Archive By Date | Today's Links to Search By
Activists' News | Nuclear | Depleted Uranium | Military | Police
Alternative Energy Etc. | From Subscribers
NUCLEAR
US to use depleted uranium
Nuclear inspectors reportedly angry
Blix: Iraqi weapons probe should continue
Nuclear Threat Haunts S. Korean Economy
Powell Rejects North Korea's Talks Demand
A dirty bomb may not kill, but it sure would hurt
Russia Delays Ratifying Nuclear Treaty With U.S.
U.S., Russia Delay Nuclear Weapons Treaty
Minnesota Tribe Reaches Deal with Xcel Nuclear Power Plant
'We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater'
DEMOCRACY OR DEATH
Letter from the State Department
Things to Come
War in the Ruins of Diplomacy
Bush's Doctrine for War
MILITARY
Bush Ultimatum Hardens Some Positions, and Blurs Others
Bush Fails to Win China, Russia Support
Anthrax attack could kill 123,000
Testing of Anthrax Drug on Humans May Be Near
Briton Quits Cabinet in Protest
Why I had to leave the cabinet
U.S. company holds Colombia operations secret
US firms get $1.5bn deal to rebuild Iraq
Canada's Leader Rejects Sending Troops to War Chretien Cites U.N. Obstacle
China Hopes Conflict Can Still Be Avoided
Germany's Military Sinking to 'Basket Case' Status
Suit Begins Against Iran in Marine Barracks Bombing
Likely targets linked to Saddam
Deals Could Keep Foes in Barracks
Baghdad Ready to Take Up Arms
Iraq's Soviet - Made Weapons Assessed
Israel Mobilizes Reserve Defense Forces
FEDERALS DESTROY TWO POWERFUL LANDMINES
Turkish Officials Say Aid to American Forces Is Likely
Rhetoric of Pakistan Extremists Rises
Russia's Putin Calls Iraq War A 'Mistake'
Russia Says U.S. Anti - Terror Coalition Could Be Hit
U.N. Shifts Focus to Food Aid for Iraq
U.S. forces girding for short, furious war
U.S. Infantry Packs Up Camp in Kuwait
Software bug bites US military
Wary news crews abandon front lines as Iraq war looms
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
War Means Rights May Be Scaled Back
Iraq war prompts terror threat hike
U.S. Heightens Alert, Asks for Guard Call-Ups
'Operation Libery Shield' Security Measures
OTHER
Government Promotion of Irradiated Food for Schools Challenged
ACTIVISTS
Protests Planned for Beginning of War
Protests continue amid looming war
Anti-war activists to take many fronts
Gaza protester mourned
Chechen Human Rights Activist Released
Confronting Our Fears
'Human Shields,' Armed With Prayers
2 Humboldt tree-sitters removed
Dressed for Protest
War Means Rights May Be Scaled Back
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
US to use depleted uranium
2003/03/18
BBC NEWS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/in_depth/2860759.stm
Drawing of DU tank bomb: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38972000/gif/_38972561_du_missile4_416inf.gif
A United States defence official has said moves to ban depleted uranium ammunition are just an attempt by America's enemies to blunt its military might.
Colonel James Naughton of US Army Materiel Command said Iraqi complaints about depleted uranium (DU) shells had no medical basis.
"They want it to go away because we kicked the crap out of them," he told a Pentagon briefing.
If war starts, tonnes of depleted uranium (DU) weapons are likely to be used by British and American tanks and by ground attack aircraft.
Some believe people are still suffering ill health from ammunition used in the Gulf War 12 years ago, and other conflicts.
In the House of Commons in London on Monday, Labour MP Joan Ruddock said a test of the UK Government's pledge to keep civilian casualties to a minimum in an attack on Iraq would include not using depleted uranium weapons.
Military uses
Apparently anticipating complaints, the US defence department briefed journalists about DU - making it plain it would continue to be used.
Depleted uranium, a by-product of uranium enrichment for nuclear weapons or nuclear reactors, has valuable military properties.
It is very dense, about 1.7 times heavier than lead, and not only very hard but unlike other materials is self-sharpening when it penetrates armour.
Used defensively as armour, it tends to make ordinary munitions bounce off.
These properties contributed to the relative success of American tanks against Iraq's in 1991.
For the M1 Abrams tank there is no other option: it uses only DU-tipped shells and has DU armour.
'Who says?'
"In the last war, Iraqi tanks at fairly close ranges - not nose to nose - fired at our tanks and the shot bounced off the heavy armour... and our shot did not bounce off their armour," Col Naughton told the briefing.
"So the result was Iraqi tanks destroyed - US tanks with scrape marks."
He questioned the motives of those who challenged US use of depleted uranium.
"Who's asking the question? The Iraqis tell us 'terrible things happened to our people because you used it last time'.
"Why do they want it to go away? They want it to go away because we kicked the crap out of them, OK?
"I mean, there's no doubt that DU gave us a huge advantage over their tanks. They lost a lot of tanks.
"Their soldiers can't be really amused at the idea of going out in basically the same tanks with some slight improvements and taking on Abrams again."
'Marked increase in cancers'
Cancer surgeons in the southern Iraqi port of Basra report a marked increase in cancers which they suspect were caused by DU contamination from tank battles on the farmland to the west of the city.
But the director of the Pentagon's deployment health support directorate, Dr Michael Kilpatrick, said: "To the question, could depleted uranium be playing a role, the medical answer is no."
Depleted uranium is mildly radioactive but the main health concern is that it is a heavy metal, potentially poisonous.
The likelihood of absorbing it is increased significantly if a weapon has struck a target and exploded because the DU vaporises into a fine dust and can be inhaled.
Dr Kilpatrick said a study that had followed 90 US Gulf War veterans exposed to the dust and to shrapnel from DU rounds in "friendly fire" incidents had found no DU-related medical problems.
Uncertainty
Some Gulf War veterans believe DU might have contributed to health problems they have suffered. And it has been blamed for a number of leukaemia cases among former Balkans peacekeepers.
BBC News Online environment correspondent Alex Kirby says scientists disagree about the ability of DU to cause the horrific problems that have been reported.
The World Health Organisation recommends cleaning areas with high concentrations of radioactive particles.
"There is real controversy, and real uncertainty," he said.
There have also been various health warnings. A 1995 report from the US Army Environmental Policy Institute, for example, said: "If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences."
Alex Kirby says the Pentagon claim that criticisms of DU come only from Iraq and "other countries that are not friendly to the US" is demonstrably untrue.
"To sum up, I guess the Iraqis have got much worse things than DU to worry about in the immediate future, and any risk to environment and health over the longer term remains unproven and perhaps circumstantial.
"But that does not mean the risk is proven not to exist."
-------- inspections
Nuclear inspectors reportedly angry
CHECKING FALSE U.S. LEADS WASTED TIME, SOURCE SAYS
By Dan Stober
San Jose Mercury News
Tue, Mar. 18, 2003
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/5418901.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
As United Nations nuclear inspectors flee Iraq, some of them are angry at the Bush administration for cutting short their work, bad-mouthing their efforts and making false claims about evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
Some inspectors are ``scandalized'' at the way President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell, among others, have ``politicized'' the inspection process, said a source close to the inspectors.
None of the nuclear-related intelligence trumpeted by the administration has held up to scrutiny, inspectors say. From suspect aluminum tubes to aerial photographs to documents -- revealed to be forgeries -- that claimed to link Iraq to uranium from Niger, inspectors say they chased U.S. leads that went nowhere and wasted valuable time in their efforts to determine the extent of Saddam Hussein's arsenal of weapons banned after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
The administration said the Iraqi aluminum tubes were uniquely suited for centrifuges to make bomb-grade uranium. But U.N. officials argue that the Iraqi explanation -- that the tubes were destined to become artillery rockets -- was more plausible. Moreover, the source close to inspectors said, the U.S. military uses similar tubes for a rocket known as the Hydra 70.
In October the White House released aerial photos of activity at former Iraqi nuclear facilities. The inspectors, however, found no sign of weapons activity and suggested that Saddam was not likely to reuse known nuclear sites.
In February the administration said trucks were spotted at facilities shortly before the arrival of inspectors, apparently to haul away and hide banned equipment. But in one case, according to a U.N. official, the trucks were fire engines standing by the building for safety reasons. In the case of the Niger documents, they appeared genuine at first glance -- accurate nomenclature, proper stamps -- but further study turned up crude errors, such as words misspelled in French and dates that did not match the day of the week. Who created the counterfeit documents remains a mystery.
Recent inspection teams have included a new batch of U.S. nuclear scientists from Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories. The U.N. official described these inspectors as arriving as hawks and leaving as doves, after finding Iraq ``a ruined country, not a threat to anyone.'' It is a view radically different than the administration's.
The nuclear inspectors trudged through the Iraqi countryside for months. They found the Iraqi weapons infrastructure, built at great expense in the 1980s, to be in a state of decay. They sought out out-of-the-way machine shops or companies where Iraqi scientists might be congregated. But they found no sign of an organized nuclear weapons program.
At the most, the U.N. official said, there may be ``a few guys with paper and pencil and some computer in a back room.''
Responding to the U.S. emphasis on underground facilities, the inspectors slugged through the mud beneath a petroleum plant and paid a visit to an irrigation reservoir carved into the inside of a mountain. Neither contained anything suspicious.
The nuclear inspectors -- the International Atomic Energy Agency's Iraq Action Team -- are lead by a Frenchman, Jacques Baute. Under his direction the team has focused on unraveling the clandestine Iraqi procurement networks that imported nuclear weapons technology in the 1980s and the aluminum tubing more recently.
During unannounced visits to trading companies, the inspectors used special equipment to copy the hard drives of computers. Among the thousands of files they found some leads, as well as pornography.
Traders in the procurement networks, the inspectors discovered, have been using their positions to steal oil-for-food money and shift the stolen profits out of the country. For example, a $100,000 purchase of humanitarian goods from Jordan might be inflated to $200,000, with the extra money split between the Iraqi buyer and the Jordanian seller.
Some of the inspectors leave with a deep suspicion of U.S. motives. Some believe, for example, that recent flights of U.S. U-2 spy planes were intended to help the military draw up target lists, not to aid the inspectors in their search for weapons of mass destruction. Contact Dan Stober at dstober@mercurynews.com or (650) 688-7536.
----
Blix: Iraqi weapons probe should continue
By William M. Reilly
UPI United Nations Correspondent
March 18, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030318-084838-7547r.htm
UNITED NATIONS, March 18 (UPI) -- On the same day the last U.N weapons monitors were withdrawn from Iraq, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said that three and a half months was too soon for the inspections to end.
Blix told reporters Tuesday that he never said Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction, only a lot of unaccounted for material. He added that he did not think Resolution 1441, adopted unanimously on Nov. 8, 2002, foresaw such a short inspection time.
"I don't think it is reasonable to close the door to inspections after three and a half months," said Blix, executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.
However, he told reporters at the U.N. Correspondents Association it would have been interesting to see what would be found once people go in and can go anywhere and examine the sort of intelligence the inspectors never had access to.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered the withdrawal from Iraq of all U.N. personnel on Monday after Washington advised him of imminent military action against Baghdad.
Asked about the turn of events, Blix said: "I think it's a rather sad moment. My sadness is somewhat tempered by the fact all the inspectors, whether from the UNMOVIC or the International Atomic Energy Agency, have come safely back to Larnaca, (Cyprus)."
Chief U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said the last plane evacuating the more than 300 international staff in Iraq left from Baghdad for Larnaca. The plane arrived late Tuesday in Cyrus. Blix said there were 134 from UNMOVIC and the IAEA.
Asked if he thought Iraq would use chemical or biological weapons in a war with the U.S-led coalition, Blix said he didn't think so, although he believes Baghdad has the know-how to produce and deliver chemical weapons.
"I think it is unlikely they will do that because I think world public opinion, which they study quite a lot, is in large measure feeling that going to war is too early," he said. "So there is a fair amount of skepticism about armed action. That skepticism would turn immediately around if they used chemical weapons or biological weapons. My guess is they would not."
Blix is scheduled to meet with the Security Council Wednesday to discuss a work plan of remaining disarmament. He submitted the plan on Monday just hours before U.S. President George W. Bush delivered his ultimatum to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and sons to go into exile or face war.
The foreign ministers of France Germany, Guinea, Russia and Syria were expected to attend the open council session where Blix was to deliver his report. Unable to attend, IAEA Executive Director Mohammed ElBaradei was sending a representative.
The session will be held just before expiration of the 48-hour ultimatum Bush issued Monday night.
Late Wednesday, an angry Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri of Iraq told reporters at the United Nations, "This is the first time in the history a president of a state ordered another president of another state to leave his own country."
Aldouri described the possibility of a U.S.-led invasion as "a mess" and "madness."
"It is unacceptable by any logic, unless we have to accept the law of the jungle: might is right, which violates all principles enshrined in the charter of the United Nations. We reject totally this madness, the aggression and the outlaw policy," he said.
"This war will be a crime against humanity," he said. "It is illegal, immoral and unjustifiable. It will cause huge casualties, great destruction and endless suffering. This war, in short, is tantamount to genocide.
"The president of the United States is deceiving his people in justifying the war against Iraq, because Iraq has fulfilled its obligations as requested by Resolution 1441 and cooperated fully with the inspectors and has, in fact, disarmed," said Aldouri.
-------- korea
Nuclear Threat Haunts S. Korean Economy
March 18, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-SKorea-Economic-Worries.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- As tensions mount over North Korea's worrisome nuclear programs, so do the problems for South Korea's normally resilient economy.
The stock market has tumbled, the currency has slumped and foreign investment is beating a quick retreat as Seoul grapples with the potential of a nuclear-armed neighbor.
South Korean officials have made the rounds of global credit agencies like Moody's to stave off the slashing of the South's sovereign debt rating.
``A resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue in the shortest time is urgent and pivotal for the future improvement of the South Korean economy,'' said Lee Sangjae, senior economist at Hyundai Securities Research Center in Seoul.
South Korea's economy is far from the downward spiral it took during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, but economists warn that investors could be spooked if Pyongyang adds to the two atom bombs it is believed to already possess.
Tension with the North is not uncommon on the Korean peninsula, which has been divided since 1945 and where a three-year war was fought in the 1950s to stop a North Korean invasion.
Last June, a naval shootout killed six South Korean sailors, and a year earlier, communist and South Korean troops fired shots across the Demilitarized Zone separating the two sides.
Financial markets usually react to such events with no more than a ripple.
But since allegations in October that North Korea has a secret atomic weapons project, even small confrontations along the border now carry nuclear overtones.
Jitters have been stoked recently by two North Korean missile tests and the interception of a U.S. spy plane by communist fighter jets.
Seoul's main stock index has tumbled 14 percent since the beginning of the year, while the currency has dropped 5 percent to a five-month low against the dollar. Foreign investment in the stock market declined 12.5 percent over the period.
``If tension continues in the Korean Peninsula because of the current Korean nuclear issue, investment in (South) Korea will of course be reduced,'' warned Lee Won-joon, a partner at Accenture Consultants in Seoul.
Some of the woes are attributed to jitters over the looming war in Iraq, the worldwide economic slowdown and an insider-trading scandal that recently hit South Korea's SK Group, one of the nation's biggest conglomerates.
But Korean central bank governor Park Seung identified the threat of North Korea's nuclear programs as the biggest economic peril.
Before the crisis, the central bank had predicted the South Korean economy to grow around 5 percent this year.
But its latest report forecast that lingering problems with North Korea would contribute to slower growth, substantially higher inflation and a current account deficit.
Hoping to forestall a potential drop in the government's credit rating, Finance Ministry officials visited the headquarters of Moody's and Standard & Poor's in New York to explain South Korea's economic conditions and the latest impacts of North Korea.
The nuclear crisis could also undermine the economic agenda of President Roh Moo-hyun, who took office last month. Burdened by new diplomatic pressures, he may have less focus on his much vaunted economic reforms, analysts say.
But many business leaders say the economy is still sound.
``Once Iraq is resolved, we will see foreign investors returning,'' said Lee Wonki, of Merrill Lynch in Seoul. ``But they are not likely to aggressively buy back into Korea until the North Korean issue is settled peacefully, and that won't be until later this year.''
--------
Powell Rejects North Korea's Talks Demand
March 18, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-korea-north-usa.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday rejected North Korea's latest demand for direct talks and said North Korea would complicate diplomacy if it started a plutonium reprocessing plant.
Powell told a small group of reporters that the more he heard demands for direct talks between North Korea and the United States, the more he believed the United States was right to insist on starting talks in a multilateral forum.
North Korean state media on Monday repeated Pyongyang's rejection of any formula other than direct one-to-one talks.
``It is not multilateral talks but direct talks between the DPRK (North Korea) and the U.S. that serve as a key to settling the nuclear issue,'' said the Rodong Sinmun daily.
Powell said: ``We're going to stick with the multilateral arrangement because we think it's best.
``The more I hear about this business of 'the United States must do it this way or else North Korea will never respond,' the more I believe that that is not the correct way to do it.''
After North Korea acknowledged a secret uranium enrichment project in October, the United States initially offered talks once North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear programs.
It then changed its position to support for multilateral talks, alongside South Korea, Japan and other Asian countries, without stressing the precondition of dismantling programs.
Analysts said it suited Washington's purposes to delay talks with North Korea until its invasion of Iraq was complete. President Bush gave Iraqi President Saddam Hussein an ultimatum late on Monday to leave the country in 48 hours or face war.
The North Koreans appear to have sought international attention by testing missiles in the Sea of Japan, buzzing a U.S. spy plane this month and by rhetoric hostile to the United States.
Powell said, ``It should be clear to the North Koreans right now that, while we look at these provocations with concerns, they are not going to provoke us into their policy choices.''
Asked about the reprocessing plant, he said: ``So far they have not begun the reprocessing facility. I don't know if they will or they won't. I think it would make political dialogue and finding a diplomatic way forward much more difficult if they started a reprocessing facility.''
-------- terrorism
A dirty bomb may not kill, but it sure would hurt
Story by Louis Charbonneau
REUTERS AUSTRIA:
March 18, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/20200/newsDate/18-Mar-2003/story.htm
VIENNA - After September 11, 2001, nuclear experts realised the danger of handling deadly radioactive material would not deter suicidal maniacs who could hijack a plane and ram it into a skyscraper.
They asked what would happen if al Qaeda got one of the world's thousands of lost radioactive sources, attached an explosive like dynamite and exploded it in a major urban centre.
Britain said in January it had evidence that al Qaeda, widely thought to be behind the attack that toppled New York City's Twin Towers, had tried to develop such a bomb in the 1990s.
Wolfgang Weiss, head of radiation hygiene at Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection, prepared a hypothetical case study to show what would happen if a radiation dispersal device - popularly known as a dirty bomb - exploded in Munich.
The results, based on an imaginary bomb made with weapons-grade plutonium placed in Munich's Olympic Stadium, were superficially reassuring: there would probably be no deaths and the number of severely contaminated victims would be small.
"According to the calculations I did, the radiological impact would be very limited, though the wider impact to society would be large," Weiss told Reuters during the first global conference on dirty bombs.
Severe contamination would likely occur at the centre of the explosion in the stadium, which has a capacity of almost 70,000. He said that at five km (three miles) from the stadium, radiation levels would drop by a factor of 100, resulting in only mild exposure levels.
DANGEROUS, BUT NOT DEADLY
Disregarding damage from the explosion itself, Weiss said exposure for someone near the bomb "would require emergency medical treatment, but it would not lead to death".
If the radioactive material was caesium, a common easy-to-disperse radioactive powder used in medicine and agriculture, victims would be exposed to quite low levels.
"These models tell us that you wouldn't have to evacuate a huge city. You would concentrate on an area of a few kilometres," from the explosion, Weiss said.
But the bomb would cause panic, and it would be crucial for political leaders to behave calmly, to speak honestly and in clear, easy-to-understand language about the attack.
"It's not primarily a radiological problem which we'd face, it's a psychological problem and a problem that has to do with trust in a society in their leaders," he said.
Failure to handle the situation properly could turn a manageable crisis, which emergency response teams should be capable of managing, into a disaster.
But Weiss said specific case scenarios were not a good basis for preparing a government on how to respond to an attack.
"You have to be ready to be flexible, ready for everything. Reality is always different," Weiss said. "Before the events in New York on September 11, nobody thought it was possible."
Dirty bombs hit the headlines in May, 2002, when U.S. authorities captured Jose Padilla, an American al Qaeda operative, in Chicago, and prevented a dirty bomb attack.
But there has never been a dirty bomb attack, so scientists and policymakers still have no actual case to examine.
This is why Weiss and others look closely at a tragedy in southern Brazil considered to be the benchmark dirty bomb scenario. This case shows that while the number of deaths may be low, the long-term effects of such an attack could be severe.
GOIANIA: THE DIRTY-BOMB BENCHMARK
On September 13, 1987, two men in Goiania, Brazil were looking for scrap metal at a partly demolished medical clinic.
They found a radiation therapy machine containing a small canister of highly radioactive caesium powder. Unaware of what it was, they sold it to a junkyard dealer, who took the canister apart.
Within two weeks, local children discovered the glowing blue powder. Some even used it as body paint.
This quickly led to a catastrophe that was second only to the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. A total of 249 people were exposed, 10 were seriously injured and four died.
The long-term socio-economic effects were devastating. Goiania suffered a 20 percent drop in gross domestic product, which took five years to return to normal levels.
Tourism in the tropical town dropped to zero and Goiania found itself the victim of economic discrimination, as demand for food and other products from the area plummeted.
"Imagine it would happen here in Vienna," Weiss said. "The city would never be the same."
TRAFFICKING IN RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS
"We need to take into account Murphy's Law - whatever can go wrong, will go wrong eventually," said Chris Schmitzer of the Health Physics Division from Austria's ARC research laboratories in Seibersdorf, referring to the possibility of a dirty bomb attack.
According to the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, there have been more than 280 confirmed cases of illicit trafficking in radioactive materials since 1993, though the agency suspects the actual number may be much higher.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the threat of a dirty bomb attack was real and urged speedy improvements in the security of radioactive sources and border controls to keep them out of the hands of terrorists.
"The fact that you haven't seen (a dirty bomb attack) yet doesn't mean one isn't imminent," ElBaradei said.
Caesium, which ravaged Goiania, is one of many deadly radioactive sources that have fallen out of regulatory control through loss or theft across the former Soviet Union, the world's hotspot for illicit trafficking in radioactive material.
"Our database of cases of smuggling gives an indication that there is a market and there is an effort to obtain radioactive sources, and the obvious question is why," ElBaradei said.
-------- treaties
Russia Delays Ratifying Nuclear Treaty With U.S.
Legislators Say White House Setting Stage for World War
By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; 4:14 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47527-2003Mar18.html
MOSCOW, March 18 -- The lower house of the Russian parliament today put off a vote on ratification of a U.S.-Russia arms control treaty after angry legislators accused the Bush administration of setting the stage for a world war.
Duma leaders said the dramatic cuts in nuclear warheads envisioned under the treaty should not be considered at a time when the United States has flaunted international law and tried to strong-arm countries such as Russia that objected to its policy on Iraq. The vote had been scheduled for Friday.
Duma speaker Gennady Selezynoz, who until recently was a Communist Party member,suggested the accord might be shelved indefinitely if the United States invades Iraq, because an attack would usher in "the law of the jungle" in international relations.
"The strong will trample the weak. And we don't want to be weak. Therefore we will still need the missiles," he said.
Other lawmakers predicted that the treaty would be approved, perhaps as soon as the Duma resumes work on April 1 after a break. "The deputies are angry," said Sergei Shishkaryov, deputy head of the Duma's foreign affairs committee. "But they still understand how important this treaty is for Russia."
When they signed the treaty last May, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin cast it as a dramatic sign of the improvement in U.S.-Russian relations since the end of the Cold War. The three-page agreement commits both countries to reduce their nuclear warheads by roughly two-thirds, from 6,000 warheads apiece to between 1,700 to 2,200. Russia pushed hard for the cuts in large part because it can no longer afford to maintain its stockpile.
