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NUCLEAR
Frequently Asked Chernobyl Questions
USEC Sets Supply Deal with Exelon
SRS ships out last of uranium
Iran Says Its Has No Hidden Nuclear Facilities
Iran Open to More Nuclear Monitoring
Iran asks US to stop using 'language of force'
''Mobile lies''
Iran agrees Iraq hid arms
Perricos Named New U.N. Inspector on Iraq
Blix Defends Inspectors' Credibility
Japan, Citing Safety Concerns, Detains North Korea Ships
Pyongyang spells out need for nuclear arms
'Nuclear Deterrent' Threatened
North Korea Says It Seeks to Develop Nuclear Arms
US plays matchmaker to India, Israel
Senate OKs Billions for Nuclear Power
A testimonial "In Memory of Gary Colley"
KUCINICH ON HOUSE FLOOR: CREDIBILITY GAP IS GROWING
Jim Jeffords: 'Declaring Independence'
Source, quoting Bush: 'We have a problem with Sharon'
Big Bush offer to buy Pak nod to Israel
MILITARY
Karzai blames outsiders for attack
U.S. Troops Kill Four in Afghanistan
The Pentagon's paradigm shift in Asia
Northrop to Pay $111 Million to Settle Suit
Watchdog Groups Slam Boeing Lease Deal
Lockheed Martin Sues Boeing Over Contract
Possible Military Move East Makes Czechs Uneasy
NORWEGIAN 'NO' TO WAR STRENGTHENED
Iraq's children bear brunt of unexploded munitions
U.S. Soldiers Face Growing Resistance
IRAQ - Paper lists names of Saddam's victims
Lifting Iraqi Embargo after 2 million Deaths
Three Iraqis killed in ammunition facility blast
Assistance to reporter imperiled key contact
Exile leader says information on Iraq's weapons program was accurate
ISRAEL AGREES TO 'TOLERABLE' LEVEL OF ATTACKS
Abbas Says He Will Use Persuasion, Not Force
Israeli DM: Arafat likely to be expelled
Israeli Rocket Attack Wounds Hamas Leader
Abbas denounces attacks as Powell pleads for road map
Linda S. Heard: USS Liberty: How past relates to the future
Palestinian PM Says Israel Sabotages Peace Process
Putin snubs Israeli foreign minister over Iran
Rumsfeld Discusses NATO Membership With Albanians
Guantanamo Eyes Possible Execution Chamber
Chechen violence helps Putin's hand
Soros's Mission In Russia Ends, $1 Billion Later
Hoodwinked
Who's Accountable?
Iraq's Weapons, Our Intelligence (4 Letters)
Guard, Reserve short on recruits
The ever-growing US military footprint
Skepticism mounting about motive for war
Bush defends Saddam terror link claim
CIA had doubts on Iraq link to al-Qaida
Weapon threat not the motive for war, ex-spy says
All hail to the pods
New Reports Implicate Soldiers in Death of Journalists
U.S. Confronts EU On War Crimes Court
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Court allows veterans to reopen chemical cases
Supreme Court evenly split in Agent Orange case
Virus Targeting Banks
Grenade Seized At Union Station
U.S.: High Chance of al - Qaida WMD Attack
ENERGY AND OTHER
Thailand to grow more palm for alternative fuel
Wasted Energy
Perilous natural gas shortage
Environmental consequences of war loom large
Former senator speaks on breast cancer
ACTIVISTS
U.N. Diplomat Meets Detained Burmese Activist
Text of speech to the 'Take Back America' Conference
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Frequently Asked Chernobyl Questions
From: Karl Johanson <karljohanson@shaw.ca>
Date: Tue Jun 10, 2003 1:59 pm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NucNews/message/11019
1. What caused the Chernobyl accident?
ChernobylOn April 26, 1986, the Number Four RBMK reactor at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine, went out of control during a test at low-power, leading to an explosion and fire that demolished the reactor building and released large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. Safety measures were ignored, the uranium fuel in the reactor overheated and melted through the protective barriers. RBMK reactors do not have what is known as a containment structure, a concrete and steel dome over the reactor itself designed to keep radiation inside the plant in the event of such an accident. Consequently, radioactive elements including plutonium, iodine, strontium and caesium were scattered over a wide area. In addition, the graphite blocks used as a moderating material in the RBMK caught fire at high temperature as air entered the reactor core, which contributed to emission of radioactive materials into the environment.
2. How many people died as an immediate result of the accident?
The initial explosion resulted in the death of two workers. Twenty-eight of the firemen and emergency clean-up workers died in the first three months after the explosion from Acute Radiation Sickness and one of cardiac arrest.
3. How many people were evacuated?
EvacuationThe entire town of Pripyat (population 49,360), which lay only three kilometres from the plant was completely evacuated 36 hours after the accident. During the subsequent weeks and months an additional 67,000 people were evacuated from their homes in contaminated areas and relocated on government order. In total some 200,0000 people are believed to have been relocated as a result of the accident.
4. What are the major health effects for exposed populations?
Thyroid scan on childrenThere have been at least 1800 documented cases of thyroid cancer children who were between 0 and 14 years of age when the accident occurred., which is far higher than normal. The thyroid gland of young children is particularly susceptible to the uptake of radioactive iodine, which can trigger cancers, treatable both by surgery and medication. Health studies of the registered cleanup workers called in (so-called "liquidators") have failed to show any direct correlation between their radiation exposure and an increase in other forms of cancer or disease. The psychological affects of Chernobyl were and remain widespread and profound, and have resulted for instance in suicides, drinking problems and apathy.
5. What radioactive elements were emitted into the environment?
There were over 100 radioactive elements released into the atmosphere when Chernobyl's fourth reactor exploded. Most of these were short lived and decayed (reduced in radioactivity) very quickly. Iodine, strontium and caesium were the most dangerous of the elements released, and have half-lives of 8 days, 29 years, and 30 years respectively. The isotopes Strontium-90 and Caesium-137 are therefore still present in the area to this day. While iodine is linked to thyroid cancer, Strontium can lead to leukaemia. Caesium is the element that travelled the farthest and lasts the longest. This element affects the entire body and especially can harm the liver and spleen.
6. How large an area was affected by the radioactive fallout?
Some 150,000 square kilometres in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are contaminated and stretch northward of the plant site as far as 500 kilometres. An area spanning 30 kilometres around the plant is considered the "exclusion zone" and is essentially uninhabited. Radioactive fallout scattered over much of the northern hemisphere via wind and storm patterns, but the amounts dispersed were in many instances insignificant.
7. How was this area cleaned up after the accident?
LiquidatorEmergency workers (liquidators) were drafted into the area and helped to clean up the plant premises and the surrounding area. These workers were mostly plant employees, Ukrainian fire-fighters plus many soldiers and miners from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and other parts of the former Soviet Union. The exact number of liquidators is unknown because there are no completely accurate records of the people involved in the clean-up. The Russian registries list approximately 400,000 liquidators as of 1991 and approximately 600,000 people were granted the status of "liquidator". These 600,000 individuals received special benefits because of their involvement, on- and off-site, in tackling the accident's aftermath.
The duties of the liquidators varied. They worked on decontamination and major construction projects, including the establishment of settlements and towns for plant workers and evacuees. They also built waste repositories, dams, water filtration systems and the "sarcophagus", which entombs the entire fourth reactor to contain the remaining radioactive material.
8. Was the rest of Europe/the world affected?
Scandinavian countries and other parts of the world were affected by the radioactive releases from Chernobyl. Caesium and other radioactive isotopes were blown by wind northward into Sweden and Finland and over other parts of the northern hemisphere to some extent. During the first three weeks after the accident, the level of radiation in the atmosphere in several places around the globe was above normal; but these levels quickly receded. No studies have been able to point to a direct link between Chernobyl and increased cancer risks or other health problems outside the immediately affected republics of Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian Federation.
