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NUCLEAR
Scientists reject line on depleted uranium
UN raises the stakes with call to Blix
Japan Plant Operator Abandons Business
SMUGGLE RING LURES N. KOREA DEFECTORS
High price of North Korean war
Up to 20 N. Korea Scientists, Military Defect-Paper
North Korea's Atomic Bravado Incites a Host of Skeptics
Chernobyl Victims Protest Unpaid Benefits
U.S. asks Congress to scrap ban on 'mini' nukes
Cancer Risk Higher at Colo. Arms Plant
A Utility Briefly Cuts Power to Some Indian Point Sirens
Texas Reactor Vessel Is Leaking Water
Residue Examined at Texas Nuclear Plant
MILITARY
Rebel Says Fierce Fighting in Western Ivory Coast
U.S. offering secret deals for Iraq work
Huge deal to rebuild handed to old friend
Contractors Work Overtime
Special forces find underground weapons base
Half of Saddam's combat fighter force unearthed
Children main victims of cluster bombs
Iraqi cleric warns U.S. to leave before 'we force you out'
Top Iraqi Scientist Surrenders To U.S.
Troops find Baghdad stash: $650 million
Thousands search for long-lost prisoners
Israeli forces move into Gaza camp
Cameraman killed in the West Bank
Syria Bans Iraqis Without Visas
NATO role in Iraq could impede Afghanistan mission, Ottawa
Indian Army to raise US-type Special Forces
IRAN - First U.N. aid convoy crosses into Iraq
Double standards in reporting casualties
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Scars Document Torture by Hussein Regime
ENERGY AND OTHER
Utility to Spend $1.2 Billion to Cut Emissions
ACTIVISTS
Sunnis in Iraq Protest U.S. Occupation
Celebrities sing antiwar tune as hostilities wind down
Pros and Cons of Protest Coverage
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
Scientists reject line on depleted uranium
April 19 2003
By Paul Brown,
UK Guardian London
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/17/1050172706047.html
Hundreds of tonnes of depleted uranium used by Britain and the US in Iraq should be removed to protect the civilian population, the Royal Society - Britain's premier scientific institution - says, contradicting Pentagon claims it is not necessary.
The society's statement fuels the controversy over the use of depleted uranium, which is an effective tank destroyer and bunker-buster but is believed by many scientists to cause cancers and other severe illnesses.
The society was incensed because the Pentagon had claimed it had the backing of the society in saying depleted uranium was not dangerous.
In fact, the society said, both soldiers and civilians were in short and long-term danger.
Depleted uranium is left over after uranium is enriched for use in nuclear reactors and after reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. Thousands of tonnes of it are stored in the US and Britain.
Because it is effectively free and 20 per cent heavier than steel, the military experimented with it and discovered it could penetrate steel and concrete much more easily than convential weapons.
It was adopted as a standard weapon in the first Gulf War despite its radioactive content and toxic effects. It was used again in the Balkans and Afghanistan by the US.
Depleted uranium has been suspected by many campaigners of causing the unexplained cancers among Iraqis, particularly children, since the previous Gulf War. Chemicals released in the atmosphere during bombing could equally be to blame.
Among those against its use is Professor Doug Rokke, a one-time US army colonel who is also a former director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project.
He has called on the US and Britain to "recognise the immoral consequences of their actions and assume responsibility for medical care and thorough environmental remediation".
The UN Environment Program has been tracking the use of depleted uranium in the Balkans and found it leaching into the water table.
It has recommended the decontamination of buildings where depleted uranium dust is present.
Up to 2000 tonnes has been used in the Gulf, a large part of it in cities such as Baghdad, far more than in the Balkans. UNEP has offered to go to Iraq and check on the quantities of still present and the danger it poses to civilians.
Professor Brian Spratt, chairman of the Royal Society working group on depleted uranium, said a recent study by the society had found that the soil around the impact sites of depleted uranium penetrators might be heavily contaminated.
"We recommend that fragments of depleted uranium penetrators should be removed, and areas of contamination should be identified and, where necessary, made safe," he said.
-------- inspections
UN raises the stakes with call to Blix
By Marian Wilkinson,
Sydney Morning Herald Correspondent in Washington and agencies
April 19 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/18/1050172758567.html
The United Nations Security Council has asked the head of the UN weapons inspection team, Hans Blix, to a meeting early next week to discuss the readiness of his team to return to Iraq.
The request, issued by the current council president, Mexico, is expected to spark a heated debate between the United States and other members over whether Dr Blix and his team should be asked to verify any discovery of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. Dr Blix may also be asked to help in the search for weapons.
A spokeswoman for the Mexican mission to the UN confirmed that Dr Blix had been asked to report to the Security Council on Tuesday.
Dr Blix told BBC radio his inspectors could be in Baghdad in two weeks if the council decided to send them back. But the US is expected to strongly resist the return of Dr Blix's team.
In a separate interview, Dr Blix said his team was ready to finish the job of looking for weapons, but not to work under a new US-led disarmament effort.
"We're not dogs on a leash," Dr Blix said. "We have a mandate from the Security Council, and credibility requires that we have independent judgment."
He said UN teams would be willing to confirm any discoveries of banned weapons the US reported, but he repeatedly noted that US troops had not found any such weapons so far.
One Security Council diplomat said: "Many council members think there ought to be some sort of UN role in verifying disarmament and that UNMOVIC [United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission] would be the obvious body to do that, but it hasn't yet been specifically addressed."
The US, Britain and Australia justified their invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Baghdad possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent threat to their security.
The US and Britain blocked attempts in the Security Council to give UN inspectors more time to verify Iraq's claims that it had destroyed its prohibited weapons.
Dr Blix's appearance at the council is also likely to open up the wider debate on the role of the UN in postwar Iraq. The US is trying to limit the UN's presence, but Britain and Europe would like to see it expanded.
The possibility of a new diplomatic stand-off overshadowed the European Union summit in Athens, following a call by the US President, George Bush, for the lifting of sanctions on Iraq. Russia and the EU suggested they would resist such a move unless it came with guarantees of a central role for the UN in postwar Iraq.
Russia insisted sanctions could be lifted only after international inspectors verified Iraq was free of weapons of mass destruction.
And diplomats said that Security Council members, who must vote on the matter, would use that power to try to win for the UN the involvement Washington seems intent on denying it.
On the weapons issue, diplomats and UN officials cautioned that Dr Blix's return to Iraq could be some way off.
The US inspection team is headed by Charles Duelfer, who once served on the UN team, but who has been a vocal critic of Dr Blix.
But some Security Council members believe the US needs the expertise and credibility of the UN team.
Some senior Iraqi figures, including the former head of its weapons program, Lieutenant- General Amir al-Saadi, are in US custody. But UN inspectors hold records of all the former interviews with General Saadi and other officials, and a database on Iraq's old stockpiles of chemical and biological material.
Without UN help the US team could find itself wasting a lot of time. Already, chemical sites have been wrongly identified as arms plants, forcing numerous corrections from the US military.
-------- japan
Japan Plant Operator Abandons Business
April 19, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-Nuclear.html
TOKYO (AP) -- The operator of a plant involved in Japan's worst nuclear accident has abandoned efforts to restart its fuel-reprocessing business, ending a three-year bid to win back its license.
Directors of the operator JCO Co. approved the decision, and officials at Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., which owns JCO, backed the move, Sumitomo said on its Web site Friday.
The company had sought to gain regulatory approval to reopen its reprocessing facility since being stripped of its license to run the plant in March 2000.
Fuel reprocessing involves turning waste from nuclear plants into a reusable form and differs from operating a reactor that generates electricity.
JCO officials admitted that systematic violations of regulations led to the Sept. 30, 1999, accident at the company's Tokai plant, 70 miles northeast of Tokyo.
Two workers tried to save time by mixing excessive amounts of uranium in buckets instead of mechanized tanks, setting off an uncontrolled nuclear reaction that exposed the two to fatal doses of radiation. A third worker who was hospitalized in critical condition was later discharged from the hospital.
The leak of radiation, the worst-ever nuclear accident in Japan, forced 161 people to evacuate their homes and another 310,000 to stay indoors for 18 hours as a precaution. A total of 439 people were exposed to radiation.
The company later agreed to pay $105.2 million in compensation to settle 6,875 complaints over the accident.
In March, a Japanese court found JCO guilty of violating nuclear regulatory laws and ordered suspended prison sentences for six former top officials charged with negligence in the accident. JCO was also ordered to pay a $8,354 fine.
Resource-poor Japan gets about 30 percent of its energy from nuclear reactors. Mitsubishi Nuclear Fuel Co. is currently Japan's sole provider of reprocessed nuclear fuel to the nation's utilities.
-------- korea
SMUGGLE RING LURES N. KOREA DEFECTORS
By DEBORAH ORIN and ANDY SOLTIS
April 19, 2003
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/34399.htm
A private network has stepped into the worsening North Korea crisis by trying to get top Pyongyang nuclear scientists and other officials to defect, sources said yesterday.
But there were conflicting accounts over claims that the secret operation - believed to involve private citizens from various countries - had managed to convince up to 20 senior North Korean officials to flee in the past six months.
The Weekend Australian reported yesterday that Dr. Kyong Won-ha, the father of North Korea's nuclear program, was among those to have reached a safe house outside of North Korea thanks to a top-secret operation dubbed "Weasel."
Eleven countries helped smuggle the defectors through the tiny Pacific island of Nauru - and Kyong provided invaluable information about the Yongbyon reactor he helped develop, the newspaper reported.
But U.S. officials dismissed the account, which one described as "largely fantasy."
A U.S. official said there is no government involvement in the smuggling operation and "nothing" to indicate that Weasel had succeeded in getting Kyong out of North Korea.
The network is believed to include private American, South Korean and New Zealand citizens who are trying to convince members of North Korea's military and scientific elite to defect.
The defectors were allegedly smuggled from North Korea to China and then given consular support from friendly countries to reach the West.
The Weekend Australian said one of the Americans involved was Washington lawyer Philip Gagner, who wrote to the president of Nauru, Rene Harris, last Oct. 12, saying he was relaying a message from U.S. officials.
Gagner allegedly said the officials asked for Nauru's diplomatic help in a "matter of very great sensitivity" involving a country, "not Iraq, which may have acquired weapons of primary concern" to other nations.
In return for their help, Nauru would have missions opened for it in Washington and Beijing for free and escape possible sanctions.
Efforts to reach Gagner yesterday were unsuccessful.
----
High price of North Korean war
Wednesday, 19 February, 2003
(BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2732471.stm
The United States and South Korea have enough firepower to overcome North Korea if the current crisis were to escalate, according to analysts.
But the costs of war are so high that the US and its Asian allies are unlikely to choose the military option to defuse the situation.
Neither is a limited strike on the Yongbyon nuclear facility an attractive alternative.
North Korea's military
1 million man army 3,000 battle tanks 22 attack submarines 500 combat aircraft Scud-C and Nodong-1 missiles operational Taepodong 1 missile could strike Japan Source Jane's Information Group
N Korea's missiles
"There is no doubt that the US could conduct a fairly effective strike on the reactor, but there's too many problems that it could create," said Andrew Kennedy, head of the Asia Research Programme at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
The biggest worries are that radioactive material from the Yongbyon reactor could drift into South Korea, while Pyongyang has warned that such a strike would lead to "full scale war".
Despite North Korea's moribund economy, a military showdown would be no pushover.
North Korea has an alarming array of conventional forces, with a one-million man army, thousands of artillery pieces trained on the South Korean capital Seoul, and a ballistic missile capability which is known to reach as far as Japan, and possibly even Alaska.
Despite North Korea's arsenal, however, Adam Ward from the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) said it was clear that the US and South Korean forces would prevail in any conflict.
The allied troops were "numerically inferior but qualitatively far more superior," he said.
Gamble
Much of North Korea's arsenal dates back to the 1950-53 Korean War. For the impoverished hermit state it would be "very difficult to maintain these forces in a fighting manner", Mr Kennedy said, adding that there was "a big difference between 10,000 tanks and 10,000 tanks that work".
