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NUCLEAR
Cheney Disagrees with IAEA Nuclear Report on Iraq
Iraq seeks talks, goes to war alert
Iraq Destroying More Missiles Despite War Steps
Israeli nuclear 'power' exposed
U.S., S.Korea Simulate War with 'Opfor' North
Navy Maintains Solid Presence in South Korea
Rumsfeld urged Clinton to attack Iraq
Hawks circling for new targets
Summit's Joint Statement on Iraq
Bush Says Iraq Diplomacy Ends on Monday
MILITARY
Rebels Capture Central African Republic
U.S. - South Korean War Games Go High - Tech
Iraq Links Germs for Weapons to U.S. and France
Blair plans for war as UN is given 24 hours
Health minister: 'I was wrong to vote for war.'
Is Tony Blair crazy, or just plain stupid?
Iran next in US sights after Iraq: Tehran
U.S. Names Iraqis Who Would Face War Crimes Trial
Kurdish ally of Saddam Hussein regime defects
Iraq Ready for Guerrilla War, Diplomats Says
Israel Vows Retaliation if Iraq Attacks
From Israel, Lessons In Civil Defense
U.S. Orders Diplomats Out of Kuwait, Syria, Israel
A Look at Different Initiatives on Iraq
U.S. Plan Sees G.I.'s Invading Iraq as More Arrive
Bases Guarding Against Attacks
Audacious Mission, Awesome Risks
We Don't Even Agree On What's Newsworthy
Reality TV Goes to War: A Different Kind of Fear Factor
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
You Think DNA Evidence Is Foolproof? Try Again
Considering a Gas Mask? Be Sure It's a Good Fit
Anger on Iraq Seen as New Qaeda Recruiting Tool
ENERGY AND OTHER
Energy Boost
It's Getting Easier to Be Green
Broad Movement Is Backing Embryo Stem Cell Research
Rare Health Alert Is Issued for Mystery Illness
ACTIVISTS
Hundreds of thousands throughout the world protest US war plans
Demonstrations in Spain and Around the World Against an Iraq War
Tens of Thousands March Against Iraq War
Iraqis Join a Rally to Show That War Will Be Resisted
200,000 protesters head for White House
War protest draws thousands
Anti-war protesters hold 11th hour rallies
Here and Abroad
Anti-war protestors race against the clock
Slain Protester Active in Peace Movement
Nation Rallies for Peace and U.S. Troops
Military Told to Vacate Moss Park Armoury by May 30
Democratic hopefuls jeered on war views
Kucinich true to his vision
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- iraq
Cheney Disagrees with IAEA Nuclear Report on Iraq
March 16, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-iraq-usa-nuclear.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney said on Sunday he disagreed with the recent assertion by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency that Iraq was not developing nuclear weapons.
With President Bush working on a final endgame in the standoff with Iraq over alleged weapons of mass destruction, Cheney said U.S. intelligence experts disagreed with the finding by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei in a Feb. 14 report to the Security Council.
The United States has maintained Iraq is not disarming as required by the United Nations and has been massing troops in the Gulf region for a possible war.
``We know (Iraqi President Saddam Hussein) has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons,'' Cheney told NBC's ``Meet the Press.''
``I think Mr. ElBaradei, frankly, is wrong. And I think, if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency in this kind of issue, especially where Iraq's concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing.
``I don't have any reason to believe they're any more valid this time than they've been in the past,'' Cheney said.
The public rebuke of the nuclear watchdog was unusual, as U.S. officials have generally avoided taking issue with the findings presented to the Security Council in the past months as they have moved to corral international backing for an attack on Iraq.
ElBaradei and fellow chief weapons inspector Hans Blix have been leading the effort to ensure Iraq is complying with U.N. disarmament demands. ``We have to date found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq,'' ElBaradei concluded.
--------
Iraq seeks talks, goes to war alert
By Hamza Hendawi
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 16, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030316-81911970.htm
BAGHDAD - Iraq yesterday invited the two chief U.N. weapons inspectors back to Baghdad to discuss unsettled disarmament issues, even as President Bush prepared to meet today with top allies about a likely war.
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein also placed his nation on an official war footing, issuing a decree dividing Iraq into four military regions under the command of his most trusted lieutenants.
Saddam placed a son, Qusai, in charge of his regime's heartland, Baghdad, and his hometown, Tikrit.
Saddam retained sole authority to use aircraft and surface-to-surface missiles against invaders, according to the presidential decree distributed by the Iraqi News Agency.
Iraq's invitation to chief U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei came on the eve of Mr. Bush's emergency meeting with Prime Ministers Tony Blair of Britain and Jose Maria Aznar of Spain on a Portuguese island in the eastern Atlantic. The three allied leaders' agenda: to work out their next steps as the U.N. Security Council blocks their bid to give Iraq an ultimatum to fully disarm or face war.
At U.N. headquarters in New York, Mr. Blix said he would study Saddam's invitation and discuss it with the Security Council. Asked if the Iraqi move was a stunt, he told CNN: "I certainly wouldn't call it a stunt. ... We'll have to give serious thought to what the answer will be."
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the chief inspectors "would be wise to wait until after the summit before making any determination about going to Baghdad."
With nearly 250,000 U.S. and British troops in the Persian Gulf ready to strike, Iraq was emboldened by stiff opposition to war at the Security Council, where France and other nations insist inspectors should be given more time to determine the status of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. As pressure on Baghdad increased in recent months, Saddam made gestures to show his regime is cooperating.
France, Russia and Germany issued a joint statement yesterday insisting there was no reason for war but calling for foreign ministers to meet this week at the Security Council to set a disarmament timetable.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said his country would accept a "tight" timetable but not an ultimatum that could automatically trigger war - as the United States, Britain and Spain sought. Still, he acknowledged war was becoming inevitable. "It is difficult to imagine what could stop this machine," he told France 2 television.
Tomorrow, Mr. Blix is to present the Security Council with plans for upcoming inspections. He has said that Baghdad is showing more "proactive" cooperation, but the United States and its allies insist Saddam is deceiving inspectors.
Eight U.S. warships yesterday crossed the Mediterranean and entered the Red Sea to join the military buildup.
Mr. Blix and Mr. ElBaradei have visited Baghdad two times since the United Nations resumed weapons inspections in Iraq in November after a four-year break. Each time they pressed the Iraqis for greater cooperation. Iraq contends it no longer has weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq's Foreign Ministry said Saddam's science adviser, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi - the point man on disarmament - invited the two chief inspectors to come to Baghdad at the "earliest suitable date" to discuss "means to speed up joint cooperation ... in all fields, especially facilitating the verification process of issues considered outstanding by Blix and ElBaradei."
The letter of invitation said Iraq achieved "noted progress" on issues mentioned in a March 6 letter by UNMOVIC, the U.N. agency mandated to search for any signs of weapons of mass destruction, according to the ministry statement. It gave no details.
The inspectors are demanding that Iraq address unanswered disarmament questions - particularly that it account for stocks of anthrax and VX nerve gas it claims to have destroyed in the early 1990s, without offering documentation.
Mr. Blix received a 25-page letter from Iraq late Friday on the VX nerve agent. Parts of the letter in Arabic will have to be translated and studied to determine what is new and, if so, whether it helps to resolve outstanding issues, said Mr. Blix's spokesman, Ewen Buchanan.
Iraq promised a letter on anthrax as well, but Mr. Buchanan made no mention of that.
Iraqi authorities also gave inspectors the names of 183 more scientists involved in chemical weapons programs, U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki said yesterday.
That brings the total number of names submitted by Baghdad to 315. The U.N. team has requested interviews with 325 persons, seeking information about secret programs or undocumented weapon destruction.
U.N. weapons inspectors yesterday oversaw the destruction of three banned Iraqi missiles at a military site north of Baghdad, Mr. Ueki said. A missile launcher also was destroyed. The Iraqis so far have crushed 68 Al Samoud 2 missiles, out of an estimated 150.
--------
Iraq Destroying More Missiles Despite War Steps
March 16, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-inspectors.html
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq carried on destroying banned al-Samoud missiles on Sunday, United Nations weapons inspectors said, despite Baghdad's moves to put the country on a war footing ahead of a possible U.S.-led attack.
``Two missile teams went out today and destruction of al- Samoud missiles continues today,'' Hiro Ueki, spokesman for the U.N. Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), told Reuters.
``It is business as usual,'' he said.
However, the inspectors' ability to roam Iraq was complicated on Sunday when they had to withdraw five of their helicopters after insurers canceled cover because of war fears.
An Iraqi source said this left inspectors with just three other, separately insured helicopters to cover the country.
Iraq has so far destroyed 68 out of around 120 al-Samoud 2 missiles, after chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix and his team ruled that they violated a 150 km (93 mile) maximum range imposed after Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War.
The United States and Britain have dismissed the missile destruction as insufficient and want more sweeping steps to meet U.N. demands that Baghdad scrap all its alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs if it is to avoid war.
The two Western allies have readied some 250,000 troops to attack Iraq unless Saddam comes clean on suspected weapons of mass destruction -- weapons Baghdad denies it has.
Late on Saturday, the Iraqi leadership prepared the country for invasion, dividing Iraq into four military districts to ``take the necessary steps to repulse and destroy any foreign aggression,'' the state news agency reported.
INSPECTORS ON HOLIDAY
Ueki dismissed rumors that U.N. weapons inspectors had begun pulling out ahead of any war, but said some of the UNMOVIC team were on holiday.
``We have not received orders to evacuate. After three months of mission many inspectors have taken an official break. We have roughly 30 or so inspectors taking a short break in Cyprus and they are due to return to Baghdad soon today,'' he said.
Around 50 weapons inspectors are believed to be working in Iraq at the moment.
Iraq said on Saturday it wanted Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, who oversees the nuclear weapons dossier, to visit Baghdad as soon as possible to discuss pending disarmament issues.
Any visit soon to the Iraqi capital could complicate U.S. plans for an increasingly likely war on Iraq.
Ueki said Blix and ElBaradei would consult the Security Council on Monday on whether to embark on their fourth visit to Iraq since a U.N. resolution in November opened the way for inspectors to return to Iraq after a four-year absence.
Blix has described the al-Samoud destruction as a significant piece of disarmament, but says many open questions remain on Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs.
Iraq submitted a 25-page report to the U.N. on Friday on VX nerve gas, and said a report on anthrax would follow soon.
Keen to be seen to be cooperating with U.N. demands, Iraq also submitted this week a list of 180 additional names of people who had worked in chemical weapons program, Ueki said.
Baghdad had in the past listed some 132 names while UNMOVIC databases showed that ``over 325 people were engaged in chemical- related research or had responsible positions.''
-------- israel
Israeli nuclear 'power' exposed
Sunday, 16 March, 2003
By Olenka Frenkiel
Reporting from Israel for Correspondent Have your say
Mordechai Vanunu, Israel's nuclear whistleblower, was jailed in 1986 for publishing photographs of Israel's nuclear bomb factory at Dimona. Olenka Frenkiel reveals the extent of Israel's nuclear gagging.
The Sunday Times Revelations hit the press in October 1986 Vanunu has spent 17 years in jail, 11 of which were in a minute solitary confinement cell - and he has just had his appeal for parole denied.
He will stay in jail until 2004, when his term is expected to end.
Sunday Times journalist Peter Hounam heard rumours in 1986 that an Israeli whistleblower was offering proof of what the world had long suspected.
Vanunu was that whistleblower.
His revelations confirmed that Israel was building advanced nuclear weapons.
After the Sunday Times published this scoop, Vanunu was lured to Italy and kidnapped by Mossad agents and illegally smuggled back to Israel.
He was tried in secret and convicted of treason and spying.
Security chief exposed
In court, at his parole hearing, Avigdor Feldman, Vanunu's lawyer, argued that his client had no more secrets and should be freed.
But the prosecutor had a new argument: the imminent war with Iraq.
After the hearing Mr Feldman told Correspondent: "The prosecutor said that if Vanunu were released, the Americans would probably leave Iraq and go after Israel and Israel's nuclear weapons - which I found extremely ridiculous."
The real force blocking Vanunu's release is a man who was known only as "Y".
In 2001, "Y" was exposed as Yehiyel Horev and it is said that the only thing he fears is publicity.
Mr Horev is the head of Israel's most powerful intelligence service, dealing with nuclear and military secrets.
Yehiyel Horev Yehiyel Horev unmasked, here, for the first time His accountability has only been to the many prime ministers he has watched come and go in the 16 years he has built his power base.
He has been likened to the head of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover - an autocrat out of control.
Ronen Bergman, security correspondent for one of Israel's leading newspapers - Yediot Ahronoth - says: "Horev is a grave danger to Israeli democracy.
"He operates with no law, no real scrutiny and no monitoring by the Israeli parliament.
"Horev was afraid that veterans of the Israeli intelligence and the Israeli nuclear effort would try to maintain their footprint in the history of Israel and tell their story.
"He wanted to frighten them."
Acting with impunity
Israel never confirms or denies claims that it has nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
The country positions itself outside international treaties, which would make it subject to inspection.
Uzi Even Uzi Even - Dimona should be shut down For 40 years, most Israelis have been content with this policy - known as "nuclear ambiguity".
But there are some in Israel who argue this policy has had its day.
They say the costs of such secrecy to Israeli democracy are too great.
Uzi Even, was a young scientist working, in the 60s, at Dimona - Israel's nuclear reactor - as did Vanunu.
Today, Mr Even says it should be shut down.
Forty-year-old reactors tend to have accidents and he believes that Dimona, which is beyond the reach of the Israeli parliament, needs to be brought into a system of accountability and public scrutiny.
Mr Even explained: "You should have an outside watchdog.
"The secrecy more or less created an extra- territorial area in Israel where standard procedures of safety monitoring are not implemented.
"So worker safety, environmental questions and industrial safety procedures, are not covered, and there are thousands of people working there."
Enforced silence
Nothing illustrates this better than the sensitive issue of Dimona's cancer victims.
In an Israeli documentary in 2002, Dimona workers said accidents had been routine.
They spoke of explosions, fires and liquid and toxic gas leaks that they had to clean, often without protection.
Dimona nuclear reactor Accidents were 'routine' at Dimona The authorities denied they had worked with radioactive materials.
They have refused to compensate them or their families for their years of loyal service.
Because of the strict secrecy rules they were even unable to fight for their rights.
When Correspondent approached one of the workers, who was dying of cancer, he refused to be interviewed - but with some regret.
Unaware he was being filmed, he said: "I wanted to talk to you but I have been silenced.
"They came from intelligence and told me not to talk.
"They said I would be like Vanunu."
Vanunu has another year in jail.
When his sentence is finished he hopes to emigrate to America.
But Mr Horev has clearly let it be known he never intends to let Vanunu leave Israel.
Mordechai Vanunu has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2003.
Click here to read the programme transcript http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/correspondent/transcripts/17_03_2003.txt
Correspondent: ISRAEL'S SECRET WEAPON
Tx Date: 17th March 2003
This script was made from audio tape - any inaccuracies are due to voices being unclear or inaudible
00.00.01
Correspondent Theme Music
00.00.11
Music
00.00.11 Graphic Which country in the Middle East has undeclared Nuclear weapons?
00.00.16 Graphic Which country in the Middle East has undeclared biological and chemical capabilities?
00.00.21 Graphic Which country in the Middle East has no outside inspections?
00.00.26 Graphic Which country jailed its nuclear whistleblower for 18 years?
00.00.31 Title page ISRAEL'S SECRET WEAPON
00.00.36
Music
00.00.42 Aston St Paul, Minnesota
00.00.45 Olenka Frenkiel Meet the Eoloffs. Five years ago they adopted a man they'd never met who writes to them from a prison cell in Israel.
00.00.55 Aston Actor's voice
00.00.55 Voiceover My dearest Nick and Mary, I am very glad to hear from you so soon. About the next parole hearing I don't know what will happen. We've passed a long time in a very bad cruel condition.
00.01.07 Voiceover We will see what the U.S. is going to do with Iraq, if they'll go to war.
00.01.13 Olenka Frenkiel The man they adopted is Mordechai Vanunu, jailed as a traitor. He spent eleven years in solitary confinement.
00.01.21 Mary Eoloff He was buried alive. He was shut up in a six by nine-foot cell with no windows so he couldn't see outside. Even when he exercised there was a canvas around him when he was out walking.
00.01.32 Nick Eoloff He has spent more time in isolation in a prison in the western world than any other human being. It was that bad. His condition was that bad. And that was what really moved us to adopt him. How can a country treat a human being that way?
00.01.52 Olenka Frenkiel Vanunu moved to Israel as a child with his family from Morocco. He served in the Israeli army, studied philosophy, and found work at Dimona.
00.02.07 Olenka Frenkiel This mysterious complex in the Negev desert employed thousands of people all sworn to secrecy. For years Israel called it a textile factory, never admitting its true purpose; making plutonium for bombs.
00.02.26 Olenka Frenkiel Vanunu's dissent over government policies was noted. He was given a warning and decided to leave.
00.02.35 Olenka Frenkiel But not without the evidence which would change history. Today his are still the only photographs ever seen of the inside of Israel's nuclear bomb factory.
00.02.55 Olenka Frenkiel It's 16 years since Sunday Times journalist Peter Hounam heard rumours that an Israeli whistleblower was offering proof of what the world had long suspected.
00.03.05 Aston PETER HOUNAM Freelance Journalist Here was someone who said he'd worked right inside the plutonium separation plant helping to fabricate atomic weapons; who had taken photographs of the machinery and who had lots of information about how much material was being processed, and so on.
00.03.21 Peter Hounam Therefore he was potentially going to be able to provide incontrovertible evidence that Israel had a very advanced programme.
00.03.31 Olenka Frenkiel Hounam flew to meet Vanunu, who was now a Christian living in Australia.
00.03.36 Olenka Frenkiel He was brought to England. He was hidden in a country hotel and smuggled into the paper's offices in the boot of the car while they checked his story.
00.03.45 Olenka Frenkiel But Israeli intelligence agents caught here on Wapping's security cameras were onto him. They were waiting to strike.
00.03.58 Olenka Frenkiel It took weeks for The Sunday Times to go to press with their scoop. When they finally did on Oct 5th 1986 Vanunu had vanished.
00.04.10 Aston Reconstruction
00.04.14 Olenka Frenkiel He'd met an American woman in Leicester Square who seemed to like him. He was vulnerable and afraid.
00.04.23 Olenka Frenkiel When she suggested he'd be safer with her in Rome, he fell for it. It was a classic honey trap.
00.04.39 Olenka Frenkiel Once in Rome the full weight of Israel's wrath kicked in. Vanunu was overpowered, assaulted and drugged.
00.04.56 Olenka Frenkiel He'd been kidnapped and smuggled back to Israel by boat, unconscious. For weeks no one knew where he was.
00.05.09 Olenka Frenkiel Eventually the Israelis brought Vanunu to court for a secret trial. They now admitted they had him but still no one knew how he'd got there.
00.05.19 Olenka Frenkiel His kidnap - an illegal act on foreign soil - was kept secret. Somehow Vanunu found a pen and solved the mystery for the waiting press.
00.05.31 Olenka Frenkiel Hijacked in Rome thirtieth of September 1986.
00.05.38 Olenka Frenkiel It was Shimon Peres, then Prime Minister, who had ordered Vanunu's capture. To this day the kidnap remains an official state secret. Peres was the father of Israel's secret nuclear programme and for him Vanunu was a spy.
00.05.52 Shimon Peres He was a traitor to this country.
00.05.56 Olenka Frenkiel So what was your reaction?
00.05.57 Shimon Peres Very negative.
00.05.58 Olenka Frenkiel What did you do?
00.06.00 Shimon Peres What I thought should be done.
00.06.01 Olenka Frenkiel Which was what?
00.06.03 Shimon Peres To put him to trial.
00.06.06 Olenka Frenkiel Kidnap him?
00.06.08 Aston SHIMON PERES Former Prime Minister My lady, I can't go into all the processes. I am unwilling. I don't see any reason to do so. The fact is that he was brought to trial.
00.06.22 Olenka Frenkiel Vanunu's trial was held in secret. He was found guilty of treason and espionage and sentenced to eighteen years in jail.
00.06.41 Aston AVIGDOR FELDMAN Mordechai Vanunu's lawyer Vanunu was treated this way out of revenge out of a way to deter others and because actually he was the person who broke the taboo of the secrecy in Israeli society, a very strong and influencing taboo in a very closed society more like a tribe.
00.07.05 Olenka Frenkiel Mordechai Vanunu started his sentence on the twenty seventh of March 1988. Few tears were shed. For most Israelis he was more than a traitor. He had rejected Judaism.
00.07.18 Olenka Frenkiel His parents declared him dead. And the world forgot about Israel's nuclear whistleblower. But the truth was out.
00.07.27 Peter Hounam Vanunu told the world that Israel had developed between one hundred and two hundred atomic bombs and had gone on to develop neutron bombs and thermonuclear weapons. Enough to destroy the entire Middle East and nobody has done anything about it since.
00.07.45 Olenka Frenkiel Today, proliferation experts report Israel has the world's sixth largest nuclear arsenal with small tactical nuclear weapons, nuclear landmines as well as medium range nuclear missiles launchable from air, land or sea.
00.08.00 Olenka Frenkiel It's thought plutonium is made in Dimona; nuclear weapons are assembled at Yodefat and stored at Zachariah and Eilabun. Three nuclear submarines are based in Haifa and Israel's biological and chemical warfare laboratories are at Nes Ziona.
00.08.16 Olenka Frenkiel Israel never comments on such reports.
00.08.20 Olenka Frenkiel But evidence continues to emerge. In 1992 an Israeli cargo plane crashed in Amsterdam killing forty-three people.
00.08.28 Olenka Frenkiel The Israelis claimed it was carrying flowers and perfume. It took six years and a Dutch parliamentary enquiry before they admitted it was carrying DMMP, a key component for sarin nerve gas.
00.08.42 Olenka Frenkiel The DMMP was bound for The Israeli Institute of Biological Research at Nes Ziona, one of Israel's most secret defence sites. It is subject to no international inspection and reporting of its activities in Israel is prevented by strict military censorship.
00.09.08 Olenka Frenkiel As war has loomed closer small signs of dissent have appeared on the suburban streets of Middle America. Nick and Mary Eoloff have been peace campaigners since the Vietnam War and the draft.
00.09.20 Mary Eoloff The definition of a conscientious objector is someone who sincerely objects to participation in all forms of war. There are two words that are extremely important in that definition: "sincere" and "all".
00.09.37 Olenka Frenkiel Fear that the draft may return has lead a new generation to the local church hall to hear how, if they're called up to fight, they can claim their right to say no.
00.09.50 Olenka Frenkiel For the Eoloffs, Mordechai Vanunu is the ultimate conscientious objector. When they first visited him in 1997 it was his eleventh year in solitary confinement.
00.10.03 Aston MARY & NICK EOLOFF Mordechai Vanunu's adoptive parents And we waited and they brought him in and he looked like an old man. I didn't anticipate that. And he came up to us and he put his fingers through the bars through the cage, because it was a steel cage. We were crying. We felt so awful to see him like this.
00.10.33 Olenka Frenkiel Vanunu writes regularly. It is the only communication he is allowed with the outside world. But his letters take months to arrive and are always censored.
00.10.46 Mary Eoloff He says, don't feel so bad, we can bear another year.
00.10.50 Nick Eoloff My, what courage!
00.10.54 Mary Eoloff The early letters that we got were totally cut out. This isn't even an example because they were cut out more than that, this. They use a highlighter and then they bring it to Mordechai, and he has to cut out the things they've highlighted.
00.11.11 Mary Eoloff One time, he said they weren't paying attention. And so he just put the pieces in the envelope and we got them, because we said, you know, we got the pieces, and they're really not even significant. I think it's control, total control.
00.11.30
Music
00.11.34 Olenka Frenkiel Today Jerusalem is a ghost town, drained of life. Israel's nuclear weapons have proved useless in its latest war. The suicide bombers have frightened the tourists away. The economy has collapsed.
00.11.51 Olenka Frenkiel Israelis have learnt to live with war. Every citizen gets a gas mask, is taught how to use it and is expected to have it ready in case of attack.
00.12.13 Olenka Frenkiel Nuclear weapons are seen as a justifiable deterrent by most Israelis, who feel besieged by enemies.
00.12.21 Olenka Frenkiel Forty years ago Uzi Even, then a young scientist at Dimona was in at the start of Israel's bomb.
00.12.28 Aston Professor UZI EVEN Dimona scientist, 1962-68 We were a very small country, and we were surrounded by much much larger, more populous states on borders that are almost impossible to defend. The holocaust was very much in our memory at that time, and we all realised that we have to do something to prevent the same scenario from happening again.
00.12.51 Uzi Even So we were a young crew, most of us very young, very enthusiastic, working on something we believed is essential for our existence, like building the final insurance policy that we will not be attacked or terminated.
00.13.15 Olenka Frenkiel It was the young Shimon Peres, back in the fifties who negotiated a secret deal with the French to buy a nuclear weapons reactor like theirs.
00.13.24 Olenka Frenkiel But while Dimona was going up, intelligence reports reached Washington that Israel was building an atom bomb.
00.13.30 Olenka Frenkiel Despite claims that Dimona was for peaceful purposes only, Israel's leader Ben Gurion was summoned to Washington. President Kennedy feared an arms race in the Middle East and demanded inspections.
00.13.45 Olenka Frenkiel But when inspectors finally entered the plant in May 1961 they were tricked. They were shown a fake control room on the ground floor. They were unaware of the six floors below where the plutonium was made.
00.14.00 Aston PETER HOUNAM Freelance journalist Well this was something of great pride and almost a legendary story in Dimona, according to Vanunu. When the Americans came they were completely hoodwinked.
00.14.11 Peter Hounam All the entrances including the lift shafts were bricked up and plastered over so it was impossible for anyone to find their way down to the lower floors.
00.14.24 Olenka Frenkiel After Kennedy's assassination the pressure on Israel was off. His successor Lyndon Johnson turned a blind eye.
00.14.33 Olenka Frenkiel Then In 1969 Israel's Golda Meir and President Richard Nixon struck a deal, renewed by every President to this day. Israel's nuclear programme could continue as long as it was never made public. It's called nuclear ambiguity.
00.14.48 Olenka Frenkiel The term nuclear ambiguity, in some ways it sounds very grand. But isn't just a euphemism for deception?
00.14.58 Aston SHIMON PERES Former Prime Minister If somebody wants to kill you, and you use a deception to save your life it is not immoral. If we wouldn't have enemies we wouldn't need deceptions. We wouldn't need deterrent.
00.15.12 Olenka Frenkiel Was this the justification for concealing the floors of the plutonium reprocessing areas from the Americans, the inspectors, when they came?
00.15.23 Shimon Peres You are having a dialogue with yourself, not with me.
00.15.27 Olenka Frenkiel But that's been documented in a number of books.
00.15.30 Shimon Peres Ask the question to yourself, not to me.
00.15.32 Olenka Frenkiel I mean, Is it not true?
00.15.35 Shimon Peres I don't have to answer your questions even. I don't see any reason why.
00.15.43 Olenka Frenkiel Ambiguity is a luxury unique to Israel. Today the country's an inspection-free zone, protected from scrutiny by America and her allies.
00.15.56 Ronen Bergman This is the place where Vanunu identified as the separation plant, built mostly underground. And this is the silver dome of the Dimona nuclear reactor.
00.16.11 Olenka Frenkiel Ronen Bergman is an Israeli journalist specialising in security and defence.
00.16.17 Ronen Bergman This picture was taken by one of the best commercial satellites available called Ikonos, and Ikonos is capable of taking pictures up to a resolution of one metre.
00.16.30 Aston RONEN BERGMAN Journalist, "Yediot Ahronot" However due to the demand of Israel the American Congress ruled a new amendment to the law that forbids American satellites to sell anything of Israeli sites that is better than two metres, meaning the Ikonos is taking imagery of Israel. Then they change the imagery to the resolution of two metres.
00.16.52 Olenka Frenkiel Worse, less clear?
00.16.53 Ronen Bergman Much much less clear.
00.16.55 Olenka Frenkiel And that was a ruling in the United States that's specifically for Israel, not for other countries.
00.17.00 Ronen Bergman Only to Israel.
00.17.03 Olenka Frenkiel Last November there were signs of a softening towards Vanunu. The authorities allowed pictures to be taken at his parole hearing. Parole itself has always been refused. Vanunu still has secrets, the prosecutor claims, that could harm Israel. It's an argument his lawyer will have to fight at the next hearing.
00.17.22 Olenka Frenkiel Will the court hear the secret that they claim Vanunu holds?
00.17.27 Aston AVIGDOR FELDMAN Mordechai Vanunu's lawyer They will hear some of the secrets, not the real secrets. They will hear secrets about the secrets.
00.17.34 Olenka Frenkiel And you too, as his lawyer, will hear those?
00.17.37 Avigdor Feldman Part of it. Less that the court. The court will hear the secrets about the secrets. I may hear the secrets about the secrets about the secrets.
00.17.47 Olenka Frenkiel Is that really the case, or is that a sort of ironic...?
00.17.50 Avigdor Feldman No, it's really the case. I will be given some type of general description of the secrets. The court will get something more concrete and the secrets themselves will be never released to anybody, they exist at all.
00.18.14 Olenka Frenkiel Nick and Mary Eoloff have arrived in Israel. They hope to visit Vanunu in prison but they haven't yet got permission.
00.18.28 Mary Eoloff Oh gosh, any news?
00.18.31 Rayna Moss Not yet. Not good news. Not yet.
00.18.33 Olenka Frenkiel Rayna Moss is one of a small group of Israelis campaigning for Vanunu's release. She's been hassling the prison authorities for weeks to get Nick and Mary the necessary permissions.
00.18.46 Rayna Moss What she says now is that they have approval from one authority but she's waiting for approval from a second authority.
00.18.54 Nick Eoloff Do they clearly understand our time limitation that we're due to be leaving on Friday?
00.18.53 Rayna Moss Oh absolutely. I made that absolutely clear to them. I said that you're leaving on Friday, that you've already been here for a couple of days.
00.19.06 Mary Eoloff Well I appreciate you making all these calls, Rayna.
00.19.08 Mary Eoloff Oh it's nothing. I don't mind. I just wish I had good news for you.
00.19.16 Olenka Frenkiel Forty-year-old reactors are usually shut down, but Dimona grinds on. Dimona is under the control of the Prime Minister, beyond the reach of Parliament or public scrutiny.
00.19.32 Olenka Frenkiel And that worries the scientist who once worked there so optimistically.
00.19.37 Aston UZI EVEN Dimona scientist, 1962-68 As the reactor gets older the tendency to have accidents becomes more probable. You should have an outside watchdog and the secrecy more or less created an ex- territorial area in Israel where standard procedures of safety monitoring is not implemented.
00.19.58 Uzi Even So worker safety, environmental questions, industrial safety procedures, all are not covered and there are thousands of people working there.
00.20.25 Olenka Frenkiel But the secrets of this old reactor are beginning to leak.
00.20.34 Olenka Frenkiel Evidence has seeped out of accidents, lies and deceit.
00.20.43 Olenka Frenkiel In 1996 the press heard rumours of a radioactive hotspot in the desert. The Environment Minister took them to watch him test the site with a Geiger counter. They weren't allowed to bring their own, one journalist told me.