9. What happened to the environment and animals after the accident?
MouseMutations did occur in plants and animals after the plant explosion. Leaves changed shape and some animals were born with physical deformities. Despite the increased radiation levels, rare species are now returning in large numbers to the area. These animals include beavers, moose, wolves and wild boar, plus species of birds.
10. Is it safe to visit the area now?
One may certainly visit the Chernobyl area, including even the exclusion zone, which is a 30 kilometre radius surrounding the plant, all of whose reactors are now closed. Although some of the radioactive isotopes released into the atmosphere still linger (such as Strontium-90 and Caesium-137), they are at tolerable exposure levels for limited periods of time. Some residents of the exclusion zone have returned to their homes at their own free will, and they live in areas with higher than normal environmental radiation levels. However, these levels are not fatal. Exposure to low but unusual levels of radiation over a period of time is less dangerous than exposure to a huge amount at once, and studies have been unable to link any direct increase in cancer risks to chronic low-level exposure.
11. What was done to ensure the safety of other RBMK reactors, so that this scenario will not present itself again?
Lessons learned from the accident were a significant driving force behind a decade of IAEA assistance to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Much of this work focused on identifying the weaknesses in and improving the design safety of VVR and RBMK reactors. Upgrading was performed on all RBMK units to eliminate the design deficiencies which contributed to the Chernobyl accident, to improve shutdown mechanisms and heighten general safety awareness among staff. Just as important as the design safety work has been the focus on operational safety and on systems of regulatory oversight.
12. How does Chernobyl's effect measure up to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Chernobyl DrawingThe accident at Chernobyl was approximately 400 times more potent than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. However, the atomic bomb testing conducted by several countries around the world during the 1960s and 1970s contributed 100 to 1,000 times more radioactive material to the environment than Chernobyl.
13. How do the inhabitants live now?
There are 187 small communities in the exclusion zone that remain virtually abandoned to this day. A few inhabitants chose to return to their homes in the exclusion zone, but children are not allowed to live in this area. The evacuated population lives mainly in newly constructed towns such as Slavutich in areas with very little or no contamination.
14. What will happen to the plant now that it is closed?
Chernobyl TodayOn December 15, 2000, the last reactor in operation at the Chernobyl site was shut down and the phase of decommissioning began. This involves the removal and disposal of fuel and wastes, decontamination of the plant and the area surrounding it, including any soil and water that may be radioactive. There are three retired reactors to be decommissioned on site, a project expected to take several decades. The project will be conducted under the supervision of the Ukrainian government. The IAEA will assist by providing planning, engineering and administrative advice. The fate of the fourth reactor where the tragic accident occurred in 1986 is as yet undetermined. 15. What is the state of the protective shelter built around the fourth reactor?
Under extremely hazardous conditions, thousands of "Liquidators" worked to contain the remains of the fourth reactor. The shelter surrounding the reactor was completed less than six months after the explosion during peak radioactivity levels. The massive concrete and steel "Sarcophagus", quickly constructed using "arms length" methods, has deteriorated over the years, creating a potentially hazardous situation. Several repairs were made to the current shelter, including the stabilisation of the ventilation stack and reinforcement of the roof. In addition, a plan for the construction of a more secure and permanent structure to be built around the existing Sarcophagus was drafted; work has already begun on the infrastructure of this new shelter. The plan, called the Shelter Implementation Plan, is a project of the Chernobyl Shelter Fund. Both efforts, whose combined expected expenditures over the next eight or nine years exceed $765 million, are administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
-------- business
USEC Sets Supply Deal with Exelon
June 10, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-utilities-exelon.html
NEW YORK ( Reuters) - USEC Inc. (USU.N), which supplies fuel for nuclear power plants, on Tuesday said it struck a deal worth almost $700 million to supply fuel to Exelon Corp. (EXC.N), the nation's largest nuclear plant operator.
USEC, based in Bethesda, Maryland, said the agreement to supply Exelon's 17 nuclear reactors runs from 2005 through 2010.
A USEC spokesman declined to disclose the quantity of fuel covered in the deal.
The company said it was supplying SWU to the plants, SWU stands for separative work unit, which relates to the process of enriching uranium so it can be used as fuel for nuclear power plants.
Shares of USEC closed Monday trade on the New York Stock Exchange at $6.60, while shares of Exelon closed at $57.91.
-------- depleted uranium
SRS ships out last of uranium
Associated Press,
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Augusta Chronicle
http://www.augustachronicle.com/stories/061003/met_LM1031-9.000.shtml
AIKEN - The Savannah River Site has completed the final shipments of depleted uranium metals from an old manufacturing area at the complex, clearing the way for demolition of six buildings.
The M area buildings were the facilities where "target" materials for the site's five reactors were manufactured.
The area was closed more than 10 years ago, with more than 2,600 metric tons of depleted uranium metal stored in warehouses.
Shipments began in March, and the 145th truckload left SRS last week for Envirocare of Utah.
There were no security incidents, injuries or contamination incidents during the shipments, project manager Gay Fussell said.
Demolition of the buildings is scheduled to be completed by March as part of the overall cleanup of the former nuclear weapons complex.
Officials also plan to ship 3,270 drums of depleted uranium oxide to EnviroCare this summer as part of a pilot program. The remaining 33,000 drums would be shipped during the next few years.
The uranium oxide is a waste byproduct that the government says no longer has use in defense programs.
--
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-------- iran
Iran Says Its Has No Hidden Nuclear Facilities
June 10, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-nuclear.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran denied Tuesday having any hidden nuclear facilities that should have been declared to U.N. inspectors, following a critical U.N. report of Tehran's nuclear program which Washington called ``deeply troubling.''
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report accused Iran of failing to declare the import of uranium in 1991 and of failing to show where and how it was processed.
``We do not have any site in Iran which is necessary to declare to the Agency based on its regulations,'' Atomic Energy Organization chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh told a news conference.
``In the era of satellites, how could such huge facilities be hidden?'' he asked. ``The IAEA was informed of our activities even months before it should have been.''
Washington has accused Iran of violating the nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Tehran has signed, by using undeclared nuclear material to test a uranium enrichment system.
Uranium must be enriched for use, either slightly enriched for nuclear fuel or heavily enriched for a bomb.
Iran said this year an enrichment plant would be built in Kashan in central Iran with fuel from Isfahan, where a uranium conversion facility (UCF) is nearing completion.
``We have no other uranium enrichment plant except one in Kashan,'' Aghazadeh said. Oil and gas-rich Iran insists its nuclear program is purely for civil energy purposes.
But the Atomic Energy Organization chief admitted Iran had imported uranium in 1991, a shipment the IAEA said in its report should have been declared.
``Some 1,800 kg (3,960 pounds) of uranium was imported from China 12 years ago for a UCF,'' Aghazadeh said. However 1,000 kg of the uranium from the shipment remained intact, while another 800 kg had been subject to tests, he said.
``The tested material is under the supervision of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization,'' he added.
The IAEA, United States, Russia and the European Union have all called on Iran to sign an additional protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty allowing more thorough inspections of its nuclear facilities with little fore-warning.
But Iran insists U.S. sanctions should first be dropped and other countries should assist its nuclear programs.
``As a signatory of the NPT, we expect to get some benefits. Commitments are mutual and should be clarified,'' Aghazadeh said. ``Then we will be ready to sign the additional protocol.''
Iran says its first nuclear power plant, under construction with Russian help in the southern port city of Bushehr, is due to be completed next year.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is due to formally present the agency's report in Vienna next week.
--------
Iran Open to More Nuclear Monitoring
June 10, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Nuclear.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran would agree to additional international monitoring of its nuclear development, but only if it is allowed to acquire more advanced technology, the head of the country's atomic program said Tuesday.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, which visited Iran's nuclear facilities earlier this year, wants Tehran to allow inspectors unfettered access to its facilities without prior notice.