US strength
37,000 troops in South Korea 90 combat aircraft in S Korea, further 80-90 offshore Trident ballistic missile submarines S Korean armed forces of 560,000 men Source: Jane's Information Group Even though Washington is thought to have the upper hand, North Korea is probably gambling that the price to the US and its allies would be too high.
Armed conflict would lead to a tremendous loss of life in South as well as in North Korea. Americans would be certain to be among the casualties, since 37,000 US troops are based in South Korea and many US businesses have offices and employees in Seoul.
In the face of these unpalatable facts, Washington appears intent on pushing for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
Although the US has put some aircraft on alert to possibly reinforce its Pacific strength, Washington has also been sending diplomatic signals that it is willing to talk to North Korea.
The problem is that Pyongyang is far from predictable. Further threatening moves - such as test firing missiles or military mobilisations - cannot be ruled out.
"It is clear that North Korea has a long history of rhetorical flourishes" which do not necessarily amount to a threat, Mr Ward said, "but we cannot discount" a military response.
----
Up to 20 N. Korea Scientists, Military Defect-Paper
Sat April 19, 2003
(Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=2591406
SYDNEY - Up to 20 high-ranking North Korean military officers and nuclear scientists have defected to the United States and its allies under a plan involving several countries including the Pacific state of Nauru, an Australian newspaper said on Saturday.
The defections began last October after 11 countries agreed to provide consular protection to smuggle North Koreans from China, The Weekend Australian said.
The man seen as the father of North Korea's nuclear program, Kyong Won-ha, was believed among the defectors, the newspaper said.
It said a U.S.-based lawyer approached Nauru's former president, Rene Harris, with an offer to foot the bill for establishing Nauruan embassies in Washington and Beijing, ostensibly to boost trade ties with those countries.
But the real reason for the Beijing embassy was "to expedite the movement of these very important people," the paper said, citing Harris.
Nauru's former finance minister, Kinza Clodumar, was quoted as saying he was briefed on what was dubbed "Operation Weasel" while with a Nauruan delegation in Washington in October.
"We were going to get a (North Korean) nuclear scientist and his family from a farm in China and then take them in a Nauru consulate car to an embassy," Clodumar said.
Some countries agreed to act as transit points for up to 30 days once the defectors left China, the paper said, citing "confidential documents and interviews with key players in Washington, the Pacific and North Asia."
But the paper said in the end, Nauru's diplomatic cover was not used to deliver defectors to safety.
The operation, which has now been wound up, was managed by Americans and New Zealanders operating at arm's length from their governments, the paper said.
Countries believed to have been involved include the United States, Nauru, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Thailand, the Philippines and Spain, the report said.
--------
North Korea's Atomic Bravado Incites a Host of Skeptics
April 19, 2003
The New York Times
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/19/international/asia/19KORE.html
SEOUL, South Korea, April 18 - Just days away from the scheduled opening of discussions with the United States, North Korea appeared to announce today that it was reprocessing nuclear fuel rods, a step that would suggest development of atomic weapons.
Later, however, the statement was withdrawn from North Korea's official Web site amid confusion over the accuracy of the translation.
The original announcement from North Korea, as posted in English, had stated unequivocally that "we are successfully reprocessing more than 8,000 spent fuel rods at the final phase." However, the White House and the State Department cited another translation in which the North Koreans said, "We are successfully completing the final phase, to the point of the reprocessing operation, for some 8,000 spent fuel rods."
Officials with access to the relevant intelligence said there was no independent evidence that North Korea had begun reprocessing. In the past, however, officials have said there is limited capacity to detect when the reactor is turned on. It could take up to several weeks, they said, to determine whether it had in fact been activated.
The White House, reacting cautiously, said it would consult with Japan, South Korea and China before responding to the original statement. "Once we have a clear sense of the facts and views of our friends and allies, we'll make a decision on how to proceed," said a White House spokeswoman, Claire Buchan.
This would not be the first time that the North Koreans mistranslated one of their own documents, said Daniel Pinkston, a Korea expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Earlier this year, he said, Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, created another controversy when it reportedly said that it had "turned on its nuclear reactor." In fact, he added, it had said only that the reactor was getting to the point where it could be turned on.
That reactor, American officials noted, was turned on several weeks later and is still operating.
Earlier this week, experts with access to intelligence on North Korea's nuclear program reaffirmed that there was no indication of reprocessing of nuclear fuel, a line taken by American intelligence officials since a crisis over weapons development began late last year in the impoverished communist country.
This evening, officials in the United States, South Korea and Japan all said they lacked any strong indication that the country's known plutonium fuel rods were being reprocessed. The fuel rods had been stored under the supervision of international inspectors at a North Korean nuclear complex at Yongbyon, until the inspectors were expelled in January.
"North Korea has repeatedly said it would start reprocessing," Chun Young Woo, a director for arms control at South Korea's Foreign Ministry, told Reuters. "I've never heard that they actually did."
Today's claim was being regarded by many North Korea analysts as a classic example of the country's shrewd, confounding and sometimes seemingly reckless negotiating style. For months, North Korea had been demanding "knee to knee" talks with the United States to provide security guarantees to the country in exchange for verifiable disarmament.
The Bush administration ignored these demands, saying it would accept only multilateral talks including North Korea's neighbors, and even then would talk only after North Korea had dismantled its suspected nuclear weapons program.
Earlier this week, the two countries agreed to meet next week in Beijing in three-way talks, a configuration that appears to have been settled on to save face for each side. Several analysts said that the announcement, even in its less provocative form, was almost certainly a provocative bit of posturing.
"This is an attempt to pre-empt any American hard line in the negotiations, and a reaction to statements from people like Secretary Rumsfeld, saying that he can't think of anything to give to North Korea in return for its agreement for verifiable disarmament," said Hak Sun Paik, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute, an independent research group in Seoul. "North Korea also wants to offset a kind of image in Washington that it had learned a lesson from the Iraqi war, and that is why it has agreed for dialogue."
Indeed, the statement said that a "powerful deterrent" was needed to protect the country in the wake of the American war in Iraq.
Some analysts said the statement was a bluff intended to hide the fact that the country had not yet begun reprocessing its fuel rods, perhaps because of technical problems in its aging nuclear laboratories.
Others said that just as the Bush administration had staked out a firm position before the talks, saying in essence that it would not settle for anything less than the complete and verifiable dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear infrastructure, North Korea was staking out a firm position for tactical reasons, dropping previous claims, for example, that its nuclear program was intended for electrical generation.
-------- ukraine
Chernobyl Victims Protest Unpaid Benefits
April 19, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Ukraine-Chernobyl-Protest.html
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- Thousands of Chernobyl survivors marched Saturday in downtown Kiev to demand the government increase social benefits and pay overdue compensation to victims of the world's worst nuclear accident 17 years ago.
An orchestra playing a funeral march led the protesters down the Ukrainian capital's main boulevard. Many carried photographs of loved ones killed in the accident and banners with slogans such as ``Chernobyl is closed. Are the problems of Chernobyl forgotten?'' Police estimated the crowd at 5,000.
The Ukrainian Chernobyl Union, an advocacy group representing victims of the disaster, organized the march to protest planned budget cuts and to demand the government pay long-overdue social and medical benefits to thousands of people still suffering from the disaster.
``They give us only kopeks. If we don't protest they'll take away everything,'' said a protester who identified herself only by her first name and patronymic, Halyna Danylovna.
Ukraine's cash-strapped government has been unable to maintain the generous Soviet-era social benefits given to the 3.3 million people, including 1.5 million children, affected by the April 1986 accident.
The disaster, in which a reactor exploded and caught fire, sent a radioactive cloud over vast areas of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and northern Europe.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainians disabled by Chernobyl-related illnesses suffer from inadequate health care. Some 25,000 families evacuated from contaminated areas still have not been given the housing they were promised.
Ukraine shuttered Chernobyl's last reactor in December 2000. Western governments have pledged to help fund completion of two new reactors to compensate for the lost electricity capacity.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
U.S. asks Congress to scrap ban on 'mini' nukes
Saturday, April 19, 2003
Japan Today
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=8&id=257296
WASHINGTON - The administration of U.S. President George Bush has asked Congress to repeal its 1993 ban on developing low-yield nuclear arms, according to congressional sources.
The Bush administration is seeking to include in the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill the abandonment of the ban and substantial funds for research on such "mini nukes," the sources said.
At stake is a 1993 law provision introduced by two Democrats in the House of Representatives - Elizabeth Furse and John Spratt.
The Furse-Spratt provision prohibits research and development that could lead to the production of nuclear weapons with an explosive yield of less than 5 kilotons.
In a document presented to Congress in February with a draft of the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill, the Bush administration argued the 1993 ban needed to be repealed.
The provision "has negatively affected U.S. government efforts to support the national strategy to counter weapons of mass destruction and undercuts efforts that could strengthen our ability to deter, or respond to, new or emerging threats," said the document made available for Kyodo News.
One possible use for such nuclear weapons is to destroy other weapons of mass destruction buried at great depths.
The Defense Department submitted the document to the armed services committees of both chambers to explain the administration's rationale for wanting to scrap the 1993 ban.
The document said a revitalized nuclear arms development effort is essential to "train the next generation of nuclear weapons scientists and engineers" and to "restore a nuclear arms enterprise able to respond rapidly and decisively to changes in the international security environment."
The 1993 ban also runs counter to the congressionally mandated Nuclear Posture Review report in 2002, which called for the exploration of nuclear weapons with greater capabilities for precision and earth penetration with reduced collateral damage, the document said.
In February, the House Policy Committee of the Republican Party compiled a report urging Congress to consider repealing the 1993 ban to pave the way for developing low-yield nuclear weapons.
But Democrats strongly oppose abandoning the ban.
Developing low-yield nuclear weapons would lower the boundary between conventional and nuclear weapons. It might also open the way for the United States to resume nuclear tests. (Kyodo News)
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- colorado
Cancer Risk Higher at Colo. Arms Plant
April 19, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Rocky-Flats-Workers.html
DENVER (AP) -- Rocky Flats employees who assembled nuclear weapons components and inhaled radioactive particles had an increased risk of lung cancer, a new study found.
The $2.5 million study, released Thursday, found that workers who dealt with plutonium were about two times more likely to develop lung cancer than workers who were not exposed. The study was done by the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Advertisement
Researchers compared 180 former workers who died of lung cancer with 720 other workers who were considered healthy. Those who died of lung cancer had higher levels of radiation exposure on average.
Dr. James Ruttenber, who led the study, said the research offers the first concrete information in the United States that lung cancer is linked to plutonium ingestion.
``We have supporting evidence from other studies that, along with our findings, support the hypothesis that plutonium exposure causes lung cancer,'' Ruttenber said.
He said researchers will study the data to determine if standards for handling plutonium should be changed.
``One case study is not enough,'' he said. ``We need to make sure that we have robust findings before we make sweeping changes.''
Doug Benevento, director of the state health department, said other factors have been shown to cause more of a risk of cancer.
``You have to put it into context: If you smoke, you're seven times as likely to develop lung cancer,'' he said.
He also said the study did not definitively link worker's cancers to their employment at the plant, noting other factors, such as exposure to chemicals at home, lifestyle differences or pure chance could explain the elevated risk results.
Arvada resident Wally Gulden, 65, who worked at Rocky Flats for 26 years, said he wasn't surprised by the findings or satisfied with the study.
``There are more of us out there with cancers not related to the ones that were studied,'' said Gulden, who has non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. ``I worked in a hot spot and I know I ingested plutonium, and I want to know if it's related to my work.''
Gulden has filed a claim under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act program, which compensates people suffering from cancer and other illnesses as a result of their work on Cold War-era weapons projects.
``I hoped for more answers, but there aren't any,'' Gulden said.
The lung cancer findings were part of a broader study that tracked 16,303 people who worked at the plant between 1952 and 1989.
The study also found that Rocky Flats workers were 2.5 times more likely to develop brain tumors than other people. Researches plan to examine those findings further.
Rocky Flats manufactured plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads for almost 40 years. It closed in 1989 because of safety and environmental problems.
The site is being cleaned up and will become a wildlife refuge.
