.
On the Net: CIA: http://www.cia.gov/publications
--------
Terror Experts Skeptical About Duct Tape
February 13, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terror-Duct-Tape.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- Of all the government's tips for protecting yourself against a terrorist attack, it is duct tape that seems to have seized the public's attention. But terrorism experts are skeptical about how much good it would do.
The idea is that tape and plastic sheets could provide a sealed-off room in case of chemical or biological attack. The government recommends keeping duct tape and scissors on hand, as well as pre-cut sheets of plastic for sealing the doors, windows and vents of an internal room at home.
The government says that in the event of an attack, people should turn off all ventilation, go to that room and seal it with the tape and sheeting. If the room has 10 square feet of floor space per person, it should provide enough air for up to five hours, the government says.
In 2001, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., reported on tests to see if this strategy would help protect people living near stockpiles of chemical weapons.
Results showed that ``in some cases it might not buy you much protection, but in other cases it seemed to be buying a lot of protection,'' said Oak Ridge researcher John Sorensen.
It is not clear why results varied so much between the 10 or so homes where researchers measured how tightly such rooms were sealed against air flow, he said. At best, it was ``maybe providing up to 75 to 90 percent reduction in potential exposure,'' he said Thursday.
In any case, ``we could not envision it being used for more than an hour or two,'' he said.
Some terrorism experts are wary of the tape-and-plastic strategy.
``It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me,'' said Greg Evans, director of the Center for the Study of Bioterrorism and Emerging Infections at the St. Louis University School of Public Health.
One problem, he said, is that people wouldn't know when to seal themselves in, because terrorists would release germs or chemical agents without warning.
``We're only going to know about it when we start coming down sick, and that's too late to go into a safe room,'' he said. For biological attack, the first symptoms might not appear for days, he noted.
What's more, he said he doubts a room could be completely sealed, meaning tiny amounts of potent chemical or biological weapons could still seep in.
Randy Larsen, director of the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, a nonprofit research institute in Arlington, Va., agreed that the strategy is useless against biological attack as well as bombs or plunging jetliners.
In a chemical attack, ``it might be of some limited value,'' he said, ``but do you have adequate warning? Do you have time to do it? Can you really seal off the room?''
At least, he said, the hoopla trained the public's attention on preparing for a terrorist attack. And authorities have already recommended plenty of more useful steps to take, he said. Among other things, federal officials have said Americans should take basic disaster-preparation steps such as maintaining a three-day stockpile of food and water.
Larsen said that when his mother asked if she should buy duct tape, he told her: ``Mom, go do the other things on the list first. Then if you want to do it, go ahead and do it.''
On the Net:
Department of Homeland Security: www.dhs.gov
Other federal advice: www.fema.gov/areyouready
American Red Cross: www.redcross.org/services/disaster/beprepared/hsas.html
--------
Bin Laden Tape May Hint at Attack, C.I.A. Says
February 13, 2003
New York Times
By DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/politics/13TERR.html
WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 - The country's intelligence chief warned today that the latest taped message attributed to Osama bin Laden was an "exhortation to his followers," like statements made by the terrorist leader last year that were quickly followed by deadly attacks overseas.
"He's obviously exhorting them to do more," George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "And whether this is a signal of impending attack or not is something we're looking at. I can only tell what the history is."
Mr. Tenet said that two previous messages attributed to Mr. bin Laden, on Oct. 6 and Nov. 12, were followed within days by terrorist strikes against American and other targets overseas.
"What he has said has often been followed by attacks, which I think corroborates everything that we're seeing in terms of raising the threat warning, in terms of the specific information that we had at our disposal last week," Mr. Tenet said.
On Friday, the Bush administration warned Americans that they were at a "high" risk of a terrorist attack, raising the national threat status to its second-highest level.
In the message broadcast on Tuesday, the man believed to be Mr. bin Laden urged suicide attacks against the United States and "operations that cause so much harm to the enemy in the U.S. and Israel."
Today, with fear of an attack high, government officials in the United States and allies like Britain further tightened security. Pentagon officials ordered vehicles armed with Stinger antiaircraft missiles to patrol the capital and intensified F-16 fighter flights over Washington..
For the second consecutive day, 450 British troops patrolled London's Heathrow Airport. Intelligence officials said that Al Qaeda might be preparing a rocket attack against a commercial airliner.
American intelligence officials said the voice on the latest tape appeared to be Mr. bin Laden's. Mr. Tenet said in his testimony that analysts were examining the message, looking for particular phrases or words that might be coded signals to Mr. bin Laden's operatives.
In particular, analysts said they were examining passages in the tape that referred repeatedly to Al Qaeda's effort to dig "trenches" in Afghanistan and statements urging his followers to "fight in the plains, mountains, farms and cities."
However, experts differed on the meaning of the content. One senior intelligence official said that analysts had not made any definitive conclusions but added that it was possible that the message, taken in its entirety, was a "go signal."
Tonight, a British-based Islamic news agency, Ansaar, said it had bought a nearly hourlong tape of Mr. bin Laden in which he predicted his own death in an act of "martyrdom." The news agency said it bought the recording from an unidentified man who approached the news organization through the Internet.