The U.S. Senate unanimously approved the agreement two weeks ago as part of an effort by the Bush administration to both woo and pressure Russia not to block a UN resolution that would have authorized a military strike on Iraq. Putin opposed the now-moot resolution while trying to preserve the spirit of good will that has prevailed between the two countries since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The Duma typically obediently follows instructions from Putin's office in the Kremlin. But in this case, deputies put Putin's wishes aside to vent their unhappiness over U.S. Iraq policy and, some analysts said, to win points with voters before parliamentary elections in December. "This is a silly thing because our relations with the United States are not simple and there is a threat that they will deteriorate," said Vladimir Ryzhkov, an independent Duma deputy. "Now it would be important to give a positive signal, not a negative one."
The Kremlin had no immediate comment, but Mikhail Margelov, an influential lawmaker close to the Kremlin, said the Duma had voted against Russia's interests.
--------
U.S., Russia Delay Nuclear Weapons Treaty
March 18, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-US-Treaty.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian lawmakers postponed indefinitely a vote Tuesday to ratify a U.S.-Russian nuclear arms treaty, as the parliament speaker warned that a war against Iraq could endanger the pact.
The treaty, agreed to last May by Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Bush, requires that the two nations cut their strategic nuclear arsenals by about two-thirds, to 1,700 to 2,200 deployed warheads each, by 2012.
The treaty was seen as more advantageous to Russia than the now-defunct START II agreement, which specifically banned Russia from deploying land-based missiles with multiple warheads. The new deal would leave it to each nation to decide which weapons it will scrap. That would let Russia keep its Soviet-built multiwarhead SS-18 and SS-19 missiles at the core of its nuclear arsenal.
Russia's lower house, the State Duma, had been expected to take up debate on the treaty Friday. But the Duma Council, which sets the legislative agenda, put off the vote indefinitely and did not set a new date.
``We consider ratification very important, but now this step is not justified,'' said Sergei Shishkaryov, the deputy chairman of the Duma's international affairs committee. He added that ``in essence, we are standing on the threshold of World War III.''
The U.S. Senate unanimously approved the treaty earlier this month, a move widely seen as part of a diplomatic effort to win Russian support for a tougher line against Iraq. But Russia opposed a U.S.-backed draft resolution at the U.N. Security Council threatening the use of force against Iraq.
President Bush has abandoned diplomatic efforts at the United Nations and given Saddam Hussein until Wednesday night to leave the country or face war.
``In the event of an American strike on Iraq the fate of the entire treaty will be in question,'' Gennady Seleznyov, speaker of the Duma, said during a visit to the Czech capital, Prague.
``The Americans are striking at international law,'' he said, according to the Interfax news agency.
Tuesday's postponement reflected the ambivalence of post-Cold War Russian-U.S. relations. Washington and Moscow have pursued closer ties, but the Kremlin bridles at what it regards as a U.S. penchant for unilateral action, such as its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
Some Russian lawmakers lashed out at the United States over Iraq.
``Let them know there is a serious nuclear power that will really provide for the security of the entire world community and will never allow itself to act by the laws of the jungle,'' Interfax quoted Seleznyov as saying.
Other lawmakers cautioned their colleagues against making rash decisions that could imperil the nuclear treaty and strain the overall U.S.-Russian relationship.
Sergei Mironov, the speaker of Russia's upper house of parliament, called the decision to put off ratification a mistake.
``This treaty plays an important strategic role for both Russia and the United States,'' Mironov said, according to the Interfax-Military news agency reported.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- minnesota
Minnesota Tribe Reaches Deal with Xcel Nuclear Power Plant
March 18, 2003
(ENS)
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2003/2003-03-18-09.asp#anchor4
PRAIRIE ISLAND, Minnesota, The Prairie Island Tribal Council announced Monday that it has reached a tentative agreement with Xcel Energy, which owns a nuclear power plant located only 600 yards from the tribe's reservation.
The deal would provide financial compensation to address many of the tribe's longstanding health and safety concerns, including money for a health study, improved evacuation and land for tribal members who wish to move a safer distance from Xcel's nuclear facilities. In return, Xcel gets a promise from the tribe that it will not block its request to store more of its waste at the Prairie Island facility.
"In a perfect world we would never again need to be concerned about nuclear power or nuclear waste," said Audrey Bennett, president of the Prairie Island Tribal Council. "But we need to be pragmatic, and this agreement helps make a bad situation better by providing us with the resources we need to improve our safety and build a more promising future for our young people."
A federally recognized Indian Nation, the Prairie Island Indian Community is located some 50 minutes southeast of Minneapolis along the Mississippi River.
The tribe's close proximity to the plant and its nuclear waste storage site has given many cause to worry about the health and safety risks. In addition, the tribe has been concerned that there is only one evacuation route off Prairie Island and passing trains often block it.
The deal would provide the tribe with $1 million per year for each year the plant is in operation and $450,000 every year for as long as nuclear waste is stored on the island unless it is for decommissioning purposes. In addition, the tribe would receive $700,000 per year for 10 years to help with evacuation improvements and land acquisition and $100,000 per year for 10 years to help pay for a health study and emergency management activities.
The deal commits Xcel to move nuclear waste from Prairie Island as soon as an alternative is available and prohibits the company from storing waste from other sites at Prairie Island.
The proposed agreement must still be approved by a tribal community referendum and relies on the Minnesota Legislature allowing Xcel enough storage at Prairie Island to keep the plant operating until its licenses expire in 2013 and 2014.
If Xcel is not allowed additional storage, the company will be forced to close the plant within five years. The Prairie Island community referendum is expected to be completed April 17, 2003.
"This is a very important decision for our community and one that could forever impact our people," Bennett explained. "We can either try to manage the threat to our community by enforcing the storage limit or we can try to manage it by accepting an agreement that improves our safety."
"Our Tribal Council believes this agreement is the best alternative for our people."
-------- us politics
'We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater'
March 18, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030318-7643288.htm
Text of President Bush's nationally televised address last night from the White House.
My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy. We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council. We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of Iraq. Our good faith has not been returned.
The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament. Over the years, U.N. weapon inspectors have been threatened by Iraqi officials, electronically bugged and systematically deceived. Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again because we are not dealing with peaceful men.
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people. The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.
The danger is clear: Using chemical, biological, or one day nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other. The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. But we will do everything to defeat it.
Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety. Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed. The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security. That duty falls to me as commander in chief by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep. Recognizing the threat to our country, the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to support the use of force against Iraq. America tried to work with the United Nations to address this threat, because we wanted to resolve the issue peacefully. We believe in the mission of the United Nations. One reason the U.N. was founded after the Second World War was to confront aggressive dictators actively and early, before they can attack the innocent and destroy the peace.
In the case of Iraq the Security Council did act in the early 1990s, under Resolutions 678 and 687, both still in effect. The United States and our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. This is not a question of authority. It is a question of will.
Last September I went to the U.N. General Assembly and urged the nations of the world to unite and bring an and to this danger. On November 8th, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441, finding Iraq in material breach of its obligations and vowing serious consequences if Iraq did not fully and immediately disarm. Today no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed. And it will not disarm as long as Saddam Hussein holds power.
'We will rise to ours' For the last four and a half months, the United States and our allies have worked within the Security Council to enforce that Council's long-standing demands. Yet some permanent members of the Security Council have publicly announced they will veto any resolution that compels the disarmament of Iraq. These governments share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it. Many nations, however, do have the resolve and fortitude to act against this threat to peace. And a broad coalition is now gathering to enforce the just demands of the world.
The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities. So we will rise to ours.
In recent days, some governments in the Middle East have been doing their part. They have delivered public and private messages urging the dictator to leave Iraq, so that disarmament can proceed peacefully. He has thus far refused.
All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing. For their own safety, all foreign nationals, including journalists and inspectors, should leave Iraq immediately.
Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them: If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror, and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.
'Too late' for Saddam It is too late for Saddam Hussein to remain in power. It is not too late for the Iraqi military to act with honor and protect your country, by permitting the peaceful entry of coalition forces to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Our forces will give Iraqi military units clear instructions on actions they can take to avoid being attacked and destroyed. I urge every member of the Iraqi military and intelligence services, if war comes, do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life.
And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning. In any conflict, your fate will depend on your actions. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."
Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war, and every measure will be taken to win it. Americans understand the costs of conflict because we have paid them in the past. War has no certainty except the certainty of sacrifice. And yet the only way to reduce the harm and duration of war is to apply the full force and might of our military, and we are prepared to do so. If Saddam Hussein attempts to cling to power, he will remain a deadly foe until the end.
In desperation, he and terrorist groups might try to conduct terrorist operations against the American people and our friends. These attacks are not inevitable. They are, however, possible. And this very fact underscores the reason we cannot live under the threat of blackmail. The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed.
'Protect our homeland' Our government is on heightened watch against these dangers. Just as we are preparing to ensure victory in Iraq, we are taking further actions to protect our homeland.
In recent days, American authorities have expelled from the country certain individuals with ties to Iraqi intelligence services. Among other measures, I have directed additional security at our airports and increased Coast Guard patrols of major seaports. The Department of Homeland Security is working closely with the nation's governors to increase armed security at critical facilities across America.
Should enemies strike our country, they would be attempting to shift our attention with panic and weaken our morale with fear. In this, they would fail. No act of theirs can alter the course or shake the resolve of this country. We are a peaceful people, yet we are not a fragile people. And we will not be intimidated by thugs and killers. If our enemies dare to strike us, they and all who have aided them will face fearful consequences.
We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over. With these capabilities, Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies could choose the moment of deadly conflict when they are strongest. We choose to meet that threat now where it arises, before it can appear suddenly in our skies and cities.
The cause of peace requires all free nations to recognize new and undeniable realities. In the 20th century, some chose to appease murderous dictators whose threats were allowed to grow into genocide and global war.
In this century, when evil men plot chemical, biological and nuclear terror, a policy of appeasement could bring destruction of a kind never before seen on this earth.
'Deepest commitments' Terrorists and terrorist states do not reveal these threats with fair notice in formal declarations. And responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense. It is suicide. The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now.
As we enforce the just demands of the world, we will also honor the deepest commitments of our country.
Unlike Saddam Hussein, we believe the Iraqi people are deserving and capable of human liberty, and when the dictator has departed, they can set an example to all the Middle East of a vital and peaceful and self-governing nation.
The United States with other countries will work to advance liberty and peace in that region. Our goal will not be achieved overnight, but it can come over time. The power and appeal of human liberty is felt in every life and every land, and the greatest power of freedom is to overcome hatred and violence, and turn the creative gifts of men and women to the pursuits of peace. That is the future we choose.
Free nations have a duty to defend our people by uniting against the violent, and tonight, as we have done before, America and our allies accept that responsibility.
Good night, and may God continue to bless America.
----
DEMOCRACY OR DEATH
18 March 2003
by Michael Stephens
PopMatters Columnist
http://www.popmatters.com/features/030318-iraq1.shtml
The idea that America is poised to ride into Iraq on a white charger, spreading democracy like fairy dust, is the popular conservative version of the oncoming war in Iraq. But in American politics, "democracy" ceased long ago to be a genuine political ideal and became instead an image without substance or integrity, used to mask, justify and sell the naked exercise of power.
"Democracy" under the Bush regime does not mean that the will of the majority of the people or their representatives rules. If it did, the U.S. government would have celebrated when Turkey voted that American troops could not use Turkey as a strategic military base. After all, this was a truly democratic decision that expressed the will of what one Turkish politician calculated as, "100% of the Turkish people". Instead, the U.S. government expressed shock and anger at the vote, and immediately began putting the screws on the Turkish parliament to reverse it. Who cares what the Turks want? The will of the Bush administration must be imposed on Turkey by the usual democratic means: bribery, arm-twisting, and threats. What the Bush administration has demanded in Turkey is not another free vote, but a vote that will produce the "right" results. It is to this end, that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, spent the day of his election in conference, not with his parliament, but with W. Robert Pearson, the American ambassador. The first order of business for the newly elected Mr. Erdogan is to fire those members of his party who voted against the American proposal: democracy in action, American style.
The National Security Agency's surveillance of email (http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905936,00.html) and bugging of telephones at the UN Security Council to provide the Bush regime with advance notice of decisions that could help the U.S. government to manipulate the vote is another example of the democratic methods that America will soon be exporting to Iraq. A memo sent to members of the NSA by Frank Koza, stated that, "the Agency is mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN Security Council members (minus US and GBR of course) for insights as to how to (sic) membership is reacting to the ongoing debate RE: Iraq, plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/dependencies, etc - the whole gamut of information that could give American policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to US goals or to head off surprises". The elimination of all "surprises" -- like the Turkey vote -- is the Bush regime's ultimate goal; a goal absolutely opposed to all the principles of democracy. Bush wants to remove the wild card of free choice from every negotiation and stack every deck in favor of a pre-determined outcome. This is not democracy. It is preserving the image of free choice without the substance. As Ari Fleischer put it, "the president is still committed to staging a UN vote".
Staged democracy extends to the un-freedom of the American news media. A comparison of the British and American press's reporting on Iraq is instructive in terms of understanding just how much public political debate is permitted in America. Britain and America are allies in the Iraq conflict. Both are, at least in name, democracies, both are in favor of war with Iraq, and both have powerful news media. However, Britain has a much more diverse and argumentative press than America, whose national newspapers, The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today demonstrate little deviation from one another and from a bland, centrist worldview, highly supportive of the Bush regime. Britain's Mirror has collected 224,500 signatures for its "Not In Our Name" campaign against war with Iraq, and regularly runs anti-Blair, anti-Bush and anti-war editorials. Yet the Mirror is the traditional Labour party (Blair's party) newspaper, not an anti-establishment or minority opinion newspaper.
What distinguishes the U.S. press from the British press, is the lack of distance the former places between the U.S. government and American society as a whole. In headlines like the New York Times' "Urgent Diplomacy Fails to gain U.S. 9 Votes in the U.N.", there is no attempt to differentiate between the U.S. and the Bush administration. America is not represented here as a diverse culture, with a highly differentiated population that includes millions who oppose a war with Iraq. Instead, the "U.S." is the Bush administration. Consider John Pilger's editorial from a recent Mirror (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12729598&method=full&siteid=5014), in which Pilger argues that the American and British governments are suppressing evidence that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were all destroyed following the Gulf War.
Information like this is simply not made available to the U.S. public by the mainstream U.S. media. Americans who support the war in Iraq do so based on false information provided to them by the U.S. government -- such as that Iraq has nuclear weapons and that there is a clear connection between Saddam and al Queda -- promoted without any rebuttal by the U.S. press. Of course Americans can seek out alternative interpretations of the news at www.truthout.org and www.takebackthemedia.com, but, valuable as they are, these are fringe sites that preach to a small, converted, liberal audience and are not seen by the vast majority of Americans. There are no major popular newspapers or news sites in America like Britain's www.guardian.co.uk or www.mirror.co.uk that regularly present alternative viewpoints and stories and editorials that argue with the government's version of things. For information to be of any use, it must be widely and freely available. Americans are criminally under-informed about the facts behind their government's decisions. There is no democracy when people are purposefully and repeatedly lied to by their government and by corporate news services that monopolize the media channels and purposefully prevent the free circulation of information.
Recently the British press reported that George Bush had refused to address the European Union because they would not guarantee him a standing ovation and a room free of hecklers. President Bush will only agree to public appearances and press conferences where everything is controlled and cleansed of even the smallest hint of dissent. Tony Blair is willing to go on MTV Europe and face attacks from women opposed to war in Iraq, but Bush doesn't have the courage or the wit to meet intelligent opposition. Isn't this highly reminiscent of his counterpart in Iraq?
Since 9/11, America seems to feel that it is entitled to an infinite resentment against the world. Torture in the interrogation of prisoners, prisoners beaten to death in Afghanistan, it's all good because look what "they" did to 3000 Americans at the World Trade Towers. The Bush regime has legalized imprisonment without due process. There are almost daily suicide attempts by the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. These people have been held in isolation, under 24-hour spotlights, without trial and without hope of legal intervention for over a year now. The U.S. administration admits that at least 10% of the 650 people interned at Guantanamo Bay are innocent (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2648547.stm), yet since no legal process is available to any of the prisoners, innocent and guilty alike remain subject to an irrational and indefinite denial of their human rights that amounts to intense psychological and emotional torture. Who in America cares about the fate of these people? Certainly no one in the Bush administration seems concerned. They are foreigners after all, and not worthy of the human and civil rights that Americans take for granted. Yet, with a straight face, the Bush administration speaks of bringing democracy to the Iraqi people.
The Bush administration daily strips people of their human and civil rights. The Bush administration subverts and undermines the democratic process in America and globally by illegal surveillance, bribery, violence and coercion. The Bush administration defies international law, lies to the public and suppresses the truth. The Bush administration will soon sacrifice American soldiers for the profit of multinational companies and rain death on helpless Iraqi children -- to "liberate" them, of course, from the "tyranny" of their own government.
----
Letter from the State Department
By Eli J. Lake
UPI State Department Correspondent
March 18, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030318-050615-5648r.htm
WASHINGTON, March 18 (UPI) -- President George W. Bush was fond of saying it was time for nations to stand up and be counted as the U.N. saga on Iraq drew to a close. The world should know who was willing to stand up to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and who opted for continuing to appease him. In reality, it was the Bush supporters -- or some of them -- who preferred not to be counted, at least not publicly.
On Tuesday, the State Department helpfully made available to reporters a list of 30 coalition countries that had agreed to have their names published as backers of U.S. action in Iraq.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher explained: "This is a list of countries, 30 countries, that want to be publicly associated with the idea that Iraq needs to be disarmed now. They're all participating, contributing in some way, or interested in participating in some way. I suspect the numbers don't quite compare yet."
Another 15 coalition countries did not want their names announced even though in some cases the help they are providing is crucial for pursuing the impending war.
As it turns out a sizable part of the Bush administration's backing was coming from a coalition of the unwilling-to-be-named.
The group is dominated by countries that have been vehement in their public opposition to U.S. war plans in the United Nations.
France -- now publicly blamed by Washington for the collapse of the U.S.-British-Spanish Security Council resolution authorizing war on Saddam, and as unwilling as any country can be to back the U.S.-led action -- will allow U.S. combat planes to fly over French territory. Earlier this month, Germany, the other bete noir in the Security Council, provided Turkey with Patriot air defense batteries to boost its defenses against a possible Iraqi attack.
In some cases America's silent partners have already let the cat out of the bag. Take the case of Bulgaria, one of the first countries to come out in support of the United States and its allies.
Kuwait itself, which is host to 149,000 U.S. troops poised to strike Iraq with the media in full attendance, is not listed among the 30 states helping the American war effort.
All of the Gulf States have signed a pact to come to the defense of Kuwait in the event that it is attacked by Iraq; but you will not find any of the emirates and sheikdoms identified among the 30 members of the "coalition of the willing."
Saudi Arabia is allowing the United States to fly defensive air missions from Prince Sultan Air Base. But it has opted to keep this indispensable help hidden from the public for now.
It won't be so secret to Iraqi jets once they are intercepted by planes flying over Iraq's southern border.
Israel, an early proponent of armed action against Iraq, does not get a mention either. Its inclusion would have made it harder for Arab allies to cooperate.
Yet last year, Israeli elite commandos units ventured into the western Iraqi desert to locate scud missiles. Israeli also trained some of the U.S. Special Forces in urban warfare.
On the other side of the secret alliance spectrum is Iran. But Iran's deputy foreign minister pledged as early as January to absorb excess refugees from Iraq in the event of a conflict, and agreed to close the Iranian border if any al-Qaida terrorists would dare escape into their territory.
The main reason for this unusual coyness is fear of provoking anti-U.S. sentiment, compounded with opposition to the Iraq war.
The official list of 30 nations includes obvious allies like Spain and the United Kingdom, who co-sponsored the U.N. Security Council resolution to disarm Iraq by force.
But the list also includes Afghanistan, which is still looking for aid to rebuild its own country from the first battle on the war on terrorism in 2001. The Afghans are hardly likely to divert some of their own flow of cash to the rebuilding of Iraq.
Albania wants to send its dreaded commandos to the Gulf to fight alongside the U.S. force. Will this reassure Gen. Thomas Franks, chairman of the U.S. Central Command? Will the mention of Albania make Saddam, and sons Uday and Qusay, quake in their boots? Will the thought of the elite of Albania's army hasten the Iraqi collapse?
It's also nice to know that the Eritreans and Ethiopians, who ended a civil war in December 2000, want to be counted as coalition members -- as long as they don't stop fighting the Ba'athists to resume fighting against each other.
----
Things to Come
March 18, 2003
The New York Times
By PAUL KRUGMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/opinion/18KRUG.html
Of course we'll win on the battlefield, probably with ease. I'm not a military expert, but I can do the numbers: the most recent U.S. military budget was $400 billion, while Iraq spent only $1.4 billion.
What frightens me is the aftermath - and I'm not just talking about the problems of postwar occupation. I'm worried about what will happen beyond Iraq - in the world at large, and here at home.
The members of the Bush team don't seem bothered by the enormous ill will they have generated in the rest of the world. They seem to believe that other countries will change their minds once they see cheering Iraqis welcome our troops, or that our bombs will shock and awe the whole world (not just the Iraqis) or that what the world thinks doesn't matter. They're wrong on all counts.
Victory in Iraq won't end the world's distrust of the United States because the Bush administration has made it clear, over and over again, that it doesn't play by the rules. Remember: this administration told Europe to take a hike on global warming, told Russia to take a hike on missile defense, told developing countries to take a hike on trade in lifesaving pharmaceuticals, told Mexico to take a hike on immigration, mortally insulted the Turks and pulled out of the International Criminal Court - all in just two years.
Nor, as we've just seen, is military power a substitute for trust. Apparently the Bush administration thought it could bully the U.N. Security Council into going along with its plans; it learned otherwise. "What can the Americans do to us?" one African official asked. "Are they going to bomb us? Invade us?"
Meanwhile, consider this: we need $400 billion a year of foreign investment to cover our trade deficit, or the dollar will plunge and our surging budget deficit will become much harder to finance - and there are already signs that the flow of foreign investment is drying up, just when it seems that America may be about to fight a whole series of wars.
It's a matter of public record that this war with Iraq is largely the brainchild of a group of neoconservative intellectuals, who view it as a pilot project. In August a British official close to the Bush team told Newsweek: "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran." In February 2003, according to Ha'aretz, an Israeli newspaper, Under Secretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating Iraq the United States would "deal with" Iran, Syria and North Korea.
Will Iraq really be the first of many? It seems all too likely - and not only because the "Bush doctrine" seems to call for a series of wars. Regimes that have been targeted, or think they may have been targeted, aren't likely to sit quietly and wait their turn: they're going to arm themselves to the teeth, and perhaps strike first. People who really know what they are talking about have the heebie-jeebies over North Korea's nuclear program, and view war on the Korean peninsula as something that could happen at any moment. And at the rate things are going, it seems we will fight that war, or the war with Iran, or both at once, all by ourselves.
What scares me most, however, is the home front. Look at how this war happened. There is a case for getting tough with Iraq; bear in mind that an exasperated Clinton administration considered a bombing campaign in 1998. But it's not a case that the Bush administration ever made. Instead we got assertions about a nuclear program that turned out to be based on flawed or faked evidence; we got assertions about a link to Al Qaeda that people inside the intelligence services regard as nonsense. Yet those serial embarrassments went almost unreported by our domestic news media. So most Americans have no idea why the rest of the world doesn't trust the Bush administration's motives. And once the shooting starts, the already loud chorus that denounces any criticism as unpatriotic will become deafening.
So now the administration knows that it can make unsubstantiated claims, without paying a price when those claims prove false, and that saber rattling gains it votes and silences opposition. Maybe it will honorably refuse to act on this dangerous knowledge. But I can't help worrying that in domestic politics, as in foreign policy, this war will turn out to have been the shape of things to come.
--------
War in the Ruins of Diplomacy
March 18, 2003
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/opinion/18TUE1.html
America is on its way to war. President Bush has told Saddam Hussein to depart or face attack. For Mr. Hussein, getting rid of weapons of mass destruction is no longer an option. Diplomacy has been dismissed. Arms inspectors, journalists and other civilians have been advised to leave Iraq.
The country now stands at a decisive turning point, not just in regard to the Iraq crisis, but in how it means to define its role in the post-cold-war world. President Bush's father and then Bill Clinton worked hard to infuse that role with America's traditions of idealism, internationalism and multilateralism. Under George W. Bush, however, Washington has charted a very different course. Allies have been devalued and military force overvalued.