The study was funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
On the Net:
Rocky Flats workers study: http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/rf/rfpworkerstudy/index.html
-------- new york
A Utility Briefly Cuts Power to Some Indian Point Sirens
April 19, 2003
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/19/nyregion/19NUKE.html
Eleven emergency public-alert sirens for the Indian Point nuclear power plant lost their connection to the local utility for more than two hours on Thursday as the utility replaced a wooden pole that had snapped in the wind the night before, officials said yesterday.
The power cutoff was planned so the repair could be made, the utility said. The sirens also had backup power from batteries, said Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy, which owns the plant.
But Mr. Steets said the power company, Orange and Rockland Utilities, failed to notify Entergy ahead of time, and some local officials expressed concern about the dependability of the alarms, which are intended to alert the public to any trouble at the nuclear power plant. Advertisement
There are 153 alarms in the four counties surrounding Indian Point, which lies in Buchanan, N.Y., just south of Peekskill. The power cutoff affected the electric motors in 9 of 16 alarms in Orange County and 2 of 50 in Rockland.
Entergy notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as required, said Neil Sheehan, a commission spokesman. He said the trouble did not merit a violation notice because backup plans were in place and the frequency of alarm problems at Indian Point had been well within limits. "It happens from time to time," Mr. Sheehan said.
Mr. Steets said the alarms' batteries, part of a system upgrading in the last year, "could probably last long enough the first time they are used."
If there had been an emergency at Indian Point while Orange and Rockland Utilities was replacing the pole, police and fire vehicles would have gone into neighborhoods left without alarms, blaring notification from loudspeakers. Automatic phone calls would also have gone out to the public through pre-set lists, said Susan Meyer, a spokeswoman for the Rockland County's Indian Point team. "There is enough planned to get things started," she said.
But some officials questioned the effectiveness of backup plans. Christopher Jensen, the program coordinator for the Rockland County office of fire and emergency services, said that Entergy had done a good job of testing the alarms, but that he was not sure how long the alarms could run on battery power.
Steve Gross, the public information officer for the Orange County executive, Edward A. Diana, said Thursday's power cutoff was the third time in the last four weeks that the Orange sirens had had troubles. He said the county was investigating and would bring up the issue at a meeting of neighboring county officials next week.
Though Westchester, which has 77 sirens, was unaffected by Thursday's cutoff, Tony Sutton, the deputy commissioner of emergency services, said that the radio signal between the alarms had been intermittently weak for some time.
"Obviously, I'm a little concerned," Mr. Sutton said. "I'm just hoping that this is a relatively new system and there are bugs."
As for Entergy's complaint that the utility did not warn it of the power cutoff, Mike Donovan, the spokesman for the utility, said its protocol was to notify municipal and law enforcement officials only.
"In the event of a power outage, Entergy is not part of our protocol right now," he said. "I gather no one who designed the plan ever thought of that."
-------- texas
Texas Reactor Vessel Is Leaking Water
April 19, 2003
The New York Times
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/19/national/19NUKE.html
WASHINGTON, April 18 - A nuclear reactor in Texas is leaking cooling water from the bottom of its giant reactor vessel, a development that experts view with concern because they have never seen it before, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said today.
Technicians at the South Texas Nuclear Project, 90 miles southwest of Houston near Wadsworth, have found residues that indicate that cooling water leaked from the vessel through two penetrations where instruments are inserted into the core, according to the plant operator. Advertisement
Operators at all 103 commercial nuclear reactors have been giving closer attention to their reactor vessels since the discovery last year of extensive leaks in the vessel head at the Davis-Besse plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio, near Toledo.
The Texas plant, South Texas 1, shows much smaller signs of leaking than the Ohio plant. In both cases, technicians found deposits of boron, a chemical added to the water to control the nuclear reaction, which remains after the water evaporates.
At Davis-Besse, technicians cleaned out boron with shovels. In Texas, technicians found an amount about half the volume of an aspirin tablet, said Ed Halpin, the plant general manager.
No corrosion is visible, but no one is sure what is underneath. At Davis-Besse, the steel of the vessel was so corroded that a metal part on the head flopped over like a mailbox post that has been loosened from the front lawn. Workers have replaced the vessel head, a part intended to last for the lifetime of the reactor. Davis-Besse has remained closed since the leak was discovered, 13 months ago.
South Texas 1 is one of the youngest plants in the country. It went on line in August 1988. South Texas 2, which is adjacent, followed in June 1989. It shows no sign of leakage.
The two reactors are owned by the Cities of Austin and San Antonio, a subsidiary of American Electric Power of Columbus, Ohio, and Texas Genco, a generating company that is a subsidiary of CenterPoint Energy of Houston.
The South Texas leak is unexpected and, so far, unexplained.
"This is the first time it's been seen, either here or abroad," said Victor Dricks, a spokesman for the regulatory commission.
Representatives of two industry groups are at the plant to study the problem, and managers have promised to keep the reactor, which is closed for refueling, out of operation until they find the cause and repair it to the satisfaction of the nuclear agency, Mr. Dricks said.
The vessel is 14.4 feet wide and 46 feet high, made of steel about six inches thick. Its bottom has 58 penetrations, where instruments can be inserted to measure the flow of neutrons, the subatomic particles that sustain the chain reaction. There are leaks at two penetrations, although the water volume was apparently small, Mr. Dricks said.
At plants around the country, cracks of some metal parts have been traced to stresses created in construction. Others have been caused by a phenomenon called intergranular stress corrosion cracking that occurs in some metals under stress at high temperature. Mr. Halpin said he would not speculate about the cause in Texas.
Water in the vessel is at a temperature higher than 500 degrees and pressure higher than 2,000 pounds a square inch. So even a small hole could release large volumes of radioactive water into the containment building.
Mr. Dricks said, however, that the pumps in the emergency core cooling system could inject water faster than it could leak through a hole the size of the penetration, so that the nuclear core would stay covered. The design is for contamination in such cases to stay in the containment dome.
A repair problem is that the radiation field under the reactor is about 500 millirem an hour, Mr. Halpin said. At that rate, a worker would absorb in four hours the radiation dose that most reactor operators set as a limit for a full year. Repair work in such high fields is usually carried out by large teams of workers, each spending just a short period at work.
--------
Residue Examined at Texas Nuclear Plant
April 19, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Plant-Inspection.html
WADSWORTH, Texas (AP) -- Engineers at a nuclear plant are examining residue, about half the size of an aspirin, apparently from reactor coolant fluid that leaked near the bottom of a reactor vessel.
The residue was found a week ago while the reactor was shut down for scheduled refueling and maintenance.
``At this point we don't know the root cause. We do have some seepage,'' said Ed Halpin, manager of the South Texas Project plant. He said engineers and chemists had found no additional residue but the reactor would remain shut down until the problem was fixed. Advertisement
Officials on Friday acknowledged finding the residue after an official with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was quoted in a published report saying the plant was leaking.
``Their preliminary thinking is they do have a small crack,'' Brian Sheron of the NRC said in Friday editions of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer. A call to the NRC Saturday was not immediately returned.
Workers at Ohio's Davis-Besse nuclear plant, which has a similar pressurized water reactor, found evidence last spring that a boric acid leak had bored part way through a 6-inch-thick steel cap on a reactor vessel there. Plant owner FirstEnergy Corp. said it believed the residue washed down during cleaning, but tests are planned next month to be certain.
In the statement released Friday by the South Texas Project, officials said the powdery material was found April 12 on the outside of two instrument guide tubes where the tubes enter the bottom of the reactor. The reactor is encased in a concrete and steel-lined containment building.
No reactor has ever been shown to have cracks or leaks in the instrument-carrying tubes, The Plain Dealer said. Any such disclosure, if confirmed, would be a serious development for the nation's nuclear plants. A large enough leak, undetected, could impede the ability of emergency pumps to cool radioactive fuel.
Test results at the Texas plant, about 70 miles southwest of Houston, indicate the residue came from reactor coolant fluid, plant officials said. Halpin said the residue was boric acid, which is part of the coolant system.
If problems are found, he said, they could be repaired by welding.
The guide tubes where the residue was found are not integral to the reactor's operation, he said. ``They are instruments we use to monitor the activities of the plant,'' he said of the 58 tubes. ``It is backup instrumentation essentially.''
The plant's other unit continues to operate at full power. The plant's two reactors combine to produce more than 2,500 megawatts of electricity for customers from Houston to Austin to San Antonio to Corpus Christi.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Rebel Says Fierce Fighting in Western Ivory Coast
Sat April 19, 2003
By Matthew Tostevin
(Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=2592042
ABIDJAN - A rebel leader in western Ivory Coast said there were fierce clashes between his forces and loyalist troops on Saturday, a day after the army said it was attacked across a broad swathe of the region.
The renewed clashes soured hopes that a power-sharing coalition could reunite the fractured West African nation after a seven-month civil war that has killed thousands, displaced more than a million and crippled the world's top cocoa producer.
"There are violent clashes at the moment," rebel leader Felix Doh told Reuters by telephone, adding his troops had captured Bin Houye, 37 miles south of rebel-held Danane and near the porous border with Liberia.
Doh said his fighters had killed about 350 soldiers loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo in recent days.
He also accused the army of killing "entire families" in Bin Houye. "There are bodies all around the mosque," he said.
It was impossible to verify the claims independently and an army spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Gbagbo's forces said late on Friday that rebels had attacked four different points, including Bin Houye, along a 87-mile western frontline.
The army, which is accused of killing at least nine civilians and wounding dozens more in reprisal helicopter raids this month, said it would respond to the attacks however it saw fit.
Violence has surged at the very moment that a power-sharing government, bringing in Gbagbo's supporters, three rebel factions and opposition parties, has been put in place under a deal brokered by former colonial power France.
"There is no longer the slightest doubt, the rebels favor the military option in the crisis that grips Ivory Coast," army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel N'goran Aka said in a statement.
ANARCHY IN THE WEST
Ivory Coast was plunged into chaos when rebels tried to oust Gbagbo last September. The coup failed but three allied rebel factions hold the mainly Muslim north and large chunks of the west. The mostly Christian south is held by Gbagbo's loyalists.
Diplomats doubt all sides' commitment to a peace deal that has been beset by wrangling since it was signed in January and believe hawks on both sides would rather resolve their differences on the battlefield.
Some 1,260 West African troops and nearly 4,000 French soldiers are on the ground to enforce a cease-fire, which has been punctuated by sporadic violence.
A spokesman for the main MPCI rebel movement told Reuters on Saturday that Doh's MPIGO faction wanted to retake towns seized by the army after a cease-fire was agreed in January.
Antoine Beugre said the army had violated the truce by later seizing towns like Bin Houye and Toulepleu, further south.
"MPIGO decided to go on the offensive to retake these towns...they absolutely want to seize Toulepleu," Beugre said.
The remote and lawless western frontierlands have been the war's deadliest theater. Two rebel factions and loyalist forces are helped by rival Liberian fighters, hardened by years of combat in their own country.
Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema, who has been a key mediator in Ivory Coast's crisis, has invited Gbagbo and Liberian President Charles Taylor to a summit in northern Togo on Tuesday to discuss the crisis.
Liberia is also torn by a civil war as rebels fight to oust Taylor. The lines between that rebellion and Ivory Coast's conflict have become increasingly blurred, as armed militias, looters and rebel groups slip to and fro across the frontier.
Authorities in both countries accuse each other of backing rebels. Both sides deny the allegations.
-------- business
U.S. offering secret deals for Iraq work
Los Angeles Times / Billings Gazette
April 19, 2003
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2003/04/19/build/war/78-police.inc
WASHINGTON -- A subsidiary of El Segundo, Calif.-based Computer Sciences Corp. is among a handful of U.S. defense contractors secretly invited to submit bids for a long-term contract to rebuild Iraq's national police force, prisons and judiciary, according to State Department officials.
Similar confidential invitations to other companies for Iraq reconstruction work triggered criticism from lawmakers and activists who fear the lack of open bidding could be costly to taxpayers. Three U.S. senators introduced legislation last week that would require federal agencies to publicly justify any closed-bidding process for work in Iraq.
The CSC subsidiary, DynCorp of Reston, Va., already is recruiting 150 current and former U.S. law enforcement officers for Iraq under an International Police Missions contract first awarded in 1996 for work in the Balkans, State Department officials said. CSC acquired DynCorp last month.