American intelligence officials said they had received a transcript of the statement but had reached no conclusions about its authenticity.
Bush administration officials continued to interpret the tape broadcast on Tuesday as evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said Mr. bin Laden's reference to "our mujahedeen brothers" in Iraq and his appeal to Muslims to prepare for a holy war suggested a "strong statement of alliance" between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
"If that is not an unholy partnership, I have not heard of one," he said. Mr. Tenet agreed. "What he says on the tape is unprecedented in terms of the way he expresses solidarity with Baghdad," he said, adding, "It's a bit alarming that he did it this way."
While Bush administration officials have portrayed the tape as evidence of a close connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq, in the message attributed to Mr. bin Laden, he criticized the Iraqi leadership, calling it an "infidel" government. He seemed to be addressing the Iraqi people directly in urging them to defend themselves against a possible American attack.
Government officials said today that they had not detected an increase in the level of "chatter" among suspected terrorists since the broadcast of the tape. "That doesn't necessarily mean we won't see something down the line," one official said.
As many Americans reacted with concern and sometimes confusion to the elevated risk alert issued last Friday, several officials defended the decision to raise the alert level. Along with other intelligence officials, Mr. Tenet and the director of the F.B.I., Robert S. Mueller III, said they supported the heightened alert.
They supported a decision by Attorney General John Ashcroft and the secretary of homeland security, Tom Ridge, to ask President Bush to ratchet up the alert level. Mr. Bush quickly approved, the officials said.
Despite the vague nature of the warning, the officials said that they believed it was important for Americans to be aware of the possible threats.
But the leading Senate Democrat criticized the precautionary advice. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Senate minority leader, said: "If that is their only response, then I believe that the people of this country ought to hold them far more accountable than that. This is not an adequate response to the seriousness and the extraordinary difficulties that our country is confronting as we consider what repercussions could come from these attacks."
Each of the statements believed to be Mr. bin Laden's have been broadcast by Al Jazeera, the Arabic language television station. The messages urged broader action against the United States and its allies.
On Oct. 6, after months of silence in which some officials said Mr. bin Laden might be dead, a statement attributed to him said there would be retaliation against the "criminal gang" in the White House.
On the same day, terrorists struck a French tanker off the coast of Yemen. On Oct. 8, gunmen opened fire on Marines in Kuwait, killing one and wounding another. On Oct. 26, an explosive in a van was detonated outside a nightclub in Bali, killing nearly 200 people.
Another statement believed to be from Mr. bin Laden was broadcast on Nov. 12, urging a wider war against the United States and Israel. Sixteen days later, terrorists bombed a tourist hotel frequented by Israelis in the Kenyan city of Mombasa. A car packed with explosives was detonated at the Paradise Hotel, killing 10 Kenyans, 3 Israelis and the 3 attackers. Several minutes earlier, two shoulder-fired missiles narrowly missed an Israeli-chartered plane leaving Mombasa's airport.
--------
Federal Terrorism Prosecutions Increase
February 13, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terrorism-Prosecutions.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal prosecutions of terrorism cases have increased tenfold since the Sept. 11 attacks as authorities expanded the types of crimes included, Justice Department records show.
During the year that began 19 days after the attacks on New York and Washington, federal prosecutors charged 1,208 individuals with crimes they classified as related to terrorism or international security, compared with just 115 the previous year, according to records obtained by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
Nearly half of the terrorism prosecutions last year were initiated by investigators from the Social Security Administration and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The two agencies had just two such cases the previous year. Many of the new cases arose from the terrorism prevention efforts aimed at illegal aliens and airport workers with fake Social Security numbers.
Justice Department officials refused to comment directly on the TRAC data, but Attorney General John Ashcroft said in an Associated Press interview Wednesday that prevention of new terrorist attacks has been the government's top priority since Sept. 11. He claimed ``monumental progress'' in achieving that goal.
Prevention ``is more important than prosecution,'' he said. ``But very frequently these priorities do not compete, they complement. In many instances prosecution has been a real aid to our prevention effort by helping generate valuable intelligence.''
But Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said the data ``raises more questions than answers.''
``We can't take someone's word that terrorism is being prevented. The Congress and public need proof,'' Grassley said.
The FBI, which initiated almost three-quarters of all terrorism-related prosecutions in 2001, accounted for less than a third of the cases last year. But the number of terrorism charges based on FBI investigations still increased from 84 in 2001 to 377 last year.
The expansion of crimes considered terrorism-related also resulted in lower prison sentences, on the average, for the 394 individuals convicted in terrorism cases last year. The median jail term for those 394 was just two months, down from 21 months for the 41 individuals convicted in terrorism-related cases in 2001.
The median sentence for terrorism convictions initiated by the INS was just one month, while half the sentences for such convictions in cases started by Social Security investigators was just two months. For convictions stemming from FBI investigations, in contrast, the median sentence was 12 months.
