Archive By Date | Today's Links to Search By
Activists' News | Nuclear | Depleted Uranium | Military | Police
Alternative Energy Etc. | From Subscribers
NUCLEAR
Radioactive Materials Missing in Georgia
War on Iraq Arouses Environmental Fears Among Chinese Scientists
Vieques residents bid a farewell to arms
Radioactive Materials Missing in Georgia
India, Pakistan OK Diplomatic Stand-Ins
Iran's nuclear programme no immediate threat
Here it is, conclusive proof against Iraq
Could the War Go Nuclear?
Inspectors Visit Iraqi Missile Plants
U.N. Inspectors Comb Iraqi Weapons Sites
U.N. Inspectors Interview Iraqi Scientist
Iraq Reports First U-2 Surveillance Flight
A Tale of Two Crises
N. Korea Threatens to Scrap Korean War Armistice
N. Korea set to build 4 large nuclear plants
US announces war games after North boasts of nuclear victory
U.S. Planning Sanctions Against North Korea
U.S. Announces Military Exercises With South Korea
Report: Russians Finish Unloading Kursk
CBRNE is new word for fear
U.S. offers help for sick nuclear workers
Power5 to quadruple server brawn
Diplomatic traffic
Dean Speech to Critique Plans for War on Iraq
Access to Congress's Advisers
Ohio Rep. Kucinich: 'I'm ready to run for president'
MILITARY
After Karzai warning, US military defends action in Afghanistan
NATO Nabs Ex - Kosovo Rebels Accused of War Crimes
Peace dividend?
Austria's right fails to woo greens into power
Germans Near Air Base Don't Hate U.S., Just the Noise
Iran academic sent back to death court
Kurds Look South And See Weakness
Israel Says Ready in Case of Iraq Attack
Saudis warn US over Iraq war
Turks, U.S. Wrestle Over Rules on Troops
Turkey Delays U.S. Troop Deployments for Aid Deal
NATO agrees to start Turkey's defense
Europe's Groundswell: Public Opinion
Singapore builds shelters against terror
US troops to train on Philippines hostage island
U.S. Military Police Ready for Prisoners
Report: Hawaii troops may be Korea reserve
Their master's voice
At D.C. Agencies, Anti-War Campaigns Bloom
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Thailand's Drug War Effective, But Deadly
Terror Alert May Soon Be Lowered
High Alert, High Anxiety
Aliens get extra weeks to register
Buildup Strains Public Safety
ENERGY AND OTHER
Soy-based biodiesel reliable in frigid cold - study
US farm state senators renew ethanol mandate push
EU under attack over plan to legalise paraquat
Canada scientists warn of brewing nanotech battle
Questions Beset Bush CO2 Underground Storage Plans
Scientists Urge Improved Nitrogen Management
ACTIVISTS
The human shield has arrived, but what now?
New protests planned in bid to bring Britain to a standstill
WAR HERO JOINS YOUNG AND OLD IN MASS DEMO
Kucinich campaigns
Democratic Rep. Kucinich to Run for President
Mourners recall the night it rained missiles
Ralph Nader Speaks Out Against War With Iraq
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Radioactive Materials Missing in Georgia
Mon Feb 17, 2003
By MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030217/ap_on_re_eu/georgia_radioactive_theft_2
TBILISI, Georgia - Three small containers containing radioactive materials are missing from a Georgian military base, officials confirmed Monday.
The containers of cesium-137 disappeared in December from the Vaziani military base in this former Soviet republic, military prosecutor Mamuk Tsaav said. Authorities don't know exactly when the materials disappeared, so they have been unable to determine who was on guard duty at the time.
Georgian officials did not say how much of the material was stolen or whether it was high-grade. Cesium-137 has a number of industrial and medical applications. It is often cited as one of the most likely substances that could be used in a so-called "dirty bomb," in which a conventional explosive device spreads radioactive material.
Soso Kakushadze, head of the radiation security department of the Georgian Environment Ministry, said his department learned of the theft Monday and sent in experts but they were not allowed on the base.
Kakushadze said the containers held calibrated instruments fueled by cesium. The instruments are used to measure radiation levels.
Since the disintegration of the former Soviet Union in 1991, there have been numerous thefts and attempts to smuggle out radioactive materials.
-------- depleted uranium
War on Iraq Arouses Environmental Fears Among Chinese Scientists
People's Daily Online,
February 17, 2003
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200302/17/print20030217_111799.html
As the United States intensifies its saber-rattling over Iraq, noted scientists in China fear a possible war might cause irreparable damage to the Persian Gulf environment, or even worse, a global environmental problem.
The use of powerful shells could have a greater impact on the regional environment, which had been delicate and fragile since the Gulf War in 1991, said Shu Jianmin, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Environment Science.
The aftermath of the war would be not only chemical and radiation pollution, but also a severe damage to the overall eco-system, he said.
It was believed that if the war broke out, the United States would very likely launch "surgical" air strikes, destroying Iraq's key military and energy facilities, chemical plants and traffic equipment in a short period of time.
"That may bring about large-scale chemical leakages. If the assaults caused explosions and engulfing fires in oil tanks and refineries, a large amount of toxic chemical compounds released into the air would be highly hazardous," Shu said.
Such worries were not groundless, he said, citing similar cases during the Kosovo War in 1999. Leakages of fuel and oil products following the wanton bombing of the former Yugoslavia's chemical plants and refineries by NATO resulted in abnormally high readings of chemical materials in the water of Danube.
Those chemicals were not degradable in the natural environment and were often accountable for high incidences of cancers, birth defects and mutations, Shu said.
Chinese experts also worried that the ecological disaster of 1991 might be replayed if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein took extreme measures such as setting fire to a host of oilfields.
Iraqi troops ignited Kuwait's oilfields, causing dense smoke and fiery fires, some of which could last almost half a year, blanketing the skies while thousands of square kilometers of sea space was filled with oil, forming an environmental emergency.
Toxic organic pollutants such as dioxin and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) would even further worsen the situation because studies had confirmed their close link with cancer. They also produced estrogenic impacts on human and animal reproduction and growth, said Prof. Zheng Minghui at an ecological environment research center under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
Dioxins could be produced from fires in oilfields and refineries, chemical plants and buildings. PCBs in old-fashioned transformers and capacitors might be released if Iraq's electric power facilities were destroyed during air raids, Zheng said.
"Such pollutants would not only threaten the local environment and civilian health, but also disseminate globally as a result of the movement of air and water," he said.
Whether the US army would again use depleted uranium shells in the war against Iraq emerged as another top environmental concern of Chinese scientists.
During the Gulf and Kosovo wars, enormous shells containing depleted uranium (DU), a slightly radioactive heavy metal that is effective for piercing armor, were fired by US and NATO troops.
Such ordnance can contaminate the soil, plants and water sources, leading to anything up to a 3,000-fold increase in uranium levels in the local environment, warned Shu Jianmin.
"What was more serious," Shu said, "radiation hazards to human health and the environment could last for decades, if not centuries."
Prof. Chen Guangwei, of the CAS institute of geographic science, described the eco-system of arid Iraq as more vulnerable if its water supply and irrigation systems were destroyed during the war.
A former officer at the Nepal-based International Center for Integrated Mountain Development, Chen had personal understanding of how civilians in turmoil-torn Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Kashmirregion had suffered from war.
Decades of war in Afghanistan had left a large amount of lands denuded and millions of refugees who had experienced untold misery and hardships, he said.
"The pain of war is eventually borne by civilians, who have to pay enormously for the war," he said, "but I really doubt if the US government has ever considered this heavy price when it wages a war."
----
Vieques residents bid a farewell to arms
By John Marino
17 Feb 2003
Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N12282448
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico, Feb 17 - For nearly four years, U.S. Navy war games on this tiny island off Puerto Rico were met with spirited protest and civil disobedience that landed more than 1,000 people behind bars in federal prison.
Those protests drew to a close last week as the Navy ended what were likely to be the last of its training exercises before a planned pull-out in May. But worries about Vieques' future remain and are now focusing on cleanup of the site.
"We're happy that the bombing has probably ended, but we remain skeptical. There is a lot of mistrust," said Robert Rabin, a long-time leader at the protest camps that sprang up along the front gate to Navy property after a bombing accident killed a civilian security guard four years ago.
Many people in the U.S. Caribbean territory of Puerto Rico were galvanized by the drive to end more than six decades of military training on Vieques, a 21-mile-long (33-km-long) island that lies off the eastern tip of Puerto Rico and has about 9,100 residents.
The campaign attracted protesters from further afield, too: In 2001, the Rev. Al Sharpton and attorney Robert Kennedy Jr. were among celebrities arrested protesting military exercises.
For years, residents complained the Navy bombing stifled economic development and worried that it posed a threat to the environment and their health.
Puerto Rican scientists have measured heightened levels of heavy metals in the soil and plants of Vieques from 60 years of Navy bombing. Scientists have also expressed concerns about solvents and other chemicals from bombs, and metal debris from weaponry is littered about the land and water of the island.
Then, when two 500-pound (230-kg) bombs missed their mark by nearly a mile (more than a km), killing civilian security guard David Sanes Rodriguez in a botched bombing run in April 1999, those concerns exploded into open protest.
WORRIES NOT GONE YET
Washington announced two years ago that the Navy would pull out by May 2003 and in January the Navy said it would transfer exercises to bases in the southeastern United States.
"We are certainly happy that we are moving into the demilitarization area," Rabin said. "But we are very conscious that there is much more to be done."
For most residents, that means the cleanup and return of lands formally occupied by the Navy.
After the Navy pulls completely off the island by May, nearly half of Vieques -- 16,000 of its 33,000 acres (6,400 to 19,800 hectares) -- will remain in federal government hands.
Current plans call for most of Camp Garcia, the 12,000-acre (4,800-hectare) military reservation that sprawls across the eastern third of this island, to be transferred to the Department of the Interior to manage as a wildlife refuge, which carries a lower standard of cleanup than if developed for public use.
Plans call for the 900-acre (360-hectare) live impact area where Navy bombs rained down to be fenced off and access permanently denied.
"We will continue struggling for the cleanup and return of the lands. Vieques has the right to sustainable development," said Mayor Damaso Serrano, who spent four months in prison for trespassing on Navy land during protests in 2001.
The Navy has repeatedly denied that its activities harm the environment or the health of residents.
But anti-war games protesters always cited a cancer rate on Vieques at 27 percent above the average in Puerto Rico as a major cause for concern. Now, residents fear the contamination the Navy will leave behind.
Those fears spiked recently after it was discovered that a sunken Navy destroyer, 900 feet (270 metres) off the Vieques coast, was used as a target ship for nuclear tests in the Pacific in 1958.
Also raising concerns was a recent Pentagon acknowledgment that chemical weapons simulants were tested on island beaches in the 1960s. Months after the death of Sanes Rodriguez in 1999, the Navy also acknowledged that it had used depleted uranium munitions during training in Vieques.
NAVY DENIES HEALTH, ENVIRONMENT HAZARDS
Navy studies and those undertaken by local researchers have found heavy metal contamination in local soil, plants, groundwater and seafood.
The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is undertaking a series of reviews on existing tests. While it too confirms the contamination, it says that existing levels of toxins are not in sufficient quantities to pose a health risk to local residents.
But residents want more testing, arguing that current cleanup plans, drawn up by Navy contractors, are based on old and limited research.
"The fact that the Navy has not helped Vieques at all is now complicated by the verification of the contamination and the level of cancer we have," said Osvaldo Gonzalez, 65, owner of Vieques Air Link, a small commuter airline that employs 80 people, making it one of the island's largest employers.
"Everyone if afraid. They believe that when the Navy leaves here, they should clean up. At least some of the contaminated areas should be cleaned."
The hard feelings against the Navy go back to the 1940s, when it expropriated three-fourths of the island, displacing whole communities of plantation workers and small land owners.
For decades, the Navy blocked plans for tourism projects and improved utility and transportation services, arguing that such development was incompatible with its training plans.
It was not until the early 1980s, in the wake of fishermen protests and an environmental lawsuit, that the Navy began a real economic development program for Vieques residents. Although a few factories did open, the effort died out after two years.
TOURISM KEY TO ISLAND'S FUTURE
Residents and Puerto Rico government officials now want at least some of the former Navy lands opened for projects that could spur economic development on the island of secluded beaches and rolling scrub-covered hills.
Most believe that Vieques' future lies in tourism, and a 156-room luxury resort, the Wyndham Martineau Bay Resort & Spa, will open this month near the airport after years of delay.
Puerto Rico government officials met for the first time this month with federal officials who will oversee the wildlife reserve slated for most of eastern Vieques.
They said they were encouraged by the wildlife officials' commitment to press for the highest level of clean-up "allowable under current law," but said the island government would lobby Congress in an effort to win title to at least some of the former Navy lands.
In the meantime, the protest camps lining Camp Garcia will remain, converted into meeting places for community groups who will continue to exert public pressure for a voice in clean-up and development issues, Rabin said.
"We have been fighting for 60 years to get back the lands they took from us," said 69-year-old Radames Tirado, a former mayor whose childhood home was expropriated and knocked down by Navy bulldozers.
"It will take some time, but we will get the land back and we will get it cleaned up too. No one thought we could stop the bombing and we did that."
-------- georgia
Radioactive Materials Missing in Georgia
February 17, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Georgia-Radioactive-Theft.html
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) -- Three small containers containing radioactive materials are missing from a Georgian military base, officials confirmed Monday.
The containers of cesium-137 disappeared in December from the Vaziani military base in this former Soviet republic, military prosecutor Mamuk Tsaav said. Authorities don't know exactly when the materials disappeared, so they have been unable to determine who was on guard duty at the time.
Georgian officials did not say how much of the material was stolen or whether it was high-grade. Cesium-137 has a number of industrial and medical applications. It is often cited as one of the most likely substances that could be used in a so-called ``dirty bomb,'' in which a conventional explosive device spreads radioactive material.
Soso Kakushadze, head of the radiation security department of the Georgian Environment Ministry, said his department learned of the theft Monday and sent in experts but they were not allowed on the base.
Kakushadze said the containers held calibrated instruments fueled by cesium. The instruments are used to measure radiation levels.
Since the disintegration of the former Soviet Union in 1991, there have been numerous thefts and attempts to smuggle out radioactive materials.
-------- india / pakistan
India, Pakistan OK Diplomatic Stand-Ins
Feb 17, 2003
AP
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/INDIA_PAKISTAN_AMBASSADORS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
NEW DELHI, India -- Eight days after India and Pakistan expelled each other's deputy ambassadors, the neighbors have agreed to the arrival of their replacements, the Indian foreign minister said Monday.
New Delhi and Islamabad will grant visas to the diplomats filling the posts, Yashwant Sinha was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.
"It has now been agreed that the visas would be granted by both sides tomorrow (Tuesday)," he was quoted as saying.
There was no immediate reaction or confirmation from Islamabad.
India and Pakistan have not had ambassadors in each others' capitals since last year, when there were fears of a fourth war between the nuclear-armed rivals after Islamic militants launched a deadly attack on India's parliament in December 2001.
New Delhi accused Pakistan of being behind the deadly raid but Islamabad denied it.
International diplomacy defused much of the tension, but the ambassadors have not returned. Diplomatic duties were carried out by deputies.
But on Feb. 10, both countries expelled each other's deputy head of mission.
New Delhi accused the Pakistani diplomat of sponsoring rebels in Indian-controlled Kashmir, while Pakistan accused the Indian diplomat of "actions unbecoming their status" - a term that usually refers to spying.
Each nation denied the accusations.
Expulsions are not uncommon between the two neighbors, which routinely engage in tit-for-tat diplomatic posturing. The Feb. 10 expulsions were second this year after four diplomats from each side were expelled last month.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947. Two of those have been over the disputed Kashmir region, which is divided between the two nations but claimed in its entirety by both.
-------- iran
Iran's nuclear programme no immediate threat
Story by Paul Hughes
REUTERS IRAN:
February 17, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19840/story.htm
TEHRAN - Iran thrust itself back into the "axis of evil" spotlight this week with a series of announcements detailing an ambitious nuclear energy programme, including the construction of a facility to enrich uranium.
While officials in Washington seized on the statements as evidence that Iran was determined to develop nuclear arms, many diplomats and analysts felt they were a welcome, if overdue, sign of greater transparency.
Furthermore, Iran's nuclear programme is at a relatively embryonic stage and does not pose any immediate threat to world security, they said.
"The key thing is they are being more open. They seem to have taken on board the message that, in the current international climate, you cannot go around hiding these things," said one Tehran-based European diplomat.
That message was conveyed to Iranian officials in no uncertain terms during the visits of Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi to London and European Union Commissioner Chris Patten to Tehran earlier this month, diplomats said.
The diplomatic pressure, combined with the impending visit of International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei to Tehran later this month, explained the timing of Iran's declarations about its nuclear ambitions, diplomats said.
IAEA VISIT KEY TO TIMING
"ElBaradei's visit is the key to the timing of this announcement. The Iranians seem to be well aware that they must cooperate with the IAEA or risk coming under the spotlight," an Asian diplomat said.
"As long as they keep cooperating, the chances that they could turn this to sinister purposes remain relatively remote," the European diplomat said.
Iran, which is a signatory of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), insists its nuclear plans are entirely peaceful.
President Mohammad Khatami, in a forthright speech on Sunday, said Iran had begun mining uranium and was constructing facilities that would enable it to manage the entire fuel cycle, including managing spent fuel, within the country.
The IAEA took the announcement in its stride, suggesting it was aware of Iran's plans. ElBaradei is due to visit Iran later this month to verify Tehran's claims.
US officials argue that Iran, with abundant oil and gas reserves, has no need to develop a costly atomic power industry.
They also say it does not need such a range of nuclear facilities, given an existing agreement between Tehran and Moscow for Russia to provide the uranium and manage spent fuel from Iran's first nuclear reactor in the southwestern port of Bushehr.
But Iranian officials say the 1,000 MW Bushehr plant, due to come on stream by early 2004, is insufficient to meet booming electricity demand from the country's 65 million people.
They say they need to be generating 6,000 MW from nuclear power in 20 years time and to do that means ensuring an independent uranium fuel supply.
KHATAMI WANTS SELF-RELIANCE
"We cannot rely on others who could become influenced by different elements," Khatami said, in an apparent reference to US pressure on Moscow to stop helping Iran with its nuclear programme.
A uranium processing plant is close to completion in the central city Isfahan and preliminary work has begun on a uranium enrichment facility.
Uranium must be enriched before it can be used in nuclear reactors to generate electricity. But highly enriched uranium is also a key ingredient for nuclear weapons.
Diplomats said the details announced this week were the first public admission of what Western governments had known for some time. "It's not new news, but it was public news," said a Western diplomat in Tehran.
Gary Samore, a non-proliferation expert at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Iran was probably two years away from producing the fissile material needed for nuclear weapons.
Even when the enrichment plant is completed, it will remain under close IAEA supervision, provided that Iran does not follow North Korea's example by pulling out of the NPT.
"It would be very difficult for Iran to use the facility to produce weapons-grade uranium without being caught," Samore said.
US President George W. Bush last year included Iran, Iraq and North Korea in an "axis of evil" and said they were bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction and aiding terrorists.
-------- iraq
Here it is, conclusive proof against Iraq
February 17 2003
Yellow Times (Canada)
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/16/1045330466588.html
Armando Iannucci offers a collection of Colin Powell's useful facts relating to the proposed actions in the Gulf region. Armando Iannucci is a columnist with The Daily Telegraph, London.
A collection of Colin Powell's useful facts relating to the proposed actions in the Gulf region:
A: Seven proofs of links between Saddam and al-Qaeda.
1. On an audiotape, Osama bin Laden calls Iraq a "stinking cesspit of socialist debauchery". This criticism is much less hostile than the sort of thing he says about America, thus proving al-Qaeda has warm feelings towards Saddam Hussein.
2. Our surveillance has picked up chatter from al-Qaeda operatives talking about organising a "rendezvous". "Rendezvous" is a French word, and France has constantly obstructed American attempts to impose regime change in Iraq. So again, we see a clear connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq.
3. Our spy planes have photographed Saddam's deputy prime minister being driven in a motorcade of Mercedes cars. Mercedes is a German car, and Germany is in league with France to destroy America, like al-Qaeda. Therefore, etc.
4. The number plate on one of these cars was A03A0 1A, which, in the rear mirror of the car in front, spells al-Qaeda.
5. The motorcade was moving in an easterly direction through Baghdad. If you move in an easterly direction through France, you get to Germany.
6. Saddam is another Hitler. Germany had a Hitler. Again, a direct link with al-Qaeda.
7. Al-Qaeda operatives have recently been arrested in London. The Prime Minister of London, Tony Blair, then visited France for a meeting with Jacques Chirac. Chirac then visited Bonn to celebrate 40 years of his alliance with Gerhard Schroeder of Germany. Schroeder had a meeting with Putin of Russia, who then received Hans Blix, who went to Baghdad. Again, proof of a direct link.
B: Five fascinating facts about Iraq.
1. Iraq is slightly more than twice the size of Idaho, occupying an area the equivalent of 500,000 American aircraft carriers.
2. Iraq has 57 kilometres of coastline. That's the equivalent of 300,000 Apache attack helicopters stretching 57 kilometres.
3. Iraq was once part of the Ottoman Empire, a land mass which, if turned into flour, would be enough to feed bread to the children of Iraq for 100 years. But Saddam refuses to do this and instead spends his money on presidential palaces, which, if converted to milk, would be enough to fill all the oil wells of the Middle East for a fortnight. That's why we have to stop him getting to the wells before he does this.
4. Iraq has 35,000 square kilometres of irrigated land. That's the equivalent of 300 million bottles of anthrax end to end. So where are they?
5. Iraqis consume 27.3 billion kWh of electricity every year, enough to power one Star-Wars style anti-missile system. So where is it, and who's it pointing at?
C: The United Nations constitution explained once and for all.
1. The UN has a 15-member Security Council, of which France, Britain, China, Russia and America are permanent members, with veto rights.
2. The UN Charter allows for the permanent members to use their veto to overrule any majority decision of the council with which they disagree.
3. This is not applicable in cases where France, China or Russia use their veto in unreasonable cases, "unreasonable" being defined as a veto against any recent council majority decisions supported by Britain or America.
4. In these cases, the charter will probably allow America or Britain to veto that veto, thus upholding the earlier unvetoed will of the council, unless the council arrives at a majority decision contrary to the wishes of America or Britain, in which case all the permanent members of the council ought to be obliged to veto it, or to veto any attempt to veto the veto.
----
Could the War Go Nuclear?
By Paul Rogers
February 17, 2003
Foreign Policy In Focus
http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2003/0302nukewar.html
Global Affairs CommentaryThere has been an assumption, based on all the reports of troop movements and President Bush's increasingly insistent tone, that war with Iraq is imminent. However, other sources suggest a postponement, even that the U.S. military may not be ready to start the war until the latter part of March.
What appears to have happened is something like a rerun of the crisis in 1990. Then, there were substantial movements of troops, naval ships, and aircraft into the Gulf within ten weeks of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait at the beginning of August, with the expectation that war was imminent by November. In practice, there was a complete rethinking on the U.S. part, with a near doubling of troop numbers before the war finally started--five months after Kuwait had been occupied.
This time it is more complicated, not least because of the pressure on the United States to take the United Nations (UN) route and allow time for the weapons inspections. But something more than this is going on. The most recent information on troop movements indicates that the U.S. military brass have decided to have large numbers of troops ready to invade Iraq immediately the bombing starts, rather than wait for two or more weeks for the air war to wreck the Iraqi military.
U.S. Plans, Iraqi Surprises?
There may be two quite separate reasons for this. The first is the expectation that the Iraqi regime will try to use chemical weapons to blunt the force of the attack; one way of countering this would be an immediate and rapid U.S. movement toward Baghdad, while an intensive air war makes it almost impossible for Iraqi elite forces to move their weapons into position.
The second reason is the recognition that the start of any war will signal to the regime that it is about to be terminated. A highly likely response from the Iraqi leadership will be the systematic destruction and firing of the oil fields of southeastern and northern Iraq. While this would not affect the eventual outcome of the war, the Pentagon may well assess the effect of such an evident environmental disaster as likely to incite widespread criticism of the war. Graphic television pictures of burning oil fields right at the start of the war would not encourage the view that the U.S. military was comfortably in control.
On this basis, a key part of the military plan will therefore be the rapid movement of highly mobile forces into the oil fields to try and take immediate control of them, with substantial fire-fighting teams ready to move in behind them if necessary.
The overall effect of such concerns is that everything that is considered necessary will be fully in place at the start of the war. On present trends, this means sometime between 20-30 March, or possibly even a little later. This is, of course, if things go according to plan. Any kind of Iraqi pre-emption could change this outlook fundamentally, and with the regime now virtually certain that it is about to be terminated, it would be wise to expect surprises. After the first night of intensive bombing in January 1991, there was widespread expectation that the war would be over almost at once. Then, on the second night, the Scuds began to hit targets in Israel and suddenly everything seemed a lot more complicated.
Could Nuclear Weapons Be Used?
Meanwhile, the issue of the possible Iraqi use of chemical weapons is once again raising the question of whether nuclear weapons might be used against Iraq. At first sight the very idea seems so unlikely as to be not worth considering, yet three important points arising from recent developments make it necessary for us to do precisely that.