00.21.00 Olenka Frenkiel The Minister proclaimed the site clean. The readings for radioactivity, his instrument showed, were below normal.
00.21.06 Olenka Frenkiel But journalists weren't happy.
00.21.09 Journalist Subtitles
What worries us is the disposal of the waste. Can you please tell us where it is buried?
00.21.21 Aston YOSSI SARID Environment Minister, 1992-96 Subtitles
In a good place. I am being honest with you... I would lose my job if I told you where the nuclear waste is buried. The Prime Minister considers
this information to be classified.
00.21.46 Olenka Frenkiel But on Israeli television last year, a groundbreaking documentary alleged it was a cover-up.
00.21.57 Olenka Frenkiel Ariel Spieler, a holocaust survivor and a loyal Dimona worker for 27 years, described how he had been told to prepare the site for the Minister's visit by removing contaminated waste from a deep crater.
00.22.11 Olenka Frenkiel He said he'd replaced it with fresh soil and planted trees to cover the hole as though it had never happened. Then he said they brought the minister and the press to prove that everything was okay.
00.22.24 Olenka Frenkiel Five Dimona workers appeared on the programme. They'd given their lives for Dimona, they said, and now they felt betrayed.
00.22.32 Olenka Frenkiel They broke no secrets. Only the code of silence.
00.22.36 Olenka Frenkiel They said they'd worked with uranium. There were fires, spills, and explosions of toxic gas.
00.22.44 Olenka Frenkiel Now they were sick, they said, the plant didn't want to know. The management was denying they'd worked with radioactive materials, and because they were bound to secrecy they couldn't fight for their rights.
00.23.01 Olenka Frenkiel The programme listed more than a hundred Dimona workers who'd developed cancer and whose claims were being ignored.
00.23.08 Olenka Frenkiel A doctor and two lawyers backed their story.
00.23.18 Olenka Frenkiel It was the first time Dimona workers had spoken out.
00.23.26 Aston OLENKA FRENKIEL I want to talk to Ariel Spieler. He's suffering from cancer and in the last few years he's seen a number of his friends and colleagues who worked there with him die of the disease.
00.23.35 Olenka Frenkiel He's been fighting for compensation for their families, for their widows, and I know he'd really like to talk to us about this.
00.23.41 Olenka Frenkiel He's told me he wishes he could, but he's also told me he's been warned off. He's been told not to talk. I'm going to go and see him and see if he'll change his mind.
00.23.59 Aston Secret filming
00.23.59 Olenka Frenkiel I just wanted to ask you, you know, why you can't?
00.24.04 Ariel Spieler Subtitles
The Secret Service silenced me. They've silenced me completely. They told me not to say one word. What can I do? What can I do?
00.24.18 Ariel Spieler Subtitles
They told me; "You'll end up like Vanunu". How long has he been in prison? 15 years?
Do you want me to go to jail? I really wanted to talk. I asked the others but they refused. Nobody wants to talk.
00.24.50 Olenka Frenkiel It was time to try the others: The doctors, the relatives, the lawyers.
00.24.58 Voice One Hello?
00.24.59 Olenka Frenkiel Hello. I just wanted to ask if there would be any possibility of doing an interview with you about the cancer victims and about their case?
00.25.07 Voice One I'm really reluctant to be interviewed publicly on the media over the story overseas. It's just not appropriate.
00.25.13 Olenka Frenkiel But why is it so sensitive?
00.25.21 Voice One Come on now. Any discussion of nuclear issues is sensitive.
00.25.30 Voice Two I talked to my family. I don't want to participate in this. I don't think it's the right thing to do.
00.25.37 Olenka Frenkiel Nobody is prepared to talk about it.
00.25.45 Voice Three There are things that it's not good to talk about, even if you're a lawyer.
00.25.54 Olenka Frenkiel Are you worried about a sort of Vanunu scenario?
00.25.58 Voice Three Of course! You think about it.
00.26.03 Olenka Frenkiel I just don't get it. If this was the Soviet Union or Iraq or North Korea I'd understand why people are so scared to talk.
00.26.11 Olenka Frenkiel But this is Israel. This is supposed to be a democracy.
00.26.22 Olenka Frenkiel In Israel today, an invisible power enforces the code of silence - through fear. It comes from one man, whose own identity was itself a secret until two years ago, Yehiyel Horev.
00.26.39 Aston RONEN BERGMAN Journalist, "Yediot Ahronot" Horev is the smartest, most brilliant official figure in the sense of getting power. He took some kind of very small office and made it the fourth intelligence agency in Israel, with no law, no real scrutiny and monitoring by the Israeli Parliament.
00.27.05 Ronen Bergman In this sense he is a grave danger to Israeli democracy.
00.27.11 Olenka Frenkiel For sixteen years Horev has been the faceless guardian of Israel's secrets. His picture has never been published unmasked till now.
00.27.24 Olenka Frenkiel It's Horev from his office at the Ministry of Defence who is blocking Vanunu's early release.
00.27.35 Olenka Frenkiel But next year Vanunu's sentence is up. So Horev found a new Vanunu, Brigadier-General Yitzhak Yaakov, known to his friends as Yatsa. In his retirement he wrote a fictionalised memoir and talked on camera about his life.
00.27.54 Olenka Frenkiel A distinguished soldier and scientist, Yaakov had for years led Israel's top-secret weapons development programme.
00.28.02 Olenka Frenkiel So eminent was he, he was a candidate for the prestigious Israel Prize.
00.28.07 Olenka Frenkiel But when he told his life story to a journalist, he broke the rules.
00.28.13 Olenka Frenkiel The journalist was Ronen Bergman. He showed his article, as all Israelis must, to the censor.
00.28.19 Olenka Frenkiel It went straight to Horev - who sent in the heavies.
00.28.23 Ronen Bergman They were deadly deadly serious. My phones were bugged. I was followed by Israeli Secret Service, Yaakov was followed by Israeli Secret Service, and the whole system was surrounding us and following us and stalking us.
00.28.43 Olenka Frenkiel Yaakov went from hero to zero. He was arrested secretly and charged with treason. He spent two years fighting Horev. Two years of jail, heart disease, bankruptcy and house arrest ended in public disgrace.
00.29.01 Olenka Frenkiel He was spared prison, but the court found him guilty of betraying Israel's secrets.
00.29.08 Ronen Bergman Horev was afraid that veterans of the Israeli army, the Israeli intelligence, the Israeli nuclear effort, would try to maintain their footprint in the history of Israel and tell their story.
00.29.26 Ronen Bergman And he wanted to frighten them. In this sense he was successful.
00.29.33 Olenka Frenkiel Do you think that there is too much secrecy? The power of somebody like Horev to destroy the life of an individual like this Brigadier-General Yaakov, for example. The man's life had been destroyed and he'd been a very loyal Israeli all his life.
00.29.51 Aston SHIMON PERES Former Prime Minister It happens unfortunately in life, of false accusations, and some innocent people are paying the high cost.
00.29.59 Shimon Peres I cannot see how can it be avoidable.
00.30.04 Olenka Frenkiel Israel's parliament had never debated Dimona or nuclear weapons, until one MP three years ago forced them onto the agenda for the first time.
00.30.14 Olenka Frenkiel Issam Makhoul an Israeli Arab broken the taboo - to the outrage of his colleagues.
00.30.21 Issam Makhoul Subtitles
Vanunu is not the problem. The problem is the Israeli government's policy. A policy that's turned a small territory into a poisonous nuclear waste bin... which could make us all disappear into a nuclear cloud.
00.30.40 Olenka Frenkiel These words uttered in the heart of Israel's democracy were seen by his fellow MPs as a sacrilege.
00.30.48 Issam Makhoul Subtitles
The entire world knows that Israel is a vast nuclear, biological... and chemical warehouse that is used as an anchor... for the nuclear arms race in the middle east.
00.31.04 Olenka Frenkiel He wasn't allowed to finish his speech, but he had made his point.
00.31.16 Olenka Frenkiel But in his constituency during the recent election campaign it was a different story. Here his audience are - like him - Israeli Arabs.
00.31.23 Issam Makhoul Subtitles
Why are the Americans looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? I can tell them where there are weapons of mass destruction... including nuclear weapons.
00.31.40 Issam Makhoul Subtitles
They are in Dimona, in Haifa Bay in the Eilabun mountain... and in the area of Sakneen, Yolfhata. Let them send their inspectors to me... and I will lead them by the hand and show them.
00.32.00 Olenka Frenkiel There is a cry going up which is talking about a double standard. The world has to check Iraq's nuclear installations but not Israel's.
00.32.08 Shimon Peres How can you compare it? Iraq is a dictatorship. Saddam Hussein is a killer. He killed a hundred thousand Kurds with gas bombs. How can you compare that at all?
00.32.23 Shimon Peres Just because he calls himself a state? He's not a state - he's a Mafia. He's not a leader - he's a killer. You cannot say that about us.
00.32.34 Olenka Frenkiel But even in Israel some do. The current Prime Minister Ariel Sharon directed the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed.
00.32.49 Olenka Frenkiel The worst excesses were in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, for which an Israeli enquiry held Sharon personally responsible. In Belgium there are plans to prosecute him for alleged war crimes.
00.33.09 Olenka Frenkiel While Sharon has been Prime Minister seven hundred Israelis have been killed. But more than two thousand Palestinians have died in attacks by Israeli soldiers.
00.33.21 Olenka Frenkiel The Israeli army has used new unidentified weapons. In February 2001 a new gas was used in Gaza. A hundred and eighty patients were admitted to hospitals with severe convulsions.
00.33.41 Voiceover The Israelis say this is tear gas. But this is not tear gas. We have never seen this gas before. We need some medicine for treatment. But it must be the right medicine.
00.33.56 Aston Dr MOHAMMED SALAMA Director, Palestinian Health Ministry We asked, what kind of gas? But nobody verified for us the type of gas to give the antidote at that moment. Also we don't know how to check, how to examine, how to send this. We are in occupied area. We are surrounded. It is impossible to send these samples to international lab to test.
00.34.27 Olenka Frenkiel Israel is outside chemical and biological weapons treaties and still refuses to say what the new gas was.
00.34.44 Olenka Frenkiel The Eoloffs have still not heard from the prison. Their flight home is tomorrow night and they worry they may have to leave without seeing their adopted son.
00.34.56 Olenka Frenkiel Today they are having lunch with a small group of activists who for sixteen years have fought in vain for Vanunu's release.
00.35.03 First Israeli activist They pressurise Iraq about nuclear weapons. What about Israel and nuclear weapons?
00.35.07 Second Israeli activist Imagine for one moment that Mordechai Vanunu was not an Israeli, that the whole story had happened with a Korean or an Iranian or a Pakistani technician, he would have had the Nobel Peace Prize. He would have been the second Sakharov.
00.35.23 Second Israeli activist Instead he is a non-person in the West. This tells you what we are dealing with. We're dealing with the number one privileged state on earth.
00.35.34 Third Israeli activist Counter to the Israeli argument that the whole world is against us, it is the exact opposite. We started the nuclear race in the Middle East. There is no doubt about it.
00.35.53 Third Israeli activist And there is not even one important state in the Western Hemisphere who is dealing with it seriously.
00.36.00 Rayna Moss You can talk all we want. We can sit until tomorrow morning and discuss Israel's nuclear policy. We can discuss whatever we want. It's the people who work in those areas, with weapons of mass destruction, the environment, Dimona itself, all these research places.
00.36.16 Rayna Moss Vanunu is a living warning to them. This is what will happen to you if you speak out. You'll be Vanunu-nised. That's the warning. You will spend ten years in solitary confinement.
00.36.28 Rayna Moss You will be cut off from all your family. You will be cut off from everyone who knows you. You will be this prisoner without a number and without a name. That's what will happen to you if you speak out.
00.36.41 Olenka Frenkiel It's the prison on the phone.
00.36.47 Mary Eoloff Hello? Oh how marvellous! What time? Well, if we come at eleven, can we have an hour and a half? Okay. Thank you so much. Okay. Bye. 00.37.06 Olenka Frenkiel On their last day the Eoloffs get their visit. After an hour and a half they emerge with a message.
00.37.16 Mary Eoloff It's just wonderful. We're so excited we don't know what to think. All right, you talk.
00.37.21 Nick Eoloff It was a marvellous experience. It was the first time we've seen him so high and just anxious to talk about what's going on in his life and what he's looking forward to. Especially the anticipation of getting out.
00.37.33 Nick Eoloff He's just strong. That was his final word: "Let them know that I'm strong and anxious to get out of here, out of Israel and just start life all over again". And he was just beaming.
00.37.45 Mary Eoloff And he said the message to world is the message to the world is that I have forgotten the last sixteen years. I'm looking towards the future. I believe in a future of non- violence.
00.37.56 Olenka Frenkiel So did he say that he'd do it all again?
00.37.58 Mary Eoloff You know, he did. He said, of course I would. Isn't that incredible?
00.38.12 Olenka Frenkiel The Eoloffs have gone, and Vanunu is again up for parole. But as usual everything, even the location of the parole hearing, is secret.
00.38.22 Aston Secret filming
00.38.22 Olenka Frenkiel Apart from me and Peter Hounam, who has come from London, there are no other journalists here.
00.38.27 Peter Hounam Mordechai Vanunu? Mordechai Vanunu? Is he in there?
00.38.34 Olenka Frenkiel Mordechai Vanunu is in there? Is that where the case is being held?
00.38.40 Aston PETER HOUNAM Freelance journalist He is the most sensitive prisoner that this country has got, and whenever he comes here they block off the windows of his van if they can, or they, in the early days they used to put a crash helmet over him so people couldn't see him.
00.38.54 Peter Hounam At one point they even had an electronic device that emitted a screeching signal so people couldn't hear him speak.
00.39.02 Olenka Frenkiel And yet you and I are the only journalists here. The most sensitive prisoner Israel has got, and there's not a single member of the press here apart from you. Why do you keep coming?
00.39.10 Peter Hounam I keep coming because he's in there because he spoke to me and we published his story on the Sunday Times in 1986, and I feel a sense of responsibility that we should be helping him get out.
00.39.23 Olenka Frenkiel Three hours later the hearing ended. As usual Vanunu left behind darkened windows. In court Horev's prosecutor had cited the war with Iraq as a new reason for blocking parole.
00.39.38 Aston AVIGDOR FELDMAN Mordechai Vanunu's lawyer The prosecutor of course went back to the old argument that Vanunu is a threat to security and she even said that if Vanunu will be released, probably the Americans would leave Iraq and go after Israel and Israel's nuclear weapons, which I found extremely ridiculous.
00.40.11 Olenka Frenkiel Minnesota, the Peace Bridge and a weekly ritual. Every Wednesday hundreds protest against the war.
00.40.22 Olenka Frenkiel Mary is there. So of course is Nick. Every week the numbers grow. There is a new generation of peaceniks who were children when Israel's nuclear weapons were exposed.
00.40.38 Olenka Frenkiel Have any of you guys heard of Mordechai Vanunu?
00.40.42 Protesters No.
00.40.43 Olenka Frenkiel You don't know who he is.
00.40.47 Olenka Frenkiel And if I tell you that he's somebody who exposed Israel's weapons of mass destruction, which nobody knew about until then, what would you say?
00.40.56 Protester One Why is our media that's supposed to be free and open not telling us and why is our government not letting us know this information if we're living in the home of the free?
00.41.06 Protester Two I think if our administration was consistent or had any integrity, then he would be held as a hero.
00.41.14 President George W. Bush We're going to work with the members of the Security Council in the days ahead to make it clear to Saddam that the demands of the world and the United Nations will be enforced.
00.41.26 Olenka Frenkiel In Washington, which gives Israel more than three billion dollars a year, the talk is only of Iraq. For weeks we've tried to get an interview about Israel's weapons of mass destruction, but no one in this Bush administration wants to talk about Israel.
00.41.41 Olenka Frenkiel So we've asked for an interview about the military balance of power in the Middle East. And now they've agreed.
00.41.43 Olenka Frenkiel This morning we've finally been told that we're going to have an interviewee. He's an expert in all matters Israeli. He's an Under Secretary of Defense, and his name is Douglas Feith.
00.42.04 Olenka Frenkiel The Pentagon has demanded a list of questions in advance. So, it's "The balance of power", "Israel's nuclear ambiguity", "Allegations of a double standard" and "Mordechai Vanunu".
00.42.16 President George W. Bush The gravest danger facing America and the world is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
00.42.35 Olenka Frenkiel Yet again the shutters have come down on this story. Our interview with Under Secretary for Defense Douglas Feith was scheduled for four o'clock somewhere in this vast complex of the Pentagon behind me. Yet at the last minute we've heard the interview is cancelled.
00.42.50 Olenka Frenkiel Questions about Israel, it appears, are strictly off-limits.
00.42.56 Olenka Frenkiel We'd received this e-mail from the Pentagon.
00.43.00 Voiceover Subtitles
Ladies: We showed Mr Feith the list of topics for the BBC interview. He is not willing to answer any of the questions you listed...
...Respectfully request you resubmit your questions as soon as possible this morning. Questions directed towards the current Iraqi situation.
00.43.17 Olenka Frenkiel On February nineteenth Vanunu was again refused parole. He remains in Ashkelon prison.
00.43.30 Olenka Frenkiel Horev has let it be known he intends never to let Mordechai Vanunu leave Israel.
00.43.36
End music
00.43.46 Olenka Frenkiel You can comment on tonight's programme by visiting our web site at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/correspondent
Credits
Reporter OLENKA FRENKIEL
Camera IAN PERRY
VT Editor BOYD NAGLE
Dubbing Mixer CLIFF JONES
Graphic Design STEVE ENGLAND
Production Team ALEXANDRA CAMERON SARAH EVA MARTHA O'SULLIVAN AGNES TEEK
Production Manager JANE WILLEY
Unit Manager SUSAN CRIGHTON
Film Research NICK DODD
Historical Research AVNER COHEN
Yitzhak Yaakov photos YEDIOT AHRONOT
Research CANDICE TALBERG TOM WATSON
Web Producer ANDREW JEFFREY
Picture Editor JONATHAN COOKE
Produced & Directed by GISELLE PORTENIER
Deputy Editor DAVID BELTON
CORRESPONDENT
00.44.07 Editor KAREN O'CONNOR
00.44.20
End
BBC Correspondent
-------- korea
U.S., S.Korea Simulate War with 'Opfor' North
March 16, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-korea-usa.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. and South Korean officers hunched over computers at a military base in central Seoul on Sunday simulating a war with the ``opfor'' -- code for the opposing forces of reclusive communist North Korea.
The annual allied war games come as tension rises over North Korea's suspected ambitions to join the nuclear club with two separate programs aimed at developing atomic weapons.
North Korea said this year's military exercises by U.S.-South Korean forces were preparation for ``pre-emptive nuclear attack...at any time.''
``The DPRK (North Korea) cannot remain a passive onlooker to the U.S. intensified military moves as they are a dangerous military racket to ignite the second Korean war,'' said the North's ruling party newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun.
But the U.S. and South Korean officials running the computer games in Seoul said this month's Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration (RSOI) exercise was planned nine months ago -- long before the nuclear issue flared up last October.
Officials guiding reporters on a tour of one of the main command centers for the computerized war simulation were tight-lipped about the scenarios for which they are training about 14,000 allied officers and troops.
``A battle is going on somewhere in the Republic of Korea,'' said Jude Shea, a retired U.S. infantry officer who now runs the drills. ``Ground is being taken and lost, casualties are occurring, and supplies are being consumed,'' he told reporters.
``NOT A VIDEO GAME''
The stress and pressures of wartime decision-making are simulated with ``a live, thinking enemy who has the ability to achieve success on the battlefield,'' said Shea.
``This is not a video game.''
The enemy -- referred to not as North Korea, but as the ``opfor'' (opposing forces) or the red team -- is led by a retired South Korean general and includes U.S. military intelligence officers who are well-versed in North Korean military tactics.
``Everything we think the North Koreans will do, we do,'' said U.S. Army Lt. James McMillian. He declined to describe North Korean tactics or say how U.S. officials learn about them.
The RSOI drill is run around the clock using a sophisticated web of computer centers in South Korea, Hawaii and Virginia to practice logistics of moving and supplying troops, planes, ships and vehicles under wartime conditions.
Later this week, the U.S. and South Korean forces will kick off their annual Foal Eagle exercises, field war games involving mock battles and amphibious landings. The drills will involve many of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.
American military muscle has gone on full display in the South. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson was sent to the western Pacific after U.S. forces deployed six F-117A ``Stealth'' warplanes in the region this week.
The U.S. air force also prepared to resume spy flights off the coast of North Korea.
The Hawaii-based Carl Vinson, moored just outside the South Korean port city of Pusan with 70 aircraft and eight squadrons, will go to sea to support U.S.-South Korean forces in the drills.
``Our presence in the region is not in direct response on North Korea, but certainly our presence can also be an influence,'' Navy Captain Richard B. Wren, the ship's commanding officer, told a pool of reporters on Saturday.
North Korea has taken a series of provocative steps on the Cold War's last flashpoint in its campaign for direct talks with Washington.
Tensions have been simmering since October, when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted to a secret program to reprocess uranium for nuclear weapons.
North Korea's other suspected atomic arms program, based on plutonium, was frozen in a bilateral U.S.-North Korean deal in 1994. Washington says Pyongyang's violation of that pact requires multilateral diplomacy to halt the North's nuclear quest.
Over the last month, North Korea has intercepted a U.S. spy plane patrolling international airspace and test-fired two short-range missiles, while a Japanese report said the North may soon test-fire a longer-range missile that could reach Japan.
--------
Navy Maintains Solid Presence in South Korea
March 16, 2003
The New York Times
By DON KIRK
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/international/16CND-KORE.html
PUSAN, South Korea, March 16 - Korean police officers stood guard today against the threat of demonstrations protesting the presence of the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier with 70 warplanes on deck, but the biggest show was that of thousands of American sailors in civilian clothing shopping and reveling in this thriving port city on the southeastern coast.
While most of the 5,300 sailors and marines aboard the Vinson poured into town, arriving on boats ferrying between the carrier and the pier, then boarding shuttle buses for Texas Street and the sprawling international market, their commanders talked about defending South Korea in a time of crisis.
"My job is to be ready when tasked, to be present in this area of operations, to provide stability, to make sure no one challenges us," said Navy Capt. Donald P. Quinn, commander of Air Wing Nine, which includes all the aircraft, mostly F-18 fighter planes, on the carrier. "And we are great at what we do."
Standing on the carrier flight deck on a drizzly, windy day, Captain Quinn amplified on that estimate amid a stream of North Korean rhetoric denouncing the exercises as part of a plot to attack its nuclear complex and touch off a nuclear war.
"There are greater tensions," he went on, "which means we have to be better at what we do."
Beside Captain Quinn, between an aerial refueling plane and an F-18 fighter, the commanding officer of the ship, Capt. Richard B. Wren, and the commander of its destroyer squadron, Capt. David N. Thorson, put the war games in the perspective of both North Korean invective and business as usual.
"We're always ready to go," Captain Wren said. The capability to fight is "something we keep in this hip pocket," for emergency, while the mission for now "is to project power ashore" -- to display the force the carrier, its planes and accompanying vessels could wield if needed.
"We are here to provide for any contingency in the western Pacific," Captain Thorson said, describing that role as "one of our enduring missions for many years."
Without specifically citing North Korea as the enemy, Captain Wren preferred to emphasize the carrier's impact as a deterrent.
"Certainly our presence in the region is not in direct response on North Korea," he said, noting that a United States carrier normally patrols the western Pacific and the Vinson was sent to the region to replace the Kitty Hawk, now in the Persian Gulf. At the same time, he added portentously, "Our presence can also be an influence."
The Vinson gets a chance to display its influence off the east coast of South Korea this week as its planes fly missions against an imaginary enemy, all climaxing on Friday when the Marines stage a landing on a beach near Pohang. If the Vinson is not visible from shore, it will be just over the horizon, supporting the marines in an assault that Wren hopes will never have to happen.
"If we're called on to go to war, we all know something has gone awry in the world," he said.
While a second Korean War still seems remote, the North Korean propaganda machine poured out threats today intended to get attention if not to escalate tensions.
An editorial in Rodong Sinmun, the party newspaper, said the United States had driven the crisis over the nuclear issue "into a tight corner." The Democratic People's Republic of Korea "cannot remain a passive onlooker to the U.S. intensified military moves," said the editorial, calling the buildup by the United States "a dangerous military racket to ignite a second Korean War."
The sense of crisis permeated the atmosphere aboard the ship even though the war games are annual events, normally staged amid little international publicity.
"It's kind of a little scary," said Petty Officer First Class Patricia Pankey-Wells, who was born in Pusan, adopted by an American couple and raised in the United States.
Lt. Comdr. John Choi, who moved to the United States with his family at the age of 3 and now flies on an S-3 aerial refueling plane, said, "We all watch the news" and "you could say tensions are high."
Nonetheless, he was hardly worried. "We're in a heightened state of tensions" but "nothing we can't deal with," Lt. Comdr. Choi said. "If called upon, we'll do our job."
While mindful of the North Korean threat, no one was much concerned about anti-American protests. About 20 demonstrators rallied Friday morning beyond a row of police officers near the pier from which the ferries go to the ship, moored three miles away just outside the harbor, but Navy officers denied the demonstration had anything to do with keeping the ship from docking.
"The reason she's not at the pier was because of the draft of the ship," said a Navy spokesman. "She can't even pull in here regardless of whether there's space at the pier."
One of the Vinson's accompanying vessels, the U.S.S. Antietam, a cruiser equipped with an Aegis system for detecting enemy aircraft and launching missiles against them, was moored at the pier, near the small boats disgorging sailors given passes for the day.
Hundreds of sailors lined up at the end of the pier waiting to board the buses to take them downtown, oblivious to protests here or in Seoul, where several thousand people carrying candles gathered Saturday night to protest war in Iraq as well as the United States military presence in Korea.
-------- us politics
Rumsfeld urged Clinton to attack Iraq
Exclusive: By Neil Mackay Home Affairs Editor
March 16, 2003
UK Sunday Herald
http://www.sundayherald.com/32185
DONALD Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz wrote to President Bill Clinton in 1998 urging war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein because he is a 'hazard' to 'a significant portion of the world's supply of oil'.
In the letter, Rumsfeld also calls for America to go to war alone, attacks the United Nations and says the US should not be 'crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council'.
Those who signed the letter, dated January 26, 1998, include Bush's current Pentagon adviser, Richard Perle; Richard Armitage, the number two at the State Department; John Bolton and Paula Dobriansky, under-secretaries of state; Elliott Abrams, the presidential adviser for the Middle East and a member of the National Security Council; and Peter W Rodman, assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs.
It reads: 'We urge you to seize [the] opportunity and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the US and our friends and allies around the world.
'That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power.'
'We can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf war coalition to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades the UN inspections.
'If Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world's supply of oil, will all be put at hazard.'
Bush's current advisers spell out their solution to the Iraqi problem: 'The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.
'We believe the US has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the Security Council.'
The letter -- also signed by Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's special envoy to the Iraqi opposition; ex-director James Woolsey and Robert B Zoelick, the US trade representative -- was written by the signatories on behalf of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a right-wing think-tank, to which they all belong.
Other founding members of PNAC include Dick Cheney, the vice-president.
----
Hawks circling for new targets
Iran, Syria and North Korea are on list of potential marks.
By David Westphal --
Sacramento Bee Washington Bureau Chief
Sunday, March 16, 2003
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/6284906p-7238632c.html
WASHINGTON -- Even as President Bush struggles against robust international opposition to launch a regime-toppling invasion of Iraq, some of the strongest and earliest supporters of military action against Saddam Hussein are already looking ahead to the next target.
Some hawks outside the government are beginning to turn up the rhetorical heat against Iran and Syria, both of whom are Iraq's neighbors, and both known to be funneling aid to Middle East terrorist groups. Others are focusing on North Korea and its rapidly mobilized nuclear weapons program, or the North African country of Libya.
UCDavis Health "Even after Mr. Hussein is gone, other tyrannies, such as North Korea and Iran, will continue to threaten world peace," said Max Boot, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Such tough talk reflects the fact that, despite Bush's rocky road toward his goal of regime change in Iraq, and despite the many questions about how it will proceed, some in Washington believe the Iraq conflict will mark only the beginning of U.S. resolve to exercise its military muscle.
"It takes little imagination to dream up other scenarios that might call for pre-emptive military action," said Thomas Donnelly, a military analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank that has led the charge for war against Iraq.
Donnelly said one such example might be the imminent overthrow of the Musharraf government in Pakistan, given that country's possession of nuclear weapons.
Few are suggesting that the Pentagon begin preparing a new set of Iraq-like invasion plans. In fact, some foreign policy experts contend that a successful campaign in Iraq might serve as an effective shot across the bow at other would-be targets.
Richard Perle, who heads a Pentagon advisory group and has long been a leading advocate of an Iraq invasion, was making this argument just one month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
If the United States should topple Saddam, he said in a PBS interview, "I think several of these governments will simply get out of the support-of-terrorism business. It will be too costly; the risks will be too great."
That some are looking beyond Iraq, despite the massive effort and uncertainties that surround the looming conflict, should not be surprising. The administration's new National Security Strategy suggests an activist American military, one more inclined to act pre-emptively if the president concludes U.S. security is threatened.
In the updated strategy, Bush said the United States might unleash its military might even if unprovoked.
"As a matter of common sense and self-defense, America will act against ... emerging threats before they are fully formed," the president wrote.
Among admirers of the new strategy is John Lewis Gaddis, a professor of military and naval history at Yale University, who says it has the potential to become the most sweeping overhaul of military strategy in half a century.
Yet Gaddis says a successful application in Iraq depends on meeting two critical tests: that the Iraqis greet American troops as liberators, and that the United States retains the high moral ground and international support. On that latter point, Gaddis says, the Bush administration is foundering.
"A nation that sets itself up as an example to the world in most things," Gaddis wrote in Policy Review magazine, "will not achieve that purpose by telling the rest of the world, in some things, to shove it."
One of the champions of the activist-military doctrines is Thomas Barnett, a Naval War College professor who has briefed dozens of groups inside the Pentagon on his theory that the United States must "export security" to parts of the world that have failed to develop modern societies.
Barnett has identified a large swath of countries stretching from Central America across the Atlantic Ocean to Africa, the Middle East and parts of southern Asia, which he said have become disconnected from the developing world, and thus are ripe for sowing unrest.
"There is a good reason why al-Qaida was based first in Sudan and then later in Afghanistan," Barnett wrote in the March issue of Esquire. "These are two of the most disconnected countries in the world."
Military involvement by the United States in parts of these regions, which make up one-third of the world's population, will be necessary until they catch up with the developed countries, he contends.
Some military analysts say the Pentagon can adapt to a new, more activist posture by undergoing a transformation process championed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. By shedding strategies designed for a war among superpowers and moving to lighter, more mobile forces, the military can cast a wider net without needing more resources, they say.
But others suggest the Pentagon will need a bigger slice of the federal budget to take on a wider role.