Since Sept. 11, prosecutors declined to pursue just a third of the terrorism-related cases brought to them, compared with two-thirds the previous year. Prosecutors also decided whether to prosecute such cases five times faster last year than in 2001, when they took, on average, nearly a year to decide.
The focus on terrorism prevention and prosecution doesn't appear to have drained resources away from other federal law enforcement activities, as many experts, including Ashcroft, predicted shortly after Sept. 11.
The TRAC data shows that terrorism-related prosecutions accounted for just 1.3 percent of all federal criminal cases last year. Prosecutions for all types of crimes increased by 3.6 percent last year, with terrorism cases accounting for one-third of the growth.
TRAC obtained the records after a two-year court battle with the Justice Department over the Freedom of Information Act. The records come from internal administrative data the department maintains on all criminal and civil cases.
On the Net:
TRAC: http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/terrorism/fy2002.html
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
[Who runs the platinum industries? Who owns stocks? If you know, please mailto:editor@nucnews.net]
Fuel cells promise bright future for platinum
Story by Clare Black
REUTERS UK:
February 13, 2003
LONDON - Platinum can look forward to a bright future thanks to its use in fuel cells, although the technology is still in its early stages and may not be commercially viable for at least another decade, analysts said.
Fuel cells promise to be one of the most important power sources of the 21st century and could power anything from mobile phones to cars.
They create electricity without pollution by combining hydrogen and oxygen into water. In their current form, they rely heavily on platinum as a catalyst.
Expectations of high future demand from the automobile industry for the metal, which is also used in jewellery, recently propelled prices to 23-year highs.
Almost every car manufacturer has a fuel cell programme and most have built and exhibited prototypes.
"Although this is very much a long-term issue, it has impacted on (platinum) sentiment now, just showing that in the longer term the demand picture remains really robust," Ingrid Sternby, metals analyst with Barclays Capital, said this week.
Michael Steel, market research director with UK-based metals refiner Johnson Matthey (JMAT.L), said fuel cell vehicles would not have make any significant impact on platinum demand for at least another 10 years.
In the next five years, buoyant demand from the Chinese jewellery sector would affect prices more than fuel cells would, although he was upbeat about the technology.
"To me, one of the most interesting things which mean that this (fuel cells) has long term potential...is the statement from (President) Bush," he said.
U.S. President George W. Bush unveiled his hydrogen fuel initiative last month in his State of the Union address, proposing $1.2 billion overall and new spending of $720 million over five years to develop technology and infrastucture to produce, store and distribute hydrogen for use in fuel cells.
"It is not so much about the money, but the fact that fuel cells were identified as the only viable alternative to the internal combustion engine. That is very significant in itself," Steel added.
HIGH COST OF PRODUCTION
Fuel cells developed for use in vehicles, known as proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, are currently very expensive to produce.
"The way a fuel cell is made at the moment is an incredibly bespoke process. You are not going to get any economies of scale," said Mark Cropper, editor of Fuel Cell Today (www.fuelcelltoday.com).
Steel said the amount of platinum used per fuel cell was much higher (three to five times) than it would be during large-scale production.
He said manufacturers ultimately expected to use around 10 grams of platinum per vehicle, approximately just over twice the amount that goes into a standard catalytic converter.
DEMAND OUTSTRIPS SUPPLY
The fuel cell industry is likely to become a significant consumer of platinum, with conservative estimates for annual demand for automotive and residential applications in 2010 of 500,000 ounces, according to a report on fuelcelltoday.com.
"With the platinum market already in deficit, this inevitably raises the question: will there be enough platinum?" the report said.
Demand for platinum has grown much faster than supply over the past five years, due mainly to a boom in the Chinese jewellery market and its use in autocatalysts as sister metal palladium became prohibitively expensive.
Global demand for platinum was forecast to climb 2.0 percent to a record of 6.37 million ounces in 2002, while supply increased only marginally to 5.88 million, creating a deficit of 490,000 ounces, according to Johnson Matthey.
South Africa, which dominates world platinum supplies and accounts for some 70 percent of output, is set to increase production significantly.
"If all currently planned projects are brought successfully into production, annual platinum supplies from South Africa will expand by at least 2.0 million ounces by 2010," fuelcelltoday.com said.
----
Dutch Nuon plans to quadruple renewable energy output
REUTERS GERMANY:
February 13, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19806/story.htm
ESSEN, Germany - Dutch utility Nuon aims to quadruple its renewable energy output in the next few years, the company's chief executive Ludo van Halderen said.
"Our capacity now is at 500 megawatt (MW) and we aim to have raised it to 2,000 MW in a few years," van Halderen told conference delegates at the E-World energy sector gathering in Essen.
He said Nuon, already the Netherlands leader in the green energy consumer market, aimed to boost output in that sector as customers were ready to pay a higher price for their electricity if it was produced in an environmentally friendly way.
Amsterdam-based Nuon, owned by several local governments, is one of the two largest energy distributors in the Netherlands and last year upped its stake in German energy trader EnergieUnion to 75 percent.
Van Halderen said the integration of the European energy markets would benefit from planned EU enlargement.
The entry of central and eastern European countries to the bloc would speed up the harmonisation of market rules and shift the focus of energy firms from a local perspective to a more international market view.