Washington accuses Tehran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons and is pressing the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency to declare Iran in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Iranian officials insist the nuclear program is entirely peaceful, aimed only at producing electricity.
Iranian nuclear chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh said his country was willing to sign onto the additional inspections under the NPT, if it gets access to advanced technology that has so far been withheld.
``We are prepared to initiate a process for signing the additional protocols, but we expect the International Atomic Energy Agency, and its member states equipped with advanced nuclear technology, to fulfill their obligations to Iran,'' Aghazadeh said.
``We want the (IAEA) to end discrimination against us and allow all member states equal access to nuclear technology,'' Aghazadeh said Tuesday.
The nonproliferation treaty, along with imposing safeguards like inspections aimed at preventing weapons development, calls for all members to have equal access to technology to build a peaceful nuclear program.
The United States has pressured Russia -- which is helping build Iran's first reactor -- and other nations to halt exports of advanced atomic technology to Iran. Last week's summit of the United States and seven other industrialized nations ended with a call for a comprehensive U.N. inspection of Iran's nuclear facilities and a warning that the world would not tolerate an Iranian atomic bomb.
IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei is due to release his report on Iran's nuclear program on Monday.
Iran admitted on Sunday it had failed to inform U.N. authorities that it imported a quantity of uranium compounds 12 years ago but said that failure did not violate the non-proliferation treaty.
Aghazadeh said Iran in 1991 imported 2,205 pounds of uranium hexafluoride from China. The compound is used in the process of enriching uranium to a level where it can be used as fuel for nuclear reactors or weapons.
The uranium hexafluoride ``remains intact'' and is under IAEA safeguard, Aghazadeh said.
``U.S. accusations are trumped-up charges,'' he said. ``The United States is magnifying a very insignificant thing.''
He insisted that Iran was cooperating with the IAEA beyond its obligation.
``In the past three months, six teams from IAEA have inspected Iran's nuclear facilities. This shows our transparency,'' he said. ``There is no nuclear facility in Iran that has not been declared to the IAEA,'' he said.
--------
Iran asks US to stop using 'language of force'
Tuesday June 10, 2003-- Rabi-us-Sani 09, 1424 A.H,
News International, Pakistan
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jun2003-daily/10-06-2003/world/w3.htm
TEHRAN: Iran's foreign ministry demanded to Washington to stop using the 'language of force', warning on Monday that US posturing would only undermine the cause of dialogue and strengthen the hand of hardliners in the Islamic republic.
"We have seen some confusion over Iran within the American leadership, and we hope they will see sense and not use the language of force, because this will have the opposite effect," spokesman Hami-Reza Asefi told reporters.
"Certain people (in Iran) think that dialogue is a waste of time, and if the pressure becomes too strong, it will reinforce the hand of those against dialogue," he added. Asefi's comments come amid mounting US pressure against Iran's clerical regime, accused by Washington of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, harbouring al-Qaeda fugitives, sponsoring anti-Israeli militants and meddling in post-war Iraq.
Tehran and Washington cut diplomatic ties after the 1979 Islamic revolution, but for several months the two sides have been engaged in discreet talks within a forum initially set up to address the crisis in Afghanistan. But those contacts were abruptly halted after the May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh that killed 35 people and which US officials believe could have been planned by Iran-based operatives of the al-Qaeda terror network.
US pressure on Iran has since mounted, leading many to fear that Iran could be next on Washington's hit-list -- despite denials from top US officials. In a swipe at the United States, however, Asefi argued, "the Americans' accusations can be explained by their failures in Iraq and Afghanistan". The previous day, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi made a similar plea for the US administration -- which had lumped Iran into an 'axis of evil' along with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea -- to cease what is being seen here as a concerted campaign of intimidation. "They cannot deal like this with Iran," Kharazi told deputies. "You have to help Iran, because pressure will lead nowhere and will only make radical thoughts flourish, and this is not in the favour of us, the region or anybody."
But the calls for detente have been matched by defiant comments in recent weeks from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who on Sunday accused Washington of pursuing a "devilish plot" to undermine the Islamic republic. Turning to the nuclear issue, Asefi also insisted Iran was fully cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose inspectors are currently in the country probing Iran's civil atomic energy programme. "We have a transparent policy with regard to the agency, and we are waiting for the world to have a transparent policy with us. This visit is a sign that we wish to cooperate with the agency," he said.
"Iran has peaceful objectives for its nuclear programme," he added. In an apparent reference to Israel, Asefi said Western powers who voice suspicions over the programme "would do better to put pressure on their friends in the region so that they can at least become members of the NPT," the Non-Proliferation Treaty. According to an IAEA report filed last week to member states ahead of a Vienna meeting on June 16 with agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, Iran was found to have violated the NPT but was taking steps to correct the problem.
-------- iraq / inspections
''Mobile lies''
Guest Editorial By Imad Khadduri, Former Iraqi nuclear scientist
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
YellowTimes.org Guest Columnist (Canada)
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1411
(YellowTimes.org) -- As the swelter of anger bubbles from the machination of misinformation that led to the faltering WMD casus belli for invading Iraq, the retreat and half-baked excuses of Bush, Blair, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Powell further expose the sharp edge of their deceit. Whether it was "intelligence" failure or "flailing" the intelligence, time will soon tell. In the meantime, the fig leaves keep falling.
During CNN's Late Edition with Colin Powell, reported by the Toronto Star on June 9, 2003, Powell claimed that "the two alleged mobile biological weapons labs, which are being studied by allied inspectors now in Iraq, are the same ones he described to the world last Feb. 5 at a U.N. presentation which was the result of four days and four nights of meetings with the CIA." "I stand behind that presentation," he said.
He further asserted, "I'll give you the killer argument why these vans were exactly what I said they were. I can assure you that if those biological vans were not ... what I said they were on the 5th of February, on the 6th of February Iraq would have hauled those vans out, put them in front of a press conference, given them to U.N. inspectors to try to drive a stake through the heart of my presentation."
Only if the Iraqis knew which vans he was talking about.
In an article published on the same day as Powell's interview, Peter Beaumont and Antony Barnett reported in the Observer that there is mounting indications that these vans were for "balloons, not germs."
The Iraqis concur.
According to the article, "Senior Iraqi officials of the al-Kindi Research, Testing, Development, and Engineering facility in Mosul were shown pictures of the mobile production trailers, and they claimed that the trailers were used to produce hydrogen chemically for artillery weather balloons. Artillery balloons are essentially balloons that are sent up into the atmosphere and relay information on wind direction and speed, allowing more accurate artillery fire. Crucially, these systems need to be mobile. The Observer has discovered that not only did the Iraq military have such a system at one time, but that it was actually sold to them by the British. In 1987, Marconi, now known as AMS, sold the Iraqi army an Artillery Meteorological System or Amets for short."
Other experts who have examined the evidence agree and have cast doubt over the Bush administration's assertions. They argue that the lack of any trace of pathogens found in the fermentation tanks, the use of canvas sides on vehicles where technicians would be working with dangerous germ cultures, and the lack of an autoclave for steam sterilization all provide credence to the Iraqi argument that the labs were merely used for artillery balloons.
In fact, the American experts themselves concede that the van could, at best, serve only one stage of the process for biological weapons production. There would need to be three or four other stages in the process, or other complementary vans, to be able to produce Powell's less than heuristic claim.
Powell is not new to this misinformation game.
In my earlier article, "The demise of the nuclear bomb hoax," published on February 16, 2003, I referred to Geoff Simons' The Scourging of Iraq in which "Washington lied persistently and comprehensively to gain the required international support [for the Gulf war]. For example, the U.S. claimed to have satellite pictures showing a massive Iraqi military build-up on the Saudi/ Iraqi border. When sample photographs were later obtained from Soyuz Karta by an enterprising journalist, no such evidence was discernible."