"Increased force structure ... will be necessary to enhance the Army's ability to fight the war against terrorism while also keeping the peace in other areas," said Conrad Crane, a military expert at the Strategic Studies Institute in Washington.
Regardless of whether the United States carries out the threat of pre-emptive attacks, some think the American military will be kept plenty busy in coming years.
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism strikes came during a time of growing instability in much of the world -- civil strife in the Balkans, in Africa, in large swaths of Asia. Since 1948, the United Nations has authorized 54 peacekeeping operations, and all but 13 of them were created in the last dozen years.
Eric Schwartz, a National Security Council adviser in the Clinton administration, says this trend of growing conflict in pockets around the globe likely will continue. And because of the newly recognized threat of terrorism, he says, these trouble spots are likely to receive American attention.
"Nobody disagrees with the notion that failed states matter now," said Schwartz. "And the administration would say that where they matter enormously, we need to be engaged."
About the Writer
The Bee's David Westphal can be reached at (202) 383-0002 or dwestphal@mcclatchydc.com.
----
Summit's Joint Statement on Iraq
March 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/international/16WIRE-TEXI.html
Following is the text of the statement on Iraq that was released Sunday at a summit in the Azores Islands:
STATEMENT OF THE ATLANTIC SUMMIT: A VISION FOR IRAQ AND THE IRAQI PEOPLE
Iraq's talented people, rich culture, and tremendous potential have been hijacked by Saddam Hussein. His brutal regime has reduced a country with a long and proud history to an international pariah that oppresses its citizens, started two wars of aggression against its neighbors, and still poses a grave threat to the security of its region and the world.
Saddam's defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding the disarmament of his nuclear, chemical, biological, and long-range missile capacity has led to sanctions on Iraq and has undermined the authority of the U.N. For 12 years, the international community has tried to persuade him to disarm and thereby avoid military conflict, most recently through the unanimous adoption of UNSCR 1441. The responsibility is his. If Saddam refuses even now to cooperate fully with the United Nations, he brings on himself the serious consequences foreseen in UNSCR 1441 and previous resolutions.
In these circumstances, we would undertake a solemn obligation to help the Iraqi people build a new Iraq at peace with itself and its neighbors. The Iraqi people deserve to be lifted from insecurity and tyranny, and freed to determine for themselves the future of their country. We envisage a unified Iraq with its territorial integrity respected. All the Iraqi people -- its rich mix of Sunni and Shiite Arabs, Kurds, Turkomen, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and all others -- should enjoy freedom, prosperity, and equality in a united country. We will support the Iraqi people's aspirations for a representative government that upholds human rights and the rule of law as cornerstones of democracy.
We will work to prevent and repair damage by Saddam Hussein's regime to the natural resources of Iraq and pledge to protect them as a national asset of and for the Iraqi people. All Iraqis should share the wealth generated by their national economy. We will seek a swift end to international sanctions, and support an international reconstruction program to help Iraq achieve real prosperity and reintegrate into the global community.
We will fight terrorism in all its forms. Iraq must never again be a haven for terrorists of any kind.
In achieving this vision, we plan to work in close partnership with international institutions, including the United Nations; our Allies and partners; and bilateral donors. If conflict occurs, we plan to seek the adoption, on an urgent basis, of new United Nations Security Council resolutions that would affirm Iraq's territorial integrity, ensure rapid delivery of humanitarian relief, and endorse an appropriate post-conflict administration for Iraq. We will also propose that the Secretary General be given authority, on an interim basis, to ensure that the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people continue to be met through the Oil for Food program.
Any military presence, should it be necessary, will be temporary and intended to promote security and elimination of weapons of mass destruction; the delivery of humanitarian aid; and the conditions for the reconstruction of Iraq. Our commitment to support the people of Iraq will be for the long term.
We call upon the international community to join with us in helping to realize a better future for the Iraqi people.
--------
Bush Says Iraq Diplomacy Ends on Monday
March 16, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq.html
LAJES AIRBASE, Azores (Reuters) - President Bush said on Sunday the United Nations has only one more day to find a diplomatic end to the Iraq crisis before the United States moves to a war footing.
``We concluded that tomorrow is a moment of truth for the world,'' Bush said after an emergency summit with the leaders of Britain, Spain and Portugal on the windswept Azores Islands in the eastern Atlantic.
Bush said the U.N. Security Council must agree on Monday on a new resolution authorizing war against Iraq, and left no doubt that the United States and its like-minded allies would otherwise invade Iraq without U.N. backing.
``Tomorrow's the day that we will determine whether or not diplomacy can work,'' Bush said.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein vowed that his country would fight back ``anywhere in the world'' if invaded.
``When the enemy opens the war on a large scale, it should realize that the battle between us will be waged wherever there is sky, earth and water anywhere in the world,'' he said in comments reported by the state news agency only minutes after Bush had finished speaking.
Bush, pursuing a global ``war against terror'' in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States, branded Saddam a sponsor of terrorism and again demanded that he surrender his alleged weapons of mass destruction or be disarmed by force.
Iraq denies possessing nuclear, chemical or biological arms.
Prime Ministers Jose Maria Aznar of Spain and Tony Blair of Britain said one final round of diplomatic contacts would be made on Monday, in a last-ditch effort to win agreement on an ultimatum for Saddam.
Diplomatic analysts said the leaders' statements sounded like the start of a countdown to war -- irrespective of whether agreement could be reached at the deeply divided United Nations.
``If I were an Iraqi, I would be waiting for the bombs to start falling any time from tomorrow night,'' said Rosemary Hollis of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.
``The message Bush was sending to Saddam was, 'Forget it, we're coming to get you','' said British analyst Toby Dodge.
There seemed little chance of reaching agreement in the U.N. Security Council, where France and Russia want weapons inspectors to have more time and have vowed to veto any resolution that could be seen as authorizing war.
Blair challenged U.N. members to make their mind up ``overnight'' on a second resolution over Iraq, but expressed little hope an 11th-hour consensus could be reached.
``It is difficult to know how we can resolve this,'' Blair told reporters on his plane back to London.
Bush appeared to be allowing diplomacy one more day in an attempt to give Blair and Aznar political cover to say all diplomatic options had been exhausted. Both face bitter opposition at home to war.
The three leaders were to make a flurry of phone calls to Security Council members in a last-ditch effort to seek an international consensus.
But U.S. officials said the resolution could be withdrawn with no vote if it was headed for clear defeat at the United Nations.
WAR PREPARATIONS
Only hours after the summit finished, the State Department said it had ordered non-essential diplomats and all embassy dependants out of Kuwait, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Damascus because of the threat of possible war with Iraq.
U.S. officials said the president was prepared to deliver a nationally televised address warning Americans of the coming war as early as Monday, serving Saddam a final ultimatum and giving humanitarian workers and journalists time to leave Iraq.
In Washington, Vice President Dick Cheney told CBS' ``Face the Nation'' program that a war would be quick: ``I think it will go relatively quickly.... Weeks rather than months.''
Bush said war could be avoided if Saddam would go into exile. ``Saddam can leave the country, if he's interested in peace,'' he said.
But the Iraqi leader was bracing for invasion, 12 years after the first Gulf War which drove his occupying troops from Kuwait but left his grip on power intact. Earlier on Sunday he divided Iraq into four military districts under his command to prepare for attack by a quarter of a million U.S. and British troops massed in the Gulf region.
Saddam again denied having banned weapons and called the United States ``the unjust judge of the world.''
In Kuwait, the staging ground for any assault on Iraq, a government official said he believed war would start within 10 days. Information Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah told a news conference: ``I think war is quite near.''
Jeremy Batstone, head of research at NatWest stockbrokers in London, said financial markets would brace for a mid-week assault on Iraq.
``The initial reaction in the market on Monday is that the oil price will go higher, we will see the dollar weaken, bond prices rise, and the equity markets will lose some of the strength that we saw over the course of Thursday and Friday, although volumes will be extremely thin,'' he said.
DIPLOMATIC MOVES
Bush, Blair and Aznar came to the Azores facing global anti-war protests and a failure thus far to attract nine votes on the 15-nation Security Council for a new resolution that could provide important moral backing for war, even if the French or Russians vetoed the measure.
``Maybe it's a small chance, a small possibility, but even if it's one in 1 million, it's always worthwhile fighting for a political solution,'' said Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, the summit host.
Bush, Blair and Aznar showed little interest in signals from France that it could accept a 30-day or 60-day limit on U.N. weapons inspections. ``Without a credible ultimatum authorizing force in the event of non-compliance, then more discussion is just more delay,'' Blair said.
Bush specifically criticized the French for their veto threat. ``France showed their cards,'' he said. ``So cards have been played. And we'll just have to take an assessment after tomorrow to determine what that card meant.''
French President Jacques Chirac said in an interview with CBS and CNN before the summit he still believed the disarmament mission given to weapons inspectors should continue.
``(France) will not use its veto power to annoy the United States,'' he said, according to a verbatim text of the French language interview released to Reuters.
``Simply, it (France) considers that there's another more normal way to proceed which is less dramatic than war, and that this path should be pursued until there's an impasse, and that's not the case.''
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, interviewed by ZDF television on Sunday, said ``I am now as before of the belief that the inspectors should have the time that they themselves ask for, for they are the ones who can judge the situation most honestly and clearly.''
POST-SADDAM IRAQ
The summit leaders emphasized their desire to rebuild a post-Saddam Iraq, in comments that diplomatic analysts took as a further sign of the inevitability of war.
``I think it's amazing that Bush didn't actually mention the war. Instead he leapt straight to the need for reconstruction and the need for U.N. involvement in that,'' said British analyst Dodge.
The leaders said they were committed to the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel -- addressing critics who have accused the United States of focusing on Iraq to the detriment of Middle East peacemaking.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Rebels Capture Central African Republic
March 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Central-African-Republic.html
BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) -- Rebels in the Central African Republic captured the capital Sunday, and their leader declared himself the new president of this coup-prone nation and dissolved the legislature.
Rebel leader Gen. Francois Bozize also suspended the constitution.
In a state radio address introducing him as ``head of state,'' Bozize said his fighters seized power ``because of the mismanagement of the country and its inability to carry out its domestic responsibilities.''
``Our government is that of peace and national reconciliation,'' he added.
The rebels began their attack on Bangui on Saturday while President Ange-Felix Patasse was visiting Niger for a meeting of African heads of state. After the meeting, Patasse flew to Yaounde, Cameroon, where he remained Sunday at a hotel under tight security. He has not spoken publicly since the attack.
It was unclear how much fighting between rebels and government soldiers occurred.
Three soldiers from the neighboring Republic of Congo died, a senior military official in Brazzaville said on condition of anonymity. They were part of a 300-strong African security force policing Bangui.
No other casualty figures were immediately available.
In his eight-minute address, Bozize promised a ``quick reconstruction'' of one of the world's poorest nations, which has had six coups in the past six years.
Bozize said he would replace the country's National Assembly with a ``transitional national council'' drawn from political parties, former heads of state and others, including human rights groups. He also promised to hold elections but did not specify when.
Bozize said he planned to ask the World Bank and International Monetary Fund for ``post-conflict aid.''
Bozize also promised to try to reconcile divisions within the country's divided military, overhaul government bureaucracy and fight the AIDS pandemic sweeping through the African nation.
Rebel spokesman Capt. Parfait Mbaye said the rebels controlled the entire city of Bangui, which has 622,000 residents. However, it was unclear whether there were any pockets of resistance by Patasse loyalists.
The insurgents imposed a 10-day dusk-till-dawn curfew in Bangui and ordered state security forces -- including military and police -- to return to their barracks. They also released prominent businessman Abdul Wahide, who was imprisoned last year by Patasse on accusations of supporting the rebels.
For most of the day, state radio played martial music.
Witnesses said Sunday many government soldiers shed their uniforms and Patasse's presidential guard began the looting of his home. Sporadic gunfire rang out overnight but stopped by Sunday morning.
On Saturday, there were hours of intense small-arms and mortar fire before Bozize's rebels overran the airport, much of the city and Patasse's private and official residences.
Insurgents from neighboring Congo who helped Patasse repulse an attack by Bozize in October canoed across the nearby river border back to their own war-riven country, citizens said.
Congolese rebel leader Jean Pierre Bemba confirmed that his Congolese Liberation Movement, or MLC, troops had withdrawn.
Patasse, elected in 1993 and re-elected in 1999, has been accused by opponents of rampant corruption, and his rule has proven increasingly divisive. He has survived repeated coup attempts as well as military mutinies over unpaid salaries and labor disputes.
Bozize, a one-time Patasse supporter, lost in the 1993 elections. In 2001, the former army general was accused of involvement in a failed coup attempt against Patasse and went into hiding in the rural north and in neighboring Chad.
Central African Republic -- a country of about 3.6 million people that is rich in raw minerals, including gold, diamond and uranium -- has been racked by military revolts and other uprisings since gaining independence from France in 1960.
The United Nations estimates that about 105,000 people have been displaced in the government-controlled part of the country since October.
At least 100,000 more people have been displaced in rebel-controlled areas, the U.N. estimates.
-------- asia
U.S. - South Korean War Games Go High - Tech
March 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-War-Games.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- A ``war'' was being waged Sunday across the divided Korean Peninsula with communist fighters bombing U.S. troops, submarines torpedoing ships and tanks shelling enemy bunkers.
But casualties weren't filling field hospitals. This battle was happening in cyberspace, the backbone of massive maneuvers being staged here by U.S. and South Korean forces to practice repelling any North Korean invasion.
The United States already has deployed an intimidating array of weaponry for the war games, including the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and a wing of radar-evading stealth fighters, which is here for the first time in a decade.
But underpinning the monthlong drills is the Korean Battle Simulation Center in Seoul, where soldiers role-playing U.S. and North Korean forces square off over keyboards 24 hours a day, plotting each other's destruction.
``This is not a video game,'' said Jude Shea, the retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. who is running the exercises.
The simulation center is in a high-security building filled with rows of computers, dangling wires and huge wall-mounted monitors charting everything from body counts to weather developments.
``Ground is being taken or lost, casualties are being assessed,'' Shea said. ``Equipment is being damaged and destroyed, enemy and friendly aircraft are engaging each other... there are ships that are steaming.''
The United States, which bases 37,000 troops in South Korea, says the annual maneuvers are not related to heightened tensions over North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons programs.
But they come at a sensitive time and North Korea objects to the U.S. military maneuvers, calling them a rehearsal for invasion.
Pyongyang's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported Sunday that U.S. military moves against the North Korea were ``in full swing'' and called them ``a dangerous military racket to ignite the second Korean war.''
South Korea wants the two adversaries to use both direct and multilateral approaches to end the dispute peacefully.
Shea said the current war games were planned nine months ago, before tensions in the region started rising in October when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted having a secret nuclear weapons program.
Washington and allies suspended fuel shipments; Pyongyang retaliated by expelling U.N. monitors, withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and restarting a nuclear reactor mothballed for years under U.N. seal.
Shea refused to divulge specific battle scenarios but said they are being used to train 14,000 soldiers.
Another 1,000 computer operators at five nerve centers, including one in Virginia and another in Hawaii, are creating the war conditions that keep U.S. and South Korean troops drilling in the field.
About 90 percent of the maneuvers are conducted in cyberspace, with field commanders punching in their countermeasures to enemy attacks. Others are full-blown exercises, such as next week's amphibious beach assault by U.S. and South Korean Marines backed by the carrier Vinson.
Soldiers playing the North Koreans read about the North's military strategy and comb spy reports.
``Anything we think North Korea would do, we do,'' said U.S. Army 2nd Lt. James McMillian, who plays his communist counterpart in the computer games.
The computer-assisted war games end April 2.
But no matter how lifelike they become, Shea admits they can't duplicate one of war's grimmest realities.
``The concern about being killed or maimed,'' he said. ``I don't think we will ever achieve that.''
The Koreas were divided in 1945, and their border remains tightly sealed.
-------- biological weapons
Iraq Links Germs for Weapons to U.S. and France
March 16, 2003
The New York Times
By PHILIP SHENON
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/national/16BIO.html
WASHINGTON, March 15 - Iraq has identified a Virginia-based biological supply house and a French scientific institute as the sources of all the foreign germ samples that it used to create the biological weapons that are still believed to be in Iraq's arsenal, according to American officials and foreign diplomats who have reviewed Iraq's latest weapons declaration to the United Nations.
The American supply house, the American Type Culture Collection of Manassas, Va., had previously been identified as an important supplier of anthrax and other germ samples to Iraq.
But the full extent of the sales by the Virginia supply house and the Pasteur Institute in Paris has never been made public by the United Nations, which received the latest weapons declaration from Iraq in December.
Nor was there any public suggestion before now that Iraq had - apart from a small amount of home-grown germ samples - depended exclusively on supplies from the United States and France in the 1980's in developing the biological weapons that American officials say are now believed to threaten troops massing around Iraq. The shipments were approved by the United States government in the 1980's, when the transfer of such pathogens for research was legal and easily arranged.
A copy of the pages of the Iraqi declaration dealing with biological weapons was provided to The New York Times, and it reveals the full variety of germs that Iraq says it obtained from abroad for its biological weapons program.
The document shows that the American and French supply houses shipped 17 types of biological agents to Iraq in the 1980's that were used in the weapons programs. Those included anthrax and the bacteria needed to make botulinum toxin, among the most deadly poisons known. It also discloses that Iraq had tried unsuccessfully to obtain biological agents in the late 1980's from other biological supply houses around the world.
The quantities of the agents were described in terms of ampuls, which are sealed glass or plastic containers about the size of test tubes.
Iraq has acknowledged that it used the American and French germ samples to produce tons of biological weapons in the 1980's. It has repeatedly insisted in recent years that the program was shut down, and all of the biological material destroyed, in the 1990's, an assertion that the United States and many other nations have said is demonstrably untrue.
The United States, France and other Western countries placed severe restrictions on the shipment of biological materials in the early 1990's, after the extent of Iraq's biological weapons program became clear in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
Spokesmen for the American Type Culture Collection and the Pasteur Institute said that they were not surprised that Iraq had identified them as the exclusive foreign suppliers of germ samples to its weapons programs. They said that all of their shipments had been legal and that they were made with the understanding that the agents would be used for research and medical purposes.
"A.T.C.C. could never have shipped these samples to Iraq without the Department of Commerce's approval for all requests," said Nancy J. Wysocki, vice president for human resources and public relations at the American Type Culture Collection, a nonprofit organization that is one of the world's leading biological supply houses. "They were sent for legitimate research purposes." Michele Mock, a microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, said in a telephone interview: "In the 1980's, the rules were entirely different. If there was an official letter, there was no reason to avoid providing this material. One good thing now is that the rules have changed."
The Iraqi statement on its bioweapons was prepared by the Iraqis in 1997 and was incorporated in its entirety into the full weapons declaration provided to the United Nations last year, officials said.
The bioweapons declaration was obtained by Gary B. Pitts, a Houston lawyer who is representing ailing gulf war veterans in a lawsuit claiming that their illnesses were explained by exposure to chemical or biological weapons that were known to be in Iraq's arsenal in the war. United Nations officials confirmed the authenticity of the document.
Mr. Pitts said that American Type Culture Collection, which is a defendant in the lawsuit, and the Pasteur Institute should have known in the 1980's that "it was unreasonable to turn over something like this to Saddam, especially after he had used weapons of mass destruction in the past."
"It's ironic that we're now talking about going into Iraq to clean up these weapons," Mr. Pitts added.
He had previously made public a copy of Iraq's chemical weapons declaration. In it, the Baghdad government identified several major suppliers for its production of nerve gas and other chemical weapons. Apart from two small suppliers in the United States that are now defunct, most of the chemical suppliers identified in the report were European.
Jonathan Tucker, a former United Nations weapons inspector who is a visiting fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, said that the 1980's "were a more innocent time, and the default in those days was to supply these cultures to academic research labs without asking many questions."
"At the time, the U.S. government was tilting toward Iraq, was trying to improve relations with Iraq, and the tendency was not to scrutinize these requests," Mr. Tucker said.
But Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project, an arms control research group, said that the biological supply houses should have realized that Iraq might use the germ samples to make weapons, especially since it was known then that Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iranian troops in the Iran-Iraq war.
"If you know that the buying country is involved in a chemical weapons program, you have an obligation to ask some questions rather than just send it out," Mr. Milhollin said.
-------- britain
Blair plans for war as UN is given 24 hours
Kamal Ahmed, political editor
Sunday March 16, 2003
The Observer (UK)
http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,915311,00.html
Tony Blair held an emergency 'war Cabinet' meeting yesterday to finalise plans for military action against Iraq and demand that the United Nations comes to a decision on the vital second resolution against Saddam Hussein within 24 hours.
As Number 10 made clear that the chances of a diplomatic breakthrough in the Security Council were now 'bleak' and American bombers for the first time struck at targets in Iraq, the UN was given until tomorrow evening to come to a final choice on whether to back a second resolution or see America and Britain launch military action alone.
If it is clear Britain and the US cannot get the necessary nine votes to pass the resolution in the council, they will dump plans to put it to a vote and announce that Saddam is in 'material breach' of UN resolution 1441 passed last November.
That will be seen on both sides of the Atlantic as a trigger for war, which Ministry of Defence sources said would happen 'in short order'. It is expected that an air bombing campaign, followed by a massive ground offensive, would start within a few days.
It followed the disclosure by America yesterday that two US Air Force B-1 bombers knocked out truck-mounted anti-aircraft radar systems designed to alert Iraq to attack by British and US forces - a signal that war was imminent.
As tensions in the region heightened hour-by-hour, it emerged that Blair is also planning to hold an emergency meeting of the full Cabinet this week and announce a vote in the House of Commons, probably on Tuesday, if the UN route has been exhausted by tomorrow night.
In a high-wire act, the Prime Minister will hope that with British troops about to go into conflict, the rebellion will be smaller than the 121 MPs who voted against the Government last month.
Downing Street is braced for the resignation of Robin Cook, Leader of the House of Commons, by Tuesday night if the second resolution fails but officials said they hoped to keep Clare Short, the International Development Secretary, in the Cabinet.
In the next 48 hours, in one of the last moves before mili tary action is announced, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, will say Britain is within its legal rights to launch an attack without a second resolution.
The Government's chief law officer will say 1441 warns of 'serious consequences' if Saddam does not comply fully with UN resolutions. Earlier UN resolutions passed at the end of the Gulf war in 1991, which say that nations can use 'all necessary means' to disarm Saddam, back Britain's legal position.
Goldsmith, whose legal advice to the Government advice is usually private, has told colleagues he feels he must speak out after reports that Britain had a weak legal case for an invasion.
'He's found all the reports that he's telling the Prime Minister that this might be illegal highly irritating,' said a senior Number 10 figure.
Blair and President Bush meet in the Azores today to finalise military plans and make a last assessment of the chances of squeezing a vote through the UN. France has said it will veto any resolution that automatically triggers war. Increasingly angry British government officials said France was acting in an 'arrogant manner' that was 'an affront to multilateralism'. France countered that it was seeking a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
Yesterday, Bush made clear that war was now almost inevitable.
'There is little reason to hope that Saddam Hussein will disarm,' the President said in his weekly radio address. 'If force is required to disarm him, the American people can know that our armed forces have been given every tool and every resource to achieve victory.'
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, agreed that military action was now likely. 'The prospect of military action is now much more probable and I greatly regret that,' he said.
However, throwing a spanner in the already convoluted works, the Iraqi government yesterday invited the leader of the weapons inspectorate Hans Blix and his colleague on the International Atomic Energy Authority, Mohammed ElBaradei, to visit Baghdad.
The invitation, said officials at the United Nations in New York, where the invitation was delivered, asked for their presence to help 'accelerate the inspections process'.
In a signal that Blair is moving into 'high gear' as military action approaches, the Prime Minister called an emergency meeting of his closest aides and colleagues.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'We need to take stock and realise things are difficult. But in the end you reach a point of decision. We are at that stage.'
A poll of half of all backbench Labour MPs for today's BBC TV's Politics Show suggests the rebellion could be even larger than last time if Blair seeks support for war without a second resolution.
Only 17 of the 129 MPs, asked if they would support military action against Iraq without a second resolution said that they would, and 95 said that they would not.
----
Health minister:
'I was wrong to vote for war. To choose party loyalty was immoral'
By Douglas Fraser, Political Editor
March 16, 2003
UK Sunday Herald
http://www.sundayherald.com/32184
The split in senior Labour ranks over war in Iraq was blown wide open yesterday with an astonishing U-turn by health minister Malcolm Chisholm, who now 'bitterly regrets' his previous support for the party leadership's policy.
The Edinburgh North and Leith MSP chose to announce his change in dramatic form, borrowing a megaphone from anti-war protesters outside his constituency surgery to announce that his decision to back Tony Blair had been 'immoral' when he voted for the party line in the Scottish parliament last week.
Citing his concerns over the death toll for Iraqis and the threat to his personal assistant, Annette Lamont, who is in Iraq as a human shield, he said only the Labour Party can now exert sufficient pressure on Tony Blair to step back from British involvement in war, and that those against conflict should focus their attentions for the next two or three final days when that could be possible. Only two other MSPs shifting sides would have won a motion in the parliament last Thursday warning the Prime Minister that the case for war has not been made.
Chisholm admitted yesterday that he only opted to heed Jack McConnell's personal plea out of loyalty to ministerial colleagues in the final seconds of voting.
'Instantly, I felt dreadful and all through Friday,' he told the Sunday Herald. 'I was at the NHS Forum [on Friday] and was in a terrible state. I've regretted it bitterly ever since.'
The row over war is set to throw into chaos next weekend's Labour conference in Dundee which was intended to be a rally showcasing the party's election campaign. Organisers had said there would be no debate on Iraq, but instead a question and answer session, in private, with party chairman John Reid.
But Scottish Labour's chair, Richard Leonard, has told the Sunday Herald that he wants to see a debate and vote, to signal to Downing Street and voters where Scottish Labour stands. He said any attempt to stifle debate would be counter- productive, and criticised the question and answer format 'because it assumes the audience is there simply to raise questions and the answers are all on the platform, and that's not the case at all'. A survey of senior trade unionists also found a desire to discuss Iraq openly at Dundee.
The call for an 'open and honest' debate comes today from former health minister Susan Deacon, who has played a leading parliamentary role in the war protests. She argues in an article for the Sunday Herald that it is 'unrealistic and indefensible' not to express a view about war: 'It is not acceptable that debate on this issue be consigned to closed workshop sessions, the tearoom and the conference fringe. An open debate would be more honest and ultimately less damaging.'
The fall-out from the vote last Thursday's has led to a de-selection move against Labour MSP Gordon Jackson, where a group within his Glasgow Govan party plan to table a censure motion because he failed to back the rebel motion against war. There has been strong local criticism of the defence advocate also for continuing to earn lucrative court fees while an MSP.
Bob Thomson, a former Scottish Labour chairman and treasurer, said his abstention on the key rebel motion was 'the coward's way out', and the motion would be tabled as a response to 'misleading the constituency on this and other issues, though this was a really important one. It's just deception.'
A survey of constituency parties has shown several leading party figures at odds with their membership over Iraq, including Scotland Secretary Helen Liddell in Airdrie and Shotts and defence minister Lewis Moonie in Kirkcaldy. Only one out of 34 Scottish constituency parties which has taken a position is backing the Prime Minister's intention to go to war without UN backing, and more than 300 Labour MSP and council candidates are behind the anti-war campaign.
Chisholm said yesterday: 'These are the last few days when people in the Labour Party can exert some influence over MPs and over the Prime Minister. I very much regret that I didn't make a public stand on this on Thursday, although that was my intention. I was putting loyalty to my colleagues over what I knew to be right, and I bitterly regret that. MPs are going to be faced with the same dilemma this week, and I hope they vote in accordance with what they believe to be right rather than out of loyalty.' The SNP said his conversion was welcome but there was still 'a stain of complicity'.
Chisholm was the first to resign from Blair's ministerial team, when he voted against lone parents' benefit cuts in 1997. He said yesterday it was important for Whitehall ministers and MPs to exert pressure by indicating early that they intend to resign if there is war, as Clare Short, the international development secretary, has done.
He said it was for others to say if his political credibility has been damaged: 'My intention is to be totally absorbed in health over the next few weeks, but I think there is a moment now, for two or three more days, and there was a moment on Thursday which I regret not taking, when we can exert some influence before it's too late.'
Chisholm warned that the consequences of war without UN backing would be 'enormous and incredibly difficult'.
'You can't base foreign policy and international relations on invading countries where there are bad rulers. The thousands of innocent Iraqis and servicemen is what I'm focussed on. It's become more graphic for me because my personal assistant, Annette Lamont, is a human shield in Baghdad. She's someone I know, but there are thousands of Iraqis in the same position as she is.'
----
Is Tony Blair crazy, or just plain stupid?
By ERIC MARGOLIS
Contributing Foreign Editor
March 16, 2003
Toronto Sun
http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_mar16.html
Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, proposed a "compromise" last week to the deadlocked UN Security Council: President Saddam Hussein of Iraq should go on TV and admit he had weapons of mass destruction and had committed other transgressions.
Blair's offer, reeking of mock sincerity, was clearly crafted to dampen down a storm of Labour party criticism over his sycophantic support of President George Bush's impending crusade against the Saracens of Iraq. But it was an offer Iraq was certain to reject, thus ending diplomacy and opening the way to war.
Small wonder the French call Britain "perfidious Albion." Blair's demarche was high hypocrisy, even by Downing Street's usual standard. Why doesn't the insufferably sanctimonious Blair go on TV and explain why Britain still retains nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in sizable quantities? Are they to stop a cross-channel invasion by France or the Vikings?
Perhaps Blair could discuss Winston Churchill's plan to use poison gas against any German landing in World War II. More to the point, Blair should explain why Britain and the U.S. supplied Iraq with germ warfare agents and many of its chemical arms during the 1980s (confirmed in U.S. Senate hearings). Or why British government technicians, discovered by this writer in Baghdad in 1990, were producing anthrax and Q-fever germ weapons for Iraq?
Instead of harping on Iraq's brutality, Blair might discuss Britain's savaging of Ireland, brutal colonial conquest of almost half the known world, the addiction of millions of Chinese to British-grown opium, and crimes in India, Africa and Burma. And admit that some of today's worst political problems - Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, India vs. Pakistan - are due to British imperialism.
Blair may well owe a political debt to the financiers and press barons who launched his meteoric political career and badly want this war.
But plunging Britons into an unjust, unnecessary war to please these neo-imperialists is intolerable.
The only other explanation - that Blair is doing all this out of conviction - is even more frightening.
Bad enough born-again George Bush apparently believes he is commanded by God to go to war.
That his chief advisers on the Mideast seem to want to recreate biblical Israel.
That many of Bush's core fundamentalist supporters believe this war will hasten the conversion of Jews to Christianity and bring the world's end through Armageddon.
Blair is too intelligent to swallow such claptrap.
Every Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction site" claimed by British and U.S. intelligence has thus far turned out, when inspected by the UN, to be clean.
If Blair still believes these clearly debunked claims, he needs help. The CIA and MI-6 still claim they know Iraq is still hiding stores of nerve gas. So then, why not give the locations to UN inspectors?
Iraq's feeble, 150-km range al-Samoud missiles might have exceeded their permitted range by an inconsequential 10-15 km. Big deal. They are being destroyed. Worry instead about North Korea's new Taepodong-II missile, which the CIA says can deliver a nuclear warhead to the United States.