Now that logic is playing out in a war waged without the compulsion of necessity, the endorsement of the United Nations or the company of traditional allies. This page has never wavered in the belief that Mr. Hussein must be disarmed. Our problem is with the wrongheaded way this administration has gone about it.
Once the fighting begins, every American will be thinking primarily of the safety of our troops, the success of their mission and the minimization of Iraqi civilian casualties. It will not feel like the right time for complaints about how America got to this point.
Today is the right time. This war crowns a period of terrible diplomatic failure, Washington's worst in at least a generation. The Bush administration now presides over unprecedented American military might. What it risks squandering is not America's power, but an essential part of its glory.
When this administration took office just over two years ago, expectations were different. President Bush was a novice in international affairs, while his father had been a master practitioner. But the new president looked to have assembled an experienced national security team. It included Colin Powell and Dick Cheney, who had helped build the multinational coalition that fought the first Persian Gulf war. Condoleezza Rice had helped manage a peaceful end for Europe's cold war divisions. Donald Rumsfeld brought government and international experience stretching back to the Ford administration. This seasoned team was led by a man who had spoken forcefully as a presidential candidate about the need for the United States to wear its power with humility, to reach out to its allies and not be perceived as a bully.
But this did not turn out to be a team of steady veterans. The hubris and mistakes that contributed to America's current isolation began long before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. From the administration's first days, it turned away from internationalism and the concerns of its European allies by abandoning the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdrawing America's signature from the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court. Russia was bluntly told to accept America's withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into the territory of the former Soviet Union. In the Middle East, Washington shortsightedly stepped backed from the worsening spiral of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, ignoring the pleas of Arab, Muslim and European countries. If other nations resist American leadership today, part of the reason lies in this unhappy history.
The Atlantic alliance is now more deeply riven than at any time since its creation more than a half-century ago. A promising new era of cooperation with a democratizing Russia has been put at risk. China, whose constructive incorporation into global affairs is crucial to the peace of this century, has been needlessly estranged. Governments across the Muslim world, whose cooperation is so vital to the war against terrorism, are now warily navigating between popular anger and American power.
The American-sponsored Security Council resolution that was withdrawn yesterday had firm support from only four of the council's 15 members and was opposed by major European powers like France, Germany and Russia. Even the few leaders who have stuck with the Bush administration, like Tony Blair of Britain and José María Aznar of Spain, have done so in the face of broad domestic opposition, which has left them and their parties politically damaged.
There is no ignoring the role of Baghdad's game of cooperation without content in this diplomatic debacle. And France, in its zest for standing up to Washington, succeeded mainly in sending all the wrong signals to Baghdad. But Washington's own destructive contributions were enormous: its shifting goals and rationales, its increasingly arbitrary timetables, its distaste for diplomatic give and take, its public arm-twisting and its failure to convince most of the world of any imminent danger.
The result is a war for a legitimate international goal against an execrable tyranny, but one fought almost alone. At a time when America most needs the world to see its actions in the best possible light, they will probably be seen in the worst. This result was neither foreordained nor inevitable.
-------
NEWS ANALYSIS
Bush's Doctrine for War
March 18, 2003
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/international/middleeast/18ASSE.html
WASHINGTON, March 17 - In announcing tonight that he had chosen war, President Bush cut through the debate over who has the right to enforce United Nations resolutions or overthrow brutal regimes.
His argument boiled down to one precept: In an age of unseen enemies who make no formal declarations of war, waiting to act after America's foes "have struck first is not self-defense, it is suicide."
President Bush thus turned America's first new national security strategy in 50 years - the doctrine of pre-emptive military action against foes - into the rationale for America's latest war.
It is a view of America's role that Mr. Bush never discussed when he ran for president, when he spoke of the need for a "humble" approach to the world. Yet he began to embrace it within months of entering the Oval Office, and it became a fierce passion after Sept. 11, 2001.
Standing in the White House this evening, Mr. Bush seemed to complete that evolution, describing America as having virtually a duty to police the world if the United Nations fails to do so, and giving Saddam Hussein 48 hours to get out of Iraq.
The speech marked the culmination of the rupture with the United Nations and with two of America's closest post-war allies - France and Germany - that has been building for months. Mr. Bush's speech almost certainly confirmed some of the world's worst fears about George Bush's America: that when the United Nations will not bend to its will, when allies will not go along, Mr. Bush will simply break away and pull the trigger.
"To them, it will show that this whole U.N. detour was an exercise in futility - that this is what the president planned to do all along," Stanley Hoffmann, the Harvard professor who has spent a lifetime studying war and the trans-Atlantic alliance, said today. "There is no room in the U.N. charter for the president's doctrine of pre-emption, for anticipatory self-defense."
But Mr. Bush was not talking to Europe tonight. He was speaking first to the American people, explaining a war that seems certain to come in days, and casting it as a matter of national survival. And he was speaking to the people of Iraq - in translated radio broadcasts beamed in around Saddam Hussein's radio jammers - promising food and freedom.
"In a free Iraq," he said, "there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near."
Mr. Bush's words were, in many ways, drawn straight from the days of World War II - an era of far clearer challenges and more obvious threats. The president portrayed the Iraqi threat as one so large and so imminent that it challenges America's survival - an argument his critics were already saying tonight was exaggerated to justify a preventive war.
He described Mr. Hussein as a modern-day Hitler, whom America - and its allies - must confront. He openly compared the United Nations and the countries that have refused open confrontation with Mr. Hussein - Germany, France and Russia - to the nations that turned a blind eye as Nazi Germany re-armed.
"In the 20th century, some chose to appease murderous dictators whose threats were allowed to grow into genocide and global war," Mr. Bush said, his voice far steadier, and his anger far better controlled than it was Sunday afternoon in the Azores following his war council with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and José María Aznar of Spain.
"In this century, when evil men plot chemical, biological and nuclear terror, a policy of appeasement could bring destruction of a kind never before seen on this earth."
But the rest of the world is unlikely to see the confrontation in such terms, and that will be only the first of many challenges as Mr. Bush turns the doctrine of pre-emption into a war of pre-emption.
In Europe, his message will undoubtedly play into the favorite image of Mr. Bush as gunslinging cowboy. In the past, the White House has always dismissed that view as a gross caricature, meant to exaggerate Mr. Bush's views so that they could be discredited.
But now, Mr. Bush's allies - and his political advisers - have decided that the image may have its advantages.
"As a Westerner, I don't think that's necessarily a bad idea," his vice president, Dick Cheney, said on television on Sunday. "He's exactly what the circumstances require."
What has surprised the world is the audacity with which Mr. Bush has pursued that vision - to the point today of drawing up detailed plans for making Iraq an American protectorate, for as long as it takes to transform it into a peaceful nation.
Many, including some Republican leaders on Capitol Hill and some people inside the administration, fear that that process could become a trap for Mr. Bush's new doctrine.
In the optimistic view of Mr. Bush's team, the war will be as quick - or quicker - than the first gulf war. Mr. Hussein will be ousted in days, they hope, after his military heeds Mr. Bush's warning tonight that they should signal early surrender, and that it would be foolish to "fight for a dying regime."
What will follow, his aides hope, is jubilation and a shift to an American administration accepted by Iraqis.
But as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, put it succinctly today, "that is not a sure shot." In moments of candor, even some of Mr. Bush's most senior national security aides say they have no idea what they will find after they lift the top off a dictatorship.
"If it's not post-war Japan - if it's more like post-war Yugoslavia - we will have a huge and expensive problem on our hands," one of those advisers conceded recently. "And I can't honestly tell you we are prepared for that, because there is no way to prepare for that."
Mr. Bush himself has acknowledged that he will need allies to help rebuild Iraq. Whether they are willing to help after such an open breach with Washington is unknown.
"We are going to want someone to pay for all this," said Joseph Nye, the dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "And that is when you discover the cost of relying too much on efficiency, and not enough on establishing the legitimacy of your military actions."
The other question is whether Mr. Bush takes his doctrine to what is arguably next logical step: stopping other countries that pose an even greater threat of proliferation.
North Korea? It seems an obvious choice - but it can strike back in ways Mr. Hussein can only dream about, hitting American troops and allies. Iran? Perhaps, but it has an identifiable democracy movement that could suffer immensely from American meddling.
But both countries pose potential threats to the United States at least as imminent as those posed by Iraq. And they are not only points on Mr. Bush's "axis of evil," they are in the sights of the more hawkish members of the Bush administration, who won the Iraq debate.
-------- MILITARY
Bush Ultimatum Hardens Some Positions, and Blurs Others
March 18, 2003
The New York Times
By ALAN COWELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/international/europe/19CND-REACT.html
LONDON, March 18 - President Bush's ultimatum to Saddam Hussein resonated across a worried and divided world today, exposing in equal measures an overwhelming opposition to war in many nations, and a growing resignation to its approach.
In Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a passionate opponent of the military campaign, condemned the move toward an invasion, saying it meant "certain death to thousands of innocent men, women and children." At the same time, his spokesman, Bela Anda, said Berlin would honor pledges to permit overflights by United States military aircraft and the use of American bases in Germany.
Australia said it would commit 2,000 troops, flying in the face of wide domestic opposition to any deployment. But in Spain, one of the few other governments, along with Japan, to openly back President Bush, Prime Minister José María Aznar emphasized that Madrid's support for Washington - which has been greeted with massive opposition among ordinary Spaniards - did not include combat forces.
"In the case of a military intervention, Spain will not participate in attack missions," Mr. Aznar said to cheers in the Parliament. "As a result, there will not be any Spanish combat troops in the theater of operations."
Underlying the world's response was a sense that corrosive divisions caused by the crisis would fester unhealed whatever the outcome in Baghdad. The European split over Iraq - largely pitting Britain and Spain against France and Germany - was depicted as yet further evidence of what critics regard as the Continent's impotence in international crises.
Europe's divide, said Prime Minister Costas Simitis of Greece, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, illustrates "the need for European countries to finally decide to adopt a common foreign and defense policy" if the Union is to be "effective in any international intervention."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was reported to have said that 30 nations supported the move to disarm Iraq, including Estonia and Uzbekistan.
The Bush ultimatum Monday night triggered a spate of last-minute departures from Iraq by weapons inspectors, diplomats and journalists, while other outsiders readied precautions against the possibility of the war spreading across the region and beyond.
British Airways announced the cancellation of daily flights to Israel and Kuwait. The Dutch and German airlines were also reported to have canceled flights to Kuwait scheduled for Wednesday. Two Indian airlines, Air India and Indian Airlines, said they were preparing to evacuate as many as 50,000 of the 315,000 Indians working in Kuwait if the conflict threatened that country.
In East Africa, the European Union urged its citizens to leave Somalia, although a United Nations security report said there was "no credible information that events in Iraq will stimulate reactions in Somalia." In Washington, the State Department has warned Americans to "re-evaluate" any planned trips to Kenya, in case of terror attacks.
"Al Qaeda is everywhere," said Kenya's national security minister, Christopher N. Murungaru. "Al Qaeda is in mosques. Al Qaeda is in offices. Al Qaeda is in every part of the world, including east Africa."
The divisions go far beyond the region itself, cementing a range of nations from China to Mexico in opposition to America's war plans.
China's newly appointed president, Hu Jintao, took his first cautious steps into international crisis diplomacy in telephone conservations with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Jacques Chirac of France, both strong opponents of the war, who had threatened to veto United Nations Security Council resolutions threatening conflict.
A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Kong Quan, said Beijing wanted a peaceful outcome.
"We demand that the Iraq question be solved with the United Nations framework," he said. "China is a responsible member of the international community. Under such circumstances, we still urge peace and want to avoid war."
That was the view, too, from the Vatican, where Pope John Paul II had tried in vain to persuade world leaders to avoid war. The papal spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Walls, said, "Whoever decides that all peaceful means available under international law are exhausted assumes a grave responsibility before God, his own conscience and history."
In a statement, India's Ministry of External Affairs said, "As long as the peaceful disarmament of Iraq has the slightest chance, we would continue to urge caution, self-restraint and high sense of responsibility on the part of concerned parties."
That sense of unhappiness, resignation and frustration extended to Moscow, where in a largely symbolic gesture the Duma, the lower house of the Russian legislature, postponed a vote on a landmark treaty with the United States to reduce nuclear arsenals. But the Kremlin's reaction appeared more nuanced, reflecting a concern to keep open channels of communication.
In a telephone call initiated by the White House, President Putin "expressed regret that Washington issued an ultimatum and that intensive diplomatic efforts did not lead to a mutually acceptable compromise," the Kremlin's news service said. "It was stressed that in any situation the U.N. and its Security Council are called on to play a central role in ensuring international peace and stability."
It continued, "Both parties emphasized that despite differences in approaches and assessments, maintaining bilateral ties in critical situations like the present one are of special importance."
Mr. Putin's adviser on strategic issues, Marshal Igor Sergeyev, the hawkish former defense minister, sounded more bleak. In an interview with the Interfax news service, Mr. Sergeyev said that "the consequences for international security in the event of a new war in Iraq would be unpredictable and extremely negative."
In the protracted diplomacy leading up to the ultimatum, both the United States and Britain calculated that they had won unequivocal support from several former Warsaw Pact allies of Moscow in Eastern and Central Europe that are now poised to join the European Union.
Those nations - from Poland to Slovakia - seemed more muted in their responses today.
The Czech defense minister, Jaroslav Tvrdik, told journalists after the meeting that Czech soldiers would only take part in cleaning up after the use of any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Slovakia, which has sent a nuclear chemical and biological warfare defense and cleanup unit to Kuwait, said it would not withdraw its support. "The key to settling the problem is now in the hands of the Iraqi leader," Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda.
Hungary's government said it will not send troops or combat units to Iraq, limiting its support to the use of the Taszar air base, where hundreds of Iraqi émigrés are being trained as liaison officers for American forces in the Persian Gulf. Poland took the firmest line in supporting the United States, pledging 200 troops, most of whom are already in the gulf region.
The eastern European countries are torn between American pressure for support and French threats that their membership in the European Union could be called into question by their backing for the military campaign.
Poland's foreign minister, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, who visited Paris on Monday, said, "It is clear, unfortunately, that question marks hang over the future and the efficacy of the United Nations, question marks hang over the future of the European Union, as well as over the efficacy of NATO."
In Brussels, the secretary general of NATO, Lord Robertson, said: "What happens next is up to Saddam Hussein."
Perhaps the most plaintive appeal for restraint came from an organization representing the 120 human shields who have traveled to Iraq to try to prevent military strikes.
In a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, the group urged him to protect from bombing the sites where human shields had been deployed. "We call on the public to support the brave men and women from Britain who have placed themselves in harm's way in order to try and protect the innocent people of Iraq," the letter said.
--------
Bush Fails to Win China, Russia Support
March 18, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Bush-Iraq.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- On the brink of war with Iraq, President Bush reached out Tuesday to the leaders of Russia and China, two countries that resisted setting an ultimatum for using force against Saddam Hussein. But Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao told Bush they still preferred a U.N.-brokered solution.
Bush called both leaders a day after aborting diplomatic efforts in the United Nations and giving Saddam until 8 p.m. EST Wednesday to surrender power or face a U.S.-led war.
The Russian president ``expressed regret in connection with Washington's decision to issue the ultimatum and the fact that intensive diplomatic efforts had failed to produce a mutually acceptable compromise,'' the Kremlin said.
``The two openly acknowledged that they don't see eye-to-eye on whether or not force should be used to disarm Saddam Hussein,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. ``They agree about the threats in the region.'' Bush also spoke to China's newly installed president, who told Bush that U.N. weapons inspections must continue despite the U.S. ultimatum to Saddam.
Hu told Bush that China hopes for ``peace instead of war'' and wants a political settlement through the United Nations, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The White House offered no details on the conversation. Fleischer said that ``the presidents shared views on Iraq and North Korea.''
U.S. troops are headed into Iraq one way or another. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that even if Saddam seeks exile U.S. forces will enter Iraq to disarm it -- hopefully without opposition.
On Tuesday, Iraq's leadership rejected Bush's ultimatum. Iraqi television said the decision was made in a joint meeting of the Revolution Command Council -- Iraq's highest executive body -- and the leadership of the ruling Baath party. Saddam chaired the meeting, it said.
Saddam's elder son, Odai Hussein, said in a statement that Bush is ``unstable'' and ``should give up power in America with his family.''
Fleischer responded that ``Iraq has made a series of mistakes, including arming themselves with weapons of mass destruction that have brought this crisis upon itself.
``This is the latest mistake Iraq could make. It would be Saddam's final mistake,'' Fleischer said. ``The president still hopes he will take the ultimatum seriously and leave the country.''
But Fleischer would not rule out a U.S. attack before Bush's 48-hour clock ran out if the Iraqi leader rejects the exile offer. ``Saddam Hussein has to figure out what this means,'' he said.
Bush was spending the day in a White House protected by increased security measures, calling allies and trying to recruit partners for the war. He also met with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, as he has each day.
He was making several calls to world leaders, including , in a prime-time speech Monday night, vowed to strike Iraq with ``the full force and might'' of the U.S. military unless Saddam and his two sons leave Iraq within 48 hours. More than 250,000 American forces are poised for action in the Persian Gulf. ``The tyrant will soon be gone,'' the president pledged
Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle charged that a collapse of the administration's diplomatic efforts had brought an unneeded war.
``I'm saddened, saddened that this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war,'' Daschle said in a speech to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. ``Saddened that we have to give up one life because this president couldn't create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country.''
Fleischer accused Daschle of being ``inconsistent'' because the Democratic leader had insisted last September -- after Bush accused Democrats of putting politics ahead of the nation's security -- that ``we ought not politicize this war.''
Fleischer said Daschle did not raise objections Monday in a meeting at the White House with other lawmakers shortly before the president's address. ``He said nothing,'' Fleischer said.
Bush likened the Iraq threat to those posed by perpetrators of genocide in the last century. ``In this century, when evil men plot chemical, biological and nuclear terror, a policy of appeasement could bring destruction of a kind never before seen on this earth,'' he said.
``Responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense, it is suicide,'' Bush said. ``The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now.''
-------- biological weapons
Anthrax attack could kill 123,000
Rapid care would be essential
Tuesday, 18 March, 2003
(BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2857207.stm
An anthrax weapon aimed at a major city could kill at least 123,000 people even if every victim received treatment, experts have calculated.
US researchers have used a computer model to predict the devastation that would result from the launch of an anthrax bomb or missile on a city the size of New York.
The figures are based on what would happen if a bomb containing 1 kilogram of anthrax spores was dropped on a city of 10 million inhabitants.
The projected number of fatalities is based on the assumption that antibiotics would not be administered for 48 hours until the first symptoms appeared.
If it proved possible to distribute drugs more quickly, then the death toll could be substantially reduced.
However, they warn that inadequacies in the current US emergency response plan may make such a rapid response unlikely.
Lead researcher Dr Lawrence Wein, from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, California, said: "The first people develop symptoms within two days of exposure, and many more would develop symptoms over the next week.
"Our response needs to be measured in hours, not in days or weeks."
Intensive care
Five of the 11 people who inhaled anthrax during the 2001 attacks on the US postal system died despite intensive treatment by large teams of doctors.
The researchers recommend distributing anti-anthrax antibiotics such as Cipro in advance of any major attack.
If this was not possible, then the aim should be to distribute antibiotics to everyone infected within 12 hours.
In the case of an attack on New York City, that would mean supplying the drugs to 1.5 million people.
The only way to do this would be to increase the number of available health professionals dramatically.
The researchers estimate that to keep the death toll down to about 1,000, one health professional would be required for every 700 people in the affected population.
This could only be achieved by training non-emergency medical staff and making maximum use of military personnel and volunteers.
Similar findings
Dr Robert Spencer, an infection control expert at the UK Public Health Laboratory Service, told BBC News Online that the conclusions were similar to those reached by research carried out by the World Health Organization in 1970.
However, he said it was very difficult to determine what would happen should weapons grade anthrax be released on a city, not least because of weather patterns, and the complex effect of wind distribution in a built up area.
Dr Spencer said the only recorded case of anthrax release, from a Soviet installation in 1974, had resulted in surprisingly few cases of illness.
"It would be very difficult to disprove what they are saying," he said.
"My personal feeling is that anthrax is not a weapon of mass destruction, but a weapon of mass hysteria.
"Terrorists like bombs, they know what happens when they cause an explosion, and can make predictions based on that."
Dr Spencer also said that to stock up on vaccines and antibiotics to combat a possible anthrax attack would be to drain resources away from more certain demands for health care.
The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
--------
Testing of Anthrax Drug on Humans May Be Near
March 18, 2003
The New York Times
By ANDREW POLLACK
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/business/18BIOT.html
Human Genome Sciences is expected to announce today that it has developed a drug for anthrax that works in animals, one that it hopes could win government approval for human use in as little as a couple of years.
The announcement is a sign that new government biodefense initiatives, combined with a poor financial climate for the biotechnology industry, are inducing even relatively wealthy companies like Human Genome Sciences to develop countermeasures for bioterrorism agents.
Human Genome Sciences, a pioneer in genomics, said it had developed a monoclonal antibody that binds to one of the three toxins produced by the anthrax bacterium. A single dose of the drug, administered before the animals inhaled anthrax spores, significantly increased survival in rabbits and primates, the company said.
The existing vaccine for anthrax requires several shots over 18 months. Human Genome Sciences said its drug could provide protection in advance of anthrax exposure much faster than the vaccine, though such protection might last only 30 to 40 days.
The company, based in Rockville, Md., said its drug might also work after exposure to anthrax. Antibiotics can protect people after exposure by killing anthrax bacteria, but will not help much if the bacteria have already released their toxins.
The company said it would soon ask the Food and Drug Administration for permission to test the drug's safety in healthy human volunteers, which might be enough to win approval. Under rules intended to spur development of drugs for protection against biological, chemical and radioactive weapons, it is not necessary to test whether such drugs actually work in people if that would require unethically exposing people to lethal agents.
Human Genome Sciences is the latest company to announce work in biodefense. Avanir Pharmaceuticals, a small biotechnology company in San Diego, announced last month that it had developed an antibody against anthrax, though it had yet to test it in animals. Vical, also of San Diego, said it hoped to begin tests of an anthrax vaccine this year.
Biodefense work was once of less interest to companies because the drugs were considered to have a small sales potential. But the September 2001 attacks, and the difficulty that biotechnology companies are now having raising money from investors, have made such work more attractive. Moreover, in an initiative code-named Project BioShield, President Bush has proposed spending $6 billion over 10 years, in part to stockpile biodefense drugs, creating a market for such drugs even if an attack never occurs.
"We have been specifically encouraged by BioShield," said William A. Haseltine, chief executive of Human Genome Sciences. Without the prospect that the company's drug might be purchased for inventories, he said, "it's hard to imagine" making the commitment to test and manufacture the anthrax drug.
Human Genome is in a different state from most of the struggling biotechnology companies working in this area, having more than $1 billion in cash and eight drugs in clinical trials. Nevertheless, its stock price has fallen to $7.18, up 20 cents yesterday, from more than $100 in 2000, in part because its drugs are several years from reaching the market. The anthrax drug, which is not expected to require long clinical trials, could be one solution.
"It may provide a route to significant income in short order because the development times for these drugs, rather than 7 to 8 or 10 years, could be as short as two years," Dr. Haseltine said.
Company officials are scheduled to speak at a Wall Street investment conference today.
-------- britain
Briton Quits Cabinet in Protest
Labor's Parliamentary Leader Splits With Blair Over War Policy
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42635-2003Mar17?language=printer
LONDON, March 17 -- Robin Cook, the ruling Labor Party's parliamentary leader and a former foreign secretary, quit his cabinet post today to protest Britain's involvement in imminent military action against Iraq without U.N. authorization.
"I cannot support a war without international agreement or domestic support," Cook told a crowded House of Commons tonight in explaining his resignation, the first from the cabinet of Prime Minister Tony Blair because of differences over war policy. Cook's departure highlighted the political vulnerability of Blair, who has been the United States' staunchest ally in the confrontation with Iraq despite widespread opposition among the British public and criticism from abroad.
A second cabinet member, International Development Secretary Clare Short, was weighing whether to resign and said she would announce her decision Tuesday morning, before the House of Commons holds a special day-long debate on the prospective war.