First, Britain's Minister of Defense, Geoff Hoon, has repeated earlier warnings of possible nuclear use. In his appearance on the David Frost Program on BBC TV on 2 February, he said: "We have always made it clear that we would reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in conditions of extreme self-defense. Saddam can be absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be willing to use nuclear weapons."
This could be interpreted simply as a further effort to deter the Iraqis from using chemical or biological weapons, but the second and third points suggest an even more worrying situation. The second point, therefore, is that the United States simply does not know all the sites where Iraq may be hiding any chemical or biological weapons, and many of them may be hidden too deep underground for conventional weapons to destroy. Iraq is already subject to intensive surveillance, and this will be continued at an even higher level once the war starts. Indications of movement of chemical or biological weapons from deeply buried and previously hidden sites may come very suddenly, placing a premium on their immediate destruction.
This brings us to the third point, illustrated in a highly significant article in the Los Angeles Times (January 26) by a well-informed defense analyst, William J. Arkin. According to Arkin, planning for the possible use of nuclear weapons against Iraq is actively under way at U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha. Citing "multiple sources close to the process," Arkin specifies two potential roles for nuclear weapons: attacking Iraqi facilities located so deep underground that they might be impervious to conventional explosives, and thwarting Iraq's use of weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, Arkin cites sources within U.S. Central Command (the military command responsible for a war with Iraq) saying that a Theatre Nuclear Planning Document has already been prepared for Iraq.
Arkin's article led to inquiries by other journalists seeking clarification from administration sources, but no denials were forthcoming.
After the Nuclear Threshold
In the ordinary way, Arkin's article might be dismissed as scaremongering, but his own background suggests otherwise. Bill Arkin has worked as a defense analyst for more than twenty years, and was previously in U.S. Army intelligence. He is coauthor of a series of the most detailed books on nuclear arsenals published throughout the whole of the cold war era, and has written regularly for the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. He may be critical of some aspects of military planning and behavior but he is certainly not intrinsically anti-military.
Perhaps most significant of all, in recent years he has tended to take the view that nuclear weapons have lost most of their strategic significance, even to the extent of criticizing those who take a different view. Put bluntly, Arkin would not have written this particular piece unless he was fully sure of his sources and what they were telling him.
The combination of these three elements--statements from people such as Geoff Hoon about a willingness to use nuclear weapons, the evident reality that some key Iraqi targets cannot be destroyed except with nuclear weapons, and William Arkin's report that planning for such use is now being actively undertaken--is highly significant.
The conclusion is that the Pentagon is apparently in happy concert with Britain's Ministry of Defense that the use of nuclear weapons may be appropriate in the coming war with Iraq. If the weapons are used, then the nuclear threshold that has held since 1945 will disappear and we will move into an even more dangerous world--as other states scramble to develop their own deterrents in the form of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.
Apart from all the other issues involved in the prospective war with Iraq--civilian casualties, regional instability, humanitarian crisis, environmental catastrophe--this alone is sufficient evidence to indicate why a war with Iraq could be so exceptionally dangerous.
(This article was first published in its entirety on the global issues website (online at www.opendemocracy.net) as part of an ongoing debate about Global Security. Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University and is openDemocracy's international security correspondent. He is a consultant to the Oxford Research Group. The second edition of his book Losing Control has just been published by Pluto Press.)
----
Inspectors Visit Iraqi Missile Plants
By HAMZA HENDAWI
Associated Press Writer
Feb 17, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.N. weapons inspectors visited three factories involved in missile production Monday, Iraqi officials said, as the United States focused on Iraq's missile program as a litmus test of its commitment to disarmament.
One of the plants - Al-Mutaseem - carries out final tests on the Al Fatah missile. Last week, chief inspector Hans Blix said his team needed more information on the Al Fatah before deciding if its range exceeded the 90 mile limit imposed on Iraqi missiles after the 1991 Gulf war.
According to Iraq's Information Ministry, U.N. teams also inspected the Ibn al-Haithem factory north of Baghdad and the Al-Nida facility in the capital. Both plants manufacture missile parts.
Teams also visited the Umm al-Maarik factory, which produces metal parts for military programs, and Al-Asima, a private company north of Baghdad. It was unclear whether they are involved in the missile program.
Concern over Iraq's missile program increased after international experts found that the Al-Samoud 2, a liquid propellant "mini-Scud" ballistic missile, went beyond the U.N.-mandated range.
Experts found no problems with the Al Fatah, though they said inspectors needed more information. The experts also confirmed a report by Blix last month that casting chambers refurbished by Iraq could produce engines for missiles capable of flying beyond the legal limit, according to U.N. diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity.
On Friday, Blix said the Al Samoud 2 missile was "proscribed for Iraq" but that more information was needed on the Al Fatah missile.
Iraq declared both missile systems in its semiannual report in October and in its 12,000-page weapons declaration submitted to the United Nations in December.
The New York Times reported that the United States plans a set of final specific tests over the next two weeks of Saddam's willingness to disarm, including destroying missiles with greater range than the United Nations.
The tests also include allowing weapons inspectors to interview Iraqi scientists without government "minders" present and permitting unconditional overflights by U.S., European and Russian reconnaissance aircraft, the newspaper said.
----
U.N. Inspectors Comb Iraqi Weapons Sites
Reuters
Monday, February 17, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19476-2003Feb17?language=printer
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.N. arms inspectors fanned out across Iraq Monday in their search for banned weapons of mass destruction.
Experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) searched at least eight sites, Iraqi officials said.
Sunday, inspectors tagged several Iraqi Al Samoud missiles, declared in a key report last week to have violated United Nations resolutions by exceeding the permitted range.
UNMOVIC missile teams visited four sites Monday -- al-Amin missile factory in Falluja northwest of Baghdad; al-Mutasim company, 90 km (54 miles) south of Baghdad; the Ibn al-Haithem military compound and a private company in Taji, north of Baghdad.
A report to the U.N. Security Council Friday by chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei said Baghdad was stepping up cooperation with the inspectors.
But Blix also said engine design documents showed Al Samoud could fly around 40 km (25 miles) over the allowed range of 150 km (93 miles).
Joint UNMOVIC and IAEA teams went to al-Muthanna, Um al-Marek and al-Nida military compounds and to an undisclosed site in Samaraa, north of Baghdad, Monday.
Iraq this month conceded on three sticking points that won it some credit in Blix's report. It enforced a law banning any dealing in weapons of mass destruction or materials used in them, it agreed to private interviews with scientists and to surveillance flights by U-2 spy planes over its territory.
----
U.N. Inspectors Interview Iraqi Scientist
Reuters
Monday, February 17, 2003
Hassan Hafidh
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21172-2003Feb17?language=printer
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.N. arms inspectors conducted a private interview with an Iraqi scientist on Monday and scoured 13 suspect weapons site across Iraq.
"The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) held a private interview with a senior engineer connected with Iraq's procurement history related to 81mm aluminum tubes," a U.N. spokesman in Baghdad, Hero Ueki, said.
Inspectors suspected the aluminum tubes could be related to enrichment of uranium used to make nuclear weapons.
Experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the IAEA searched 13 sites, Ueki said.
UNMOVIC missile teams visited six sites on Monday -- al-Amin missile factory in Falluja northwest of Baghdad; al-Mutasim company, south of Baghdad; the al-Assma company that manufactures the al-Fatah missile parts; the Um al-Marik General Establishment; the al-Kadimia and Al Samoud factories.
A report to the U.N. Security Council on Friday by chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei said Baghdad was stepping up cooperation with the inspectors. But Blix also said engine design documents showed Al Samoud missiles could fly around 25 miles over the allowed range of 90 miles.
On Sunday, inspectors tagged several Al Samoud missiles, declared in a key report last week to have violated United Nations resolutions by exceeding the permitted range, to show they were accounted for and could be tracked.
On Monday, an UNMOVIC chemical team inspected the al-Muthanna compound in connection with the process of destroying mustard gas and took chemicals for analysis.
An UNMOVIC multidisciplinary team and a chemical team jointly searched the al-Zahif al-Kabeer center, a chemical plant located 18 miles northwest of Baghdad.
An UNMOVIC biological team flew by helicopter to al-Huwijah near the city of Kirkuk, 150 miles north of Baghdad.
An IAEA team conducted a radiation survey in Samaraa area north of Baghdad. Other teams inspected al-Nida and Tho al-Fekar military compounds as well as the Um al-Marik compound also visited by UNMOVIC.
A Mosul-based multidisciplinary team inspected the Hadr ammunitions storage facility outside the city. Mosul is 225 miles north of Baghdad.
Iraq this month conceded on three sticking points that won it some credit in Blix's report. It enforced a law banning any dealing in weapons of mass destruction or materials used in them, it agreed to private interviews with scientists and to surveillance flights by U-2 spy planes over its territory.
----
Iraq Reports First U-2 Surveillance Flight
Reuters
Monday, February 17, 2003
Hassan Hafidh
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21436-2003Feb17?language=printer
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq reported the first U-2 surveillance flight over its territory on Monday as part of a United Nations hunt for alleged weapons of mass destruction.
An Iraqi Foreign Ministry statement, reporting the daily activity of weapons inspectors, said a U-2 spy plane entered Iraqi airspace at 11:55 a.m. (3:55 a.m. EST) and flew over several areas.
"The surveillance operation lasted four hours and 20 minutes," the statement said.
There was no immediate comment from U.N. inspectors.
Under intense pressure, Iraq agreed last week to the U-2 and other overflights. It had said it could not guarantee the safety of the aircraft while U.S. and British warplanes partolled two "no-fly" zones over the country.
It also agreed to private interviews with scientists and issued a ban on importing or producing weapons of mass destruction or materials used in it.
U.N. inspectors conducted a private interview with an Iraqi scientist and scoured 13 suspect weapons site across Iraq.
"The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) held a private interview with a senior engineer connected with Iraq's procurement history related to 81mm aluminum tubes," a U.N. spokesman in Baghdad, Hero Ueki, said.
Inspectors suspected the aluminum tubes could be related to enrichment of uranium used to make nuclear weapons.
Experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the IAEA searched 13 sites, Ueki said.
UNMOVIC missile teams visited six sites on Monday -- al-Amin missile factory in Falluja northwest of Baghdad; al-Mutasim company, south of Baghdad; the al-Assma company that manufactures the al-Fatah missile parts; the Um al-Marik General Establishment, and the al-Kadimia and Al Samoud factories.
On Sunday, inspectors tagged several Al Samoud missiles, declared in a key report last week to have violated United Nations resolutions by exceeding the permitted range, to show they were accounted for and could be tracked.
On Monday, an UNMOVIC chemical team inspected the al-Muthanna compound in connection with the process of destroying mustard gas and took chemicals for analysis.
An UNMOVIC multidisciplinary team and a chemical team jointly searched the al-Zahif al-Kabeer center, a chemical plant located 30 km (18 miles) northwest of Baghdad.
An UNMOVIC biological team flew by helicopter to al-Huwijah near the city of Kirkuk, 150 miles north of Baghdad.
An IAEA team conducted a radiation survey in the Samara area north of Baghdad. Other teams inspected al-Nida and Tho al-Fekar military compounds as well as the Um al-Marik compound also visited by UNMOVIC.
A Mosul-based multidisciplinary team inspected the Hadr ammunitions storage facility outside the city. Mosul is 225 miles north of Baghdad.
-------- korea
A Tale of Two Crises
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
February 17, 2003
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/17/international/middleeast/17CND_DISP.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
WASHINGTON - Nobody can say for sure how long a war with Iraq might take, but one thing seems increasingly apparent: North Korea is moving to take full advantage of the United States' preoccupation with Saddam Hussein to build up its nuclear arsenal.
If there are any doubts on this score, they can be dispelled by examining the Worldwide Threat Briefing that C.I.A. Director George J. Tenet presented to Congress last week. That C.I.A. report did not receive as much attention as it deserved, possibly because it was unclassified and its conclusions were in plain view for all to see. Washington is fascinated by satellite photos, communications intercepts and top secret reports. It is the warnings in black and white that generally get ignored.
The report from the C.I.A contained a worrisome message. The die is all but cast. North Korea has decided it needs nuclear arms. It is likely to reprocess the spent fuel from its Yongbyon reactor. That means it could have enough fissile material for several more bombs in a matter of months.
It gets worse from there.
The C.I.A. also warned that a North Korean buildup would punch a gaping hole in the international system that has been established to stop the spread of nuclear arms.
Bush administration officials have been arguing that ousting the Saddam Hussein regime will serve as an object lesson of what can happen to a rogue nation that seeks weapons of mass destruction. But the North Korean nuclear breakout is sending the opposite signal to the W.M.D wannabees: if a regime does not want to be pressured by the sole remaining superpower or pushed around by a powerful neighbor, it should go nuclear as secretly and quickly as it can.
North Korea may seem remote and unrelated to Iraq, but there is a vital link. It is important to keep the Korean Peninsula stable so Washington can concentrate on its project to remake Iraq. And unless North Korea's nuclear ambitions are curbed, it will vitiate the message the administrations wants to send through the forcible disarming of Iraq. Otherwise it will be one step forward and one step back.
"The example of new nuclear states that seem able to deter threats from more powerful states simply by brandishing nuclear weaponry will resonate deeply among other countries that want to enter the nuclear weapons club," Mr. Tenet said in his briefing. "The desire for nuclear weapons is on the upsurge. 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."
Now that the Soviet Union is a relic of history, North Korea seems to be the new policy battleground where moderates and conservatives can debate arms control. And when both camps exist in the Bush Administration, the results can be confusing. Put simply, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has favored diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang, albeit with a few twists to toughen it up and avoid too overt an association with the Clinton administration's approach. Pentagon and other hardliners have been deeply suspicious of negotiating with the North, fearing it could confer economic benefits on a regime that they hope will eventually collapse.
The result has been an administration which has, by turns, insisted it is willing to talk to North Korea anywhere and anytime, denounced the North Korean regime as a charter member of an "Axis of Evil" and declared its leader to be loathsome. The North Koreans, for their part, have not helped the situation by mounting a clandestine program to enrich uranium to make nuclear weapons.
In October, a difficult situation became even worse. The Bush administration confronted North Korea with charges about its uranium enrichment program and demanded that Pyongyang dismantle the program before serious talks could continue. North Korea upped the ante by withdrawing from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, evicting international weapons inspectors and moving to reprocess plutonium. Instead of backing down it moved to break out.
The C.I.A. says that North Korea already has sufficient plutonium for one or two nuclear bombs. The quickest way for North Korea to expand its nuclear potential further is by reprocessing the spent fuel, a move that could give it enough plutonium for about five bombs in six months or less. Restarting the Yongbyon reactor, completing other reactors and proceeding with the uranium enrichment program would expand Pyongyang's arsenal further. Pyongyang seems to believe Washington is too focused on Iraq to do much, politically or even militarily, to interfere with their program.
"It does seem that they have drawn the conclusion that it is in their interest to move as quickly as possible to obtain additional stocks of separated plutonium," said Daniel Poneman, an expert on proliferation who served on the national security council for President George H.W. Bush and President Clinton. "It would appear that they are doing everything they can before we turn our attention fully in their direction."
The pressing question for Washington is what to do now. Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser to the first President Bush, and Mr. Poneman are urging a new approach. They say Washington should agree to direct talks with North Korea on the condition that Pyongyang freezes its nuclear production program. Once the talks get under way, they say, Washington should propose a grand bargain that goes beyond the previous approach. North Koreans would have to give up their spent fuel rods and their nuclear ambitions in return for a formal non-aggression pact, economic benefits and improved diplomatic ties leading to recognition.
That approach would mark a big change in administration policy, one that the White House has previously spurned as a move that would reward bad behavior. But if the Bush administration has a better idea to stop North Korea from churning out more plutonium, it has yet to share it. When lawmakers asked Mr. Tenet how the administration would respond if Pyongyang reprocessed plutonium, he said the matter was still under discussion. The administration, it seems, does not have a policy; it has a policy review. With its eye on Iraq, the administration has also sought to downplay the North Korea issue and dispel the sense of crisis.
"Some have called it a crisis," Mr. Powell said in December. "I think it's a serious situation. And what we're trying to do is control it."
The assessments by some of the administration's own intelligence experts is a good deal more blunt. They believe that a North Korean nuclear buildup will put pressure on South Korea and Japan to follow suit, and they have not been reluctant to sound the alarms. Vice Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, did not hesitate to use the "C" word when he appeared before Congress with Mr. Tenet last week.
"Pyongyang's open pursuit of additional nuclear weapons is the most serious challenge to U.S. regional interests in a generation," Vice Admiral Jacoby said. "The outcome of this current crisis will shape relations in Northeast Asia for years to come."
----
N. Korea Threatens to Scrap Korean War Armistice
Reuters
Monday, February 17, 2003; 7:57 PM
By Paul Eckert
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22298-2003Feb17?language=printer
SEOUL (Reuters) - Communist North Korea threatened on Tuesday to abandon its commitment to the entire 1953 Korean War armistice if sanctions such as a naval blockade are imposed on it because of its suspected nuclear weapons ambitions.
War warnings and comments the United States is poised to attack the North have been almost daily fare in Pyongyang's official media since the nuclear crisis flared up late last year. Washington wants multilateral talks on the crisis.
It was not immediately clear whether the latest statement, from the North's Korean People's Army (KPA) broke that pattern or was more of the same. South Korean shares drifted in tight ranges at the opening, supported by pension fund stock buying but held back by renewed concerns about North Korea.
Many people in South Korea -- which has lived with the threat of a potential Northern invasion for half a century -- simply ignore the rhetoric and focus on everyday concerns.
"The KPA side will be left with no option but to take a decisive step to abandon its commitment to implement the Armistice Agreement as a signatory to it and free itself from the binding force of all its provisions, regarding the possible sanctions to be taken by the U.S. side against the DPRK (North Korea)," said the North's army in a statement.
"If the U.S. side continues violating and misusing the Armistice Agreement as it pleases, there will be no need for the DPRK to remain bound to the AA uncomfortably," said the statement published by the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
KCNA said the statement was issued by the KPA mission at the border truce village of Panmunjom, 30 miles north of the South's capital Seoul, as the crisis over North Korea's suspected drive to make atomic weapons entered the fifth month and just a week before President-elect Roh Moo-hyun is inaugurated.
SOUTH SEES SABRE-RATTLING
In Seoul, South Korea's Defense Ministry said no unusual moves by the North Koreans were sighted and that the comments appeared to be more of Pyongyang's saber-rattling as it agitates for bilateral talks with Washington over the nuclear crisis.
"Nothing has been going on," a ministry spokesman said, adding the South was monitoring the border situation.
There was no immediate comment from the Seoul-based and U.S.-led United Nations Command that oversees the armistice.
The KPA statement said the United States was planning to bolster its military forces around the peninsula and to "conduct naval blockade operations which can be seen only between the warring states during the war and this is little short of an open declaration of war in the long-run."
In the early 1990s, Pyongyang announced it would not adhere to the pact, signed in 1953 by China and North Korea on the communist side and by the United Nations Command on the side of the international community.
South Korea is not a signatory to the armistice, which has never been replaced by a peace treaty, leaving the million-strong army of the North technically in a state of war with South, whose 650,000-member military is backed by 37,000 U.S. troops.
The standoff over North Korea's suspected nuclear program has been simmering since mid-October, when Washington said Pyongyang had admitted to pursuing a program to enrich uranium in violation of major international treaty commitments.
Since then, North Korea has expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors and withdrawn from the treaty that aims to curb the global spread of nuclear weapons and said it was ready to restart a mothballed reactor capable of producing plutonium for bombs.
Pyongyang has insisted it intends only to produce electricity and that the nuclear row is a bilateral dispute with Washington that can be resolved only through two-way talks leading to a non-aggression treaty. Washington favors multilateral talks and wants China and Russia -- with close ties to the North -- to help in that process.
----
N. Korea set to build 4 large nuclear plants
From combined dispatches
February 17, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030217-24240356.htm
LONDON - North Korea plans to build four nuclear power plants, each bigger than the Yongbyon plant at the center of a stand-off with the United States, Britain's Sunday Telegraph reported.
In Seoul, meanwhile, South Korea's Hyundai Group acknowledged yesterday that it gave $500 million to North Korea, and that the money probably helped stage a summit between the two Koreas in June 2000.
The Telegraph quoted North Korea's director of energy, Kim Jae-rok, speaking in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, as saying that the planned power plants could produce up to 200 megawatts of power - 40 times the output of Yongbyon.
"Desperate measures" are needed to tackle the country's heat and lighting shortages, it quoted Mr. Kim as saying in an interview with BBC Radio reporter Mike Thomson. "This will enable us to meet the urgent need for electricity supplies in our country."
The crisis over North Korea's nuclear program has been simmering since October, when Washington said Pyongyang had acknowledged pursuing a program to enrich uranium in violation of a 1994 accord, under which it froze its nuclear program in exchange for two atomic power reactors and economic assistance.
Since then, North Korea has expelled IAEA inspectors, withdrawn from the treaty that aims to curb the spread of nuclear weapons and said it was ready to restart the mothballed Yongbyon reactor capable of producing plutonium for bombs.
Last week the International Atomic Energy Agency declared North Korea in breach of U.N. safeguards and sent the issue to the U.N. Security Council.
The Sunday Telegraph said Mr. Kim insisted North Korea was not producing nuclear weapons at its existing facilities and would not use the planned new plants to do so.
The nuclear crisis has sidelined efforts by South Korean President Kim Young-sam to improve relations between the two Koreas, an effort that won him a Nobel Peace Prize after he traveled to Pyongyang for a historic summit on June 13 to 15, 2000.
Hyundai chief Chung Mong-hun said yesterday in Seoul that his company made the covert $500 million payment to the North to win exclusive business rights in the isolated communist country. But, he acknowledged, "I think this has helped in some part stage the South-North summit."
Mr. Chung also said in a televised news conference that he brokered the summit by setting up a meeting between government officials from the two Koreas in March 2000. "I asked the North side about the possibility of a summit, and the North also recognized the necessity," he said.
He said "government understanding and cooperation" was an inevitable result of the money transfer because of the special nature of relations between the two Koreas, divided since 1945.
Mr. Chung's comments came days after Mr. Kim acknowledged that his government condoned an illegal $200 million payment from Hyundai to North Korea four days before the summit.
Mr. Kim apologized to the nation but said the payment was to promote peace. Mr. Kim, who leaves office Feb. 25, has pushed a so-called "sunshine" policy of engaging North Korea, an overture that helped him win the 2000 Nobel.
Lim Dong-won, Mr. Kim's former intelligence chief and current adviser on North Korea, said his agency helped Hyundai send the money. Mr. Chung, however, did not say how the other $300 million was delivered.
The deal between Hyundai and North Korea had been secret until last month, when it came into the open after opposition parties called for an investigation into suspected bribes.
The Hyundai chief apologized for the secrecy, but said it was to "avoid unnecessary competition and disputes with Japan, Germany, Australia and the United States, which showed interest in North Korean projects."
Complaints about the deal first emerged when the main opposition Grand National Party claimed the money, borrowed from a state-run bank, was a bribe for the summit. The party is calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the case.
The scandal has been a blow to Mr. Kim's reputation and his reconciliatory policies for Pyongyang, now strained by the growing dispute over the North's suspected nuclear weapons development.
Despite criticism that his "sunshine" policy has given too much to the North while receiving too little, Mr. Kim insists that engagement is the only viable way to ensure peace on the Korean Peninsula.
North-South ties have vastly improved under Mr. Kim, but South Korean law still labels North Korea as an "anti-state entity," and it is illegal to provide cash to the North without formal government approval.
Hyundai projects in the North include tourism, railways, an industrial park, a sports complex, dams, an airport, telecommunications infrastructure and power generation. And Mr. Chung said his group would consult with other companies in pushing ahead with investments there.
"We have been promoting inter-Korean economic projects with the belief that balanced growth on the Korean Peninsula would help movement toward reunification," he said.
----
US announces war games after North boasts of nuclear victory
AFP
Monday February 17
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030217/1/37w7i.html
The United States announced plans for joint war games with South Korea and emphatically ruled out direct talks with Stalinist North Korea to resolve an escalating nuclear crisis.
With no glimmer of respite in the four-month old nuclear standoff, US authorities announced that annual joint military exercises would take place from March 4 to April 2 on the Korean peninsula.
North Korea routinely denounces military drills in South Korea as preparations for an invasion and experts said this time the denunciations would be even more strident.
But US officials refused to link the war games to the nuclear crisis simmering since October, describing them as purely defensive and designed to improve the ability of allied forces to defend South Korea against "external aggression."
Washington is demanding that North Korea scrap its nuclear weapons ambitions before it will agree to negotiate with the Stalinist regime. Pyongyang insists on a non-aggression pact and direct talks first.
Though North Korea has yet to respond to the announcement of US-South Korean war games, Pyongyang's official media indicated the mood of the country when it said Monday the regime's victory in a nuclear war against the United States was already assured.
"Victory is ours in the nuclear confrontation and our ... flag will fly more vigorously than before," North Korea's state radio said in a broadcast monitored by Yonhap news agency here.