Unbelievably, Iraq-obsessed Bush dismisses menacing North Korea as only a "regional problem."
Saddam's notorious "Winnebagos of death" - germ-making trucks - turned out, on inspection, to be mobile food testing labs. Last week's U.S. and British-promoted canard, Iraq's "drones of death," were three rickety model airplanes unworthy of World War I, rather than dispensers of germs, as the Pentagon claimed. Only one had managed to fly - all of two miles.
Iraq's only true potential weapon of mass destruction, VX nerve gas, remains an open question. But Iraq lacks any offensive capability to deliver VX.
Its sole use is as a defensive battlefield weapon, CIA Director George Tenet noted.
Iraq's most important defector, Gen Hussein Kamel, who headed its biowarfare projects, stated he personally supervised destruction of all of Iraq's nerve gas in 1991, a fact not mentioned by the White House.
Other experts say any germ or gas weapons held by Iraq have by now deteriorated through age into inertness. As for Bush's charge Saddam might give such weapons to anti-American groups, why didn't he do so from 1990 to 2003, when the U.S. was daily bombing Iraq and trying to overthrow his regime? Because he's not suicidal.
Unable to locate Iraq's U.S./British-supplied weapons, unable to link Iraq to Osama bin Laden, Bush and Blair shifted gears. They now claim Iraq's suffering people must be "liberated." But why weren't they liberated when Saddam committed his worst rights violations during the 1980s, when Iraq was a U.S./British ally? And what about the startling revelation by the former CIA Iraq desk chief that the gassing death of 5,000 Kurds at Halabja; an event endlessly reiterated by Bush - may have been accidentally caused by Iran, not Iraq?
As fast as one lie is exposed, more pop up. The U.S./British propaganda machine is relentless. For Bush, the war against Iraq will conveniently be both his re-election campaign and culmination of biblical prophesy. For the far more worldly British leader, all we can say is Blair, your pants are on fire.
What next in this laughable, pre-war propaganda circus? Will Iraqis be accused of smoking indoors or hiding lethal nail clippers?
Eric can be reached by e-mail at margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com. Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
-------- iran
Iran next in US sights after Iraq: Tehran
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Pakistan Daily Times
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_16-3-2003_pg4_22
TEHRAN: The United States will follow its anticipated offensive against Iraq with a media war against Iran, the hardline secretary general of the Supreme Council for National Security, Hasan Rowhani warned in comments published Saturday.
"After Iraq, the US administration plans to wage a media war against Iran, involving killing people's beliefs and changing their behaviour, to damage and destroy our national unity and people's religious and national identity", Rowhani was quoted as saying by state-run dailies.
But the security chief vowed that US efforts to destabilize the Islamic regime by using the broadcast media and the Internet were doomed to failure.
"There will be no happy ending to the way the Americans have chosen," he said. "Even if they win a war on Iraq, Iran will invincibly stand up against them." There is little love lost between Iran and Iraq, with which it fought a bloody 1980-88 war.
But Iran is also deeply concerned about the prospect of US troops invading its western neighbour, given the large US deployments already present in the Gulf to the south and Afghanistan to the east. Last year, US President George W. Bush lumped Iran in an "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea. -AFP
-------- iraq
U.S. Names Iraqis Who Would Face War Crimes Trial
March 16, 2003
The New York Times
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/international/middleeast/16DIPL.html
WASHINGTON, March 15 - For the first time, the Bush administration has identified nine senior Iraqi officials, including Saddam Hussein and his two sons, who would be tried for war crimes or crimes against humanity after an American-led attack on Iraq, a senior American official said.
The list of names - compiled, but not published, by American intelligence agencies - includes members of Mr. Hussein's inner circle who sit atop a hierarchy of 2,000 members of the Iraqi elite.
Administration officials said they had planned to send the list of people to Baghdad with a delegation from the Arab League in hopes of persuading the men to leave the country with Mr. Hussein as way to avoid a war. But that trip, planned for Friday, was called off.
If the people on this list were to leave and there was a new leadership willing to disarm and "open up" Iraq, a senior official said, then it could avoid war.
But the chances of that appeared ever dimmer today as Mr. Bush prepared at Camp David for an emergency summit meeting on Sunday in the Azores with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and Prime Minister José María Aznar of Spain.
Around the world, including in Washington and in other American cities, protesters assembled to demonstrate against an impending war. [Page 15.] In his national radio address this morning, however, Mr. Bush said bluntly that "there is little reason to hope that Saddam Hussein will disarm" without the use of force.
Late today, France, Russia and Germany, which have led the opposition to a war in Iraq, issued a joint declaration calling for a meeting of foreign ministers at the Security Council on Tuesday to "approve a list of prioritized disarmament tasks and to decide on a implementation timetable which is both demanding and realistic." Their statement contained no specific proposal.
A new meeting, following an already scheduled report Tuesday by one of the chief United Nations weapons inspectors, Hans Blix, would revive talks that stalled last week after France and Russia rejected a British list of demands on Iraq, and the United States rejected a proposal by Chile for a disarmament timetable.
In Iraq, in a development that could complicate American war plans, the Foreign Ministry said that a top aide to Mr. Hussein had invited the chief weapons inspectors, Mr. Blix and Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, to visit Baghdad "as quickly as possible" to discuss disarmament. United Nations officials said the two men would consult with the Security Council on Monday on whether to accept the invitation.
In his radio address, Mr. Bush reminded his listeners that it was the 15th "bitter anniversary" of Mr. Hussein's chemical weapons attack on the Iraqi Kurdish village of Halabja. The attack, Mr. Bush said, "provided a glimpse of the crimes Saddam Hussein is willing to commit, and the kind of threat he now presents to the entire world."
Using some of his most graphic language yet in describing Mr. Hussein's Iraq, Mr. Bush added: "We know from human rights groups that dissidents in Iraq are tortured, imprisoned and sometimes just disappear. Their hands, feet and tongues are cut off, their eyes are gouged out, and female relatives are raped in their presence."
Mr. Bush, seeming to prepare the nation for war, said that if force was required to disarm Mr. Hussein, "the American people can know that our armed forces have been given every tool and every resource to achieve victory."
The president then turned his remarks to the Iraqis, and said that "the people of Iraq can know that every effort will be made to spare innocent life, and to help Iraq recover from three decades of totalitarian rule."
In Kuwait, as troops in the teeming desert base of Camp Virginia waited for orders to invade Iraq, the commander of the Army's V Corps said that the United States would not seek specifically to kill Mr. Hussein. In an interview Friday, the commander, Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, said that the United States military instead planned to destroy the infrastructure and government controlled by Mr. Hussein to open the way for a representative government.
Mr. Hussein's fate was secondary, General Wallace said, although he expected fighting to be concentrated in and around Baghdad. The Pentagon has long said that as a military commander, Mr. Hussein would be a legitimate target, as would anyone in an Iraqi command post.
The White House has said that if there is a war, Mr. Hussein will not be allowed to stay in power.
"The regime is the target, not one individual," General Wallace said.
"Saddam is representative of that government, and eliminating him or making him a target is not necessary for the toppling of the regime. I don't care what happens to him, as long as what is left in his aftermath is a foundation for a new Iraqi state."
Like his remarks, the list of officials released today continued a running psychological campaign against the Iraqi elite. President Bush and his senior advisers have repeatedly warned Mr. Hussein's loyalists that they have a choice between exile or prosecution.
In addition to Mr. Hussein and his two sons, Uday and Qusay, the administration's list for prosecution included Ali Hassan al-Hamid, who was the governor of Iraqi-occupied Kuwait in 1990, and Muhammad Hamza al-Zubaidi, who the administration says was responsible for atrocities against the Shiites in southern Iraq in early 1991. There are about a dozen people on the list in all, a senior official said. But he said that for now the United States would only publicly name nine.
"This is the group that we would expect to depart if there's a departure or that we'd expect to apprehend if there's a use of force," a senior administration official said. "They are wanted for the crimes of the regime."
Other Iraqi officials on the list included Aziz Salih Numan, the second governor of Iraqi-occupied Kuwait; Izzat Ibrahim, the deputy commander in chief of the Iraqi military, who is close to Mr. Hussein; Abid Hamid al-Tikriti, the presidential secretary who is considered Mr. Hussein's alter ego; and Hani Abd al-Latif Tilfah, the director of the special security organization that the administration said is in charge of hiding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
The administration said that Mr. Hussein's son Uday was responsible for ordering torture, rape and looting of dissident communities within Iraq and that his son Qusay oversees the special security organization and the elite Republican Guard.
Mr. Bush spent his day making what the White House said were diplomatic calls to prepare for the Azores meeting, which the administration has billed as a final chance to bring a deeply divided United Nations together on an ultimatum that Mr. Hussein disarm. The United States, Britain and Spain offered a draft Security Council resolution that would give Mr. Hussein a deadline of Monday to disarm or face an attack, but so far the only other nation on the 15-member Security Council to openly support it has been Bulgaria.
This morning, Mr. Bush spoke for at least the fifth time this week to his closest ally, Mr. Blair. He also spoke to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, who supports the administration on Iraq.
----
Kurdish ally of Saddam Hussein regime defects
FT.com
By Harvey Morris in Arbil, northern Iraq
March 16 2003
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1045511672600
Saddam Hussein's most important Kurdish ally has defected to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq in what officials here say is an indication that the Iraqi president's internal support is beginning to crumble.
Jowhad Herki is chief of the powerful Herki tribe and since the 1960s has supported successive Baghdad regimes in putting down revolts by fellow Kurds. He arrived in northern Iraq via London after travelling there from Baghdad for medical treatment. He is a former member of the Iraqi parliament.
"This is a major development that shows that they are abandoning the sinking ship," said Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurdish leader in the northern autonomous zone. "It will have a major influence on other tribal leaders to close ranks because they have nothing to hope for from Saddam."
The Herki are the biggest of a number of tribes that allied themselves with Baghdad - usually because of inter-tribal conflicts with rebel tribes - and are known collectively by Kurdish nationalists as Jash or "little donkeys". Jowhad Herki stayed loyal to President Saddam even in 1991, when other Jash tribal leaders defected to the Kurdish rebel leadership during the uprising that followed the Gulf war.
Kurdish officials say he has several thousand loyal fighters around the strategic city of Mosul, which lies inside government controlled territory. Technically they are still on Saddam Hussein's payroll, but their loyalty may be in doubt now that their tribal leader has switched sides.
Mr Herki is among a number of tribal leaders who have held talks with Masoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader, in recent days as former enemies attempt to mend fences in what they now assume to be the final days of the Saddam Hussein regime. Others include Omar Surchi, head of the Surchi tribe and a former Jash leader who came over to the nationalist side in 1991. He recently travelled to Arbil to end a long-running feud with the Barzanis.
The Kurds may need all the unity they can muster if they are to confront the threat of a Turkish intervention which the leadership has vowed to resist by force.
Opposition leaders, including Kurdish representatives, are today due to begin talks in Ankara with Turkish and US representatives to try to defuse a crisis that would threaten the northern front in the event of a US-led war in Iraq.
The Kurds will oppose any Turkish intervention into areas they control, even if the Turks were to come as part of a coalition force. Turkey has said it would send in troops to prevent an influx of refugees into its territory, to safeguard Iraq's Turkoman minority and to prevent the Kurds seizing the oil city of Kirkuk.
The Kurds argue that there will be no flight of refugees into Turkey, as there was in 1991, that there is no threat to the Turkomans from the Kurdish regional authorities, and that Turkey has no right to try to determine post-war Iraqi affairs.
The Kurds are relying on the US to resolve the crisis, arguing that the last thing Washington wants while it wages a war against Baghdad is to have a Turkish-Kurdish conflict raging along the northern front.
----
Iraq Ready for Guerrilla War, Diplomats Says
March 16, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-strategy.html
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - If attacked, Iraq would try to slow advancing U.S.-led forces and inflict heavy hit-and-run casualties in the hope that a long, costly war would force Washington to negotiate, Baghdad-based diplomats said on Sunday.
They said President Saddam Hussein would shun battle in the open for guerrilla tactics, placing mechanized divisions around major cities and having his Baath Party and other militiamen lead street-to-street fighting in urban areas.
The main aim would be to hold up any advance on Baghdad, which itself could be defended by last-ditch street fighting.
``They want a long war, with lots of body bags going back to Washington and London,'' one diplomat said.
``They feel the already strong anti-war sentiment in the West could grow rapidly if the war drags on andmounting casualties on two sides -- Iraqi civilians and foreign troops.''
The strategy is in stark contrast to what U.S. and British commanders hope for -- a swift war with a minimal body count.
Instead of standing up to confront an enemy that rules the skies and vastly outguns its land forces, Iraq will try to launch hit-and-run attacks with tanks, missiles and artillery on U.S. and British convoys or military positions inside Iraq.
``They are working hard on camouflaging forces and training extensively on mobility,'' the diplomat said.
``They think this flexibility, with constantly shifting frontlines, would confuse the Americans and slow them down.''
Diplomats noted, however, that the war plan would depend on popular support -- and they queried whether Iraqis would have the stomach for long sieges, heavy street fighting and loss of life in the face of a massive, morale-sapping U.S. assault.
SURPRISE TACTICS
But Iraqi officials, who deny Washington's claims they have chemical, biological or nuclear weapons of mass destruction, are confident their strategy can work, and they promise some twists.
``Don't forget we're experienced and there will be a few surprises on the battlefield,'' one official said privately.
Saddam himself has painted a similar plan in televised conversations with senior military officers in recent weeks.
Late on Saturday, he placed Iraq on a war footing, dividing the country into four military districts under his personal command and ordering them to ``destroy'' any invading force.
He named close aides to command the districts, including his younger son Qusay, put in charge of the government's power base in Baghdad and Saddam's home town of Tikrit.
The United States and Britain have massed a force of more than 250,000 troops around the Gulf ready to attack Iraq.
Iraq has some 350,000 largely ill-equipped regular troops. There are also 80,000 Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard troops, while Saddam's personal bodyguard is some 15,000 Special Security Force Organization troops.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Vows Retaliation if Iraq Attacks
Mar 16, 2003 http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/ISRAEL_IRAQ?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel will retaliate if Saddam Hussein attacks the Jewish state in response to a U.S.-led strike on Iraq, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said.
In 1991, Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israeli cities, causing heavy damage but few casualties. During the first Gulf War the United States prevented Israel from retaliating, fearing such a response would pull apart an Arab-backed coalition it set up to fight Baghdad.
This time, however, President Bush is not relying on Arab support to achieve his stated goal of disarming and ousting Saddam, and Israel has made clear it will not sit idle if it is again attacked.
"In the event that Israel will be attacked, it will retaliate. There are also plans ready for such an incident," Mofaz told reporters Saturday in his strongest comments yet.
Other Israeli officials have said Israel will retaliate in the event of a biological or chemical weapons attack - an event that officials say is highly unlikely but one that they are preparing for by supplying citizens with gas masks and urging them to have at least one sealed room in their house.
----
From Israel, Lessons In Civil Defense
Newly Revamped System Involves Alerts, Gear and Safe Areas
By Eetta Prince-Gibson
Washington Post
Sunday, March 16, 2003; Page A31
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23231-2003Mar13?language=printer
JERUSALEM -- Having already experienced an Iraqi missile attack during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Israeli government says it is now much better organized for civil defense than it was 12 years ago.
Officials say the goal is to provide the gear and the information necessary so Israeli citizens can be relatively certain of what to do and how to protect themselves in the event of an attack.
Fear and lack of preparation were major problems in Israel the last time the United States went to war with Iraq. Of the 74 Israelis who died in cases listed as attack-related, all but six died of heart problems blamed on war-related stress, according to the National Insurance Institute.
Israel revamped its entire civil defense system in the aftermath of the Gulf War, creating reinforced safe areas to provide protection against direct conventional attack as well as other types of threats. The new Home Front Command, a component of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), has extensive authority over almost all of Israel's civil, police and medical services in the event of national emergency.
"The Israeli public is one of the most highly protected populations," said Brig. Gen. Ruth Yaron, spokeswoman for the IDF.
Despite nationwide preparations and an early warning system, however, recent polling indicates Israelis are still skeptical about whether preparations are sufficient and adequate to offer real protection.
In the Gulf War, only two deaths were considered directly related to damage from Iraqi Scud missiles or shrapnel resulting from attempts to shoot them down with U.S. Patriot missiles. The National Insurance Institute said four people suffocated from improper use of gas masks.
Central to the Israeli civil defense plan is the idea that security is created by a progressive series of systems that alert the public, provide information and tools and create specific measures for safety under attack. The Home Front Command's doctrine of civil defense "can be thought of as concentric circles of increasing protection, with the individual citizen at their center," said Col. Gili Shenhar, special assistant to the Home Front commander.
The outer circles include an early warning system based on a national system of sirens and a link to all Israeli radio and television stations. The inner circles are based on "protected space" and "personal protection kits."
The concept of protected space involves a location that is easy to reach and capable of providing those who stay in it with protection against both conventional and nonconventional weapons for several hours. By law, every new apartment building, or addition to existing structures built since 1992, must be equipped with an "apartment protected space" or "floor protected space." These are built with extra-thick concrete walls and only one window and door, both of which must be resistant to explosions and gases.
Israelis who live in older buildings have been instructed to designate an inner room with one window as a protected space. When notified by the Home Front Command, they are to prepare the room by covering the door and window of the room with plastic sheeting and equip it with canned goods, battery-operated radios, extra batteries and heavy-duty tape. (The government has capped the cost of batteries to prevent price-gouging.) In addition, every household is instructed to have at least three gallons of bottled water per person, in case the nation's water supply becomes contaminated.
By law, all public areas, such as shopping malls, large office buildings, schools and community centers, must have adequate bomb shelters. Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station, in an area where many migrant workers live, would serve as a communal bomb shelter capable of housing hundreds of people.
All Israeli citizens, as well as tourists and foreign workers, are entitled to a free personal protection kit, which includes a gas mask and injectable atropine to combat the effects of nerve gas. Accompanying instructions are in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English. Translations into Amharic, Spanish and Braille are being prepared.
There are also special masks for infants and children, the elderly and individuals with respiratory difficulties. A tent-like device is available for disabled individuals unable or unwilling to wear a mask. People who use assisted breathing devices will be provided with a device to hook their gas mask filters to home and portable ventilators.
The government estimates that more than 90 percent of Israelis now have gas masks. Foreign tourists will receive gas masks at their hotels, and students will get them through their universities. Palestinians living in the parts of the territories under Israeli Civil Administration and Palestinians who hold Israeli identity cards also are entitled to free kits.
The Education Ministry, in coordination with the Home Front Command, has conducted emergency drills and trained children how to put on their masks. In most high schools, teams of students and teachers have been specially trained.
Israelis have been instructed not to open their protection kits before they are told to do so. During the Gulf War, several dozen people were injured when they accidentally injected themselves with atropine, a chemical antidote for nerve agents.
Soldiers and emergency personnel have already received smallpox vaccinations. The military is also prepared to distribute potassium iodide tablets, which can counteract effects of radiation exposure. The Health Ministry said it has prepared family drug kits, including antibiotics, but these have not been distributed.
In the event of a missile attack, sirens will sound throughout the country. Television and radio stations will broadcast a Hebrew code, Homat Barzel, or "Iron Wall." Israelis will be directed to turn off air conditioners and electric appliances, close water taps and gas canisters, move to their designated protected space and seal the opening.
Text-beepers have been distributed to the hearing-impaired so that they can receive all civil defense warnings. The IDF has set up a multilingual Web site concerning preparations, which registers about 4,000 hits a day, according to Shenhar of the Home Front Command. Volunteer hot lines are open on an increased schedule. The Israel Medical Association is running emergency hot lines for doctors and the public, providing information on availability of vital health services and updates on treatment of biological and chemical attacks.
Despite the preparations, there is still concern here about infrastructure and compliance with regulations. There has been criticism that schools do not have sufficient shelter for their students and that many security procedures in private homes remain substandard.
Furthermore, critics say that many existing shelters are not serviceable. In routine times, they are used as synagogues, clubhouses and storage spaces, and some are filled with equipment and furniture. Others are neglected and unsanitary. Municipal authorities are responsible for maintaining public shelters, but consumer groups report that they have not done so.
According to a recently published research study, only 14 percent of the population trusts the usefulness of gas masks and the concept of protected space. The Jerusalem Post has reported that an estimated 25 percent of Israelis with children intend to take their families to the countryside, away from urban centers. There are other estimates that 250,000 people may try to leave the country if it comes under attack. Officials say they cannot guarantee that Israeli commercial airports will be functioning.
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U.S. Orders Diplomats Out of Kuwait, Syria, Israel
Sun March 16, 2003
(Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2388278
WASHINGTON - The State Department said on Sunday it had ordered non-essential diplomats and all embassy dependents out of Kuwait, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Damascus because of the threat of a possible war with Iraq.
"The decision to move to ordered departure status is a result of an overall assessment of the security situation in the region due to the threat of military action in Iraq," the State Department said in statements announcing the decisions.
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A Look at Different Initiatives on Iraq
March 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Iraq-Proposals.html
Here's a look at the different diplomatic initiatives on Iraq and voting procedures in the Security Council.
--U.S.-British-Spanish proposal:
The draft resolution authorizes war any time after Monday, unless Iraq proves its nuclear, chemical, biological and long-range missile programs have been eliminated. U.S. officials say the deadline could be extended for a few days. The U.S.-backed plan is the only one that has been formally submitted to the council for a possible vote. For the resolution to pass, it requires nine of the 15 council members to vote in favor and no ``veto'' by France, Russia or China.
--British compromise proposal:
In an effort to win support from uncommitted council members, Britain proposed creating six tests which Iraq would need to complete in order to prevent war. The tests include a televised speech by Saddam Hussein renouncing weapons of mass destruction and proof that Iraq no longer has anthrax stores.
--French-German-Russia proposal:
The trio issued a joint, weekend declaration saying there was no justification for a war on Iraq and called for a meeting of foreign ministers at the U.N. Security Council to discuss a ``realistic'' timetable for Saddam Hussein to disarm. France has said it could accept a 30-day timetable for Iraq to complete a series of disarmament tasks set by weapons inspectors. The timetable would not include an ultimatum.
--Hans Blix's program of work:
The chief U.N. inspector is preparing a list of key remaining disarmament tasks and a plan for several more months of inspections in Iraq, as required under a 1999 U.N. resolution. The plan also includes a transition into long-term monitoring of Iraq's weapons programs.
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U.S. Plan Sees G.I.'s Invading Iraq as More Arrive
March 16, 2003
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON with ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/international/middleeast/16MILI.html
CAMP DOHA, Kuwait, March 15 - The American-led coalition that is preparing to topple Saddam Hussein's government is planning for a complex invasion of Iraq to begin even as allied troops are still arriving in the region, senior commanders say.
With three dozen ships carrying heavy tanks and equipment for the Army's Fourth Infantry Division waiting off the coast of Turkey because of a political standoff, the military is scrambling to put together a backup plan for the northern front of a war with Iraq.
In Kuwait, only a portion of the 101st Airborne Division's forces - equipped with Apache gunships and Black Hawk troop carriers - is ready to be sent into combat. If the invasion begins next week, the 101st would take part, but the division's major combat punch would come soon after.
Three powerful armored units - the First Cavalry Division, the First Armored Division and the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment - are still in the United States or Europe and will not be in the Persian Gulf region until mid to late April, intended as a postwar stabilization force.
"We recognized from the very beginning that we're going to be fighting and building up combat power at about the same time," said Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, the V Corps commander who would lead the Army's attack.
But there are military experts - including experienced commanders - who are worried by this plan, which has come to be called a "rolling start" to the impending war.
Assuming that no peaceful resolution is found to the confrontation with Iraq, the concept of the rolling start gives the coalition's commanders the option of starting at any time. Meanwhile, as diplomacy delays military action, the coalition can continue to assemble an ever more threatening force.
Nevertheless, its adoption marks a sharp departure from the doctrine articulated by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
During the Persian Gulf war of 1991, under his leadership, the military took six months to assemble an overwhelming force, which only stormed into Kuwait after a massive troop and logistical buildup was completed and allied warplanes carried out a 39-day bombardment of Iraq and its army of occupation.
The staggered arrival stems partly from the limited capacity of Kuwait's ports, but it also appears to reflect Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's view that large, heavy ground forces are not always needed. This time, the United States military is trying to get more firepower from fewer troops, supported with a heavy air campaign. The Iraqi Army is also much smaller and less capable than it was 12 years ago.
If the American-led operation turns out to be as short and decisive as the Pentagon hopes, it will be less the result of brawn and more a matter of improved weaponry, closer cooperation among the American military services, a more effective combination of intelligence, surveillance and air power, and propaganda efforts to persuade many Iraqi soldiers not to fight. All those things bolster the commanders' confidence in the rolling start, they say.
"When I look at the enemy, when I look at the terrain over which he's arrayed, I think we have adequate forces to do the job," General Wallace said. "There seems to me to be perhaps a more coherent joint fight this time with the air, naval and certainly a very pronounced Marine presence."
Some former American commanders from the 1991 conflict, however, say the United States would be in a better position and could keep risks to its troops to a minimum if it had more forces on hand.
"The key to success is rapid victory on the ground, and bringing stability as quickly as you can," a former senior officer who commanded land forces during the gulf war said. "Based on what I know about the forces in the region, or flowing in, I am concerned they don't have enough to give high assurance they can do this quickly. It's strange for most of us. If we did it so well last time, using the Powell doctrine, why would you do anything less than that now? Why take that risk?"
More than 225,000 American troops are in the gulf region, with more than 130,000 Americans in Kuwait alone. About 25,000 British ground troops are also here. About 1,000 Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps strike and support planes are poised to attack from five aircraft carriers and land bases in the region. The Pentagon's war plan calls for unleashing 3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles in the first 48 hours of a short air campaign, to be followed quickly by ground operations.
For military professionals, however, readiness is not a black-and-white issue. The question is not whether American and British forces could attack on short notice and defeat the Iraqi military if ordered to do so. Rather, the issue is how swift such a campaign would be, what risks it would entail and whether it would be more effective with more forces.
The commanders know their mission is daunting. American forces plan to advance all the way to Baghdad to overthrow Mr. Hussein and install a new government, a more challenging job than ejecting Iraqi invaders from Kuwait 12 years ago. They plan to hunt down suspected caches of chemical and biological weapons. They need to be able to handle tens of thousands of Iraqi prisoners. They need to guard long supply routes from Kuwait. They need to provide food and relief assistance to millions of Iraqis, who will become the responsibility of United States and British forces during the advance. Even with more effective weapons and more synchronized operations, the military's many tasks put demands on the troops.
"You need enough forces to fight the war itself, and sustain it," said Gen. Richard I. Neal, a retired Marine officer who served as Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf's deputy operations director in the gulf war. "But then you have to deal with displaced persons and enemy prisoners of war."
Demands like that, he said, are "force eaters" that reduce an army's combat power.
Gen. Ronald H. Griffith, who commanded the First Armored Division in the gulf war, voiced similar concerns. "War planners need to take into account the impact of large numbers of surrendering Iraqi soldiers," he said. "We faced this problem in 1991 and it impacted our rate of movement. Disarming the Iraqi soldiers, providing them with essentials such as food and water, and establishing minimal custody will require a level of force commitment."
The Marines More Marching Than Usual
The command center for the largest ground force in the attack is at Camp Commando. This is not an Army headquarters. It is the headquarters for Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, who commands the First Marine Expeditionary Force.
With about 50,000 marines in Kuwait, and some 15,000 more in the region, General Conway commands a formidable force. Aside from his marines in Kuwait, he commands about 25,000 British troops here. During the gulf war, the British Army fought under the command of the United States Army, but this time they are under Marine Corps command.
Taken together, marines and the British forces outnumber American army troops in the theater.
Allied commanders talk about their missions in only general terms. But it is clear that the Marine Corps is planning to advance to Baghdad, a thrust of more than 300 miles. In December 2001, thousands of marines were flown to Afghanistan by helicopter, 400 miles from their ships off the coast of Pakistan. The advance on Baghdad would be the longest Marine land attack since 1805, when Lt. Presley O'Bannon marched 600 miles across the desert in seven weeks from Alexandria, Egypt, to Derna, Tripoli, during the war with the Barbary pirates.
But going to Baghdad would be an ambitious operation for a service that has traditionally focused on storming the beaches.
"It is a long way from the sea, no question about that," General Conway said.
General Conway's force includes marines from Camp Pendleton, Calif., as well as Task Force Tarawa, a special force of 6,200-strong that was assembled from troops at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The Marines also have the Third Air Wing, one of the largest in history. It includes more than 50 FA-18's, more than 50 AV-8B Harrier jets and more than 50 Cobra attack helicopters. The wing is capable of conducting more than 300 attack missions a day.
Much of the Marine equipment arrived on 11 huge military cargo ships that steamed to Kuwait from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and the Mediterranean and were unloaded in just 16 days.
But the Marines do not have the logistics for deep thrusts into enemy territory. Nor do they have the Army's armored punch. The Marine force has about 120 M1-A1 tanks, about 130 fewer than the Army's Third Infantry Division.
So the Marines are working with other forces. To shore up logistics for a push toward Baghdad, the Marines have turned to the Army, which is supplying transportation units with 5,000-gallon fuel trucks.
The Marines are also able to supplement their firepower by drawing on Army units equipped with the multiple-launch rocket system, a devastating system that disperse thousands of bomblets to destroy vehicles and kill enemy troops. The British will also buttress the Marine attack.
The British force under the Marine command includes the First Armored Division, a hybrid unit that includes Britain's Seventh Armored Brigade, the 16th Air Assault Brigade and Third Commando unit, or Royal Marines. The British had planned to invade from Turkey, but changed their plans and sent their units to Kuwait after sensing that the Turks were hesitant to allow a northern front. The 116 Challenger-2 tanks the British are still bringing in will roughly double the Marines' armor.
Some of the British armor is still getting ready, Maj. Gen. Robin Brims, the head of the British land force, said all of the armor should be ready sometime next week. Still, top Marine commanders say the allied force has enough force on hand for its mission and is ready to go.
"Our force is cocked and ready," said Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the commandant of the Marine Corps.
The Army Adding the Pieces To a Chess Game
At Camp Virginia in Kuwait, an aide to General Wallace compared the rolling start to beginning a chess game without all the pieces on the table, then adding a knight or two after a few moves. In this case, the knights are forces from the 101st Airborne Division, which are just arriving and getting ready for combat.
Some of General Wallace's forces are poised to strike. The Third Infantry Division has been training in Kuwait for months and is ready to attack. The division is the heir to the 24th Mechanized Division, which swept into the Euphrates River Valley during the 1991 war. It has about 250 tanks and a formidable array of other weapons.
To propel the division to Baghdad and beyond, the Army has run fuel pipelines from Kuwaiti refineries to a helicopter airfield in the desert. The pipelines also link to a fuel depot near the crossing point into Iraq.
As the division drives forward, so will the fuel. The Army has more than 220 5,000-gallon fuel trucks and expects to have more than 300 in another week. To keep track of the location of fuel convoys as they drive forward, some fuel trucks will be outfitted with satellite tracking devices.