Simons references an article by Maggie O'Kane, published in the Guardian on 16 December 1995, which revealed that the enterprising journalist was Jean Heller of the St. Petersburg Times in Florida.
Eventually, the U.S. commander -- none other than Colin Powell himself -- admitted that there had been no massing of Iraqi troops. But by then the so-called evidence had served its purpose.
So, was Powell really worried that the Iraqis might "try to drive a stake through the heart of [his] presentation"?
Well, it's never too late.
[Imad Khadduri has a MSc in Physics from the University of Michigan (United States) and a PhD in Nuclear Reactor Technology from the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom). Khadduri worked with the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission from 1968 until 1998. He was able to leave Iraq in late 1998 with his family. He now teaches and works as a network administrator in Toronto, Canada. He has been interviewed by the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency, FOX, the Toronto Star, Reuters, and various other news agencies in regards to his knowledge of the Iraqi nuclear program. This article was originally printed in YellowTimes.org.]
Imad Khadduri encourages your comments: imad.khadduri@rogers.com
----
Iran agrees Iraq hid arms
June 10, 2003
By Stewart Stogel
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030609-114511-9442r.htm
NEW YORK - An Iranian government official with ties to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says Tehran sides with the Americans on one big issue - Saddam Hussein's weapons.
"Yes, we agree with the Americans. Our intelligence indicated that Iraq did possess weapons of mass destruction and was hiding them from the U.N.," the official said.
The official, from the top ranks of Iran's cleric-led government, asked to remain anonymous amid escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran.
He went on to say that the big question is, "What did the Iraqis do with these weapons?"
Although Tehran does not know where these weapons may be today, there is a strong suspicion that some may have filtered onto local black markets.
"We know other items, once under military control [such as broadcast transmission equipment], have found their way onto the black market," the official said.
"We have people coming to Tehran from Baghdad with catalogs of items [stolen from the Iraqi government] offering them for sale."
So far, the official said, no chemical, biological or related weapons have turned up.
His remarks come amid criticism of the Bush administration and the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the failure so far to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Both governments cited Iraq's deadly weapons as a reason for going to war.
In Tehran yesterday, Iran said foreign pressure over its nuclear capabilities would backfire and harden Iran's position.
Since its rapid conquest of Iraq, Washington has tightened the screws on neighboring Iran, which it accuses of sheltering al Qaeda fugitives, backing terrorism and developing nuclear weapons.
"Excessive pressure on Iran would untie the hands of those who do not believe in dialogue," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi. "Even those who favor constructive talks would not accept the language of force and threat."
The United States and European Union are divided over Iran. The EU favors a policy of encouraging embattled reformers around President Mohammed Khatami, while Washington argues this is a waste of time because he has no real power to effect change.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, in a report obtained by Reuters on Friday, accused Iran of not complying with safeguards to curb the spread of nuclear weapons and sent a team of inspectors to the country on Saturday.
Fresh from war in Iraq over banned weapons, the United States described the report as "deeply troubling."
Since the Iraq war, U.S. administration hawks have raised the specter of military action against Iran, but President Bush, who put Iran in an "axis of evil" with prewar Iraq and North Korea, has denied that he has plans to attack it.
Even so, many in Iran suspect that the Islamic Republic may be next on a U.S. hit list of regimes to be overthrown.
"We hope Iran's constructive cooperation with the agency and other countries makes the international community better aware of America's evil intentions," Mr. Asefi said.
"We are always alert about America's policies ... but we have no doubt the Americans won't be deluded into mistaking Iran for Iraq. Such a mistake would be irreparable," he said.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
--------
Perricos Named New U.N. Inspector on Iraq
June 10, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Inspectors.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan named a veteran arms expert Tuesday to replace Hans Blix, the United Nations' chief weapons inspector who led a fruitless search for illicit weapons in Iraq.
Dimitri Perricos, who ran the search on the ground in Iraq for Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons and nuclear programs, has been Blix' deputy for three years at the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.
Blix, a veteran Swedish diplomat, is retiring after more than three years at the helm of the agency, according to Fred Eckhard, a spokesman for Annan.
Perricos is a technical expert with lots of inspection experience, while Blix, a lawyer, focused on the diplomatic side with the U.N. Security Council.
The U.N. agency searched more than 200 sites over 3 1/2 months but did not find any weapons of mass destruction and pulled out of Iraq March 18, just ahead of the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.
The U.S.-led coalition's failure in more than two months to find any weapons of mass destruction -- the reason cited for the war -- has caused international anger. President Bush insists Saddam had a weapons program.
The Greek-born Perricos was an inspector for 28 years with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and moved to UNMOVIC in 2000 shortly after it was created.
UNMOVIC remains a subsidiary body of the Security Council but its future is uncertain. The council has agreed to discuss its mandate at a future date, which has not been set.
--------
Blix Defends Inspectors' Credibility
June 10, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Iraq-Blix.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix on Tuesday said his inspectors' failure to turn up weapons of mass destruction in Iraq may have been nothing but a reflection of the truth, and he called American criticism of the prewar search off target.
``I would say that I think the criticism that was directed to us was misdirected,'' Blix told The Associated Press in an interview, He retires June 30 after three years of leading the U.N. search for banned weapons.
While defending the U.N. inspections program, Blix welcomed the U.S.-led ouster of Saddam Hussein.
``He was an ancient type ruler who got control of a country with an oil income and could use 21st century weapons. That was a very dangerous combination, and I think we all feel a great relief that he is put out of action,'' Blix said.
But Blix defended the independence and credibility of U.N. inspectors who left Iraq shortly before the United States and Britain attacked the country, in part at least, because of allegations Saddam had chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
The United Nations refused to back the military ouster of Saddam and the administrations of President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have come under heavy criticism because those weapons have not been found in the three months since the war began.
However, Blix declined to gloat, saying that the matter was too serious. And he wished the U.S. teams now searching for banned weapons in Iraq ``good luck.''
``I think we should all be looking to truth,'' he said. ``We want to find out what was the real truth'' -- whether Saddam was concealing illegal weapons or had destroyed them before he was attacked.
Nevertheless, he was critical of intelligence his teams received from the United States and other countries before the war began, saying the information was ``not very good ... and that shook me a bit.''
In the weeks before the war, some U.S. officials strongly criticized Blix's reports to the Security Council for failing to support the Bush administration's contention that Saddam had an active illegal weapons programs. Blix reported that his inspectors had not found such weapons, but still had many outstanding questions about the country's previous weapons programs.
Blix credited the U.S. military build up which started last summer for pressuring Iraq to allow U.N. inspectors to return in November after four years.
While many people in the U.S. government believed from the beginning that inspections wouldn't work, Blix said he thinks Bush was sincere in initially wanting to give inspections a chance and not go to war.
Even in late February, if Saddam had come forward as the British hoped and confessed ``everything'' about his weapons program that could have averted war, he said.
Saddam didn't, and U.S. patience gave out -- but Blix said his inspectors should have been given more time.
``At the end, Iraqis were pretty frantic in trying to find explanations, not very successfully,'' he said.
``I certainly think a number of months more would have been interesting to have, provided that we still had the military pressure,'' Blix said.
``The longer that one does not find any weapons in spite of people coming forward and being rewarded for giving information, etc., the more I think it is important that we begin to ask ourselves if there were no weapons, why was it that Iraq conducted itself as it did for so many years?,'' Blix said.
``They cheated, they retreated, they changed figures, they denied access, etc. Why was that if they didn't have anything really to conceal? I have speculations, one could be pride,'' he said.
``Saddam Hussein regarded himself as an emperor of Mesopotamia, some said, and he regarded inspectors as impostors,'' Blix said.
Nonetheless, he said, U.N. inspectors could not jump to conclusions -- and the Bush administration shouldn't have either.