"Our victory will be decisive and our future will be even brighter."
The joint military exercises are an annual fixture between South Korean and US forces, allied in a 50-year-old defense pact. A US aircraft carrier will be deployed to waters around the Korean peninsula as part of the war games and a mock battle will be staged.
This time, however, the stakes are higher. On Sunday, US President George W. Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice slammed the door to direct talks with North Korea.
The United States says the nuclear crisis must be settled through international diplomacy whereas Pyongyang says the standoff is between it and Washington alone.
"I know that the North Koreans would like nothing better than this to become a bilateral problem between the United States and North Korea," Rice said in a TV interview.
"But the Chinese have an enormous stake, the Russians have an enormous stake, the Japanese have an enormous stake," she said.
"We cannot allow the North Koreans to step back into a bilateral discussion with the United States."
Kim Dae-Jung, the president of South Korea, a country which has perhaps the biggest stake of all in a peaceful resolution of the crisis, responded with a call for direct Washington-Pyongyang dialogue.
"North Korea wants safety guarantees, the United States wants North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions ... There must be a North Korea-US dialogue," Kim said.
The crisis erupted in October after the United States accused North Korea of running a secret uranium-enrichment program and later cut off fuel aid to the energy-starved regime.
Pyongyang responded by expelling UN inspectors, pulling out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and reactivating a mothballed plant capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.
The case has been passed on to the UN Security Council which can impose an array of sanctions on North Korea, a move which Pyongyang says would be tantamount to a declaration of war.
Washington insists that it wants a peaceful solution, but Bush has ruled out no options and on Monday the New York Times said the White House had already drawn up a sanctions hit list.
The list includes halting North Korea's weapons shipments and cutting off money sent there by ethnic Koreans living in Japan, according to the newspaper.
Amid signs of increasing jitters in Tokyo, Japan and the United States have reportedly decided to conduct joint tests on intercepting ballistic missiles in Hawaii from next year.
North Korea fired a multi-stage rocket which overflew Japan in 1998 and has hinted that it was readying to test-fire more despite a self-imposed missile-testing moratorium.
North Korea is believed to have 100 Rodong-1 missiles with a range of 1,300 kilometers (805 miles). South Korea's defence ministry says it is also testing Taepodong-1 missiles with a range of 2,500 kilometers and developing longer-range Taepodong-2 missiles.
----
U.S. Planning Sanctions Against North Korea
February 17, 2003
The New York Times
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/17/international/asia/17KORE.html
WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 - The Bush administration is developing plans for sanctions against North Korea, that would include halting its weapons shipments and cutting off money sent there by Koreans living in Japan, in the event that North Korea continues its march toward developing nuclear weapons, senior administration officials say.
The officials said late last week the administration had no plans to push for the sanctions soon, since the United States' Pacific allies still oppose the idea and the United Nations Security Council is likely to remain focused on Iraq for weeks.
But the Pentagon and State Department are developing detailed plans for sanctions, and perhaps other actions, so that the United States has a forceful response ready in case North Korea takes aggressive new steps toward developing nuclear weapons, senior officials said.
Many administration officials believe that it is just a matter of time before North Korea resumes testing long-range missiles, for example, or starts reprocessing nuclear fuel for weapons production. Many officials also worry that if the United States attacks Iraq, North Korea will use the opportunity to push forward with weapons production.
"If they start to dismantle their weapons programs, then we can talk about incentives," a senior administration official said. "But if they torque up the pressure, you're looking at the other direction. That's when sanctions become much more likely."
The officials said the possibility of sanctions would be part of a broader diplomatic campaign intended to get North Korea to step back from its nuclear programs. The first step will be to urge the Security Council, perhaps in the next two weeks, to condemn North Korea's recent steps toward nuclear weaponry, which have included withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and restarting a mothballed reactor at Yongbyon that can produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The United States will also continue pressing Russia and China, major trading partners and providers of foreign aid to North Korea, to take a more active role in pressuring North Korea to dismantle its programs, the officials said.
Both countries have said they will not support sanctions yet, contending that less confrontational approaches should be given more time. North Korea has said it would consider sanctions an act of war.
Precisely because Russia and China, as well as South Korea and Japan, have been unwilling to support cutting off trade with North Korea, the United States is looking at more tailored sanctions that will focus on banned activities like smuggling drugs or proliferating weapons of mass destruction, officials said. For instance, Pentagon planners are looking closely at using American military forces to stop, turn back or seize ships and aircraft from North Korea that are suspected of carrying missiles or nuclear weapons materials, officials said. The sale of missile technology to Iran, Iraq and other countries has been a major source of foreign currency for the impoverished North Korea, American officials contend.
In December, Spanish warships working with American military and intelligence officials stopped a North Korean freighter that was found to be carrying 15 Scud missiles bound for Yemen.
But the Bush administration, at the urging of Yemen's government, determined that it had no legal right to seize the cargo and ordered the freighter released.
To prevent a similar situation, administration officials say that they will need Security Council authorization to seize or turn back weapons shipments from North Korea.
At a Senate hearing last week, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld hinted at that strategy, advocating revamping international rules to allow steps to halt North Korea's weapons exports and calling North Korea "the world's greatest proliferator of missile technology" and a threat for selling fissile material to terrorists or rogue nations.
"I see North Korea as a threat as a proliferator more than I see them as a nuclear threat on the peninsula," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Unless the world wakes up and says this is a dangerous thing and creates a set of regimes that will in fact get cooperation to stop those weapons, we're going to be facing a very serious situation in the next five years."
The sanctions package would also probably include measures intended to cut off remittances to North Korea from Korean-owned gambling parlors in Japan and allow the interdiction of drug trafficking from North Korea. North Korean groups, some linked to the government, run a thriving trade in illegal methamphetamines in northern Asia, Western officials say.
American officials contend that profits from those ventures support North Korea's military and enrich its Communist Party leaders. Constricting them, they contend, will not worsen the already dire plight of North Korea's general population, which has suffered through years of famine.
But the administration is also contemplating measures that could affect North Korean civilians. It is, for instance, likely to reduce American food shipments to North Korea this year from last year's total of 230,000 tons. The administration, which had been among the largest providers of food and fuel to North Korea, last year cut off shipments of heavy fuel oil to North Korea after learning that it had a covert nuclear weapons program.
The administration contends it will not use food aid for political purposes. But officials said last week that food aid to North Korea would almost certainly decline this year for three reasons: the World Food Program, which runs an aid distribution network in North Korea, is requesting less food this year; the United States has concerns that American food is feeding soldiers instead of civilians; and the great demand for American aid in other countries.
But Democratic officials and some aid groups assert that the assistance is being reduced to ratchet up pressure on the North Korean government.
Some Korean experts and hawkish lawmakers in Congress are also urging the administration to press China to reduce aid to North Korea until it begins dismantling its weapons programs. China provides well over half of North Korea's food and fuel imports and is widely thought by American officials to have the most leverage over North Korea.
James R. Lilley, a former ambassador to South Korea and China, said the Chinese remained deeply ambivalent about squeezing North Korea, fearful that it will collapse and send millions of impoverished refugees into northeastern China.
But he also noted that the Chinese were concerned about North Korea's nuclear programs and had been willing at least twice in the past decade to reduce food and fuel shipments to North Korea in apparent efforts to pressure North Korea to freeze its weapons programs.
"The Chinese are coming on board," Mr. Lilley said. "But you've got to get high-level summitry to kick start it."
Such high-level diplomacy could begin in April, when Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to visit Beijing to discuss North Korea, administration officials said.
Despite the administration's efforts to devise more forceful approaches to North Korea, many Democrats contend that the administration still lacks a clear and coherent policy. They contend that sanctions will only work in conjunction with a more aggressive effort by the United States to open direct talks with North Korea. The administration has resisted one-on-one talks, saying it wants to meet North Korea in a multilateral setting.
"Direct talks are an indispensable ingredient of a solution here," said Ashton B. Carter, a former Pentagon official who is now a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. "The issue is only when and what to say. Once we figure that out, we can begin the experiment of seeing whether or not North Korea can be talked out of going nuclear."
--------
U.S. Announces Military Exercises With South Korea
February 17, 2003
New York Times
By DON KIRK
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/17/international/asia/17CND-KORE.html
SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 17 - The United States command announced today two sets of joint military exercises with South Korean troops next month that it said were routine annual events that indicated no change in the defense of South Korea.
The timing of the announcement, however, seemed likely to provoke controversy in South Korea as well as a strong response from North Korea, whose media has been producing daily commentaries denouncing American military moves to build up forces in the region.
The United States command repeatedly denied any connection to the nuclear crisis, noting that the purpose of the exercises basically was to test how well American and South Korean command structures could coordinate with each other in case of attack.
Several thousand reservists are expected to join the 37,000 American troops already in the country for the exercises, which are scheduled to begin on March 4 and to end on April 2. The exercise -- named "Foal Eagle" -- has been held annually for more than 40 years; a second more limited exercise -- called RSOI for "Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration" -- last for one week, March 19 through March 26.
After engaging in increasingly vitriolic rhetoric against the United States over the last few weeks because of the nuclear issue, North Korean commentaries are expected to turn their focus on the exercises.
South Korean leaders, still hoping for a mediated resolution of the nuclear standoff, have adopted an ambivalent position with only a week to go before President Kim Dae Jung steps down on Feb. 25. President-elect Roh Moo Hyun, who has supported the presence of American troops in South Korea, has said there is no chance of war on the Korean peninsula.
Mr. Kim addressed concerns today about a nuclear arms race on the Korean peninsula, telling tourism officials, "If North Korea has nuclear weapons, South Korea could possess such weapons." At the same time, he added, "Japan could arm with nuclear weapons -- this cannot be tolerated."
-------- russia
Report: Russians Finish Unloading Kursk
February 17, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Nuclear-Submarine.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian workers finished unloading nuclear fuel from a reactor in the ruined Kursk nuclear submarine, a news report said Monday.
The operation began Jan. 29 and was carried out by workers at the Nerpa shipyard in the Murmansk region, military specialists and other experts, Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency said.
Authorities said unloading the fuel is the most dangerous phase in disposing of nuclear submarines. Adding to the danger, it was the first time the work was done on such a heavily damaged submarine.
Alexander Gorbunov, acting director of the Nerpa shipyard, told ITAR-Tass the shipyard will begin preparing the destroyed vessel for its transportation to a temporary storage site in the Barents Sea.
The Kursk sank in the Barents Sea in August 2000 after a torpedo exploded on board. All 118 men on the submarine were killed in the disaster.
-------- terrorism
CBRNE is new word for fear
By Richard Halloran
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 17, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030217-6578404.htm
HONOLULU - Ten years ago, the risks of terrorist or military assault with chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons was considered to be one of low probability but serious consequences if it happened.
Today, that risk has become one of high probability and enormous consequences. "Uncertainty," said a specialist in such weapons, "has become a certainty." Much of that risk is in Asia, notably from Iraq, North Korea, and terrorists in South and Southeast Asia. Beyond that, said Capt. Joseph Hughart of the U.S. Public Health Service, "we know that the threat from CBRNE exists world-wide, not just in the Middle East."
CBRNE, the acronym that lumps together chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high explosive weapons, is the new buzz word on the block and is sometimes pronounced "see-burn." It seems to be taking over gradually from WMD, or weapons of mass destruction.
Specialists in CBRNE gathered in Honolulu last week to address representatives of humanitarian and disaster relief agencies that might be operating near "hot zones" where CBRNE attack had taken place. They included Save the Children, International Medical Corps, Church World Service, United Nations High Commission on Refugees, International Committee on the Red Cross, and Catholic Relief Services.
The specialists had several messages for the relief agencies: protect your staff so that they can continue functioning; don't rush into the hot zone to add to the confusion; and prepare to minister to thousands of refugees.
A rule of thumb says that for every person killed in CBRNE attack, ten will be injured, and a thousand more will be displaced from their homes, often fleeing with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.
In its preparation for war with Iraq, the Pentagon assumes that Saddam Hussein will employ chemical and possibly biological weapons, or that chemical or biological agents will be released by the U.S. bombing of storage depots. The U.S. would seek to burn off poisonous agents with napalm but cannot be sure all would be destroyed.
Therefore, Pentagon is planning to handle tens of thousands of refugees, to decontaminate them, to provide basic food, water, shelter, and medical care.
The conference here was arranged by the Center of Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance, with headquarters in Hawaii, in conjunction with the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance in Washington, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and the American Council for Voluntary International Action.
Under the ground rules for the conference, speakers may not be identified. Capt. Hughart, who began his career as a Navy corpsman serving with the U.S. Marines, was an exception who agreed to be quoted.
Hughart pointed to assaults mounted by Al Qaida the terrorist network led by Osama Bin Laden that are well known, such as the aircraft that slammed into the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001.
He added other assaults not so well known such as an attempt to poison the water supply at the U.S. embassy in Rome, a biological attack in London, and the failed attempt to train an American named Jose Padilla in making a "dirty bomb" with radiated material.
North Korea, Hughart said, "has an advanced chemical warfare capability that includes cyanide, and blister, nerve, and vomiting agents." The North Koreans have targeted South Korean food and water supplies with anthrax, cholera, plague, and yellow fever biological agents.
No one paid much attention when North Korea agreed to accept 20,000 tons of radioactive waste from Taiwan. Hughart said, however, that had been turned into a radiological threat buried just north of the demilitarized zone that divides North and South Korea.
In Southeast Asia, there have been high explosive bombings near U.S. forces in the Philippines and the recent bombing of a night club in Bali that killed scores of tourists including many Australians.
Elsewhere in the Pacific, a letter filled with cyanide arrived at the U.S. embassy in New Zealand, and a threat of using nerve agent was uncovered in Guam.
Then there are nuclear dangers in the 476 nuclear reactors around the world either from terrorists seizing one or attacking it to release radiation. About 100 of those reactors are in Asia, with 23 more under construction and 39 planned.
In addition are 56 research reactors in 14 countries in the Asia-Pacific region that might be vulnerable to terrorist assault.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
U.S. offers help for sick nuclear workers
By Lisa Friedman,
WASHINGTON BUREAU, Oakland Tribune
Monday, February 17, 2003
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82%257E1726%257E1185623,00.html?search=filter
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Labor is headed back to the Bay Area to help sick nuclear workers seek compensation.
The trip will be the agency's second to Northern California since December in an attempt to assist former or current Energy Department employees whose on-the-job exposure to toxic substances made them sick. Employees are eligible for up to $150,000 and medical compensation.
Though California is home to 35 nuclear weapons-related facilities, the government has resisted putting a permanent resource center in the state. The nearest claims office for the Bay Area's approximately 48,000 workers is in Seattle.
April Boyd, spokeswoman for Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo whose district includes Lawrence Livermore Laboratory said the region needs a permanent resource center.
"It's good news that they're going to Pleasanton, and we will continue to push for some sort of permanent site. She (Tauscher) believes it's the only way to get people the help they're owed," Boyd said.
Department of Labor officials have argued that not enough employees have filed claims in the Bay Area to warrant a permanent office. Tauscher and activists for sick nuclear workers say the area would generate more claims if an office existed.
The government recently added 17 California beryllium vendors, nearly all in the Bay Area, to the list of eligible laboratories, weapons production sites and other nuclear facilities. Workers from those facilities, which can be found at http://www.eh.doe.gov/advocacy/faclist/findfacility.cfm , are potentially eligible for federal compensation.
Government representatives will be available to help people file claims: from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. March 3, 4 and 6 the Four Points Hotel by Sheraton, 5115 Hopyard Road, Pleasanton; and from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. March 5 and 6 at the Woodfin Suite Hotel, 5800 Shellmound St., Emeryville.
Workers can schedule appointments by calling (866) 697-0841 or by stopping in during the appointed hours.
-------- california
Power5 to quadruple server brawn
February 17, 2003
Stephen Shankland, Staff Writer,
CNET News.com
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1001-984808.html
IBM has fired up a computer running IBM's forthcoming Power5 processor, a top IBM executive said Monday, predicting that systems with the new chip will have four times the performance than those using the current Power4.
Getting a system to run is a key milestone for the company's future plans to pressure Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard in the Unix server market.
IBM's Power5 processor is the single most important component in IBM's years-long struggle to establish a stronger position in the Unix server market. About $21 billion worth of Unix servers were sold in 2001, and Sun Microsystems maintains the top share despite intense pressure from IBM and Hewlett-Packard.
Bill Zeitler, head of IBM's server group, said Monday that Big Blue had booted up a computer running the Power5 processor three weeks ago. Zeitler made the announcement during a speech at IBM PartnerWorld, a convention in New Orleans for IBM business partners and customers.
On business computing tasks, the Power5 will be able to perform four times the work of the existing Power4 processor, Zeitler said. IBM introduced the first Power4 systems in late 2001.
The Power5 machine was running only deep-level machine language programs, an IBM spokesman said, but Big Blue expects to run Linux and AIX--its version of Unix--on the machine within the next 30 days.
The Power5 processor will be the heart of a new 64-processor system expected in 2004. That machine had been code-named Armada, but now goes under the name Squadron.
IBM first began disclosing details of the Power5 last April. Through a technology called Fast Path, the processor will be able to take over many tasks currently run by software, including networking, virtual memory and message passing among different computers.
Power5 also has better error detection and correction than its predecessor. It will be able to run more operating systems simultaneously in separate "partitions." And unlike Power4, Power5 will be designed not only for high-end servers but also for lower-end systems.
The processor will be used in a nuclear weapons simulation supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. That machine, called ASCI Purple, is slated to use 12,544 Power5 chips.
-------- us politics
Diplomatic traffic
February 17, 2003
Washington Times
Embassy Row
by James Morrison
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030217-7634963.htm
Foreign visitors in Washington this week include:
Today
•Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who meets President Bush and participates in the White House forum at the American Museum of History. She meets Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Wednesday.
•Costa Rican Foreign Minister Roberto Tovar, who meets officials at the State Department and National Security Council to discuss plans for the reform of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
Tomorrow
•Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, senior minister of foreign affairs for Senegal, who discusses the African Union and other issues at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies.
Thursday
•Peruvian Prime Minister Luis Solari. On Friday, he addresses the North American Peruvian Business Council and the Inter-American Dialogue.
•NATO Secretary-General George Robertson, who holds a 2 p.m. news conference at the St. Regis Hotel, 923 16th St. NW.
Friday
•Sahin Alpay of the department of political science and international relations at Turkey's Bahcesehir University. He discusses Turkey's new ruling Justice and Development Party at a luncheon briefing sponsored by the Institute of Turkish Studies and the Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association.
To contact James Morrison, call 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail jmorrison@washingtontimes.com.
----
Dean Speech to Critique Plans for War on Iraq
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 17, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18611-2003Feb16?language=printer
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean will offer a broad and blistering critique of President Bush's policy toward Iraq today -- and sharp criticism as well of his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination -- in a speech asserting that Bush has not made the case for war and calling for United Nations weapons inspections to continue "as long as there is progress" toward disarmament.
Dean accuses the administration of focusing on "the wrong war at the wrong time" and argues that North Korea and especially Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network represent far greater threats to the security of the United States than does Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"To this day, the president has not made a case that war against Iraq, now, is necessary to defend American territory, our citizens, our allies, or our essential interests," Dean says in the text of a speech he plans to deliver at Drake University in Des Moines this afternoon. A copy of the text was made available yesterday to The Washington Post and some other news organizations.
Dean charges that congressional Democrats, including three who are running for president, helped give Bush "a green light to drive our nation into conflict" last fall by supporting a resolution authorizing war against Iraq even without the support of the United Nations. Dean says he would have opposed that resolution.
"That the president was given open-ended authority to go to war in Iraq resulted from a failure of too many in my party in Washington who postured for position instead of standing on principle," Dean says.
Dean's rivals take issue with his criticism, arguing that he is trying to have it both ways by attempting to stake out a position to their left in hopes of appealing to antiwar Democrats while acknowledging that he would be prepared to go to war unilaterally if Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States.
Bush's "reckless, go-it-alone" policies have damaged relations with the nation's most important allies and his policy of "preemption" has undercut "decades of bipartisan consensus" on foreign policy at home, Dean says
Dean asserts in the speech that America "may have to go to war" against Iraq, but says rushing to war without international support is a mistake. He argues that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's recent presentation before the U.N. Security Council of intelligence on Iraq's weapons program did little to marshal a broad coalition. "I was impressed not by the vastness of evidence presented by the secretary but rather by its sketchiness," he says. "He said there would be no smoking gun and there was none."
Dean asserts that Hussein cannot seriously threaten the United States at this time. "What can he get away with as long as Iraq is inspected, under constant surveillance, surrounded, grounded because of no-fly zones, and barred from receiving weapons and other strategic materials?" he asks in the text.
He urged the administration to work more closely with U.N. inspectors and keep pursuing that approach so long as the inspectors credibly say they are making progress.
Dean also criticizes Bush for failing to explain the risks of war, from possible humanitarian disaster if the war lasts more than a few weeks to environmental damage to Iraq's oil fields to the dangers of war causing a new round of terrorism aimed at the United States.
Dean calls the crisis created by North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons "the most dangerous situation in East Asia in a decade, perhaps in five decades," but says the administration is treating it "as a sideshow" because it "doesn't fit into any of the administration's preconceived little boxes." He added, "They do not see themselves as negotiators, they see themselves as pre-emptors."
The real danger continues to be the fight against bin Laden and international terrorist networks, Dean says. Like other Democrats, Dean says the administration should be providing more funds for homeland security rather than tax cuts. Noting that Bush mentioned Hussein 18 times in his State of the Union address but never mentioned bin Laden, Dean says, "The president sounds like a war president, but I must ask whether he is focused on the right war."
----
Access to Congress's Advisers
Work of Research Service Would Be Made More Public
By Brian Faler
The Washington Post
Monday, February 17, 2003; Page A29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18299-2003Feb16?language=printer
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) would like to give you his colleagues' crib sheets.
McCain, along with Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), has introduced a resolution that would help open the Congressional Research Service, considered one of the best sources of information on pending legislation, to the public.
Their proposal would allow the Senate to publish most of the service's reports and issue briefs and other data, which are currently reserved for lawmakers, on a centralized Web site. That site would not be accessible to the public, but, from it, individual senators could pick reports to place on their personal and committee Web sites for public viewing.
"This resolution will ensure more widespread dissemination of information and encourage Americans to find out more about their government," McCain said in a statement. "Interested and educated voters are vital to a flourishing democracy."
The CRS, an office of the Library of Congress, publishes hundreds of reports annually, on seemingly every conceivable public policy issue -- including American relations with Azerbaijan, meat and poultry inspections, and how Congress might combat "spam" e-mail. Last summer, the agency even investigated whether James A. Traficant Jr., the flamboyant former lawmaker from Ohio who was imprisoned on corruption charges, could legally run, as he then threatened to do, for reelection from his cell (CRS's answer was yes, he could).
Lawmakers and their staffs routinely use the reports -- almost universally described as nonpartisan, concise and readable -- to get up to speed on issues, track bills and investigate legislative histories.
The public can also use the reports, with a little legwork. Constituents may request CRS documents from individual lawmakers. Some House members, through a pilot program, post the reports on their Web sites. And some of the CRS reports can be purchased from private vendors, who presumably get them from current or former lawmakers.
But all of that is too cumbersome, haphazard and unfair to the public, supporters of the measure say -- especially because the service is funded by taxpayers' money. The agency received $81 million for fiscal 2002.
And, they say, none of the other government entities that provide public information on congressional initiatives -- the General Accounting Office, the Congressional Budget Office, the Library of Congress's THOMAS Web site -- provide as much information as quickly as the CRS.
The proposal has won the support of a gaggle of good- and open-government groups, including the Project on Government Oversight, the American Library Association, the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Center for Responsive Politics.
The CRS, however, has issued a terse response to the idea, saying that it is not designed to perform -- at least not directly -- a "public information function" and that courts have upheld its role as a "confidential and exclusive adviser to Congress."
The CRS has opposed similar plans for years, arguing, in more loquacious moments, that it would create many legal and practical problems that would distract its 700 analysts from their mission. In 1998, the CRS said interest groups, lobbyists and critics of all stripes would likely inundate the agency with comments and complaints, trying to steer its reports in a particular direction, if the reports were widely distributed.
The service also mentioned fears that it might be held liable for comments made in the reports -- or that it might be sued for copyright infringement.
The senators' proposal attempts to allay some of those concerns by allowing, for example, the agency to redact certain information from the reports before they are published, such as the names of the analysts involved and any copyrighted information.
--------
Ohio Rep. Kucinich: 'I'm ready to run for president'
Monday, February 17, 2003
Cable News Network CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/02/17/kucinich.president/index.html
DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) -- Rep. Dennis Kucinich said Monday that he is "ready to run for president" on an unabashed liberal platform that opposes the foreign policy championed by the Bush administration, including a possible war in Iraq.
The Democratic congressman from Ohio said he will file papers Tuesday to form a presidential exploratory committee, and that he expects to seek the Democratic nomination for president.
"This isn't just about Iraq," Kucinich told CNN. "This is about an administration's policy which is going to proliferate war around the world. This is about a policy of pre-emption and unilateralism, of nuclear first strike.