At that session, rebellious lawmakers from Blair's party will seek to pass a motion condemning military action in a last-ditch effort to keep Blair from ordering British forces to join a U.S.-led attack. Many observers expect Blair to muster a sizable majority, because of near-total support on this issue from the opposition Conservative Party.
In an effort to bolster support, Blair has been the prime mover behind the campaign in recent days to have the U.N. Security Council pass a resolution increasing pressure on Iraq. He and his government conceded defeat today, placing the blame both on Iraq for defying the U.N. mandate to disarm and on France for resisting military action.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott emerged from an emergency cabinet meeting this afternoon to condemn France for declaring it would veto any Security Council resolution leading to war. "We deeply regret that French intransigence and the Iraqi noncompliance have left us with no option but to bring discussions to an end," he said in a statement.
The language was unusual for Blair's government, which until now has generally avoided anti-French rhetoric. But in recent days, officials have noted popular suspicion about French motives and taken off their diplomatic gloves.
The government has also sought to win support for Blair's Iraq policy by emphasizing that he had helped persuade President Bush to renew efforts for a diplomatic breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and by outlining plans for international economic development aid to Iraq after the removal of President Saddam Hussein.
Officials also took the unusual step of releasing a written opinion from Attorney General Peter Goldsmith that war against Iraq was legally justifiable even without a new U.N. resolution.
Cook got a rare standing ovation in the House of Commons tonight after outlining the reasons for his resignation. He said none of the international institutions that Britain belonged to -- the United Nations, the European Union or NATO -- had endorsed military action. He said he believed Iraq posed no serious threat to British or U.S. security. And he said the Bush administration seemed more interested in replacing the government than in disarming the country.
"What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops," Cook told the lawmakers.
Cook stepped down as leader of the House of Commons, the cabinet post he was assigned by Blair after being removed from the position of foreign secretary, which he held under the first Blair government, from 1997 to 2001.
Once a member of Blair's inner circle, Cook has been widely considered a fading political star in recent years. But he is highly respected here for his intellect and rhetorical skills, and lawmakers who oppose the war believe his resignation could help further crystallize opposition to Blair's policy in Tuesday's vote.
In a letter to Blair, Cook was largely amicable in tone. Applauding the "heroic efforts" that Blair had made to achieve a second U.N. resolution, Cook told the prime minister, "It is not your fault that those attempts have failed."
He also stressed differences in their views. "In principle I believe it is wrong to embark on military action without broad international support," Cook wrote. "In practice I believe it is against Britain's interests to create a precedent for unilateral military action."
He expressed dismay that Britain was at odds with France and Germany on the war issue and that Blair's Labor Party was in conflict with other left-of-center political parties in Europe.
In a reply, Blair declared that despite a lack of international will, "My will is as strong as ever, that he [Hussein] must be disarmed. The threatened French veto set back hugely the considerable progress we were making in building consensus among [Security Council] members."
He added, "I passionately believe that if the international community had stayed rock-solid in its determination and unity around Resolution 1441, Saddam could finally have been disarmed without a shot being fired."
The cabinet ministers left their emergency meeting at the prime minister's 10 Downing Street office to a chorus of antiwar protesters just beyond the gates. Earlier in the day, Andrew Murray, chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, said at a news conference that Blair should resign. "I believe he has forfeited the right to lead a democratic country by taking us into a war that people do not support," Murray said.
Murray added that the coalition would stage a protest march Saturday in London to coincide with similar rallies throughout Europe. Organizers are hoping to approach the record turnout a month ago, when more than 1 million protesters marched through the streets of the British capital.
--------
Why I had to leave the cabinet
This will be a war without support at home or agreement abroad
Robin Cook
Tuesday March 18, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,916318,00.html
I have resigned from the cabinet because I believe that a fundamental principle of Labour's foreign policy has been violated. If we believe in an international community based on binding rules and institutions, we cannot simply set them aside when they produce results that are inconvenient to us.
I cannot defend a war with neither international agreement nor domestic support. I applaud the determined efforts of the prime minister and foreign secretary to secure a second resolution. Now that those attempts have ended in failure, we cannot pretend that getting a second resolution was of no importance.
In recent days France has been at the receiving end of the most vitriolic criticism. However, it is not France alone that wants more time for inspections. Germany is opposed to us. Russia is opposed to us. Indeed at no time have we signed up even the minimum majority to carry a second resolution. We delude ourselves about the degree of international hostility to military action if we imagine that it is all the fault of President Chirac.
The harsh reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading member. Not Nato. Not the EU. And now not the security council. To end up in such diplomatic isolation is a serious reverse. Only a year ago we and the US were part of a coalition against terrorism which was wider and more diverse than I would previously have thought possible. History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition.
Britain is not a superpower. Our interests are best protected, not by unilateral action, but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules. Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to us are weakened. The European Union is divided. The security council is in stalemate. Those are heavy casualties of war without a single shot yet being fired.
The threshold for war should always be high. None of us can predict the death toll of civilians in the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq. But the US warning of a bombing campaign that will "shock and awe" makes it likely that casualties will be numbered at the very least in the thousands. Iraq's military strength is now less than half its size at the time of the last Gulf war. Ironically, it is only because Iraq's military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate invasion. And some claim his forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war will be over in days.
We cannot base our military strategy on the basis that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a seri ous threat. Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of that term - namely, a credible device capable of being delivered against strategic city targets. It probably does still have biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions. But it has had them since the 1980s when the US sold Saddam the anthrax agents and the then British government built his chemical and munitions factories.
Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years and which we helped to create? And why is it necessary to resort to war this week while Saddam's ambition to complete his weapons programme is frustrated by the presence of UN inspectors?
I have heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which to disarm, and our patience is exhausted. Yet it is over 30 years since resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.
We do not express the same impatience with the persis tent refusal of Israel to comply. What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops to action in Iraq.
I believe the prevailing mood of the British public is sound. They do not doubt that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator. But they are not persuaded he is a clear and present danger to Britain. They want the inspections to be given a chance. And they are suspicious that they are being pushed hurriedly into conflict by a US administration with an agenda of its own. Above all, they are uneasy at Britain taking part in a military adventure without a broader international coalition and against the hostility of many of our traditional allies. It has been a favourite theme of commentators that the House of Commons has lost its central role in British politics. Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong than for parliament to stop the commitment of British troops to a war that has neither international authority nor domestic support.
· Robin Cook was, until yesterday, leader of the House of Commons
-------- business
U.S. company holds Colombia operations secret
By Rachel Van Dongen
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 18, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030318-26492966.htm
BOGOTA, Colombia - The Web site for California Microwave Systems, a unit of defense giant Northup Grumman, shows an image of a plane soaring against a picturesque mountain range next to a military-looking helicopter whipping its blades furiously in the sky.
"Our real-time intelligence systems have been used in peacekeeping operations in Korea, Haiti and Bosnia, and for counternarcotics operations in Colombia and South America and the Caribbean," the site says.
California Microwave Systems (CMS) specializes in imagery, communications and electronics intelligence.
But that's about all one can find out about the company that was operating an intelligence mission in the Colombian jungle when its single-engine Cessna 208 crashed in guerrilla territory last month.
On Feb. 13, Marxist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fired on the CMS plane as it was trying to make an emergency landing in Caqueta, about 220 miles south of Bogota. Afterward, the rebels executed American Thomas John Janis, 56, and Colombian Sgt. Luis Alcides Cruz, and captured the Cessna's three other passengers, all U.S. citizens and Defense Department contractors.
They are being held in a high-stakes game of diplomatic poker in which FARC is demanding that they be traded for guerrillas in Colombian jails.
Washington has refused to negotiate, and a massive manhunt is under way.
CMS is just one of at least seven private military companies operating in Colombia's jungles, where the U.S. mission is increasingly shifting from counternarcotics to counterterrorism.
The companies, and their myriad subcontractors, are not required to disclose their activities or personnel to any government agency, making their operations impossible to track or even keep up with.
A recent telephone call to the offices of CMS was referred to Northup Grumman's press division. Northup Grumman's spokesman would not elaborate on a brief statement released after the kidnappings. The statement confirmed that three employees were missing but did not name them.
The spokesman would not say how many CMS employees work in Colombia.
On Feb. 20, President Bush sent a letter to Congress pegging the number of temporary and permanent military personnel in Colombia at 208 and the number of civilian contractors at 279.
Congress has placed a limit of 400 American military personnel and 400 civilian contractors working at any time. The limits apply to Plan Colombia, an anti-narcotics assistance package on which the United States has spent nearly $2 billion since 1998.
But the cap can be exceeded in an emergency, such as the recent kidnapping, and for the first time since Plan Colombia began, there are 411 American military personnel on the ground in this war-torn Andean country.
Peter Singer, a foreign policy fellow with the Brookings Institution who wrote the upcoming book "Corporate Warriors," argues that there are ways to get around the cap.
He estimates that as many as 600 contract employees could be working in Colombia at any given moment.
That's because the U.S. government has long hired non-U.S. citizens, who don't count toward the cap, Mr. Singer said."
Paul Watzlavick, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, said the embassy is only responsible for estimating the number of contract employees related to Plan Colombia.
As for the larger number of those not related to the anti-narcotics program, Mr. Watzlavick estimated that it was "pretty evenly split" between social services, such as aid to displaced people, and military operations such as protecting the oil pipeline in Arauca, which is not part of Plan Colombia.
Big contractors working in Colombia include Northup Grumman, which operates U.S. radar sites, and DynCorp, which runs the State Department's aerial spraying to defoliate coca plants in the same guerrilla-ridden territory where the CMS plane crashed.
Each low-flying spray plane is accompanied by a search-and-rescue squadron.
According to a September 2001 General Accounting Office report, "Aerial eradication missions are dangerous, and as a normal course, helicopter gunships and search-and-rescue aircraft accompany the eradication aircraft."
In fact, at least three DynCorp pilots have been killed in accidents since 1997. Spray planes have been hit by hostile gunfire at least 70 times during the past year, U.S. officials say.
In February 2001, American contractor helicopters came under rebel fire when they swooped in to save a Colombian National Police aircraft shot down by FARC in Caqueta while on a spray mission.
Though Americans were not allowed to operate the helicopters' guns, they had M-16 assault rifles, and all DynCorp personnel carry pistols.
As of late March 2001, there were a little more than 100 U.S. DynCorp contractors in Colombia, according to the American Embassy in Bogota and a roughly equal number of third-country nationals and Colombian citizens.
In the wake of the CMS abductions, a U.S. official vowed that American policy would continue unchanged.
"Contractors are going to provide a big role in Plan Colombia for some time to come," said the official, who asked not to be named.
As for whether security protocol would be altered in the wake of the incident, another U.S. official said, "We simply cannot provide escorts for every plane. It's dangerous out there."
A third U.S. official said spray planes are afforded the extra security because they typically fly so low, while intelligence missions typically fly at higher altitudes.
The Cessna 208 was flying at 17,000 feet when it had engine trouble.
Adam Isacson, a Colombia analyst at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, which supports demilitarization of the conflict, argued that the CMS incident is likely to increase the role of contractors in Colombia.
"God forbid this should happen if they were uniformed military personnel. This whole episode has hardly made it to the front pages here," Mr. Isacson said.
--------
US firms get $1.5bn deal to rebuild Iraq
Oliver Burkeman in Washington
Tuesday March 18, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,916508,00.html
The United States plans to transform the infrastructure of Iraq within a year of a war ending, but has sidelined aid agencies by allocating almost all the funds available to private American firms.
Non-governmental organisations and the UN would get just $50m, a tiny fraction of the $1.5bn being offered to private companies, according to more than 100 pages of confidential contract documents leaked to the Wall Street Journal.
In the Azores at the weekend, President George Bush emphasised the need for a significant UN role in a postwar Iraq, a stance the administration considers essential to maintaining some degree of multilateral backing for military action and its aftermath.
But Washington's plan - backed by a request for cash that the White House is expected to submit to Congress soon - envisages a rapid reconstruction process led by US corporations, repairing Iraq's infrastructure and reforming its educational, healthcare and financial systems, with many results evident before a year has passed.
US administration officials would act as "shadow ministers", keeping a close eye on Iraq's new government.
The UN development programme, which has traditionally coordinated many postwar rebuilding schemes, estimates that reconstruction could cost $10bn a year, over at least three years - whereas the request to Congress is expected to demand a total of $1.8bn for reconstruction in the first year, and $800m for humanitarian assistance, the Journal reported.
Washington has restricted the initial bidding process - for contracts worth $900m - to American firms, invoking emergency regulations that allow companies to sidestep the usual open procedures.
A subsidiary of Halliburton, the firm formerly headed by the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, is a member of one of four consortia whose bids were invited in a secret process last month. Several of the firms are major Republican party donors.
The Bush administration intends to make sure the Iraqi people know that the US has taken the central role in rebuilding, in an effort to shore up public opinion there, the leaked documents suggest.
Officials at USAID, the government department coordinating the plan, believe that a more multilateral approach could see projects getting bogged down.
Ellen Yount, a USAID spokesperson, said non-American firms were not excluded from the process because they could serve in subcontract roles, and might be candidates for future bidding rounds.
The USAID plans have been roundly condemned by NGOs and representatives of the EU and UN.
Mark Malloch Brown, head of the UN development programme, said the one-year deadline "flies in the face of human history," while Chris Patten, the EU's external affairs commissioner, has called the US approach "exceptionally maladroit".
-------- canada
Canada's Leader Rejects Sending Troops to War Chretien Cites U.N. Obstacle
By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43008-2003Mar17?language=printer
TORONTO, March 17 -- Canada will not join a U.S.-led war on Iraq without a new resolution by the U.N. Security Council, Prime Minister Jean Chretien told the House of Commons today.
Chretien, who received loud applause in Parliament, said: "Canada worked very hard to find a compromise to bridge the gap in the Security Council. Unfortunately, we were not successful. If military action proceeds without a new resolution of the Security Council, Canada will not participate."
While Chretien said that Canada's position has been clear -- that the government would join only a U.N.-sanctioned use of force -- critics have said he had sent conflicting signals over the past weeks.
Last month, Canada asked the United Nations to set an early deadline for Iraq to disarm, and the prime minister called leaders in a number of countries, seeking support for the proposal. Last week, Canada's ambassador to the United Nations delivered a "Canadian compromise" that would have extended the disarmament deadline, but that compromise was rejected by the United States and France.
Canada considers itself among the closest allies of the United States, but according to recent public opinion polls, a majority of Canadians oppose a war without a second U.N. resolution.
Chretien made his statement today after the United States, Britain and Spain, in the face of a veto threat by France, withdrew their call for a U.N. vote to authorize the use of force against Iraq.
Steven Hogue, a spokesman for the prime minister, said Canada had reached its decision "because we feel that it is better for peace to work under the U.N. umbrella."
Hogue made his comments before President Bush's address at 8 p.m., but said that no matter what Bush said, "Canada will not change" its position. Hogue said a small contingent of Canadian soldiers serving in an exchange program with U.S. troops had been authorized to fight alongside them despite the fact that Canada will not join the war. Thirty-five Canadian soldiers are serving with U.S. units in a long-term personnel exchange program. Canadian officials have said it is unlikely the troops will be on the front lines.
Hogue said those officers would remain. "We are not pulling the exchange troops back," Hogue said. "My understanding is they are not on the ground with guns at the border of Iraq. Most likely, they are people sitting at desks, and we are comfortable with that."
Alexa McDonough, foreign policy spokeswoman for the opposition New Democratic Party, said Canada should ask those officers to return home. "Once Bush declares an illegal war on Iraq, the terms of reference will change for those officers," McDonough told reporters. "We should bring them home quickly."
Other members of Canada's opposition also criticized the government, saying they were disappointed Canada would not be standing with the United States. "Canada finds itself frozen on the outside," said Stephen Harper, leader of the Canadian Alliance. "In all the great conflicts of the 20th century, Canada and the U.S. have fought side by side. Frankly, the reality is Canada was often at the forefront of those conflicts. In threats of world security, democracy and freedom, we are disappointed we are no longer a leader."
-------- china
China Hopes Conflict Can Still Be Avoided
New Foreign Minister Makes Plea for Peace
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42960-2003Mar17?language=printer
BEIJING, March 17 -- A new foreign minister took office today in China, saying his country still hoped that war would not erupt between the United States and Iraq.
Minutes after being installed in his new post, Li Zhaoxing, a one-time ambassador to Washington who has a reputation for being tough on the United States, told reporters to "keep your fingers crossed for peace."
China, one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council all of whom have veto power, has consistently expressed its opposition to a U.S.-led war but had not said whether it would veto a now-abandoned U.N. resolution on the issue.
This evening, Li told the Russian foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, that "China is willing to make the utmost effort to avoid war," the official New China News Agency reported.
China's rubber-stamp legislature, the National People's Congress, confirmed Li's appointment today, along with those of a number of deputy prime ministers, state councilors, ministers and a central banker. Those appointments put the final touches on what has been the smoothest transfer of power in Communist China's 53-year history. President Hu Jintao, Vice President Zeng Qinghong, legislative chief Wu Bangguo and military chief Jiang Zemin, who were appointed Saturday, and Premier Wen Jiabao, who was appointed Sunday, will run China for the next five years.
China continued its tradition of having a uniformed soldier run the Defense Ministry with the appointment of Gen. Cao Gangchuan. Cao has managed China's multibillion-dollar weapons acquisition program, one of the world's biggest, and is known to be a strong backer of China's space program. Earlier in the legislative session, the government announced that defense spending would increase 9.6 percent this year, the smallest increase in 14 years. China says it spends around $22 billion a year on defense, but experts say the real figure is closer to $80 billion.
The new government bore the hallmarks of the continuing influence of Jiang, the outgoing president. He retained a major position, staying on as chairman of the Central Military Commission. Zeng, the new vice president, was his right-hand man. Jiang's allies also grabbed a top position in the cabinet, a vice premiership, a state councilor's position and the Agriculture Ministry. One of Jiang's closest collaborators, Jia Qinglin, the former party chief in Beijing, was appointed to head the Chinese People's Consultative Conference, an advisory body to the Communist Party.
However, Jiang's men generally seemed to have been locked out of the new economic team led by Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank chief; Zeng Peiyan, another vice premier; Lu Fuyuan, who will head the first Commerce Ministry; and Wu Yi, the only woman on the ruling Politburo, who is also a vice premier. There, the sway of outgoing premier Zhu Rongji remained strong. His influence was also felt in the choice of his successor, Wen, a soft-spoken geologist whose wife is in the gem trade.
While the National People's Congress has the right to turn down the party's candidates, or nominate its own, it has never used this right.
-------- europe
Germany's Military Sinking to 'Basket Case' Status
March 18, 2003
The New York Times
By CRAIG S. SMITH
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/international/europe/18GERM.html
GENERAL STEINHOFF BARRACKS, Germany - Jürgen Thum nods toward a 25-year-old camouflaged German military truck and lists the parts for which replacements are no longer available: muffler, brakes, bits and pieces of the engine.
It "should be in a museum," he said.
Instead, this truck and others like it are part of the German armed forces' aging war machine, an increasingly anachronistic apparatus designed to fight the Soviet Union in a tank war that never came. A string of German administrations have promised change, but lingering complexes over the experience of World War II, the cost of absorbing former Communist East Germany and other economic constraints have checked the pace of modernization.
Germany, once America's strongest military ally, is now one of the worst military laggards in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The German military has been effective in peacekeeping operations from the Balkans to Afghanistan, where it now shares command of the international force in Kabul. It has several hundred highly trained special operations troops, excellent mine-clearing equipment and some of the quietest diesel submarines in the world. It has a strong medical corps and a state-of-the-art flying hospital, and more troops deployed overseas than any other country besides the United States.
But even if Germany did want to take part in a war on Iraq, military experts say it would find it hard to fight alongside the modern United States military.
"They're a basket case," a senior NATO official in Brussels said.
The United States has urged Germany and other NATO allies to transform their traditionally static armed forces into high-tech, mobile services that can better share the task of policing the world.
Most NATO allies have followed Germany's lead in letting defense spending languish since the end of the cold war, investing in rich social welfare programs instead. As a result, America's annual defense budget is now nearly double that of the 18 other NATO countries combined.
While the United States spends 3.3 percent of its gross domestic product on its armed forces, Germany's military spending last year totaled just 1.5 percent of G.D.P.
More than half of the country's $27 billion defense budget goes to salaries and benefits for personnel, a third of whom are civilians. Only about 13 percent is spent on new equipment, according to NATO, and the budget is about to get even more lopsided. Last month, Defense Minister Peter Struck announced cuts in future weapons programs without any significant reduction in troops.
"We need to spend a minimum of 30 percent on capital investment, otherwise the modernization won't take place at the necessary speed," said Gen. Klaus Naumann, a former chairman of NATO's military committee, complaining in particular that the military is top heavy with civilians.
Mr. Thum and his broken trucks are part of the problem. He is a civilian mechanic inherited from the East German Army when it merged with West Germany's a decade ago. At 55, he works just 220 days a year and cannot easily be fired because under German law, civilians who have worked for the armed forces for 15 years or more are in effect guaranteed lifetime employment.
Keeping Mr. Thum and many of the military's 130,000 other civilian employees busy is one reason the German military spends just $40 million a year on new vehicles but $1 billion on maintaining them. On average, its trucks are 25 years old.
As Mr. Thum says, "Our future is in these old vehicles."
General Naumann said, "If we could free 6 to 8 percent of the defense budget now spent on pay and benefits, we could really begin to modernize the armed forces in a way that would be able to close the capabilities gap between most Europeans and the Americans."
When the last defense minister, Rudolf Scharping, tried to do that a year ago, he met such stiff resistance from workers' unions that he promised that for the next 10 years the military would not lay off any civilians - many of whom, a Defense Ministry spokesman noted, lack the skills to work in the private sector.
There are few other politically palatable options for financing military modernization. With no obvious enemy threatening German security, the population has little stomach for more military spending. That could change if the United States, as some American conservatives and military commanders are now beginning to suggest, sharply reduces its presence in Germany, redeploying troops farther east in Europe.
But for now, cutting social programs or raising taxes to buy weapons is considered politically impossible in Germany. Nor can the government in Berlin depend on deficit spending to finance its military, as the United States can, because the country is bound by European Union rules to keep its budget deficit below 3 percent of G.D.P.
Karl-Henning Kröger, a colonel at the military's command center near Potsdam for operations abroad, said that Germany could not easily break the rules it helped set on deficit limits but that the focus on domestic social welfare and the economic bonds with its neighbors had made Europe a safer place.
"We started to reform late because we were focused on political investment in our neighborhood," he said, adding that Washington fails to appreciate the difficulty the country faced in absorbing East Germany.
Germany is making some changes: In a small map-lined room at East Germany's former army headquarters, a handful of soldiers monitor the 8,000 troops now deployed in a half-dozen places around the world. The military is training more soldiers so that it will eventually be able to field 50,000 outside its borders at any one time, and it is planning to retire nearly half of its remaining 1,500 tanks.
"German armed forces of the future will be able to conduct high-intensity operations," an army colonel in Berlin promises. "Our aim is not only to be in the second wave."
But there are bottlenecks everywhere: a shortage of engineers to inspect helicopters in the field, for example, and of anesthesiologists necessary for field hospitals.
The country has few precision-guided weapons and only outdated battlefield command-and-control ability. It has plenty of soldiers, about 290,000, but 90,000 of those are conscripts who get minimal training. Most of the rest are aging professionals who have never served abroad.
Most important of all, Germany does not yet have a means to transport its troops far beyond its borders. It had to lease Ukrainian aircraft to fly its troops to Afghanistan for peacekeeping. It is developing a military transport plane with several other European nations, but the first of the new aircraft will not be delivered before 2009.
Germany is developing an air-launched cruise missile and has started buying laser-guided bombs. But it has made almost no progress in developing an airborne ground surveillance system to allow it to survey a battlefield or use precision-guided weapons effectively.
The United States has urged NATO to build such a system, but without Germany the project is unlikely to make much headway.
"If Germany got serious about reform, it would take away the excuse of the smaller NATO countries" a senior alliance official said, alluding to their neglect of the military.
-------- iran
Suit Begins Against Iran in Marine Barracks Bombing
By Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42990-2003Mar17.html
More than 600 relatives of the U.S. servicemen killed in a 1983 bombing attack in Beirut charged yesterday that Iran was responsible for the bombing, as a landmark lawsuit began in U.S. District Court in Washington.