``I think they should remember that in the future, too, that the international inspection that is not on a leash is the inspection that has the greatest credibility,'' Blix said. ``It might even be right.''
-------- japan
Japan, Citing Safety Concerns, Detains North Korea Ships
June 10, 2003
The New York Times
By JAMES BROOKE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/10/international/asia/10CND-KOREA.html
TOKYO, June 10 - Japan detained two North Korean cargo ships in Japanese ports today, making moves that North Korea denounced as sanctions and that Japan defended as safety inspections.
"We are ready to thoroughly inspect all North Korean vessels at ports across the country," Transport Minister Chikage Ogi said at a news conference here today, hours before her inspectors started scouring North Korean freighters for violations.
The detentions come after Bush administration officials said recently that they are encouraging allies to squeeze North Korean shipping by enforcing safety rules and by searching for illegal drugs, a major North Korean export. This unannounced and unlabeled policy is designed to pressure North Korea into negotiating an end to its nuclear bomb program.
Inspectors worked all day in Maizuru, a western Japan port that last year received about one quarter of the 1,344 port calls by 147 North Korean ships to Japan.
After the inspections, Maizuru transport ministry officials ordered the detention of the Namsan 3, a 298-ton freighter, until its North Korean crew of 16 could remedy three major safety violations: lack of charts of surrounding seas, a hole in its bulkhead, and a doorsill to the cabin that was too low to prevent seawater flooding in.
Farther north, at Otaru port in Hokkaido, northern Japan, local transport officials ordered the detention for safety violations of the 178-ton Daehungrason 2, which carries a cargo of crabs.
Over the last decade, several North Korean freighters have become stranded along Japan's coast. Invariably, the state company owners have walked away from the shipwrecks, refusing to pay fines or to remove the hulks.
Today's detentions came a day after the threat of a major safety inspection caused North Korean authorities to suspend North Korea's lone ferry link with Japan. Today North Korea's state-run news media machine reacted.
"If this is part of `sanctions' against the D.P.R.K., we cannot but regard it as a very serious development," the official Korean Central News Agency said, using the initials of the country's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
In another dispatch, the state agency called the safety inspection "another sinister political attempt to lay siege to the D.P.R.K."
The agency also denounced the government of Australia, where 30 North Korean sailors face trial in a case in which about 110 pounds of heroin were seized.
"This is part of the Bush administration's foolish and shameful moves to ostracize the D.P.R.K. politically and morally on the international arena and isolate and stifle it by terming it a `rogue state,' " the agency said. "The United States is groundlessly pulling up the D.P.R.K. over such issues as "terrorism," "drug trafficking," "abduction" and "counterfeiting of money."
But for Japan, the largest economy in the region, North Korea's hostility only serves to bolster the political standing at home of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. A survey by N.H.K. public television aired on Monday evening showed that 59 percent of voters backed Mr. Koizumi's two-year-old government, up 5 percentage points from May.
While the United States and Japan are tightening a maritime noose on ne North Korea, China and South Korea seem increasingly neutral.
"Under the present circumstances, both sides should avoid taking measures which are likely to escalate the situation on the Korean Peninsula," China's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Kong Quan, told reporters in Beijing today.
In contrast to the isolation approach advocated by Washington, South Korea plans on Saturday to mark the renewal of rail and road links with the north. Freight trains should be traveling from Seoul to Pyongyang by the end of September, Cho Myoung-gyon, a senior official at South Korea's Unification Ministry, said in a radio interview today.
-------- korea
Pyongyang spells out need for nuclear arms
By Hamish McDonald in Beijing and Shane Green in Tokyo
June 10 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/09/1055010934841.html
North Korea says it wants nuclear weapons because it needs to reduce the economic burden of keeping large conventional forces.
The claim in an official press commentary yesterday takes the Pyongyang regime a step closer to what United States officials say is the reality admitted by the North Koreans in private - that they already have some nuclear bombs.
The increasingly open threat to go nuclear comes as Pyongyang voices alarm at the prospect of a tightening embargo by the US and its allies.
Japan yesterday blocked the sailing of a North Korean ferry alleged to be involved in smuggling missile parts and intelligence to spies.
The North Korean Man Gyong Bong-92 had been due to arrive in the north-western Japanese port of Niigata yesterday. But it did not sail from its home port of Wonsan, on North Korea's east coast, after intensive inspections by Japanese officials.
Pyongyang's claim that building nuclear arms was aimed at lightening its military burden seemed designed to counter US and Japanese charges that it was using nuclear blackmail to obtain economic aid,
"Our desire to have a nuclear deterrent is not to blackmail anybody, but to reduce conventional weaponry and thus convert human resources and funnel money into economic construction and the people's lives," the Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary.
North Korea maintains one of the world's largest standing armies, with 1.1 million soldiers. Its leader, Kim Jong-il, follows an army-based political strategy that lavishes what resources are available on the military.
But the commentary also contained a conflicting reason for wanting nuclear weapons, blaming threatening moves by the US.
"If the US does not give up its hostile policy and continues its nuclear threat against our republic we have no other means but to possess a nuclear deterrence," the Korean Central News Agency said.
In a four-day state visit to Japan by South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun that ended yesterday, he and Japan's Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, urged North Korea to end its nuclear arms program - but they differed on the methods to be used.
Mr Koizumi urged "tougher measures" if the stand-off worsened, while Mr Roh advocated dialogue.
There was disagreement between the two countries about the wording of a joint statement, with South Korea opposing a Japanese proposal to take "further steps" if necessary.
South Korea's semi-official Yonhap news quoted a Pyongyang government spokesman as saying the US had placed pressure on countries to control North Korean shipping, but the North would not submit to a blockade.
"In the event we judge that our sovereignty has been encroached upon, we will respond with an immediate, physical retaliatory measure," he was quoted as saying.
In talks in Beijing with US and Chinese officials in late April, North Korean representatives allegedly told US officials that Pyongyang already possessed nuclear weapons.
----
'Nuclear Deterrent' Threatened
Associated Press
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Washington Post
World In Brief; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37328-2003Jun9?language=printer
SEOUL -- North Korea sharpened its tone in the standoff with the United States, publicly threatening for the first time to develop a "nuclear deterrent" unless Washington abandons its "hostile" stance toward the communist nation.
The statement was the isolated North's most direct admission of its intention to develop nuclear weapons. Until now, Pyongyang has referred to its need for "physical deterrence" against what it calls U.S. plans to attack, though U.S. officials say the North Koreans have told them privately that the country already has nuclear bombs.
The government also linked its nuclear ambitions to an effort to rebuild the shattered economy.
The "intention to build up a nuclear deterrent force is not aimed to threaten and blackmail others, but reduce conventional weapons under a long-term plan and channel manpower resources and funds into economic construction and the betterment of people's living," the official KCNA news agency said.
--------
North Korea Says It Seeks to Develop Nuclear Arms
June 10, 2003
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/10/international/asia/10KORE.html
WASHINGTON, June 9 - North Korea declared today for the first time that it was seeking to develop nuclear weapons so that it could reduce the size of a million-man army it can no longer afford.
The announcement came on the same day that several administration officials said the United States and its Asian allies were planning to track and inspect suspect sea shipments out of North Korea.
Administration officials said that those steps would stop short of a full embargo, but would amount to what one official called "selective interdiction." The effort is aimed at curbing the weapons exports of North Korea and cutting off its sources of cash, officials said. North Korea has shipped missiles to the Middle East, including Iran, and to Pakistan.
The administration was deliberately measured in its public response to the North today.
"This does not mean we are on our way to war," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in Santiago, Chile, where he was attending a meeting of the Organization of American States, according to Reuters. "We are not."
"The president continues to believe that there is an opportunity for a diplomatic solution, a political solution, but it's a solution that must come in a multilateral forum," Mr. Powell said at a news conference.