"That will give us the reach to push the Third Infantry Division as far as they can go," said Brig. Gen. Charles W. Fletcher, Jr., who is commanding logistics for the V Corps. "We can move a division to Baghdad with what we've got now."
The Army forces plan to bring water purification equipment with them so that they can use water from the Euphrates and other rivers, lakes and canals in Iraq.
General Wallace also has the 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment, which has a fleet of AH-64 Apache attack helicopters.
But his most powerful helicopter division is still arriving: the 101st Airborne, which also played a key role in the 1991 gulf war, is still getting ready. Two of the five ships carrying the 101st's equipment have unloaded their cargo, including all 72 of the division's Apaches, despite delays caused by high winds in Kuwait last week. These and other helicopters have been reassembled and flown to northern Kuwait. Although most of the Apaches are ready, trucks and other equipment needed to field complete combat brigade teams are still arriving.
Some of the division is prepared to attack as early as next week. Together with the 11 aviation regiments that gives the V Corps at least 130 AH-64 helicopters ready to fly, along with Black Hawks to carry infantry. But most of the division's helicopters, artillery and infantry are not expected to be ready until the following week. If an attack occurs next week some units from the 101st would participate while the remaining units would rush to join in before the battle of Baghdad begins.
The difficulties in deploying Army forces in Kuwait might have been eased if the United States had had access to ports in northern Saudi Arabia. American supply ships could have unloaded equipment there and had it driven north. As it turned out, however, all of the military equipment had to flow through Kuwait's port and airfield.
"We got only a single seaport of embarkation and a single airport of embarkation," General Wallace said. "We have had to make adjustments in the way we fight the fight."
Asked what forces V Corps had in reserve, General Wallace said his reserve was the forces that were still on their way.
A brigade of the 82nd Airborne is stationed at Camp Champion in Kuwait. It is not commanded by V Corps, however. It is controlled by Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, the land war commander and is presumed to have a special mission suitable for its speed, mobility and other light infantry skills.
In the north, the Fourth Infantry Division's equipment is on ships being held up in the eastern Mediterranean - at a cost to the Pentagon of $1.5 million a day - as the Bush administration tries to win Turkish consent to mount an attack. The division's role was to attack from the north, pinning down the Iraqi forces there and establishing an American presence that would dissuade the Turks and Kurds from fighting. If the Turks agree to its deployment, it will probably not arrive in time for an invasion, but could play a role in keeping peace in the north.
The Pentagon has also alerted the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Italy, which is similar to the 82nd Airborne, for possible deployment, probably to northern Iraq. Senior officers say the new troops arriving every day give them more flexibility.
"As forces flow," Lt. Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the allied air commander, said in a telephone interview from his headquarters in Saudi Arabia, "options present themselves that weren't there a week ago."
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Bases Guarding Against Attacks
Bases in Persian Gulf Monitor Staff Closely as Tension Rises
By Peter Baker and Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 16, 2003; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30845-2003Mar15?language=printer
CAMP COMMANDO, Kuwait, March 15 -- A half-dozen Arab and South Asian garbagemen make their way past rows of tents and portable toilets in the early morning hours, picking up paper debris scattered across the sand. Shadowing them as they fill their plastic bags is a pickup truck with two heavily armed Marines watching their every move.
Once the garbagemen fill a truck with their bags and drive it to Camp Commando's main gate, they empty the contents into another truck that hauls the trash away. The original truck is never allowed off the premises, lest someone on the outside plant explosives and send it back inside as a bomb.
Fears of "jihadist garbagemen" waiting to make their move have alarmed already edgy security forces. At this headquarters for U.S. Marines in Kuwait, and at other permanent and makeshift American military installations across the Persian Gulf region, tensions and suspicions have risen on the eve of a possible war, because of reports that Islamic extremists plan attacks against U.S. forces and concerns that Iraq may commission attacks in the event of an invasion.
With about 250,000 U.S. and British troops now in the region poised to attack Iraq, the potential targets are numerous and widespread.
"The threat is continuous," said Marine Capt. Brian Burgess, a company commander who oversees perimeter security at Camp Commando, 25 miles south of the Iraqi border. "You never know when someone is going to try to feel out a weakness."
Attackers have opened fire on U.S. soldiers or military contractors in Kuwait three times since October, killing two Americans and injuring four others. In recent days, Kuwaiti authorities, hoping to preempt any attack on U.S. forces, have conducted a roundup of men described as Islamic radicals, according to Kuwaiti sources. The nearby kingdom of Bahrain also broke up what it said was a terrorist cell, evidently targeting the Navy's 5th Fleet based there.
Escalating the concern has been information emerging from interrogations of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the senior al Qaeda operative alleged to have planned the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and captured March 1 in Pakistan. According to reports of his questioning, Mohammed has said militants are ready to carry out attacks against U.S. military forces in Kuwait and the region if Iraq is attacked.
Top Iraqi officials also have vowed attacks by suicide squads in the event of war. And in Kuwait and around the Arab world, several recent statements by Islamic fundamentalist groups have called on Muslims to wage jihad against the United States if it invades Iraq.
"It is a national and religious duty to resist the U.S. occupiers with all means available," Hamza Mansour, the leader of a powerful Islamic group in Jordan, said in a statement this week. Asked by reporters if that meant violence, he responded, "No one is calling for resistance with roses and flowers."
"The Americans have to have protection. They can't have their bases disrupted by terrorism or subversion," said Sami Faraj, a military analyst who has been advising the Kuwaiti government on crisis management.
Out in the desert camps, U.S. military commanders plan to increase security in coming days. Already troops are kept inside sand fortresses, surrounded by tall berms and concrete barriers and guarded by snipers.
At camps such as Commando, where foreign workers construct buildings, cook food and perform other needed services, the military insists on a screening for employment and then searches everyone who passes through the gates. Inside the camp, they are supervised, and those who behave strangely are confronted and sometimes thrown out.
Marine Lt. Col. Paul Lebidine, deputy post commander, said "third-country nationals" soon will be banned.
"It is an issue, there's no doubt," Lebidine said. "We have taken one or two out of here if they've done anything odd, like going through the garbage."
Like soldiers at other bases, the Marines keep careful watch on foreign workers hired to cook their food. In January, the Kuwaiti government arrested a man accused of plotting to poison the U.S. military's food supply, alleging he was an Iraqi spy. U.S. military inspectors soon went around camps checking the food-preparation process. At Commando, Marines stand behind the cooks as they work, and food inspections are conducted every day.
Such concerns are not confined to the Marines. At Champion Main, a base housing the 82nd Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade in Kuwait, military police said a primary focus is protecting the base against explosives and other threats that could be smuggled onto the grounds.
At the 35th Kuwaiti Brigade, a largely abandoned Kuwaiti military base west of Kuwait City now housing the Army's 12th Aviation Brigade, some U.S. soldiers have complained about insufficient security. But Maj. Nicholas Anthony, who heads the brigade's F Company, said that security there is better than at many bases.
"The fact we're fenced in is a comforting thought," he said.
Staff writers Monte Reel at Champion Main and Mary Beth Sheridan at the 35th Kuwaiti Brigade contributed to this report.
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Audacious Mission, Awesome Risks
Bold War Plan Emphasizes Lightning Attacks and Complex Logistics
By Rick Atkinson and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 16, 2003; Page A01
CAMP NEW JERSEY, Kuwait, March 15 -- With a force only one-third the size of the one that liberated Kuwait 12 years ago, U.S. commanders poised to attack Iraq have been given a far more ambitious mission: March hundreds of miles to Baghdad, neutralize the Iraqi military, overthrow President Saddam Hussein and then prevent a country the size of California from disintegrating into chaos.
The war plan they have devised to do all this is by most accounts innovative, even daring. "We literally could be in Baghdad in three or four days," said one general here in the field. "How audacious do you want to be?"
But those qualities also make this mission riskier than other recent U.S. military operations. Retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, a former chief of the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East, noted that danger is "what comes with being bold and audacious."
The aspects of the operation that most worry planners here, and Pentagon insiders and experts in the United States, are the emphasis on lightning, simultaneous operations that could result in "friendly fire" incidents; the dependence on a 350-mile supply line; and the heavy reliance on Special Operations troops behind enemy lines. Overhanging the entire operation is the prospect that Iraq could use chemical or biological weapons. The other major fear is that U.S. forces could be bogged down in an urban battle that could turn Baghdad into a modern Stalingrad -- a possibility that has resulted in some troops here being issued battle axes and battering rams.
Commanders and planners here stay up to the small hours of the morning, every morning, refining ways to achieve their goals with as few casualties as possible. The challenges are enormous, the opportunities rife for misfortune, even disaster. "There are a thousand 'what-ifs' going through your mind," said the general in the field.
Simultaneous Attacks
A defining element of the plan is its requirement of speed, with multiple combat actions occurring nearly simultaneously in three arenas -- air attacks, ground combat and Special Operations activities behind enemy lines.
Strategists continue to calibrate the relationship between "A-day," when an air attack begins to reduce Iraqi air defenses and other key targets, and "G-day," the launching of a ground attack. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, ground action came after five weeks of bombing. This time the two attacks are likely to be only a few days apart and could be nearly simultaneous, depending on how Iraq reacts to the initial pummeling by cruise missiles and other air-delivered munitions.
"The campaign will move very fast," said one senior Air Force officer. The speed of the attacks is intended to sap the Iraqi military's ability to coordinate its response.
But that pace can also cause deadly confusion on the battlefield. "Simultaneity is . . . a fertile breeding ground for risk," noted John F. Guilmartin Jr., a retired Air Force pilot who teaches military history at Ohio State University.
Whenever G-day comes, the ground forces coiled in Kuwait -- including the 3rd Infantry Division, the 101st Airborne Division and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force -- anticipate attacking with Patton-like audacity. Roughly 350 miles of road separate the northern border of Kuwait from Baghdad, and substantial mechanized forces are expected to be on the outskirts of the Iraqi capital within a few days, even as attack helicopters are conducting deep strikes far beyond the U.S. vanguard.
All those moving parts will place unusual stresses on U.S. forces, especially on commanders trying to ensure that there are multiple actions occurring across Iraq. One defense analyst involved in reviewing the war plan worries that U.S. "command and control" systems -- both the communications systems and the people who operate them -- could be overwhelmed.
Friendly Fire
Breakdowns in tracking the locations of units could lead to friendly fire accidents, with the nightmare being a recurrence of the sort of mistakes that accounted for 35 deaths in the Gulf War, one-quarter of the U.S. combat total.
Adding to worries about friendly fire is a sense that expectations of a short war will fuel a broad clamor for action, said retired Marine Lt. Col. Jay A. Stout, a career fighter pilot. "There are going to be some eager, eager beavers," he said. "Everyone has lots of neat, new toys to support that grunt on the ground -- and they all want to use them."
Measures have been taken to forestall tragedies, but some commanders privately wonder whether they are enough. Special thermal panels and infrared signal lights on vehicles, as well as reflective "glint tape" on individual soldiers, will help distinguish friend from foe. But the lights are powered by batteries that must be changed nightly, and the mass of lights may "confuse the hell out of everybody," according to one aviator.
"It gets down to the leaders forward deciding if they're friendly forces or enemy forces ahead," said Brig. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, assistant division commander of the 101st. "One of the things I always ask is, 'Are you being engaged?' If you're not being shot at, then you've got time."
Such practices are being refined, including the insistence on "PID" -- positive identification of potential targets -- and the imposition of "no-fire" zones where scouts and other forward troops operate. Commanders incessantly stress "situational awareness" -- knowing where you are and who is around you -- which is made somewhat easier by the proliferation in the ranks of global positioning devices. A new system called "Blue Force Tracker" uses satellite-based transmitters on select vehicles or aircraft to let senior commanders see on a computer screen whether their units are where they should be.
One risk of a bold war plan is that it will be executed too cautiously. A potential flaw in the current plan, said defense analyst Harlan Ullman, is that "we may not be sufficiently audacious."
In particular, some military experts question whether Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the top U.S. commander for the war, is inclined to implement an approach that, by some accounts, was foisted on him by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other advocates of greater risk-taking by the military.
"Tommy Franks is a cautious guy," said Tom Donnelly, a defense analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. A spike in U.S. casualties early on could make Franks and other commanders back away from the boldness of the plan and radically curtail the pace of operations, another expert said.
Slowing the invasion could compromise the plan's intent of sending U.S. ground forces against Baghdad while the Iraqi leadership is still stunned by the ferocity of the initial air volley. To capitalize decisively on the shock of that bombing, said Michael Vickers, a former Special Forces officer who is now a Pentagon consultant, U.S. ground forces need to reach Baghdad within four days of the outset of the air campaign.
Traffic Management
That requirement to keep U.S. ground forces rolling toward Baghdad will make logistics key. The prospect of supplies and troops stalled somewhere between Kuwait and Baghdad is a major worry among commanders. "I cannot overstate the distance issue," said a general.
Traffic management of the "ground assault convoys" will be critical to keeping the path clear. Care has been lavished on calculating which units will roll when, and on which routes -- particularly after early exercises showed the potential for a snarled convergence of tanks and trucks deep in Iraq. The 3rd Division alone has roughly 5,000 vehicles. "We describe it as going to Logan Airport [in Boston] when eight lanes suddenly become two," a senior officer said.
As in the Gulf War, getting fuel forward is probably the hardest task -- "the long pole in the tent," one planner called it. M-1A2 tanks are notorious fuel hogs, getting just over half a mile to the gallon. Two Apache helicopter battalions can guzzle 60,000 gallons of JP-8 fuel in a single night of intense flying -- and as many as seven Apache battalions may be flying.
A fuel pipeline extends to northern Kuwait, but the heavy lifting will be done by scores of 5,000-gallon tankers, supplemented by 2,500-gallon tankers fitted with the special filters needed to fuel helicopters. Lt. Col. Richard W. Thomas, chief medical officer of the 101st, observed, "Rommel said, 'The battle is decided by the quartermasters before the first shot is fired.' That's true."
Commanders know that fuel trucks and bladders make fat targets. A major risk is that Iraqi units might try to lie low as the ground attack thrusts northward and then try to attack the vulnerable supply columns that follow. "The Viet Minh would let the French mobile columns far into 'Indian Country,' then close the door behind them," noted one Marine.
An even darker scenario would involve a key chokepoint, such as a major river crossing, being "smeared" by a persistent chemical weapon. Even the fear of such at attack can foul operations. "All it takes is one guy driving off the road and yelling, 'Gas!' to stop the whole damned corps," said one infantry commander here.
Some experts worry that hang-ups in logistics could undercut the speedy nature of the U.S. war plan. "We will have to do things we haven't done before, haven't trained for, and don't have the right planning and support systems for," said one person familiar with the plan.
Special Operations
Another unusual and risky aspect of the plan is the leading role of Special Operations troops, similar to that seen in the Afghan war in the fall of 2001, but on a much larger scale. The nature of Special Operations work -- going behind enemy lines, operating in small units with only small arms -- means that it tends to be more hazardous than regular operations.
Special Operators have already been conducting missions inside Iraq, where they have established ties with Iraqi opposition groups and gathered intelligence on the Iraqi military. During a war they also are expected to help detect and target enemy formations, and prevent the use of chemical and biological weapons by watching over suspected sites. They also will be assigned to capture or kill specific Iraqi political and military leaders, say people familiar with the planning.
In the course of all that, "We'll lose a few [Special Operations troops]," said one expert. But that, he said, is the "price of doing business."
But another expert familiar with the war plan added that the intense use of Special Operations will reduce the dangers to U.S. forces. Their operations "can greatly reduce the risks of the operation overall," he said.
A major mission of Special Operations will be leading the hunt for chemical and biological weapons. A major unknown is how Hussein will act if U.S. forces are closing in on him. In order to capture those weapons as quickly as possible, some U.S. troops may move into cities earlier than commanders might prefer, said one defense expert who has been briefed on the plan.
The Endgame
The biggest conundrum, most military planners in Kuwait agree, is the endgame, and whether it will involve a protracted fight through the streets of Baghdad. "The closer you get to Baghdad and the Special Republican Guard, the tougher the question of will," one officer said, referring to Hussein's most loyal troops, a few thousand elite soldiers believed to be in the capital. "That's the million-dollar question: whether they'll have the will."
Another senior officer added, "We have no intention of going door-to-door and house-to-house in a city of 5 million. It's unbelievably complex, with underground tunnels and bunkers everywhere. . . . If things go bad in a MOUT [military operations in urban terrain] environment, they go bad quickly."
Troops here have planned extensively for urban fighting even as they hope to avoid it. Some of the $30 million in supplementary special equipment purchased since December by the 101st, for example, has urban implications, if not the hint of a medieval siege: 162 battering rams, 486 grappling hooks, 81 folding assault ladders and 81 battle axes.
Other purchases, according to Lt. Col. Tony Skinner, the division's rear commander, include 27 .50-caliber sniper rifles, 410 Kevlar helmets with built-in radio headsets, and nearly 16,000 reusable plastic flex cuffs; plus, fiber optic viewers for looking around corners, 9,500 backpack "hydration systems," 42,000 new weapons magazines, and 20,000 new combat belts.
Some in the military calculate that Hussein and his government are likely to fall long before U.S. tanks roll into the capital. But others say it is a possibility, albeit remote, that urban warfare drags on. Keep in mind, warned one Senate staff member who is an expert in security issues, that the U.S. military could wind up in Iraq "for a long time, maybe fighting a low-level insurgency."
Increasing the chances of that outcome is that senior Iraqi leaders have little incentive to surrender. "They know they'll be facing tribunals," noted retired Marine Lt. Col. Thomas C. Linn, who served in northern Iraq in 1991.
But perhaps the riskiest aspect of the current plan is the character and aims of the war itself, said retired Air Force Col. John Warden, an architect of the air campaign in the Gulf War.
"The plan is probably one of the most risky in our history as it launches us off into terra incognita for the U.S.: our first preemptive or preventive war; our first attempt to democratize an Islamic state; and establishment of a very narrow beachhead in the midst of a billion undefeated Muslims," he said.
Ricks reported from Washington.
-------- propaganda wars
We Don't Even Agree On What's Newsworthy
By David Greenberg
Sunday, March 16, 2003
Washington Post; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27787-2003Mar14?language=printer
A rift now separates the United States and the world -- not just a diplomatic gap, but a perception gap. One sign of the sundering is the discrepancy in how journalists here and abroad have treated some recent stories. Repeatedly, unflattering aspects of America's foreign policy have gotten big play overseas while receiving fleeting comment or shrugs at home.
Consider some examples.
On March 4, the New York Times reported that the Army was probing whether two Afghan detainees who died in December were victims of fatally abusive treatment by American soldiers; a military pathologist had officially characterized the deaths as homicides. Other domestic newspapers picked up the story, reporting the facts in measured terms and noting human rights groups' concerns. Yet the deaths didn't stimulate public outrage, op-ed pieces or cable news screamfests.
Newspapers abroad, in contrast, responded with indignation. While U.S. papers used the Army investigation as the news hook, suggesting that responsible officials were cracking down on anomalous behavior, foreign journals implied that American brutality was not out of the ordinary. "U.S. Prisoners Beaten to Death," read a headline in Melbourne. The lead paragraph of the Independent of London's account saidthat the "kill[ings]" were "reviving concerns that the U.S. is resorting to torture in its treatment of Taliban fighters and suspected [al Qaeda] operatives."
Even more stark was the divergence in how British and American papers covered news of U.S. spying at the United Nations. In early March, the Observer, a London paper, uncovered a National Security Agency memo describing "a surge" in U.S. surveillance, including the interception of phone calls and e-mails at home and at work, of Security Council delegations to uncover information that might help drum up support for a resolution on Iraq. "Revealed: U.S. dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war," said a headline on the Observer's Web site. Follow-up pieces underscored the unsavory nature of such skulduggery, including a quote from Daniel Ellsberg that the disclosure was "potentially more important than the Pentagon Papers," the secret Vietnam War documents which he had leaked in 1971.
Back in the United States, journalists didn't ignore the story, but they steered clear of phrases such as "dirty tricks." Headlines soberly stated that "some say it's nothing to get worked up about" (the Los Angeles Times) or "No Shock to [the] U.N." (The Washington Post). Articles reminded readers that the United States has been secretly monitoring other countries' U.N. missions since the body's inception. Most commentators and kitchen-table kibitzers greeted the news with a yawn.
Finally, there's the case of the forged documents. In case you missed it, last week Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that the documents provided by the United States and Britain showing that Iraq bought uranium from Niger between 1999 and 2001 were, as he diplomatically phrased it, "not authentic." Irate cries overseas that U.S. and British leaders were doctoring evidence to make their case for war barely resonated here, where most journalists and readers accepted official claims that it was an innocent mistake.
What are we to make of these disparate takes on the same events? A crude interpretation would be that publishers, editors and reporters everywhere are cynically distorting the news. If you're hostile to the Bush administration's pro-war position, you might believe that U.S. journalists have downplayed these blockbuster stories because they fear they'll either derail the war juggernaut or alienate readers, advertisers and sources. Conversely, if you favor the Bush administration's approach, you're more likely to find the international press guilty of cynically magnifying molehill stories into mountainous ones either to pander to trendy anti-Americanism or to succor antiwar efforts.
But the view that mainstream journalists or publishers rate the newsworthiness of stories by economic or ideological considerations doesn't jibe with reality. Generally only people without journalism experience adhere to this view. Journalists value a good scoop, regardless of whose ox is gored. Publishers prize stories that bring prestige to their papers.
Yet the news media do have biases. An item that reinforces an existing narrative gets more play than one that seems anomalous. And pack journalism -- the tendency to cover what everyone else is covering -- is an occupational hazard. These professional blinders can impair the judgment of journalists rating a story's significance.
Distortion occurs at a deeper level, too. Journalists are beholden not only to the norms of their profession but also to the premises to which almost everyone in a given culture subconsciously subscribes. Ideology and culture do shape the news, though not in the crude way posited by left- and right-wing media watchdog groups. Those who assess what's newsworthy -- whether as members of the media or observers of it -- don't question bedrock beliefs that undergird their society's understanding of the world. That's why they're called blind spots.
In the case of these recent stories, most American journalists -- and most citizens -- are operating in an environment that takes an essentially benign view of our leaders. Though various American critics view the Bush administration as misguided, incompetent or overly hungry for war, few seriously entertain the claim that it's bent on conquest for self-aggrandizing or venal reasons. The natural inclination (even for reporters who are liberal or antiwar) is to infer that the beating deaths of prisoners, the spying at the U.N. and the forgeries represent not a pattern of American villainy but exceptional cases of error. The stories are reported, but relegated to inside pages, without the high-voltage language of exposés, and contextualized to fend off charges of sensationalism.
In the last year, much of the rest of the world has reached a radically different view of American motives. The United States' position as sole superpower, combined with its high-handed diplomacy since the end of the Afghan war, has eroded faith in American benevolence. Public opinion abroad readily accepts intimations of willful U.S. aggression and even depravity; witness the currency among the French and Italians of conspiracy theories holding that the administration engineered the horrors of Sept. 11.
The gulf between the dominant American orientation and that of other nations is exacerbated by differences in our journalistic practices. Since the mid-century demise of the publishing titans who stamped their views on every page of their journals, big-league U.S. newspapers have clung to such lodestar values as balance, fairness and objectivity. Despite a growing role for "analysis" pieces, the mainstream press still prides itself on reporting the news straight and confining opinion to the editorial pages. The European press, in contrast, is comfortable with partisanship. Articles you read in the left-wing Guardian, if published stateside, would more likely appear in the Nation than in the Boston Globe; the right-wing Spectator's fare resembles National Review's coverage more than USA Today's.
As a result, American journalists tend to be more squeamish than their European counterparts about setting the news agenda. If the leading political players don't get worked up about a would-be scandal, the press (usually) balks at arrogating that role to itself. European papers, on the other hand, allow themselves more freedom in deciding what's news, independent of official say-so.
Yet we should be cautious about ascribing differing American and foreign assessments of news stories to national traits or institutions. After all, not long ago the U.S. media would have treated these recent episodes as huge scandals -- the equivalent of the Pentagon Papers or My Lai or the 181/2-minute gap in Richard Nixon's Watergate tapes.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a simmering American skepticism about the motives and morality of our leaders boiled over. Several long-term trends coalesced into a climate of suspicion -- and at times paranoia -- that moved rapidly from the left and right margins of society into the mainstream. The 1960s brought a rebellion against authority. Vietnam, Watergate and other episodes revealed that high officials routinely lied, abused power and betrayed the public trust. The exposure of secret operations by the Army, FBI and CIA to spy on law-abiding citizens nourished fears that the government was not the people's protector but their enemy. The Church Committee, the Senate panel that in 1975 disclosed sordid CIA activities, marked the high (or low) point of the culture of suspicion.
And then the mood of active distrust began to subside. It was as if Americans, having faced the darkest elements of their system, couldn't bear to see any more. The post-Vietnam years witnessed a backlash against what was seen as an excess of self-criticism. Old-fashioned values of family, patriotism, hierarchy and duty regained cachet.
To be sure, a robust strain of cynicism toward officials and their motives endured. But the disparaging of social policymaking in the Reagan era and the eye-rolling at presidential peccadilloes in the Clinton era were far cries from the cynicism of the Nixon years. Indeed, when it came to America's role on the world stage, the 1980s were a time of jingoism re-ascendant and fading self-doubt.
The trauma of Sept. 11 marked another turning point. Surging with patriotism, citizens and journalists granted their leaders unwonted latitude in fashioning a response to the terrorists. Although most things returned more or less to normal after six months -- people began traveling again, Congress started bickering again, Bush called for tax cuts again -- the new readiness to defer to the government on national security matters remained. Ever since, the public, including the press, has ascribed to the president a degree of goodwill unprecedented in the post-1960s era.
Overseas, however, events since Sept. 11 have led people in the opposite direction. Suspicion of U.S. motives has escalated; willingness to cut the Bush administration some slack has plunged. Where Americans' trust in their leaders seems distressingly high, as if the Nixon years have been forgotten, foreigners' faith in us is troublingly low. In that divide lie the roots of our irreconcilable takes on the news, and our contrary fears for the future.
David Greenberg, a visiting scholar at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is a historian and a columnist for Slate. His book "Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image" will be published this fall.
--------
Reality TV Goes to War: A Different Kind of Fear Factor
March 16, 2003
The New York Times
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/weekinreview/16STAN.html
Since Vietnam, Americans have grown accustomed to the escalation of war on television. But if Saddam Hussein actually bowed to British Prime Minister Tony Blair's proposal that Mr. Hussein appear on Iraqi airwaves and admit he has weapons of mass destruction, his would surely be the first television surrender in history.
And quite fitting: In a post-Clausewitz world, television, not politics, is war by other means.
Mr. Blair's proposal was not exactly novel. At the urging of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, in 1946 the defeated Emperor Hirohito announced to his Japanese subjects that he was not a god.
But the prime minister's insistence on a television apology as a substitute for military defeat has a momentum all its own - the next step in a diplomatic universe where even the most delicate matters of international security are conducted in front of television cameras.
Mr. Blair may not have expected the Iraqi leader to agree. After he announced the six punitive conditions under which Mr. Hussein could avert military attack last week, France rejected them before Mr. Hussein had a chance to do the same.
But the prime minister did tap into our culture's appetite for televised denouements, creating, in effect, the prospect of a reality show for third world tyrants, a Nuclear Fear Factor.
If Mr. Hussein were willing to go on camera and humiliate himself in the eyes of his people and the world, Iraq would be spared war, Mr. Hussein could save his life, and Western viewers would have the instant gratification of seeing an enemy recant. (Though there is always the danger that, like a hostage reciting his captors' words under duress, Mr. Hussein could blink out a defiant code message to the audience.)
Viewers' expectations of instant, live coverage of war have grown considerably since the Persian Gulf war in 1991. But particularly since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, television has become a powerful way for combatants to wage it. From Osama bin Laden's video threats on the Arabic-language network, Al Jazeera, to the Pentagon briefings serving as a voice-over narration for the images of bombing in Afghanistan, television has been put to military use by both sides.
Video weaponry is so powerful that the White House asked news executives not to show the first videotaped messages from Mr. bin Laden after 9/11. The pretext given was that they might include coded messages to his followers in the West, but the United States government was just as worried about how his propaganda would affect viewers.
Technology has made war more accessible and immediate than ever before, but that does not necessarily mean viewers will see everything that is filmed this time around. If there is a war, news organizations, and particularly television news, will be under pressure from the government to hold back images of bombing raids and civilian casualties that cast an unflattering light on military action. Access to the front lines has a price: photographers and cameramen placed inside military units on the front lines will have to get their material cleared by the Pentagon, putting such journalistic decisions in the hands of officers.
There will be plenty of camera crews working independently, of course, but the White House is likely to pressure news executives to sanitize their coverage. So far, at least, the administration seems to have concluded that television is too powerful a weapon to leave in the hands of professionals.
Mr. Hussein, of course, is just as keen on the advantages of television warfare. He wanted to resolve the conflict by organizing a television debate between himself and President Bush. He was so insistent on the idea in his interview with Dan Rather of CBS News this month that precious minutes were squandered as he assured Mr. Rather that he was not joking.
Some critics dismissed Mr. Hussein's proposal as a bluff, but it has merits that reach beyond the possibility of victory without military defeat. Recent history has robbed our media-hungry culture of the satisfaction of seeing a defeated enemy on his knees. Throughout his trial for war crimes, Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian leader, never once admitted that he led a campaign of genocide in Bosnia in the early 90's; instead he used his television time to jeer at the court and defy the world community.
In other cultures, a pantomime of repentance is a hallowed tradition. In 1992, the king of Thailand quashed a possible civil war between the coup-imposed government and rebels by having the prime minister and the jailed leader of the democracy movement crawl before him on their hands and knees with television cameras rolling.
Peace marchers protesting the administration's threat to use force might consider a new slogan: "make television, not war."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
You Think DNA Evidence Is Foolproof? Try Again
March 16, 2003
The New York Times
By ADAM LIPTAK
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/weekinreview/16LIPT.html
DNA recovered in a 1998 carjacking and rape case in Houston matched that of Josiah Sutton, a 16-year-old defendant, according to a report from the Houston Police Department's crime laboratory. Mr. Sutton's DNA profile, the report said, "can be expected to occur in 1 out of 694,000 people among the black population" in the United States.
That evidence, supplemented by questionable testimony from the victim, led a jury to convict Mr. Sutton in 1999. He was sentenced to 25 years, but was freed on Wednesday after retesting of the DNA excluded him as a suspect.
DNA testing, when properly conducted and interpreted, can provide categorical proof of guilt or innocence. Its role in the exoneration of more than 120 people has captured the public imagination. But this uniquely authoritative tool can also play a role in wrongful convictions.
"It is powerful evidence both to convict and to exonerate," said Peter Neufeld, a founder of the Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School, a program that works to free innocent people in prison. "It's kind of a truth machine. But any machine when it gets in the hands of human beings can be manipulated or abused."
On Tuesday, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the administration's plans to commit $1 billion to DNA testing in the next five years. Part of the money would be devoted to testing for felons who claimed to be innocent, but most would be used to address a growing backlog of forensic evidence from crime scenes and to expand the national DNA database.