"We need a foreign policy which is cooperative, which enhances our relations with allies, not separates people. We need a holistic worldview that views the world as interdependent and interconnected."
The administration has not made a persuasive case for war, the four-term, 56-year-old congressman said. "There is no basis to go to war against Iraq," he said, adding that Iraq is not responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, is not responsible for al Qaeda's role in those attacks, is not responsible for the ensuing anthrax attacks and represents no threat to the United States.
"Iraq cannot attack our nation, but if we attack Iraq, I think we'll make America less safe and more vulnerable to terrorism," he said.
Kucinich described himself as "an FDR-type Democrat" who would work to "make sure people have jobs [and], universal health care, and protect Social Security.
"When I take that message through this state and across this country, I think there's going to be real responsiveness to it, and also a message that war is not necessary."
He broadened his criticism to include some within his own party. "I think that we need to bring back into the debate the old-time Democratic values. This is a struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party, which in too many cases has become so corporate and identified with corporate interests that you can't tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans.
"Well, in my case, you will be able to tell the difference. I'll be there on the side of workers, on the side of the environment, on the side of fair trade and on the side of peace."
Kucinich was in Iowa, the first caucus state, to address a meeting of the AFL-CIO in Altoona.
Elected Cleveland city councilman at 23, he went on to be elected Cleveland's mayor nine years later, becoming the youngest mayor of a large U.S. city.
In 1996, he was elected to Congress as an economic progressive, though he tends to be more conservative on cultural issues. For example, he opposes abortion.
Asked about his recent comment to an Akron newspaper that it would be "a cold day and possibly a snowy day in hell before a liberal would get back into the White House," he responded, "Have you been checking the stories on CNN today? All over America, it's cold and snowy. I'm ready to run for president."
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
After Karzai warning, US military defends action in Afghanistan
AFP Photo
Monday February 17, 7:25 PM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030217/1/37w4d.html
The US military sought to defend its actions in Afghanistan after its regional commander met Afghan President Hamid Karzai to explain a recent bombing campaign.
Spokesman Colonel Roger King said General Dan McNeill, the head of US military operations in the central Asian country, had met with Karzai on Saturday to discuss an offensive last week in central Helmand province.
The meeting came as a government delegation departed for Baghran in the north of Helmand to investigate unconfirmed reports that 17 civilians had been killed in a series of US-led bombing raids on suspected Taliban extremists.
According to a presidential spokesman, Karzai warned McNeill that the US military should tread with greater caution in its 15-month old campaign against Taliban and al-Qaeda extremists in Afghanistan.
"General McNeill reaffirmed coalition forces' right of self-defence and pointed out that those forces had entered the (Baghran) valley with the consent of the governor of Helmand," King said.
He added that a delegation from Helmand, also visiting Karzai on Saturday, had reported no sightings of civilian casualties.
The US military has continued to deny reports of non-combatant deaths from what it calls Operation Eagle Fury, which began when US Special Forces were attacked in the Baghran area last Monday.
Danish and US warplanes were called in to pound the area, believed to be a hideout for more than 30 extremists loyal to the former Taliban regime, in sustained raids involving 500 and 2,000 pound bombs.
The US says it has killed an undisclosed number of rebel fighters in the offensive, but has admitted only one civilian casualty: the eight-year old son of one of the opposition fighters. The boy was treated for shrapnel injuries.
King said Monday that the situation in Baghran had been calm since the last air raid on Thursday.
Last week's fighting came only days after the conclusion of another assault on a mountain cave complex near the southern border town of Spin Boldak, which left 18 rebels dead.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, two rockets struck near a US outpost at Shkin in the border regions of eastern Paktika province early Sunday, but caused no injuries or damage. Similar attacks occur regularly across the country.
And in the central province of Bamiyan, US Special Forces found one AK-47 rifle with ammunition, 14 rocket-propelled grenade rounds and other weaponry during a reconnaissance mission.
US troops, accompanied by a battalion of the newly formed Afghan national army, have been operating for several weeks in Bamiyan, where regional leaders have accused them of exacerbating factional and ethnic tensions.
-------- balkans
NATO Nabs Ex - Kosovo Rebels Accused of War Crimes
February 17, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-serbiamontenegro-kosovo-warcrimes.html
PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - NATO-led troops have detained three ex-Kosovo Albanian guerrillas accused by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague of war crimes against both Serb and Albanian civilians, the alliance said on Monday.
It was the first time ex-members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) were held on charges filed by the U.N. war crimes court, which has been criticized by Belgrade for indicting only Serbs for atrocities during the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict.
``Today's action represents a significant new step in NATO's drive to detain war crime indictees throughout the region,'' Secretary General George Robertson said in a statement.
The three former members of the guerrilla force that battled Slobodan Milosevic's Serbian forces are accused of war crimes while they were commanders and guards at a prison camp in central Kosovo in mid-1998, NATO said.
``During this period, they committed, or otherwise aided and abetted the execution of, the crimes of imprisonment and cruel treatment of both Serb and Albanian civilians,'' it said.
It named the suspects as Haradin Bala, Isak Musliu and Agim Murtezi. None of them were part of the senior KLA leadership.
``This should...send a message that we will act against any person indicted for war crimes, regardless of their ethnicity,'' Robertson said.
The three will be moved to The Hague, NATO said.
PRE-DAWN RAID
In the village of Gornja Koretica, Shefkije Balaj said peacekeepers came for her 45-year-old husband as the family of two adults and seven children were sleeping early on Monday.
``Masked soldiers broke the window and entered our bedroom. They took Haradin without saying anything,'' she said, spelling the family name differently from NATO's statement.
``He hasn't done anything wrong,'' she said, adding the children were told to leave their room while it was being searched. ``My husband was a KLA soldier and fought for the freedom of his people. He was only an ordinary soldier.''
Chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said last year that three former guerrillas were under investigation.
Western officials in Kosovo insist they will crack down on former rebels guilty of crimes, despite the risk of protest.
The arrest reports coincided with the start on Monday of a war crimes trial in Pristina against four other KLA members.
An international prosecutor in Kosovo had charged well-known ex-commander ``Remi'' and the others with torturing fellow ethnic Albanians suspected of collaborating with Serb officials in the 1998-99 conflict. Three are also accused of murdering civilians.
Many Kosovans regard former guerrillas as heroes in a war of liberation against harsh Serb rule when Milosevic was in power in Belgrade. Kosovo came under U.N.-led rule in mid-1999 after 11 weeks of NATO bombing drove out his forces.
The U.N. court last September wrapped up the Kosovo chapter of the case against the former Yugoslav president, blamed by prosecutors for atrocities committed by Serb military and police as they battled Albanian insurgents.
-------- business
Peace dividend?
Global investors Monday were acting like war wasn't quite as likely as it was last week.
February 17, 2003
By Justin Lahart,
CNN/Money Staff Writer
http://money.cnn.com/2003/02/17/markets/warnpeace/index.htm
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Global investors aren't the likeliest group of peaceniks you'll come across. But Monday they appeared to have joined the millions who protested this past weekend in hoping that war with Iraq would be avoided.
U.S. markets were closed for Presidents Day -- just as well considering the snow drifts piling up on Wall Street -- but markets around the world suggested that traders have come to feel that war is less imminent.
The major international stock exchanges saw big rallies. Gold -- traditionally a safe haven for skittish investors -- saw its price tumble, as did oil. The dollar strengthened. (Check how world markets closed here).
A lot of the reason was Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix's report on Friday to the Security Council. Blix took a softer line on Iraq than traders anticipated, raising expectations that United States would tone down the rhetoric, giving diplomacy and the inspection process more time before acting.
It was a notion that helped push Dow up 158.93 points on Friday. Overseas markets were wrapping up the day by the time Blix started talking and were closed by the time Secretary of State Colin Powell offered his response. And so they had to bide their time until Monday.
"The Blix report seems to be the major reason for the rally," said one trader in London, where the FTSE finished the day up 2.2 percent. Takin' it to the streets
But protests across Europe and the United States appear to also have been a factor -- not just because of their size, but their makeup.
These were not the protesters who ran amuck in Seattle in the fall of 2000. They may not represent the consensus, but they represent something more than the fringe.
"I'm astonished how many people I knew, Labor and Tory, who went," said Lehman Brothers global economist John Llewellyn, who works in London. "I don't think you would have a million people out in the street just to say war is bad. What tipped it toward such big numbers is this idea that the U.S.'s approach is such a misdiagnosis."
The strength of the anti-war rally in London, in particular, may have some effect, forcing Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has thus far been the United States' staunchest ally, to soften his stance.
As Foreign Exchange Analytics currency strategist Dave Gilmore pointed out in a morning note on Monday, "In the U.K. in particular, the notion of Blair leading Britain to war with Iraq alongside the U.S. without U.N. backing is political suicide."
But although markets appear to have been cheered by the idea that, in the wake of Blix and the weekend protests, war is not as imminent, some feel that the good vibes will not last for long. Judging from the noise coming out of the White House -- particularly the appearances by national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on the weekend talk shows -- the administration hasn't changed its mind on Iraq.
"I see no officials saying a war is less likely," said HSBC currency strategist Marc Chandler. "I don't think the protesters in Western Europe and the U.S. are enough to change policy makers' minds."
Nor did Chandler put much stock in the general interpretation most observers were gleaning from market movements Monday, believing that they said little about what was going on in the world.
"Lower gold prices and a lower euro means there's less likely to be a war with Iraq? That's politically naive," he said. Top of page
-------- europe
Austria's right fails to woo greens into power
[Disagreement over purchase of jet fighters, etc.]
Marcus Kabel in Vienna
Monday February 17, 2003
The Guardian
Reuters
Austrian talks on forming Europe's first government coalition of conservatives and greens collapsed yesterday, leaving the country without a clear idea of how it will be ruled just three months after elections.
Wolfgang Schüssel's negotiations with the Greens were his third attempt to put together a new government after snap elections in November that followed the collapse of the chancellor's coalition with Jörg Haider's far-right Freedom party. The old government remains in office on an interim basis.
Mr Schüssel launched talks with the Greens a week ago, but an all-night negotiation between the two party chairmen failed to break deadlocks over key issues including pension reform, university fees and buying 18 jet fighters.
"We were supposed to have reached a result by yesterday or this morning. And since that has not been achieved, I am afraid I have to say that we have not agreed on a shared coalition programme," the Greens' leader, Alexander van der Bellen, told reporters.
"I think there were too many different opinions within the Greens about whether to join a government or not," said Maria Rauch-Kallat, general secretary of the chancellor's People's party.
The Greens had been split since the start about whether to seek a coalition, with factions arguing they could not work with a party whose last partner was the Freedom party.
Mr Schüssel, whose party came first in the vote, has no formal deadline for forming a new government, but President Thomas Klestil has urged him to make a decision and polls show voters growing impatient.
If the talks had been successful, it would have been Europe's first pure conservative-green coalition. Leftwing greens have shared power in five other EU governments centred on large socialist parties, some including smaller conservative groups.
-------- germany
Germans Near Air Base Don't Hate U.S., Just the Noise
By MARK LANDLER
February 17, 2003
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/17/international/europe/17GERM.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
NEU-ISENBURG, Germany, Feb. 15 - For some angry lawmakers in Congress, the best punishment for Germany's refusal to back a war against Iraq would be to scale back the number of American troops stationed here. The Pentagon, they were told recently, is weighing the idea.
Ask the residents of this German town what they think, and they say it cannot happen soon enough.
Neu-Isenburg, a well-kept community of 36,000, is carved out of the majestic forest south of Frankfurt. It lies next to the Rhein-Main Air Base, which was once a landing site for dirigibles, including the ill-starred Hindenburg, and is now a major hub for the United States Air Force.
Since November 2001, the night sky over Neu-Isenburg has reverberated with the roar of C-5 Galaxy cargo planes and other aircraft ferrying troops and supplies to Afghanistan. With a new war in the Persian Gulf looming, Rhein-Main is gearing up for another wave of flights.
"To be honest, I would be very happy if they left," said Kerstin Harms, a sleep-deprived mother of two young girls. "When these Galaxy planes pass by, the windows vibrate, the whole house shakes."
Horst Müller, a retired pharmaceutical worker who has campaigned against the flights, said some pilots were "cowboys" who reved their engines with little regard for the sleeping world below. "When a Galaxy takes off at 3 a.m.," he said, "all of Neu-Isenburg falls out of bed."
Like most people here, Mr. Müller and Mrs. Harms insist that they do not resent the American military presence in Germany. For Mr. Müller, 69, the soldiers stir memories of his first chocolate bar, given to him when he was 11 by an arriving G.I., or his first cigarette, cadged from a soldier and smoked furtively in the woods near his home.
But the incessant noise is testing their patience. And the discontent is not confined to this town. People who live near the much larger Ramstein Air Base in southwestern Germany also complain about the racket. A United States Army training ground in the Bavarian town of Auerbach has drawn the ire of residents who say the sound of exploding artillery shells keeps them awake.
"It's not just Afghanistan," said the mayor of Neu-Isenburg, Dirk-Oliver Quilling. "It's every crisis - Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo. This isn't a problem with Americans. It's a problem with military flights."
Once viewed as a potent symbol of cold war vigilance - eagles standing against the Soviet bear - the American soldiers in Germany are now seen by some people here as something approaching a nuisance.
At the Pentagon, some view them as a relic. The new commander for American forces in Europe, Gen. James L. Jones, has floated the idea of scaling back the 71,000 troops based in Germany in favor of lighter, more mobile units that could jump from country to country on short notice.
The plans, which are in an early stage, are part of a longstanding effort to rethink the deployment of United States troops in Europe since the end of the cold war. Despite the barbed comments in Congress, military officials say the plans did not grow out of the recent rift between Berlin and Washington.
The strained relations, however, are coloring the debate on both sides. Antiwar protesters plan to demonstrate in front of the Rhein-Main base in the coming week, while Mr. Müller and other people here said they regretted the anti-American position taken by Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Schröder.
The commander of the base, Col. Christine D. Prewitt, said some local officials had even apologized to her. "I tell them I appreciate the support, but I can't really do anything with it," she said.
Colonel Prewitt is, however, trying to address the complaints about noise. She noted that the Air Force had begun using more C-17 planes at Rhein-Main, which are quieter than the C-5's. She disciplined a pilot who veered off his landing path a year ago and flew low over the town. And she meets regularly with local officials to brief them on the missions being planned.
Among her frustrations is the stubborn belief among townspeople that the planes are carrying bombs or other weapons. She said the base was not equipped to load or unload munitions.
Colonel Prewitt also said cargo planes bound for Afghanistan had to take off in the middle of the night in order to land there in daylight. The need to supply troops in Iraq may require further night flights.
"We can't ever promise a community that we won't fly over them," she said. "The planes have to go somewhere."
Despite these irritants, Colonel Prewitt said relations between Rhein-Main and its neighbors were decent. She recalls being stationed as a young pilot at the Clark Air Base in the Philippines from 1985 to 1988. That base was eventually closed after anti-American protests.
"In the Philippines, you got the distinct feeling it was `Yankee Go Home' time," she said. "You don't get that feeling here. The circumstances are different, the people are different."
She said Rhein-Main had been downsized in 1995, reducing its population from about 8,000 to under 2,000. With fewer Air Force troops, there are fewer links between the base and the surrounding towns.
Neu-Isenburg used to have an auto dealership and a pub that catered to American troops. Both are gone. Unlike some German towns, Neu-Isenburg does not depend on the base for economic sustenance.
Indeed, the Air Force plans to close Rhein-Main at the end of 2005, transferring its last operations to Ramstein. The move, however, is contingent on adding a runway and upgrading technology there. Given the Pentagon's other obligations these days, residents doubt that it will meet that deadline.
Rhein-Main shares runways and taxiways with Frankfurt's mammoth international airport, which is just north of the base. Airport officials already have plans to convert the base into a new terminal building. Mayor Quilling said his town might end up trading the roar of the C-5's for more car traffic.
"There is a German expression," he said as he watched a Lufthansa 747 ascend into the azure sky outside his office. "We look at it with one eye crying and one eye laughing."
-------- iran
Iran academic sent back to death court
Monday, 17 February, 2003
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2773989.stm
Hashem Aghajari http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38519000/jpg/_38519349_iranagh300.jpg
Reformist students Students demonstrated against the death sentence http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38521000/jpg/_38521231_iranaghdemo150.jpg
Professor Aghajari questioned the power of Iran's clerics
The Iranian university professor whose death sentence for apostasy was quashed last week is to be retried by the same court that ordered his execution.
A spokesman for the judiciary said Hashem Aghajari, who was given the death penalty last November for questioning the rule of the clerics in Iran, could even face the same punishment. It's possible that the new verdict will be the same as the original one
Gholamhussein Elham, judicial spokesman
Monday's announcement on the fate of Mr Aghajari was made by newly appointed judicial spokesman, Gholamhussein Elham.
"It's the court of first instance (in the western city of Hamedan) ... which must correct procedural failings and issue a new judgement," Mr Elham told the official IRNA news agency.
"It's possible that the new verdict will be the same as the original one."
Mr Elham's comments will come as no surprise to many observers in Teheran, BBC correspondent Miranda Eeles said.
He is seen as a right-winger even within the conservative-dominated judiciary.
He was appointed after his predecessor, Hussein Sadeghi, controversially resigned in December in protest at Mr Aghajari's sentence.
'Too harsh'
According to one of the judges, they voted to revoke the death penalty, saying the charges were incompatible with the sentence.
Mr Aghajari's case caused widespread protest last year, in particular amongst university students.
For more than a month thousands demonstrated on campuses all over the country calling for his release but also for political reform.
Observers in Teheran have so far doubted the death penalty would ever be carried out. Monday's statement is likely to confuse matters further, our correspondent says.
'Iran's Rushdie'
For his remarks in June, Mr Aghajari was also sentenced to 74 lashes, banned from teaching for 10 years and banished to three remote cities for eight years.
Mr Aghajari enraged conservatives when he said that Muslims should not uncritically follow the line laid down by Islamic clerics "like monkeys".
He questioned why clerics alone had the right to interpret Islam, which led many to accuse him of being "Iran's Salman Rushdie".
Iran's parliament denounced the death sentence as "disgusting" and President Mohammad Khatami also condemned it.
Human rights group Amnesty International has taken up the case of Professor Aghajari, a 45-year-old veteran who lost a leg in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
-------- iraq
Kurds Look South And See Weakness
Kirkuk Would Be Prize in War With Iraq
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 17, 2003; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18265-2003Feb16?language=printer
CHAMCHAMAL, Iraq -- The traffic comes all day long, taxis and trucks and private sedans darting across the plain of government-controlled Iraq toward the mountains where ethnic Kurds maintain their autonomous zone. It is a routine passage from confinement to relative freedom, and last week the Iraqi government made a glancing effort to make it more difficult, imposing a limit of 21/2 gallons on what a taxi can purchase at the last chance for gas in government territory.
But the travelers continue to cross, with their luggage and jerrycans and their intriguing details about a country on the cusp of war.
Secrets have always transited this place with the same ease as battered white and orange taxis. It's a porous line that separates the zones, and people from both sides easily negotiate checkpoints that, on the Kurdish side, often amount to a brake and a wave.
The information flows thickest from Kirkuk, which after Baghdad would be perhaps the most crucial prize of a military campaign against Iraq. If Turkey permits U.S. troops to use its territory to open a northern front in an Iraqi war, analysts say, Kirkuk would figure prominently in the Americans' plans.
Barely 20 miles from the checkpoints, Kirkuk lies on an open plain defended by a trench line facing north and tens of thousands of soldiers and citizens who have far more guns than will to use them, according to Kurdish officials and Kirkuk residents visiting the Kurdish region.
"The regular army doesn't find enough to eat, so I don't believe they'll fight," said a young man visiting the Kurdish-controlled city of Sulaymaniyah for the Muslim holidays last week. His account, like those offered by other travelers and by officials here in the Kurdish zone, could not be independently verified.
The youth said he has seen army conscripts in tattered uniforms and damaged shoes, too poor to afford bus fare to their homes in southern Iraq. "The Republican Guard," he said, "is the only force the government will trust." Well-paid and well-provisioned, Republican Guard troops are regarded here as formidable fighters. An unspecified number reportedly are deployed in the heart of Kirkuk, reinforced by thousands stationed at Khalid Camp, a vast military complex southwest of the city.
Kurdish officials concur that Kirkuk's outer defenses are manned by a ragged regular army supplemented by perhaps 100,000 civilians who have been given automatic rifles and a month of training. Many are members of the ruling Baath Party; others reported for duty after being told each family must volunteer one member for the makeshift militia. About 20,000 are Kurds -- called traitors by their ethnic brethren to the north, who refer to Saddam Hussein's Kurdish militia as the "donkey army" and boast of infiltrating its ranks.
"Most of this military I call sacrifice military," said Shalaow Askari, a Kirkuk native, veteran Kurdish fighter and a minister in the self-government Kurds have established under the cover of U.S. and British warplanes enforcing a "no-fly" zone since 1991.
"They won't run. They will surrender," Askari said. "The military the Iraqis are counting on are inside the city."
Kirkuk residents say they have seen evidence that Hussein's regime is on its last legs.
"The intelligence guys are not like in the past, because they know they have just a little time," said a resident visiting Chamchamal, just past the front line. Criticism that once might have guaranteed arrest is now voiced in semi-public spaces such as taxis.
"They speak as they like, openly," said the middle-aged man, who asked to be identified only as a laborer.
Kurdish officials spoke of recent information that Iraqi forces have moved missile batteries into the city and to positions on the eastern outskirts. But the most intense speculation is over the fate of the oil fields northwest of town. They are the oldest and most productive in Iraq, which ranks second only to Saudi Arabia in total crude reserves.
Reports that Iraqi forces have planted explosives around the wells percolate regularly into the Kurdish region but have yet to be confirmed by photos or other direct evidence, officials said. After Iraqi forces blackened the skies above Kuwait by blowing up wells as they retreated during the Persian Gulf War, people anticipate the worst in the event of a U.S. invasion.
"This is going to be a big issue, the environmental terrorism," said Barham Salih, prime minister of the Kurdish administration.
Kirkuk is combustible in other ways as well. Long before the discovery of oil, the area was treasured as a homeland for two ethnic groups: the Kurds and the ethnic Turkomen, who speak Turkish. Both have suffered as, during more than two decades of Hussein's rule, thousands of Arabs were moved to the city, where they are now the majority. Kurds have been banned from registering as owners of property unless they took on Arabic names, "so you have to find someone who's Arabic to register the home for you," said another Kurdish visitor from Kirkuk, seeing family for the holidays.
In the city's Kurdish neighborhoods, armed members of Hussein's Baath Party have dug fresh bunkers, fearing revenge killings. "They have to be afraid of the Kurdish, because we have suffered a lot," said the young man visiting Sulaymaniyah. "They have a lot to fear from us."
Kurdish leaders say they cannot stop Kurds inside Kirkuk or Mosul, the city that borders Iraq's oil fields to the west, from taking up the arms they have hidden. Nor, they say, will they prevent Kurds in the north from rushing south to claim their old houses from the Arabs who have taken them as their own.
"They are free to do so," said Jalal Talabani, chairman of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party that controls the areas north and west of Kirkuk. "We can't control them."
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Says Ready in Case of Iraq Attack
February 17, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Prepares.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel has been preparing for an Iraqi missile attack since the last Gulf War, and now says it's ready.
A state-of-the-art missile defense is in place. ``Safe rooms'' are standard in new homes. Teams equipped against chemical weapons and inoculated against smallpox are set to rush to attack sites. The Home Front Command has set up evacuation centers nationwide. Israelis have picked up gas masks for themselves and tents for small children.
Despite these efforts, there's an almost daily guessing game on whether Iraq can and will strike Israel.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says there's only a small threat, and government and military analysts seem confident Iraq will not be able to do what it did in 1991, when it hurled 39 Scuds at Israel -- sowing panic and inflicting extensive damage, but causing few casualties.
The thinking is that Iraq has far fewer weapons now, and that U.S. forces will conduct an intensive sweep for Scuds in western Iraq, the only place from which they can reach Israel. Also, firing missiles at Israel would be proof Iraq possessed banned weapons, likely sealing Saddam Hussein's fate.
The nightmare scenario for Israelis is that a desperate Saddam might manage to fire a few missiles with chemical or biological warheads.
There are also fears that a war on Iraq could lead to a different sort of attack on Israel -- by plane, or rockets fired by Hezbollah militiamen in south Lebanon, or a massive attack by Palestinian or al-Qaida terrorists.
``There is a danger. I assess it as a minor danger, but it exists,'' Sharon said last week. ``We have prepared the best possible solutions.''
Martin van Creweld, a military analyst and historian, agrees the threat is low. ``But with weapons of mass destruction, it only takes one. It becomes a question of luck,'' he said.
The Arrow, the first fully deployed anti-missile system in the world, is the centerpiece of Israel's defenses against Scuds. Israel and the United States have spent more than $2 billion to develop the Arrow, and tests have been encouraging though it has yet to face an actual enemy missile. Two batteries -- one in northern Israel and a second south of Tel Aviv -- are placed to protect the heavily populated coastal strip, the target for all the Scuds last time around.
In the 1991 Gulf War, the Patriot anti-missile system built by the United States was largely ineffectual against Scuds. It has since been upgraded and will be used as a backup defense.