While debate continues on holding a second round of talks with North Korea - the first was two months ago - the administration is stepping up the economic pressure on the government of Kim Jong Il.
Japan began the process, sending 1,900 "safety inspectors" and policemen to meet a North Korean ferry suspected for years as being the link that allowed North Koreans living in Japan to transfer money home. When it became clear that the ferry would be inspected regularly, the North suspended the service.
American officials say those inspections are just a beginning. They are encouraging allies to stop ships and inspect them for drugs, as Australia did a month ago. Whether the United States itself will attempt to interdict shipments is unclear.
The legality of stopping ships is open to question. A ship suspected of carrying illegal drugs, for example, may be searched.
The effort "will be focused on those activities which require no additional laws, no new international treaties, no going to the United Nations Security Council," a senior official said. "Look at the Japanese, who can't stop transfers of money on North Korean ships, but suddenly discovered they can do `safety inspections.' " Other techniques like that are under consideration.
The strategy, officials say, is to make no announcement of any new measures, to avoid any overt confrontation with the North. But the interdictions are intended to make clear, officials say, that the United States has had some success in organizing its Asian allies into a loose coalition to put more and more pressure on the North. The most important nation needed in that coalition is China, and so far there is no indication it is willing to seal off its border or cut off oil and other shipments.
There is no indication that the squeeze on the North is having much effect. A Congressional delegation that traveled there last week said officials boasted that they had nearly completed reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, which can make four or five weapons. The North was believed to have two nuclear weapons produced at least a decade ago, but with the ejection of international inspectors on New Year's Eve the opportunity to produce weapons has increased.
"What they are doing, though, is edging toward a declaration that they are now a nuclear weapons state," a senior official said. "And once they take that step, how do we respond?"
That is the subject of a continuing debate between Mr. Bush and his allies. Meetings with the leaders of South Korea and Japan have produced statements that the allies will not tolerate a nuclear North Korea. But the meaning of that is unclear.
The White House has said that it will rule out no options, even a military strike against the North's nuclear facilities. South Korean leaders have declared such a strike would be unthinkable, and have said they will neither plan for any military solution nor discuss one with allies.
In today's announcement, the North said it might have to develop a "nuclear deterrent." Its usual warning is that it will develop a "physical deterrent" against the United States.
Today also marked the first time North Korea linked its atomic weapons program to the goal of cutting its conventional military and saving money. Its huge army consumes most of the country's budget. But it also performs nonmilitary functions, including building housing.
"They introduced a new element into their logic today when they said they would also do this as a cost-saving measure," Mr. Powell said. "I'll have to reflect on that for a while," he added.
-------- treaties / diplomacy
US plays matchmaker to India, Israel
By Ninan Koshy
Jun 10, 2003
Asia Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EF10Df03.html
Close on the heels of Indian National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra's call for an India-United States-Israel strategic alliance, comes the confirmation that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will visit India within the next few weeks. Some observers in New Delhi consider Mishra's call, made at the annual dinner of the American Jewish Committee, as a curtain raiser for the Sharon visit. What they seem to ignore is that the India-US-Israel strategic alliance has moved beyond last call to center stage and that the plan for Sharon's visit is some 15 months old.
It was an ironic coincidence that Brajesh Mishra was closeted in his office in New Delhi on September 11, 2001 with his Israeli counterpart Major General Uzi Dayan and engaged in what was dubbed a "joint security strategy dialogue" when the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon occurred. Their discussion had to be discontinued as they turned to the television news. Favored by the climate of the ensuing "war on terror", the security relationship between India and Israel developed into a strategic alliance in tandem with the India-US strategic partnership.
The alliance between India and Israel - one an open member of the international nuclear club and the other a secret member - is based predominantly on military and intelligence cooperation. Israel has become the second-largest supplier of arms for India, next only to Russia. Israel has provided India with sea-to-sea missile radar and other similar systems, border monitoring equipment, and night vision devices. It also has upgraded India's Soviet-era aircraft.
Allies and aircraft
The United States has given clearance to Israel's delivery of Phalcon reconnaissance aircraft to India, in marked contrast to Washington's vigorous opposition to supplying them to China in 1998. The US forced Israel to cancel a deal to sell the Phalcons to China out of concern for altering the balance of power between China and Taiwan. Initially, the US administration also had worries about how the Phalcons supplied to India could impact the delicate balance between India and Pakistan, but the concerns soon evaporated in the warmth of the India-US-Israel strategic relationship.
In the third week of February, an agreement was made to supply advanced Israeli avionic systems for the Indian Air Force's new MG-27 combat aircraft. There are reports of Indo-Israeli plans to collaborate on the development of a missile defense system based on the Israel Arrow technology. Indian defense officials acknowledged the acquisition of two Israeli Elta Green Pine long-range radar systems, a component of the Arrow Ballistic Missile Defense Systems, according to some reports. A 2001 Pentagon review said that the defensive nature of the Arrow system exempted it from sales restrictions imposed by the Missile Technology Control Regime, an international agreement designed to stop the spread of offensive military technology.
Israel and India established a joint commission at the ministerial level back in 1999. During that year's brief conflict with Pakistan, known as the Kargil war, Israel responded quickly to India's desperate requests for arms, despite pressures from various quarters not to supply ammunition to a party engaged in war. Unmanned aerial vehicles for high altitude surveillance, laser-guided systems and many other items were provided within days of the request. Jane's Defense Weekly, which gave details on the supplies, reported in March 2000 that Israeli security officers were regularly visiting the Kashmir border. Jane's Terrorism and Security Monitor reported on August 14, 2001: "Israeli intelligence agencies have been intensifying their relations with India security apparatus and are now understood to be heavily involved in helping New Delhi combat Islamic militants in the disputed province of Kashmir."
The Jerusalem Post reported on February 3 that India was sending four battalions of nearly 3,000 Indian soldiers to Israel for specialized anti-insurgency training. Their special assignment on return would be to employ newly learned techniques to stop infiltration of India by Pakistani terrorists in the contested Kashmir region.
Professor Martin Sherman published an article in the Jerusalem Post on February 28 entitled "From Conflict to Convergence: India and Israel Forge a Solid Strategic Alliance". The alliance with India was important for Israel as it intended to develop sea-borne defense capability. In view of the miniscule territorial dimension of Israel, its defense planners are increasingly aware of the crucial significance of the marine and sub-marine theaters. The vulnerability of Israel's land-based military installations grows with the acquisition of modern weaponry by other countries in the region. Strategic thinking in Israel tends to give prominence to the Indian Ocean as a location for logistical infrastructure. For the establishment and operation of such a maritime venture, cooperation with the Indian navy would be vital. The Post article said, "In this regard it is especially significant that in 2000, Israeli submarines reportedly conducted test launches capable of carrying nuclear warheads in the waters of the Indian Ocean off the Sri Lankan coast." Sherman added, "An alliance between India and Israel openly endorsed by the US would create a potent stabilizing force in the region, which together with like-minded regimes such as Turkey, could contribute significantly toward facing down the force of radical extremism so hostile to American interests in Western and Central Asia." The article argued that considerations beyond regional stability made a vibrant India-Israeli axis a clear interest. "For example, in the growing balance of geostrategic power, the growing Chinese challenge to US primacy will almost invariably dictate the need for a regional counterweight to Chinese domination."
It was in the context of the "war on terror" that the strategic relationship of India with Israel and the US developed dramatically though defense and security cooperation. It was just natural that both Israel and the US found a partner in the Indian government because of its ideological commitment to militaristic policy. Conveniently for them, at work in New Delhi was the calculated dismantling of the entire rationale of nonalignment and the edifice of an independent foreign policy.
New axis in the 'war on terror'?