Elizabeth A. Johnson, an expert in DNA testing in California, said everyone in the criminal justice system should be wary of accepting reports concerning DNA evidence without testing their conclusions.
"It is very, very reliable if you do two things right: if you test it right, and if you interpret the results right," Ms. Johnson said. "The problem is that jurors think it's absolute and infallible."
The problem with DNA testing is not that it results in falsely positive results. The problem is the human factor.
"So many of the people who give DNA testimony," said Stephen B. Bright, the director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, "went to two weeks of training by the F.B.I. in Quantico, say, and they are miraculously transformed from beat policemen into forensic scientists."
The analyst who testified in Mr. Sutton's case said she had attended a two-week training course sponsored by the company that sold DNA kits to her laboratory.
Her unit, which legal experts said was the worst of any major American city until it was shut in January, helped convict scores and possibly hundreds of defendants. A state audit in December found that it routinely mishandled evidence and exaggerated its significance. The audit prompted prosecutors to vow to retest available DNA evidence in every case in which it had been used to obtain a conviction or guilty plea. Mr. Sutton was the first defendant exonerated by the retesting.
Even before the new testing, independent experts said a proper analysis showed that the DNA in Mr. Sutton's case matched 1 of 8 black people, not 1 of nearly 700,000.
But DNA tests performed for the prosecution are seldom reanalyzed. "Defense lawyers, like everyone else, have become so convinced of its infallibility that they don't bother to challenge it," said William C. Thompson, a professor of criminology at the University of California at Irvine.
Judges will not authorize payments for retesting, said Harlan Levy, a New York lawyer who has worked with DNA evidence as a prosecutor and a defense expert and is the author of "And the Blood Cried Out," an analysis of such evidence in the justice system. Testing costs $2,000 to $4,000.
"If you have had a test done by a qualified crime lab," Mr. Levy said, "no court is going to order that a second test be done at government expense."
Dr. Johnson said even innocent defendants are swayed by DNA evidence. "Quite often defendants are intimidated into taking a plea," she said.
And even people seeking to overturn wrongful convictions, like David Dow, director of the Texas Innocence Network, have viewed DNA reports prepared for prosecutors as conclusive.
"It is a whole new chapter in DNA exonerations," Professor Dow said, describing how the Sutton case has caused his group to revise its process for deciding which cases to accept. "When we used to review a case, if there was a DNA test done and a scientist testified there was a match, we wouldn't take the case. There are certain assumptions all the players make. One is that when scientists in the crime labs test evidence, their testing is reliable."
Timothy Fallon, director of the Bexar County crime laboratory in San Antonio, told a committee of the Texas Legislature this month that there was only one way to assure the integrity of DNA testing by laboratories. "Resources must be made available to criminal defense attorneys," he said. "If you want the best crime lab, you need to have the best criminal defense attorneys to challenge us."
Mr. Levy cautioned that the Houston experience was atypical.
"Overwhelmingly, there is not a problem," he said. "But giving defendants the resources to have scientists give a second look at the evidence and make suggestions about what problems there might be and their significance, would be useful. This is complex science."
The exonerating power of DNA evidence reveals the unreliability of other forms of incriminating evidence.
"In something like one-quarter of DNA exonerations, there was a confession," Professor Dow said. "In something like three-quarters, there was an eyewitness."
AS a consequence, legal experts say, such testimony in cases without DNA evidence should not be given much weight. In fact, DNA may have raised the bar on what qualifies as acceptable proof of innocence. Defendants and inmates in cases without biological evidence can have a very difficult time trying to establish their innocence.
Mr. Neufeld estimated that biological evidence that can be subjected to DNA testing to identify the guilty is available in fewer than 10 percent of violent crimes. "DNA exonerations create the illusion that we can really have a foolproof system of justice," Professor Dow said. "That's quite false."
-------- homeland security
Considering a Gas Mask? Be Sure It's a Good Fit
Devices Offer Differing Levels of Protection
By John F. Kelly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 16, 2003; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23251-2003Mar13?language=printer
I am living proof that gas masks work. I strapped one on recently in the third-floor conference room of Geomet, a Germantown-based "health and personal safety" company. And then I chopped up a raw onion with a paring knife.
In the face of the bulb's chemical onslaught, I didn't shed a single tear. Nor did I detect a whiff of the onion's distinctive tang. If terrorists attack with diced onions, a gas mask will protect you.
Of course, VO -- Vidalia onion -- isn't what people are worried about these days. VX is. And GB, HD and other frightening combinations of the alphabet. Because of that fear, some consumers are curious about gas masks, or what are more broadly known as respirators.
The federal government does not endorse the idea of civilians donning gas masks. The answer to the very first question on the www.ready.govWeb site's FAQ section states: "The use of gas masks and hoods by the public during a chemical threat is not recommended due to legitimate safety concerns."
Those safety concerns are not trivial. Use a gas mask incorrectly and you can be killed by your own fumblings long before al Qaeda has a chance to get you.
This is not to say that the Department of Homeland Security is totally anti-mask. The Web site does mention that "filter masks" can help keep out germs from a biological attack or debris from an explosion, and it says that "something over your nose and mouth in an emergency is better than nothing." The Filter Mask
That "something" starts with cheap, disposable filter masks found at hardware and paint supply stores. These respirators are rated by the size of particle they protect against and the durability of the filter material. A mask rated 95 means it will stop 95 percent of particles that are 0.3 microns in diameter or larger. The other particle size ratings are 99 (filters out 99 percent of the 0.3-micron particles) and 100 (filters out 99.97 percent, an efficiency comparable to a HEPA filter).
The most common mask is an N95. The N means that the material it is made of is not oil-resistant. A P rating means it is oilproof; an R rating means it is oilproof but can be used a maximum of eight hours.
The anthrax spores in the letter mailed to then-Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) were 1.5 to 3 microns in diameter, so an N95 can safeguard against the disease. (Smallpox, on the other hand, is smaller than 0.3 microns.) In his book "When Every Moment Counts," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) recommends that N95 masks be included in every disaster supply kit. They start at about $1.
If you decide to get an N95 mask, be sure it has a moldable metal noseband and crimp it when you use the mask. It will help create a better seal.
Some masks have plastic valves to release your expelled breath so the respirator doesn't get too hot and your glasses don't fog.
Some N95 masks are called "harmful dust respirators." Stay away from what are called "comfort" respirators, masks designed to wear while you're raking leaves or sweeping the floor. (A crude rule of thumb: A mask that is held on by a single elastic strap is less likely to be an N95 than one that has two straps.)
And if you're stuck without a mask, you can follow the advice on Ready.gov and breathe through fabric, such as a folded-up cotton T-shirt or diaper. Half Masks
Next up in price are what are known as elastomeric respirators. These are typically half masks that cover the nose and mouth and can be fitted with different filters. A P100 or HEPA filter strains out particles, including the sort of radiological particles scattered by a "dirty" bomb. Various types of charcoal filters can neutralize small amounts of certain industrial chemicals, such as ammonia and pesticides.
Prices start at about $10. They won't stop the nastier nerve gases, but if you're several miles from an overturned chlorine tanker and a cloud is coming your way, they do afford some protection. Since the mask doesn't cover the eyes or rest of the skin, you can still get a dose of chemicals that way, but they do protect the lungs, the primary route of attack with gas.
Manufacturers of N95 masks and half masks are quick to point out that their products were not designed with chemical, biological or radiological attacks in mind. Masks, Escape Hoods
Most gas-mask manufacturers and retailers agree with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge that gas masks don't belong in the hands of the public. Experts say they are too difficult for civilians to fit and use properly. Most can't be worn with glasses or by men with beards.
The alternative is the escape hood -- basically a plastic bag with a rubber neck dam and a particle/chemical filter. Unlike a gas mask, which requires that straps be carefully adjusted so there's a leakproof seal between face and mask, an escape hood pretty much seals automatically around the user's neck after it's pulled on.
ILC Dover, the company that makes spacesuits for NASA, has introduced a civilian escape hood. Called the SCape, it's packed in a container about as long and a little wider than a box of tissues. It costs $199.
The SCape is what's called a "positive pressure" unit. A tiny motor is activated when the hood is pulled from its box. The motor sucks air through a set of filters and into the hood.
Other civilian models include the Gas Mask Hood by Mine Safety Appliances, one of the leading respirator manufacturers, and Survivair's Quick2000, the type purchased for federal workers on Capitol Hill. They're each about $180. Both of these hoods require wearers to draw in the air themselves through the filter -- fine for normal people but a potential hardship for those with respiratory problems.
Hoods can be used only once.
These devices join products that have been marketed to frequent travelers in recent years: smoke hoods. Smoke hoods are specifically designed to protect against deadly carbon monoxide during a fire. They don't protect against nerve gas.
No mask or hood lasts forever. Its filter will eventually get clogged. Children
Respirator companies don't make products in sizes that will fit children. You may be able to find N95 respirators sized for smaller adults. The challenge will be fitting it to a child's face to keep out contaminated air.
Some escape-hood manufacturers make products just for children. ILC Dover says its Baby SCape hood fits children ages 3 and younger. Safer America, a New York store, sells several hoods and suits for children, toddlers and babies, at $295 to $500.
With their smaller lungs, children may have trouble pulling air in through a filter. Most children's hoods or masks are supplied air, meaning a motor blows air into the unit.
ILC Dover also makes a clear plastic, air-filtering container into which owners can insert a dog or cat in a kennel. The Pet Shield is $350 for animals up to 50 pounds, $450 for those 50 to 100 pounds.
Where to get them: Locally, Geomet Technologies Inc. distributes a wide range of gas masks and escape hoods: www.geomet.com or 301-428-9898. Safer America is at www.saferamerica.com or 877-774-4055. MSA sells its Gas Mask Hood through amazon.com; information is at www.msasafetyworks.com, or call 888-672-4692. ILC Dover sells through its Web site: www.ilcdover.com, or call 800-631-9567. The Quick2000 is available through Survivair: www.survivair.com, or call 888-274-8535.
-------- terrorism
Anger on Iraq Seen as New Qaeda Recruiting Tool
March 16, 2003
The New York Times
By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and DESMOND BUTLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/international/middleeast/16RECR.html
LONDON, March 15 - On three continents, Al Qaeda and other terror organizations have intensified their efforts to recruit young Muslim men, tapping into rising anger about the American campaign for war in Iraq, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials.
In recent weeks, officials in the United States, Europe and Africa say they had seen evidence that militants within Muslim communities are seeking to identify and groom a new generation of terrorist operatives. An invasion of Iraq, the officials worry, is almost certain to produce a groundswell of recruitment for groups committed to attacks in the United States, Europe and Israel. "An American invasion of Iraq is already being used as a recruitment tool by Al Qaeda and other groups," a senior American counterintelligence official said. "And it is a very effective tool."
Another American official, based in Europe, said Iraq had become "a battle cry, in a way," for Qaeda recruiters.
Some of the information about Qaeda recruiting comes from interrogations of captured operatives and from materials found at the house in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, where Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the third-ranking Qaeda leader, was arrested this month, officials say.
The surge in Qaeda recruitment efforts has been most visible in Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, the officials said. Investigators have significantly increased their use of informants and, in some cases, bugging devices, to monitor mosques and other gathering places, where they have observed a sharp spike in anti-American oratory.
For example, German domestic intelligence agents have eavesdropped on increasingly shrill sermons in mosques about the possibility of war with Iraq, a message that officials there say has clearly resonated with young people. The officials expressed deep concern that the angry climate would lead to a torrent of new recruits.
"I can't use numbers, but we know the activity is increasing and the willingness to participate and to listen to radical messages is on the rise," says Carl Heinrich von Bauer, ministerial counsel at the Interior Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia. He is the chief of the German state department that is responsible for monitoring terrorism. "There are more people coming to hear radical talks," he said. "Also we are seeing people go suddenly from jeans to traditional dress and long beards."
That target audience, officials say, is a somewhat changed one - younger people, many of them converts to Islam, easily susceptible to the appeal of violence. In addition, more women are being attracted to Al Qaeda, albeit in secondary roles, officials say.
"We have noticed an increasing number of people who seem to be willing to use violence for Islamic causes since Sept. 11 and especially in recent months because of Iraq and Palestine," said Jean-Louis Bruguière, France's top investigative judge on terrorism cases.
In particular, Mr. Bruguière said he had detected a "much more menacing attitude" that could make it much easier for Al Qaeda to sign up new recruits. "More people seem to be willing to commit violence," he said.
A senior American counterterrorism official said that Mr. Mohammed was deeply involved in recruitment activities for Al Qaeda, and that the authorities had already gleaned a better understanding of that operation from the materials found in the Rawalpindi house. The official confirmed that investigators were convinced that there had been a spike in such activities, but refused to say anything further.
Another official said the searches had produced a trove of information about Qaeda operatives in the United States and in Europe.
The most recent audiotape message that was purported to have been from Osama bin Laden, broadcast by Al Jazeera, the Arab television station, was partly intended to be a call to arms for Al Qaeda, counterterrorism officials said. In the 16-minute message, the speaker, whom the authorities say they now believe was indeed Mr. bin Laden, exhorts Muslims to seize the chance to defend President Saddam Hussein's "godless" government, portraying an invasion as an unwarranted attack against all Muslims by the United States.
"The fighting should be in the name of God only, not in the name of national ideologies, nor to seek victory for the ignorant governments that rule all Arab states, including Iraq," the speaker said. "All Muslims have to begin jihad against this unjust war."
Some officials said they began to detect signs of renewed recruitment efforts last summer, just as Bush administration officials began talking in earnest about plans to invade Iraq. When Ramzi bin al-Shibh was arrested last September in Karachi, Pakistan, the authorities said they discovered equipment for producing CD's, presumably to be used as training and recruitment tools. Recently, the authorities discovered recruitment videos and CD's were being produced in Karachi. The recruitment pitch is simple: American policies are directly responsible for Muslims' misery, all over the world.
Investigators and sociologists in many European countries say conversion to traditional dress is an important sign of conversion to militancy; new recruits are often pressured or persuaded to change their appearance as a symbol of their commitment. Officials said they had seen an increasing trend in traditional dress in Muslim communities.
"There are in effect two phases here," Mr. von Bauer said. "First you are expected to demonstrate your new inner faith outwardly, through traditional dress. Later you might go back to Western dress to make yourself less noticeable, because your faith is no longer a question."
To an extent, recruiters have turned away from the mosques, where so many of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers met and joined Al Qaeda. In Europe, in particular, governments have cracked down on open calls for violence in the mosques. Officials said they believed that militants now operated in tea shops, Islamic bookshops or ancient souks, where people often congregate after prayers. Officials also complained that they had struggled to find useful informants as extremist groups become even more conspiratorial and careful.
Officials have relied on information from the interrogations of hundreds of suspected Islamic terrorists captured in Europe in the last two years. They have provided a more detailed portrait of the people who are most susceptible to these groups' recruitment techniques.
According to some, the profiles have changed somewhat in recent months.
"Many of these people are younger than before - between 20 and 30," Judge Bruguière said. "They are mostly converts. The threat of war in Iraq could have a tangible effect."
Mr. Bruguière also noted that French investigators had seen a puzzling increase in the number of women, often ethnic European converts, who were playing an important role within European networks, as wives of cell members. The women have auxiliary roles, but provide immigrant radicals with cover and ease their naturalization.
Investigators also say Al Qaeda and affiliated groups have successfully sought young educated Muslim men, often within European universities. Three of the Sept. 11 suicide pilots, investigators believe, were members of a larger cell based in Hamburg, Germany, made up of young men attending local technical colleges. Officials say that recruiters continue to operate in universities because they prefer to recruit intelligent, skilled operatives.
According to Mr. von Bauer, the student recruits are more likely to convert to extreme religious views after arriving in a new environment.
He said the recruits were "alienated because they don't speak the language or understand the culture."
"Then they find community in Arab clubs or societies," Mr. von Bauer said. "This often brings them to the Friday Prayers."
Mr. von Bauer said feelings of alienation also contributed to some young Muslims' anger and feelings of disenfranchisement. "Imagine how it must feel for an educated Arab to come here," he said. "They see sex everywhere, on the television, on the newsstands, and it offends them. They immediately see this as the decadence of the Western world. They feel morally superior, and this fuels their outrage."
Despite an apparent increase in potential recruits, many analysts say that the American-led campaign in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 had shut down Al Qaeda's primary training camps and dealt an enormous blow to the network's ability to recruit and train new members. But officials believe that terrorist groups have established new bases of operation, especially in the Caucasus. "I fear that Chechnya could become the new Afghanistan," Judge Bruguière said. "The threat is moving to the Caucasus, because the jihad system needs a battleground."
In response to concerns that European cell members and new recruits are traveling to the Caucasus, France has opened up an inquiry focusing on Chechnya and Pankisi Gorge in Georgia.
Other officials and experts believe that video images of an American-led invasion of Iraq may ultimately hand Mr. bin Laden his most useful recruitment tool.
"Bin Laden's strategy has always been to demonstrate to the Islamic community that the West, and especially the U.S., is starting a global war against Muslims," Judge Bruguière said. "An attack on Iraq might confirm this vision for many Muslims. I am very worried about the next wave of recruits."
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Energy Boost
Sunday, March 16, 2003
Washington Post; Page B06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31112-2003Mar15?language=printer
EVERY SO OFTEN an idea comes along that suddenly makes it possible to address at the state level a problem the federal government is unable to deal with. A proposal to require the Maryland electricity grid to buy 7.5 percent of its power from renewable energy sources, now being considered by the General Assembly, falls into this category. In a small way, the measure would begin to address the larger problems of global warming, climate change and this country's over-dependence on fossil fuels for energy -- questions that seem, at the moment, impossible to cope with on a national scale.
True, the price of energy in Maryland might rise, by as much as 1 or 2 percentage points, if the measure were adopted. And the big industrial energy consumers in the state are lobbying hard against the stricter, more environment-friendly version of the bill for exactly that reason. On the other hand, prices might not rise: They didn't in Texas, when a similar bill was signed into law in 1999 by then-Gov. George W. Bush. (Thirteen other states also have passed such bills.) Instead, the measure helped kick-start Texas's wind industry, which now provides about 3 percent of the state's energy.
Admittedly, Texas has more and cheaper renewable energy sources. Maryland's wind industry, which would be based largely in the western part of the state, is still untested. Yet as a proportion of spending on electricity, the costs of this are low. Besides, "nothing worthwhile is cost-free," as House Majority Leader Kumar P. Barve (D-Montgomery), one of the co-sponsors of the legislation, put it. And these costs seem, on balance, to be a price that Marylanders are willing to pay for cleaner air. A recent poll asked Marylanders whether they would be willing to pay a small portion of their electricity bill toward funding greater energy efficiency; 70 percent of the respondents said yes. Notably, the figures were higher in the Washington suburbs (84 percent) and in Baltimore (82 percent), where poor air quality looms larger in the public's consciousness. It would take some extra pushing, in a crowded legislative season, to get this measure off the ground, but Maryland's legislators should make the effort.
--------
WESTCHESTER
It's Getting Easier to Be Green
March 16, 2003
The New York Times
By ELSA BRENNER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/nyregion/16wegree.html
FIVE years ago, Robert and Deborah Fischman paid Con Ed $1,000 a month during the winter to heat their four-bedroom colonial in South Salem.
By last month, the family's utility bill had dropped to $400.
What changed? Worried about both the environment and his budget, Mr. Fischman, a civil engineer, decided four years ago to convert his 3,000-square-foot house to a "green" building. He replaced the home's all-electric heating system with a geothermal pump, which draws heat from the earth in winter and sheds it into the ground in summer through a system of buried plastic pipes called a ground heat exchanger.
Not only have Mr. and Mrs. Fischman and their three children been basking in the cost-effective warmth of geothermal heat ever since, but they have also gained new respect in their neighborhood. These days when guests stop by, the conversation invariably turns to the unassuming box in the basement, where a furnace would usually be found. The new system is a winner on two counts, the Fischmans explain: it keeps their home at 70 degrees Fahrenheit winter and summer, and it eliminates emissions from the site that traditional fossil fuel heating systems give off.
Mr. Fischman, who works for Andron Construction Corporation in Goldens Bridge, predicts that in time, homes like his will become less of a curiosity and more mainstream. "Especially as people's values focus increasingly on conserving our environment," he said, "we'll see a lot more of them."
In Westchester recently, as in the rest of the country, interest in green construction has grown sharply. Adding to concerns about rolling power failures, soaring fuel costs and dependence on foreign oil is another worry specific to Westchester: if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission closes down the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which provides between 18 and 38 percent of the energy for New York City and the lower Hudson Valley, how will that that energy be replaced?
Environmentalists, citizen groups and public officials, including the Westchester County Executive, Andrew J. Spano, have called for the closing of the two nuclear power plants at Indian Point in Buchanan run by Entergy, in large part because of the threat to Westchester if they were to become the focus of a terrorist attack.
Westchester itself is stepping up efforts to find alternatives to traditional energy sources. It already has a solar system at work at its Yonkers Joint Wastewater Treatment Plant. The solar panels, called photovoltaic tiles, which are on the roof of the plant's administration building, produce about 100 kilowatts of power at any given time and save about $10,000 a year, said Adam J. Zabinski, deputy commissioner for the county's Department of Environmental Facilities. Also, the sludge processing produces 1.2 million cubic feet of methane gas daily, which in turn is used to fire boilers at the treatment plant. Estimated savings by using the gas byproduct is about $75,000 a year, Mr. Zabinski said.
The goal of green construction is to make buildings more energy efficient by minimizing environmental impact and reducing energy use, often according to standards set by the United States Green Building Council, a national coalition of leaders from the building industry and environmental organizations.
A green approach to energy is not new, of course. During the 1970's, strategies to conserve fuel included driving smaller cars, turning down thermostats and wearing more sweaters, following the example set by President Jimmy Carter. Americans also began recycling trash, using low-flow shower heads to reduce water consumption, installing Thermopane windows and adopting other energy-saving strategies. Strategies like recycling had staying power, but others did not, observed Alexander Roberts, president of Roberts Geo Systems, an energy management consulting concern in Pleasantville. The most notable example of Americans discarding conservation efforts, Mr. Roberts said, has been their love affair with S.U.V.'s and other large vehicles with low gas mileage.
The question now is whether the new zeal for energy conservation will prevail this time around.
"The crucial difference between then and now," said Mr. Roberts, "was that then conserving energy meant doing without or with less, whereas today many of the new green technologies - like geothermal heating and compact fluorescent light bulbs - actually improve comfort and work better. Even better, they also offer a clear economic benefit that people can see in pocketbooks, which is a powerful motivator."
Relying on Light
And Local Materials
Geothermal heat pumps and solar energy are both used in green construction. Often such construction depends on daylight for illumination and uses lights that automatically dim depending on the natural light available. A green building is designed to insulate efficiently and has either Thermopane or specially glazed windows. Such buildings also use construction materials like wood from renewable forests, steel with a high content of recycled materials, locally quarried stone, nontoxic paints and carpets, and ceramic tiles made with recycled glass.
Builders, homeowners and commercial property owners are embracing green construction and predicting that it will soon gain wide acceptance. "We call it green construction now, but it won't be long before we take it for granted and don't refer to it as something special," said Bill Balter, a co-owner of Wilder Balter Partners, builders in Elmsford. "Even in less than a decade, it will probably be the norm."
Some materials, like low-emission insulating glass, are already commonly used by builders. Geothermal heat pumps have proved to be highly reliable but are not common. Still there are some high-profile customers: President Bush had one installed in his ranch home in Crawford, Tex., and Vice President Dick Cheney's official home, the Naval Observatory in Washington, uses geothermal heat pumps. Mr. Balter has installed a geothermal heat pump as a test case in one of 15 luxury homes he is building at Arrowcrest Estates at Hunterbrook in Yorktown. "Eventually we'll be doing it in more developments," he said. "For now, we're trying it out here and working out the kinks."
The mechanics of such a system are simple: using the constant temperature of the earth below the frost line, a pump forces water through piping connected to a building's heating and cooling system. During the summer, excess heat from the building is shed into the ground through the system for cooling, and during the winter, heat is drawn from the ground.
The typical cost for such a system is about $7,500, according to the United States Department of Energy. The investment can often be recouped within 2 to 10 years in utility bill savings, studies from the energy department show. The underground piping used comes with a 25- to 50-year warranty, and the pumps themselves typically last 20 years or longer. Also, the state offers tax incentives and rebates for installing geothermal systems.
Savings at a Country Club
And a High School
Gov. George E. Pataki has been New York's major champion of new energy technologies and green construction. He has ordered the state to buy at least 20 percent of its energy from geothermal and other renewable sources by 2010. Incentives are available for installing geothermal systems, solar-electric and wind-generation systems. In 2000, the state passed the country's first Green Building Tax Credit, a $25 million income tax credit program for owners and tenants of buildings that meet certain energy, indoor air quality, materials, water conservation, appliance and size criteria. The state has distributed money to more than 600,000 individuals and other businesses from the beginning of its public benefit program in 1998.The program is financed at $150 million a year.
Rebates and savings can be substantial. On a Croton-on-Hudson home that was used last year to educate the public about solar heat, photovoltaic panels were installed for $25,000, with state rebates and tax advantages amounting to $14,000, according to Federated Conservationists of Westchester, an umbrella organization of environmental groups.
The Westchester Country Club in Rye recently installed a geothermal system as part of a $7 million project to reduce energy consumption by 775,000 kilowatt hours, saving $130,000 annually on energy costs and reducing fossil fuel emissions linked to smog, acid rain, global climate changes and respiratory ailments.
The geothermal system at the country club was installed by R. J. Dooley & Associates, a seven-year-old Poughkeepsie engineering and construction firm that is also installing the geothermal unit at Wilder Balter's Arrowcrest Estates at Hunterbrook. The company's owner, Robert Dooley, is converting a 60,000-square-foot former brewery and hotel built in the mid-1800's on the Hudson River waterfront in Poughkeepsie to offices and a restaurant and has installed a geothermal unit there, too.
To encourage more green construction of schools, the state Energy Research and Development Authority has awarded $20,000 grants to 50 public and private schools, including Somers High School in Westchester. School Power Naturally, as the program is called, is designed to raise students' awareness of the importance and promise of solar energy. Schools chosen for the project are also getting weather stations to aid them in collecting and analyzing their data.
Somers High is installing a solar collector on the south wall of its gymnasium, which will provide the school with two kilowatts of electricity per month, said Brian Hugick, a science teacher at the school. As a point of comparison, the teacher said, the average home uses about four kilowatts a month; the school uses between 228 and 378 kilowatts a month.
Even though two kilowatts is a relatively small savings, "it will help us get off the grid," Mr. Hugick explained. The teacher is showing lab students in his Contemporary Issues in Science course how solar energy can be used to power pollution-free model cars and cooking equipment.
Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers is going green on a bigger scale, spending $25 million to build a 60,000-square-foot center for the visual arts using recycled and renewable materials including the rock removed from the ground during construction. The design focuses on minimizing water and energy use and includes a geothermal system. The building is expected to open in the fall of 2004.
Counting Kilowatts
At the Power Authority
The New York Power Authority installed new energy-efficiency technologies at the Clarence D. Rappleyea Building, the authority's headquarters in White Plains. It began the $3.8 million project to address the governor's "Green and Clean State Buildings" order, requiring state-owned buildings to achieve reductions in energy use of at least 35 percent by 2010, based on 1990 consumption levels. Along with anticipated energy savings of 50 percent, the White Plains office improvements are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 4,100 tons a year.
At the Kenneth S. Warren Institute, a medical research center in Yorktown, major renovations are under way to make the building into an oil-free building, said Learned J. Hand, the institute's executive director. Situated on the grounds of Yorktown's 15-acre Kitchawan Preserve near the Croton Reservoir, the 15,000-square-foot building is heated primarily with a geothermal heat pump system.
"Our eventual goal is to be totally oil free," Mr. Hand said. "But no matter how green a building is, when it's 5 degrees outside, you want some backup oil."
Chuck Lowden, the institute's chief engineer, said the nonprofit group was also considering the installation of solar panels and a propane-powered generator to serve as a backup source of power in case of a power failure. "Especially in a rural area, you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket," he said.
Electric Cars
And Building Regulations
Municipalities, too, have accepted the charge to become more green. White Plains, for example, has installed variable frequency motors at its water pumping facilities and at its public library, said Joseph Nicoletti Jr., commissioner of Public Works and the city engineer. The motors slow down or speed up in response to changing conditions instead of continually running at full speed.
The city also retrofitted 4,400 streetlights with high-pressure sodium bulbs, which have a long life and high output. A new parking garage has been designed with light sensors so that outside rows are artificially lighted only when there is inadequate daylight.
The city's fleet of vehicles has also become more environmentally friendly, including cars powered by electricity, natural gas and alcohol. "The maintenance on these vehicles is considerably less, the cost of refueling an electric car is almost nil, and complaints about noise during night street sweeping are considerably reduced," Mr. Nicoletti said. "In addition, the environmental hazards and constant monitoring and testing required of underground fuel storage facilities is eliminated for those vehicles."
The town of Greenburgh passed a new law about a year ago mandating energy-efficient construction of all new homes. The law says no building permit can be issued for a new one- or two-family home or a dwelling of three stories or fewer unless the applicant certifies that the building will meet New York Energy Star Labeled Home guidelines. The guidelines stipulate improved insulation, windows designed to improve thermal performance, high efficiency heating and cooling systems that are properly sized for the home, and reduced air infiltration, among other things.
Steven Winter, chairman of the United States Green Building Council and president of Steven Winter Associates, an architectural firm in Norwalk that designs green projects nationwide, said that however laudable the ideas of green construction are, it could take as much as a generation for the principles and practices of it to become mainstream.
There is the natural disinclination of some people to make the effort to change, he observed: "Sometimes they're selfish, lazy or just indifferent and not willing to take time to recycle or institute other energy-saving measures. Their attitude is, 'The heck with it.' "
There are also some business concerns -oil companies, for example, he said - that would prefer consumers to maintain their dependence on fossil fuels. "Any time there's a change," Mr. Winter said, "there are status quo interests that resist it."
-------- genetics
Broad Movement Is Backing Embryo Stem Cell Research
March 16, 2003
The New York Times
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/science/16STEM.html
In state capitols, universities, charitable foundations, hospitals and companies around the country, a scattershot movement is under way to counteract President Bush's 2001 order sharply limiting federal money for embryonic stem cell research.
Lawmakers in New York, Maryland, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington and Massachusetts are considering bills authorizing embryonic stem cell research, according to advocates of the research and the National Conference of State Legislatures. Some bills go further, as one passed in California did last year when it authorized the use of state money to support research using embryonic stem cells, which scientists contend could eventually yield treatments for diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, heart disease, cancer and other ailments.
Mr. Bush and others who oppose such research say it is immoral because human embryos are destroyed when the cells are extracted.
Private groups, meanwhile, have greatly increased their support of stem cell research. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, the Wellcome Trust, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation and others have given tens of millions of dollars to various laboratories, many in Europe.
Several universities, teaching hospitals and biotechnology companies have also stepped up their involvement in the field, as have wealthy individuals. Late last year, an anonymous benefactor gave Stanford University $12 million to build a stem cell research center, and Andrew S. Grove, the Intel chairman, gave the University of California at San Francisco $5 million for such a center.