He reiterated that Nuon, which had annual sales of around five billion euros, was interested in grabbing market share in Germany and Belgium.
The company was less interested in buying local utility stakes, but rather followed an asset-light approach and aimed to increase energy sales in these countries.
"We believe that we can use our experience gained in Holland, as well as in the U.S. retail market, in Germany," van Halderen said.
----
US lawmakers push for development of hydrogen cars
USA: February 13, 2003
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19805/story.htm
WASHINGTON - Two U.S. lawmakers unveiled legislation this week to develop hydrogen-powered automobiles and put them in the market within a decade, five years faster than a similar program pushed by the Bush administration.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars, if widely accepted, would significantly reduce U.S. dependence on foreign imported oil and would cut pollution since the emission-free vehicles' only by-product is water.
The Bush administration has proposed spending $1.7 billion in research over the next 5 years to help develop and have on the road within 15 years hydrogen cars and the supporting hydrogen fuel supplies and service stations.
Many environmental groups view the 15-year time frame as too long and want quicker government action to wean U.S. consumers off foreign oil.
In order to speed up the process, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Rep. Christopher Cox of California said they will introduce legislation to put hydrogen cars on the road within 10 years and reduce U.S. foreign oil use by 30 million barrels a year.
Their bill would offer financial incentives to put more of the vehicles on the road, increase production of hydrogen fuel and create the infrastructure throughout the country to guarantee accessibility to hydrogen fuel.
"Our bill will provide concrete rewards for everyone who takes steps to put hydrogen fuel cell cars on the road and reduce our dependence on foreign oil," Wyden said.
The bill allows a maximum tax credit of 25 percent of the sale price of a hydrogen powered vehicle with a cap of $50,000. The tax credit would steadily decrease each year to a 5 percent credit and $10,000 cap in 2012.
The purchaser of a qualified fuel cell vehicle would be able to transfer the tax credit to another person.
The bill also mandates that hydrogen powered vehicles must comprise a minimum percentage of federal car fleets, from 5 percent for fleets of 100 vehicles or more in 2006 to 20 percent for fleets of 50 vehicles or more in 2012.
To make hydrogen fuel readily accessible, the legislation establishes tax credits for the retail sale, production and use of hydrogen fuel.
Specifically, sellers of hydrogen fuel would receive a tax credit of 50 cents for each gasoline gallon equivalent of hydrogen sold.
Producers of hydrogen fuel from any source would receive a tax credit of $10 per barrel of oil equivalent. An additional credit of $10 per barrel of oil equivalent is provided for hydrogen fuel produced from renewable sources.
The legislation also calls for Congress not to impose a tax on hydrogen fuel for 10 years.
----
Brown resists renewable energy spending hike - FT
REUTERS UK:
February 13, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19803/story.htm
LONDON - Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, or finance minister, Gordon Brown, is resisting pressure to hike government spending on renewable energy ahead of Wednesday's cabinet-level meeting, the Financial Times said.
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Patricia Hewitt and Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Margaret Beckett will lobby the Treasury for hundreds of millions of pounds for renewable energy and energy saving measures, the paper reported.
The FT quoted one industry insider as saying Brown was "very reluctant" to agree to the spending hike before the 2002 spending review agreement for departments ends in 2006.
The Treasury told the paper it was not blocking progress on energy policy, which will be linked to targets on greenhouse gas cuts.
-------- energy
California weighs move to smaller power plants
REUTERS USA:
February 13, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19804/story.htm
SAN FRANCISCO - California energy regulators are to consider adopting policies and rules on Thursday to encourage the building of small power plants near business and residential electricity customers.
The California Public Utilities Commission, investor-owned utilities, other energy companies, and consumer groups have been studying "distributed generation" to weigh the benefits of moving a new generation of small, customer-owned power stations closer to where the electricity is consumed.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other states also are looking at distributed generation.
FERC Chairman Pat Wood has endorsed distributed energy as part of the agency's proposed standard market design rules to connect the nation's patchwork of power grids and make them more efficient.
Last month, FERC asked the energy industry for recommendations on how to create incentives for distributed generation to help meet growing demand for power without investing in conventional power plants.
California has the capacity to generate about 53,000 megawatts of electricity.
Most of the output is delivered to customers by three investor-owned utilities - PG&E Corp.'s (PCG.N) Pacific Gas & Electric unit, Edison International's (EIX.N) Southern California Edison, and Sempra Energy's (SRE.N) San Diego Gas & Electric - and the nation's largest municipal utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP).
One megawatt is power for about 1,000 homes.
The CPUC, California Energy Commission and the state's Air Resources Board are encouraging development of new power technologies and smaller, more efficient plants.
LADWP has tested small plants powered by fuel cells, which convert hydrogen and oxygen into water, producing electricity and heat. It has successfully tested fuel cell plants generating up to 2 megawatts of electricity.
The CPUC said potential benefits include reducing peak power demand on the statewide grid, increasing the life of existing power distribution gear, reducing capital risk for the utilities, increasing service reliability and developing new power technologies.