The visit of Shimon Peres to New Delhi in January 2002 became an occasion to cement strategic ties between Israel and India. Both countries seemed to be convinced they were fighting a common enemy, terrorism. At that time, Zvi Gabey, deputy director general for Asia in the Israeli government said, "We find ourselves in the same camp that fights terrorism and we have to develop our relationship according to that." An Indian foreign ministry spokeswoman said during Peres' visit, "India finds it increasingly beneficial to learn from Israel's experience in dealing with terrorism since Israel, too, has long suffered from cross-border terrorism." The spokeswoman slipped into the ministry's grave and oft-repeated error of equating the Palestinian struggle with cross-border terrorism.
The visit was the most visible sign of the new phase of the Israel-India relationship. Peres was immensely pleased with it. The Israeli cabinet communique of January 13, 2002 on Peres' briefing about his trip billed it as a major achievement "emphasizing the good relations and special ties between Israel and India". Sharon was pleased too. He told the cabinet that he attributed special importance to the deepening of relations with India. That was when he noted that he intended to visit India, giving the first clear signal of the plan. Apparently an invitation to India had been extended to him through Peres.
Mishra drummed up US support for the plan, finding a responsive audience for his skewed and cynical views on terrorism in the American Jewish Committee. Only a "core" consisting of democracies such as India, Israel and the US can deal with terrorism, he maintained. The alliance of the three would have the political and moral authority to make bold decisions in extreme cases of terrorist provocation, he claimed, adding that they would not waste time in defining terrorism or arguing about its causes. "Distinctions sought to be made between freedom fighters and terrorists propagate a bizarre logic," he spouted. "Another fallacy propagated is that terrorism can only be eradicated by addressing the root causes." He repeated the pet themes of India, the US and Israel being "prime targets of terrorism", having a "common enemy" and requiring "joint action".
His comments were underpinned by those of India's Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani, who, in an interview given to Fox News on July 9, 2002, said, "Terrorism in so far we have seen it on September 11 or December 13 has a common source and that common source has described the US, Israel and India as its three main enemies." December 13, 2001 was the date on which the Indian parliament was attacked by terrorists. Advani implied that the three countries therefore have a common cause and could forge a common front against terrorism.
The India-Israeli alliance strengthens US strategic designs for India and the region. India holds a very prominent place in the September 20, 2002 National Security Strategy of the US, "a policy document that bears the personal stamp of President [George W] Bush," according to Robert D Blackwill, outgoing US ambassador to India. The document states, "The United States has undertaken a transformation in its bilateral relationship with India. We are the two largest democracies. We share an interest in fighting terrorism and in creating a strategically stable Asia. We start with a view of India as a growing world power with which we have common strategic interests."
In an article in the prestigious Indian daily The Hindu, Blackwill wrote, "Taken together our defense cooperation and military sales activities intensify the working relationships between the respective armed forces, build mutual military capacities for future joint operations and strengthen Indian military capability, which is in America's interest." He concluded the article: "An Indian military that is capable of operating effectively alongside its American counterparts remains an important goal of our bilateral defense relationship. What we have achieved since January 2001 builds a strong foundation on which to consummate this strategic objective, which will promote peace and freedom in Asia and beyond."
Washington will ensure that the India-Israeli alliance will serve this strategic objective. As for the Indian government, it has already subjugated the country's national interests to US designs in return for its designation as a world power.
Dr Ninan Koshy is a political commentator based in Trivandrum, Kerala, India and author of The War on Terror: Reordering the World (DAGA Press, 2002), and a regular analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Senate OKs Billions for Nuclear Power
June 10, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Senate-Energy.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate endorsed a plan Tuesday for the government to provide loan guarantees for construction of a half dozen nuclear power plants that supporters say are necessary for the industry's survival.
Critics called the government assistance a giveaway to a mature industry that should be left to succeed or fail on its own. But their attempt to strip the measure from a broad energy bill fell short, 50-48. Advertisement
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the architect of the package of subsidies for the nuclear industry, said the government assistance will jump-start nuclear power. There has not been a new nuclear plant licensed since the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania.
``The time has come to quit playing around with energy and say, wherever we can, we are going to produce more energy,'' argued Domenici. Nuclear power has long been neglected, he said, and that has been ``a giant mistake.''
Opponents questioned why nuclear power should be singled out for such largess, which they said could cost taxpayers $14 billion to $16 billion should the future power reactors fail and be abandoned.
It's ``not a question about whether someone is pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear,'' argued Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., one of the provision's sharpest critics, but whether ``to put at risk the taxpayers of this country'' if the reactor projects flop.
Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., co-sponsor with Wyden of the effort to scuttle the loan guarantees, said he supports a broad array of energy sources, including nuclear, but ``power plants should be developed on a level playing field without government subsidizing one industry over another.''
He said he also opposes a $2 billion subsidy to develop clean coal plants, also in the energy legislation that Domenici hopes to get through the Senate in the coming weeks. An energy bill already passed by the House contains far less help for the nuclear industry and does little to spur new reactor construction.
In separate action Tuesday, the Senate by a 99-1 vote included in the energy bill a measure requiring that the president take action to save 1 million barrels of oil a day by 2013. The measure did not specify how the reduction in consumption, compared to what it otherwise is projected to be in 2013, is to be achieved. The country currently uses about 19 million barrels of oil a day.
In the most ambitious attempt to spur nuclear power development in decades, Domenici put into the Senate bill measures that would:
--Have the government provide loan guarantees to cover half the cost of building enough new reactors to produce 8,400 megawatts of power. That would probably be as many as six or seven next-generation reactors.
--Build a $1.1 billion reactor in Idaho to produce hydrogen.
--Authorize $865 million to speed research into ways to alter reactor waste chemically to reduce its volume and long-term radioactivity.
--Increase other nuclear research spending by tens of millions of dollars over current levels.
Supporters of the measure argued that the energy bill provides loan guarantees to other energy sources, including a proposal in the bill that would underwrite loans covering as much as $18 billion of a $20 billion Alaska pipeline to bring natural gas down from the North Slope.
In case of the nuclear reactors, taxpayers wouldn't pay a dime if the plants should succeed but would be liable for billions of dollars should they fail.
Wyden cited an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office that estimated the new plants probably will cost $2.1 billion to $3 billion apiece with ``the risk of default on such a loan guarantee to be very high -- well above 50 percent.''
Nuclear industry representatives called the CBO analysis flawed and said that companies wouldn't pursue reactor projects unless there was almost certain likelihood of success because they would be on the hook for half of the cost if there is a default.
The new plants would be built under regulations that removed many of the past licensing hurdles and would be far cheaper than that last reactors built.
``We're trying to jump-start the industry again,'' says Richard Myers of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry trade group. ``We're not looking for a handout. We're not looking for any freebies.''
The bill is S.14.
-------- ohio
A testimonial "In Memory of Gary Colley"
From: Vina and Gai
Sent: 6/10/2003
http://groups.msn.com/NationalNuclearWorkersforJustice/inmemoryof.msnw?action=get_message&ID_Message=173
A testimonial "In Memory of Gary Colley" --
A deceased Piketon, Ohio Gaseous Diffusion Plant Victim
During his career, Gary Colley functioned as a line-manager while he was employed at the Piketon, Ohio Gaseous Diffusion plant for over 10 years. It is believed that he and his co-workers were chronically exposed to abnormally dangerous radioactive material and chemicals. At one point in time, Gary was laid-off from his job at the Piketon plant and was temporarily employed at Fernald for a few months. He later returned to work at the Piketon plant. While he was working at Fernald, the family remembers a particular radiation exposure incident that contaminated Gary's wooden leg. His employer agreed to replace the artificial leg with a new one. Gary was once injured in a traffic accident where a truck slammed into his motorcycle.
Gary's physician talked him into "signing" up for the medical monitoring program that was offered by the Piketon P.A.C.E. union division. A US Department of Energy (USDOE) medical monitoring contract had been awarded. In the beginning, Gary was monitored every three months. Finally, Gary was instructed not to return for more tests for at least six months. The program administrators convinced Gary the suspect growths that were detected on his lung was not cancerous and only needed to be monitored once in ahile. Like so many other victims, the suspect neoplasm(s) were deemed of no concern by the monitoring program administrators.