----
Huge deal to rebuild handed to old friend
By Elizabeth Becker and Richard Oppel in Washington
April 19 2003
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/18/1050172758425.html
The Bush Administration has awarded the San Francisco-based Bechtel Group the first part of a massive contract to oversee the rebuilding of Iraq, involving everything from airports, schools, roads, bridges and railroads to its power grids, water systems and sewers.
The $US680 million ($1.1 billion) contract gives the company a flying start in one of the most lucrative building programs in decades and further solidifies the US's imprint on postwar Iraq.
"This has never been done before - an American corporation rebuilding an entire foreign country," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Washington DC-based Project on Government Oversight.
The US Government said Bechtel would initially get $US34.6 million under the contract, which provides for up to $US680 million during the next 18 months. Officials from USAID, the government aid agency, said the total will be far higher.
Experts say it will cost tens of billions of dollars to fulfil the agency's goal of creating "the fundamental structures for democracy and economic growth".
Bechtel, the oldest, biggest and best-known US contracting firm, said it had already started working with USAID to "prioritise and detail" what needs to be done.
The company's next step is to find subcontractors. Bechtel will be responsible for co-ordinating construction work by dozens of subcontractors. "It will be a full and open and international bidding process," said Bechtel spokesman Mike Kidder.
But that did not happen in the first round, which aroused criticism in the US Congress and overseas. Bechtel was one of six bidders, all with strong political connections, handpicked by the Bush Administration to bid in a largely secret process. Only US companies were considered.
"A troubling pattern is starting to emerge," said a Democrat senator, Ron Wyden. "We're seeing some of the country's most powerful business interests showing up and getting these contracts."
Senator Wyden is co-sponsoring a bill to force public disclosure of Iraq contracts awarded without open, competitive bidding. Congress's investigative arm, the General Accounting Office, has also launched an investigation.
Bechtel was founded in 1898 and built the Hoover Dam in the early 1930s.
Like many companies that work extensively with the government, it has been a large political contributor: $US1.3 million to federal campaigns and candidates over the past three years, according to the Federal Election Commission. Fifty-nine per cent of the money went to Republicans and the rest to Democrats, records show.
George Shultz, president Richard Nixon's treasury secretary, stepped down in 1974 to become president of Bechtel. In 1982 Mr Shultz became president Ronald Reagan's secretary of state. He is now a member of Bechtel's board.
Caspar Weinberger was a Bechtel director, vice-president and general counsel before becoming Mr Reagan's secretary of defence in 1981.
Aid up for grabs
Five contracts for reconstruction work in Iraq have been awarded to US companies. Foreign companies can take part as subcontractors.
Infrastructure. Emergency repair of electricity supply, water and sewer systems. Awarded to Bechtel Group for $US34.6 million, but worth up to $US680 million over 18 months. May also include repair of hospitals, schools, other public buildings and irrigation systems.
Primary and Secondary Education. Creative Associates International awarded initial $US2 million of a one-year contract capped at $US62 million. Involves upgrading schools, restocking classrooms and training teachers.
Local Governance. Awarded to Research Triangle Institute for $US7.9 million. Seeks to maximise Iraqi participation in all phases and aspects of the reconstruction as the transition to Iraqi administration occurs.
Seaport Administration. $US4.8 million to Seattle-based Stevedoring Services of America.
Personnel Support. Helping USAID in planning and managing reconstruction projects. Awarded to the International Resources Group with $US7 million for an initial 90 days with optional one-year renewal.
Los Angeles Times, The New York Times
----
Contractors Work Overtime
Business Is Booming for Smaller Defense Firms
By David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 19, 2003; Page D14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53447-2003Apr18?language=printer
During the buildup to the invasion of Iraq in February and March, a rehabilitation agency for handicapped workers in Jamestown, N.Y., rushed to produce more than 14,000 first-aid kits destined for U.S. Marines in Kuwait.
"They just said, 'We're going to need this and we need it fast,' " said Gregory Bender, director of business operations at the Chautauqua County Chapter of NYSARC Inc., a nonprofit military contractor. The hurry-up $967,000 order was designed to include a substance to quicken blood clotting and a tourniquet that could be applied with one hand, Bender said.
To fill the order on time, the agency hired high school students to bolster its workforce of people with physical and mental disabilities and suspended work on all other projects, Bender said.
That spike in demand was repeated at other defense contractors across the nation in recent weeks as the Pentagon rushed to fill and replenish inventories before the war.
Some of the military's surge orders were for small lots of special aircraft parts subject to wear and tear under the stress of frequent flights and desert combat. Items on the accelerated shopping list included straps used to tie down cargo on aircraft, compressed gas coolant for the radar systems on AWACS planes, and lubricant for aircraft engines.
The Defense Supply Center in Richmond, which focuses largely on aircraft parts and supplies, said it awarded contracts worth $266.9 million in March, up 23 percent from a year earlier.
In Fort Worth, the machine shop at Williams-Pyro Inc. has been working 80-hour weeks producing test devices for aircraft weapons systems, double the pace of just three months ago, chief executive Della Williams said. The company of 57 employees has expanded its workforce over the past few months to fill orders.
"Obviously our profits are going to increase tremendously," Williams said.
In Denton, Tex., Mayday Manufacturing Co. has experienced an increase in urgent military orders over the past several weeks for bushings and other aircraft parts, President Michael Nelson said. The number of rapid response orders is up tenfold, to about 50 or 60, Nelson said.
The financial impact on Mayday Manufacturing, which had about $11 million in sales last year, is modest -- a boost of as much as $300,000 over six months, Nelson said. The rapid-response orders since the war started represent about $25,000 in sales, he said. Since the war began, Mayday Manufacturing turned out an F-18 bushing in three days, Nelson said, compared with the usual eight weeks.
Increased Pentagon spending had a profound impact at Ace Clearwater Enterprises of Torrance, Calif., which during the war landed the biggest order in its 50-plus years: a $6 million deal to make spare parts for the Apache helicopter.
The contract had been in the works for about two years and was signed just days after dozens of Apaches were shot up on a mission in Iraq. The new order was for 1,000 infrared suppressors -- parts that cool helicopter exhaust to protect against heat-seeking missiles. The company, which employs about 172 people, planned to hire another six to increase production.
-------- iraq
Special forces find underground weapons base
By Tom Allard,
Sydney Morning Herald Correspondent in Doha
April 19 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/18/1050172758068.html
The Australian Defence Force says its special forces in Iraq have found more than 50 Soviet-made fighter jets, a chemical-proof bunker and a vast store of anti-aircraft guns and munitions at an Iraqi base west of Baghdad.
The Australian commander in Iraq, Brigadier Maurie McNarn, said troops had also found a French-made Roland anti-aircraft missile system, although it was too early to say when it was acquired and how.
He said secret dialogues with Iraqi air force commanders had played a large role in preventing those weapons being used against the coalition.
The coalition had bombed the base early in the war but the extent of the weapons cache was not revealed until SAS troops, commandos from the 4RAR battalion and specialists from the Incident Response Regiment searched the base last week.
The troops, 200 in all, came up against some armed resistance during the raid but soon secured control of the base.
"It was far more extensive than we first thought," Brigadier McNarn said.
The planes included 51 fully operational Soviet-made MiGs, including three advanced Foxbat MiG-25s.
Brigadier McNarn said the planes would have presented a serious threat to the coalition if they had been used.
However, the Iraqi air force never got off the ground during the conflict, giving the coalition freedom to bomb Iraqi troops and command bases.
"We established means of contacting some senior Iraqis and we also sent them some personal messages saying 'you really don't want to do this'," Brigadier McNarn said.
"We got some indications back through a number of the channels we set up ... that they didn't want to fight."
The commander said special forces had found an underground bunker that had been designed to withstand chemical and biological attacks and a training centre for handling weapons of mass destruction.
Brigadier McNarn said troops were continuing to explore the base for any weapons of mass destruction.
---
Half of Saddam's combat fighter force unearthed
By Neil Tweedie in Qatar and Toby Harnden in Washington
19/04/2003
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$WGKSXBVAOI005QFIQMFCFFOAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2003/04/19/wairf19.xml/
More than 50 fighter aircraft, anti-aircraft missiles and guns and huge amounts of ammunition have been found buried and hidden at a base in western Iraq.
The aircraft, many in good condition, included three Russian-made Mig 25s, one of the fastest fighters in the world. Some were buried, while others were concealed in buildings and under camouflage netting.
The find by Australian forces represents as much as half of Iraqi air combat power, and came as a fourth Iraqi from America's "most-wanted" list was handed over to US special forces by Kurdish fighters.
Australian Special Forces soldiers stand guard by a Mig fighter discovered in Western Iraq
The capture of Samir Abul Aziz al-Najim, a Ba'ath Party regional chairman for east Baghdad, was hailed by US commanders as another indication that coalition forces were making steady progress in rounding up fleeing members of Saddam Hussein's regime.
The find of 51 aircraft and ammunition was made after a force of 200 troops from the Australian SAS and 4th Battalion The Royal Australian Regiment seized the base after encountering only light resistance.
The airfield contained a tunnel system in which chemical warfare protective suits and antidotes were found. Search operations at the base, the location of which is being kept secret, were continuing yesterday.
The Iraqi air force, once one of the most formidable in the Arab world, failed to undertake a single operation during the war.
Brig Maurie McNarn, commander of Australian forces in the Middle East, said secret contacts with Iraqi air force commanders had played an important role in persuading them not to deploy their aircraft and weapons. "We established means of contacting some senior Iraqis and we also sent them some personal messages saying: 'You really don't want to do this.' "
Estimates before the war put the number of Iraqi combat aircraft at 100 to 300, but restrictions on importing spare parts or new aircraft in the 1990s are believed to have seriously harmed operational readiness.
The capture of Najim means that four out of 55 of Saddam's acolytes on the Americans' most-wanted list have been held. Najim was number 24 and the four of clubs in the deck of cards representing the fugitives issued to troops in Iraq.
Brig Gen Vincent Brooks of US Central Command said he had been located near Mosul: "We know that he certainly has an insight on how the Ba'ath Party central committee worked." He added that it appeared Najim had been sent to the north of the country to command military operations there.
On Thursday American forces captured Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, a half-brother of Saddam and former head of Iraqi intelligence service. The second of Saddam's three half-brothers, Watban Ibrahim Hasan, has also been captured. The fourth senior figure in custody is Amir Hamudi Hasan al-Sadi.
----
Children main victims of cluster bombs
A family from al-Nasiriyah find out first-hand of a new danger
By Richard Lloyd Parry,
April 19, 2003
UK Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-651852,00.html
NO ONE knows exactly where Hala Hassan and her brother, Ali, were playing when they found the squat brown cylinder lying on the ground.
The children, aged five and two, are too stunned to talk about it, and their father and mother were inside at the time.
In a poor city, they live in the poorest quarter of all, where the closest things to toys are bits of plastic scavenged from the rubbish that covers the muddy ground.
"They thought it was a kind of ball," said Hala's aunt, weeping. "They only wanted to play."
But the object picked up by the two children was a bomblet from an unexploded cluster bomb. It went off in the front yard, leaving a neat six-inch hole in the concrete floor.
Tiny fragments of shrapnel flew upwards into Hala's legs and into Ali's face. At least one of them is still lodged deep in his cheek. Their father clutches the screaming boy, weeping silently.
Callous though it sounds, they are lucky to be alive. Just the day before, three boys, aged between 7 and 14, were killed, and two injured in a similar tragedy just 500 yards away.
After a quarter of a century of dictatorship, 12 years of sanctions and one of the bloodiest battles of the three-week war, the people of liberated al-Nasiriyah face a new source of misery: unexploded American cluster bombs.
Al-Tadhiya slum is in the centre of al-Nasiriyah, but for the past month it has literally been a minefield.
Yesterday morning, within half a mile of the funeral tent where people were paying their respects to the families of the dead boys, at least eight cluster bombs, along with two unexploded mortar rounds, were visible.
Three were half-buried in the mud, three lay in rubbish next to a house and two were on a nearby roof. Each one is capable of killing, blinding and severing legs and arms. And these are only the ones which have been spotted.
Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, said in the House of Commons during the war that in certain situations cluster bombs are of great military use. Against moving targets, such as armoured columns, their scatter-gun effect is far more useful than conventional artillery. But in urban settings like this one the suffering they cause is incalculable.
A high proportion of the bomblets - some say one in ten, some a quarter - do not go off and lie where they fall, capable of exploding at any moment. At least one US Marine has been injured after tripping over an unexploded cluster bomb. Iraqis hate them. The US troops do not like them. They kill and maim children. So why have they been used?
The local people say that there were indeed Iraqi army units and Fedayin militia in this area, firing on the Americans. But why were cluster bombs, the least precise of all munitions, used against them, rather than aimed mortars and missiles? A nearby group of Marines on patrol suggest an answer.
Lance Corporal Matthew Gamel and Sergeant Jason Daniels have fought their way from Umm Qasr, past Basra and into al-Nasiriyah, and they do not welcome the continuing peacetime danger that the cluster bombs present. They explained the principle behind the weapons - the canister fired from a howitzer, that opens in the air releasing the bomblets; the "shaped charge" that punches a hole through armour; and the shrapnel that sprays anyone within range.
"They are a huge pain in the ass," the sergeant said. "The only way to get rid of them is to explode them one by one. What I heard is that they began using the cluster bombs because they ran out of high-explosives." It is easy to imagine: flustered artillery officers, under fire themselves, and under pressure to keep up the barrage which protects the lives of their own troops.
A sudden panic as the conventional shells run out - a hurried decision to load the cluster bombs. And now the harvest - the dozens of explosive toys, each lying in wait for its own Hala and Ali.
----
Iraqi cleric warns U.S. to leave before 'we force you out'
Barry James
IHT International Herald Tribune
Saturday, April 19, 2003
http://www.iht.com/articles/93772.html
Amid cheers at the Abu Haneefa Al Nu'man mosque in Baghdad, a leading cleric warned Americans on Friday to get out of Iraq before they are forced out, and thousands of people took to the streets crying "No to America, no to Saddam!"
As Shiite and Sunni Muslims prayed together for the first time since U.S. forces entered the city, the cleric, Ahmed al Kubeisy, used his sermon to attack what he called the U.S. occupation, telling the Americans, "you are the masters today, but I warn you against thinking of staying. Get out before we force you out."
Another cleric warned that "long queues of holy warriors" were lining up to fight the Americans.
Then the worshipers, joining a large crowd outside, marched peacefully, calling for unity among the country's Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish populations. "Our revolution is Islamic," they chanted, in the biggest nationalist demonstration in many years.
A large banner said: "Leave our country. We want peace."
A U.S. patrol was surrounded by part of the crowd and one of the soldiers, fingering his rifle, told people to back off, "or I'm going to shoot you."
An elderly woman shouted back: "We have our pride."
The Iraqi police, who have only just returned to duty, escorted the nervous Americans away from the crowd.
Also Friday, Abu Dhabi television broadcast a video purported to be of President Saddam Hussein, which it said was shot in Baghdad the day that Americans entered the city.
It showed him shaking hands and embracing people in a large crowd, and waving from the hood of an automobile as the crowd chanted, "with our blood and souls, we redeem you, Oh Saddam!" His son Qusay also appeared on the video as he was carried shoulder high by his supporters. The video intensified the rumors in Baghdad that Saddam is still alive.
Saddam has been known to send doubles to appear in his place and there was no way to be sure that the video was shot on the day the television station said it was. But if the recording was genuine, it was made two days after a U.S. bomber dropped four bunker-busting munitions on a restaurant where Saddam was thought to be.
Later, the station broadcast an audio recording that it said Saddam had made, calling on the Iraqis to resist American invasion.
Abu Dhabi TV said the video had been shot in the Al Azameyah district of Baghdad, a Saddam stronghold where U.S. troops fought with Iraqi forces around a mosque on April 11 after receiving reports that he was in the building.
Another senior figure on the American most-wanted list, the former oil minister, Samir Abd al Aziz al Najim, was handed to U.S. forces early Friday.
Questioning top members of Saddam's government is a key objective, because U.S. officials hope they may have information about the whereabouts of other Iraqi leaders as well as evidence about Iraq's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. Officials also are searching for evidence that the regime had links with international terrorism, specifically Al Qaeda.
Two top scientists were being questioned by the U.S. authorities, but it is unclear whether they are providing any useful information. Two of Saddam's half-brothers are among those have been detained.
Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, who enjoys the Pentagon's backing, returned to the capital for the first time since 1958 and said in a public appearance there that he expected an interim authority to be formed within a matter of weeks.
"An Iraqi interim authority will be chosen by Iraqis and take over the business of governing," Chalabi said, repeating that he did not plan to be a candidate.
Chalabi told reporters that after U.S.-$ led forces get essential services up and running in "weeks not months," an interim government would be formed to draft a constitution. This would be followed by democratic elections, he said.
"I expect this process to take not more than two years," he added.
Chalabi said that he believed President George W. Bush's assurance that the United States does not want to run Iraq for any longer than is necessary.
"The U.S. does not want to run Iraq" he said, adding that "Iraqi people will not be puppets to anyone."
Chalabi said the United Nations should have only a limited role in Iraq's future because it had been "less than helpful and dealt with Iraq under Saddam Hussein like it was a normal state. It did not recognize the seriousness of the oppression in Iraq."
And he alleged that although France and Germany had been liberated from the Nazis by the United States, they had behaved like "de facto allies of Saddam Hussein."
Ambassadors from the 15 nations on the UN Security Council were meeting informally in New York to discuss postwar issues such as the possible lifting of UN sanctions and a possible role for the world body in the rebuilding.
Foreign ministers from the countries surrounding Iraq met in Saudi Arabia for the first time since the United States and Britain began the war more than a month ago, and insisted that Iraq must remain independent of the United States.
The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al Faisal, said the ministers stressed that "Iraq is owned solely by the Iraqi people."
In Amman, the Jordanian prime minister, Ali Abu Ragheb, said power in Iraq "must be transferred to a credible Iraqi government, even if it is only transitory." This government must "represent the people of Iraq," and be elected by the people, not imposed by outsiders, he added.
The military situation scaled down, apart from the occasional skirmish. U.S. and British forces began releasing some of the thousands of prisoners of war they captured. A Pentagon spokesman said that more than 900 had been released.
Military officials in Doha said Australian special forces found 51 MiG fighter jets, plus armored vehicles, anti-aircraft weapons systems, and a French-made Roland anti-aircraft missile system at a military air base west of Baghdad. The planes had been buried or covered by trees to escape detection.
A spokesman said the troops had encountered light resistance, but that the operation was over quickly. No casualties were reported. About 200 Australian troops were searching the base for possible chemical or biological weapons, the spokesman added.
----
Top Iraqi Scientist Surrenders To U.S.
Capture May Aid Weapons Search
Associated Press
Saturday, April 19, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54955-2003Apr19?language=printer
An Iraqi scientist called the "father" of one of his country's nerve agent programs has turned himself in to American authorities, a U.S. official said yesterday.
U.S. officials have called Emad Husayn Abdullah Ani the father of Iraq's program to make the sophisticated nerve agent VX. His capture could be an important advance in the U.S. search for chemical and biological weapons inside Iraq.
U.S. officials also have accused Ani of involvement with an alleged chemical weapons plant in Sudan with links to al Qaeda.
Military officials said U.S. troops have found no chemical or biological weapons in their searches inside Iraq. No evidence of links between Iraq's government and the al Qaeda terrorist group has been found either, officials said.
If he cooperates, Ani may be able to provide information on both. He is not one of the "most wanted" Iraqis depicted in the deck of cards distributed by the Pentagon.
Ani was involved in Iraq's development of the nerve agent VX, one of the deadliest chemical weapons -- and a substance that is difficult to make. He once headed the research and development program at Iraq's Muthanna State Establishment, a key chemical weapons laboratory, and later headed Iraq's Fallujah 2 chemical weapons plant.
In 1998, U.S. officials said Ani had links with executives of the Shifa Pharmaceuticals plant in Khartoum, Sudan. Then-President Bill Clinton alleged that the plant was making a key precursor chemical used in manufacturing VX, a claim that was never independently substantiated.
U.S. officials said the Shifa executives who had contact with Ani also had ties to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. But they conceded they did not know if Ani or other Iraqis knew of Shifa's links to bin Laden, which the U.S. officials said were "fuzzy."
The United States destroyed the plant with cruise missiles shortly after al Qaeda bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Officials of the Shifa plant and Sudan's government denied it was involved in chemical weapons work.
At the time, Iraq's government denied Ani was working with Sudanese authorities and said he had never visited Sudan. That statement said Iraq never produced stable VX precursors, but U.N. weapons inspectors concluded Iraq had made tons of VX.
U.S. officials said they had electronically intercepted telephone calls between Ani and Shifa plant executives.
----
Troops find Baghdad stash: $650 million
Little-noticed cottages hold boxes of cash
David Zucchino,
Los Angeles Times \ San Francisco Chronicle
Saturday, April 19, 2003
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/19/MN12539.DTL
Baghdad -- Two Army sergeants went searching for saws Friday to clear away branches that were scraping their humvees. But they stumbled across a sealed-up cottage that aroused their curiosity -- and ultimately led to the discovery of an estimated $650 million in American cash.
The sergeants tore down a cinder-block and concrete barricade blocking the cottage door and found 40 sealed, galvanized aluminum boxes lined up neatly on the stone floor. Breaking open one box, they were stunned to discover 40 sealed stacks of uncirculated $100 bills -- $100,000 per stack, or $4 million in the box. In all, the 40 boxes were assumed to contained $160 million.
But there was more.
In a neighboring cottage in an exclusive Tigris River neighborhood where senior Baath Party and Republican Guard officials had lived, the sergeants found another 40 aluminum boxes assumed to contain another $160 million in currency. In a matter of minutes, they had uncovered $320 million in cash.
"I need to call my wife and tell her we were multimillionaires for about three seconds," Staff Sgt. Kenneth Buff said as he stood next to a box stuffed with sealed bundles of currency.
Their discovery set off a nighttime search of abandoned mansion estates tucked among parks and canals. By 11 p.m., soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division had found two more cottages containing at least 84 more boxes presumed to hold $336 million in cash, for a total of $656 million.
The loot apparently was hidden by fleeing Baath Party members and senior Republican Guard commanders who had lived in the wooded neighborhood just east of Saddam Hussein's presidential palace. Commanders scrambled to secure the scene overnight before word of the discoveries triggered a crush of fortune seekers.
Officials did not confirm immediately that the currency was legal tender, but an Army private who said he had worked for an armored car company examined the bills and called them genuine.
CASH GOES TO IRAQ
Taylor Griffin, a U.S. Treasury Department spokesman, offered assurances that any cash retrieved from Hussein's regime would be held aside for the people of Iraq. "If we find money and it's not counterfeit, any assets belonging to Saddam Hussein and his cronies will be returned to the Iraqis," Griffin said.
Soldiers of the division's 4th Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment were ordered to stop searching shortly before midnight after commanders discovered $600,000 missing from an opened box. Officers said the cash was recovered in a tree and three soldiers were questioned.
The cash boxes were loaded on trucks and escorted by military police to division headquarters at Baghdad's international airport for counting and security. Commanders said they did not know the ultimate disposition of the currency; cash recovered by the same battalion from a botched bank robbery Thursday was held for a transitional government being formed, officers said.
The staggering sums indicate the wealth accumulated by Hussein and his ruling elite. Searches of their luxurious homes in the 2-mile-long palace complex over the previous week had found pricey automobiles, private zoos, expensive liquor, a cabin cruiser, huge weapons caches and gilded furniture, but very little reported cash.
Officers said they did not know the source of the currency. Each aluminum box was sealed with metal rivets and hard plastic straps. Green tags read, in English and Arabic: "Jordan National Bank," followed by a serial number. That led to speculation among soldiers that the cash was payment by Jordan for the sale of Iraqi oil in violation of the United Nations' embargo on Iraq.
A former Iraqi government official who requested anonymity said the money almost certainly was stashed by members of the Baath Party's upper echelon, perhaps at the direction of Hussein himself or one of his two sons, Odai and Qusai.