The Oct. 23, 1983, truck bombing of the Marines' 24th Amphibious Unit barracks killed 241 and injured scores more, and was the blow that eventually led to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Lebanon.
Under rules of combat, U.S. troops would have no clear legal rights to sue. But because they were on a peacekeeping mission under peacetime rules of engagement, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth has ruled that survivors and family members can sue Iran under the provisions of a 1996 law that allows U.S. citizens to take legal action against nations that sponsor terrorism.
"The U.S. military force . . . embodies everything that is resented by the enemies of this country," Lamberth wrote. "Failure to permit military service member [lawsuits] would create a perverse incentive for state sponsors of terrorism to target noncombatant U.S. military personnel."
Hundreds of family members turned out for the first day of what is expected to be two days of testimony and evidence designed to document Iran's role in the bombing. Iran did not send a representative to the trial.
Attorneys Thomas Fortune Fay and Steven R. Perles began their case yesterday by making their main point -- that while militants belonging to the Lebanese group Hezbollah participated in the bombing, the leadership of Iran designed and carried out the attack, using an Iranian suicide-bomber to drive the truck.
If Lamberth rules the that plaintiffs have proven their case, he would then hold hearings to determine damages. Perles said yesterday that those would be "north of $2 billion," and said he would pursue Iranian government assets in the United States or abroad to settle the claims.
"I want Iran to hurt. They made us hurt," said Deborah Peterson of Virginia, the lead plaintiff in the case. Her brother, Marine Cpl. James Knipple, 20, was killed in the blast.
But the odds of actually collecting a judgment are low. The only money paid to victims of Iranian terrorism so far has come from a set-aside fund in the U.S. Treasury that matches the $400 million remaining in a frozen Iranian account.
Iran contends that money belongs to it. The matter is before the U.S.-Iran tribunal at The Hague.
-------- iraq
Likely targets linked to Saddam
By Craig Nelson
COX NEWS SERVICE
March 18, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030318-22052952.htm
BAGHDAD - Driving through Baghdad's streets, it's easy to speculate which buildings soon could be reduced to piles of smoking rubble by the precision and destructive power of American bombs.
There is Saddam Hussein's gaudy marble-and-glass palace in the Yarmouk district. One of about a dozen of Saddam's palaces in Baghdad, it features three massive bronze busts of the Iraqi leader on its roof.
On the city's east side is Olympic Committee headquarters, which is overseen by Saddam's son Odai. In the high-walled compound spiked with gun turrets is a prison where Odai is said to have beaten Iraqi soccer players who missed a scoring chance.
Then there is the 12-story concrete office building in central Baghdad of the Ministry of Military Industrialization, where Iraq's weapons programs are thought to be administered under Saddam's watchful eyes.
The Pentagon's target list is a secret held only by a few. But war plans leaked to the U.S. media in recent weeks speak of a blitzkrieg on Iraq of 3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles in the first 48 hours of the air campaign - 10 times the number of precision-guided weapons fired in the first two days of the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
The concentrated bombing of targets linked to Saddam, his security forces and his reputed weapons makers would pave the way for a ground attack on Baghdad to oust a shocked and reeling government, the reports say.
"The intensity and near simultaneity will cause a break in the enemy's will. The political and military leadership of Iraq will be made to feel impotent and entirely vulnerable," said Harlan Ullman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and one of the authors in the mid-1990s of a tough first-strike concept called "shock and awe."
In a telephone interview from his Washington home, Mr. Ullman said he had no direct input into the Pentagon's war plans for Iraq.
But Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld was an early convert to "shock and awe," signing a letter to President Clinton with four other former defense chiefs in 1999 endorsing the idea as a way to wield U.S. firepower to win a war while deploying as few troops as possible.
The side effects of a military strategy aimed explicitly at traumatizing the Iraqi leadership into submission worry Baghdad residents, however. After more than three decades of autocratic rule, two devastating wars and 12 years of economic sanctions, the psychological fabric of this city of 5 million is already tattered.
"The ability of ordinary Iraqis to deal with a conflict is for the most part depleted," said Carel de Rooy, representative in Iraq for UNICEF, the United Nations children's agency.
As tensions build by the day, children are the most vulnerable. To cope with their fears about a potential war, some fantasize about brandishing weapons and stamping out evil like their favorite comic book heroes.
"My children crawl into my bed every night because they're scared. They say they want guns and want to be Superman and Batman so they can defend themselves," said a secondary-school teacher and mother of three children who earns the equivalent of $5 a month.
Then, too, state-run television airs footage daily of Israeli soldiers and tanks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Iraqis draw the government's intended inference: If America is so interested in liberating Arabs, why not the Palestinians?
Amid these doubts about U.S. intentions and fears about what war will bring, many Baghdad residents cling to their city and its past with fierce pride.
Little wonder, for to call this city along the Tigris River "venerable" would be understatement. It was established about 2,800 years ago and became capital of the Islamic world after Arab fighters drove out the Persians in 762 A.D.
During a renaissance that preceded Europe's by more than 500 years, Baghdad's mathematicians discovered theories in algebra and calculus, while its literary salons translated Plato and Aristotle into Arabic and produced "Sinbad the Sailor" and other tales of "Thousand and One Nights."
----
Deals Could Keep Foes in Barracks
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42566-2003Mar17.html
CAMP COMMANDO, Kuwait, March 17 -- Edging toward war, the U.S. military is trying to negotiate "capitulation agreements" with Iraqi commanders under which enemy troops would turn over most of their weapons and return to their barracks rather than be taken as prisoners of war, U.S. officers said today.
Under the agreements, Iraqi officers would be allowed to keep their sidearms and remain in charge of their units as long as they kept a promise to stay out of the battle. U.S. forces would then be free to march toward Baghdad without being bogged down by tens of thousands of prisoners.
The attempt to brush by as many Iraqi units as possible has emerged as one goal of a multifaceted invasion plan that officers here said could be executed any moment that President Bush gives the word. As that moment seemed to draw near, interviews in recent days with Lt. Gen. James T. Conway and other senior officers in the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and an attached British contingent provided a glimpse into a war room on the verge of battle.
Perhaps the biggest worry exhibited by field commanders was the potential of a chemical weapons attack. Marine officers said intelligence indicates President Saddam Hussein has given "release authority" to Iraq's regional military commanders and possibly down to corps commanders.
Marine commanders have identified three points where U.S. forces could come under fire from artillery shells or rockets loaded with nerve agents or chemicals: the moment they cross the border from Kuwait, the moment they cross the Euphrates River and the moment they genuinely threaten Baghdad.
Conway, the Marine commander here, said he believes his troops will face a particular threat of attack by weapons of mass destruction when they take on Hussein's elite divisions guarding Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.
"The period of greatest threat, to my way of thinking, is when we would start to engage a Republican Guard unit," Conway said in the white tent with the Astroturf floor that serves as his office at the Marines' desert headquarters, about 25 miles northwest of Kuwait City and 25 miles south of the Iraqi border.
Seeking the capitulation accords, the U.S. side has been in communication with Iraqi commanders through radio, e-mail and intermediaries including past Iraqi defectors, according to U.S. officials in Washington. Asked if any Iraqi commanders had accepted the offer, Conway replied, "We're encouraged that could happen in some cases."
"Essentially they're out of the fight and we move on," said Conway, who will lead the largest ground force into Iraq if Bush orders an attack. "Their officers would be allowed to retain their sidearms to keep order and control. We think we afford them a certain amount of dignity in a situation like that, as opposed to standing around with their hands in their pockets in a POW camp. That's the way we'd much rather do business."
In another sign military action is imminent, the United Nations halted monitoring activities along the Iraq-Kuwait border today and withdrew its remaining contingent of observers, who traveled south to Kuwait City. The U.N. Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission, consisting mostly of Bangladeshi troops, had been in place along the 124-mile border since the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Having moved out of the way of an expected cross-border invasion, they were awaiting further orders to evacuate the country, officials said.
At the same time, the U.S. Embassy ordered all nonessential personnel out of Kuwait and advised other Americans here "to depart immediately." The British Embassy in Kuwait City issued a similar warning, and British and American schools in the Kuwaiti capital were closing.
A European diplomat said the two biggest concerns in Kuwait City were that the country could become the target of an Iraqi missile strike at the outbreak of hostilities and that terrorist attacks could be directed against Westerners. He said his embassy has advised its nationals remaining in Kuwait to avoid crowds, vary their routes and exercise discretion.
Weather reports indicated that major dust storms could roll into the region soon, possibly delaying the launch of the widely expected military offensive. In addition, the Marines and the Army find themselves short of material needed to build bridges to traverse rivers and other obstacles, and of bullet-stopping ceramic plates to be inserted in troops' flak jackets.
Commanders have warned against expecting the relatively bloodless victory they enjoyed during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Conway, who commands 85,000 U.S. and British troops, has designated about 900 Marines as replacements for those injured or killed in fighting.
Conway said Hussein's military has in recent days begun dispersing forces and sheltering some in underground bunkers to protect them from bombs. "He's going to a war footing," Conway said. "There's movement all around the country, there really is, in just about all sectors. . . . The movement is more pronounced."
Like their Army cousins, the Marines have been preparing to rush to Baghdad as quickly as possible in an effort to end the war before any civil unrest gets out of control. As part of that approach, over the last three weeks the Marines have built a new dirt airstrip in the Kuwaiti desert capable of handling C-130 Hercules cargo planes that could help jump troops and supplies farther and faster into Iraq.
Another part of that plan will be bypassing weaker, regular Iraqi army units that U.S. officers figure are less eager to fight. But commanders do not want a repeat of 1991, when they found themselves forced to shelter and feed tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers who threw down their guns and surrendered.
"How you treat prisoners is a big question," said Col. Bill Durrett, the staff judge advocate, or lawyer, for the Marine force. "The numbers are very challenging. We are planning for lots, but we could be overwhelmed."
The compromise developed by U.S. officers is capitulation instead of surrender. Under this framework, soldiers who capitulate can return to their bases as long as they give up their weapons and promise not to join the fight later. While U.S. forces would be obligated to accord them the rights of prisoners of war and feed them if necessary, they would be relieved of the need to house and guard the Iraqis.
"If we take tens of thousands of [prisoners], then we have the additional burden and responsibility of putting them into prisoner of war camps," Conway said. "The sanitation, the feeding, the water, the guarding -- all of those things become our responsibility. If Iraqi forces, should we cross the line, decide that they want out of it, what we would much rather do is negotiate with their commanders a capitulation agreement."
The Marines face a daunting challenge handling their own food and water needs, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel their vehicles consume each day. The Marines would prefer to operate within 120 miles of the water but could find their supply line stretched about 300 miles to Baghdad.
Conway said he was most worried about the ability of engineers to get his troops across rivers and ravines, particularly if Hussein's forces blow up infrastructure to slow the U.S. invaders. "Bridging is a shortfall" among all U.S. land forces in Kuwait, Conway said, adding that Marine and Army commanders will have to determine a way to divide their available resources in the next few days.
Col. Matthew W. Blackledge, chief logistics officer for the Marine force, said there should be enough bridging material as long as Iraq does not blow up all its bridges. And he said the bulletproof plates for body armor continue to arrive as fast as manufacturers can make them; front-line Marines will get them first.
"We're ready," Blackledge said. "Nothing's perfect. Nothing's ever perfect. . . . But my job is to make sure it's close enough that we can get the job done without putting people's lives at risk unnecessarily."
Correspondent Keith B. Richburg in Kuwait City contributed to this report.
----
Baghdad Ready to Take Up Arms
Demand for Weapons High as Threat of Invasion, Chaos Rises
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42567-2003Mar17?language=printer
BAGHDAD, March 17 -- With a crash, Nahad Shukur slammed down a plastic bag stuffed with rounds for an AK-47 assault rifle on the display case of his gun shop. There are 50 in here, he said, but more are available if you need them.
Shukur pointed to a row of eight bags behind the counter and ticked off the offerings: 100 rounds in this plastic bag and 200 in that one. In the rainbow-colored bag were 500 rounds and in the other one, 1,000. He paused, then, with a knowing glance, waved a visitor to a back room.
"These are the big ones," he said, grinning, as he pointed to a lumpy bag sprawled across the floor with 2,000 rounds. "When customers come, we're ready, whatever they want. The way things are, we don't even have time to count."
As the veneer of calm fades across Baghdad, Iraqis are emptying gun stores of their weapons, stocking up on ammunition whose price has gone up fourfold and repairing everything from World War I-vintage rifles to the latest in double-barreled Czech shotguns. At Shukur's store, many shelves were bare after what he said was a run of hundreds of customers since the weekend.
"Every day we get closer to war, we sell more," said Shukur, drinking sweet lemon tea as he showed his wares to a crowd of customers in the working-class neighborhood of Bayaa. "It's nonstop, all day. Families are buying guns like they are stockpiling food and water."
For weeks, Baghdad maintained an almost eerie tranquillity. Residents continue to boast of their ability to endure a U.S. attack. But the run on the gun stores that dot upscale neighborhoods such as Mansour and working-class enclaves such as Bayaa provides a hint of the anxiety that courses beneath the surface.
In public, and in the presence of government escorts, Iraqis make clear that the U.S. military is their target.
"Only for Americans are they buying the weapons," insisted Nadhir Qahtan, 35, the owner of a gun shop in Mansour who said business, especially for ammunition, has doubled in the past few days.
But privately, customers and gun store owners hint at the anarchy they believe is likely if government authority collapses. That anarchy, perhaps more than the government itself, may pose the most serious challenge to U.S. forces that attempt to enter Baghdad, where residents boast that every family has at least one assault rifle and one pistol. Many Iraqis expect bloodletting, score-settling and lawlessness in the weeks ahead.
"God willing, there won't be security, and God willing, there won't be anarchy," said Shukur's partner, Amal Jabbar, 43. "But there's anxiety, and there's a lot that's unknown. We have to defend our families."
From the Kurdish-controlled areas in the north to the port of Basra in the south, Iraq rivals Yemen as one of the best-armed countries in the Arab world. It seems like everyone -- from art gallery directors to Western-educated aid workers and bureaucrats -- boasts of having at least one rifle at home. Hunting has a long tradition in the fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Gun stores can sell only hunting rifles and pistols. But AK-47s, the weapon of choice, are provided to millions of members of the ruling Baath Party and allied militias such as the one known as Saddam's Fedayeen. In the recent run on gun stores, ammunition has been in the most demand, particularly for AK-47s.
"We buy guns before we buy a refrigerator for our house, I swear to God," said Jassim Nassir, 33, a customer at a gun store in Waziriya, another Baghdad neighborhood. "Everyone in my family has a weapon, even the young, even the women. Iraqis love weapons!"
Nassir, who said he wanted to protect his wife and 18-month-old daughter, spent $260 for a .45-caliber Colt pistol, with a sleek silver barrel and imitation wood handle. Each bullet cost $1, and he bought two boxes of 25.
Many of the store's shelves were empty. A few Brazilian, German and Turkish hunting rifles were propped up against the wall. Much of the ammunition in glass cases was 9mm, the most popular. Alongside were a few remaining Belgian- and Iraqi-made pistols. Overhead hung one of Baghdad's most popular pictures: a portrait of President Saddam Hussein dressed in coat and tie and firing a rifle into the air.
Through the morning, customers entered asking for everything from ammunition to rifles to leather holsters, some emblazoned with the inscription, "A gift from the leader, President Saddam Hussein." One asked for a British-made revolver, but it was sold out. The prices of shotguns ranged from $100 to $1,200, a fortune in a country where newly graduated doctors can make $5 a month. Pistols were going for $50 to $700. Each bag of 50 AK-47 rounds at Shukur's store cost about $6.
With the threat of war, customers said the cost was worth it. What else, they asked, would they spend money on? They said it was a given they would fire their arms, at the very least to protect themselves in communal violence.
"We're sleeping with our guns under our pillows," Shukur said. "We won't fall asleep without them there."
--------
Iraq's Soviet - Made Weapons Assessed
March 18, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Iraqs-Soviet-Weapons.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- Iraq's arsenal of Soviet-made rockets and tanks would be sitting ducks for 21st-century U.S. weaponry if confronted in the desert, but they could prove more potent should combat break out in the maze of Baghdad's streets, defense analysts say.
Although a large part of Baghdad's arsenal of conventional weapons was wiped out in the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam Hussein still possesses 200 to 300 combat jets, more than 400 air defense missiles, some 6,000 anti-aircraft guns and about 2,000 tanks, according to Western estimates. Most Iraqi weapons are Soviet-made.
The United States is expected to mount a devastating attack, raining satellite- and laser-guided weapons on Iraqi command posts, air bases, missile batteries and armor.
Most of Iraq's 400,000-strong army is expected to be demoralized by the first U.S. strikes, but observers in Russia believe that at least some of Saddam's elite Republican Guards would remain loyal to him.
``If Saddam retains at least some 2,000-3,000 loyal troops in Baghdad, it would be enough to make a mess,'' said Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, an independent Russian think tank specializing in military studies.
Iraq's Soviet-built SA-2 and SA-3 air-defense missiles date to the 1950s, and they proved deadly during the war in Vietnam and the Arab-Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973. But U.S. state-of-the-art smart weapons and electronic countermeasures are likely to reduce their efficiency to near zero.
``The Iraqi air defense missiles are two generations back compared to U.S. weapons,'' Pukhov said. ``They stand to be knocked out as easily as targets at a shooting range.''
Pukhov added that the U.S. military had closely studied Soviet weapons. ``Over the past decade, the Americans have bought and analyzed every piece of conventional Soviet weaponry that exists, and they know well how to protect themselves from them,'' Pukhov said in a telephone interview.
Iraq's MiG and Sukhoi fighter jets are also of Cold War vintage and stand little chance of survival if they try to take to the air. During the 1991 Gulf war, Saddam kept most of his aircraft in shelters or moved them to neighboring Iran.
Even though U.S. aircraft would freely roam the skies over Iraq at high and medium altitudes, they would be in danger if they needed to descend below 11,500 feet, where they could face the Soviet-built SA-7 shoulder-fired missiles or four-barrel Shilka anti-aircraft guns, which are harder to spot and destroy than big air defense missiles.
While the Iraqi force of Soviet-made older T-55 tanks and more modern T-72s would probably be wiped out if they try to confront the U.S. forces in the desert as happened during the previous war, Saddam may concentrate some of his armor in Baghdad, where they would be a strong defense asset along with artillery cannons, bazookas and other outdated weapons.
``Street fighting in Baghdad could be a serious problem for the United States,'' said Ivan Safranchuk, the head of the Moscow branch of the Center for Defense Information, a Washington-based think tank. ``Conditions of street warfare would offset the huge U.S. advantage in firepower.''
If at least some of Saddam's troops remain loyal to him, it would be hard for the U.S. soldiers to quickly overwhelm their resistance in the city of 4 million without hitting civilians, Safranchuk said.
``It wouldn't be as it was in Afghanistan, where the Taliban left Kabul without battle,'' he said.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Mobilizes Reserve Defense Forces
March 18, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Iraq.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- With conflict in Iraq nearing, the Israeli military called up reservists in anti-aircraft units, and Israeli citizens sealed rooms in their homes to ward off chemicals and germs.
However, Israeli experts and officials said the probability of an Iraqi strike at Israel in response to a U.S.-led assault was low, and preparations for a chemical or biological attack were just precautions.
The military completed its mobilization of reserve soldiers on Tuesday, military sources said, commenting on media reports that more than 10,000 soldiers received emergency callup notices for anti-aircraft units and the Home Front Command, which deals with civilian matters in wartime.
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported Wednesday that the Israeli air force had raised its alert level, and warplanes were patrolling Israel's air space 24 hours a day. Besides the potential threat of Iraqi missiles, Israel is also preparing for the possibility that Iraq might try to send a poison-laden plane toward Israel.
Israel also has two types of anti-missile systems in place -- the short-range Patriot and longer-range Arrow, developed jointly with the United States since the 1991 Gulf War, when earlier model Patriots failed to bring down any of the 39 Scud missiles launched by Iraq. All had conventional warheads.
In 1991, Iraqi strikes followed threats to retaliate against Israel for a U.S.-led assault. This time, Iraq has said repeatedly that it does not have weaponry that can reach Israel, also denying that it has chemical or biological weapons. The United States has rejected the Iraqi assurances.
Shmuel Arad, a reserve army general, wrote in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper Web site that the chances of an Iraqi missile strike on Israel are low. ``Israel is better prepared than ever, both in defensive and offensive capabilities,'' he wrote, adding, ``Israel's population should follow the developments calmly, even with a smile and a bit of humor.''
Echoing Israeli government views, Arad said the war with Iraq ``is not our war,'' but Israel had a clear interest in the removal of Saddam Hussein from power.
The Israeli government cranked up its home-front readiness when the army instructed citizens to seal windows and doors in a room in their houses. A day earlier, the military told people to make sure they had the necessary equipment -- nylon sheeting and packing tape, along with food and water to store in the rooms.
But many Israelis waited until Tuesday to buy supplies, and others disregarded the instructions, taking the assessments of a low probability of an Iraqi attack at face value.
-------- landmines
FEDERALS DESTROY TWO POWERFUL LANDMINES ON CHECHEN MOTOR ROADS
Interfax-AVN
March 18, 2003
http://www.infocentre.ru/eng_user/index.cfm?page=0&date=2003-03-18&startrow=1&msg_id=55637
Powerful landmines have been found near the Avtury village in Chechnya's Shali district and on the road between the Novogroznensky village of the Gudermes district and Bachi-Yurt village of the Kurchaloi district.
"Traffic on the roads was suspended and resumed after sappers blasted both landmines," a spokesman for the unified federal headquarters told Interfax-Military News Agency on Tuesday.
Moreover, federal forces found and destroyed two arms and ammo caches in the Kurchaloi district. One of them was found in the Tsotsin-Yurt village where federals searched the house of so- called Wahhabi jaamat emir Khusein Ladayev, who was on the federal wanted list. The cache contained 15 mortar and four artillery shells. The house was also used a resort base for guerillas.
Two more caches were found and eliminated in the Gudermes and Shelkovskaya districts of the troubled republic. Four rebels were detained during search operations.
-------- mideast
Turkish Officials Say Aid to American Forces Is Likely
March 18, 2003
The New York Times
By FRANK BRUNI
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/international/europe/18CND-TURK.html
ANKARA, Turkey, March 18 - With war in Iraq perhaps hours away, government officials here expressed confidence today that Turkey would give the United States potentially crucial military help, and American officials worked to ease profound tensions between the Turkish government and Iraqi Kurds.
Turkish government officials indicated that a new vote in Parliament on a resolution to provide military support could come on Wednesday or Thursday. They also predicted that the vote would succeed.
"If our government presents such a motion, it would easily pass," said Salih Kapusuz, a member of Parliament and a senior official with the Justice and Development Party, which currently governs Turkey.
But these officials could not, by early tonight, specify what the contents of the resolution might be.
Some political leaders and analysts said that it might be limited to permission for American warplanes to use Turkish airspace and that it might not allow the United States to move ground troops through southeastern Turkey.
At the very least, officials said, the resolution would authorize Turkish troops to move into northern Iraq, if that were deemed necessary. The United States has pleaded with Turkey not to send troops, fearing that it could lead to fighting between Turkish forces and Kurds in northern Iraq.
That concern was one reason that the American special envoy to the Iraqi opposition, Zalmay Khalilzad, met for several hours here today with Turkish government officials and Iraqi Kurdish leaders.
After those talks, Mr. Khalilzad told reporters that the Iraqi Kurdish leaders had agreed to put "whatever forces they have under the command and control of the coalition commanders."
He also said that "in order to guard against possible disorder," the United States would assume responsibility for any flow of people into the oil-rich northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, which lie within a zone that the United States does not want Kurdish or Turkish forces to enter.
Neither Turks nor Iraqi Kurds trust the other to obey that wish, and political analysts said that no last-minute meeting in Ankara was likely to eradicate those concerns.
"The suspicion on both sides is probably too deep," said Ilter Turan, a professor of political science at Bilgi University in Istanbul.
The Turkish government also worries about the rise, after a war in Iraq, of an autonomous Kurdish state.
That development, they say, could revive separatist demands from Kurds in southeastern Turkey, and Turkish officials have not been entirely convinced by assurances from American officials and Iraqi Kurds that such a state would not emerge.