"This research holds tremendous promise for medical breakthroughs for things like spinal cord injury and diabetes, and most likely for a wide range of things we haven't even imagined yet," said Michael Manganiello, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, a lobbying effort by several disease research groups.
Both sides in the debate say that these disparate efforts, significant though they may prove to be, do not approach the sums of money the government would have devoted to embryonic stem cell research, were it not for the Bush directive.
In August 2001, President Bush decided that federal money could continue to be used for research on self-sustaining colonies, or lines, of cells that had already been extracted from human embryos. But he ordered that no new embryos be taken for federally financed research. The estimate of the number of viable lines in laboratories around the world at the time varies from more than 60 to fewer than 10.
Supporters of such research point to the efforts to circumvent the presidential order as evidence that Mr. Bush's directive, paradoxically, has stimulated interest in the field among philanthropists, lawmakers and researchers. "A lot of these things, including the proposed state laws, would not have happened if the White House hadn't attempted to choke it off," Mr. Manganiello said.
Opponents call the moves deeply disturbing, and say they show that the federal government should adopt tougher restrictions. They also say there is no evidence to support predictions that stem cells will produce medical breakthroughs.
"The proliferation of these various efforts points to a need for an honest debate on this issue, especially since many scientists are recognizing that this is not a technology that is going to lead to therapies any time soon, if at all," said Richard M. Doerflinger, deputy director of anti-abortion activities at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
In the last year, the stem cell debate has merged with the one over human cloning. At one time, embryonic stem cell research involved only leftover frozen embryos created for people trying in-vitro fertilization. But scientists now want to preserve the right to create embryos through cloning.
Congress has become deeply involved, debating proposals to ban cloning for reproduction, either with or without provisions allowing for cloning for research. But Congress has shown no inclination to enter the field of research on existing embryos and stem cell lines to either strengthen or weaken the president's 2001 order.
The law in California and similar bills in other states explicitly prohibit reproductive cloning while allowing the cloning of embryos for research - a position that could be rendered moot if Congress bans all human cloning.
"No one wants to clone human beings," said Assemblyman Scott Stringer, a Manhattan Democrat who introduced the first bill in New York in support of embryonic stem cell research, in January. "The only goal is to cure devastating diseases, and if the federal government won't do it, the states have to."
But opponents have attacked the bills as pro-cloning, saying that they would permit scientists to gestate a cloned embryo into a nearly fully developed fetus, then destroy it to harvest tissue. Scientists dismiss that claim. But it was that type of criticism that prompted lawmakers in New Jersey to withdraw their bill just before the final vote.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said, "These bills, these researchers, are promoting not just research on existing embryos, which we object to, but fetus farming, the creation of embryos for the purpose of destroying them."
Embryonic stem cells have the ability to evolve into cells of other types, giving them a particular fascination for medical researchers and, some say, tremendous promise in the treatment of serious diseases. Most cells in the body can be regenerated only by other cells of the same type, and some, like brain and nerve cells, are capable of little or no regeneration at all, greatly limiting the body's ability to repair damage.
Opponents of embryonic stem cell research argue that there is an alternative: using so-called adult stem cells, which can be derived from blood, bone marrow, body fat and certain organs. But adult stem cells do not have as broad a range of possibilities as those taken from embryos. Stem cells can also be harvested from umbilical cord blood, and some scientists contend those may prove to be more versatile than adult stem cells. There is no opposition to research on either adult or cord blood stem cells.
-------- health
Rare Health Alert Is Issued for Mystery Illness
March 16, 2003
The New York Times
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN and KEITH BRADSHER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/health/16INFE.html
As a mysterious respiratory illness spread to more countries, the World Health Organization yesterday issued a rare health alert, declaring the ailment "a worldwide health threat" and urging all countries to help in seeking its cause and control.
The agency said that in the last week it had received reports of more than 150 new suspected cases of the illness, now known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS. The syndrome has caused at least nine deaths, the last one a nurse in Hanoi. Some victims have recovered but no one has been up, around and healthy in the past two weeks.. It apparently does not respond to antiviral and antibiotic drugs.
Reported cases have come from Canada and six countries in Asia - Hong Kong and elsewhere in China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, the health organization said. There have been no reports of the illness in the United States. But yesterday, an ill passenger and two companions who traveled from New York City were removed from a flight after it arrived in Frankfurt and put in isolation in a German hospital.
The ill passenger is a doctor from Singapore who treated one of the earliest cases there, and who flew to a medical meeting in New York City, said Dick Thompson, a W.H.O. spokesman. The doctor may have gone to a hospital in New York - the agency is not certain which one - before flying back to Singapore via Frankfurt with his wife and another doctor. Before boarding the flight, the doctor called a colleague in Singapore to describe his symptoms, and the colleague notified the World Health Organization.
The cause has not been identified, and scientists do not know whether it is a virus or even an infectious agent. Although health officials have suspected avian influenza, which has infected a small number of people sporadically in Hong Kong since 1997, laboratory tests have not detected that rare strain, known as influenza A(H5N1). As a result, laboratory scientists are focusing on the possibility of a previously unknown infectious agent.
Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a news conference yesterday that it appeared to take direct and sustained contact to transmit the illness from an affected individual to other people. "There is no evidence to suggest that this can be spread through brief contact or assemblages of large numbers of people," she said.
Asked whether this might be an instance of bioterrorism, she replied, "We are keeping an open mind."
In an emergency advisory issued yesterday, the World Health Organization, an arm of the United Nations based in Geneva, said that "there is presently no indication to restrict travel to any destination."
But Dr. Gerberding said, "We are advising persons planning nonessential or elective travel to affected areas that they may wish to postpone their trip until further notice."
Updated information will be posted on the centers' Web site, www.cdc.gov/travel.
W.H.O. and American officials urged all travelers to be aware of the main signs. In addition to the breathing problems, the illness can cause a dry cough and other flulike symptoms that are thought to develop two to seven days after exposure. They usually start with a sudden onset of high fever and go on to include muscle aches, headache, sore throat and shortness of breath.
Standard lab tests often show low numbers of white blood cells and platelets, which help blood to clot. The health agency said any passenger or airline crew member who developed such symptoms should immediately seek medical attention and ensure that information about their recent travel was passed on to the health care staff. "Any traveler who develops these symptoms is advised not to undertake further travel until they have recovered," it said.
If a passenger became ill on a flight, the agency asked airlines to alert the airport of destination and to refer any ill passengers to airport health officials.
"There are currently no indications to restrict the onward travel of well passengers, but all passengers and crew should be advised to seek medical attention if they develop" symptoms, the agency said.
In another rare step, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention activated its emergency operations center in Atlanta, including sophisticated communications technology, to enhance its ability to coordinate information from other countries and to investigate any suspect cases in this country.
The C.D.C. has used the operations center only twice before, for the mosquito-borne West Nile fever epidemic last year and the anthrax attacks in 2001. The last time it issued a global health alert was in 1993, to enhance measures to control tuberculosis. W.H.O. officials said they could not recall the last time an emergency global travel advisory was issued.
The secretary of health and human services, Tommy G. Thompson, said his department "is applying a full-court press to learn more about this outbreak and how it might impact on the United States."
The C.D.C. and New York City health officials are now investigating the travel histories of the passengers now in a German hospital as well as one of the eight cases suspected to be the new syndrome in Toronto and Vancouver, British Columbia.
Two hours before the plane landed, the W.H.O. notified German health officials, who had the plane moved to a separate runway where the doctor, his wife and a colleague disembarked and were taken to a nearby hospital. German health officials advised the other passengers to monitor their health and gave them a telephone number to call if they developed any symptoms. Officials did not release any information on his condition.
Mr. Thompson, the spokesman for the W.H.O., said the cases in Toronto involved a family who returned home after flying to Hong Kong. A woman, Kwan Sui-chu, died shortly after her return. Five other family members who had not been to Hong Kong have since become ill; four are still in the hospital while the fifth, Mrs. Kwan's son, Chi Kwai Tse, died on March 13, according to Toronto Public Health officials.
Toronto health officials said they were aware of two other cases in Vancouver, both people who had recently traveled to Hong Kong. C.D.C. officials are aiding in the investigation because Mrs. Kwan's daughter, who is being treated in Toronto, had flown to Atlanta recently, Mr. Thompson said.
So far, laboratory scientists have not been able to identify a known or novel infectious agent, said Dr. David L. Heymann, a W.H.O. official.
Japanese officials said their tests showed that the influenza virus was not the cause of the illness. But Dr. Heymann said samples from more victims needed to be tested, because it can take weeks for the immune system to produce influenza antibodies, the proteins that are formed to fight invading microbes.
"We have not ruled out influenza definitively," Dr. Heymann said.
Tests of victims' samples have found no evidence of mycoplasma or similar microbes that are the usual causes of atypical pneumonia. Additional tests have shown no evidence of Ebola or any of the other viruses that cause hemorrhagic fevers, hanta virus and bacteria.
In Hong Kong, an American businessman died on Thursday after passing through Hong Kong and falling ill in Hanoi, where 30 doctors and other medical personnel have fallen ill at the hospital where the businessman was initially treated.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Hundreds of thousands throughout the world protest US war plans
Sunday March 16, 12:44 AM
(AFP)
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030315/1/38zhc.html
Hundreds of thousands of people in Yemen marched against a looming war on Iraq as demonstrations unfolded in Asia, the Middle East and Europe and were planned for the United States.
The protests came on the eve of an emergency summit on the crisis on the Azores islands by the leaders of Britain, Spain and the United States, the chief advocates of using force to disarm Baghdad and oust President Saddam Hussein.
In the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, marchers responded to a call by political parties, unions and a variety of organisations, including the powerful Islamist al-Islah movement, the country's main opposition force.
"No to terrorism and to American fleets," "America is the mother of terrorism," they shouted.
In Baghdad, tens of thousands of protesters, including children, caused huge traffic jams as they marched through the capital carrying portraits of Saddam, banners to his glory and against war.
In Egypt, where rallies in support of Iraq and the Palestinians have become an almost daily occurrence for the past two weeks, some 1,500 police outnumbered several hundred demonstrators at the University of Cairo.
In Greece, demonstrators added a touch of art to their protest, with some 15,000 people marching in Athens behind a giant replica of Picasso's celebrated anti-war painting, Guernica.
"EU-US-UN killers go home," read banners carried by the protestors, who had been summoned by anti-globalization groups to march to the US embassy in the Greek capital. Smaller demonstrations were held in other cities throughout the country.
In Russia, some 1,000 communists, young members of the international workers' party and youth members of communist organizations rallied in front of the US embassy in Moscow.
"I love this man, he is like Stalin," Nina Gulchyeva, a protestor, said of Saddam, whose portrait was emblazoned on a banner that she carried. "Someone should bomb Washington."
In Cyprus, some 2,000 Greek Cypriots banged drums, blew whistles and shouted anti-US slogans outside the US embassy in Nicosia.
In Italy, tens of thousands of people were gathering in the economic capital of Milan for an anti-war demonstration that organizers were predicting would attract nearly half a million people.
In France, between 4,500 and 10,000 people turned out for a rally in the southern city of Marseille and tens of thousands of demonstrators were expected to march in the capital of Paris.
Demonstrations also took place in Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Turkey.
In Japan, organizers estimated that some 5,500 people rallied in Naha, the main city on Japans' southern island of Okinawa where most of the US troops in this country are based.
In South Korea, some 3,000 banner-waving marchers were led by loud drums and gongs as they made their way through the busy Chongno district in Seoul toward the US embassy in the city center.
In Vietnam, several thousand people were mobilized onto the streets of the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi by the ruling Communist Party.
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PROTESTS
Demonstrations in Spain and Around the World Against an Iraq War
March 16, 2003
The New York Times
By EMMA DALY
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/international/16DEMO.html
MADRID, March 15 - Angered at their government's unwavering support for United States policy on Iraq, Spaniards took to the streets here today, one of hundreds of antiwar demonstrations around the world.
For the second time in a month, crowds of demonstrators jammed the center of Madrid, waving antiwar placards and chanting insults against President Bush and one of his strongest allies, Prime Minister José María Aznar of Spain.
"We are marching against the law of the jungle that the United States and its acolytes old and new want to impose on the world," José Saramago, the Portuguese writer and Nobel laureate, told the crowd, estimated by news organizations at about half a million, gathered in Madrid's Puerta del Sol. Another demonstration was held in Barcelona, where the police said 300,000 people demonstrated, some of them forming a three-mile human chain.
The events were part of a largely coordinated worldwide effort to rally support against the war.
While the Spanish demonstrations drew large crowds, some others were more sparsely attended. In Seoul, South Korea, 3,000 protesters held towering candles as they paraded through the capital. About 15,000 rallied in Athens, accompanied by a giant reproduction of "Guérnica," Picasso's antiwar painting. And in Moscow, 1,000 people demonstrated in front of the American Embassy.
In London, where an estimated one million people marched against the war in January, there were protests in several residential neighborhoods and a scheduled concert tonight for 2,000 people aimed at raising money for the Stop the War coalition.
Muslims in London organized walk-bys at the embassies of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Qatar and Pakistan, countries they accuse of collaborating with the United States. "The governments of the Muslim world have the power to stop this war by disallowing America and its allies from using their land, airspace, waterways and logistics to perpetrate it," said one of the organizers, Dr. Imran Waheed.
In Montreal, about 250,000 people marched through the streets shouting antiwar slogans, in the largest of 30 demonstrations in Canada.
About 100,000 people demonstrated in Berlin, according to police estimates, while 50,000 demonstrators gathered in the Place de la Nation in Paris.
More than 5,000 people marched in Marseille, France's second largest city.
In central Tokyo, an estimated 10,000 people filed through downtown streets to applause from passers-by. According to polls, more than 80 percent of the Japanese people oppose an attack on Iraq, but the government has supported the United States demand that Baghdad disarm or face military action.
In Madrid, few demonstrators saw much hope of persuading Mr. Aznar to change course. "Hope is the last thing to go," said Ernesto Cano, a student attending with his parents and family friends. "If we keep making an effort there is still a possibility to avoid war."
But Maria Conde, marching with her three labrador dogs, was pessimistic. "I don't think this will change anything," she said.
In the Middle East, some of the demonstrations were in support of Saddam Hussein. In Khan Yunis, in the Gaza Strip, for example, 10 men in black hoods, wearing mock versions of the explosives belts of suicide bombers, led a march in support of the Iraqi leader.
In Cairo, several hundred people, surrounded by 1,500 police officers, protested outside the University of Cairo chanting, "With our blood, with our soul, we will defend Baghdad."
In Nicosia, 2,000 people marched on the American Embassy demanding "no more blood for oil." They also condemned the presence on the island of the largest Royal Air Force base outside Britain, at Akiroti, which is scheduled to play a support and logistics role in any attack on Iraq.
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Tens of Thousands March Against Iraq War
March 16, 2003
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/national/16PROT.html
WASHINGTON, March 15 - In what many saw as a last chance to head off military action, tens of thousands of antiwar protesters marched in several demonstrations around the country today in opposition to the Bush administration's policy on Iraq.
In Washington, just hours after President Bush said in his weekly radio address that he saw little chance that Iraq would disarm without the use of force, throngs of protesters armed with banners and bullhorns implored Mr. Bush to abandon a possible war.
"The people can stop the war," Congressman John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, told thousands of cheering supporters near the Washington Monument on a mild, sunny but breezy afternoon. He urged people to continue to protest "until this madness is ended."
Marching on streets that pass within a block or two of the White House, which they were not allowed to approach more closely, the protesters flooded nearly a dozen blocks of city streets in a sea of colorful and often angry antiwar banners and chanted slogans.
Although police gave no official crowd count, a park police supervisor working the scene estimated that the protesters totaled 50,000 people. It was hard to be sure if there were that many, as some came and went, while others milled around in clusters on side streets. Protesters gathered to listen to speeches, then marched around the White House.
If the crowd was smaller than some recent antiwar protests, it might have been because organizers called the "emergency" action only a few weeks ago.
Police said the crowd was generally peaceful, although about a half-dozen people were arrested for illegally entering the lobby of the World Bank, a target of past economic protests. Hundreds of police enforced barricades and massed at intersections.
In San Francisco, demonstrators filled Civic Center Plaza, ignoring forecasts for heavy rain and possible unruly acts by splinter protest marchers. Police and organizers declined to provide a crowd estimate. Some protesters described the mood of the marchers there as less festive than at a February rally. But many demonstrators remained hopeful for a peaceful resolution. "It's worth it to march to make the numbers count and be counted," said Sarah Warnock, 41, a biologist.
A splinter protest at the February rally turned violent. San Francisco officials rerouted today's rally to avoid the downtown shopping area where rioters vandalized stores.
Today the police said they had arrested more than 150 of several hundred people in splinter marches away from the main protest. There was one arrest for throwing a smoke bomb at a police officer, and others were charged with failure to disperse and illegal assembly.
In Los Angeles, the Reverend Jesse Jackson led a noisy and soaking wet procession of about 2,500 people through downtown. Tama Winograd, a music executive from Hollywood, said the weather was not a hindrance. "I would be here today, even if there was an earthquake," Ms. Winograd said. About 30,000 protesters converged on the banks of the Willamette River in Portland, Ore. Representative John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia who marched alongside Martin Luther King, told the crowd, "People around the world will not be inspired by our missiles and our guns; they will be inspired by our ideas."
Separately, a group of 41 Nobel laureates in science, medicine and economics who signed a declaration in January opposing war with Iraq said today that eight more laureates, all winners of the Peace Prize, have joined their cause. The eight include Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.
Today's Washington protest was organized by a group called Answer, which stands for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. The group, formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has drawn criticism from some people inside and out of the antiwar movement because some of its chief organizers are active in radical socialist causes and because it has taken controversial positions on issues not directly related to Iraq. At today's rally, speakers addressed a wide range of issues, including Palestinian statehood, pollution, affirmative action and world hunger.
"We don't police our speakers at all," said Larry Holmes, a spokesman for Answer. "People here raise Palestine, Colombia, everything, but it's all basically about peace."
Mr. Holmes said that if war with Iraq breaks out, the group plans more severe acts of civil disobedience around the country, including mass sit-ins.
While a New York Times/CBS News Poll last week found that 55 percent of Americans would support an American invasion of Iraq even in defiance of the United Nations, there was near unanimity at today's demonstration in opposition to the war.
Organizers of the protest sought to present a diverse face to emphasize the breadth of dissatisfaction with the administration's Iraq policy.
There were students in tie-dyed shirts playing hacky sack and grandmothers selling antiwar pins. Local residents were joined by out-of-towners. And veteran activists, some who protested the Vietnam War, mingled with novice protesters.
Fred Gregory, a retired Army captain, said he came from Maryland with his wife, Charlotte, to join the protests because he did not believe that Iraq posed the significant threat that the administration says it does. At 68, Mr. Gregory said, "this is the first time I've ever protested anything in my life."
President Bush was the target of criticism in speeches and on antiwar placards, with numerous handmade signs mocking him. Ramsey Clark, the former attorney general who was one of more than 50 speakers to address the rally, told protesters that Mr. Bush should be impeached.
Mr. Conyers, the Michigan congressman, urged Mr. Bush to pay close attention to the rising tide of discontent over Iraq. "People have stopped wars before - ordinary people," he said later. "It can happen again here."
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BAGHDAD
Iraqis Join a Rally to Show That War Will Be Resisted
March 16, 2003
By JOHN F. BURNS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/international/middleeast/16BAGH.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 15 - Waving Kalashnikov rifles in the air and burning American and Israeli flags, thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad and other cities today in a tightly marshaled show of defiance for the United States.
The main demonstration in Baghdad appeared to have been organized with a view to cautioning President Bush about the resistance American troops may confront in Iraq.
Along with soldiers and militiamen, factory and office workers, women's groups and schoolchildren, the battalions parading past a reviewing stand on one of the capital's main shopping streets were a colorful panorama of Iraq's ethnic and sectarian groups.
Iraqi officials offered what appeared to be hugely ambitious estimates of the number of demonstrators, with some saying that as many as a million people had turned out in a city with a population of 4.5 million. By the rough estimates of Western reporters, the total appeared to have been in the range of 100,000 to 200,000. According to some at the rally, many of those taking part, perhaps most, had been ordered to attend by their work supervisors or by neighborhood committees.
But even if the turnout was hardly spontaneous, and the mood curiously desultory, even limp, the demonstration showed that Saddam Hussein, after 23 years in power, still has an impressive organizational ability and the power to compel compliance. What remains uncertain, even in the face of the vows Iraqis offer on such occasions to fight American troops, is whether many will have the weapons, the perseverance or the will to do so.
In a society that has lived for 35 years under the rigid, neo-Stalinist compulsions of the ruling Baath Party, organizer of the rally today, any attempt to say what Iraqis really believe, or what they may do in conditions of extreme crisis for the government, is in the end largely a matter of conjecture.
Some Iraqis have begun to speak to Westerners with an unprecedented candor. But most people here, disciplined by years of fear and unquestioning fealty, still trust nobody when it comes to political matters outside their immediate family and closest friends, and sometimes do not even trust them.
But something of the crosscurrents that are flowing was suggested by a dinner that one Westerner attended in a Baghdad home on Friday night. The hosts, a retired army officer and his wife, a teacher, fell to arguing about what to do if Mr. Bush returned from his Sunday meeting in the Azores with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and Prime Minister José María Aznar of Spain with a decision to order American troops into combat. Iraqi officials who discussed that meeting privately today said they believed that it would be one of the last, crucial watersheds on the road to war.
The retired officer said he would find a weapon and fight, not out of personal loyalty to Mr. Hussein, of whom he was severely critical, but because his yearning for an Iraq free of political repression was outweighed by his sense of patriotic indignation at the prospect of an American general supplanting Mr. Hussein. The officer's wife, alarmed, said she would lock all the doors of the house, as well as the windows, and prevent her husband from leaving, because joining armed resistance to the American forces would be to invite death in a hopeless cause.
What does seem clear, to just about all Westerners who have visited Iraq in recent months, is that Mr. Hussein and his aging oligarchy have long since exhausted the popular support that greeted the Baath revolution of 1968.
Iraqis whisper with increasing desperation over what has become of Iraq's oil prosperity of the 1970's after punishing wars with Iran in the 1980's and with the United States and its coalition partners over Kuwait in 1991, along with more than a decade of United Nations economic sanctions that have speeded the country's decline toward having a social and economic profile akin to that of much of sub-Saharan Africa. On top of this, there have been the ruthless workings of a secret police with few counterparts in the modern world.
But the same Iraqis who condemn the years of misrule have deep misgivings about the prospect of an American imperium. In that respect, at least, the demonstrations today in Baghdad, however bereft of real passion they may have seemed to outsiders in the waving of portraits of Mr. Hussein and the chanting of his name, may have conveyed something of the reality awaiting American forces if they end up controlling Iraq.
Reporters watching the flow of humanity were approached repeatedly by people who said little or nothing about Mr. Hussein, but a torrent of things about America's greed for Iraq's oil, about its desire to weaken Iraq as a source of opposition to Israel and what is taken here to be its suppression of the Palestinians, and about the arrogance of American power under Mr. Bush. The remarks came from men in Western suits and women in black Islamic cloaks; from soldiers, doctors, professors, teachers, teenagers in school uniforms, Muslim clerics and shopkeepers, from right across the spectrum of Iraqi society.
One woman, who identified herself as Aliya, a 50-year-old high school English teacher, pushed her way through the crowd to a group of reporters, lifted the hood of her black cloak back from her forehead, and ran off a lengthy checklist of grievances against America, from oil to Israel. Listening in, not far away, was a man who appeared to be an Iraqi secret police agent. But the woman, seemingly indifferent, offered a revealing answer when she was asked if she thought Iraqis fighting American soldiers would be doing so for Mr. Hussein, or for Iraq's freedom from foreign control.
"For Iraq," she said.
In other respects, the rally cannot have been a resounding morale booster for the ruling party. Western diplomats here have estimated that the core of Mr. Hussein's ruling elite - die-hards, mostly men, who have a deep personal commitment to the Iraqi leader, or who are so closely identified with his rule that they may feel they have little option but to lead the fight for his survival - could number anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000, in a nation of 24 million. Western military experts have estimated that Iraq's army may have as few as 130,000 soldiers, about a third as many as in 1991.
On the podium for the rally on the 14th of Ramadan Street, in the mundane heart of a stretch of fast-food restaurants and electronic appliance stores, were a group of men who would probably be counted among those die-hards: senior army officers and Baath Party officials, all in green serge uniforms, the army men distinguished by heavy-caliber pistols loosely holstered at their waists, one of them, in a heavy mustache, black beret and Ray-Ban glasses, almost a ringer for Mr. Hussein.
They also had a distracted, almost disengaged air, as though they, like the marchers, were mostly going through the motions.
The marchers, for their part, seemed to approach their task with more of a carnival spirit than anything approaching real fervor. They waved back in a flaccid way, many of them smoking and chatting as they went. Even their banners, in English, seemed polite, rather than militant.
Many of the marching groups came with Kalashnikovs, and waved them, smiling, at Westerners. But on closer inspection, almost none of the marchers' weapons appeared to have bullets in their magazines.
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200,000 protesters head for White House
By Severin Carrell, Alyssa Cohen and Emma Stroud
16 March 2003
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=387598
Tens of thousands of US anti-war protesters converged on the White House in Washington yesterday as campaigners around the globe staged scores of marches, rallies and peace vigils against an attack on Iraq.
The White House protest was expected to draw more than 200,000 people from about 100 cities across the United States. The largest protests outside the US were held in Paris, Athens and Tokyo. There were smaller demonstrations in other capitals, such as Moscow, Cairo and Christchurch, New Zealand, and low key protests in the UK as well.
In Paris, more than 50,000 protesters, underlining popular support for President Chirac's threat to veto a UN-backed war, converged on the Place de la Nation and held up a vast US flag daubed with a Nazi swastika and the words "killers and criminals".
Smaller demonstrations were staged in Marseilles, Lyon and Toulouse, while in Athens, about 20,000 marched on the American embassy, carrying banners which read "No to the barbarism of the war".
In Britain, about 3,500 people demonstrated in York, thought to be the city's largest ever protest, with another 10,000 in Leeds, 3,500 in Exeter and 2,000 in Newcastle. In Bournemouth, about 1,000 demonstrators rallied in a town centre park, while in Portsmouth, about 500 people blockaded the naval base.
A sell-out benefit concert in London last night was due to feature Paul Weller, Faithless, Ronan Keating and Beth Orton. As speculation intensifies that the war will begin this week, a mass protest in London is already been arranged for next Saturday, with a wave of strikes and protests on the day the war breaks out.
The Washington demonstration, which overshadowed dozens of smaller events in cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, was the largest of the weekend's protests around the world.
College students, church activists, Jewish and Muslim peace activists, trades unionists and human rights protesters met at the Washington Monument before marching to surround the White House and nearby Justice Department in a "sea of humanity".
President George Bush had already left the White House for Camp David before his crisis meeting with Tony Blair in the Azores. Ramsay Clark, the former US Attorney General under President Johnson, suggested the war could still be halted. "Saturday may be the last chance for the American people to stand up and say no," he said.
Candlelight vigils were also planned by US religious leaders for this evening at the Washington Lincoln Memorial, to coincide with thousands of other vigils expected to take place across the world.
"My hope is that on Monday morning the [Bush] administration will realise there are two superpowers in the world: the United States and world opinion," said the Rev Bob Edgar, general secretary of the US National Council of Churches. "They haven't convinced the world there is a smoking gun."
In London, several hundred demonstrators gathered in Kilburn, Crawley and Tower Hamlets, as 500 supporters of the radical Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir handed in protest letters to several Middle Eastern embassies, claiming their "slavish rulers" were complicit in the US attack on Iraq.
There was, however, one counter-demonstration in London by Iraqi Kurds supporting war. Furious at the French decision to block the attack on Iraq, they delivered a petition to the French embassy. Citing years of oppression and torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime, Azos Rashid, a 20-year old student and member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said war was justified: "Saddam is not complying with the United Nations and has not complied with previous resolutions."
In Japan around 10,000 protesters, some wearing traditional Japanese robes and others carrying placards bearing messages such as "Stop the foolish attack", marched through central Tokyo to applause from passers-by. "I am 74 years old: I have experienced war," said Ryoko Muneyama. "I hate the idea of my children or grandchildren going through it and I don't want to kill children on the other side either."
In Seoul, 2,000 South Koreans threw paper doves into the evening sky, while some of the 300 protesters in Hong Kong wore mock oil barrels. In Bangkok, about 3,000 protesters outside a UN office heard speeches and karaoke singing. In Australia and New Zealand, more than 10,000 people staged small protests in Christchurch, Dunedin and Melbourne.
In north Africa and the Middle East, protesters in Yemen, goaded into action by the country's president Ali Abdullah Saleh, left-wing groups in Turkey, protesters in Tunisia and 300 students in the Egyptian capital Cairo attacked US and British motives for staging the war.
In the Yemeni capital Sanaa, crowds brought traffic to a halt and carried placards reading "America, Britain, Israel are an axis of evil" and "Do not cede, Do not cede, No to the Anglo-American war drums." When the B-52s fly out we'll know war's begun
By Mark Rowe
The Cotswold hamlet of Dunfield is an incongruous place to stage a peace protest. It is also an unlikely location for a military air base. RAF Fairford has become the target of campaigners since it is from here that American B-52s, capable of carrying 30 tons of bombs, which gained notoriety for their high-altitude carpet-bombing during the Vietnam War, will depart for Iraq - possibly within just a few days.
In recent days, 14 B-52s have arrived, prompting an invasion of 20 or so peace campaigners who have pitched their tents outside Gate 10, within view of the runway. Pinned to the gate are pictures of Iraqi children. "I'm a mother and I think of how Iraqi mothers must be feeling ," said Lou Selene, a Greenham Common veteran. "Of course Saddam is evil and I wish he would die but that is no excuse to bomb Iraq."
The huge fuselages and dark tail fins of the B 52s are clearly visible from the warren of country roads that surround RAF Fairford - too visible for the MoD's liking.
A steady convoy of police cars and vans encircle the base while a Section 60 order allows the police to stop and search anyone within a mile. Twelve people were arrested after cutting through fencing at the base last weekthen two more were arrested and charged with criminal damage and aggravated trespass. They said they would claim "lawful excuse" in court this week.
"It shows that even if this war is inevitable we do have an impact," said Ms Selene. "The lawful excuse defence has worked before with attacks on military targets - that may be why they've kept the B2 stealth bombers away."
Nuala Young, lecturer and grandmother of four, is organising a protest by up to 50 other grandmothers tomorrow. "We shall ask to see the base commander and when he refuses we shall sit down outside the main entrance," she said. "Then we'll see what happens."
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War protest draws thousands
By Denise Barnes and Patrick Badgley
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 16, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20030316-79798378.htm
Tens of thousands of protesters thronged the Mall yesterday to rally against imminent war with Iraq and to criticize the Bush administration for resorting to force.
The crowd assembled near the Washington Monument for a daylong demonstration and march around the White House, echoing protests across the globe that drew millions in what could be the last such opportunities before the United States and its allies attack Saddam Hussein's regime.