The Arrow is designed to intercept incoming missiles still high in flight; in theory, the Arrow would obliterate Scuds over Jordan before they reach Israeli airspace.
By contrast, the Patriot attempts to intercept a missile only during the final stage of flight. U.S. troops have been working with Israeli forces to set up and test Patriot batteries, which have been deployed to protect sensitive sites, such as the Dimona nuclear reactor in southern Israel.
Meanwhile, Israeli civilians have been exchanging old gas masks for upgraded ones. For children too small to wear masks, miniature tents have been built to guard against chemicals.
Since the Gulf War, new homes and apartments in Israel have been required to have sealed safe rooms that would offer at least a few hours of protection.
In addition, the Health Ministry has inoculated up to 20,000 medical and rescue workers against smallpox, and other Israelis have sought out shots on their own.
When Scuds came crashing down last time, some Israelis living in the targeted coastal cities, such as Tel Aviv, fled inland. They holed up with relatives or stayed in hotels in places such as Jerusalem, an unlikely target because of its large Arab population and Islamic holy sites.
Some Israelis have made precautionary hotel bookings, but there's been no recent exodus from coastal cities.
In a region that's seen daily violence for more than two years, including almost 90 Palestinian suicide bombings, most Israelis have learned to live with the threat of attacks.
Instead of offering soothing words, many government officials prefer to lay out what they believe is the worst-case scenario, and since November, senior security figures have predicted an imminent war in Iraq on several occasions.
The latest forecast came from army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, who said last week that he expected a U.S. bombing campaign to start within weeks.
That contributed to long lines at some gas mask centers, and a surge of shoppers at hardware stores. The government imposed price controls on items such as plastic sheeting, duct tape and bottled water to prevent price-gouging.
Under U.S. pressure, Israel refrained from responding to the 1991 Scud attacks, and Sharon can expect similar arm-twisting this time. Sharon, who places great value on his good relations with President Bush, has said Israel will protect itself, but he has been intentionally vague about how.
There has been some Israeli speculation about whether Israel might respond to a devastating Iraqi attack with nuclear weapons. Israel refuses to confirm or deny having nuclear weapons, but is widely believed to possess them.
Haaretz columnist Doron Rosenblum advised readers to heed the words of Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, who has said his country no longer has missiles capable of hitting Israel. In 1991, he noted, Iraq threatened to attack before doing so.
-------- mideast
Saudis warn US over Iraq war
Saudi Arabia warns the US not to go it alone
Monday, 17 February, 2003
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2773759.stm
Saudi Arabia has warned the United States against a possible war against Iraq in an exclusive interview with the BBC.
We think war is going to be a tremendous threat to the region... We think that, especially if it doesn't come through the United Nations' authority, that it would be a dangerous thing to do
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal has said that any unilateral military action by the US would appear as an "act of aggression".
"Independent action in this, we don't believe is good for the United States," he told the BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson at a meeting of the Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo.
"It would encourage people to think... that what they're doing is a war of aggression rather than a war for the implementation of the United Nations resolutions."
Saudi Arabia has been a longstanding ally of the US, but relations since the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington have been strained.
The majority of the 19 suicide hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, whose government has been accused in Washington political circles of not doing enough to counter Islamic fundamentalism among its population.
Prince Saud added that if an attack on Iraq was sanctioned by the UN Security Council, it would not be considered an aggression.
"So we are ardently... urging the United States to continue to work with the United Nations... and not to create an act of individual aggression, of individually taking charge of the duties of the Security Council."
Regime change
Regime change would lead to the destruction of Iraq, and would threaten to destabilise the entire Middle East region, Prince Saud said.
If the choice is you destroy Iraq in order to get Saddam Hussein, it is a self-defeating policy, isn't it? I mean, you destroy a country to get a person out - it doesn't work
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal "If change of regime comes with the destruction of Iraq, then you are solving one problem and creating five more problems.
"That is the consideration that we have to make, because we are living in the region. We will suffer the consequences of any military action."
Regime change can only be a possibility if it is done "indigenously", he said.
"There has never been in the history of the world a country in which a regime change happened at the bayonets of guns that has led to stability."
The worry is rising fundamentalism in America and the West - not in the Middle East, he said.
"Our worry is the new emerging fundamentalism in the United States and in the West. Fundamentalism in our region is on the wane. There, it's in the ascendancy. That's the threat."
The full interview can be seen on BBC World from Wednesday and on Simpson's World on BBC News 24 this weekend (1130 GMT on Saturday, 0230 GMT on Sunday, 1430 GMT on Sunday, 0030 GMT on Monday).
----
Turks, U.S. Wrestle Over Rules on Troops
By HARMONIE TOROS
Associated Press Writer
Feb 17, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TURKEY_US_IRAQ?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey's prime minister said Monday that it would be difficult to persuade parliament to allow tens of thousands of U.S. combat troops to enter the country before Turkish and U.S. officials agree on the conditions of the deployment.
Parliament was expected to vote Tuesday, amid warnings from Washington that time is running out. A delay could hamper U.S. plans to open a northern front for a possible Iraq war.
Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said Turkish and U.S. officials still needed to resolve differences over the political, economic and military dimensions of the deployment.
"We are of the belief that it will be difficult to convince parliament before an agreement is reached," Gul said Monday.
One of the main sticking points is an economic aid package to compensate Turkey for losses incurred in a war, diplomats said. There are also disagreements on military issues such as the command structure of a possible joint Turkish-U.S. operation in northern Iraq.
"We will again inform the United States of our concerns," Gul said, before flying to Brussels for talks on the Iraq crisis with top European Union leaders.
In Brussels, Gul called on the European Union to provide financial assistance to deal with an influx of refugees if conflict breaks out.
"This will be a great problem for Turkey," Gul told Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis on Monday, according to a Greek diplomat. Greece holds the EU presidency.
Gul was not expected back until Tuesday evening, and his absence makes it unlikely the Cabinet could meet Monday to approve a bill allowing the U.S. troops and send it to parliament in time for a Tuesday vote.
Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis said Monday that there would be no vote until an agreement is reached, the Anatolia news agency reported.
"If the United States is in a hurry," Yakis said, then an agreement should be reached as soon as possible for the draft to be sent to parliament, Anatolia said.
The Turkish public overwhelmingly opposes a war in Iraq, and hundreds of demonstrators, most of them linked to left-wing groups, gathered Monday outside the U.S. Embassy in Ankara.
Carrying signs that read "No to U.S. troops in Turkey," the protesters left a black wreath outside the embassy before they dispersed.
Some 250 people also staged an anti-war protest outside the headquarters of Gul's Justice and Development Party.
Economy Minister Ali Babacan, who was in Washington last week with Yakis, said there was no agreement on the size of the package.
"Discussions on a figure will continue," he said Sunday.
Turkish leaders have repeatedly said they would only back a war if chances for peace were exhausted. They also want a new U.N. resolution passed if there were to be a war, a measure that looks increasingly unlikely amid strong opposition in the U.N. Security Council.
But the government has also said that it cannot afford to remain neutral. The United States is Turkey's most important ally, lobbying for Ankara to be accepted in the European Union and for international agencies to grant Turkey loans to recover from a deep economic crisis.
Turkish and U.S. diplomats were expected to hold more talks Monday.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Kurdish and Turkish officials held talks on the Turkish-Iraqi border. Officials of the two factions that govern the de facto autonomous zone in northern Iraq were to discuss the consequences of a possible U.S.-led war in Iraq.
----
Turkey Delays U.S. Troop Deployments for Aid Deal
February 17, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-turkey.html
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey entered into a political war of nerves with the United States on Monday when it signaled it was delaying a decision on allowing U.S. troops to deploy on Turkish soil for a possible invasion of Iraq.
Prime Minister Abdullah Gul told reporters at a European Union emergency summit on Iraq his government would not ask parliament to open military bases to American forces on Tuesday as it had previously said it would.
``We are not going to the Turkish parliament tomorrow,'' Gul said at a news conference. ``We have some concerns on economic issues, political issues and military issues. First of all the Turkish government should be satisfied on those.''
The United States had made it clear it expected a decision from parliament on Tuesday on permitting the deployments for a secondary ``northern front'' military experts say would make any action against Baghdad quicker and, for Washington, less costly.
``There is a plan that doesn't involve a northern front,'' one Western diplomat said. ``The Americans may be approaching a point where they must make a decision there. They feel time is short.''
Gul said earlier he would talk to officials in Washington to iron out differences and was quoted by a Greek government spokesman as telling Greek premier Costas Simitis the bill would be put to parliament ``in the next few days.''
Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis said Turkey would not open its territory to U.S. forces without an agreement on financial aid.
``The question of whether or not we send the proposal (to parliament) will come on to the agenda only after an agreement. I can't give a time because first we have to reach an agreement,'' Yakis told the state-run Anatolian news agency.
Down on the Iraqi border, military sources said Turkish and U.S. military officials were meeting Iraqi Kurdish groups who control northern Iraq. Witnesses saw a helicopter arc over the border to an army base for talks aimed at easing tension between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds that could hamper any U.S. action.
SEEKING GUARANTEES
Gul has acknowledged that ultimately Ankara must back its closest NATO ally but seeks guarantees for its own security. If Ankara fails to reach terms with Washington quickly, the northern front could possibly be abandoned and along with it a U.S. financial package to cushion Turkey's economy.
``There are certain points we give importance to. Without reaching an agreement on those points, I believe it will be difficult to persuade parliament,'' Gul said before leaving Ankara.
Turkey is seeking a financial package, which analysts say could total between $4 billion and $15 billion or more to cushion it from the economic impact of a war.
``There are issues in the economic, political and military spheres where we don't yet see eye-to-eye,'' Economy Minister Ali Babacan was quoted as saying by the state Anatolian news agency.
``We want documents that are very clear and complete to remove all doubts,'' Babacan said.
Babacan and Yakis met President Bush at the weekend in Washington, where Bush laid out the aid package.
A security source in Diyarbakir said two U.S. transport planes had landed at the main airbase in the southeastern city on Sunday. The total number of U.S. personnel there upgrading facilities under an interim agreement now numbered about 1,000.
Proposals to defend Turkey from any Iraqi retaliation were at the heart of a NATO dispute last week. France, Germany and Belgium argued that preparing measures to defend Turkey against attack suggested war was a foregone conclusion. A compromise was agreed on Sunday, allowing planning to go ahead.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Monday NATO had agreed to send AWACS surveillance plans, a missile defense system and anti-chemical and anti-biological warfare units to Turkey.
KURDISH SEPARATISM
Turkey also appears to be at odds about the role its own troops might play in northern Iraq. While it seeks to avoid combat, it is eager to remain independent of any coalition command in monitoring events and ensuring no independent Kurdish state emerges in an area beyond Baghdad's control since 1991.
Turkey fears the establishment of a Kurdish state could rekindle Kurdish separatism that has killed some 30,000 people. Those suspicions are reciprocated by Kurds who fear Ankara may use the turmoil of war to establish its authority.
A military source told Reuters officials of two Kurdish groups running northern Iraq, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), met U.S. and Turkish military commanders in Silopi near the Iraqi border on Monday.
``They are discussing the various issues that could emerge during an Iraq operation. Furthermore, the Turkish Armed Forces will explain what kind of measures it intends to take during the possible operation,'' he said.
Turkish troops have been in north Iraq since the 1990s, pursuing Turkish Kurdish rebels who have retreated there.
-------- nato
NATO agrees to start Turkey's defense
By Paul Geitner
ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 17, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030217-29638672.htm
BRUSSELS - NATO, in the midst of its biggest rift since the Cold War, broke a monthlong stalemate yesterday over defensive actions in case of war in Iraq, reaffirming alliance solidarity while supporting U.N. efforts for a peaceful solution.
"Alliance solidarity has prevailed," NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said. "We have been able collectively to overcome the impasse."
After France was shut out of the room, two other holdouts - Germany and Belgium - dropped their objections to starting the planning for Turkey's defense immediately, NATO officials said.
Belgium insisted at the last minute on linking any eventual NATO deployment to developments at the U.N. Security Council.
However, the final statement said: "We continue to support efforts in the United Nations to find a peaceful solution to the crisis."
NATO diplomats said the United States and other allies objected in principle to tying alliance decision-making to any other organization.
For the past month, Belgium, France and Germany blocked a NATO decision to begin planning to help defend Turkey - the only NATO ally bordering Iraq - against any reprisals for a U.S. attack. They argued that such a move was premature and would undermine U.N. efforts to avoid a war.
NATO, trying to end the stalemate, yesterday put the issue to its Defense Planning Committee, which excludes France. Paris left NATO's military command structure in the late 1960s and participates only in political consultations.
The committee was used ahead of the 1991 Gulf war to approve aid for Turkey, but NATO has sought to limit its use since the end of the Cold War in a spirit of rapprochement with Paris.
Some progress was made after intensive negotiations, a NATO official said, adding that the idea of starting planning was now "uncontested."
The United States proposed a month ago that the alliance consider sending early-warning AWACS aircraft, missile defenses and anti-biochemical units to Turkey.
After France, Germany and Belgium blocked that planning for three weeks, however, Turkey on Feb. 10 invoked NATO's mutual-defense treaty, which binds the allies to talks when one feels threatened.
Turkey feels especially vulnerable as it considers allowing tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers to use its facilities for a war on Iraq.
The United States and its allies say denying support for Turkey's defense erodes the alliance's credibility and sends the wrong signal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Some of the measures can be done bilaterally - Germany already has agreed to send Patriot missiles to Turkey via the Netherlands, but those missiles need to be linked to NATO radar networks to be effective.
Germany and other countries also have promised AWACS crews, but the early-warning planes themselves are NATO assets.
The monthlong dispute has driven a deep wedge into the 53-year-old alliance.
It also has exacerbated tensions within Europe ahead of today's emergency summit of 15 European Union leaders, who are trying to reconcile their own differing policies on Iraq.
Britain, Spain, Denmark and Italy have backed President Bush, while France and Germany have tried to slow what they view as a rush to war.
Greece, the EU president, has warned that the group faces a crisis if it fails to agree on a common position on Iraq.
"We will not submit a draft conclusion from the start because it's too risky. Our aim is to have a united statement at the end after we hear all the views," said a Greek diplomat who declined to be named.
--------
NEWS ANAYSIS
Europe's Groundswell: Public Opinion
February 17, 2003
The New York Times
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/17/international/europe/17EURO.html
BRUSSELS, Feb. 16 - At one point during an angry debate at NATO headquarters here today, one clearly irritated and not very diplomatic diplomat complained, "NATO cannot be subordinated to city hall politics."
What the diplomat meant was that tiny Belgium, that most unlikely opponent of the United States, was stubbornly dividing the entire 19-member Atlantic alliance, not for high-minded opposition to NATO's planning for the defense of Turkey before the United Nations Security Council has authorized a war in Iraq but because of petty politics. There is going to be an election in Belgium soon and, even before that, the narrow governing coalition could collapse if it appeared to give up too easily on the Turkish question.
The NATO matter was finally resolved, but the day after some of the largest peace demonstrations in European history, Belgium is not the only country feeling the pressure of public opinion.
Several countries in Europe face a painful quandary:choosing between NATO, their main source of security for more than half a century, and a public opinion that is increasingly opposed to a war.
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, for one, has staked his political reputation on his backing of the Americans. Of all the national actors in the continuing drama, Germany's situation is probably the most excruciating. More than any other country, Germany's fundamental strategic position was founded on a close alliance with the United States. In the past - when, for example, Adenauer chose to rearm or when another former chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, expressed a willingness to install medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe during the cold war - the Germans opted for the American preference, despite fierce and vocal public opposition.
But last September, in a closely contested election, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder enunciated a refusal to participate in a war in Iraq. That helped win a tough election. But his campaign slogan also hardened into a policy from which Germany itself or, certainly, many of its policy makers would like to escape.
The NATO crisis has been particularly difficult for Germany, which was initially one of the three countries objecting to NATO planning for Turkey's defense. According to diplomats and NATO officials here, it was always France that led the coalition of 3 against the NATO majority of 16 on this issue.
"Germany's foreign policy has been subordinated to Chirac's Gaullism, and they don't like it," one diplomat here said as the debate at NATO went into the night. The reference was to the chief foreign policy heritage of former President Charles de Gaulle, to steer a course independent from that of Washington. "But," the diplomat continued, "they haven't disliked it enough to ditch the French."
One reason for that, of course, is the pacifist sentiment of many Germans, particularly the Greens, who make up a major part of Mr. Schröder's coalition. Their distaste for war makes it embarrassing and politically treacherous for Mr. Schröder to back away from his antiwar stance. Still, Germany has shown some sign of trying to wiggle out of the box. Even as German peace marchers filled the streets over the weekend, the government quietly dropped its opposition to NATO planning for Turkey's defense.
France also agreed to let the matter drop, suggesting that it was sensitive to more than one kind of public opinion. In response at least in part to domestic pressures, France has staked out a position on Iraq in opposition to the American one. But it has also been nervous about the rise of strong anti-French sentiment in the United States. The French ambassador to Washington, Jean-David Levitte, has been trying to assure the American public that France is a loyal ally grateful for American help in the world wars of the last century.
President Jacques Chirac has sought other ways of moderating his country's Gaullism, most conspicuously by sending an aircraft carrier on maneuvers just where it would be most useful in military action against Iraq. French officials have not explained why, on one hand, they would dispatch it and, on the other, object to NATO planning for Turkey on the ground that it would be sending the wrong signal.
In the end, France does not want to be left out of the picture if there is a war with Iraq. In this sense, that Gaullism has always been simultaneously a show of independence from the United States and an effort to keep the national options open. Twelve years ago, as Mr. Levitte pointed out today on CNN, France took part with the United States in the Persian Gulf war. What he did not say is that until hours before the conflict began, France was still calling for a peaceful solution.
-------- pacific
Singapore builds shelters against terror
By Martin Abbugao
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
February 17, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030217-16105638.htm
SINGAPORE - Preparing for the worst, Singapore is building underground shelters against military and terrorist attacks and conducting a high-profile campaign to raise security awareness.
Thousands of Singaporeans and foreigners working in the city-state thronged four emergency shelters opened to the public over the weekend as part of the drive to instill vigilance and steel the nation for attacks.
"The purpose of doing all these is to send a very strong deterrent message to the al Qaeda terror network - that even if it tries [an attack], it might not succeed," said Andrew Tan, a security analyst at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies (IDSS).
"And even if it succeeds, Singapore will be able to minimize the number of casualties and thereby its impact. Hopefully, when you publicize the message of preparedness, it could serve as a deterrent in the first place," he said.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defense Tony Tan urged Singaporeans to be prepared for terrorist attacks as he began a five-week series of road shows on the theme "Total Defense."
"The threat is pervasive and it will be long-drawn," he said. "All of us must have the resolve, resilience and commitment - the psychological strength - to face the current challenges and prevail."
The public shelters include subway stations that can be sealed quickly and converted into self-contained communities in case of war or a terrorist attack using bombs or chemical or biological weapons.
Of the 16 stations in a newly built line of Singapore's Mass Rapid Transit, 13 can be transformed into war shelters in addition to the 500 already in existence, including nine of the older train stations.
Each of the 13 new stations has incorporated a decontamination chamber equipped with showers and air blowers to clean people contaminated during a chemical attack.
Since 1982, Singapore has built shelters that can house 945,000 people - nearly a quarter of the 4 million population. Among these are 135,000 shelters for families in government-built apartments, private condominiums and houses.
"I'm impressed. Now I feel safer and I hope others will feel safer too," said Bala Muniapan, 40, a worker from India who toured an underground shelter in Chinatown with his young son.
Uniformed police officers offered guided tours of the train station, which can house 9,400 people. Makeshift toilets were installed on the granite platforms and visitors were shown "tunnel blast doors" used to seal the area from poisonous gases.
The decontamination chamber is guarded by huge steel doors about 10 inches thick.
Analysts say that while the threat of an invasion is remote, the affluent island republic remains a prime target for groups allied with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda because of its staunch support for the United States.
The discovery of a cell of the Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiyah in Singapore and their plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy and other missions alarmed the city-state, long a haven of security in politically troubled Southeast Asia.
Mr. Tan of IDSS said the security measures are part of a long-term homeland security doctrine updated after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
"The fact that the Singapore government sees the security measures as being necessary indicates the very strong concern that Singapore remains to be a prime al Qaeda target on account of its close relations with the U.S.," Mr. Tan said.
Despite the arrests of 31 men linked to the foiled bomb plots in Singapore, "it is feared that terrorists will continue to plan terrorist attacks on the U.S. and U.S.-allied targets in the region," the analyst said.
"For that reason, the Singapore government remains extremely concerned. It has therefore taken quite rigorous measures - the most rigorous in the region - in dealing with the terror threat," he said.
A civil-defense emergency handbook containing instructions on what to do in case of terrorist threats or attacks will be delivered to 1 million households.
"I urge all Singaporeans to read it carefully. It may save your life one day," said Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng.
-------- philippines
US troops to train on Philippines hostage island
AFP
Monday February 17, 2003
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030217/1/37vu3.html
US troops are to be sent to the Philippines' notorious hostage island of Jolo later this year to help train security forces hunting a Muslim rebel group linked to al-Qaeda, Filipino officials said.
"The exercise will form part of the country's overall and ongoing defense and security cooperation activities with the United States, which continue to focus on increasing our ability to protect ourselves against terrorist threats," President Gloria Arroyo's spokesman Ignacio Bunye said.
He told reporters that the operation would be "more or less the same" as a previous US-Filipino military exercise on the southern island of Basilan last year, where Filipino soldiers hunted "certain lawless elements but with US troops just providing advise and support."
The countries have yet to set the duration of the operation and the specific number of American soldiers and support troops to be deployed, he added.
Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes told reporters that US Major General Joseph Weber is to arrive in the Philippines shortly "to discuss dynamics and details" of the operation in Sulu, a southern Philippines island group that includes Jolo.
The Sulu islands are a stronghold of several hundred Abu Sayyaf gunmen who have kidnapped dozens of US and other foreign hostages over the past two years.
"This is a follow-up to last year's actions in Basilan with the (Filipino military) in command and with the US in a supportive role drove hundreds of (Abu Sayyaf) terrorists from the island, restoring order and reestablishing government services," added Lieutenant Colonel Danilo Servando.
Foreign Minister Blas Ople told reporters after a security briefing at the presidential palace that Abu Sayyaf rebels driven out of Basilan have "sought refuge in Patikul," a predominantly Muslim town in Jolo.
Washington has been boosting military aid to Manila since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, worried that al-Qaeda Islamic militants flushed out by the US-led campaign in Afghanistan could have set up bases in Southeast Asia.
The suspicion was bolstered by the bombing of the Bali resort in Indonesia last year that killed nearly 200 people, many of them western tourists.
A group of 12 US Special Forces liaison personnel are now in the southern city of Zamboanga, near Jolo, ahead of a separate joint training exercise in Zamboanga that has been rescheduled to start next week, southern Philippines military chief Lieutenant General Narciso Abaya said.
The training was delayed for a week due to "administrative details" on the US side, he added. "We can't discuss details of what we're doing now," said their spokesman, Major John Amberg.
The US government considers the Abu Sayyaf a foreign terrorist organization. Both governments allege the group has ties to the al-Qaeda terror network of Osama bin Laden.
Washington has put up a five million-dollar bounty on the heads of five of its top leaders for the kidnapping and murder of American citizens Guillermo Sobero and Martin Burnham in the latest kidnap crisis from May 2001-June 2002.
Several hundred US Special Forces troops trained and later joined Filipino anti-terror troops last year in combat patrols on the southern island of Basilan -- another Abu Sayyaf stronghold.
A bomb attack blamed on the Abu Sayyaf killed three people including a US soldier in Zamboanga city near Basilan in October.
Filipino officials warned earlier this month that US troops and business interests could be targetted by armed Islamists in the event Washington carried out its threat to attack Iraq.
At least one Abu Sayyaf member was believed wounded in a clash with a Filipino army patrol in the Sulu town of Talipao on Sunday, General Abaya said.
-------- us
U.S. Military Police Ready for Prisoners
February 17, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Kuwait-Prisoners.html
CAMP NEW YORK, Kuwait (AP) -- U.S. military police officers marched the ``prisoners'' in front of a mock detention center Monday, shouting at them in English and Arabic, ordering them to their knees to be searched before they get food, water and a place to sleep.
In the drill conducted by the 3rd Military Police Battalion, part of the 3rd Infantry Division, members of one platoon removed their combat gear to play the role of prisoners while another platoon practiced processing them. Then they switched places.
U.S. Army commanders, remembering the tens of thousands of Iraqis who surrendered during the 1991 Gulf War, are teaching Arabic phrases to military police and giving them other training to get them ready if President Bush orders troops into Iraq.
Bush has promised to use force if Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein fails to comply with U.N. resolutions ordering him to destroy prohibited weapons.
The military police, at least a third of them women, normally patrol Fort Stewart, Ga., like any city police force. But in the Kuwaiti desert, they prepared Monday for their wartime duties, which include processing prisoners of war and keeping civilians out of harm's way.
After each exercise, including how to use judo holds to search a belligerent prisoner, the younger soldiers peppered squad leaders with questions, most of them beginning, ``What if ...''