"We need to make sure this is not going to get out of control," said one senior Turkish government official in an interview. "We need as many assurances as we can get."
The Turkish government has reserved the right to send troops into the region if it feels its national security is at stake. Iraqi Kurds have said they may fire on Turkish troops that come into northern Iraq.
American officials have warned both sides away from conflict, and did so anew today.
"Anything that Turkey does needs to be coordinated with the United States," the chief White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said during a briefing in Washington today. Mr. Fleischer added that Turkey must "respect the territorial integrity" of Iraq.
On March 1, the Turkish Parliament narrowly rejected a resolution to allow American ground troops to use southeastern Turkey for an invasion of northern Iraq.
But government officials here and political analysts said that the mood among Turkish politicians was different now. They said that Turkey did not want to be left out of a war - and, more importantly, decisions about postwar Iraq - and that a military conflict now seemed inevitable.
That favored passage of some kind of resolution, officials said.
"At the moment, the general feeling is positive," State Minister Ali Babacan said today in an interview on CNN Turk television.
The potentially changed mood in Parliament also hinges on economic fears. The United States had offered Turkey at least $6 billion in aid for its help with a war, and on Monday, as a conflict seemed to approach without any Turkish pledge of help, financial markets in Turkey plunged.
It was unclear whether a parliamentary resolution for more limited cooperation than the defeated one outlined would resurrect the entire aid package.
-------- pakistan
Rhetoric of Pakistan Extremists Rises
March 18, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Extremist-Anger.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- The looming U.S. war on Iraq has given Pakistan's Islamic hard-liners a powerful new platform -- and they have been using it with increasing fervor to attack the country's close relationship with Washington.
They are holding mass demonstrations and offering words of support for young Pakistanis who decide to fight beside their Iraqi brothers.
On Monday, the leader of a small Islamic party even called on the government to attack American warships in the Persian Gulf with nuclear weapons if the ships are used in a war on Iraq.
``We have the capability of delivering our nukes to all four U.S. aircraft carriers that are now stationed in the Gulf,'' Salimullah Khan, the leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan Nifaz-e-Shariat party, told The Associated Press from Lahore after a meeting with about 30 other small Islamic groups. ``The Americans are a threat not only to Iraq, but also Iran, the other Gulf countries and Pakistan.''
Khan's views may be extreme, even for leaders of Pakistan's ultraconservative Islamic parties, but they shed a glaring light on the fragile nature of America's strategic alliance with Pakistan.
Pakistan became a key ally of the United States shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when President Gen. Pervez Musharraf threw his support behind the U.S. invasion to oust the hardline Taliban from neighboring Afghanistan.
Religious parties inspired thousands of ordinary Pakistanis to stream across the border to fight alongside the hardline Afghan regime. Many were killed in the rout that followed, and thousands more were imprisoned.
Pakistan's religious parties also sent young Pakistani militants off to fight alongside fellow Muslims in Chechnya and Bosnia, and to help Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. Hard-liners draw on a large network of deeply conservative religious schools, or madrassas, attended by many poor Pakistanis.
Leaders of the main religious coalition, the Muthida Majlis-e-Amal, say they are not overtly encouraging Pakistanis to travel to Iraq this time. But they voiced support for any young people who choose to take up the struggle against the Americans themselves.
``If people go there, whether they are from Pakistan or any other country, and die for a noble cause, they will definitely be martyrs,'' said Ameer ul-Azeem, spokesman for Jamaat-e-Islami, the main party in the religious coalition. ``Sacrifices of such people don't go to waste.''
The party's chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, accused President Bush of being ``a threat to world peace.'' He said his group lacked the resources to fly Pakistanis to Iraq to fight.
Pakistan's government has been steadfastly vague about its position on Iraq. It says that it prefers peace but that the burden is on Saddam Hussein to disarm.
Most Pakistani citizens, however, are nearly unanimous in their opposition to the war.
A March 9 demonstration organized by the Islamic coalition drew more than 100,000 anti-war protesters to the streets of Rawalpindi, a city next to the capital. While the protests have been peaceful, many foreigners are worried about their security in Pakistan if war does break out.
Most Western embassies have already evacuated nonessential staff from Pakistan after a series of deadly attacks on foreigners, and staffing is likely to be reduced further in case of a war in Iraq.
A memorial service was held Monday for Americans Barbara Green and Christin Woolsley, a mother and daughter killed exactly one year ago when militants hurled grenades at worshippers at a Protestant church within walking distance of the U.S. Embassy.
-------- russia
Russia's Putin Calls Iraq War A 'Mistake'
Moscow Wary of Unrest Among Muslim Population
By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41423-2003Mar17?language=printer
MOSCOW, March 17 -- President Vladimir Putin today called for a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi crisis and said a U.S. military attack would have the "gravest consequences."
"We stand for resolving the problem exclusively through peaceful means," Putin said at a meeting with Muslim religious leaders at the Kremlin. "Any other option would be a mistake. It would be fraught with the gravest consequences. It will result in casualties and destabilize the international situation in general."
Russian officials have expressed concern that a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq could trigger unrest among Russia's Muslims, who make up more than 13 percent of the population.
"Russia has a community of 20 million Muslims, and we cannot but take their opinion into account. I fully share their concerns," Putin said at the meeting, which was scheduled to discuss an upcoming referendum in Russia's predominantly Muslim breakaway republic of Chechnya.
Talgat Tadzhuddin, one of Russia's two top Muslim spiritual leaders, condemned President Bush today in an interview with a Russian television network while in Baghdad, where he was traveling with a delegation of Muslim leaders.
"What they are getting ready to do in Iraq is not just rampaging of a drunken cowboy," he said. "That's playing with the lives of peoples and the world, and no one but God has the right to do that."
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov learned that the United States, Britain and Spain had withdrawn their U.N. resolution just before his plane was to depart for New York to attend Tuesday's Security Council session. His trip was cancelled, a spokesman at the Foreign Ministry said.
Today's withdrawal of the U.S.-backed resolution spared Putin the final decision of whether Russia would veto it, as it repeatedly threatened to do. U.S. officials said their Kremlin counterparts clearly hoped that the resolution would not come to a vote.
The Iraqi crisis has forced Putin to weigh his desire to nurture Russia's budding relationship with the United States against his own political interests, as well as Russia's security and economic concerns. Ordinary Russians oppose a war by a margin of 9 to 1, according to recent surveys.
Although the Kremlin denied it publicly, U.S. officials said Russia sent two officials to Baghdad in recent weeks in hopes of persuading President Saddam Hussein to accept exile. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told Fox News on Sunday that while U.S. relations with France had been damaged by France's failure to play a "helpful role," relations with Russia had fared better.
"With respect to Russia, we do have some strains as a result of this issue. But I think that with Russia, we'll be able to deal with this and it won't be any kind of even short-term damage to our relationship," Powell said.
--------
Russia Says U.S. Anti - Terror Coalition Could Be Hit
March 18, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-russia.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia on Tuesday fought to stop its new-found partnership with the United States going off the rails over Iraq but admitted their deep differences could destroy the anti-terror coalition binding them together.
Speaking by telephone with President Bush as U.S. forces girded for action against Iraq, Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin said he regretted Bush's 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to go into exile.
But the Kremlin said the two men had stressed the need to keep talking in the coming days, underscoring Putin's resolve to preserve his relationship with Bush through the crisis ahead.
However, there were sharp words from Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and parliament put off a vote to ratify a key bilateral nuclear arms treaty, further signaling Russian anger at Washington's rush toward military action.
``Unfortunately today, in connection with the looming threat of war against Iraq, the unity of the international anti-terrorist coalition is under threat,'' Ivanov told a Moscow conference.
``Naturally, having made this choice the United States also assumes responsibility for the consequences of their actions,'' he said, echoing Russia's anti-war ally French President Jacques Chirac.
``It is obvious that any resort to force is fraught with numerous deaths, large-scale destruction and consequences that go beyond this region.''
Ivanov later left for New York to take part in a new U.N. Security Council meeting -- a last diplomatic dance before the outbreak of hostilities.
It was Putin's swift backing for the U.S.-led international coalition against terror immediately following the September 11, 2001 airliner attacks on U.S. landmarks that led to the new strategic partnership between the former superpower rivals.
Putin, with an eye to long-term benefits for the Russian economy and its place in the world, followed this up by removing several long-standing irritants in bilateral relations and forging personally close ties with Bush.
He gave full backing to Washington's campaign to oust Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban authorities, who had protected the al Qaeda network blamed for September 11.
PARLIAMENT ANGER
The Russian parliament, angry at what it regards as a humiliation of Russia by the United States over Iraq, put off a vote to ratify a landmark nuclear arms treaty that would slash U.S.-Russian nuclear arsenals.
Russia's State Duma, the lower house, had been scheduled to discuss and vote on the so-called Moscow Treaty on Friday.
But Duma officials said it had been decided to postpone the vote because of the U.S. push for military action against Iraq. No new date was fixed.
Some Russian deputies said the treaty would become a hostage to fortune, its future dependent on how events unfolded in Iraq.
Accusing Washington of ignoring Russia's views on Iraq, Duma official Sergei Shishkaryov said: ``We are standing on the verge of the Third World War and the consequences of the beginning of military action in Iraq are to a large extent unpredictable.
``Everything will depend on how the situation in Iraq develops,'' he added.
The treaty, agreed last May by Putin and Bush, calls on the two powers to cut their strategic nuclear stocks to between 1,700 to 2,200 each, from about 6,000 now.
The U.S. Senate unanimously approved the treaty on March 6, a move widely seen as part of a U.S. diplomatic effort to win Russian support for a tougher line against Iraq. Bush called for a quick reciprocal action by the Russian legislature.
-------- un
U.N. Shifts Focus to Food Aid for Iraq
By Bernie Woodall
Reuters
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47674-2003Mar18?language=printer
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - With a U.S.-led war on Baghdad all but certain, the United Nations turned its attention Tuesday to how to quickly feed and care for Iraq's 26 million people after the fighting has begun.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was preparing a letter for the Security Council, expected as early as Tuesday, on how to adapt existing aid programs for war, diplomats said.
"We expect this letter to arrive at the (council) presidency today, and then we will have to decide on the adaptations to be made, for example, on the oil-for-food program, which is the most important humanitarian program of the United Nations," German Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said.
"We want to keep the humanitarian aspect completely out of the political dispute," he said. "The Iraqi population is suffering anyway and should not be exposed to a humanitarian catastrophe."
Security Council diplomats said they were working on a draft resolution adapting the oil-for-food program, which since 1996 allowed Iraq to sell oil and use the proceeds to buy food and other vital civilian goods.
The United Nations estimates that more than 60 percent of Iraqis rely solely on the program's monthly food basket to meet household needs.
Iraqi officials said Monday they had distributed enough food rations to last through August.
Under the program some $27 billion of humanitarian supplies were shipped to Iraq, and another $10 billion in purchases were approved.
The diplomats said an initial resolution was likely to skirt the controversial issue of managing Iraq's oil production and exports and would rather concentrate solely on the delivery of humanitarian supplies.
'FASTEST AND BEST WAY'
Under international humanitarian law, it would be up to the United States to feed the Iraqi people during and after an invasion, U.S. and U.N. officials agree.
But after that the United States is eager to hand over responsibility to the international community including the United Nations and private relief groups, U.S. officials have said.
"We are particularly eager to see some arrangment worked out with the council for the continued operation of the oil-for-food program, which is a big network to deliver a massive amount of humanitarian assistance," U.N. chief spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters.
While the program has now been suspended with the evacuation of U.N. international staff from Iraq, it could be revived and would be "the fastest and best way to distribute assistance," Eckhard said.
Most Security Council diplomats believe a council resolution would be required to put the program back up on its feet because the paperwork setting it up nearly seven years ago put Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government in charge of distributing the goods.
Diplomats said the United States was drafting a resolution to adapt the oil-for-food program and could begin circulating it among the council's 15 member-nations on Wednesday.
They said Washington and London wanted another council member to sponsor any resolution, to avoid the appearance that those who were leading the attack against Iraq were also seeking to control the country after a war.
-------- us
U.S. forces girding for short, furious war
By Pamela Hess
UPI Pentagon Correspondent
March 17, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030317-043819-6114r.htm
WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- Around a dozen Tomahawk cruise missile-capable ships and submarines have moved from the Mediterranean Sea into the Red Sea and are poised to unleash their satellite-guided weapons on Baghdad, Pentagon officials confirmed Monday.
A small number of U.S. special forces are in northern Iraq, to track down Iraqi Scud missiles and chemical and biological weapons. Around 3,000 are based in Jordan pending the start of the war.
Five aircraft carriers and dozens of ships are in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea, ready to launch a furious but short air strike with precision munitions to provoke "shock and awe" in the Iraqi army, and cause mass defections.
"We're locked and loaded," a senior defense official said Monday.
The coming war will be very different from the Operation Desert Storm of 1991, when the goal was to repel Iraqi troops from its neighbor Kuwait.
It did so with 38 days of air strikes with 126,645 combat sorties, during which satellite-guided Tomahawks made their combat debut. It also saw the first use of laser-guided bombs. In all, the coalition dropped 96,000 tons of ordnance. The United States was responsible for 7,500 tons of it. More than 300 tons of the ordnance involved depleted uranium munitions, used to pierce heavy armor.
The war is expected to start with just over three days to a week of air strikes and missile launches, during which as many as 3,000 bombs and missiles will be fired, many of them at air defense sites around Baghdad. Others will target suspected chemical and biological weapons sites, surface-to-air missiles sites, communications facilities and military headquarters, including presidential palaces.
The force at the start of the 1991 ground war totaled 541,425 personnel -- more people than are now in the entire active roster of the U.S. Army. There were also 257,900 coalition forces, including 45,000 Brits and 14,600 French. Saudi Arabia dedicated 100,000 troops to the effort, according to Pentagon documents.
Now 149,000 U.S. troops are in Kuwait. More than 100,000 military personnel are arrayed at other bases and on ships in the Middle East and in Europe, ready to participate in the strike to remove Saddam Hussein from power and rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.
The Pentagon has not revealed the number of foreign forces that will be fighting with the United States if war is declared but the number is certain to be far lower than in 1991. The United Kingdom has about 45,000 troops in the Gulf region, including 25,000 troops in Kuwait, and Australia has sent around 2,000.
The Persian Gulf War and 10 years of no-fly and drive zone strikes have significantly eroded the Iraqi military. The coalition destroyed roughly 3,700 of 4,280 Iraqi battle tanks; 2,400 of 2,870 armored vehicles; 2,600 of 3,110 artillery pieces and rendered ineffective 42 Iraqi divisions, according to the Pentagon.
From an army that once numbered more than 680,000 in 1991, Iraq is believed to have a ground force now of roughly 400,000, with as many as 300,000 more reservists on a call-up status.
Using black market funds from the illegal sale of oil, Iraq has been able to rebuild its forces somewhat. Iraq now has an estimated 2,200 to 2,600 main battle tanks; 3,700 other armored vehicles and 2,400 major artillery weapons. It could have as many as 850 surface-to-air missile launchers and 3,000 anti-aircraft guns, according to Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq expert analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Iraq's army includes six Republican Guard divisions, the best-trained and most loyal forces to Saddam. They number around 100,000 men and are expected to heavily fortify Baghdad. Four special Republican Guard brigades numbering 12,000 to 25,000 are dedicated to Saddam's personal and government security.
Pentagon sources say at least one of the Republican Guard units may have been equipped with chemical munitions in the event of an attack on Iraq. Pentagon officials say they have intelligence indications but no proof.
"We suspect it but do we have proof? No," an official told United Press International.
They do not believe Iraq is likely to launch a pre-emptive chemical attack as to do so would likely galvanize the world against Saddam.
"If he gets in a shot before something starts, the floodgates would open as to who would support what," the official said.
Iraq launched 88 Scud missiles during the Persian Gulf war, including 39 at Israel. One Iraqi Scud killed 28 U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia, the single largest loss in Operation Desert Storm.
A total of 146 Americans were killed in action in the Gulf War. There were 98 more casualties in the coalition. The total number of coalition soldiers wounded in action, including American, was 894. Thirty-five Americans died in friendly-fire accidents during the Gulf War.
--------
U.S. Infantry Packs Up Camp in Kuwait
March 18, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Seizing-the-Ground.html
IN THE KUWAITI DESERT (AP) -- The order to be ready to roll within hours came down Tuesday and the U.S. Army infantrymen began taking apart their dusty camp in Kuwait's featureless desert.
Not long after President Bush set a deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq or face war, the young men of ``Attack Company'' packed up nonessential gear -- including tents -- and loaded it onto trucks to be taken to the rear.
The soldiers, part of the 3rd Infantry Division, will be sleeping under the stars until the worst of the fighting is over, or until Saddam bows to Bush's demand and flees.
Foot soldiers -- the ``dogfaces,'' ``ground-pounders'' and ``grunts'' of previous wars -- have always been the bedrock of military campaigns. After the bombs and tank shells have exploded, the infantry captures and holds the ground.
``If I'm going to be in the Army, I wanted to be involved as much I can, someplace where I can play a part,'' said Spc. Peter Alsis, 22, of Pepperell, Mass., a veteran of the U.S. peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.
When the order comes, the soliders of A Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment will storm across the border in their 10 Bradley armored fighting vehicles and assault Iraqi troops with precision weapons.
The 3rd Infantry Division, based at Fort Stewart, Ga., relies on speed and precision more than brute force. If Saddam fails to leave Iraq with his sons by Wednesday night, the infantry's job is to go in and force him out.
``He better be packing his bags,'' said Sgt. 1st Class Eric Alfred of Twin Mountain, N.H., one of many soldiers who expressed a subdued confidence while talking with an Associated Press reporter traveling with A Company.
``I'm kind of excited, wanting to see if we go north. The faster we do, the faster we go home,'' said Spc. Servando Diaz of San Jose, Calif.
New weapons systems, specifically the Bradley, have improved the infantry's maneuverability and speed, but the goal of the infantry has not changed, said Capt. Chris Carter, A Company's commander.
``The mission is the same as it's always been: to close with and destroy the enemy,'' said Carter, of Watkinsville, Ga. ``Mechanized warfare has allowed the infantry to affect the battlefield on a much broader spectrum and a much quicker time scale.''
Air Force and Navy planes and Army tanks and howitzers may deliver the spectacular firepower, but it's the infantry that is crucial to taking and holding ground.
``It is an infantryman with a rifle or a bayonet that takes the terrain,'' said Carter, a small man with thick eyebrows and a liquid Georgia accent.
With Bush's deadline in place, that role has the men anticipating those first shots.
``I think we'll get there and will see something we really don't want to see, some form of forces against us,'' said Spc. Terrance Donaldson of Miami.
But, he added, ``We'll do what we need to do and accomplish the mission.''
Gone are the days of blitzkrieg, when a line of tanks rushed across the battlefield. The doctrine for U.S. forces is to identify where enemy troops are and then swarm over them, using weapons with laser-guided accuracy to inflict as much violence as possible.
Speed and agility can confuse and demoralize a foe into surrendering without much fight, Carter said. Military experts often describe the new style of fighting as ``swarm warfare'' or liken the troops to angry hornets.
The armored Bradley carries infantrymen into battle at up to 45 mph, shuttering to halt and letting them out just a few dozen yards from the enemy.
On Tuesday, A Company's soldiers rehearsed how to move through urban areas and search buildings in case they have to fight inside any Iraqi cities.
Four Bradleys make up a platoon, each carrying the six soldiers of a squad. A platoon's vehicles arrive together near a targeted building and two squads get out and shelter behind the other two Bradleys.
The two Bradleys that have disgorged their soldiers stand back, ready to fire 25 mm cannons loaded with depleted uranium shells capable of piercing armor. Bradleys, each with a three-man crew, also have belt-fed heavy machine guns to use against enemy soldiers and two anti-tank missiles.
As the two Bradleys still carrying troops approach the building slowly, the dismounted infantrymen run alongside, guarding against enemy troops who might try to destroy the Bradleys.
Finally, the rear hatches on those two Bradleys drop open and 12 more men run out. The platoon is ready to enter the building, or walk down a road too narrow for the 12-foot-wide, tracked vehicles.
Each infantryman carries a variety of weapons, which can include an M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon, a shotgun, an M-16A4 assault rifle or the new M-4 -- either of which can be fitted with an M-203 grenade launcher.
The assault rifles and the machine gun have laser pointers that are visible only through the night vision equipment worn by the soldiers, allowing them to see exactly where they will hit the target.
The Bradley uses a thermal imaging system, known as the Integrated Sight Unit, to hit targets up to 3,000 yards away with extreme accuracy.
Carter, whose Combat Infantryman's Badge and airborne wings attest to his experience and battlefield skills, said the new swarm doctrine allows the Army to avoid civilian areas, concentrate on enemy troops and minimize destruction.
``It is more humane because if you can accomplish the goal while destroying less, it introduces the idea of morality into warfare,'' Carter said.
--------
Software bug bites US military
Military computers have been attacked via the flaw
BBC,
Tuesday, 18 March, 2003, 11:13 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2860189.stm
Computer vandals have been exploiting a flaw in Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system even before the software giant warned people of its existence.
A server operated by the US Army has already been attacked via the security hole.
If successfully exploited the loophole can give attackers control over a target machine.
In an advisory, Microsoft called the flaw "critical" and has been telling customers to patch their computers in case they fall victim.
Bad bug
The flaw is present in servers running Windows 2000, up to and including service pack 3, and version 5.0 of Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) software.
It arises because of Microsoft's implementation of a program called WebDAV that lets different people remotely manage what is on a net server.
Using a cleverly crafted HTTP request an attacker could exploit the flaw to gain control of a server and either crash it or make it run programs of their choice.
Microsoft has issued an advisory about the flaw, calling it "critical" and said an attacker that successfully exploited it could gain "complete control" over a machine.
The software company has also provided a patch to close the loophole as well as other tools to help customers protect themselves against attack.
Often there is a hiatus between the discovery of a flaw in software and its active exploitation by vandals.
However, in this case at least one net server has been attacked via the WebDAV loophole before security advisories have been issued.
The server, belonging to the US Army, was successfully attacked in early March. No serious damage was done because it was not connected to any important systems. Once patched it was attacked again.
Microsoft has reportedly spent time talking to customers warning them to take action over the flaw.
Security firm ISS has also reported seeing isolated attacks carried out using the WebDAV flaw.
-------- propaganda wars
[These guys are so good. First they send the journalists in to cover the poor waiting marines, then they scare them out with threats of collateral damage, so the poor waiting marines are all the public will carry with them when the question of "who do you support?" comes up, and there's nobody there to take pictures of dead babies. Sigh. et]
Wary news crews abandon front lines as Iraq war looms
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 18, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030318-1155186.htm
Correspondent - or collateral damage? Faced with the possibility of dying in an air raid or being taken hostage, some leery journalists are leaving Iraq and a potential arsenal of blockbuster stories.
Both ABC and NBC have ordered reporters and crews to leave the country before the action turns hostile. CNN has left two correspondents in Iraq, and CBS has kept one.
"The harsh fact is that a dead journalist can't do the job, can't gather the facts, can't report them to the world," William L. Winter, president of the American Press Institute, said yesterday.
If Pentagon rumors leaked to the press are true, 3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles will fall over Iraq in the first 48 hours of conflict - 10 times the number dropped at the onset of the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
Still, it causes a quandary, Mr. Winter said, among "journalists whose every fiber screams for them to stay in the middle of the action." They must "balance the dangers against the possibility of being able to do real journalism," he said.
A template for war coverage doesn't exist, said David Rhodes, director of news gathering for Fox News. The network was expelled from Iraq last month for reasons Mr. Rhodes did not disclose.
"We're figuring out how best to cover this, and it won't be like the [1991] Gulf war. Back then, the U.S. wanted to get the Iraqis out of Kuwait," he said. "Now, there is a regime change at stake, and a change in politics. That will call for a whole new approach."
CBS correspondent Lara Logan has remained in Baghdad, though her status is being assessed constantly, said a network spokesman.
CNN veteran reporter Nic Robertson and producer Ingrid Formanek are staying in Baghdad; both were in the city during U.S.-led air raids 12 years ago. Correspondent Rym Brahimi also will remain.