Some demonstrators here yelled familiar anti-war slogans such as "No Blood for Oil" and "No Justice, No Peace." Others carried placards reading "Vive la France" in support of France's vow to veto any new U.N. Security Council resolution that delivers an ultimatum to Saddam.
Postal Service worker Howard Williams, 49, hoisted a sign reading "I Love French Fries - I Hate the Bush Regime."
"We aren't a focus group - we are the people," the Capitol Heights resident said, referring to a recent statement by the president that he can't decide what is in the nation's security interests based on protests.
The demonstration was organized by the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) Coalition, which estimated that about 100,000 participated.
Shahkeh Setian, 69, who traveled to the District from Mashpee, Mass., near Cape Cod, said Mr. Bush is using the September 11 attacks as a reason for war.
"There were no Iraqis in those planes. The president and his advisers know how to spin it," she said.
About 50 counterprotesters, including members of Free Republic, gathered at Pennsylvania Avenue and 15th Street NW, carrying signs and buttons in red, white and blue with slogans such as "We Must Fight for Freedom."
Others dressed in Saddam Hussein Halloween masks and shouted through bullhorns.
"We gave peace a chance, and we got 9/11," some called as antiwar demonstrators marched past.
Demonstrators on both sides accused each other of lacking adequate information. But they agreed that freedom to protest is a vital aspect of America.
"I think that's what makes America so great. We can go out here and have no worry about getting shot down," said Kyle Lewis, 23, of Olney, a Bush supporter who attended with three friends. "They can support their side and we can come up here and hold up our signs."
Roxann Chiusano, a real estate broker from Bethesda, linked the need for war to protection of freedom. Mrs. Chiusano said she tells her 17-year-old daughter, who is against war in Iraq, to "be proud that we have the right to protest, because it could be taken away from us."
After the 21/2-hour rally, the crowd marched up 17th Street NW, past the White House. About 50 demonstrators broke off and a group entered World Bank headquarters on 18th Street NW.
D.C. police arrested six and said seven others escaped out the west side of the building, where a window had been shattered.
The antiwar message also was carried to the streets in Moscow and scores of other cities in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
About 10,000 protesters, including some who remember World War II, paraded peacefully through central Tokyo.
"Let's put aside the discussion of which side is wrong or right," said Miwako Masuda. "In my youth, I experienced the war and lost my family."
Thousands rallied in Australia and New Zealand. In Bangkok, Thailand, about 1,000 chanting demonstrators gathered outside a U.N. office. War protests also were staged in South Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
On Friday, the Islamic Sabbath, 4,000 protesters shouted in the presence of an even larger number of riot police in Cairo, Egypt, and 300 marched yesterday at Cairo University. "This is a symbol," writer Mohammed Abdel Qudos said on the campus. "We know that we won't prevent war."
Noisy demonstrators took to the streets yesterday from Athens, Greece, and Bucharest, Romania, to Frankfurt, Germany, and Madrid, Spain.
On the Mall in Washington, U.S. Park Police reinforced their ranks with officers from New York and San Francisco.
"Although permits call for as many as 20,000 people, we are expecting quite a bit more than that based on information from organizers," spokesman Sgt. Scott Fear said early on.
"We will march, protest, picket nonviolently until this has ended," said Rep. John Conyers, Michigan Democrat, one of the more prominent speakers. "We need a regime change in the United States."
Also among the speakers were Ramsey Clark, U.S. attorney general under President Johnson; Joslyn Williams, president of the D.C. Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO; and Gene Bruskin of U.S. Labor Against the War.
Mr. Clark told the crowd that the Bush administration is tuning out voices against war and acting too hastily.
"It must be hard for them to believe that there are millions and millions of people in the United States that love them," Mr. Clark said of Iraqi citizens. "Each of their lives is as worthy as yours or mine."
Demonstrators enjoyed sunny skies and temperatures in the 50s. Some picnicked while others perched in trees to get a bird's-eye view of the stage.
Adam Mitchell, 28, who arrived with two busloads of protesters from Athens, Ohio, painted the scene with the monument as focal point.
"I feel that if we continue to live in fear, we are leading ourselves to our own apocalypse," Mr. Mitchell said, seated on a milk crate. "If we take the walls down and learn to respect one another, that's the key to our survival."
"This is a war against terrorism. Saddam Hussein finances and gives refuge to terrorists," said John Chick, 34, of Mount Airy, Md.
•Michelle Rothman contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
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Anti-war protesters hold 11th hour rallies
By Anwar Iqbal
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
March 15, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030315-095116-8111r.htm
WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- Protesters around the world Saturday were making what they feared was their last stand against an invasion of Iraq.
"Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld: the real axis of evil," said one banner in Washington, where a rally at the U.S. Capitol was followed by a march down Pennsylvania Ave. to the White House.
Its tenant was not at home. President George W. Bush, who has spearheaded the drive to disarm Iraq, by force if necessary, was at Camp David preparing for a one-day summit Sunday in the Azores with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.
There was widespread belief that once that summit is concluded, Bush would make one final demand that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein disarm, and a war could begin by week's end or sooner.
Anti-war demonstrations also took place in San Francisco, Paris -- where crowd estimates reached 50,000 -- and Beirut.
"We don't want the Iraqi people to suffer one more time," said a student at the American University of Beirut who joined the crowd in front of the United Nations House in Beirut's city center. "If they (U.S.) attack Iraq, there will be another Sept. 11," referring to the 2001 terror attacks in New York and Washington.
In San Francisco, anti-war protesters gathered at Civic Center Plaza, with some two-dozen speeches and performances, before a march ending at Jefferson Square Park with a rally.
"Give thanks and praise for living in a country that tolerates dissent as if basic human rights are given by the gracious hand of any state," actor Martin Sheen told a supportive crowd. "Lord make us instruments of your peace."
There were demonstrations in favor of President Bush's approach as well, including a rally in Atlanta.
Thousands of flag waving people attended the "Rally for America" event, hosted by Newsradio 640 WGST. Some people also waved signs as local talk show host Kim Peterson and syndicated host Glen Beck rallied support for the president and the military.
"I promise you, our troops hear your voice today," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted Beck as telling the crowd.
Atlanta police wouldn't give crowd estimates, but event organizers said between 25,000 and 30,0000 attended the rally at Centennial Olympic Park.
In Washington, about 50 supporters stood behind police barricades at Pennsylvania Avenue and 15th Street and, in high spirits, waved signs such as "Disarm Saddam, Free Iraq" and "Bomb the French."
Encouraged by a sunny afternoon, the anti-war protesters unfurled banners and collected donations to help the organizers who brought thousands of people from places as far away as Florida and Maine.
"No war, no blood for oil," they shouted, keeping time with the drums that were beaten all day. "No to mother of all bombs," said another. "Don't kill the children of Iraq," shouted a protester struggling to unfurl her banner.
Despite the march's peaceful atmosphere, D.C police said six protesters were arrested.
Five anti-war protesters were arrested Saturday for entering the World Bank headquarters in downtown Washington. Police said those arrested have been charged with unlawful entry, while officers believe seven others escaped through a shattered window.
A group of about 50 demonstrators broke off from a rally on the National Mall and rushed to the building in downtown Washington.
Organizers said the events in the U.N. Security Council and the reluctance of allies like Turkey to endorse the U.S.-led move shows the entire world is against this war. The Bush administration, they said, would be committing a war crime if it went to war now.
"We feel that it's not too late for the people to stop this war. There's still hope," said Tony Murphy of the International ANSWER coalition, the main march organizer.
The protesters were supported by 70 members of Congress who asked Bush to give U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq more time. "Let us give peace a chance. Let us pull back from the brink of war," the former lawmakers said in a statement.
The ex-lawmakers --- all but four of them Democrats --- called the Iraqi crisis a very unpopular war which will increase terrorist attacks and destabilize the Middle East. Concerns for innocent Iraqis, who may be killed by U.S. bombs, also prevents them from supporting the war, they said.
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Here and Abroad
Protesters in U.S. Cities Join Antiwar Voices Heard Round the World
By Kimberly Edds
The Washington Post
Sunday, March 16, 2003; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31206-2003Mar15?language=printer
LOS ANGELES, March 15 -- Driving rain did not drown out the cries of thousands of antiwar protesters today as they sloshed through puddle-filled downtown streets, beating on empty plastic containers, shaking tambourines and playing bagpipes as they voiced their opposition to a war in Iraq along with hundreds of thousands of others worldwide.
In San Francisco, police arrested more than 150 demonstrators who were part of a splinter group that broke off from an earlier antiwar march that drew tens of thousands, Reuters reported, citing local news media. Police moved in after the group stayed on the streets and attempted to block traffic after the main demonstration ended. One person was arrested in Portland, Ore., after protesters briefly blocked a bridge.
In rainy Los Angeles, parents held umbrellas over young children as teenagers with bandanas covering their mouths distributed fliers and petitions. One protester cradled her toy poodle in its own yellow raincoat and hat.
Police estimated the crowd at 3,000, much smaller than organizers had anticipated. Organizers attributed the no-shows to the weather. A march on Hollywood Boulevard last month drew 40,000 people.
Today's crowd was decidedly against President Bush's plan to attack Iraq. Protesters carried signs that read, "Drop Bush, Not Bombs" and "Stop Mad Cowboy." Several vendors sold T-shirts with a swastika replacing the "s" in Bush.
"The issue is one of life and death. It may be raining here today, but it's going to be 10-ton bombs that are falling on the women and children of Iraq tomorrow," said Lisa Edmondson, 62.
Julianne Spillman, 73, a peace activist who sipped coffee under the cover of a catering truck, said, "A lot of people think that because we are for peace, that we think Saddam Hussein is a good guy. We don't. We want to get rid of him, but there are a lot of other ways to do that."
Chris Marr, the son of a Marine, protested in the downpour because he believes the United States has more to offer the world than "patriotic tokens. By being here, I'm representing the true America. We have American generosity, American humor, a sense of fair play, and instead, we have become the bully of the world."
Worldwide, tens of thousands rallied near symbols of American power -- the U.S. air base in Frankfurt and U.S. embassies in Greece and Cyprus -- and in the streets throughout Asia, the Middle East and Europe, news services reported. Hundreds of thousands turned out in Baghdad.
In Moundsville, W.Va., several hundred people marched in support of Bush and the more than 2,500 West Virginia National Guard and reserve members called to active duty.
There were demonstrations in Atlanta and other U.S. cities that supported an invasion of Iraq.
Rallies, according to the Associated Press, included:
? Moscow: More than 1,000 demonstrators waved red flags, portraits of Hussein and signs that read, "Bush, Take Your Hands Off Iraq" and "USA World Cannibal."
? Stockholm: About 3,000 protesters heard speakers urge an end to "the U.S. and British war hysteria."
? Frankfurt, Germany: Whistle-blowing protesters sat in front of the main gate at the U.S. Rhine-Main Air Base, ignoring police warnings not to block access to the transit point for U.S. military traffic to Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf region.
? Iskenderun, Turkey: About 7,500 people, shouting, "Yankee, go home," marched through the city demanding the U.S. scrap plans to launch a war from Turkey.
? Athens: More than 10,000 Greeks, carrying banners that read, "Stop the war" and, "No to the barbarism of the war," marched to the U.S. Embassy. In the northern port of Thessaloniki, Greece, protesters burned a cardboard effigy of a missile at the U.S. Consulate.
? Tokyo: About 10,000 Japanese -- double the turnout for last month's Iraq demonstrations -- chanted, "No war!" as they moved through the business district.
? Seoul: Two thousand South Koreans threw paper doves into the evening sky.
? Bangkok: Outside a U.N. office building, about 1,000 protesters rallied and listened first to antiwar speeches, then to karaoke singers.
? San'a, Yemen: Tens of thousands of Yemenis heeded President Ali Abdallah Salih's call to turn out for antiwar rallies amid tight security.
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Anti-war protestors race against the clock
3/16/2003
By Alan Levin,
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-03-16-protest-usat_x.htm
WASHINGTON - Anti-war protestors appeared worried that a weekend of marches here and in other cities have failed to avert U.S. moves toward possible war in Iraq.
Tens of thousands of people marched past the White House on Saturday in a demonstration that had far fewer numbers than a protest in January. Meanwhile, some activists vowed a week of civil disobedience as President Bush prepared to address the nation on whether the United States will launch a war against Saddam Hussein.
"People see the window of opportunity to stop this full-scale war before it starts narrowing drastically," said Steve Kretzmann of the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington think tank active in the anti-war movement. "We're going to do everything we can in the next 36 to 48 hours to make sure that doesn't happen."
Police estimated that 40,000 people marched in Washington on Saturday - less than the number expected by organizers and below the 100,000 people who were said to have demonstrated here in January.
On Sunday, several thousand people held a night vigil at the Lincoln Memorial. Their candles sparkled as Peter, Paul and Mary sang Where Have all the Flowers Gone.
Protest organizers said the weekend turnout was fewer than expected because the protest date had been changed recently. They planned a march today to the Capitol and said they may try to enter Congress and hold sit-ins at the offices of members.
"I anticipate a number of people arrested on the Capitol steps," said Celia Alario of United for Peace and Justice. "People feel like the constituencies have spoken, and the elected people are not responding."
People rallied worldwide over the weekend. In Frankfurt, Germany, a group of protesters sat in front of a gate to the U.S. Rhein-Main Air Base. In Turkey, 7,500 people in Iskenderun shouted "Yankee Go Home." In Greece, 10,000 people marched outside the U.S. Embassy in Athens.
President Bush and partners from Britain and Spain gave the United Nations a deadline of today for endorsing the use of force to get Iraq to disarm. The president intends to address the nation on the subject this week, perhaps as early as tonight.
Lewis Wheeler, who came to Washington from Boston, said Bush should be giving U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq more time. "It seems like there is momentum building to use these soldiers," he said. "It's more glamorous to go to war than to hang in there with inspections for months and months."
"It's not right," said Sally Baker, a teacher from Albany, N.Y. "It's not going to make us any safer."
Valerie Mosley, 31, of Alexandria, Va., said outside the Lincoln Memorial that she doubted Bush would avoid war. "I don't think the thoughts of a lot of people are being represented," Mosley said. "I very much believe that this needs to be debated out at the U.N."
Not all protestors were against war.
In Moundsville, W.Va., police said 3,000 people rallied Saturday in support of the president. In Atlanta, thousands of flag-waving people chanted "USA! USA!"
Several dozen people stood on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington to speak out on Hussein's dictatorship. "We've got to take action," said Ainsley Hargus, 18, of Rockville, Md. "Sitting in a circle singing Kumbaya isn't going to change anything.
Contributing: Wire reports.
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Slain Protester Active in Peace Movement
March 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Protester-Killed-Wash.html
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) -- In a matter of months, Rachel Corrie went from the orderly peace movement of this small liberal city to a deadly world of gunfire, violent political conflict and the bulldozer that crushed her to death.
Corrie, 23, a student at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, died Sunday in Gaza while trying to stop the bulldozer from tearing down a Palestinian physician's home. She fell in front of the machine, which ran over her and then backed up, witnesses said.
In an e-mail earlier this month, Corrie had described a Feb. 14 confrontation with another Israeli bulldozer in which she referred to herself and other activists as ``internationals.''
``The internationals stood in the path of the bulldozer and were physically pushed with the shovel backwards, taking shelter in a house,'' Corrie wrote in the e-mail, distributed in a March 3 news release by the International Solidarity Movement.
``The bulldozer then proceeded on its course, demolishing one side of the house with the internationals inside,'' she wrote.
Just a few months before her death, Corrie had been organizing events as an activist in Olympia's peace movement and at Evergreen, a small campus know for its devotion to liberal causes.
Through a local group called Olympians for Peace in the Middle East, she joined the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led group that uses nonviolent methods to challenge Israeli occupation. Among their methods is standing in front of the bulldozers Israel sends into the area nearly ever day to destroy buildings near the Gaza-Egypt border.
Other protesters who were with Corrie in Gaza on Sunday said she was wearing a bright colored jacket when the bulldozer hit her.
``Rachel was alone in front of the house as we were trying to get them to stop,'' said Greg Schnabel, 28, of Chicago. ``She waved for the bulldozer to stop and waved. She fell down and the bulldozer kept going. We yelled, 'Stop, stop,' and the bulldozer didn't stop at all.''
Israeli military spokesman Capt. Jacob Dallal said her death was an accident. State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said the U.S. government had asked Israeli officials for a full investigation.
A tearful Craig Corrie, Rachel's father, remembered his daughter Sunday as ``dedicated to everybody.''
``We've tried to bring up our children to have a sense of community, a sense of community that everybody in the world belonged to,'' he said from his home in Charlotte, N.C. ``Rachel believed that -- with her life, now.''
Corrie was already a committed peace activist when she arrived at Evergreen State, a small campus is known for devotion to liberal causes, said Larry Mosqueda, one of Corrie's professors and a fellow activist.
``She was concerned about human rights and dignity,'' he said. ``That's why she was there.'' A previously scheduled peace vigil Sunday turned into an impromptu memorial for Corrie. Several hundred mourners held candles, photocopied pictures of her with the title ``Peacemaker'' and hand-lettered banners urging the United States to discontinue aid to Israel and avoid war with Iraq.
``Rachel shouldered the responsibility that her government would not bear,'' said Krissy Johnson, 24, a friend of Corrie.
The move from organizer to front-line opposition in a war zone was a switch for Corrie, whom friends said was not usually inclined to the overt acts of civil disobedience that characterized such events as the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999.
``As long as I've known her she's always been very energetic and very focused about social justice,'' said Phan Nguyen, 28, a friend and fellow activist who has made several similar trips to the West Bank. ``It seemed natural that she would do something like this.''
In her e-mailed dispatch from Rafah, Corrie painted a picture of the perilous life of a human shield, recounting a Feb. 14 confrontation with the Israelis.
``We can only imagine what it is like for Palestinians living here, most of them already once-or-twice refugees already, for whom this is not a nightmare,'' Corrie wrote, ``but a continuous reality from which international privilege cannot protect them, and from which they have no economic means to escape.''
On the Net:
International Solidarity Movement: http://www.palsolidarity.org/
Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace: http://www.omjp.org/
Evergreen State College: http://www.evergreen.edu
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Nation Rallies for Peace and U.S. Troops
March 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-War-Rallies.html
CHICAGO (AP) -- With the possibility of a war with Iraq drawing ever nearer, demonstrators across the nation again hit the streets Sunday to show their support for peace, as others gathered to support U.S. troops.
Organizers estimated a crowd of about 10,000 war protesters who crammed Chicago's Daley Plaza on Sunday to join religious, labor and community leaders in opposing an invasion of Iraq. Police, who did not immediately provide a crowd estimate, said there were no early reports of arrests.
In Pennsylvania, a police-estimated crowd of 6,000 attended the ``Rally for America,'' held on a field near Valley Forge National Historical Park.
Rick Moody, 57, of Souderton, Pa., said he hopes American troops preparing for war with Iraq will get more public appreciation and support than troops did during the protest-filled Vietnam War.
His son, Todd, is serving with the Army reserves in Bosnia -- and he said he'll support him and other troops wherever they go.
``If and when hostilities start, we should be unified as a country,'' Moody said. ``And we're the most anti-war people you can get.''
Rally-goers sang patriotic songs and helped raise a gigantic American flag before reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Chicago protesters also hoisted American flags, along with placards reading, ``Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld. The real axis of evil.''
``We are concerned with all of God's children. And for all of those who question our patriotism: We love America because America is a place where when things are out of order, people can disagree and protest,'' said the Rev. Calvin Morris of Chicago's Community Renewal Society.
``It's just sad that Bush isn't paying attention to anyone,'' said Janine Jurkowski, 30, of Chicago. ``He isn't listening to his own people. Hopefully this will show the world that not all Americans agree with him.''
The Chicago and Valley Forge rallies capped a weekend of nation- and worldwide protests, including one in Washington that park officials permitted for 20,000 people and appeared larger than that. Protesters in Portland held a rally of similar proportions.
Other smaller protests across the country on Sunday:
-- In Detroit, a crowd of about 2,000 gathered at a church and listened to religious leaders call a war with Iraq ``an affront to God and a crime against humanity.''
-- In Louisville, Ky., hundreds stopped by a booth in suburban Louisville on Saturday for free signs supporting President Bush and U.S. troops overseas, while about 200 peace activists opposing a possible war with Iraq marched alongside protesters seeking change in the city's police department.
-- In Pittsburgh, several hundred anti-war protesters gathered in a park to protest any military strike on Iraq.
-- In St. Paul, Minn., about 1,200 people led by Christian and Muslim clergy staged a mock funeral at the Cathedral of St. Paul for those who would die if the United States wages war with Iraq.
-- In Providence, R.I., veterans and families of military personnel stationed in the Middle East were among hundreds of protesters who marched through the downtown area to oppose a possible war with Iraq.
-- In Oklahoma City, Okla., nearly 400 people lined the downtown streets in a prayerful plea for peace.
-- In Mountain Home, Ark., about 200 residents gathered Sunday to show support for an Arkansas National Guard company scheduled to leave Monday for the Middle East.
-- In Columbia, S.C., about 200 people gathered to protest expected war in Iraq at Martin Luther King Park.
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Military Told to Vacate Moss Park Armoury by May 30
People's Nonviolent Move-In Date Set for May 30
From: worker-san@lists.tao.ca [mailto:worker-san@lists.tao.ca]
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2003 10:50 AM
On Behalf Of TASC (Report from Homes not Bombs)
Saturday's Toronto rally against the escalating war in Iraq ended in a most appropriate place: the Moss Park Armoury, symbol of the fact that Canada spends 700% more on war than on affordable housing.
Thousands of people converged on the Queen/Jarvis site of the largely unused, block-long facility that protesters hope to transform into enough low-cost affordable housing units to house up to 375 people. They declared Canada should build homes, not blow them up.
At the conclusion of the rally, name cards representing the hundreds of people who have died as a result of homelessness on Toronto streets were affixed both to military equipment on the armoury's front lot, as well as on to the remains of a mattress on which a homeless man was burned to death earlier this month.
"Their names wouldn't be on these cards if this armoury had been open all these freezing nights!" proclaimed Beric German of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (TDRC).
Shortly thereafter, a Notice to Vacate, authorized jointly by Homes not Bombs and the TDRC under the legally binding U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, was taped to the front door of the facility, giving the military until Friday, May 30 to move out. Police eventually tore it down and threw it inside the building--hence, the military has been officially served notice by an armed agent of the state!
"Welcome to the future site of the Moss Park Community Housing Cooperative," Vera Etches of Homes not Bombs welcomed the crowd. Etches, a community doctor who has worked at the Seaton House hostel, has also been part of the weekly Tuesday evening vigils at the armoury which began in May, 2002.
Etches announced our plans to move in to the armoury and begin renovations of the building on Friday, May 30. If we are not allowed in at that time, we will camp out on the grounds until we are allowed in, creating a safe space for homeless people to sleep.
As a few military officials stood inside the massive, empty armoury, refusing to open the doors to protesters, scores of Toronto police, joined by the horse unit, video surveillance unit, police wagons, and the ever-present counter-terrorism unit, stood by to ensure that no housing would be built on this March afternoon.
As the rally wound down, dozens of people sat in front of a police line on the front steps of the armoury, enjoying the sudden burst of slightly warmer weather, listening to music and discussing a range of issues.
"We're just getting a feel for how the future front porch of this housing community will feel," said one person as a little child danced nearby to music being played by a group further down the snow-covered lawn.
One protester debated a police officer on the relative merits of horse manure versus dog poop, with the police officer opining that the reason why there are no laws requiring police horses to be cleaned up after is their waste products are not toxic.
It was the kind of scene one might expect on any number of front porches as spring begins to dawn, and one which hopefully will come to pass at the intersection of Jarvis and Queen in one of Canada's poorest neighbourhoods.
People did not leave the demo site very quickly; it was almost as if they could feel that this place would soon be a real community, and that everyone standing there, talking, singing, having fun, were showing the city that such a thing was truly possible.
In the meantime, architects commissioned by Homes not Bombs are finishing off their plans to transform the building into a living community, with an envelope-roof and rooftop vegetable gardens, a child care space, and large courtyard for community use.
Efforts to keep up the political pressure go on as well, and the weekly Tuesday evening vigils continue at 6 pm at the Queen Street entrance to the armoury.
It has been almost a year since Toronto City Council passed a resolution calling on the federal government to open Fort York as an emergency shelter.
Although the federal government has still not responded to that request (and this past month in Toronto alone, 6 homeless people have died as Fort York and Moss Park stood empty), War minister John McCallum finally caved to pressure following 10 months of persistent writing, phone calls, and faxes, and met on March 14 with representatives of Homes not Bombs, TDRC, St. Brigid's Housing Society and the CAW to discuss plans to transform the armoury.
We told McCallum that he needs to declare the armoury surplus and have it transferred to the city of Toronto and then into the hands of those who will build housing for the homeless. We also stressed the need for opening an emergency shelter on site in the short term.
McCallum expressed his sympathy with the idea, and said his assistant would look into the current use of the armoury. He also asked to see a business plan, which we will have ready by month's end.
We reminded McCallum that even with a brutal regime of sanctions enforced in part by Canada, the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein has built more affordable housing than the "democracy" of Canada in the past decade. He was in the end presented with a peace zucchini in the hopes that he, along with his fellow war ministers, would drop phallic symbols like this, instead of cruise missiles, on the people of Iraq.
McCallum seemed pleased to receive the zucchini, and immediately connected this presentation with the last time Homes not Bombs was at his door, at that time protected by police who easily outnumbered zucchini-wielding peacniks.
It is hoped that the next time we see McCallum, we will be able to present him with a zucchini grown in the rooftop garden of the Moss Park Community Housing Cooperative.
To join us in bringing to reality this vision of a transformed armoury into truly affordable housing, contact Homes not Bombs at (416) 651-5800, tasc@web.ca or join us on Tuesday nights as we continue the outreach work and build towards our move-in date--Friday, May 30!
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Democratic hopefuls jeered on war views
State conventioners against Bush stance
By John Marelius STAFF WRITER
San Diego Union-Tribune
March 16, 2003
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/sun/news/news_1n16pres.html
SACRAMENTO - With war against Iraq looming, the fault lines among the Democrats who want President Bush's job were on display before vociferously anti-war Democratic activists yesterday.
Jeers rained down on Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina as he told the California Democratic Party convention he favors using American military force to disarm Saddam Hussein if all else fails.
A short time later, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was accorded a thunderous ovation when he denounced Democrats who support Bush's "unilateral intervention" in Iraq.
Differences among 2004 Democratic presidential hopefuls over war with Iraq have often been obscured on the campaign trail as the candidates have preferred to discuss domestic issues or what they contend are Bush's diplomatic lapses in the buildup toward war.
But this weekend, those differences have been very much in evidence as six of the nine active presidential hopefuls took turns making their case before more than 1,800 state Democrats, many sporting yellow lapel stickers reading, "Democrats, No War."
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts is one of four congressional Democrats running for president who voted for the resolution authorizing Bush to wage war against Iraq - a fact Kerry did not acknowledge in a Friday night speech that assailed the administration as alienating nations around the globe in the push toward war.
"The United States of America needs to be serious about how we deal with the issue of proliferation," Kerry said. "But the United States of America, in the conduct of that use of defensive force, needs to respect international institutions and build support in the world."
Edwards also criticized the administration on the diplomatic front, but he maintained the goal of deposing Hussein remains paramount.
"It is a test of presidential leadership to lead in a way that rallies others to our cause. The president hasn't done that," Edwards said. "But it is also a test of presidential leadership to have the backbone to say to those who strongly disagree with you - including your friends - what you believe.
"I believe that Saddam Hussein is a serious threat and that he must be disarmed, including with military force if necessary. We can't allow him to have nuclear weapons."
A chorus of boos and chants of "No war. No war" rang out so loudly it overpowered Edwards' final sentence.
When Dean, who has become a favorite of liberal activists across the country, addressed the Iraq issue, he received a rousing standing ovation and chants of "We want Dean. We want Dean."
"What I want to know is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the president's unilateral intervention in Iraq," he said.
Dean chastised Kerry and Edwards as shading their pro-war views to suit their audience.
"I don't think we can win the White House if we vote for the president's unilateral attack in Washington and then come to California and tell everybody we're opposing the war," he said.
At a news conference later, Edwards took exception to Dean's comment.
"The governor is wrong," he said. "I said exactly today what I have said in Washington."
Later in the day, the Rev. Al Sharpton, the New York civil rights activist, also brought the crowd to its feet as he left no doubt what he felt about the prospect of war with Iraq.
"Let there be no mistake about it: This war is wrong. This war is unnecessary," Sharpton thundered. "This is not about not supporting the troops. This is about not misusing the troops."
War looms as a highly divisive issue in the battle for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination and a dicey one for the candidates, considering the situation in Iraq will likely look very different, for better or for worse, next January when Democratic delegate-selection contests begin.
"It could make candidates look like they didn't have much vision or sense of confidence if things go quickly or well for the U.S.," said pollster Mark Baldassare. "They may end up having taken a position in hindsight that runs contrary to where people ended up."
A recent statewide poll Baldassare conducted for the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California revealed a deep split among rank-and-file Democratic voters about Iraq. Among Democrats polled, 43 percent favored military action in Iraq to 53 percent who were opposed.
Democratic strategist Garry South said presidential candidates should be cautious about playing to the galleries at events such as this weekend's state Democratic convention that are disproportionately attended by liberal activists.
"I know there's a lot of anti-war sentiment among the activists in the Democratic Party here in California," South said. "But I also know, as a pragmatic Democrat who has shown some ability to win elections here, I do not want the party as a whole to be positioned so far to the left on this issue that we get back in the situation we were in in the '70s and the '80s where we Democrats were seen as not concerned about national defense.
"If that's the position we get ourselves in, it doesn't matter what else we say about anything, we're not going to win elections."
Two other strongly anti-war Democratic presidential candidates - former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio - will appear before the convention today.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who strongly supports military action, will address the convention by satellite. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, who helped draft the war authorization resolution, is not attending because of a schedule conflict.
Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, who voted against the war resolution, is recuperating from heart surgery.
John Marelius: john.marelius@uniontrib.com
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Kucinich true to his vision
03/16/03
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Jenny Girman, Painesville
http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/opinion/104772457262810.xml
I am tired of hearing pundits dismiss Dennis Kucinich as unworthy of his party's nomination. If the Democratic Party fails to give him its support, it would not be a reflection on the candidate, but rather a sad commentary on the apathy and passivity that has taken hold in this country.
If we believe ourselves to be a "government of the people, by the people and for the people," Kucinich is the kind of leader that we need. If we really want a leader who has vision and determination - one who stands up to the powers that be, pursuing what he believes is right - no one is more qualified than Kucinich.
He is not afraid to take on the giants of industry: He has proven this with CEI, as mayor of Cleveland. He has proven this when he fought to save St. Michael's Hospital - and won. And, though he is one of many members of Congress who disagree with the Bush war on Iraq, he is one of the few who have the guts to speak out about it.
Kucinich is one man who has made a difference by standing up for his principles. This is a precept that we are all taught as children but are later encouraged to squelch, lest we be labeled radicals or zealots. Some of his detractors have labeled him similarly, and they do this because they fear him.
After all, what would happen if everyone began to stand up for what he believes in?
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