"Most parties agree that distributed generation has the potential to reduce system demand in areas experiencing load growth, and that it should be considered an option to defer distribution investments," the CPUC said in a draft decision to be considered at the commission's meeting Thursday.
----
Arctic experts say UN sea treaty could benefit US
Story by Yareth Rosen
REUTERS USA:
February 13, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19809/story.htm
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The United States could claim potentially oil-rich territory hundred of miles (km) out into the Arctic Ocean if it signed the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, members of the federal science panel said.
The U.S. Arctic Research Commission is urging prompt U.S. ratification of the treaty and quick action to survey the edges of the nation's continental shelf.
The treaty stipulates that nations may submit claims for additional marine territory within 10 years of signing onto the document, Arctic Research Commission Chairman George Newton told an Anchorage civic group.
Of interest to the United States is the "Chukchi Cap," a huge submerged shelf of land that extends far beyond the 200-mile (320 km) offshore territorial limit.
The shelf is a remnant of the Bering Land Bridge that once linked what is now Alaska to Siberia; it holds enormous potential for oil and gas resources, Newton told the board of Commonwealth North.
"I know that technology at this point in time doesn't allow oil recovery, fossil fuel recovery, in areas that are 300 to 500 miles (480 to 800 km) offshore in the Arctic Ocean," he said. But that technology could improve in the future, making Arctic Ocean resources recoverable "in the years ahead for our children and grandchildren."
Russia, which has signed onto the convention, has made wide-ranging claims to the Arctic Ocean, he said.
The United States generally follows the Law of the Sea convention, but has never signed the treaty, Newton said. U.S. ratification was bitterly opposed by former Sen. Jesse Helms, he said, but the once-powerful North Carolina Republican is now retired from office.
The commission, established by a 1984 act of Congress, advises the federal government on Arctic science issues.
----
Conoco chairman advocates N. American energy pact
REUTERS USA:
February 13, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19810/story.htm
HOUSTON - ConocoPhillips (COP.N) Chairman Archie Dunham advocated a North American energy pact similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement during a speech at a Houston energy conference this week.
Mexico would benefit most by opening its market to American investment, Dunham said.
Unlike Canada, Mexico reserved its sovereignty over energy resources under NAFTA.
"The result is that U.S.-Mexico energy trade has not prospered to the same degree as that between the U.S. and Canada," he said.
U.S. and Canadian companies would able to invest directly in Mexican natural resources, Dunham said. And any return could be reinvested in the company, as opposed to passing it on to the Mexican government, which is currently required by Mexican law.
Environmental policies, such as emissions trading, could be adopted on a continental basis, he said.
-------- environment
Emissions Reduction Plan Touted
U.S., Industry Allies Hail Program; Environmentalists Critical
By Edward Walsh
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 13, 2003; Page A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64898-2003Feb12?language=printer
The Bush administration and its corporate allies staged a celebration yesterday to mark what they called a significant commitment to reaching the goals of a voluntary program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which many scientists believe to be the main cause of global warming.
The event in the Energy Department's cafeteria was designed to showcase and defend the administration's voluntary approach to pollution-control programs. It brought together senior administration officials such as Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman with representatives of several industrial groups that have pledged to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases between now and 2012.
"There is a perception by many that if environmental programs are not mandatory they're not real," Whitman said. "I'm here to tell you that these programs are very real and they're getting real results."
But officials of environmental groups scoffed at that assertion and said the administration's own projections showed that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow over the next 10 years even if the goal is reached. The voluntary program highlighted yesterday "is a total charade and is designed solely to provide the administration and the biggest polluting industries with political cover," said Philip E. Clapp, president of the Environmental Trust.
President Bush announced the voluntary initiative last year and set a goal of reducing the country's "greenhouse gas intensity" -- the ratio of emissions to economic output -- by 18 percent over the next decade. The administration strongly prefers such a voluntary approach instead of the mandatory caps on emissions included in the Kyoto Protocol, which has been adopted by most industrialized nations but has been rejected by the Bush administration.
Much of the dispute between the administration and environmental groups centers on how to measure progress in combating global warming. The administration's announced goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions relative to the size of the economy as tracked by the "greenhouse gas intensity" scale.
But environmental groups say the goal should be to reduce total emissions into the atmosphere, regardless of the economy's size. With the economy projected to grow over the next decade, they maintain that the 18 percent reduction in greenhouse gas intensity that Bush seeks translates into about a 19 percent increase in actual emissions.
"It should be measured in actual tons of pollution," said David Doniger, policy director of the Climate Center at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The economy gets bigger and bigger but the atmosphere can't expand. Talking about it in terms of rates and the size of the economy is just sleight of hand."
Doniger, Clapp and other administration critics said only a program of mandatory caps on emissions will reduce global warming.
--------
Voluntary Pacts Reached to Curb Greenhouse Gases
February 13, 2003
New York Times
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/politics/13ENVI.html
WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 - Administration officials announced several modest agreements with a number of industries today for voluntary controls on emissions of gases linked to global warming. The agreements, a result of aggressive meetings with industry executives, are an effort to stave off pending state and federal proposals for mandatory ceilings.