The former official said Hussein's government received hard currency for almost all of the illicit oil smuggling that has provided a critical source of revenue not subject to U.N. oversight under its oil-for-food program.
At the time of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the former official said, the regime had accumulated a cash hoard of $4 billion to $6 bil-
lion.
"I suspect they have been stashing funds for some time just in case this war didn't go well. I'm sure that if they keep searching, they'll find lots of these galvanized . . . boxes all over the place," the former official said.
"It's either illicit money accumulated by Odai, who basically is in charge of the economy, trade, smuggling oil and what have you, or it was put there by the security people, who report to Qusai."
CURRENCY OF CHOICE
Cash has been the preferred medium for all off-the-books transactions in Iraq, because bank transactions have been monitored closely since the 1991 war,
the former Iraqi official said. To transfer funds out of Iraq, government officials physically would transport it to a friendly country, where it would be deposited in bank accounts and, if desired, transferred electronically to other locations.
Many of the 7-inch-thick $100,000 bundles were sealed in plastic shrink wrap and labeled "Boston series," "New York series" or "Richmond series," corresponding to the Federal Reserve Banks in those cities. The labels also listed the serial numbers of the bills, which were sequential new notes, many dated 1999 or 2001.
The 4th Battalion, whose soldiers discovered the hidden cash Friday, moved its command post from the presidential palace into a two-story mansion along the Tigris on Tuesday.
Since then, Buff said, he and other soldiers have driven past the cottages many times. But because the small structures were partially obscured by flowering trees and rose gardens, no one noticed their doors and windows had been sealed, apparently recently, by cinder blocks and cement.
"We all must have gone by there a hundred times," Buff said.
He and Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Van Ess said they stumbled on the cottages about 2:30 p.m. Friday when they got lost looking for a gardener's shack where Buff had seen two saws the day before. The sergeants had been ordered to cut down overhanging tree limbs that bang against passing humvees and trucks.
When they noticed the crudely built cinder-block and concrete barricades, they grabbed a crowbar and smashed through one of them. Inside the cottage, they found two small bedrooms with no furnishings, two well-scrubbed bathrooms and the 40 boxes of cash on the floor.
"We got suspicious because it just didn't seem right," Buff said. "We couldn't see any windows or door, but they had an air conditioner. It didn't add up."
When they pried open the first box, Van Ess said, "We were in shock. I think we'll be in shock for a while."
----
Thousands search for long-lost prisoners
By Stephen Farrell in Baghdad
April 19, 2003
UK Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-651571,00.html
IN THE subterranean gloom the cry goes up: "I see fingers, someone is in there." There is a cheer from the thousands of Iraqis crammed into the underpass in central Baghdad. They believe that rumours of a secret underground prison will prove true and that the dungeon will deliver up their long-lost relatives.
Among the sweating throng are hundreds of desperate Baghdadis searching for the disappeared: brothers, fathers and sisters snatched from their homes by the Mukhabarat and never seen again.
Some hold aloft pictures they took 15, 20, 25 years ago of young men with narrow waists and flared trousers, either executed long since or by now middle-aged men grown grey under incarceration.
"My brother. The Americans must use their technology to find my brother," goes the cry when a Westerner, any Westerner, is seen.
There is no prison. The rumoured dungeons are service tunnels occupied by nothing more than rats and a few old fruit boxes. The jail's existence is a Baghdad urban myth, sired by hope born of desperation and feeding on tales of inmates entombed beneath secret police headquarters.
Some myths are of underground chambers from which prison guards have fled; others of prisoners slowly drowning in basement torture chambers that have been flooded by broken water pipes.
Yet still the crowd persists. Impatient, a handful of young men drive a bus into the tunnel, parking it beneath the row of huge lights which illuminated the dark passage in better days. From the top of the bus the glass is torn away and a young child is pushed into the narrow passageway to see what lies inside.
Behind him goes Hashem Ibrahim, a 35-year-old Shia whose brother, Mohammed, disappeared in 1985 after he was led away by Saddam's secret police, accused of joining a banned Shia opposition party.
"He wasn't a member of any party - he was just praying in a Shia mosque, and this was during the Iran war when Saddam was suspicious of all Shias," Mr Ibrahim said.
"I have been looking for him ever since. Somebody told us there was a prison in Adamiyah and I went there but we didn't find anything."
As he speaks Haid Ahmed pushes his way to the front of the crowd, proffering a photograph of his missing brother, Moayed, an agricultural student last seen in June 1981. "We haven't been able to search for him until now, we were too scared even to try," Mr Ahmed, 32, said.
"My brother could be anywhere. This is just a possibility but any place I hear there is a prison, I go there. I have been to four prisons now and I am going to keep looking because my father and mother have asked me to. We have talked about him every day since he was taken. His life inside prison is now longer than his life outside. In my heart I think he is alive, but only God knows."
Talking to others reality stares them in the face, but they still refuse to accept it. Shaukat, an engineer, still holds his brother Ali's file that he seized from a deserted Iraqi security headquarters a week ago.
On it appear the words, in Arabic: "Executed criminal, accused of writing against Saddam Hussein."
Iraqi opposition groups claim that tens of thousands of people simply disappeared under Saddam's regime, but Shaukat is still looking. So are all the others in the underpass.
"My brother, my brother. . ."
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli forces move into Gaza camp
4/19/2003
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-04-19-israel-gaza_x.htm
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Dozens of Israeli tanks backed by attack helicopters pushed into the Rafah refugee camp Saturday, one of the largest military incursions into the Gaza Strip in 30 months of fighting, Palestinians said.
At least five Palestinians were killed, including a 15-year-old boy, doctors said. Witnesses said at least 35 people were wounded.
The incursion came as Palestinian leaders raced to meet a self-imposed deadline for a new Palestinian government - a key requirement toward unveiling a U.S.-backed peace plan.
Also Saturday, a cameraman for Associated Press Television News was shot and killed while filming clashes in which 17 Palestinians were wounded in the West Bank city of Nablus.
The incursion appeared to have targeted the Yibna neighborhood, one of two known militant strongholds in Rafah.
Israeli forces penetrated the camp from three directions using more than 35 tanks and armored personnel carriers, bulldozers and jeeps. Five attack helicopters circled overhead, flashing spotlights.
"I was sitting outside with some friends playing cards when suddenly we came under fire," said Marwan Khatib, 39, who lives in the camp.
The army knocked out electricity in part of the camp, witnesses said. Rafah Mayor Said Zourab said undercover soldiers raided homes and troops were in control of most of the camp.
Palestinians said ambulances could not enter the camp, and all the casualties had arrived at the hospital in private vehicles.
Rafah has been a flashpoint of tensions between Israeli troops and Palestinians. British peace activist Tom Hurndall, 21, was allegedly shot in the head by Israeli troops in Rafah on April 11. He remained in serious condition Saturday.
Hurndall was a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-backed group. The army has said it is investigating his shooting.
Another peace activist with the group - Rachel Corrie of Olympia, Wash. - died March 16 in Rafah trying to stop an Israeli bulldozer during a military incursion.
The operation in the refugee camp came hours after clashes in Nablus killed APTN cameraman Nazeh Darwazeh, 45, and wounded 17 others.
Doctors said Darwazeh died of a bullet wound to the head. Palestinian witnesses said he was shot by an Israeli soldier, while the military said there were exchanges of gunfire in the area and that it was not clear who was responsible for his death. Darwazeh was filming clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinians in Nablus.
The army said it was in Nablus looking for a would-be female suicide bomber and her recruiter, who troops arrested. Another two would-be suicide bombers were arrested elsewhere Saturday in the West Bank.
Darwazeh had worked for APTN for two years and leaves a wife and five children.
In a separate incident Saturday night, a Palestinian gunman infiltrated the Jewish settlement of Shaked in the northern West Bank, wounding two soldiers and a civilian, military officials said. Soldiers shot and killed the gunman.
Also Saturday, efforts to form a new Palestinian government ran into problems when the prime minister-designate, Mahmoud Abbas, stormed out of a meeting with Yasser Arafat and top aides, a Palestinian official said.
Abbas and Arafat have been at odds over the role of former Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan, who had been tapped by Abbas as minister of state for internal affairs, a position that would have some control over security matters. Arafat has suggested retaining incumbent Hani al-Hassan, a longtime aide.
After about an hour of discussions, Abbas left the meeting and threatened to resign unless his choices were accepted, a senior Palestinian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. But Abbas met later with lower-level Fatah officials.
President Bush has said a new Palestinian government must be in place before the unveiling of a U.S.-backed peace plan. The Palestinians have given themselves a deadline of Wednesday.
The U.S.-backed "road map" to peace calls for the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the cessation of violence by Palestinian militants and the creation of a Palestinian state with provisional borders.
--------
Cameraman killed in the West Bank
4/19/2003
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-04-19-cameraman-killed_x.htm
NABLUS, West Bank (AP) - A cameraman with Associated Press Television News was shot and killed Saturday while covering skirmishes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus.
Doctors said Nazeh Darwazeh, 43, died of a bullet wound to the head. Palestinian witnesses said he was shot by an Israeli soldier, while the military said there were exchanges of gunfire in the area and that it was not clear who was responsible for his death.
Darwazeh had worked for APTN for two years and leaves a wife and five children.
"Nazeh was a courageous cameraman who worked fearlessly to ensure that events in Nablus were reported internationally," said Nigel Baker, director of content for APTN. "We are demanding a full and speedy inquiry by the Israeli defense force to ensure that the cause of this needless death is established."
"The AP family feels the deepest sorrow over the loss of this skilled and brave colleague and profound sympathy for his wife and children," said AP president and CEO Louis D. Boccardi. "Covering hostilities and conflict has never been more dangerous and difficult - as we have been reminded most recently in Iraq."
On Saturday morning, Darwazeh was filming clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinians in downtown Nablus. In the confrontation stretching across several streets, dozens of Palestinians threw stones and several firebombs at Israeli armored vehicles, and at least two Palestinian gunmen were seen shooting. Troops fired toward the stonethrowers, and 17 Palestinians were wounded, doctors said. The back of one of the armored vehicles caught fire before driving off.
In one area, an armored vehicle got stuck at the top of a flight of steps in an alley, its front touching the wall of a house.
Video footage showed a man with a rifle in green combat fatigues kneeling down between the armored personnel carrier and the wall of the house at the top of the alley. Witnesses identified the man as an Israeli soldier.
Three different sequences - taken by Reuters, by local Nablus TV and by Darwazeh himself - suggest it was the man who fired the shot that killed Darwazeh; it remains unclear, however, whether he had taken aim at the journalists and whether shots had been fired at the tank from down the steps.
Video footage taken by a Reuters cameraman showed several young Palestinian men running up the alley toward the tank and throwing stones at the vehicle.
The footage showed the man in fatigues pointing his weapon down the alley where Darwazeh and Reuters cameraman Hassan Titi were standing near a doorway. A small puff of smoke - typical of a shot being fired from a gun - was then seen, and a shot was heard. In the next shot, Darwazeh was seen lying in a doorway in a pool of blood; it was not clear how much time had passed between the two images.
In the Nablus TV footage, the camera follows the evacuation of a Palestinian man, who had been wounded earlier, down the stairs, turns back to the top of the stairs and shows the man near the tank shooting - then shows Darwazeh on the ground.
Darwazeh's own camera had turned away from the tank - like Nablus TV, following the wounded man's evacuation - and then the shot is heard, off-camera, and the camera falls.
Reuters photographer Abdel Rahim Quesini said there were five photographers in the group that had been filming the clashes.
At the time of the shooting, several stonethrowers were standing near the journalists, Titi said.
Titi and Darwazeh had been wearing bright yellow vests that said "press."
"A soldier came from under the tank and shot towards us," said Titi. Another witness, Sami al Assi, a cameraman with a local TV station, said, "The Israelis shot him and aimed specifically at us."
Maj. Sharon Feingold, an Israeli army spokeswoman, said a preliminary investigation showed that troops trying to rescue the tank "came under massive stone throwing and there were explosive devices and shots were fired from the crowd."