In addition, CNN has three reporters in Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq, six with military units and nearly 200 personnel in the Gulf. CNN also announced an exchange deal with the Boston Globe and New York Times yesterday that allows the network to highlight the papers' reporters on camera.
Meanwhile, Baghdad is no journalistic ghost town - yet. A motley group of print and broadcast reporters remains: The Cox News syndicate has two correspondents in the city, the Christian Science Monitor has one, and Reuters news agency has a staff of 20.
The New Yorker and Vanity Fair magazines have Baghdad reporters, while Harper's magazine will send a pair of writers on a drive from Jordan through Iraq, and "improvise," according to the New York Observer.
News organizations elsewhere are staying spare and flexible. The BBC will keep an eight-member crew in Baghdad, moving from the Official Ministry of Information - a potential target - to a low-profile hotel.
Intent on "humanizing" the war, Britain's ITV has asked a local Baghdad family to keep a video diary and will allow viewers to phone in questions to front-line ITV correspondents.
Mr. Winter said combat-area journalists face "tough barriers," including the dizzying pace of high-tech warfare, news blackouts and physical threats.
"Accounts generally will be mere snippets," he said. "It's not possible for any reporter to see the big picture in such a conflict. What readers and viewers have to do is piece together all these snippets into a comprehensive picture of what's going on over there."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- courts
War Means Rights May Be Scaled Back
March 18, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scalia-Rights.html
UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio (AP) -- The government has room to scale back individual rights during wartime without violating the Constitution, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Tuesday.
``The Constitution just sets minimums,'' Scalia said after a speech at John Carroll University in suburban Cleveland. ``Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires.''
Scalia, one of the court's most conservative judges, was responding to a question about the Justice Department's pursuit of terrorism suspects and whether their rights are being violated.
Scalia did not discuss what rights he believed are constitutionally protected, but said that in wartime, one can expect ``the protections will be ratcheted right down to the constitutional minimum. I won't let it go beyond the constitutional minimum.''
Scalia was interrupted once briefly by a protester who shouted an anti-war statement. The protester was taken from the room by security officers but was not arrested.
Scalia stopped speaking during the scuffle, then joked that the protest probably was more interesting than his topic, which was the constitutional protection of religions.
-------- homeland security
Iraq war prompts terror threat hike
By Shaun Waterman
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
March 17, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030317-082749-5734r.htm
WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- The United States Monday began a massive nationwide security operation designed to protect against the heightened threat of terrorism -- including that involving chemical, biological or radiological weapons -- as a result of the looming assault on Iraq.
The national terror alert threat level was raised from the current "code yellow" -- or "elevated risk" -- to "orange," or "high risk," and high visibility security was stepped up at airports, ports and border crossings. A new policy of detaining those claiming political asylum from countries where terror groups are active was also announced.
"Our government is on heightened watch," said President George W. Bush in a nationally televised address Monday evening. "Just as we are preparing to ensure victory in Iraq, we're taking further actions to protect our homeland."
"The intelligence community believes that terrorists will attempt multiple attacks against U.S. and coalition targets worldwide in the event of a U.S-led military campaign against (Iraqi leader) Saddam Hussein," said Homeland Security Secretary Gov. Tom Ridge in a statement announcing the raised threat level issued just moments later.
In his speech, Bush gave Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to quit their country, leaving war almost inevitable.
The security operation, codenamed "Liberty Shield," includes more patrols by coastguard vessels, more intense screening of people and goods at border crossings and increased flight restrictions over New York, Washington and other cities.
In the capital Monday night, roads around the White House were closed.
"Orange" is the second-highest level in the United States' five-stage, color-coded alert system. The country was last put at "orange" Feb. 7 because of warnings of possible terror attacks related to the ending of the Muslim Hajj pilgrimage. No terror attacks took place and the threat level was lowered to "yellow" nearly three weeks later.
"Liberty Shield" also envisages closer tracking of those foreign and U.S. nationals suspected of terror links and indefinite detention of anyone claiming political asylum from 34 countries where terror groups are active.
The Department of Homeland Security said it expected relatively few people to be affected by this last measure. Officials said that last year only 600 people from these 34 countries had applied in person for asylum in the United States. Sixty percent of these were from Iraq, officials said.
However, the detentions might be lengthy. Asylum applications regularly take more than a year to be processed.
The plan, which swung into action as Bush was speaking, envisages additional security measures for the nation's critical infrastructure by both the private sector and the National Guard and other public servants.
But officials said it had been drawn up so as to minimize the economic cost.
"This is a comprehensive national plan designed to protect U.S. citizens while ensuring the freest possible movement of goods and people across and within our borders," said an official from the Homeland Security Department, who asked not to be identified.
The official said that the department was "working with its partners" at all levels to ascertain the cost, but state governments -- already tightening their belts as the nation's economic woes bite deeply into their budgets -- are unlikely to welcome the extra expenditure that will be required by the more stringent security measures.
In California, for instance, Gov. Gray Davis ordered the highway patrol to immediately begin 12-hour shifts, to double their presence at key locations and to commence 24-hour aerial surveillance of the state's critical infrastructure.
"Liberty Shield" follows a slew of warnings that Iraqi agents or sympathizers might try to attack U.S. targets in the country or overseas, as they did in the run up to the 1991 Gulf War.
At the weekend, Saddam warned that if the United States attacked Iraq, "the battle between us will be waged wherever there is sky, earth and water anywhere in the world."
Speaking of the Iraqi leader, Bush said, "In desperation, he ... might try to conduct terrorist operations against the American people and our friends. These attacks are not inevitable. They are, however, possible."
Other warnings suggested that Islamic extremists might try to exploit the fact that any conflict will be massively unpopular outside the United States by launching attacks against U.S. interests.
Of particular concern is the possibility that such attacks might involve chemical, biological or radiological weapons. Ridge's statement Monday echoed those warnings.
"The discovery of ricin production in London raises the concern ... that extremists are planning to follow through on longstanding threats of poison plots against U.S, British and Israeli interests -- and possibly other targets in Europe," it said.
"Liberty Shield" includes a ramped up public health program to watch for unusual diseases or disease patterns and to improve security at food industry and agricultural facilities.
As reports of plans to raise the threat level surfaced over the past few weeks, experts consulted by United Press International have proved remarkably divided about the wisdom of the move.
Larry Johnson, formerly deputy director of the state department's office of counter-terrorism, dismissed much of the recent talk about the terror threat as wildly exaggerated. He compared al-Qaida to Hitler in his bunker at the end of the war, "giving orders to troops that no longer exist."
Of the possibility that the threat level might be raised, he said last week, "I am sick and tired of this bombast... Yes there are threats and we need to take them seriously, but please let's get a sense of proportion." He said there was a danger of "self inflicted terror, where we buy into the (al Qaida) myth of themselves, and start jumping at our own shadow."
By contrast, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, saw the authorities as having little choice.
"All these efforts to predict terror attacks are speculative," he acknowledged, "as are any efforts to assign probabilities to them. The fact remains, however," he concluded, "that we have no choice but to prepare for the possibility that such attacks will occur."
Former CIA Middle East analyst Judith Yaphe expressed some skepticism at the suggestion that Iraq might try to use terror groups as surrogates to strike at U.S. interests. "I am very suspicious of reporting about this Iraq-terror link," she told UPI.
"As you know there are people who see the Iraqi hand behind everything, but my own attitude is: 'show me the money!' Where's the evidence?"
----
U.S. Heightens Alert, Asks for Guard Call-Ups
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41737-2003Mar17?language=printer
The U.S. government raised its terrorist threat level to orange, or "high risk," last night even as President Bush was delivering his speech on Iraq. Top federal officials, meanwhile, asked many of the 50 states to deploy the National Guard or state police to protect sensitive sites across the nation from possible attack.
While National Guard troops have periodically been assigned to patrol some airports and other facilities since Sept. 11, 2001, this is the first request for deployment of the units across such wide swaths of the country. They or state police contingents are expected to be assigned to patrol some railroads, bridges, chemical plants, nuclear facilities and other key infrastructure sites, officials said.
"The intelligence community believes that terrorists will attempt multiple attacks against U.S. and coalition targets worldwide in the event of a U.S.-led military campaign against Saddam Hussein," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in a statement released last night. "A large volume of reporting across a range of sources, some of which are highly reliable, indicates that al Qaeda probably would attempt to launch terrorist attacks against U.S. interests claiming they were defending Muslims or the 'Iraqi people' rather than Saddam Hussein's regime."
Around the nation's capital, District, Maryland and Virginia governments prepared to step up security and preparedness efforts behind the scenes, while bracing for the possibility of federal street closings downtown, the heightened presence of military patrols and restricted access to government sites.
State and District agencies stepped up law enforcement and intelligence activities and information-sharing with federal anti-terrorism investigators. District police prepared to activate their Joint Operations Command Center, which controls a network of surveillance cameras in the city. The District and state emergency management operations centers remained in standby mode.
"We don't think at this juncture there will be a lot of visible differences to the public," said D.C. City Administrator John A. Koskinen.
The Homeland Security Department announced what it called Operation Liberty Shield, which includes stepped-up Coast Guard patrols at major ports and waterways; increased escorting of ferries and cruise ships; more agents assigned to U.S. borders and entry points; added police presence at some airports; and toughened rules for flights entering and leaving airspace near Washington and New York.
Ridge reached the decision to heighten the nation's threat alert level from yellow, or "elevated risk," to orange last evening after conferring with top national security officials and Bush, officials said. Ridge then placed a conference phone call to representatives of all 50 governors and D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams at 7:30 p.m.
"Tonight I have spoken to the nation's governors and asked them to deploy the National Guard or additional police forces to improve security at critical locations throughout their states," Ridge's statement said.
Among those on the call were Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). In an interview, he said Ridge told the governors that raising the terror alert to code orange was not based on a specific threat but rather on a combination of the impending war with Iraq and intelligence information.
"This is orange plus," Ehrlich said. "There will be additional security at ports and at airports."
Among three Virginia officials on the conference call was emergency preparedness coordinator John H. Hager. He said Ridge did not cite any new potential terrorist targets in his state, adding that "there are already concerns about high-profile facilities in Virginia." Gov. Mark R. Warner (D), who was having dinner with family and friends in Washington, did not join in the conference call.
The federal government has raised the alert level to orange, the second highest of five levels, twice before in the approximately one year that the color-code system has been in place: for two weeks in September 2002 and for three weeks last month.
The Treasury Department yesterday released a statement on steps it has taken "to protect the financial markets during hostilities with Iraq." They include arranging for backup land-based and wireless telecommunications for key banking institutions in any attack.
Bush said in his address last night, "If Saddam Hussein attempts to cling to power, he will remain a deadly foe until the end. In desperation, he and terrorist groups might try to conduct terrorist operations against the American people and our friends. These attacks are not inevitable. They are, however, possible."
Bush said that in recent days the government has expelled a number of people found to have ties to Iraqi intelligence. Ridge said in his statement that in recent months, "there have been reports of suspicious activity in and around military facilities, ports, waterways, general infrastructure (bridges, dams, power generating facilities), and targets that are considered symbolic to U.S. power and influence."
Among those suspected of possibly planning retaliatory strikes are al Qaeda, unaffiliated sympathizers with the terror network, "lone wolf" operatives who could act out of some rage against U.S. policy, and secret agents of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, officials said.
Staff writers Mike Allen, Spencer S. Hsu, R.H. Melton and Lori Montgomery contributed to this report.
--------
'Operation Libery Shield' Security Measures
March 18, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/politics/18WIRE-SHIELD.html
The Homeland Security Department raised the national terror alert and announced a series of security measures called "Operation Liberty Shield":
• Increased security at major U.S. ports and waterways, including more Coast Guard patrols, escorts of passenger ships and additional sea marshals.
• Greater surveillance and monitoring of borders. Increased screenings of vehicles and cargo, and more interviews of people crossing borders.
• People from nations where al-Qaida and other terrorist groups operate or have sympathizers who have applied for asylum will be detained until U.S. authorities determine the validity of their claims.
• More law enforcement personnel and patrols at airports. Airlines have been told to review the validity of all IDs for personnel with access to secure areas.
• Temporary flight restrictions put in place over Washington, D.C., New York City and certain other unidentified U.S. cities.
• Governors asked to provide additional police or National Guard troops at selected bridges.
• Railroad companies asked to increase security at major facilities and rail hubs.
• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is requiring all licensed users of radioactive material to take additional security measures.
• Increased security at chemical facilities, nuclear power plants and key electric grids.
• Monitoring of Internet for signs of cyber-terrorism, hacking and ``state-sponsored information warfare.''
• State and local health departments, hospitals and medical care providers urged to report any unusual diseases or disease patterns.
• Enhanced inspection of imported food.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- health
Government Promotion of Irradiated Food for Schools Challenged
March 18, 2003
(ENS)
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2003/2003-03-18-09.asp#anchor5
WASHINGTON, DC, The U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering lifting its ban on the use of irradiation for ground beef purchased for the National School Lunch Program. A new pilot informational program in Minnesota is part of the agency's effort to increase acceptance of irradiation for meat served in schools.
Five public interest organizations today sent a letter to Eric Bost, under secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), urging him to halt an irradiation promotion program that his department has funded in Minnesota.
The program is intended to increase public acceptance of irradiated foods in school lunch programs, by educating the public about irradiation. Materials developed as part of the program in Minnesota are to be used in other school districts across the country.
Treating raw meat and poultry with irradiation at the slaughter plant could eliminate bacteria commonly found on raw meat and raw poultry, such as E. coli O157:H7, salmonella, and campylobacter, according to the federal Centers for Disease Contro (CDC)l. "These organisms currently cause millions of infections and thousands of hospitalizations in the United States every year. Irradiating prepared ready-to-eat meats like hot dogs and deli meats, could eliminate the risk of listeria from such foods."
Typically, the CDC states on its website, at least half of a test group of people will buy irradiated food, if given a choice between irradiated product and the same product non-irradiated. "If consumers are first educated about what irradiation is and why it is done, approximately 80 percent will buy the product in these marketing tests."
But critics of irradiation, such as the Pure Food Movement say that when food is irradiated the radiation breaks up the molecular structure of the food and creates a new set of chemicals known as unique radiolytic products which include benzene, formaldehyde and known mutagens and carcinogens. Irradiation kills vitamins, friendly bacteria and enzymes, effectively rendering the food "dead" and therefore useless to your body, the group says.
Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, one of the groups that signed the letter of protest, says, "This program is being presented to the public as an 'education' program. Instead, it is designed to be one-sided and dominated by the irradiation industry. Parents, students, teachers and food service personnel deserve to hear the entire story on irradiation - not just what its promoters want them to hear."
Program documents do not conceal the intent to promote irradiated food. Minnesota's grant proposal states that "a successful outcome of the 'educational' campaign will be the acceptance and introduction of irradiated ground beef by select school districts."
The groups noted that officials at the USDA and in Minnesota who have played critical roles in the program all have ties to the SureBeam Corporation - an irradiation company based in San Diego, California - a relationship they say is a conflict of interest. SureBeam is listed as one of the Pilot Partners in the project proposal funded by USDA.
"This is unconscionable. Not only is the government funding a program that is promoting a specific technology, it already has picked the company and is paying for its advertising. This has to stop - it is an improper use of taxpayer money," said Mark Ritchie, president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
The proposal and the group letter are online at: http://www.citizen.org
-------- ACTIVISTS
Protests Planned for Beginning of War
By JEFF DONN
Associated Press Writer
Mar 18, 2003 2:14 AM EST
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WARS_OUTBREAK_PROTESTS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
Photo: http://customwire.ap.org/photos/PX105031718-small.jpg
Having had months to focus on the buildup toward conflict with Iraq, America's anti-war activists say they are ready to mark the first days of war with protests in dozens of cities coast to coast.
They vow to block federal buildings, military compounds and streets in a rash of peaceful civil disobedience. They say they will walk out of college classes, picket outside city halls and state capitols, and recite prayers of mourning at interfaith services.
"It is sort of an acknowledgment that we are probably not going to be able to stop the war," said Joe Flood, who is helping to plan a student walkout from classes at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Mass. He said more than 1,000 people have pledged to participate.
Some plans for the first day or two of war are writ large, like paralyzing traffic with bicycles and cars and disrupting commerce in San Francisco's financial district. Others are small, like showing a single lit candle on a Web site of the United Church of Christ.
Some are meant to be noisy, like a march in Portsmouth, N.H., with clanging pots and pans. Others will be quiet and solemn, like a vigil in Ann Arbor, Mich., with Christian, Jewish and Muslim prayers.
Many groups intend to carry out die-ins, where activists lie on the ground to symbolize war victims and to block passers-by. Some students at Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania, intend to lower campus flags to half-staff.
However, in Columbia, S.C., activists hope to serve up satire, making fun of the government's anti-terrorism advice to homeowners. They want to plaster a federal building with duct tape and plastic sheeting.
Gordon Clark, the national coordinator of the Iraq Pledge of Resistance, said acts of civil disobedience - with the risk of arrest - have been set up at more than 50 cities. "When you get to the point that the war actually begins, that's a point when many ... feel they have to take the strongest action they can personally take," he said.
With President Bush signaling that war could be imminent, some anti-war groups were pressing supporters Monday to begin civil disobedience immediately.
Eight opponents of a war were arrested Monday in Traverse City, Mich., when they tried to block an Army Reserve convoy headed to a training area. One handcuffed himself to a truck and the other seven locked arms in front of the vehicle, police said.
In San Francisco, anti-war protesters shrouded themselves in body bags Monday in front of the British consulate, chanting "no killing civilians in our name." Some blocked traffic in the city's financial district. Police in riot gear cleared an intersection, and about 40 arrests were made.
San Francisco anti-war groups have laid out similar plans on a larger scale for the outbreak of war, including an effort to shut down the Pacific Stock Exchange and some high-profile commercial buildings.
"The bare bones of the plan is to basically shut down the financial district of San Francisco. The way we see it is that we basically unplug the system that creates war," said Patrick Reinsborough, one of the organizers.
Tim Kingston, a spokesman for the San Francisco-based Global Exchange, says his anti-war group has kept away from organizing civil disobedience, though some members expect to take part on their own. He said some worry about stirring more resentment than sympathy with such disruptive tactics.
But he added, "What else are we supposed to do? Sit and say nothing ... and be silent? That's not very American."
It was not clear how many supporters would follow through with illegal actions, faced with possible arrest. However, in Philadelphia, organizer Robert Smith said at least 50 activists, both young and middle-aged, were ready to block entrances of a federal building.
"The statement we're conveying is that there can be no business as usual for a government that would trample on democracy and international law in order to kill thousands of people for the sake of superpower status," Smith said.
Some groups are focusing on defense-related sites. Protesters plan to block traffic at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo., and sit in at the gates of Truax Field in Madison, Wis., which houses state guardsmen.
In Baltimore, anti-war protesters say they will wash off an American flag splashed with red paint and oil to symbolize the blood and oil of a war with Iraq.
In a gentler mood, peace activists expect to converge on an Islamic mosque in Birmingham, Ala.
Some anti-war activists say their efforts will demonstrate support for American soldiers, because the best way to help them is to bring them home. But counter-demonstrators say they, not anti-war protesters, will be voicing genuine solidarity with the troops.
Michigan State's College Republicans intend to organize a rally to back President Bush and the troops, said chairman Jason Miller. John Georges, a member of the College Republicans at the Rochester Institute of Technology, in New York, said his group will hand out American flags.
Barbara Kerr of Schenectady, N.Y., who works at an American Legion office that helps soldiers' families, said she simply plans to get down on her knees and pray for her own son in the service.
EDITOR'S NOTE - Jeff Donn is the AP's Boston-based Northeast regional writer.
----
Protests continue amid looming war
March 17, 2003
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030317-112731-9413r.htm
Protests around the world, calls for peace, and arrests dominated anti-war demonstrations amid a looming U.S.-led war on Iraq.
About 150 people rallied in front of the U.S. Capitol Monday to protest a possible war and a third of them were arrested.
The demonstration was organized by the Iraq Pledge of Resistance, a coalition of groups and individuals who pledged to take part in civil disobedience to protest the possible war.
Max Buszewski, a member of the Pledge for Resistance and the American Friends Service Committee, said that as a possible war draws near, additional civil disobedience was planned.
He said these actions were necessary to show that the American people don't support a war in Iraq, which he said would be illegal by the standards of the United Nations and the U.S. Constitution. He added that the goal of these actions was not to be arrested.
"We're here because Congress has not been speaking out," he said.
Fifty-four protestors were arrested, most of who had purposely walked through police lines peacefully, a Capitol Police official said.
Medea Benjamin, co-organizer of the women's peace group Code Pink, was one of those arrested during the protest.
"We were trying to reach our representatives, to plead with them to stop this war, because our representatives in Congress are failing us," she said. "We are doing our civil duty. This war will have horrific consequences for Iraqi civilians."
Benjamin, who has been arrested several times, said the police were civil.
"We want to show Bush that he's not representing us," she said. Paul Nelson, a student at the State University of New York, New Paltz, attended the demonstration, as well as a candlelight vigil at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday and a march on Saturday.
"The United Nations doesn't agree with this war, therefore there is no reason the United States should do it," Nelson said.
Monday's arrests signaled a possible increase in the civil disobedience by activist organizations and individuals.
"We call upon the American people to rise up in the millions with calls, letters, faxes, e-mails, visit-ins and nonviolent civil disobedience demanding that the U.S. Congress assert its Constitutional duty," said Kelly Campbell, co-director of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, who was arrested last Thursday during a demonstration at the Capitol.
Major peace groups in the United States issued a national call for non-violent direct action beginning immediately. Massive civil disobedience actions were planned in Washington at the Capitol beginning Monday, according to a joint statement issued by several groups.
Protests were also scheduled at the U.N. headquarters in New York and across the United States, the statement said.
Peace activists also told leaders of the United States, Britain, Spain and Portugal that a pre-emptive strike against Iraq would be in violation of both U.S. and international law.
Sunday's four-nation Atlantic summit showed no respect to "the United Nations, international law, and the U.S. Constitution," the activists said.
"If the war begins, people of Iraq and the United States would both suffer," said Bill Fletcher, president of TransAfrica Forum for pace.
Blaming the United States and Britain for much of the suffering Iraqis have endured over the past decade, they said a war with Iraq would make things worse.
"It is madness to claim to be protecting the talent, culture and potential of a people by preparing to bomb their homes, schools, libraries, museums and cultural sites," said Leslie Cagan, national co-chair of United for Peace and Justice.
"Tony Blair was willing to speak of the hardship the people of Iraq have endured, but failed to mention that this was the result of punishing economic sanctions, as well as weekly bombing assaults by the United States over the past decade."
Protests and calls for peace continued around the world and President Bush gave Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to leave the country or face war.
In Russia, the head of the Russian Orthodox Christian Church, Aleksiy II, wrote to Bush and Blair to urge them to stop military action against Iraq.
It would be "unwise to use military force to influence the Iraqi leadership given that there still are peaceful opportunities for the resolution of the international problems that have arisen in connection with Iraq," the letter said.
Russia, a veto-wielding, permanent member of the U.N. Security Council has been a vocal critic of military action to disarm Saddam.
"We call on the government of the United States of America to become the standard-bearer for the goodwill of the American people, many of whose religious and public figures have spoken out against a military operation in Iraq," the letter said. "We call on you to take the path of peace."
In Iraq, Australian peace activists said they will not leave the country though their government has sent troops to the region in the event of a war.
"We get people who are concerned about our safety. I wish they would be equally concerned about the safety of the Iraqi people," said Uniting Church minister Neville Watson. "And we are taking no more risks than the average, ordinary Iraqi. I probably won't be going to a shelter when the bombing starts, and the reason for that is that most Iraqis won't be going to shelters either."
----
Anti-war activists to take many fronts
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 18, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030318-70295750.htm
They call it Day X, Trigger Day, the Day Of or the Day After. Anti-war activists are using varying shorthand for an outbreak of war with Iraq - and they are designing a wide menu of protest strategies, from provocation to prayer.
Having had months to focus on the buildup toward conflict, America's anti-war activists say they are ready to mark the first days of war with protests in dozens of cities coast to coast.
They vow to block federal buildings, military compounds and streets in a rash of peaceful civil disobedience. They say they will walk out of college classes, picket outside city halls and state capitols, and recite prayers of mourning at interfaith services.