``What if they run?'' asked one young private. ``What if they refuse to kneel down?'' asked another. In each, the underlying question was clear: at what point do they fire their weapons.
If the prisoners flee, that constitutes an escape and lethal force can be used as a last resort, was one answer.
``We try to get them to ask all the questions now so if they get into a difficult situation they know the answer,'' Staff Sgt. Chemitra Simpson, a squad leader from Camden, S.C., said. ``Most of them are straight out of high school, 18 or 19 years old, but they are ready.''
Military police regularly travel to the front lines to pick up prisoners and guard the rear. Women in the unit must be ready for combat.
Simpson, 25, said gender is not an issue in her unit, which guarded the Pentagon after the Sept. 11 attacks and later served in Afghanistan.
``The women are just as tough as the men, some are even tougher,'' she said. ``The women who come into the military police are already pretty tough and know what the job will be.''
Master Sgt. Tony McGee of Florence, S.C., said he hoped just as many Iraqis surrender in any future conflict as did during the Gulf War, because that would mean victory just as quickly.
U.S. forces in 1991 were overwhelmed by 69,000 surrendering Iraqi soldiers. Many were simply glad to be out of their fox holes, where they had been bombed for weeks by U.S. planes, McGee said.
``They would put anything white on a stick to approach us,'' McGee, 34, said. ``A lot of them were just looking for food and they knew we would take care of them.''
Lt. Col. John Huey, the senior police officer for the division, said many hope that Iraqi units would simply ``capitulate,'' the term for units that never attempt to fight in the first place.
There have been reports that U.S. Special Forces have been contacting Iraqi commanders inside the country, asking them to ignore orders to fight U.S. troops. If they agree, and remain in their barracks, then a U.S. unit would only monitor them at their base, not take them into custody. U.S. forces would also supply them with food and water.
But those Iraqi soldiers who challenge U.S. troops and later are captured or surrender could end up in Simpson's custody or McGee prisoner of war camp.
``It is our responsibility to take care of them and we plan to do that in an appropriate manner,'' Huey said.
----
Report: Hawaii troops may be Korea reserve
February 17, 2003
UPI
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030217-102155-1827r.htm
HONOLULU, Feb. 17 -- Marines and Army infantry based in Hawaii will likely not take part in the military buildup in the Middle East and will instead be held as a reserve force to reinforce allied forces in South Korea in the event the current tensions on the peninsula boil over, the Honolulu Advertiser said Monday.
The Army's 25th Infantry Division and 8,000 leathernecks stationed on Oahu have not yet been given any orders to deploy to the Persian Gulf, which has defense analysts convinced that the United States is concerned that there is a possibility North Korea could launch an attack on the South.
"I don't see them being involved in the follow-on force or for the post-Saddam government," Patrick Garrett, an analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, told the Advertiser. "I think they're much more useful where there are, which is waiting for a war on the Korean Peninsula to occur."
Tensions in Korea were ratcheted higher this year when North Korea announced it was pursuing a program to produce enriched uranium in violation of a 1994 agreement that froze the North's nuclear program in exchange for western economic aid. Although the United States has said it has no plans to take military action, Pyongyang has been bellicose in warning that it was prepared to go to war over the dispute.
At the same time, the United States has been pouring troops and equipment into the Persian Gulf region for what is expected to be a confrontation aimed at ousting Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.
The Advertiser said that there have been no major deployments to the Middle East by the Marines and soldiers in Hawaii and no orders for such troop movements have been received. The 25th is a light infantry division that is designated to rapidly respond to crises in foreign nations, although it is not equipped with a great number of tanks and other armor.
"The forces that are in Hawaii are force-packaged for the Korean Peninsula," Garrett said, "and I think they don't really have the type of training you need for fighting in a desert environment."
Garrett told the newspaper that he was confident that the 37,000 U.S. troops in the Korean region would be sufficient to counter a North Korean attack; however other analysts believe it is necessary for the United States to show it can commit forces to contain North Korea while its primary focus right now is on Iraq.
"I think this is all a matter of sending messages that the other guy understands," said Michael Pavkovic, director of the diplomacy and military studies program at Hawaii Pacific University.
---- propaganda wars
Their master's voice
Rupert Murdoch argued strongly for a war with Iraq in an interview this week. Which might explain why his 175 editors around the world are backing it too
Roy Greenslade
Monday February 17, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,897015,00.html
What a guy! You have got to admit that Rupert Murdoch is one canny press tycoon because he has an unerring ability to choose editors across the world who think just like him. How else can we explain the extraordinary unity of thought in his newspaper empire about the need to make war on Iraq? After an exhaustive survey of the highest-selling and most influential papers across the world owned by Murdoch's News Corporation, it is clear that all are singing from the same hymn sheet. Some are bellicose baritone soloists who relish the fight. Some prefer a less strident, if more subtle, role in the chorus. But none, whether fortissimo or pianissimo, has dared to croon the anti-war tune. Their master's voice has never been questioned.
Murdoch is chairman and chief executive of News Corp which owns more than 175 titles on three continents, publishes 40 million papers a week and dominates the newspaper markets in Britain, Australia and New Zealand. His television reach is greater still, but broadcasting - even when less regulated than in Britain - is not so plainly partisan. It is newspapers which set the agenda.
It isn't always clear exactly what Murdoch believes on any given issue, but this time we know for certain, courtesy of an interview in the Australian magazine, the Bulletin (which, by the way, he doesn't own). To cite the report of that interview in Murdoch's own Sydney Daily Telegraph, the "media magnate...has backed President Bush's stance against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein". Indeed, his quotes are specific. "We can't back down now, where you hand over the whole of the Middle East to Saddam...I think Bush is acting very morally, very correctly, and I think he is going to go on with it". Then came words of praise for Tony Blair. "I think Tony is being extraordinarily courageous and strong... It's not easy to do that living in a party which is largely composed of people who have a knee-jerk anti-Americanism and are sort of pacifist. But he's shown great guts as he did, I think, in Kosovo and various problems in the old Yugoslavia."
Most revealing of all was Murdoch's reference to the rationale for going to war, blatantly using the o-word. Politicians in the United States and Britain have strenuously denied the significance of oil, but Murdoch wasn't so reticent. He believes that deposing the Iraqi leader would lead to cheaper oil. "The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy...would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country."
He went even further down this road in an interview the week before with America's Fortune magazine by forecasting a postwar economic boom. "Once it [Iraq] is behind us, the whole world will benefit from cheaper oil which will be a bigger stimulus than anything else."
So there was the maestro's music. What then of his editors' lyrics? His single paper in the United States is the New York Post, a raucous tabloid which doesn't sell as well as its rival but makes more than enough noise to be heard far and wide. Its editor, Col Allen, is Australian, as is its leading polemicist, Steve Dunleavy, a long-time Murdoch acolyte. A series of gung-ho front pages have been backed up by vehemently pro-Bush articles inside. A typical example, by a retired US army intelligence officer, Ralph Peters, heaped praise on a "flawless" Colin Powell for doing "a superb job" in revealing "hard evidence" which justified war on Iraq. Peters assailed "the world's do-nothings" and "Saddam's apologists", such as France, which he alleged was "desperately trying to protect its client in Baghdad".
This was a precursor to a front-page assault by Dunleavy on France as part of the "axis of weasel". Americans had died freeing Europe of Hitler but the French wouldn't fight "today's Hitler", Saddam. A picture of second world war graves in Normandy was headlined "Sacrifice: They died for France but France has forgotten". I doubt that Murdoch disagreed with form or content. Nor could he have much to complain about with the recent attitude towards the war adopted by his British tabloid flagship, the Sun. The editor, Rebekah Wade, has been much more forthright than her predecessor in supporting Blair and Bush. In a return to the Kelvin MacKenzie era, the Sun has also enjoyed putting the boot into Britain's old enemies across the Channel, decrying the "three stooges": France's Jacques Chirac, Germany's Gerhard Schröder and the "pipsqueak Belgians". Instead, in a pro-American fervour which is echoed in virtually every Murdoch publication, it urged Blair on Friday to "stick with the friend you can trust through and through - America".
How lucky can Murdoch get! He hires 175 editors and, by remarkable coincidence, they all seem to love the nation which their boss has chosen as his own. The papers he owns in the country of his birth, Australia, are noticeably more muted than the New York Post and the Sun. But it doesn't require a semiologist to see that the leader-writers are attempting to break down stubborn public opinion: some 39% of Australians oppose a war, even with UN backing, while 76% oppose a war unless there is full-hearted international support.
Even so, the insistent message on the editorial pages of the five largest Murdoch papers in the main Australian cities - Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide - is that Bush is pursuing the right path. These papers show their colours by giving unswerving support to the rabidly pro-American prime minister John Howard, who has sent troops to the Middle East, and heaping scorn on the opposition leader, Simon Crean, for what the Melbourne Herald Sun calls "political opportunism" in opposing war.
Anti-war demonstrators have also been derided. The Advertiser in Adelaide took the organisers of one protest to task because they had supposedly advocated civil disobedience. The Sunday Times in Perth disparaged unions for threatening industrial action should there be a military strike on Iraq. One Australian media-watcher said that all the papers' right-leaning columnists have been given licence to bang the war drums while belittling opponents. Space has been given to pro-war contributors, too. In the Brisbane Courier-Mail, churchgoer Geoff Hines urged Christians to support an invasion because "there is such a thing as a holy and just war".
Murdoch's national title, the Australian, is regarded as more sober than the city papers, and it's true that many of its leading articles are masterpieces of fence-sitting waffle. But that isn't true of the latest crop and there cannot be any doubt where its editor, Michael Stutchbury, stands. The daily slogan, "Countdown to war", suggests that the paper is cheerleading the inevitability of an invasion, as did one of its more militant leaders two weeks ago. "Twelve years of defiance by Hussein show that the old policies of containment no longer work", said the editorial. "Appeasement is not an option when it comes to dealing with Hussein...Failure to disarm Hussein would make the world a much more dangerous place." On Saturday, the paper called on readers to "accept that the US is not the aggressor on the world stage, and that the real threat to the safety of the Australian people comes from Baghdad and Pyongyang", and took a sideswipe at anti-war demonstrators.
In New Zealand, there is widespread hostility to the war. Its government, led by the prime minister, Helen Clark, is trying to maintain a neutral stance. But Murdoch's papers are eager to push readers and politicians towards belligerence. The influential Wellington Dominion-Post argued last week: "There is always a temptation to take every means to avoid the carnage of war. Yet there also comes a point at which appeasement itself is little more than a charade...The doubters must say how much more time they would give Saddam to play his delaying games."
In London, the Times and the Sunday Times have left none of their readers in two minds about their pro-war sentiments, despite the overwhelming popular opposition to war. It is fascinating to note that papers which acknowledge that the British people's distaste for war is partially due to anti-Americanism are trying to change their minds by appealing to an older form of prejudice, Francophobia. The Times, for instance, last week used its strongest language during this so-called phoney war to admonish the French president. Taunting Chirac for his opposition to what the French supposedly "Wrongly depict as a relentless American juggernaut", the Times concluded that he is leading France into a cul de sac and has therefore consigned it to "unsplendid isolation in the anteroom occupied by history's losers".
The Sunday Times also laid into the French and Germans, claiming that to adopt their attitudes "would be, to adapt the three wise monkeys, neither seeing, hearing nor acting on a brutal regime that defies the UN". An earlier Sunday Times leader revealed the truth about the worldwide struggle of the Murdoch press to secure the hearts and minds of its millions of readers. "Winning the public-relations battle is almost as vital as military victory," said the Sunday Times. So that's what the editors have been doing then. Needless to say, my attempts to discuss the oddity of Murdoch's editors all agreeing with their boss failed. No editor returned calls or emails.
Finally, though, a word of praise for one of Murdoch's smallest papers, the 28,000-circulation Papua New Guinea Courier Mail. Its editorials in the past two weeks have been about domestic affairs, but it did publish a militant anti-war message: "The UN inspectors have so far not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. How can a civilised country attack another country without any proof of misconduct?" It was, of course, a reader's letter, but what a breath of fresh air beside the war cries in the rest of Murdoch's press.
----
At D.C. Agencies, Anti-War Campaigns Bloom
By Washington Advertising
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 17, 2003; Page E03
The TV ad begins with footage of a young girl plucking petals from a daisy.
The vision of the child fades and is replaced by a montage of battle images as a voiceover warns, "War with Iraq. Maybe it will end quickly. Maybe not. Maybe it will spread. Maybe extremists will take over countries with nuclear weapons. Maybe the unthinkable." The last phrase is followed by a scene of a nuclear mushroom cloud.
"Maybe that's why Americans are saying to President Bush: Let the inspections work," the speaker concludes.
The ad, a remake of the controversial 1964 "Daisy" ad broadcast during Lyndon Johnson's presidential campaign, drew a national buzz last month thanks to Fenton Communications, a D.C. public-interest marketing firm whose projects have boomed in the past several months along with the nation's march toward war in Iraq. Fenton, through news releases, interview arrangements and ad placements, spurred a media blitz last month before the ad aired during the Super Bowl in 13 markets, including the District's WJLA-TV ABC.
The work was on behalf of Fenton's client MoveOn.org, an online activist group founded in 1998 by a group of Californians that now claims more than 600,000 members worldwide. The group is a member of a larger anti-war coalition of organizations called Win Without War, which is lobbying for the federal government to delay a military attack on Iraq with support from celebrities including Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen and Janeane Garofolo.
Fenton, whose recent work includes the promotion of Arianna Huffington's anti-SUV ads and publicity for an anti-war protest last fall on the Mall in Washington, has experienced a groundswell in activity as another U.S. standoff with Saddam Hussein grows imminent, said Fenton senior account executive Trevor S. Fitzgibbon.
"It's exploded -- it's been unbelievable," he said.
Fenton is one of the area's largest benefactors as public interest groups have turned to Washington area advertisers and marketers to rally for peace, raise consumer confidence and express their stake in the expected war in the Middle East.
MoveOn.org officials said the Daisy ad cost about $25,000 to produce but donations of about $400,000 were collected from more than 10,000 members to fund the five-day ad campaign.
"It got carried on just about every news program there is," said MoveOn.org President Wes Boyd. "It's still getting played."
The group is taking its grass-roots campaign to the local level next, Boyd said, with billboards in markets including the District, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit bearing the slogan "We Can Win Without War." The billboards were scheduled to premiere last week in the District.
"I think people are appreciative of how well our tactics have worked to raise the issue of the risks of war," Boyd said. "Using the media well has to be part of everyone's strategy."
But the media may also play a role in why war-related advertising won't produce big dollars for broadcasters or print media, said Lynda M. Maddox, a professor of marketing and advertising at George Washington University. The anti-war movement is smaller and less financially leveraged than in the past, and the proliferation of news outlets, particularly the omnipresent Internet, which was in its infancy during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, has enabled a message to get out rather cheaply, dwarfing the need for ads. And without the actual outbreak of war, there is also an absence of citizen-mobilization advertising, such as with the popular Rosie the Riveter icon during World War II, she said.
"When you have the press covering the issues for free, there's no real need to run advertising" about the need for peace, Maddox said.
Straight-up consumer advertising in some sectors could increase if war deters consumers from buying certain products, such as vacations, large vehicles that require frequent trips to gas pumps and other discretionary items, Maddox said. Industries such as hotels, airlines and car manufacturers could be hit hard.
"If the war begins to affect consumer spending, you may see increased advertising and pricing specials," she said. "You're certainly seeing a lot of marketing efforts going on to keep the travel industry [afloat]. The Washington, D.C., market is being hurt by this, I'm sure."
After the crippling effects of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the D.C.-based Travel Industry Association of America developed a national ad campaign in trade magazines, newspapers and television outlets. It has expanded its SeeAmerica brand with a Web site, www.seeamerica.org, that will feature a series of driving itineraries in the starting next month, along with maps and an exhibit of travel photos in conjunction with National Geographic Traveler magazine, said Betsy O'Rourke, the association's senior vice president of marketing. In May, association members will be asked to distribute bookmarks with the slogan "See America Now More Than Ever," and graphics designed by Baltimore ad agency Diliberto Inc.
Although the campaign was not designed in response to the possibility of war, it may be used to lift the confidence of travelers if a military confrontation does occur, O'Rourke said.
"Americans are staying home more than traveling abroad," she said. "International visitors are not coming here in the same numbers as they have in the past. For both audiences, this is a very comforting message."
Michael Diliberto, founder of the eponymous agency, said the outbreak of war could force his staff to revise the design of the campaign to express a different message to consumers.
"I'm sure we're going to have to regroup if and when that happens," Diliberto said. "Advertising has always followed the mood of the country, no matter what's happening. It's kind of a wait-and-see situation, but we'll be prepared."
Qorvis Communications LLC, a D.C. public relations firm with an office in McLean and about 48 employees, said ads it designed last year for the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia have nearly ceased, now running about once a week during the McLaughlin Group political program. Qorvis was hired by the Saudi government about a year ago to repair its public image after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The majority of the terrorists involved were Saudis. Qorvis has produced ads, news releases and lobbying events for about $200,000 a month, which is distributed among the agency and its contractors, said managing partner Michael J. Petruzzello.
While the Saudi government continues to stress that it is a friend, not foe, of the United States, the campaign has become more low key, with no new TV ads planned, given recent global events, Petruzzello said.
"We will wait until afterwards to bring anything out," Petruzzello said. "Right now is really not the right time."
Staff researcher Richard S. Drezen contributed to this report.
Sabrina Jones writes about the local advertising and marketing industry every other Monday in Washington Business. Her e-mail address is jonessl@washpost.com.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- drug war
Thailand's Drug War Effective, But Deadly
Ron Corben,
Voice of America News
17 Feb 2003
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=2466BE69-F034-4700-91D2C2CE4E8B1E61#
Bangkok - Thailand's newly declared war on illegal drugs has claimed the lives of more than 300 people this month and seen 15,000 alleged traffickers arrested. Thai police say they are on the right track, but human rights groups are expressing concern about the scale of violence by drug syndicates and authorities.
At the beginning of February, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra launched a three-month special campaign to rid Thailand of illegal drugs.
This war on drugs is specifically targeting the lucrative amphetamine trade - known as ya ba or the crazy medicine. More than 800 million amphetamines flow through Thailand - some produced locally, but most are smuggled from neighboring Burma.
The police crack down on drug peddlers has been violent. Some 320 people have been killed - 15 of whom were shot by police. The rest appear to be victims of the rivalry between drug syndicates now under intense pressure from authorities.
Police say they are not using excessive force to eradicate the illegal drug trade and point to some 15,000 arrests of alleged traffickers as proof their efforts are working.
"Ninety days from now is still a long way to go," said National Police Bureau spokesman Major General Pongsapat Pongcharoen. "But for the first 15 days we believe we come by the right way to this of war on drugs; but we have to wait and see what goes on for the next two months and 15 days.
General Pongsapat says since the crackdown, police have seized six million methamphetamine tablets and there is less trade. The increasing scarcity of the illegal drug has led street prices of amphetamines to triple to more than six dollars a pill.
A wave of fear now sweeps many small time drug peddlers and some 10,000 have surrendered to police fearing they will be the next target of the drug syndicates trying to minimize the risk of informants.
Local and international human rights groups, such as Thailand's Human Rights Commission, have expressed fears the police are taking the law into their own hands to make this operation a success and that innocent individuals will fall prey to the wave of bloodshed.
But the United Nations Drugs Control Program (UNDCP) regional representative, Sandro Calvani, says the wave of violence comes as no surprise and it is not really the fault of authorities.
"It's not surprising because the violence has always been associated with organized crime," he said. "Organized crime's only goal is to get rich fast. If anybody opposes it, be it another gang, the government, normally organized crime will kill first and discuss later."
Mr. Calvani says the government still has much to do in its fight against the powerful drug syndicates, which have taken hold throughout Thai society.
"Fighting organized crime in Thailand is extremely difficult because one billion pills being distributed to such a large network and such a large market," he said. "It's not easy to stop this trafficking."
The government is not apologizing for its get-tough policy. It has proclaimed the growing flood of amphetamines as a threat to national security with an estimated one million young people believed to be suffering from amphetamine addiction.
Chulalongkorn University political scientist, Chaiyachoke Chulasiriwong, says while the policy appears "harsh, "there is general community support for the government's crackdown on the illegal drug trade.
"Actually the ordinary people are quite happy with what the government is doing although that touches on the human rights principles," he said.
International narcotics authorities say it is still too early to judge the campaign a success. Authorities told VOA the question remains whether Thailand can halt the flood of amphetamines in the months ahead or whether the campaign just merely stems the tide.
-------- homeland security
Terror Alert May Soon Be Lowered
By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 17, 2003; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18291-2003Feb16?language=printer
The government is not yet ready to lower the "high risk" terrorism alert it ordered 10 days ago but could do so at any time, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said yesterday.
Based on current intelligence information, Ridge said on CNN's "Late Edition" that "there's still enough out there today for us to remain at an orange [or second-highest risk] level."
But, depending on intelligence reports, he added, "At some point in time we'll make a decision that it is now appropriate to reduce it" back to the lower yellow level, the mid-point of the government's five-step, color-coded alert scale.
Asked on ABC's "This Week" how close the government is to a risk-reduction decision, Ridge said: "Today we are not, tomorrow we could be."
Ridge also indicated the government is moving toward the point where it could more precisely target its warning levels to certain particularly high-risk areas, such as New York or Washington, or specific sectors of the economy. "I think there'll come a time when we'll be able to do precisely that," he said.
Ridge used appearances on several talk shows to reassure anxious Americans while urging them to remain vigilant and take "rational, responsible" protections against another terrorist attack. He reiterated recommendations that families prepare communications plans and an emergency kit, such as they would for a snowstorm or hurricane. But he distanced himself from some of the more controversial recent proposals, such as buying respirators to protect from chemical or biological attack, as has been suggested by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).
Duct tape and plastic sheeting might be on a "long list" of recommended supplies, he said, although he again advised against sealing up rooms with them now.
Ridge acknowledged that some of the information that led to imposition of the new terrorism alert level Feb. 7 "may have faded in terms of accuracy or relevancy" but emphasized repeatedly that the information came from multiple and "credible" sources.
Ridge did not say what might persuade the government to reduce the alert level but noted that it was raised in part because of warnings that attacks might come with the end of the Hajj, or annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The Hajj, as Ridge noted, ended last week.
Responding to Democratic charges that the administration was shortchanging homeland security to cut taxes, Ridge said that President Bush has recommended more than $10 billion in spending increases for domestic security for this year and next year and that Democrats could help by assuring rapid enactment of those increases.
----
High Alert, High Anxiety
Businesses Worry About Effect of Escalating Warnings
By Neil Irwin and Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, February 17, 2003; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14453-2003Feb15?language=printer
The warnings were on the front page of Tuesday morning's newspapers: Government officials suggested that people buy duct tape and plastic sheeting to protect themselves from chemical or biological weapons. They were encouraged to stockpile enough food and water for three days and to keep emergency kits near.
By Tuesday afternoon, calls started coming in to Equinox, the high-end restaurant two blocks from the White House: people canceling dinner reservations out of fear of terrorism.
"It flattened us," said Todd Gray, the restaurant's owner and chef. "I just had one of my best customers cancel his reservation for Valentine's Day because his wife is scared to come downtown."
The nearly empty dining room at Equinox Tuesday night -- Gray said business was back to normal Wednesday -- demonstrates how repeated warnings of terrorist attacks are affecting business in Washington. It is not an ongoing catastrophe for commerce, as were the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It is a steady drip of warnings and worries that businesspeople fear could drag down the local economy for months.
Local businesspeople said they will stick it out in Washington regardless of what the turmoil does to their bottom lines. Their fear is of fear itself.
Owners of small firms, leaders of business groups and economists say they are less worried about attacks than about disrupting routines upon which many businesses depend.
"If you hear something long enough, you start to believe it," said Barbara B. Lang, president of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce. "If these warnings that Washington is dangerous go on indefinitely, there probably is some psychological and business impact."
Recent warnings, including the declaration of a "high risk" of attacks and that Washington and New York are likely terrorist targets, jangled nerves but appears not to have had much impact on the local economy. Downtown hotels said the number of cancellations was not unusually high and several downtown business owners said that sales were steady last week.
The economic impact of terrorism and war fears is subtle but noticeable.
"For two years now through this economic slowdown, my focus has been on business investment," said Charles W. McMillion, chief economist of MBG Information Services in the District. "Now I'm starting to think that at least in this area the uncertainty and the stress levels everyone is under may affect what businesses do on the margins. And I'm thinking it more so in the last few days."
"Business hasn't dropped so far," said David Moran, general manager of Old Ebbitt Grill on15th Street across from the Treasury Building. "What we're afraid of is this becoming something like the sniper attacks, where it's drawn out over weeks." Dinner business slumped on days there were shootings, he said.
At Andre Chreky Salon on K Street, employees said business was stable in the past several days but they worry that it might suffer if warnings of terrorism become the rule rather than the exception.
In the meantime, front desk manager Amal Zaari said she and her co-workers are trying to create a stress-free atmosphere in which talk of war and terrorism is forbidden.
"And hey, we have cases of bottled water upstairs," Zaari said, referring to the official suggestion that people keep bottled water handy for emergencies.