In the Nablus TV footage, several shots are heard shortly before the one that apparently hit Darwazeh, but it is not clear where they come from; in Darwazeh's footage, shots are seen bouncing off the wall over the impeded tank, and they appear to have been fired from further down the street - not from the alley.
Palestinian witnesses said they were certain no shots were fired from the alley.
Feingold insisted that shots were fired by Palestinians but said she did not know whether they came from the street above, where the armored vehicles were trying to pass, or from the alley below, where the journalists and the stonethrowing youths were.
"We used crowd-dispersing, non-lethal weapons - rubber bullets, stun grenades - and when that failed they used light weapons," Feingold said. "Media people knowingly place themselves in dangerous combat situations, putting our soldiers in danger and putting themselves in danger."
The purpose of the Israeli raid had been the arrest of a would-be female suicide bomber and her recruiter, Feingold said. She said both were captured.
Dr. Hussam Johari of the Rafidieh Hospital said Darwazeh died from a bullet wound that entered above the right eye and tore away part of his skull.
About 4,000 people attended the funeral as Darwazeh's body, wrapped in Palestinian flag, was carried through Nablus later Saturday.
Darwazeh, who was born and raised in Nablus, is survived by his wife, Naela, and by five children ranging in age from 4 months to 11 years.
Darwazeh is the 27th AP journalist to die in the line of duty since the news cooperative was founded since 1848. He is the fifth television cameraman or producer to be killed since AP created its news video service in 1994.
The conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories remains one of the world's most dangerous assignments for journalists. Three have been killed in the last year alone.
Raffaele Ciriello, an Italian freelance photographer, was killed March 13 in Ramallah by Israeli gunfire, according to reports by journalists and witnesses. Ciriello was the first foreign journalist killed while covering the current Palestinian uprising, which began in September 2000.
Imad Abu Zahra, a Palestinian freelance photographer was killed by army gunfire July 12 in the West Bank city of Jenin, witnesses said.
Issam Tillawi, a reporter for the Voice of Palestine, died Sept. 22 in Ramallah. Tillawi, a journalist and program host for the official Palestinian Authority radio station, was shot in the head by Israeli gunfire during protests.
The military said at the time that Tilawi was among demonstrators who clashed with soldiers. In all three cases it has said it unclear who fired the fatal shots.
-------- mideast
Syria Bans Iraqis Without Visas
April 19, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Syria-US.html
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Syria has banned Iraqis without visas from entering the country, airline sources confirmed Saturday, an apparent effort to counter U.S. charges that it is sheltering former members of Saddam Hussein's regime.
The move was another sign that Syria seeks to ease tensions with Washington ahead of an expected visit by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
After days of harsh allegations from the Bush administration, U.S. officials said Thursday that Syria was reacting positively to complaints that it harbors members of the ousted Iraqi government, turning some Iraqis away at the border and possibly preparing to quietly expel others. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
Washington also has accused Damascus of having chemical weapons and sponsoring terrorism -- both of which Syria denies.
Syria quietly issued a directive last Monday banning the entry of any Iraqi who did not already hold a visa. Previously, visas could be obtained at airports or border crossings upon arrival.
The new rules became apparent Friday after two Iraqis were prevented in Cairo, Egypt from boarding a Syrian Airlines flight to Damascus because they did not have visas. Syrian airport officials confirmed the rule change Saturday.
Lebanon started enforcing similar rules shortly before the war began March 20, security officials at the Beirut airport said Saturday.
Also Saturday, a top Lebanese official said he was optimistic that Powell's planned visit would help ease the crisis.
``I don't see Powell's visit to Syria as part of exerting more pressure on Damascus, but rather as part of a dialogue, which is the best way to ... defuse tension and eliminate misunderstanding,'' Information Minister Michel Samaha told The Associated Press.
Syria has been the main power broker in Lebanon since 1990 when Syrian forces intervened to end a 15-year civil war. It still has 20,000 troops in the country and wields enormous influence over the government's decision-making.
Samaha said any U.S. economic or diplomatic sanctions imposed on Syria as a result of the tensions were likely to have negative effects in Lebanon too.
In another conciliatory gesture, the Al-Thawra government newspaper ran an unusually moderate editorial Saturday saying Syria is cooperating with the United States on many levels and trying to bring stability to the region.
It referred to Syria's recent proposal for a U.N. resolution on eliminating biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in the region.
``Isn't he who calls and works for lifting all weapons of mass destruction from an important region such as the Middle East standing with the United States and not against it as U.S. President George Bush says?'' the editorial asked.
``Isn't he who fights against terrorism that sheds the blood of children and women, usurps their lands and rights and disperses them from their homeland standing alongside America and not confronting it?''
The U.N. resolution was aimed at Israel, which is widely believed to have nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, three U.S. congressmen arrived in Damascus for talks Sunday with President Bashar Assad on the ``road map'' Middle East peace plan prepared jointly by the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.
Reps. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., are on a Mideast tour that has also taken them to Palestinian territories and Jordan.
Rahall said they will discuss with Assad ``the current situation in the region on the basis of our friendship with him over a number of years.''
-------- nato
NATO role in Iraq could impede Afghanistan mission, Ottawa
Sheldon Alberts, Deputy Ottawa Bureau Chief salberts@nationalpost.com
National Post
Saturday, April 19, 2003
http://www.nationalpost.com/national/story.html?id=4CE727E2-0F4D-4F9F-A158-BCF8BBE61DEB
OTTAWA - John McCallum, the Minister of National Defence, is warning NATO against taking on a peacekeeping role in post-war Iraq because it could hamper the military alliance's ability to take command of a key mission in Afghanistan later this year.
In an interview with the National Post, Mr. McCallum applauded NATO's decision this week to assume responsibility for running the international stabilization force in Kabul, where Canada is deploying 1,500 troops this summer.
But he questioned a U.S. idea to have NATO, rather than the United Nations, run future peacekeeping operations in Iraq.
"NATO has been seized with Afghanistan and this was a great effort, culminating in the successful announcement we just had this week," Mr. McCallum said.
"From a selfish Canadian point of view, NATO has limited capacity. NATO can't do everything. So we are very happy that NATO has made this commitment to Afghanistan. If NATO were to make commitments to many other parts of the world, that might dilute NATO's ability to take on Afghanistan."
Mr. McCallum said he will travel in late May to Kabul for meetings with Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan, to assess the country's needs in advance of the Canadian troop deployment.
He will also meet on May 5 in Ottawa with Peter Struck, Germany's Defence Minister, to finalize details of a plan that would see German troops share peacekeeping duties with Canada in Kabul.
NATO agreed on Wednesday to take command of the UN peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.
It is the largest mission NATO has ever launched outside of its traditional area of operations in Europe.
"This is a major decision for NATO. It is out of area. It shows NATO continues to be relevant," Mr. McCallum said. "The fact that NATO has taken this step to commit itself in that part of the world, out of its region, is of major general significance as well as importance to Canada, because we happen to be going there."
Mr. McCallum announced in February that Canada would send two rotations of 1,500 soldiers to Kabul for a one-year period.
Ottawa has been in negotiations with Germany to provide the remaining troops in the 4,600-strong military contingent.
The Defence Minister said it is unclear whether NATO will be able to assume command by the time Canadian troops deploy to Kabul, likely in late August.
NATO will send military personnel to run the military headquarters and provide a military commander to run the operation.
Under current plans, Canada would likely provide the deputy commander for the Kabul force, or the commander of the mission's brigade headquarters, Mr. McCallum said.
Canada's contribution will include a battle group of infantry soldiers and several hundred personnel for a brigade-level headquarters.
"I think Afghanistan is a place where Canada can make a difference, where we have some sort of critical mass," Mr. McCallum said.
"It is by no means easy. It certainly is not a cakewalk. It is dangerous, but I think it involves the kinds of things that our people are very good at: negotiations on the spot; dealing with people of different cultures in an empathetic but still firm manner."
Military sources have said Canada is having difficulty finding enough soldiers in such specialized trades as field ambulance and air-traffic control to send to Kabul.
Mr. McCallum said NATO's decision to assume command of the mission should ease the burden on Canada.
Colin Powell, the U.S. Secretary of State, has mused about the possibility of NATO taking on a peacekeeping role in Iraq now that Saddam Hussein's regime has been toppled. Daniel Coats, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, said this week NATO would be more suitable for peacekeeping in the Iraq than the UN.
NATO nations have not officially discussed a possible contribution to Iraq, but George Robertson, the alliance's Secretary-General, has said many countries "strongly favour" some role in the nation.
Canada has already ruled out taking on major military duties in post-war Iraq because of its commitment to Afghanistan.
But Mr. McCallum said some of Canada's Hercules transport planes -- which are currently in the Persian Gulf area as part of the war on terrorism -- could be reassigned to carry humanitarian aid to Iraqis.
"What I have ruled out is a significant or substantial number of people in Iraq," Mr. McCallum said. "That doesn't rule out some effort in Iraq ... but the lion's share of Canada's contribution in Iraq will be non-military."
-------- pakistan / india
Indian Army to raise US-type Special Forces
Aditya Sinha, New Delhi
April 19, 2003
Hindustan Times
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_237416,0008.htm
The successful US military campaign in Iraq has had an immediate impact on India. Army Chief N.C. Vij has ordered the raising of special operations forces, along the lines of the US Special Forces, for offensive operations in enemy territory.
Like their American counterpart, the Indian Special Forces will be small, flexible groups, under the direct command of the regional army commander, and will undertake specialised missions designed to have a political or strategic impact.
In December, the Cabinet Committee on Security had approved the raising of four battalions of special forces, but only for counter-insurgency work. After watching the US assault on Iraq, Vij has decided to raise four more battalions to work outside India.
For this Vij recently ordered the Directorate of Military Operations and the Army Training Command to study the recent US campaigns and work out a doctrinal underpinning for India's Special Forces. They will work out a detailed blueprint on how India could best use such forces. A task force is on the job.
Special forces are different from commandos. Each infantry battalion in Kashmir has a 'kharkoo' platoon, i.e., about 100 commandos (a battalion has about 1,200 soldiers).
These commandos, however, are a part of the battalion, which acts like a bloc under a brigade. The commandos are designed to do specific tasks for their battalion during conventional warfare. For example, during a battle, a battalion may be asked to take a bridge. It will deploy its commandos for the difficult aspects of that mission.
The Special Forces, on the other hand, will work as small groups and be directly tasked by the commander-in-chief of the Northern Command. They will be assigned independent missions that have nothing to do with conventional warfare.
Like their US counterparts they will infiltrate into enemy territory before a military campaign begins. They can hypothetically conduct raids across the Line of Control, or more specifically, capture Pakistani pickets.
The training for India's Special Forces will be undertaken in close coordination with Israel. India will also like the help of the US Special Forces command, though it is very different. The US military operates outside its country, whereas India's army is primarily defensive.
Lastly, the army will study coordination with intelligence agencies. The US Special Forces had good synergy with the CIA in Iraq and Afghanistan. Though the RAW does not have comparable resources, it will have to maximise the effectiveness of India's Special Forces.
STUDYING THE IRAQ WAR
Army Training Command
Agency for planning and training. Looking at doctrinal underpinning for special forces
Defence Services Staff College
Trains captains and majors. Almost all the officers in the next batch are expected to prepare their dissertations on the Iraq war
College of Defence Management
Will look at how much the US campaign cost, and who footed the bill. Will also scrutinise the greater interplay between the US state and defence departments
National Defence College
With a heavy dose of civilians, will look at how the civil administration dealt with various aspects of the war
-------- un
IRAN - First U.N. aid convoy crosses into Iraq
World Scene
April 19, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030419-4309223.htm
TEHRAN - A U.N. aid convoy carrying drinking water for parched Iraqis drove into Iraq from Iran yesterday, the first time such aid crossed the border since the two countries fought a war in the 1980s.
A U.N. official said 11 trucks carrying about 25,000 gallons of drinking water supplied by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) crossed the frontier at Shalamcheh in southwestern Khuzestan province.
The convoy was bound for the city of Faw, not far from Iraq's second city of Basra, where the water would be given to a local religious leader for distribution to the population.