"It is sort of an acknowledgment that we are probably not going to be able to stop the war," said Joe Flood, who is helping to plan a student walkout from classes at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. He said more than 1,000 people have pledged to participate.
Some plans for the first day or two of war are writ large, like paralyzing traffic with bicycles and cars and disrupting commerce in San Francisco's financial district. Others are small, like showing a single lighted candle on a Web site of the United Church of Christ.
Some are meant to be noisy, like a march in Portsmouth, N.H., with clanging pots and pans. Others will be quiet and solemn, like a vigil in Ann Arbor, Mich., with Christian, Jewish and Muslim prayers.
Many groups intend to carry out die-ins, where activists lie on the ground to symbolize war victims and to block passers-by. Some students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania intend to lower campus flags to half-staff.
Gordon Clark, national coordinator of the Iraq Pledge of Resistance, said acts of civil disobedience - with the risk of arrest - have been set up at more than 50 cities. "When you get to the point that the war actually begins, that's a point when many ... feel they have to take the strongest action they can personally take," he said.
With President Bush signaling that military action could be imminent, some anti-war groups were pressing supporters yesterday to begin civil disobedience immediately.
Eight opponents of a war were arrested in Traverse City, Mich., when they tried to block an Army Reserve convoy headed to a training area. One handcuffed himself to a truck and the other seven locked arms in front of the vehicle, police said.
In San Francisco, anti-war protesters shrouded themselves in body bags in front of the British Consulate, chanting, "No killing civilians in our name." Some blocked traffic in the city's financial district. Police in riot gear cleared an intersection, and at least 40 arrests were made.
Tim Kingston, a spokesman for the San Francisco-based Global Exchange, says his anti-war group has kept away from organizing civil disobedience. He said some worry about stirring more resentment than sympathy with such disruptive tactics.
But he added, "What else are we supposed to do? Sit and say nothing ... and be silent? That's not very American."
In Philadelphia, organizer Robert Smith said at least 50 activists, both young and middle-aged, were ready to block entrances of a federal building.
"The statement we're conveying is that there can be no business as usual for a government that would trample on democracy and international law in order to kill thousands of people for the sake of superpower status," Mr. Smith said.
----
Gaza protester mourned
March 18, 2003
(AP)
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030318-89514202.htm
OLYMPIA, Wash. - Within hours of being crushed by an Israeli bulldozer, Rachel Corrie became a martyr and hero for the peace activists of her hometown.
Candles burned and bitter tears flowed as several hundred people gathered Sunday evening in a waterfront park in this small, liberal city.
Mourners held photocopied pictures of Miss Corrie, 23, a student at Evergreen State College in Olympia, who died Sunday in Gaza 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.
The caption under the picture was "Peacemaker," while a hand-lettered banner read: "Rachel, your courage, your spirit of resistance and your joy for life will inspire us always to stand for peace and justice." Mourners put flowers on a mock coffin draped with a Palestinian head-cloth.
Her friends called on the United States to stop aiding Israel and avoid war in Iraq.
"Rachel shouldered the responsibility that her government would not bear," said Krissy Johnson, 24. "She was killed by a bulldozer paid for by U.S. tax dollars. In her name, we say: Stop the killing."
In an e-mail earlier this month, Miss Corrie 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," Miss Corrie wrote in the e-mail, distributed in a March 3 news release by the International Solidarity Movement.
A few months before her death, Corrie was organizing events as an activist in Olympia's peace movement and at Evergreen, a small campus known 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 of international activists working to raise awareness of the struggle for Palestinian freedom and to end Israeli occupation through nonviolent measures.
-------
Chechen Human Rights Activist Released
March 18, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Chechnya-Activist.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- A Chechen human rights activist was released from captivity Tuesday, three days after being seized by masked gunmen in the war-ravaged Russian republic, his colleagues said.
Imran Ezhiyev, regional coordinator for the Moscow Helsinki Group human rights organization, was left on a roadside, said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the organization's chairwoman. He made his way home and was unhurt, Alexeyeva said.
In Moscow, 60 prominent Russian cultural figures issued an appeal Tuesday for negotiations to end the war in Chechnya, in a rare public protest against the 3 1/2-year-old conflict.
``The deaths of thousands of Russian soldiers and officers, tens of thousands of civilians and the wholesale destruction of all of Chechnya cannot be justified by 'state interests' or by arguments about the threat of world terrorism,'' said the signatories. They included chess star Garry Kasparov, poet Bella Akhmadulina, film director Pyotr Todorovsky and writers Fazil Iskander and Vladimir Voinovich.
Ezhiyev, the released activist, said he was held blindfolded in a basement and interrogated by his captors, Alexeyeva said. She quoted him as saying he had not been beaten or tortured.
Ezhiyev, who heads the regional office of the Community of Russian and Chechen Friendship, has been an outspoken critic of human rights violations in Chechnya.
Alexeyeva said she believed the kidnappers either were Russian servicemen or people loyal to the Moscow-appointed chief of Chechnya's administration, Akhmad Kadyrov.
``I know it wasn't the rebels,'' she said.
She attributed his release to efforts by colleagues in the human rights community, who appealed to the Kremlin, prosecutors and other officials.
Ezhiyev was stopped Saturday evening while driving with a colleague from Shali to Serzhen-Yurt in southern Chechnya, according to Memorial, another Russian human rights group active in Chechnya.
Masked gunmen emerged from two cars, checked Ezhiyev's identity documents and then forced him into one of their vehicles, Memorial said. He has been detained frequently by authorities, Memorial said.
The Vienna, Austria-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights appealed Tuesday to Russian President Vladimir Putin and to Kadyrov to help locate and free Ezhiyev.
At the time of his seizure, Ezhiyev was collecting information for Moscow Helsinki Group's report on Chechnya.
``Without a doubt, the seizure of Imran Ezhiyev is directly connected with his professional activities,'' Memorial said.
Human rights groups repeatedly have accused Russian troops of brutality against Chechen civilians, who often find themselves caught up in or targeted during security sweeps and roadway checkpoints.
----
Confronting Our Fears
March 18, 2003
Outlook India
ROBERT JENSEN
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20030318&fname=bush&sid=2
I am finally ready to admit what for months I have kept hidden: I am terrified.
I am more scared than I have ever been in my adult life. For weeks now I have felt a new kind of free-floating terror at what has been unfolding, as the Bush administration has made it clear that nothing would derail its mad rush to war.
Until now, I have not spoken of it. In organizing meetings or talks to community groups or rally speeches, I held back. The task was to build the antiwar movement, and I worried that talking too much about my fear might undermine that. People need to feel empowered, hopeful, I told myself; we should be talking about the potential of the movement.
That hasn't changed. We have to continue to build the movement, which has enormous potential over the long-term to turn this society away from war and profit, toward peace and the needs of people. We cannot abandon our commitment to the people of the world, the work of education and organizing that we all must do if we are to make good on that commitment.
But I no longer think we can build such a movement by suppressing or keeping quiet about this fear we feel. In the past few weeks I have seen this fear so clearly in the eyes of my friends, heard it in the nervous comments of strangers, and been surprised by it in the unease with which even many supporters of the war talked.
I knew it when this past weekend my father -- a conservative, Republican small-town businessman and World War II-era veteran -- tried to convince me that Bush wouldn't really start a war, that he was bluffing, just being cagey. Even my father was scared of the plans of the man he voted for.
I think people all over the world whose capacity to feel has not been occluded by power or hate are feeling something like this. It is not a fear of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction or even necessarily of this particular war, as frightening as all those things may be. I believe it is a fear of something more difficult to pin down, a fear of the forces that will be unleashed when the United States defies the world and launches a war that -- while couched in talk of protecting people from threats -- is so obviously about projecting U.S. power to achieve a kind of world domination that was never possible before.
Bush and his advisers proudly announce that they have cast aside any commitment to collective security, real diplomacy, and international law. Will the United Nations survive? Will there be anything left of an international system when Bush and his gang are finished? Will there be any hope for the peaceful settlement of disputes? Of course none of these concepts has ever been fully implemented, and we all know that the international institutions have flaws. But will anyone feel safer in a world in which the law comes only from the blade of the American sword, permanently drawn?
This fear I feel is not just of power-run-amok but of an empire with the most destructive military capacity that has ever existed -- an empire with thermobaric bombs and cruise missiles, cluster bombs and nuclear "bunker busters." No matter how hard the government works to try to keep us from seeing the results of those weapons -- and no matter how much the news media cooperate in that project -- we understand how many civilians could die under the onslaught of these horrific weapons. They can censor the pictures, but not our imaginations.
This fear I feel is not just of the unchecked power of the United States but of the fact that Bush and his advisers seem to think they understand their own power and can control it. It is the arrogance of virtually unlimited power married to lifelong privilege. It is hubris, and in a nuclear world there is no sin that is potentially more deadly.
This is the fear that I feel, that I think so many of us feel. The Bush administration wants us to be afraid, but remain quiet about it. Our power will come not from denying the fear but in confronting, and overcoming, it. So, we must speak of it, not to scare others but to bring us closer together. Our only hope against the fear is in each other, in our organizing, in our resistance. And if we can confront our fears, we can confront this empire.
If you feel this fear and aren't sure that, in the face of it, you can remain involved -- or get involved for the first time -- in the antiwar movement, all I can say is, "Where else will you go?" If we retreat into our private spaces, thinking we can hide, we will find out quickly that this fear will follow us everywhere.
Our only way out is together, in public, facing not only our fears but the fears that others will project onto us, and inviting them to join us. It will be painful. It will carry with it certain risks. But it is the only way we can hang onto our own humanity.
I am scared, and I need help. We all do. Let us pledge not to let each other down -- for our own sake, and for the sake of the world.
Robert Jensen is a founding member of the Nowar Collective (www.nowarcollective.com), a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of "Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream." He can be reached at rjensen@u...
----
'Human Shields,' Armed With Prayers
By Jennifer Frey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page C01
She is in her little house now, preparing to have a cup of tea. Tea, then a deep breath, then prayer. She spent the morning on what she calls a "march for the children," accompanying Buddhist monks. In the evening, she attended an antiwar rally in downtown Baghdad.
Now, Faith Fippinger, a retired Sarasota, Fla., schoolteacher, has returned to her post, her temporary home, one block from the Daura oil refinery -- the target of a U.S. bomb in 1991 -- to spend her night praying. Praying that the bombs will not start falling. Praying that she, and her Iraqi neighbors, will not die.
She is a "human shield," and even now, when her president, George W. Bush, is giving Saddam Hussein ultimatums and when most of the world now believes war is imminent, she has no intention of packing up to come home.
"It's late in the day here," she said yesterday. Her voice is wan, tired, fading in and out on the overtaxed phone lines into Baghdad.
"I want to be here with my neighbors, who have no place to go. I want to stay with this community. . . . Today it felt like our last rally for peace. Our last day to change minds."
Fippinger, 62, is one of perhaps 100 human shields who still remain inside Iraq. Some are trying to leave, fearing the bombs will fall any minute. Others are in Amman, Jordan, still trying to enter Iraq, no matter how grave the circumstances have become.
They have been called foolish, naive, idealistic. Heroic, in some quarters; stupid, in others. Martyrs for peace at one turn, and traitors (at least those who are American) at others.
The organization that assisted many of the shields in entering Baghdad in February -- Truth Justice Peace -- required them to sign waivers acknowledging that they were entering a potentially fatal situation. American military leaders have said that it will be difficult to protect them.
"We'll do our best to avoid noncombatant casualties and, I will tell you, we will not be 100 percent successful," Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks warned late last month.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft asserting that human shields should be prosecuted as traitors if they impede U.S. military efforts. Graham argues that the shields have damaged the morale of the troops, and possibly their safety.
"People who do this, who want to act as a human shield for the Saddam Hussein regime, I think need to be dealt with in the most severe terms," Graham said yesterday. "It's a regime that should never be shielded."
Graham is offended by the shields' argument that they are supporting not Hussein but the Iraqi people; that they are not anti-American, but simply antiwar. He calls that stance "as naive as their presence."
"They're under the control of Saddam Hussein's government," he says. "They're aiding and comforting his government. Their actions speak louder than their words."
The shields fight this image fiercely.
"I'm not a supporter at all of the Saddam regime," says 58-year-old Judith Karpova of Hoboken, N.J., a political activist who spent more than three weeks in Iraq before returning to Jordan on March 9. "But it's more complex than reducing a country of 25 million people to the actions of one man. There is something in the nature of this particular war that is breaking a lot of boundaries and portends very ill for the future. . . . A preemptive war against a country that has never attacked the U.S. is an extremely dangerous precedent."
Fippinger and Karpova met on the bus from Amman to Baghdad a month ago. Sixteen hours the journey took, including long stops at both the Jordanian and Iraqi border stations. There were stops for food at little roadside restaurants, conversations that wafted from seat to seat, relationships that were forged -- a young woman nestling into the young man seated beside her, someone she met only a few hours before.
A self-described "gypsy," Fippinger is long-ago divorced, has no children and has spent her retirement on tennis and travel. She says she protested the Vietnam War, but has not been much of an activist. Traveling in India earlier this year, she ran into a young man who spoke fluent English, and they fell into conversation about the possible war. He took her to an Internet cafe to read a Web site about human shields.
"I knew immediately that was what I needed to do," she says.
Karpova is a member of the Green Party, and has been active in previous protests against the Bush administration. She married and then divorced in her twenties, and has no children. She, too, was drawn to becoming a human shield from information she read on the Internet. Unlike Fippinger, though, she was not well traveled, and never intended to stay longer than a few weeks -- long enough, she hoped, to draw attention to growing antiwar sentiments around the world.
"I was very frightened about going in," Karpova admits.
When they met on the bus, Fippinger was carrying the Rudyard Kipling novel "Kim," about an orphan who travels through India with an old Tibetan lama and becomes, in effect, his apprentice. As they came to know each other -- and were posted together near the oil refinery -- Karpova began to feel that Fippinger was her mentor.
"I really loved her," Karpova says. "She taught me what courage is. And courage isn't this thing they parade in movies about 'You can't dominate me, you can't beat me.' Courage comes from love of others. That's what I learned. And now they might kill her because she's in their way."
Then she is crying.
"It's like survival guilt," she says. "I'm sitting here on the other side of the fence. I'm looking over the fence at this beautiful place, at these truly beautiful people, and I feel as if I've abandoned them."
Karpova limited her time in Iraq because she has a brother who is in failing health. When she left, she took letters Fippinger had written to her only brother, John, who lives in Sarasota.
"You have to respect her for having the courage of her own convictions," John Fippinger says from his home. "But as I told her, if she wanted to demonstrate for peace, she could do that just as well here at home."
When Fippinger first called her brother and his family from New Delhi to tell them her intentions, they cried. She asked them to read what she had read, to learn what she had learned.
"And when I called back again, they said they understood, but when it's over please come home."
And now she is crying, her words ragged.
"But of course there is a chance I won't."
Truth Justice Peace -- founded by Ken Nichols O'Keefe, a Gulf War Marine who has renounced his American citizenship -- is in some disarray now. O'Keefe and four more of the organizations' leaders were forced by the Iraqi government to leave the country on March 8 in a clash over who would control placement of human shields. On the organization's Web site, O'Keefe asserts that "those that enter now will be under the direct charge of Dr. Al Hashimi of the NGO [non-governmental organization] Friendship Solidarity and Peace, which is for all intents and purposes an extension of the Iraqi Government."
O'Keefe's statements have given fuel to the arguments of those who, like Graham, believe that when war comes, the shields will be forced to protect military and other targets. Thousands of foreigners residing in Iraq in 1990 were held at such strategic sites before Hussein released them a month before the Persian Gulf War began.
"I don't understand why I would have to justify standing up for peace," Fippinger says. "That alone tells you the mentality of people in the world now -- when people have to defend themselves when they stick up for peace."
And so Fippinger and the other shields marched again yesterday but with more of a sense of doom. Ruth Russell, a 57-year-old mother of two from Adelaide, Australia, made what she termed "perhaps her final calls" to her 86-year-old mother in Melbourne, her children (Amanda, 24, and Ashley, 18, both students), and her sister. She also sent out her last mass e-mail for what she fears will be at least a week, if not forever.
"Of course, I'm still hopeful that I will survive," Russell says. "You've got to live in hope, or who knows, but at the same time I also left instructions on my will, my burial. I'm being realistic. I know this is a high-risk business and there are no guarantees. But it is very disappointing to see that the people of the world have not been listened to. I really thought we could have avoided a war."
She is there not despite being a mother, she says, but in part because she is one.
"I just phoned them both a half-hour ago," she says of her children. "I told them that if I die, it's because I'm hoping to create a better world for you."
Then Russell starts speaking about the fallout she sees from the last Gulf War. Cancer rates. Birth defects. When it comes to the children of Iraq, she gets, she says, "a bit wound up."
She is not alone. Every day Fippinger tries to visit a nursery school a block away from her temporary home. Asked what she is going to do in the morning, she says: "I'm going to hold the kids tighter than I've ever held them before, a little bit longer this time."
Now she breaks down completely, openly weeping.
"Sometimes," she says, her words coming slowly, "I have wished that every American could be by my side to listen to these people, to go to tea with my neighbors, to see the babies dying . . . to sit with their crying mothers."
And perhaps those Americans would still think she is naive, or foolish, and maybe even criminal. And perhaps some would understand. It doesn't really matter. This is her neighborhood now, and she is not going home.
----
2 Humboldt tree-sitters removed
By Dorothy Korber --
Sacramento Bee Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/environment/story/6295092p-7248795c.html
Clambering amid the foliage a hundred feet above the ground, lumber company climbers on Monday snapped a harness around a defiant anti-logging protester, cut through the metal sleeve binding her to the redwood's trunk, and lowered her to the forest floor.
The 28-year-old protester, who calls herself Remedy, had lived in the Humboldt County tree -- which she nicknamed Jerry -- since March 21 of last year. She was arrested for trespassing and jailed. A second tree-sitter, known as "Wren," was removed later.
A similar fate awaits tree-sitters in 16 other redwoods in the Freshwater Creek area, said Jim Branham of the Pacific Lumber Co., which owns the grove about 10 miles east of Eureka.
Traffic Alerts
"Once all the tree-sitters are removed, we'll proceed with our logging operation," Branham said. "Obviously, when you have people in trees, it makes it very difficult to operate. Our inability to operate -- using timber harvest plans approved by the state of California -- has an impact on our business. This is private land that we own. This is our business."
Before her arrest, Remedy told reporters that the protest against old-growth logging would continue regardless of what happened to her. "As long as they're cutting ancient trees, people are going to protest," she said.
The activists claim aggressive logging has filled riverbeds with silt, damaging the watershed and endangering local residents.
The sitters are occupying the trees in defiance of a court order issued last week that called on them to leave their perches "immediately and permanently."
An ambulance was on the scene Monday, said Brenda Gainey of the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department. The situation was perilous for the tree-sitters and the climbers sent to bring them down, Gainey noted.
"There's a lot of passion on both sides," she said. "When the protester saw that the climbers were coming up, she climbed higher and locked herself onto the tree. The safest resolution for everyone involved would be for the sitters to give up."
Rod Coronado of Earth First, an organizer of the protest, blamed Pacific Lumber for endangering the tree-sitters.
"We've been talking to Remedy by radio -- she's pretty calm," he said. "She's committed nonviolently to passive resistance. Any injuries will be the fault of Pacific Lumber."
As the climbers prepared to mount her tree Monday afternoon, Remedy sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" from aloft. A couple of hours later, she was locked in a sling and dropped into the waiting arms of the deputies.
Earlier Monday, three demonstrators on the ground -- two women in their 50s and a 25-year-old man -- were arrested and booked into the Humboldt County jail, according to Gainey.
Branham said the other tree-sitters will be removed over the next few days. Pacific Lumber has previously used professional tree climbers to remove perching protesters, he added.
"We've done it about half a dozen times," he said. "Our folks are trained in high-angle rescue and experienced -- safety is their top priority. But we'd be thrilled if we didn't have to use them."
Branham defended his company's environmental record. "In terms of environmental issues," he said, "this company's protections are the most stringent of any in the state."
Karen Pickett of Earth First rejected that assessment.
"The watershed there is in a state of meltdown," she said. "Pacific Lumber doesn't need to endanger people's lives -- they need to listen to the scientists and to their neighbors and do what's right."
About the Writer
The Bee's Dorothy Korber can be reached at (916) 321-1061 or dkorber@sacbee.com.
----
Dressed for Protest
Controversial T-Shirt Stirs Up Freedom of Speech Debate
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Washington Post; Page C13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42961-2003Mar17?language=printer
Bretton Barber got in big trouble at school for a shirt. It wasn't that the 16-year-old stole a shirt or ruined somebody's shirt in a food fight. It was the words printed on a shirt he wore.
"International Terrorist," the shirt said, along with a picture of President George W. Bush.
People protesting against a possible war in Iraq have worn similar shirts, and carried signs with that message. But when Bretton wore the shirt to his high school, in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, the assistant principal gave him a choice: Turn the shirt inside-out or go home.
Brett, as the teenager is called by his friends, chose to go home, but he thinks the school was violating his right to free speech under the U.S. Constitution.
"I think freedom of speech should be protected at all times," he said, "but especially at times of war, when there's a possibility many people could die."
Brett's case is one of several instances around the country recently where kids speaking out against the war have been told, basically, to clam up.
Can school officials do that? What about the First Amendment, which establishes people's right to express their opinions? Don't kids have that right?
Well, yes and no.
In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that students are "persons," under our Constitution, and that their right to free speech does not end "at the schoolhouse gate."
That ruling came in a case called Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. Some students had worn black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War, and the school suspended them. The Supreme court decided the school district was wrong.
But school officials can stop students from speaking out, the Court said in Tinker, if they can show that the student's action significantly "disrupt(s) the work and discipline of the school."
That's the argument school officials are making in Brett's case.
Brett's shirt "might have stirred up emotions, it might have stirred up controversy," said David Mustonen, a spokesman for the Dearborn schools. "An Osama bin Laden shirt or a Saddam Hussein shirt would have also been considered a potential problem."
"Calling someone a terrorist," Mustonen said, "it's the same as if you called someone a name."
It's not always easy to decide when free speech crosses the line and becomes something else that can be regulated -- "disruption of school" or "workplace harassment." It can't just be expressing opinions that bug people, the law says.
"Making people angry or unhappy is something that free speech often does," said Arthur Spitzer, of the Washington area chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
When adults speak out at work, they can run into the same problems that kids do in school. If an adult wore the George Bush "International Terrorist" shirt to the office and a boss told him to take it off, that would be legal, Spitzer said, as long as it's a private company and not a government agency.
"A kid in school has much more in the way of free speech rights than an employee at The Washington Post," Spitzer said.
For government workers, the law says about the same thing it says about kids: You can speak out, as long as it doesn't disrupt the work at hand.
Brett believes his shirt's message was not disruptive. By wearing it, Brett said he was not trying to say that the president is actually a terrorist, but that he is like one because of his policies. "I was attacking the policies," he said, "not the man."
"The dictionary defines a terrorist as someone who instills fear in others," Brett said. "Well, he's instilled fear in people my age who are afraid they could have to go fight in a war." Brett says the war threat also frightens the Iraqi people and others in the world who believe war will stir up more violence.
The Michigan ACLU is trying to persuade the school system to let Brett wear his shirt.
-- Fern Shen
-------
War Means Rights May Be Scaled Back
By Associated Press
March 18, 2003, 10:46 PM EST
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-scalia-rights.story
UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio -- The government has room to scale back individual rights during wartime without violating the Constitution, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Tuesday.
"The Constitution just sets minimums," Scalia said after a speech at John Carroll University in suburban Cleveland. "Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires."
Scalia, one of the court's most conservative judges, was responding to a question about the Justice Department's pursuit of terrorism suspects and whether their rights are being violated.
Scalia did not discuss what rights he believed are constitutionally protected, but said that in wartime, one can expect "the protections will be ratcheted right down to the constitutional minimum. I won't let it go beyond the constitutional minimum."
Scalia was interrupted once briefly by a protester who shouted an anti-war statement. The protester was taken from the room by security officers but was not arrested.
Scalia stopped speaking during the scuffle, then joked that the protest probably was more interesting than his topic, which was the constitutional protection of religions.
-------
------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)
------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!
-----------
Posted
without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only,
in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.