Environmental groups and Democrats have seized upon the limited curbs as evidence that voluntary policies will not produce substantive results.
The industry commitments ended up being less substantive than the White House first sought, which is a reason the announcement, originally scheduled for the White House last week, ended up taking place in the Department of Energy's cafeteria with cabinet members, conservation groups and industry representatives said.
Some industries have promised to curb their output of heat-trapping gases, which include carbon dioxide, sulfur hexafluoride and perfluorocarbon. Among the 12 major industrial sectors that joined in the announcement are electrical utilities, petroleum, mining, steel, semiconductors and automobiles.
Critics note, however, that many of the announced emissions targets are pegged to "intensity," which is defined as the amount of such gases per unit of economic production, rather than the absolute volume emissions. Most emissions regulations are pegged to net output. In the case of the Kyoto Protocols, the international pact on global warming, they are pegged to actual reductions compared with 1990 levels.
"It's an accounting trick in our view," said Dan Lashof, the science director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. "Any pollution pegged to economic activity is unprecedented and unwarranted."
Opponents of regulation were also critical, but for another reason. They see the voluntary policies as precursors for mandatory ceilings.
"It's incoherent," said Myron Ebell, a climate expert at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is an advocate for free markets. "It's like saying, `We're opposed to capital punishment, but don't worry about the gallows we have built in the front yard.' "
Utilities, which account for about 40 percent of United States emissions of heat-trapping gases, pledged to reduce their intensity by 3 percent to 5 percent. The chemical industry agreed to reduce intensity of the gases by 18 percent in 2012, as compared with 1990 levels. The automobile industry pledged reductions in the intensity of its manufacturing emission rates but not the vehicle emission rates by at least 10 percent by 2012 compared with 2002.
Last year, President Bush announced that he wanted to reduce the amount of such gases per unit of gross domestic product by 18 percent. Critics say using the overall economy as a measure of gas emissions is deceptive because the parts of the economy that are growing tend to be service sectors, where emissions are less of a problem. Administration officials concede that the overall amount of greenhouse gas emissions is not likely to fall within the next decade.
"It's not going to get smaller immediately," said Christie Whitman, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
But Mrs. Whitman said industries would get the capital to invest in more environment-friendly technologies. "As they develop the technology, they will in fact see an actual reduction," she said.
The agreements are part of the White House's broader campaign to highlight President Bush's environmental initiatives, an area where polls show him politically vulnerable.
-------- human rights
Killings, Slavery Rise in Rural Brazil - Church
February 13, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-rights-brazil.html
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Killings of landless peasants and rural slavery in Brazil increased in 2002 as more rural areas became a battleground for land ownership, the Roman Catholic Church said on Thursday.
During the year, 37 peasants were killed in conflicts over ownership of 6.2 million acres of land, compared with 29 peasants killed over 5.4 million acres in 2001, according to the Pastoral Land Commission.
It was the highest number of killings, apart from 1996, when 19 peasants were massacred and 69 injured as police cleared a highway they were blocking in the northern state of Para to press demands for land.
``The situation in the countryside is horrible, hellish,'' said Bishop Tomas Balduano, president of the Pastoral Land Commission, presenting preliminary results of a report saying that more than 5,600 Brazilian rural workers are treated like slaves.
In 2001, the Commission counted 2,416 rural slave workers.
``The rise in slave workers is frightening,'' said Antonio Canuto, one of the report's coordinators.
Canuto estimated that the real number of rural slave workers was much higher -- at least 20,000.
``We calculate that for each known case of slavery there are up to five hidden cases,'' he said, adding that slavery mostly occurred on remote farms.
Para state in northern Brazil contains the largest number of rural slave workers, followed by neighboring Maranhao state and Mato Grosso in the Center-West, Canuto said.
Bernardo Manuano, one of the report's advisers, criticized the legal system for failing to take stamp out rural slavery.
Farmers very often went unpunished and this encouraged them to continue making peasants work as slaves, Canuto said.
Brazil's Catholic Church created the Pastoral Land Commission in 1975 to help organize rural workers and report on violence and injustice against them. Since 1985 it has conducted an annual survey of rural land conflicts.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Boone County (Missouri) GOP chairman under fire for anti-war stance
Thursday, February 13, 2003
AP
http://newstribune.com/stories/021303/loc_0213030904.asp
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Boone County's Republican chairman said some party members have asked him to resign because of his public statements opposing war with Iraq.
But Chairman Jack Walters of Columbia said Wednesday he won't step down because he has a right to free speech.
"Isn't that my right? Isn't that your right? Isn't that the right of every American?" Walters asked. "I'm not relishing this ... it's uncomfortable to me, but I've fought all my life, and I'll continue to fight."
Don Bobbitt, treasurer of the county GOP committee, disagreed, saying Walters' personal view isn't shared by most local party members.
Bobbitt said that if Walters doesn't resign, there will probably be a vote on ousting him when the committee meets next week.
"I have a notion that somebody is probably tallying up the necessary votes," Bobbitt said.