Sometimes, the economic impact has been more severe. Hiep Vo has operated a snack cart near the Treasury Building for about 10 years. The sparse crowds of the past few days reminded her of the days after Sept. 11, 2001.
"There aren't many tourists now," she said. "It's very slow. There's too much worry."
If the nation is at war when spring begins, the tourism industry could suffer, but so far there have been no significant cancellations related to security warnings, according to the Hotel Association of Washington, D.C.
The Washington Convention Tourism Corp. said it received about a dozen calls last week from meeting planners and some tourists who are planning to come to the city in the next few weeks and are worried about their safety.
"There are those who have concerns and we're trying to answer their questions and let them know that we are keeping up on briefings with security officials," said William A. Hanbury, the tourism group's president. "When people ask us if it is safe to come to D.C., we tell them that we've got 14 law enforcement agencies working to ensure their safety.
"Like the rest of the country, we're trying to go about our daily lives," Hanbury said.
"We haven't seen any direct impact on business yet, but clearly if this continues it will have an impact on us that will affect our leisure travelers," said Michael M. Dickens, president of Hospitality Partners, which owns six hotels in the city.
To understand how worries about security might affect business in the weeks ahead, consider a memo sent last week to managers of barbecue chain Red Hot & Blue. In it, company president Robert Friedman outlines what should be done if war begins.
"It has been our experience over the last 14 years, that when these kinds of events occur, people hide under their beds, watch CNN, order pizza and do not go out for bar-b-que," Friedman wrote. He advised managers to assume that sales will drop 20 percent and plan a reduced work schedule, consider closing early, and do routine maintenance on refrigerators to keep energy costs down.
Also, he wrote: "Purchase American flags NOW. Hang them inside and outside. NOTE: if you wait until war starts, the stores will be out of flags."
Staff writer Jackie Spinner contributed to this report.
-------- immigration / refugees
Aliens get extra weeks to register
By Anwar Iqbal
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
February 17, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030217-538196.htm
The Bush administration has decided to extend the deadline for a large number of foreigners who are required to register with immigration officials while in the United States, U.S. officials said.
The registration period for those from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia has now been extended to March 21. They were added to the Immigration and Naturalization Service registration list on Dec. 18, and were asked to register with the INS by Feb. 21.
The deadline for the citizens and nationals of Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and Kuwait has also been extended for four weeks. They were added to the list on Jan. 16 and were asked to register between Feb. 24 and March 28.
The first group of the countries requiring registration included Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria.
The second group - Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen - was added later.
The registration period for these two groups was already extended till Feb. 7 after the expiry of the initial period.
Under a new law, enacted on the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, non-permanent residents from 25 nations need to register with the INS.
Visitors from these mainly Muslim nations are also fingerprinted and photographed. These records are then matched with an FBI databank for criminal records and possible involvement in terrorist activities.
Pakistanis are the largest affected group. Pakistan has been actively campaigning to get these restrictions relaxed.
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri visited Washington last week where he met with Attorney General John Ashcroft and other senior U.S. officials and urged them to be lenient to those who come for registration.
After these meetings he told UPI in Washington that U.S. officials had assured him that "the INS registration process will not lead to a large-scale deportation of Pakistanis from the United States."
"We are aware of the concerns of the Pakistan government," said a senior State Department official. "We know that for many families in Pakistan, the $100 or $50 that these Pakistanis send every month makes the difference of having or not having food on the table and sending or not sending a kid to school," said the official.
U.S. officials say that they also are considering proposals to accommodate those Pakistanis who had applied for adjustment of their status under a general amnesty offered by the Clinton administration.
There are two types of people under this category: those who applied for labor certification with cases still in the Labor Department, and those whose cases are now with the INS.
Those whose cases are still in the Labor Department will not be ordered to leave the country immediately. Instead, they will be given six months to a year to appear before a judge and fix their status.
Those who have already been certified by the Labor Department and whose cases are now with the INS will not face deportation proceedings. When they appear for registration, they will be asked to reappear after some time for review of their amnesty applications.
INS officials will also reportedly be lenient in dealing with those on student, professional and work visas. Minor violations by students, such as holding campus jobs without authorization or missing a few classes, will be ignored.
-------- police
Buildup Strains Public Safety
As the Pentagon deploys more reservists overseas, police and fire officials face the loss of key personnel at a time of heightened threat.
By Faye Fiore
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 17, 2003
http://www.latimes.com/la-na-reserves17feb17,0,1247142.story
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military buildup for a possible war with Iraq is posing security concerns close to home as police forces, fire departments and emergency services across the nation find their ranks depleted by overseas deployments of reservists.
A significant percentage of the reserve forces that make up half of the national defense also work in their civilian lives as so-called first-responders, protecting cities across America.
The overlap was not a problem in the past, when the military took the citizen-soldiers it needed in infrequent call-ups; the numbers were small and the service period short. The Pentagon has never tracked how many of the nation's 1.3 million reservists wear a second hat in the vast network of local emergency services. And many employers were not even aware that some in their ranks were moonlighting as military reservists.
But with the federal government's terrorism alert moved up to "high risk," all of that has changed. With conflicts brewing in Afghanistan, Iraq and North Korea, and peacekeepers posted in Kosovo and Bosnia, the need for troops is vast and the terms of service open-ended, putting a strain on families, businesses and communities at home.
To date, more than 150,000 National Guard and reserve soldiers have been mobilized. In California, roughly 8,000 have been called up. "It's a balancing act," said Navy Capt. Barton Buechner, a director at the National Committee for the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, an organization formed to assist reservists and those who employ them. "When we structured the reserve forces and the support elements for those forces, we were not dealing with a threat to our homeland. We had not been attacked in that way prior."
Traffic Officer John Zeh, for instance, is just one of six in his department trained to inspect big rigs filled with hazardous material that roll into Lynchburg, Va., at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The job is considered vital to the war on terrorism, particularly for a community of 65,000 that sits near a nuclear facility. But for the last 18 months, Zeh has been absent, one of thousands of reserve soldiers assigned by the Pentagon to guard military detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"Are these people better off guarding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, or can they do more service to the country as police officers back in their communities?" asked Lynchburg Police Chief C.W. Bennett, who is struggling to make do with three of his most experienced officers gone or about to go. "We have to make some tough decisions about where these people can do the most good."
The Pentagon began to build up overseas deployment in December, and almost immediately police and fire departments felt the drain. Even without hard data, it became anecdotally clear that a disproportionate number of reservists were coming from public safety agencies.
"They have been hit heavily," said Col. Alan Smith, an ombudsman for the reservist support group, who listens to complaints about deployments daily. "When a local reserve unit is mobilized, the members in it most often are called up as a whole, not by ones and twos. And overnight, first-responder agencies can lose 30% of their ability to perform their regular function."
The loss of personnel to the military is just one more straw on the backs of already beleaguered agencies, several experts said.
Police and fire departments have been asked since the Sept. 11 attacks to do more with less, taking on threat assessments, providing greater police presence at vulnerable sites, training in bioterrorism, mastering radiation detection. And the expanded duties came at a time of low staffing and deep budget cuts.
A recent survey of 8,500 fire departments conducted by the International Assn. of Fire Chiefs showed nearly three-fourths have staff in the reserves -- from firefighters to the chiefs themselves.
A similar poll of more than 2,100 law enforcement agencies by the Police Executive Research Forum found that 44% have lost personnel to call-ups.
Larger organizations can compensate for the depletion in their ranks. Of the 3,000 uniformed personnel in the Los Angeles County Fire Department, for example, just 16 are reservists; seven of those have been activated and only one has shipped out, Deputy Chief Gilbert Herrera said.
Of the Los Angeles Police Department's more than 9,000 sworn officers, about 500 are in the reserves, and the department is still tallying how many have been activated, a spokesman said.
But smaller departments struggle. Officials say approximately 80% of law enforcement agencies in the country have 20 or fewer sworn officers, and the loss of one or two can leave gaps in their ability to serve their communities.
As more officers and firefighters are sent on military missions for a year or longer, chiefs make do with "smoke and mirror" measures -- paying overtime that is not budgeted, restricting vacations, shifting personnel and scaling back on crime prevention, inspections and other nonemergency services.
Asked in the survey how they would handle staffing losses, the written responses from fire officials around the country ranged from confident to desperate:
"We will maintain the same staffing level even if we must work personnel and pay them overtime."
"It will only affect one firefighter -- but he is the only other full-time member besides myself."
"Overtime eliminated and positions frozen. HELP!"
Even in larger departments, the deployment of one key uniformed officer can siphon off valuable expertise. Among those recently sent out are Pasadena Police Chief Bernard Melekian and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Capt. Sid Heal, an internationally recognized expert in SWAT team operations.
While even a chief is expendable for a short while, a long-term absence poses a strain.
"You can do the job without one for a while, but eventually you get an erosion," said Phillip Romeo, chief of the Eaton Police Department in Illinois, who recently returned from a year of reserve duty. "Officers need to know their chief is there leading all the time."
Unlike the last large-scale mobilization for the Persian Gulf War, there is no discernible end to the war on terrorism. Many assignments are approaching two years. Back home, as vacations are frozen and overtime imposed, police and fire officials worry about burnout.
"If you're understaffed to begin with, chances are people are already working overtime to fill in for the full-time people they don't have. It's a domino effect," said Gerard Murphy, senior research associate at the Police Research Forum in Washington.
While the private sector can turn to part-time help, experienced police officers and firefighters are an increasingly precious commodity.
Every new recruit takes about a year to train. And law enforcement agencies say they are already suffering from a shortage of sworn officers, some of them drawn to the private sector, where newly created homeland security jobs pay significantly more than most small cities do.
"If you lose an accountant, you can go out and hire an accountant who would be up to speed and working in a couple of weeks. With police officers, you can't just plug somebody in and take up the slack," said Chief Bennett of the Lynchburg, Va., police.
With two of his hazardous material inspectors gone, Bennett said other aspects of police work have given way. Response time to nonemergency calls is longer, and there is less time for the sort of community policing designed to settle citizen disputes before they escalate.
"We get a guy who says I'm getting called up and three days later he's gone," Bennett said. "We've got court appearances and schedules and all that is out the window. There is no argument, no debate, no saying, 'How about taking somebody else?' There is none of that."
There is a growing concern at the Pentagon that the system on which the reserves was built 30 years ago -- "you're called, you go" -- no longer works with prolonged absences and homeland security part of the new defense equation.
"We have to change. We have to balance," said Col. Smith, the reservist group ombudsman. His office averages 500 calls a week, twice the number that came in before the Pentagon began ramping up for war.
Defense officials are concerned that reenlistments and recruitment could suffer if call-ups come too often and the sacrifice of service is perceived as too great.
When it comes to mobilizing reserves, the Defense Department mantra has moved from "just in case" to "just in time," said Capt. Buechner of the reservist group. "We need to only take people when we absolutely need them, put them exactly where they're needed and release them as soon as humanely possible."
But that has been a virtual impossibility in a military with seven reserve branches ill-equipped to communicate with one another. As a result, one unit might be called up repeatedly while a similar unit two counties over is not summoned at all, Buechner said.
The Pentagon is working to establish a central database that will require reservists to list their employers and give the military a better picture of where its troops are coming from, and who can best be spared.
In the meantime, police and fire officials have voiced overwhelming support for the national defense effort, despite the sacrifice in their own ranks. Few complain publicly unless they are asked, and virtually all of them vow to find some way to manage.
"We suck it up," one chief wrote in response to the recent survey. "It's a real problem, but it's the patriotic thing to do."
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Soy-based biodiesel reliable in frigid cold - study
by Sue Schwendener
REUTERS USA:
February 17, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19848/newsDate/17-Feb-2003/story.htm
CHICAGO - Soy-based biodiesel has been dependable during this winter's arctic US temperatures, confirming recent data, and bolstering calls for its use as an alternative to foreign oil, researchers said.
Biodiesel is an alternative fuel that can be made from any fat or vegetable oil; about 90 percent of US biodiesel is made from soybean oil.
The fuel works in any diesel engine with few or no modifications, and offers similar fuel economy, horsepower and torque to petroleum-based diesel. Biodiesel also burns more cleanly than petroleum diesel, said Jenna Higgins, of the Missouri-based National Biodiesel Board, a trade association representing the biodiesel industry.
The widespread use of biodiesel has been held back because of production costs and perceptions that it performs poorly in extremely cold weather.
"Concerns that biodiesel can't perform or flow well in adverse weather are based on myths," said Kelly Strebig, a research engineer at the University of Minnesota Center for Diesel Research, in Minneapolis.
Proponents of biodiesel - which is biodegradable, nontoxic and free of sulfur - have said the home-grown fuel could be key in weaning Americans off imported oil.
Biodiesel use across the United States has grown from 500,000 gallons in 1999 to more than 20 million gallons last year as farmers and fuel producers looked for US-produced energy sources to lessen the dependence on foreign oil.
American farmers, the second-largest diesel-using group in the United States, generally use the fuel in blends of 2 percent or 20 percent (B20) with petroleum diesel. Farm machinery is mostly diesel-powered.
Strebig and other researchers recently verified that B2, a blend of 2 percent biodiesel and 98 percent petroleum diesel, had no measurable difference in cold flow properties compared with standard diesel.
And higher blends, such as B20, can be traded with standard flow-improvers, just as most diesel fuel is treated with in cold weather, he said.
"The key is using appropriate winter diesel fuel for (temperature) range you're going to experience, and if B20 doesn't give you the properties you need, then try some of these new additives," Strebig said. Many of the cold-flow improvers only cost 3/4 to 1-1/2 cents per gallon, and need to be used only during the coldest months of the year.
BIODIESEL CLEANER THAN PETROLEUM DIESEL - EPA
The Center also recently completed studies of two additives that lowered the point at which B20 gels to 50 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (-45.55 Celsius). Both are currently commercially available from biodiesel distributors, Strebig told Reuters.
"We aren't surprised at reports like these because biodiesel is such a well-tested fuel, both in the laboratory and in the real world," said Joe Jobe, executive director of the National Biodiesel Board. "For many years, Europeans have used biodiesel year-round in cold locations like the Swiss Alps."
In addition to the recently published University of Minnesota data, biodiesel proponents noted that the US Environmental Protection Agency late last year released data showing use of B20 could reduce emissions of total unburned hydrocarbons by 20 percent compared with petroleum diesel.
Hydrocarbons are a contributing factor in the development of smog and ozone.
The report also verified a 12 percent reduction of both carbon monoxide and particulate matter in use of B20.
Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas and also a factor in smog and ozone formation, while particulate matter has been recognized as a contributor in the development of respiratory disease.
The United Soybean Board, a group of US farmers that oversees the investment of national soy checkoff dollars, this winter launched a major drive to spur soy biodiesel use.
USB directors have set a goal of using 300 million gallons per year, which they say would translate into a 7 cent to 20 cent per bushel boost in the price of US soybeans.
----
US farm state senators renew ethanol mandate push
REUTERS USA:
February 17, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19849/newsDate/17-Feb-2003/story.htm
WASHINGTON - A group of US farm state senators launched a new effort to pass legislation that would triple the nation's use of ethanol and renewable fuels to 5 billion gallons annually by 2012.
Ethanol, which is typically distilled from corn, is used as an additive for cleaner-burning motor fuels. It is also seen by some lawmakers as a way to stretch US oil supplies to slow increasing imports.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, and Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, were among the 14 senators from both parties that re-introduced a bill to boost ethanol use.
Last year, a similar ethanol measure won the approval of 69 senators as part of a broad, unsuccessful energy bill that sought to boost US oil, natural gas and coal production. President George W. Bush also endorsed the ethanol proposal, which is backed by producers such as Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM.N).
"Our nation needs a broader, deeper and more diverse energy portfolio," Hagel said on the Senate floor when introducing the bill. "Under this energy bill, renewable fuel use would increase to approximately 3 percent of our total transportation fuel supply - tripling the amount of renewable fuel we now use."
The US ethanol industry has rapidly added new capacity with a dozen new plants opened in 2002 and another 10 plants under construction. US annual production is expected to top 3 billion gallons this year.
STATE WAIVER
The Senate bill would amend a section of the federal Clean Air Act and require US ethanol, biodiesel and renewable fuel use to grow from the current 1.7 billion gallons per year to 5 billion gallons by 2012.
The bill would also:
- Allow a state governor to request a waiver from the program if there is "severe" economic or environmental harm caused by the renewable fuel requirement. Last year, California lawmakers opposed the ethanol bill, contending that it would mean higher fuel prices and disruptions in supply because of ethanol is difficult to ship to the West Coast.
- Phase out the use of gasoline additive MTBE four years after enactment of the law. The program would spend $1 billion during that time to help the MTBE industry transition to other products. MTBE - methyl tertiary butyl ether - is used to limit air pollution from gasoline but has been found to contaminate groundwater
- Require the Environmental Protection Agency to study the impact of the program on Chicago and Milwaukee markets for reformulated gasoline.
- Require the Energy Department to conduct a study in 2004 of whether the renewable fuels mandate will affect consumer supplies of motor gasoline, prices, and blendstock supplies.
- Award credits to US oil refiners, blenders, distributors or importers of gasoline that use a greater quantity of ethanol than required by the law. The credits could be traded or sold to other companies to help reduce the cost of compliance.
- Exempt small oil refineries from the program until 2008, and allow them to apply for hardship exemptions after that.
-------- environment
EU under attack over plan to legalise paraquat
Story by Jeremy Smith
REUTERS BELGIUM:
February 17, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19838/newsDate/17-Feb-2003/story.htm
BRUSSELS - Environmentalists, insisting that paraquat is highly toxic for humans and animals, slammed EU proposals to legalise the controversial herbicide across the bloc although it is banned in several member states.
EU scientists are due to debate paraquat's possible inclusion in a list of permitted substances to be subject to EU-wide regulation, instead of different national rules, at a meeting on February 25-26.
"Paraquat is a highly toxic substance and so we'd be very concerned about its continuing use in the EU," said Sandra Bell, pesticides adviser to environmental group Friends of the Earth.
"Any allowance of its use across the European Union would be a backwards step," she told Reuters.
Environmentalists have long campaigned for the complete removal from EU markets of paraquat, one of the very few herbicides that are acutely toxic.
Paraquat became widely known when it was sprayed on Latin American marijuana fields in the 1970s as a defoliant and it is currently authorised as a weedkiller in 10 EU member states.
But Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Austria have banned the chemical for many years, while Germany has restrictions on it.
"Certain countries decided that they just don't want it used in their country. If they're able to manage weeds without it, it begs the question of why other countries need to use it," said Stephanie Williamson at the UK-based Pesticide Action Network.
Critics say it is impossible to handle paraquat safely and claim that the chemical harms the lungs, skin and eyes of workers handling it. Paraquat producers deny these charges.
A fast-acting non-selective herbicide used to kill weeds, paraquat destroys green plant tissue on contact. If this month's proposal is agreed, it could be sold throughout the EU, subject to strict legislative controls from Brussels.
In 2001, EU scientists classed paraquat as toxic but not a major risk to operators or soil-dwelling organisms. There was a small risk for ground-breeding birds and animals such as hares.
If the EU experts include paraquat as an authorised product, its use would remain highly restricted and it would most likely not be sold to the public, a Commission official said.
To highlight its toxicity, extra chemicals could be used to give it a particularly bad smell or cause immediate vomiting if accidentally consumed, he added.
----
Canada scientists warn of brewing nanotech battle
Story by Rajiv Sekhri
REUTERS CANADA:
February 17, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19847/newsDate/17-Feb-2003/story.htm
TORONTO - Scientists and activists are on a collision course over a new technology that operates on a microscopic scale but could have massive ramifications, and the confrontation could derail the rapidly emerging field of nanotechnology, a Canadian study shows.
Nanotechnology, the manipulation of atoms and molecules on the scale of a nanometre - one-billionth of a metre (yard) - could give humans a science-fiction-like power to remake nature as easily as a child assembles and rearranges Lego blocks.
Scientists herald nanotechnology as the first major scientific revolution of the 21st century, which could open a world of wonders for humanity, researchers at a bioethics think tank at the University of Toronto said on Thursday.
Its applications include everything from nanorobots, or nanobots - tiny machines that could travel throughout the body destroying viruses or cancer cells - to data storage systems the size of a sugar cube, which could hold virtually everything ever published.
But those opposed to the technology argue that there could be severe environmental damage, including the release of nanomaterials that could create illnesses not seen before.
Some critics outline a scenario where trillions of self-reproducing nanobots take on a life of their own and reduce our planet to a massive "grey goo" - a theme popularized in Michael Crichton's recent novel "Prey".
"The scary scenarios are the ones that will undermine public confidence and support of nanotechnology," said Dr. Abdallah Daar, director of the Joint Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto, who is also co-author of the study published in the British journal "Nanotechnology".
"We see a widening gap between the science and the ethics. The backlash is already gathering momentum and we've seen calls for a moratorium," said Dr. Peter Singer, who is also director of the bioethics center and a co-author of the study.
A Winnipeg-based organization called ETC Group has proposed a moratorium on commercial production of nanomaterials. It wants a global process to evaluate the socioeconomic, health and environmental implications of the technology.
ETC estimates nanotechnology will create an economic "revolution" worth a trillion US dollars by 2015 in virtually all sectors of the economy, but poses a fundamental question: "Who will control nanotechnology?"
"We're moving toward a showdown of the type we saw in genetically modified crops," Singer told Reuters. "That would be very unfortunate because the potential benefits of the technology might be prematurely and inappropriately rejected."
Daar and Singer's study calls for a closing of the gap between the science and the ethics. It argues that if the ethics debate does not speed up, the science and research are going to get slowed down.
"What we're saying is that we don't want a moratorium," Daar said. "We need to discuss realistic applications, not scaremongering."
Applications of nanotechnology include removal of greenhouse gases cheaply and efficiently by rearranging the molecules into harmless or even beneficial substances.
Molecules could also be manipulated into creating materials like steel, but would be 100 times stronger and much lighter, or a protective spacesuit that fits better than slacks and a sweat shirt.
The study suggests there should be an appropriate level of funding for research into the ethical issues of nanotechnology and that scientists and activists should interact more.
In addition, developing countries should also be involved in this debate lest they be left behind, creating a new scientific divide similar to the technology and genomics divide that already exists.
Other approaches include public engagement, including science museums displaying exhibits about the technology and its implications.
----
Questions Beset Bush CO2 Underground Storage Plans
DENVER, Colorado,
February 17, 2003
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2003/2003-02-17-10.asp
Storing carbon dioxide inside coal seams or reservoirs far below the Earth's surface, rather than releasing the gas into the atmosphere, is a tempting prospect. It could reduce the overall emissions of the greenhouse gas most scientists believe is responsible for global warming, without forcing a change in the amount of emissions produced.
This is a concept the Bush administration strongly supports. It has provided some $3 million for research on how to put carbon dioxide into coal seams and fields of briny water deep beneath the Earth and proposed millions more in funding to foster public private ventures.
But scientists at the ongoing American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting, questioned whether the current policy fully acknowledges the costs and technical limitations of current sequestration technologies or the size of meaningful sequestration efforts.
"Injecting carbon underground is a short term solution," said Klaus Lackner, a geophysics professor at Columbia University. "The oil industry has done this with 20 million tons a year in West Texas, but that is not the scale we're talking about here. We need to find a way to put away 20 billion tons."
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that worldwide carbon dioxide emissions could more than triple over the next 100 years, from 7.4 billion tons of carbon per year in 1997 to approximately 20 billion tons per year by 2100.
Deep saline reservoirs underlie all or part of 35 states, and these are a focus of the government's research, according to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
"Theoretically, they could hold all of the carbon dioxide emitted by the nation's coal burning power plants for the next 100 years," the energy secretary said last November, when he announced the administration's plan to fund public private ventures to explore carbon storage.
Scientists at the AAAS meeting are enthusiastic about the potential for this kind of carbon sequestration, but fear the government underestimates the consequences of injecting carbon dioxide into coal seams or reservoirs.
The task is not the same as what has been done by the oil industry, which has injected methane into mature oil fields to produce additional, or enhanced, oil.
One potential consequence of injecting carbon into reservoirs is that it could force millions of gallons of salty water to the Earth's surface, substantially greater amounts than the briny water produced during recovery of natural gas, according to Curt White, the leading carbon sequestration scientist at the National Energy Technology Laboratory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
"This is not a trivial problem," he said, adding that high concentrations of salt and other dissolves solids can be toxic.
"Development of technologies to properly dispose of huge amounts of produced water is a problem area that needs further research," White said.
White is researching the physical and chemical phenomena that occur when carbon dioxide is injected into coal seams and how much carbon can be stored safely within the seams.
It may be the cost, rather than the technological hurdles, that proves the biggest barrier to large scale carbon sequestration efforts.
"Unless the economic incentives are in place, the technology is not going to go anywhere," said Howard Herzog, principal research engineer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Energy and the Environment.
Herzog argues that because the cost of emitting carbon compounds is free, there are no incentives to capture and store the carbon dioxide. If costs can be directly attributed to carbon dioxide emissions, he said, sequestration efforts will begin to make economic sense.
Herzog estimates that if the costs of emission went up to "about $100 per ton of carbon produced," market forces would encourage capture and storage efforts.