-------- propaganda wars
Double standards in reporting casualties
By Pascale Combelles Siegel,
Asia Times,
April 19, 2003
(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus - http://www.fpif.org)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED19Ak02.html
The war in Iraq has highlighted how reporting on casualties during an armed conflict is a sensitive issue. In the United States, a norm has developed that immediate family members should not have to learn through the media of their loved one's death in a military operation. Since the war in Vietnam, another norm also has developed: that US blood is rarely shown. Few US wounded or dead appear in digital color on our TV screens.
These US norms underlie much of the outrage at independent Arab television al-Jazeera satellite channel's broadcast of images of US dead and prisoners of war. But this outrage masks a potentially more serious issue that should concern all citizens: Have the US media been so wrapped in the flag of late that they have lost objectivity and are undercutting the informed nature of its citizenry?
One look at the inconsistent application of the norms over the past decade raises the suspicion that the answer to that question is affirmative.
In 1993, for example, our media took the risk of widely showing grisly war images of US casualties abroad. US forces had been in Somalia just under a year and were several months into a campaign to track down and capture faction leader Mohamed Farah Aideed. As immortalized in the award-winning motion picture Black Hawk Down, their October 3 raid did not go as planned, with 18 dead, 70 wounded and one captured American and an unconfirmed number of Somali victims.
In a taste of the globalization of information technology, US networks received video from Somalis. The first video showed a crowd of angry Somalis chanting and dancing around the body of a dead US soldier. Debate raged in US newsrooms over using the pictures. Serious concerns weighed against running the video: It would be insensitive to the victim's family; it could exacerbate fears of other families and the military community; and it would play into the hands of Aideed's propaganda machine.
CNN, other networks and the print media pondered these issues and determined that their utmost obligation was to keep people informed. The images were deemed to carry invaluable information and to show the reality of war. Therefore, they ran on all networks throughout the day of their release. Meanwhile, most newspapers printed photos of the incident on their front pages, although mainly in black and white, to dampen their impact.
The next day the nightmarish coverage heightened when CNN aired a tape provided by Aideed's faction. The tape was of captured US army captain, Michael Durant, a Black Hawk pilot. It showed him severely beaten. The tape, although made for propaganda purposes, was broadcast throughout the day in the US. America's objective journalists had plastered the airwaves with video of a beaten US soldier, provided by the captors, with no mention that this filming might violate the Geneva Convention's terms banning the use of prisoners for propaganda purposes.
But a decade later, in the war with Iraq, major media shunned similar war footage. Several days into the war, al-Jazeera aired a six-minute tape showing four dead US soldiers and five prisoners of war. All were members of the 507th maintenance unit that Iraqi forces had ambushed near Nasariya. This broadcast led to vitriolic reaction from the Pentagon - and then the US press - as an outrage, immoral, and a breach of the Geneva Convention.
The US networks agreed to a Pentagon request to hold onto the tape until families could be notified. (When approached, al-Jazeera agreed as well to delay further broadcasts until after notification.) After family notifications, broadcasts to US viewers provided only limited portions of the tape showing the prisoners. These broadcasts almost uniformly were accompanied by commentary that the Iraqis violated the Geneva Convention. However, the portion of the tape showing the four dead bodies never reached the mainstream US audience. One predictable exception was media critic Matt Drudge's website, which carried the video in its entirety. During the process, the networks, it seems, collectively decided that the US public is not mature enough to endure images reflecting the grim realities of combat.
Veteran correspondent Ted Koppel disagreed with the decision, arguing that death, destruction and warfare are consubstantial and that people are entitled to make their own choices about seeing that reality. But the prevalent media opinion was certainly different: The pictures were said to be simply "too gruesome" to be shown to the public. ABC's Charles Gibbons argued that showing the inhumanity portrayed by the tape served no purpose and that airing the prisoner segment was a violation of the Geneva Convention. On CNN, Aaron Brown chastised al-Jazeera's Washington bureau chief for choosing to broadcast the entire segment. In response, the bureau chief argued that US media outlets displayed double standards, willing to show Iraqi prisoners of war and casualties or dead Somalis, but not images of the US's own.
The networks should be commended for thinking about the consequences of airing that specific segment. Airing propaganda pieces has military and political implications. Both Aideed and Iraq sought to shatter the US's will to fight by exposing its dead soldiers and prisoners of war. In each case, the networks could play into the enemy's hands when deciding whether to show the pictures. So why the difference in their decisions then and now?
In 1993, the government did not firmly lead, while the nation was divided over the operation and whether it was worth US lives. Today, although somewhat divided as evidenced by anti-war protests, the nation is being strongly led and little tolerance exists for public questioning of the US military. Amid advice that not being patriotic enough will be bad for business, US media outlets seem to be competing for a place among the most patriotic news sources.
This raises a fundamental question as to the nature of journalism in a free and democratic society. Should US will and casualty tolerance be the deciding factor of journalists striving for objectivity? What is the role of an objective media? Is it to broadcast uncritically, no matter the source? Clearly it is not. Is it to follow guidance from the US government and wave the flag? One hopes it is not. But that is what we have seen recently in regards to the casualty footage.
Through their coverage, the US media are undercutting their standing as an objective source of news and are undermining the basis for American democracy, with implications for years to come. While democracy relies on an informed public, US media outlets today appear more as tools of the US government's perception management campaign than objective sources of reports and analysis of the world situation. The United States - and the world - will suffer from this fall from the pedestal of journalistic ideals.
Pascale Combelles Siegel is an independent defense analyst. She has worked for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the National Defense University and the Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique in Paris.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- torture
Scars Document Torture by Hussein Regime
By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 19, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53372-2003Apr18?language=printer
BASRA, Iraq, April 18 -- Anwar Abdul Razak said both his ears were cut off. Saad Abdul Wahab said his jailers placed electrodes on his navel to administer shocks. Nabil Abdul Ali said his shoulders were dislocated and an electric wire was wrapped around his genitals and attached to a hand-cranked machine. Zuhair Kubba said he was hung upside down and beaten with an iron rod.
Former prisoners of ousted president Saddam Hussein's government are everywhere in Basra, standing on street corners waiting for water, rummaging through papers in the headquarters of the once feared secret police, sitting quietly at home on a hot afternoon. These are the tortures they describe, and more: a prisoner forced to sit on a heated metal stove, electric shocks applied to genitals, a small blade used to slash a prisoner's back. Even doctors became torturers; they cut off army deserters' ears. Servants of the system fell victim to it, too: police officers and prison guards arrested, tortured, then sent back to work.
In more than two dozen interviews since the British military entered Basra April 6 and Hussein's Baath Party government collapsed in Baghdad three days later, former prisoners recounted in minute detail stories of torture in the city's prisons. In most cases, there are no documents to verify their accounts, only the scars on their bodies and the corroboration of relatives and neighbors. The accumulation of their experiences, however, provides insight into how the Baghdad government kept control here in the capital of Iraq's Shiite-inhabited south, where periodic rebellions against Hussein's Sunni-dominated Baath Party have broken out and been suppressed.
A major challenge to Hussein's rule arose here during the 1980-88 war with neighboring Iran. Iranian-sponsored subversion had helped set off the war, raising fears that Iraq's 60 percent Shiite majority would break away from Baghdad's secular rule. Militant fellow Shiites had just taken power in Iran's 1979 revolution and seemed intent on spreading their revolt into the Arab world.
Then in 1991, after the Persian Gulf War, an open Shiite rebellion briefly shoved aside Hussein's central government, until the Shiite rebels were put down with overwhelming force and Baghdad's security forces set out to suppress any further dissent.
Many missing men sought by family members were arrested after 1991. In 1994, a flood of army desertions across the country caused Hussein to issue a decree ordering deserters' ears cut off, and that order appears to have been carried out with particular ferocity here. In 1999, another uprising swept Basra and the cities of the south after Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq Sadr, a prominent Shiite cleric in the holy city of Najaf, was gunned down with his two sons in an assassination blamed on government operatives.
The interviews suggest that torture became widespread as the uprisings were contained and that the abuse often continued until a confession was extracted and a sentence imposed. Many prisoners and former Baath Party officials said such torture was encouraged by system of financial incentives. The goal, said numerous prisoners, was to extract a confession that the prisoner opposed Hussein and the Baath Party.
Torture was considered so routine that many former prisoners shrugged at first when asked about it. "Of course, they tortured me. Beating people here is something regular," said Maithem Naji.
Naji said he was arrested and jailed for 42 days because he spoke with U.N. representatives who came by his house in the Basra suburb of Abu Khasib for a few minutes in 1998. After he got out, he joined the Baath Party because it was the only way to get a job. He ended up as a guard at a party headquarters.
In almost every case, the allegations of torture were part of a broader story of arrests, disappearances, executions and destroyed homes affecting the Shiite families of Basra. Some of those arrested acknowledged that they had taken active part in fighting against the Iraqi government. Others said they were rounded up because they were Shiite or because a family member was under suspicion.
"It's a prison in Iraq," said Arif Othman, an army deserter who said he fought in the 1991 uprising, then escaped to Iran, while his father and brother were arrested. He returned to Iraq in 1998 after believing there was a general amnesty, and was arrested and tortured. "It happens to all people." His Hands Still Tremble
Nabil Abdul Ali was one of them. He is 30 years old now and his hands shake.
After the 1999 uprising, Baath Party officials and secret police came to his home to arrest his brother Aziz, a student they accused of participating in the uprising. Two days later, they came back for Abdul Ali's father, Abdul Karim. A week or so after that, a bulldozer arrived and destroyed their home, which still lies in ruins in Abu Khasib.
The rest of the family -- 11 people in all -- fled north to an uncle's house in Karbala. The security forces caught up with them there. All 11 were arrested, including his mother and two sisters, his two brothers' wives and two young children, ages 6 months and 1 year.
For 10 days, Abdul Ali said, they stayed at the security department in Karbala. "I was tortured the worst," Abdul Ali said. "Look at how I am trembling."
Then they were transferred to police security headquarters in Basra, where they stayed for another 35 days, "and there was the same torture all over again." Abdul Ali said he was targeted because he was closest in age to his brother Aziz. He said the torture usually happened overnight: two hours of it, then an hour off, then another two hours.
Sometimes, Abdul Ali recalled, he had his hands tied behind his back, and then he was hung in such a way as to dislocate his shoulders. Sometimes, they used electricity on him. On his penis and under his nails. Ali demonstrated how it worked, making at hand-crank motion as he explained that the wire to the electricity machine was wrapped around his genitals.
And sometimes, they threatened to abuse his family's women in front of him. "They used to tell me I'm going to get your sister and your mother right now and take off their clothes in front of you," he said.
They asked him about his brother and whether he had participated in the 1999 uprising. "I used to give them information to stop the torture," he said, "to make up stuff, anything to stop this." He said he hoped the information had not been used as a reason to execute his brother. "They need a confession from the person himself. They know that because of all this torture, people will lie," he said.
Eventually, the family was taken to a prison in Basra known as the Jail for Adult Re-Education because it used to house a school for adult education. There were many other entire families there, Abdul Ali said, and there they were reunited with his father, Abdul Karim.
He had been with Aziz. He told them he had been tortured himself and had seen Aziz tortured in front of him. He told them that he had been forced to lie about Aziz, to give false evidence against him. "My father used to accuse himself and shame himself because he talked about his son," Abdul Ali recalled.
They were reunited for a month and a half before his father got sick. He was taken to the hospital and he died the next day, Abdul Ali said.
On Oct. 14, 1999, the rest of the family was released as part of a general pardon issued by Hussein. Before they left, each one had to put a fingerprint on a document swearing never to act against the Baath Party or the government and never to tell what had happened to them in prison. The punishment for disobeying would be execution.
Until this week, they never knew what had happened to Aziz. On Monday, Abdul Ali went to the Jumhuriyah Mosque in Basra on a tip from others searching for missing relatives. It was about 1 p.m. He found a handwritten list with 147 names on it. Number 20 was Aziz's.
The document was a "list of the names of the accused who admitted to participating in the situation of March 18, 1999." It said that "sentence has been pronounced in the name of the people on the criminals by our headquarters."
To the men at the mosque, that was proof of their execution. "When I saw my brother's name," Abdul Ali said, "I passed out." 'Of Course