It would take a two-thirds vote of the 30-member committee to remove Walters as chairman. He would retain his popularly elected membership on the committee.
Walters mentioned his personal opposition to war with Iraq during an interview last week with the Columbia Daily Tribune.
"We shouldn't be there at all," he told the Tribune for a story about local antiwar sentiment.
He went on to say the White House was "desperately trying to convince people that we need this war."
Despite his position, Walters added that wouldn't be joining demonstrators who regularly gather at a busy Columbia intersection to hold up antiwar signs.
Still, he was publicly tweaked Tuesday night during a local Republican banquet by the master of ceremonies, Boone County Prosecutor Kevin Crane.
"I thought you might still be down there at the peace demonstration at Broadway and Providence," Crane told Walters from the podium.
Crane then received loud applause when he declared: "Nobody would say that we shouldn't have a right to our own opinion. That's including you and including me.
"But when you're talking on behalf of Republicans, I want to go on the record if the press is here that you're not speaking for Kevin Crane.
"And I don't know. Maybe there's some people who you are speaking for. But I'm with President George W. Bush."
Mary Willett, a Republican committee member from Columbia, said Walters was out of line.
"I feel quite sure his views do not represent the majority of people on the committee or the Republicans in Boone County," she said.
The Columbia Missourian, which first reported in Wednesday's editions on Republican calls for Walters to resign, interviewed other local party members who defended the chairman and voiced their own concerns about the prospect of war.
LaVerne Flatt, the committee's vice chairwoman, said she also has doubts about war with Iraq if the U.S. doesn't have strong support from key allies and the United Nations.
"I wonder if they'll try to expel me from my committee position for saying these things," Flatt said.
William Samuels, a Columbia attorney and former committee member, told the Missourian he is among party members who oppose war with Iraq.
"It seems to me that the Republicans shouldn't remove a committee chairman because he doesn't want to go to war -- a lot of us don't," Samuels said.
"Not everybody who is opposed to the war is over on the left wing. It goes beyond the loony left and the usual suspects. There's a broad spectrum of opposition."
--------
Denial of March Cost Antiwar Protesters Symbol
February 13, 2003
New York Times
By JANNY SCOTT
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/nyregion/13MARC.html
There have been marches that looked like rallies and rallies that looked like marches and demonstrations that were a little bit of both. But when a federal judge ruled this week that antiwar demonstrators could rally in Manhattan on Saturday but not march through the streets, she was drawing a distinction that historians and others say can have great symbolic weight.
In mass protest movements over the last two centuries, the act of marching has carried psychological and emotional power that scholars say stationary forms of protest do not. The simple act of moving forward in a group, made up of diverse contingents, has a visceral force that energizes not only participants but observers.
During the civil rights movement, marching was a specific form of political expression, a statement against segregation, a breaking out into a larger public realm. And it was effective. As historians see it, the march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965, for example, transformed the not yet widely noticed voting rights movement in Selma into a national force.
"Common action does something that common presence does not do," said Clark McCauley, a professor of psychology at Bryn Mawr College who specializes in group dynamics. "It produces cohesion and power and maybe a greater sense of universality, that everybody is with us, that whatever it is we're marching for has all the power of all of us behind it."
Because of what the historian Clayborne Carson describes as the tension between the desire of government to contain protests within prescribed limits and the desire of protesters to exceed those limits, some scholars say organizers have often accepted restrictions on their freedom to march in return for permission for large numbers to gather.
Before the 1963 march on Washington, the Kennedy administration worked with the civil rights organizations that had planned the protest to persuade them not to march through the city as they had intended. As a result, the march of 250,000 people was confined largely to the area around the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial and is recalled more as a rally.
"They said O.K.: smaller location, less marching, less movement, more massing of people," said Lucy G. Barber, a historian at the California State Archives and author of "Marching on Washington: The Forging of an American Political Tradition" (University of California, 2002). "That's one of the things that later marches have often sacrificed: marching in order to have mass."
The antiwar demonstrators, who oppose war against Iraq, had sued the city for refusing to permit more than 100,000 people to march down First Avenue past the United Nations, west on 42nd Street and north to Central Park. The city, saying the march presented safety and security risks, had suggested a rally for 10,000 at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza on East 47th Street, with the rest of the crowd overflowing up First Avenue.
The judge, Barbara S. Jones of United States District Court in Manhattan, declined Monday to force the city to let the group march. She said the organizers had given the city insufficient time and information to prepare; and she said the city's concerns about crowd control were heightened by the fact that the country and city are in the second highest level of security alert.
Though the New York Civil Liberties Union appealed on the ground that the protesters' First Amendment rights were being violated, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan upheld Judge Jones's decision yesterday. "The right to use public forums such as streets for speech and assembly is not absolute," according to the ruling by the judges, Jose A. Cabranes, Fred I. Parker and Lewis A. Kaplan.
What gives marching its power is curious and complex. In "Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History," the historian William Hardy McNeill suggests that shared, rhythmic movement has played a profound role in building communities, giving rise to what has been described as a fellow-feeling that seems to facilitate cooperation.