The Bush administration has been strongly opposed to imposing fees on carbon dioxide emissions.
White and his colleagues are analyzing surveys conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Mines to determine which U.S. coal seams might contain the most methane.
Lackner argues these efforts are shortsighted and that the administration should think larger, not smaller. At the AAAS meeting, he shared designs for new power plants that would capture the gas before it leaves the facility.
This design could be complimented with "synthetic trees," Lackner explained, that could take carbon from the air, mix it with magnesium silicate, and store it in the "rocks" that would result from the chemical interaction between the elements.
Large scale carbon sequestration, Lackner added, would allow the continued use of carbon based fuels during the time needed to develop alternative sources of energy.
Environmentalists generally support the study of carbon sequestration, but worry that it could stall mandated emissions cuts. They have raised concerns about possible leaks and the subsequent health and environmental risks.
Despite concerns with progress to date, White said the concept of storing carbon in coal seams and underground aquifers still holds potential.
"We now have a much better understanding of what we think is going to happen," White said. "I think that with the proper research and the right resources, the problem areas can be overcome."
----
Scientists Urge Improved Nitrogen Management
DENVER, Colorado,
February 17, 2003
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2003/2003-02-17-09.asp#anchor4
New strategies and opportunities for improved nitrogen management must be developed in order to meet future needs and preserve the environment, according to scientists at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) being held in Denver through Tuesday.
"Given the critical need for nitrogen in food production and the sequential nature of the effects of too much nitrogen, it is imperative that strategies be developed to optimize nitrogen management in food and energy production and in environmental protection," James Galloway of the University of Virginia told his colleagues.
Nitrogen is central to food production, but it cycles through the atmosphere, soils, and waters, altering the environment wherever it goes. The human production of food and energy starts a process that breaks the triple bond of the nitrogen molecule. This creates reactive nitrogen, which can make surface and subsurface waters unsuitable for humans, livestock, and wildlife.
Air emissions of nitrous oxide cause acidification of soil and water, or regional smog, and can reduce biodiversity on the affected land.
The majority of human produced reactive nitrogen comes from the production of fertilizer. The future population, which is expected to increase by two billion in the next 20 years, will require an even larger supply of nitrogen.
Improving nitrogen fertilizer management is becoming more and more urgent, scientists say.
"There are significant economic costs associated with the inefficient use of fertilizer, and by the damage caused to aquatic, terrestrial, and marine ecosystems, to the ozone layer and through the climate change by the introduction of reactive nitrogen," said William Moomaw of Tufts University. "Only one quarter to one third of applied fertilizer nitrogen is actually absorbed by crops."
-------- ACTIVISTS
The human shield has arrived, but what now?
Suzanne Goldenberg in Baghdad
Monday February 17, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,896978,00.html
At times it felt like hell on wheels. But the peace activists who travelled across a continent by London double-decker bus arrived at a Baghdad bomb shelter yesterday with their sense of mission just about intact.
Few places in Baghdad convey the horror of war as sharply as the al-Ameriya shelter, where 400 Iraqi civilians were incinerated by US missiles during the last Gulf war.
The visit to the shelter yesterday was one of the first duties of the newly arrived human shields, who joined a lively camp of the anti-war movement in Baghdad.
There can be no doubting their passion but the activists' epic voyage did not encourage clarity of vision.
There were breakdowns - a third bus painted black and labelled Enemy Combatant was abandoned in Milan - drop-outs, logistical snags, infighting, a leadership coup, and the usual frictions that can be expected among strangers sharing the same cramped quarters, and not entirely sure of their purpose.
Beyond paying £300 for their passage, the 30 or so protesters, from Britain, the US, Australia, Scandinavia and elsewhere had little in common. Several were just along for the ride: journalists hoping to be smuggled into Baghdad as activists.
For Grace Trevett, an artist from Stroud in Gloucestershire, the journey began in April last year when she took part in a peace rally in the US. Others signed on just before the buses left London. "I feel shame on the Bush government and the Blair government making it necessary for people to do this to be heard," Ms Trevett said.
For three weeks, the focus was all on the journey across Europe, Turkey and Syria to Iraq. "It felt like the closer we got the more dangerous it became, and the stronger the realisation that there is life here," Ms Trevett said.
The bus, advertising the website humanshields.org and with a rear panel showing pictures of the Beatles, finally reached Baghdad on Saturday night - too late for Iraq's anti-war demonstrations. The travellers had been awake for two days.
Arrival had its own complications. When the activists crossed over the Iraqi border at the weekend, they were greeted by a rent-a-mob chanting Saddam Hussein's praises - raising doubts about whether the activists were providing support for the regime.
It was also not exactly clear yesterday what the activists would do in Baghdad.
"It is a great challenge and worry what to do," said Godfrey Meynell, 68, a retired civil servant and by far the oldest activist. "There is no real point in the whole thing except if we are causing doubts in the mind of those preparing for war."
Some protesters were planning a speedy return. Some were clearly comfortable with their role as human shields deployed at potential bombing targets in Iraq.
Others bridled at the term, saying it obscured the real purpose of the journey: to put a human face on the Iraqi civilians who will be killed.
"For me it was never an issue of going to Baghdad, and saving the people," said Ms Trevett. "It was very much coming in to see what we can do."
----
New protests planned in bid to bring Britain to a standstill
Direct action urged if conflict begins
John Vidal, Jamie Wilson and Tania Branigan
Monday February 17, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/story/0,12809,897155,00.html
Anti-war coalition leaders, emboldened by the massive turnout at peace rallies in London and around the world, are planning to try to shut Britain down should Tony Blair defy public opinion and go to war without a UN resolution.
"We want people to walk out of their offices, strike, sit down, occupy buildings, demonstrate, take direct action and do whatever they think fit the moment war starts," said Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition yesterday.
"We want to completely close down Whitehall and prevent the Ministry of Defence going to work. At 6pm on the first evening after the bombing starts, there will be demonstrations and vigils all over the country, to be followed by another march with CND on the first weekend after war starts."
The coalition will decide over the next few days whether or not to call for a local "day of action" which would be an invitation for younger, militant groups around Britain to take direct action.
Last year, with considerably smaller support, a similar call led to more than 300 demonstrations, including university occupations and wildcat strikes.
International campaigners from the US, Asia and elsewhere are expected to meet in London in the next week to consider further coordinated opposition to war. But whatever the outcome, local groups will continue their diverse protest activities, which range from weekly vigils in Milton Keynes to next week's Cycle for Peace in London.
American airforce bases such as those at Fylingdales in Yorkshire and Fairford in Gloucestershire, where activists have staged weekly "weapons inspections", are likely to become a focus for much activity.
One of the key dates will be March 8, International Women's Day, which will see an anti-war march setting out from Parliament Square, organised by women who have been holding a weekly antiwar picket opposite Downing Street.
That day's annual global women's strike, held in more than 70 countries each year to push for investment in caring work rather than military budgets, has been dedicated to the anti-war movement this year.
The size of the London and Glasgow marches, together with the great diversity of people on them, has given people a shared confidence and a new moral authority, said Ms German. "People who oppose the war now feel that they speak for the majority. To get at least one million, probably two million, people on to the streets on Saturday is unprecedented. This was a national occasion," she said.
Her sentiments were echoed by many people on Saturday's march, many of whom said they had never marched before.
"Mr Blair has truly united Britain for the first time in my lifetime. I never dreamed so many people felt the same way as I did," said Joanna Fitcham, company director from Norfolk. "I shall be taking part in every demonstration I can from now."
"Next time I'll bring all my friends," said John Tucker, 15, from south London, who had come with his mother.
Barrie Botley, 58, from Folkestone, said he had been amazed by the numbers present. "The campaign is growing in momentum now and this won't be the last protest, I'm sure. It may well be small compared to what's come," he said.
Several politicians yesterday predicted that the march would have repercussions throughout the Labour party and beyond.
Tony Benn said: "It will go down in British history. In 50 years' time people will say 'were you really there?' It has given us great hope. This is crunch time. Tony Blair can now either be the leader of the Labour party or leader of the war party. "
Prominent Labour anti-war MP Alan Simpson said that the march had united the anti-war movement with the anti-globalisation movement and could redefine British politics.
"The party is split over this. There are only 180,000 members but more than one million people were in the park. The government no longer speaks for its constituency. If Blair takes us into the war we will launch a movement in the Labour party to indict him."
Grassroots campaigners were equally quick to make the link with recent protests, which they believed had encouraged groups with diverse aims to join together and focus on specific issues.
"I was involved in the protests against the Gulf war, but this is very different," said Mirjam Junker, from Germany, who joined the protests on Saturday. "There are more people and also a wider range of people. I think it's to do with the anti-globalisation movement.
It was the beginning of many things; groups joining up and linking together. After Seattle people have learned to protest and take to the streets again."
----
WAR HERO JOINS YOUNG AND OLD IN MASS DEMO
'I feel like a soldier in an army of peace'
Feb 17 2003
By Helen Cook, Justine Smith And Lorraine Fisher
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12646946&method=full&siteid=50143
AS Thomas Gow surveyed the sea of protesters waiting to start marching, any doubts about his conversion to the peace campaign vanished.
It was a surreal moment for the Gulf War hero. Ten years ago, the ex-soldier was pictured fighting Saddam's troops by Daily Mirror photographer Mike Moore.
On Saturday, he joined more than a million people to protest against a new war on Iraq.
NEW BATTLE: Ex-soldier Thomas carries one of the thousands of placards bearing his image fighting in the last Gulf War
And 30,000 people marched under the Mirror placard bearing his image and the message: "No War." Thomas, 35, said: "It was strange watching all those people carrying posters with a picture of me on it.
"I felt proud. I could see this sea of posters but no one knew it was a picture of me they were holding.
"Millions of people are against this war. I am glad I've experienced this. It's like being a soldier in an army of peace.
"In the last Gulf War, Saddam talked about the mother of all wars. Well, this is the mother of all marches. A soldier understands that sometimes people have to die, that war is sometimes necessary.
"But I hope using this picture will make people face the realities of war and force them to think again. There are far too many people against this war."
The former Royal Scots corporal, from Inverness, won the Military Medal for bravery in the last conflict with Saddam.
PEACE NOW: Thomas meets veteran campaigner Tony Benn
Thomas said: "If Tony Blair doesn't listen to the people on this march, his days are numbered.
"If he was not Prime Minister, you would expect him to be here, certainly not taking us into war.
"The people of Baghdad will fight for their homes and families. They are not going to give up easily. We could still be there in 10 years' time.
"Tony Blair has got it so wrong. Why doesn't he hold a referendum and let the people decide?"
When Thomas fought in 1991, he was sure he had right on his side and had been prepared to kill innocent Iraqis.
In recent months, he has surprised himself with the strength of his opposition to pre-emptive strikes against the old enemy.
And like millions across the country, the scenes on Saturday have left him resolved to fight the battle for peace to the end.
--------
Kucinich campaigns
Ohio congressman to form exploratory committee
By Vanessa Miller
Iowa City Press-Citizen
Monday, February 17, 2003
http://www.press-citizen.com/news/021703kucinich.htm
We, as Americans, need to reclaim the flag, according to Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio.
The Cleveland native said he plans to lead the way in that effort and is taking the first steps toward a candidacy for president of the United States.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, leaves the podium to get closer to Johnson County Democrats at their caucus Sunday at City High. Press-Citizen/Ben Roberts
"We need to regain our flag, because some say it stands for war," Kucinich said Sunday in the Opstad Auditorium at City High School during the Johnson County Democratic Party Off Year Caucus. "This Tuesday, I'm taking a step to help reclaim that flag for all Americans."
Kucinich said he will file papers to form a presidential exploratory committee Tuesday.
"If the financial support is there, I will take the next step in June," he said Sunday. "But so far, the reaction has been good."
Sunday was the first time Kucinich announced his decision and said it is his history, his ideas and his leadership qualities that will benefit the nation.
"I want to light up America," he said. "I want to bring the light of peace to this country.... I want to recapture the goodness of the United States.
"We need to remember how we started, as a nation with promise," he said. "I'm so concerned we are losing sight of that, of what America can be."
As chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Kucinich has promoted a national health-care system, preservation of Social Security, increased unemployment insurance benefits and establishing wholesale cost-based rates for electricity, natural gas and home heating oil.
His fight for affordable utilities began in 1977.
Kucinich cancelled a sale of the municipally owned electric system to a private company after being elected mayor of Cleveland. His refusal to approve the sale, which Cleveland bank officials demanded, led the banks to plunge the city into default for $15 million.
Kucinich was not re-elected in 1979 and said he even struggled to find a job in town.
"It took me 15 years to get back into politics," he said, adding that Cleveland's light system was expanded and continued to provide low-cost power to nearly half the city's residents.
The Cleveland City Council honored Kucinich in 1998 for "having the courage and foresight to refuse to sell the city's municipal electric system."
Sunday, Iowa City Councilor Steven Kanner informed Kucinich that city officials are considering the possibility of a local municipal electric system and asked the congressman to explain the benefits of a city-owned utility system.
"I believe in public facilities and utilities because if you don't own them, they will own you," Kucinich said in response to Kanner's question.
When asked where he stands on the issue of abortion, Kucinich said he is pro-choice and supports the 1973 Roe v. Wade court ruling that made abortions legal.
"But we need to try and move above this debate," he said. "We need to make sure abortions are less necessary."
Kucinich said he would like to focus his energy on teaching about sex education, self-esteem for young adults and birth control.
"I think I can establish a presidency that is truly pro-choice," he said.
One of Kucinich's top priorities, if elected as president, would be to cancel the Patriot Act.
"They are not talking about the America I know in that act," he said. "As a presidential candidate, I intend to make the erosion of our civil rights a central part of my campaign."
Kucinich is one of five house members who went to federal court Thursday in an attempt to prevent the president from launching an invasion of Iraq without an explicit war declaration from Congress.
----
Democratic Rep. Kucinich to Run for President
Reuters
February 17, 2003
By John Whitesides
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/reuters20030217_323.html
ALTOONA, Iowa (Reuters) - Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, one of the strongest voices in Congress against war in Iraq, said on Monday he would enter the race for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.
Kucinich, co-leader of the Progressive Caucus that includes the most liberal members of the House of Representatives, told a gathering of Iowa labor leaders he would file papers on Tuesday to create a committee to raise money for a presidential bid.
Stressing a populist economic agenda that includes universal health care, repeal of the North American Free Trade Agreement and elimination of President Bush's tax cuts, Kucinich said he would be a "people's president."
He said Bush had failed to make the case for war with Iraq. "This war is wrong," he told an Iowa AFL-CIO conference.
Former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, the first black woman elected to the Senate but a loser in her 1998 re-election bid, also plans to launch a presidential campaign committee on Tuesday, bringing to eight the number of Democratic contenders vying for the right to challenge Bush in 2004.
Kucinich and Moseley-Braun are long-shot entries in a Democratic field that could expand even more, with Florida Sen. Bob Graham, Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, former senator Gary Hart and retired general Wesley Clark also pondering bids.
The 56-year-old Kucinich spent four controversial years as mayor of Cleveland, presiding over the city's collapse into financial ruin. He made a political comeback as an Ohio state senator and won election to the U.S. House in 1996.
He is the only member of Congress in the race for president to have voted against the resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq. Graham, who is expected to enter the contest within the next few weeks, also voted against it.
Kucinich has been a pro-labor representative and pledged solidarity with the Iowa labor leaders gathered in a suburb of Des Moines for the state's AFL-CIO legislative conference, saying he would preside over a "people's White House."
While a long-shot to win the nomination, he hopes to rally support from the Democratic Party's antiwar activists and push populist issues that might otherwise be submerged on the campaign agenda.
He has already won praise from Ralph Nader, the Green Party presidential candidate in 2000, who says the presidential field needs a progressive candidate.
----
Mourners recall the night it rained missiles
From Janine di Giovanni in Baghdad
February 17, 2003
UK Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-580673,00.html
HANA AMED was 32 years old and pregnant when she was killed, with her four children and her husband, in the al-Amiriya shelter in western Baghdad on February 13, 1991.
The family had gone underground on a freezing winter night, halfway through Operation Desert Storm. They thought that they would be safe from the rockets and missiles that were raining down on their city.
Instead two American smart bombs found the ventilation system of their shelter. It had been built during the Iran-Iraq War and because it was so well-equipped and sturdy - with beds, cooking facilities, showers and a small hospital - people thought it indestructible. As the flames spread, however, al-Amiriya became an oven. More than 400 people, mainly women, children and the elderly, burnt to death.
Hana is buried near the shelter, in a graveyard of the victims. If you walk inside the broken concrete building, you still see the dark shadows against the walls where their bodies were incinerated; the crater where the bombs exploded. The United States said later it believed that al-Amiriya was a command-and-control centre.
"I am sure everyone who enters here feels it is a cemetery," says Intesar Ahmed, who manages the shelter, which is now a national monument. "You can feel the dead."
As another war approaches, Iraqis gathered yesterday to open a museum to honour the dead of al-Amiriya. Hana's mother, Suad, 63, face crinkled with grief, came back to the shelter to sit under an Arabian-style tent and watch a ceremony to commemorate the victims. Alongside her were other families and the Iraqi top brass, including Taha Yassin Ramadan, the Vice-President.
On one plush sofa was Dr Huda Ammash, the woman with the highest political position in Iraq, in olive military dress, headscarf and black suede platform boots. Behind her, in white plastic chairs sat an exhausted and ragged collection of British human shields who had arrived late on Saturday night in red double-decker buses.
President Saddam Hussein was not there, but a telegram from the participants and victims' families was sent to his palace. Schoolchildren sang; a marching band blew trumpets; an orchestra played solemnly.
In the al-Amiriya neighbourhood, which borders the shelter, no one has forgotten that night because nearly everyone has someone who died in the shelter. In some cases, entire families were killed. They remember the morning after the bombs, when people picked through fields of blackened corpses, searching for their relatives. "It was difficult because many of the victims had no faces," Intesar Ahmed says.
Rahim Batawi lost his wife, two sons and two daughters. He was inside the shelter, trying to sleep when the bomb exploded. He remembers brightness, fire, smoke and then blackness as his body was hurled outside the door.
His bones were broken. He woke in hospital where a relative told him that he was the only one to live in his immediate family.
"I wanted to die, too," he says, staring at a photograph of his lost children. "I could not see how I could possibly go forward with my life."
A dozen years after their deaths, it is painful for Rahim to believe that America may launch another war, that the bombs will come again. For years, he has tortured himself, believing that his children would be alive if he had not brought them to the shelter.
"They are still with me," he says. "Every day they sit at the table with me and eat. They are still here."
Now many Iraqis believe that the bombs will return. Most of them, however, say they will never again go underground in the city's 34 shelters: the memory of al-Amiriya is too fresh. "How can we ever feel safe again?" Rahim says.
---------
Ralph Nader Speaks Out Against War With Iraq
Between The Lines,
Feb. 17, 2003
http://www.wpkn.org/wpkn/news/btl022103.html#2hed http://www.btlonline.org
Interview with Ralph Nader, citizen activist and former Green Party presidential candidate, conducted by Melinda Tuhus
Listen in RealAudio: http://66.175.55.251/nader022103.ram AOL users: http://66.175.55.251/nader022103.ram"
Consumer advocate and former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader is wearing an additional hat these days as an anti-war activist. He held a news conference in Washington, DC. last week with other groups opposed to war in Iraq, where he accused the Bush administration of allowing its ties to the oil industry to lead the country to battle and was quoted as saying the administration is "marinated in oil." Nader criticized Bush for refusing to meet with retired military officers, former intelligence agents, academics, clergy and business leaders who support pursuing a diplomatic resolution to the Iraq crisis.
Nader spoke at a fundraiser for the New Haven Green Party in his home state of Connecticut Feb. 8 where he again emphasized the number of top retired military officials who oppose the war, but he said Bush isn't listening. He urged Americans to continue to speak out against the war, and described the terrible consequences he fears will likely to result from a full-scale U.S. attack on Iraq.
Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Ralph Nader about his views on the White House drive for war and the growing international peace movement.
Ralph Nader: It's like a beehive. If you're standing near a beehive, you can watch it operate. But if you smack it hard, the bees are going to come out. Just as the CIA predicted last year in a letter to Congress that if we invade Iraq and attack Saddam Hussein, he's more likely to use chemical and biological weapons, the raw materials of which we sold him under the Reagan and Bush administrations under Department of Commerce Export Licensing. This is an incredible situation that we are now condemning this brutal dictator for doing in the 1980s what he did with chemical warfare based on materials we sold him before, during and after he gassed these innocent people and the Iranian combatants.
Between The Lines: You've been in Washington many decades. You've been through a lot of administrations. How does this administration stack up compared to, say, what went on during the Nixon administration or the Reagan administration in terms on a whole range of things you'd like to comment on -- civil rights, civil liberties certainly, but also our willingness to go it alone in the world?
Ralph Nader: This is the most radical extremist administration. George W. Bush is not his father's son. In fact, his father was counseling, through his older security advisors, to go very careful on this Iraq situation. And in the process, the Bush administration has transforming America for the worst. They're starving the necessities of our country in terms of budgets that are now being allocated to the war against Iraq and the military buildup. They are undermining our civil liberties -- the critical pillar of our democracy, chilling political dissent, privacy and created a nation of suspects, and above all, they're endangering this country by a reckless invasion of Iraq, that many retired generals and admirals think pose no threat to the United States, however brutal he is to his own people.
Between The Lines: You talked earlier about how Americans should look at different sources and inform themselves. But since the vast majority of Americans aren't doing that, do you have any hope or any idea how the tide might be turned? There is a lot of anti-war sentiment, and there's been huge demonstrations, but what else has to happen for more people to become aware of the things that you've spoken about?
Ralph Nader: Well, Americans are fair-minded people. If they think that the president of the United States has never received an anti-war delegation -- whether from the clergy, human rights, military veterans, business, even some Republicans are against this war -- then they'll look at President Bush as a president who doesn't want to listen. And people don't like presidents who don't want to listen, who just go on TV and with belligerent soundbites talk to the American people. I think that has to become a near-term issue. This president is not hearing the other side from many people who have fought in our wars and who know and are much more experienced about these matters than both he and his "chickenhawk" advisors.
Between The Lines: I heard you mention earlier that Al Gore has probably been the Democrat who has spoken out most strongly against what's currently going on. Do you think he can only do that because he's not either in elected office or running for president again?
Ralph Nader: Well, that's certainly a part of it. Al Gore outside of office is different than Al Gore in office. He's freer to be who he is instead of to be a prisoner of the various lobbies that surround a White House and are very war-mongering.
Between The Lines: Last time you were (in Connecticut), you were talking a lot about your new organization at the time called "Democracy Rising." Has that been folded into United for Peace and Justice? Is that a member organization of it, how much of a role is that organization playing and educating American people or trying to reach out to people with views that may be different from the mainstream?
Ralph Nader: It's part of the anti-war coalition and lots of people are working in different dimensions of the struggle.
Between The Lines: What do you think will happen if and when we go into a full-fledged war? Do you think the American population will go more toward supporting a president because we're in a full-scale war or do you think there will be even more obvious and wide-spread opposition, or both?
Ralph Nader: Unfortunately, the minute the first shots or bombs are fired or fall, most people give up any opposition to the president and he will have overwhelming support whether active or passive, with the exception of some hardcore dissenters who think that if wars can't be stopped, they can be shortened and they can be minimized in terms of their damage.
Between The Lines: What do you think those hardcore dissenters should do?
Ralph Nader: Keep up the opposition. You know, if stopping the war is important, if the war starts, it's even more important to stop the war. This isn't a war where there is any firepower on the other side, so to speak. They don't have an air force; they don't have a navy, their military is obsolete -- the only danger comes from chemical and biological material release. The American people who are not participating in this great debate on the war should realize that if they don't have a say, they're very likely to pay in many ways for themselves, their children, in terms of the state of the economy and the safety of our country.
Ralph Nader's latest book is titled "Crashing the Party," published by St. Martin's Press. Contact organizations affiliated with Nader by visiting Essential Information at http://www.essential.org
Related links:
- Public Citizen www.citizen.org
- Democracy Rising www.democracyrising.org
- United for Peace and Justice www.unitedforpeace.org
- Not In Our Name www.notinourname.org
- International Answer www.internationalanswer.org - Labor Against War www.uslaboragainstwar.org
This week's summary of under-reported news
Compiled by Bob Nixon and Brita Brundage
- Pentagon working on its own "incapacitating" weapons that use fentanyl, the opiate used by the Russian Army during last fall's Moscow theater siege that killed 117 people. ("The Pentagon's Non-Lethal Gas," The Nation, Feb. 17, 2003)
- Bush, in his State of the Union address, asserted that Afghanistan's women are now free; however, Human Rights Watch reports women in Afghanistan still suffering religious and political repression. ("We Want to Live As Humans: Repression of Women and Girls in Western Afghanistan," Human Rights Watch Web site, December 2002; "State of the Union," "Afghanistan: Criticism Builds as Possible War with Iraq Looms" and "Afghanistan: Command of Peacekeeping Troops Switches to Germans and Dutch;" Feminist Majority Foundation, Feb. 4, 2003.)
-------
------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)
------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!
-----------
Posted
without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only,
in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.