"Every social movement of any importance has had mass marches, not just picnics or gatherings," said Michael Kazin, a professor of history at Georgetown University who specializes in politics and social movements. "The prohibitionists marched on Washington in 1913, women's suffragists marched on Washington, there have been antiwar marches, there were pro-war marches."
Cesar Chavez led the United Farm Workers on a 350-mile march from Delano, Calif., to Sacramento in the mid-1960's, bringing the union to national attention. There is a long history of marches in New York, including a silent antilynching march in 1917, marches to demand unemployment relief, a nuclear disarmament march in 1982 that drew as many as 700,000 people and a 1994 march and rally commemorating the Stonewall Inn incident that helped ignite the gay rights movement.
"Usually, you have both a rally and a march," Professor Kazin said. "You show your strength on the street, yell a lot, get people talking about you. Then you gather and listen to speeches. The march is to gather support, show your power, convince people. The rally does that to some degree but is more a pep rally for the people who are already convinced."
For participants, marching brings a greater sense of involvement and contribution than does simply standing around listening. It makes it possible for each passing contingent to express its views. A march can also produce powerful video images.
"Looking back historically, the voting rights movement in Alabama would have been severely retarded if the marchers had been limited to marching within Selma," said Professor Carson, a Stanford historian and editor of the Martin Luther King Jr. papers. "It was the fact of marching to the seat of government in Montgomery that transformed a relatively small and mostly unnoticed voting rights movement in Selma into a movement of national significance."
David J. Garrow, a civil rights historian at Emory University who lived in Manhattan in the 80's and 90's, suggested in an interview that there was little symbolic power to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.
"It's not at the U.N., it's not by City Hall, it's not Central Park," he said. "There is a tremendous symbolic devaluing in being shunted into this relatively meaningless space."
--------
Large Anti - War Protest Set for London
February 13, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Anti-War-Rally.html
LONDON (AP) -- Under banners reading ``Don't Attack Iraq'' and ``Not in My Name,'' hundreds of thousands of people are expected to march through central London this weekend in one of the largest of dozens of anti-war marches planned around the globe.
Worryingly for Prime Minister Tony Blair, lawmakers from his Labor Party will be among them.
With opposition to military action remaining stubbornly high, Blair's enlistment in President Bush's ``coalition of the willing'' against Saddam Hussein has proved the biggest challenge of his premiership.
``A larger and larger number of Labor MPs are lining up against the war,'' left-wing Labor legislator Jeremy Corbyn told news conference Wednesday. ``The government is in difficulty, they are not winning people over. Tony Blair's standing within the party is falling.''
While Blair insists Saddam must be disarmed by force if he will not do it willingly, the prospect of war has split his party. Among the protesters gathering in London's Hyde Park Saturday will be senior Labor figures -- including former Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam -- and large delegations from the trade unions that form the party's core support.
Organizers say millions of people are expected to protest Saturday in hundreds of cities around the world, from Vancouver and Mexico City to Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Up to 100,000 people are expected in New York, where Archbishop Desmond Tutu and actors Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover will address a Manhattan rally. Weekend demonstrations are planned across Australia, which has joined Britain and the United States in committing troops to a possible war.
German anti-war groups say 80,000 will gather in Berlin. The French and German governments have led European opposition to a military strike.
Leaders of railway, firefighters and general workers' unions will address the London event, alongside U.S. civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, playwright Harold Pinter, activist Bianca Jagger and the leader of Britain's opposition Liberal Democrats, Charles Kennedy.
Fifty-seven lawmakers, most from Labor -- including former culture minister Chris Smith and Oscar-winning actress Glenda Jackson -- made a motion Thursday demanding Britain stay out of a war unless it is authorized by Parliament.
Ministers have promised lawmakers a substantive vote on any war, but not necessarily before troops are sent into action.
``There is a skeptical public out there. They are right to be skeptical,'' said Labor lawmaker Tony Wright. ``We don't live in an age where people can just say 'trust me' or 'I've got information which if you had, you'd behave differently.'
``I'm afraid you have got to come to people and you have got to come to Parliament and ask them to make a judgment,'' Wright told British Broadcasting Corp. radio on Thursday.
Organizers of Saturday's protest say they expect a huge turnout. A similar event last September drew at least 150,000 people, according to police. Organizers said it was closer to 400,000 and expect to top that this time.
Polls show a majority of Britons oppose war without U.N. approval and fear joining a U.S.-led campaign will make Britain a terrorist target.
A poll released Wednesday by the British Broadcasting Corp. found that 9 percent of respondents said Britain should participate in a war without the approval of the United Nations, while 45 percent said Britain should not participate in any circumstances. Forty percent backed war with a U.N. mandate.
This week Blair struck a conciliatory tone toward the protesters. In the House of Commons on Wednesday he said both supporters and opponents of military action should weigh the moral consequences of their stand.
``I hope that when people go on that march they at least recognize that those of us who take a different view hold that view with as much conviction and sincerity as they hold their view,'' Blair said.
On the Net:
Stop the War Coalition, www.stopwar.org.uk
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