Gary's health continued to deteriorate until his physician noticed swelling on the left side of his neck. He began to receive extensive, diagnostic tests. And, of course, the diagnosis was cancer that had spread to his lymph nodes. The prognosis was terminal with only a few months to live. Gary suffered even though he received large amounts of the drug, morphine, in an effort to try to control the pain.
Gary was 55 years old when he passed away on May 22, 2003. He will be buried on Tuesday, May 28th due to the Memorial Day event. The small cell carcinoma had metastasized from an unknown origin which may still be evaluated. Gary waged a courageous battle until the pain was so intense, he said, "I am ready to go." His pain and suffering was observed by his family and friends day after day until he died.
Gary's death brings to mind that any member of Congress should be compelled to observe the dying process that each claimant like Gary and their family are forced to endure. President George W. Bush, the US Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao; the US Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson; and the USDOE Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham; and their staff should be held accountable for any and all violations of American civil rights law that was already established before the dysfunctional EEOICPA was enacted.
The USDOL agents originally denied Gary's claim while designating his cancer did not meet their "Interim Regulation(s)" requirements. How could that be? There is only one type of leukemia that the USDOL agents decided to exclude.
During the past three of four months, a USDOL spokesperson contacted Gary to inform him he might be elligible to receive the compensation benefit, again.
Shortly before his death, Gary received a phone call from a New York doctor. It was speculated that the caller was Dr. Steven B. Markowitz, M.D. Excerpt from Dr. Markowitz's testimony before the Committee on Government Affairs -- US Senate:
Quote: "In 1996, we initiated the Worker Health Protection Program (WHPP) at the three Department of Energy gaseous diffusion plants. It is a medical screening and education program established as collaboration between Queens College of the City University of New York and the Paper Allied-Industrial Chemical and Energy (PACE) International Union with the full cooperation of the employers at the plants. This program developed as a result of Congressional passage of Section 3162 of the National Reauthorization Defense Act of 1993. Section 3162 required that the Department of Energy to conduct a medical surveillance program for former DOE workers who a) were at significant risk for work-related illness as a result of prior occupational exposures at DOE facilities, and b) would benefit from early medical intervention to alter the course of those work-related illnesses. We received a contract from the DOE through a competitive, merit-based review process and conducted a careful needs assessment and planning process (Attachment B). We then instituted the Worker Health Protection Program at the three gaseous diffusion plants in Paducah, Portsmouth, and Oak Ridge as well as the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory."
Quote: "The goal of the Worker Health Protection Program is to detect selected work-related illnesses at an early stage when medical intervention can be helpful. At a broader level, the goal of our program is to help former DOE workers understand whether they have had exposures in the past that might threaten their health and to ascertain whether, in fact, an injury has resulted from these exposures. For the first time, former workers of the DOE gaseous diffusion plants have the opportunity to obtain an independent, objective assessment of their health in relation to their prior workplace exposures by a physician who is expert in occupational medicine. We screen for chronic lung diseases, such as asbestosis and emphysema, hearing loss, and kidney and liver disease. We have not heretofore emphasized cancer screening, because the screening tests available to date for the cancers of concern have been inadequate, and because the gaseous diffusion plants have not historically been considered sites of high radiation exposure. We implement the program based on a common medical protocol through local clinical facilities in Oak Ridge, Portsmouth and Paducah. This is not a research activity, but a clinical service program, intended to be of direct and immediate benefit to participants."
It appears Dr. Markowitz has very limited resources to help sick workers as he is obligated to meet certain criteria by contract with the USDOE.
The dysfunctional EEOICPA provisions are described by many victims and survivors as a "sick" political game plan that was never intended to compensate the majority of the sick atomic workers. According to Washington State House of Representatives "Doc" Hastings, only 79 atomic weapons' plant workers have been compensated to date. It is observed that the USDOL agents intent is to compensate certain select claimants just to make it appear the agency Secretary(s) are in compliance with this American law. Realistically, very poor performance by their staff is documented. Actually, US Labor Secretary Chao objected to being forced to administer the EEOICPA provisions. She wanted the "job" turned over to the US Department of Justice that already governed the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). After being elected and after assuming his duties in January of 2001, President George W. Bush was to assume the role of seeing to it the EEOIC law was enforced in a timely and reliable manner.
Gary often prayed that when he got to heaven, he would be able to run, again. Perhaps Gary has golden wings, now, and can fly. Gary wants the members of Congress to know that all affected workers were exposed to various kinds of deadly toxins which caused them to develop the same types of latent disease. Too many workers' lung nodules are being ignored by the delegated government agents which has caused another victim's death.
This dead atomic worker was once a very healthy individual who loved the sport of boxing and keeping fit. No one in Gary's family has ever had cancer. He is survived by his wife, two children, many grandchildren, a twin brother, four sisters, and four brothers.
-------- us politics
KUCINICH ON HOUSE FLOOR: CREDIBILITY GAP IS GROWING
June 10, 2003
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, leader of Congressional opposition to the Iraq war, took to the House floor today to continue pressing for the truth about the Administration's drive to war
From: info@kucinich.us,
"The credibility gap is growing. First the Administration said the US had to sweep aside the UN inspections and the UN Security Council because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that were an imminent threat. Now, Paul Wolfowitz says: 'The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the US government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.'
"Now their story is changing: Iraq had a weapons 'program,' they say. No longer weapons of mass destruction, but a program. If this Administration can fabricate reasons for war after the fact, where will America be headed for war next?
"Congress must demand accountability for the wanton exercise of war power, for the loss of life, the destruction of property, the waste of tax dollars and the damage to America's reputation. Thirty-three members of the House have now signed the Resolution of Inquiry to demand the White House tell the truth."
Kucinich's Resolution of Inquiry, demanding the Administration turn over intelligence to back its pre-war claims about Iraq, was introduced Thursday and has growing support. It is a privileged resolution and must be voted on in Committee within 14 legislative days of being introduced.
Having led Congressional opposition to the Iraq war and Bush foreign policy since last summer, Dennis Kucinich is now campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination on a platform of peace, justice, equal rights and sustainability.
For a quick view of his platform: http://www.kucinich.us/issues/issue_10key.htm
For a fuller look at the Kucinich campaign: http://www.kucinich.us
----
Jim Jeffords: 'Declaring Independence'
Tuesday, June 10
By Jim Jeffords
The following speech by Sen. Jim Jeffords was delivered at the National Press Club on June 5, 2003 to commemorate the second anniversary of his decision to leave the Republican Party and become the Senate's only Independent.
Two years ago, I was big news. I got to know many of you for the first time. I was followed in airports and recognized on the street. Network news people, who until then couldn't identify me as a senator in a police line-up, were now calling my home number. Subsequent events put me back in my place: 9/11, two wars, the space shuttle disaster and a worsening economy took back the nation's attention -- as they should have done.
Yet the reasons for my switch, while apparent to me then, have become painfully clear to me now. The events of the past two years have only heightened my concern over the president's veer to the right, and the poisoning of our democratic process of government.
The promises of candidate Bush, who pledged to bring a new tone to Washington and packaged himself as a compassionate conservative, are unmet. On issue after issue the Bush administration is not what it claims to be. Since coming into office, the president has dragged the Republican Party into short-sighted positions that maximize short-term gain while neglecting the long-term needs of families and the nation.
Pundits asked after last November's election: will the president over-reach with his Republican majorities in the House and Senate? Well, President Bush hasn't just over-reached, he has set a new standard for extreme partisan politics that on many occasions has been supported by the Republican-controlled Congress.
In place of thoughtful policy we now have superficial and cynical sound-bites. Instead of confronting pressing national problems, our president lands airplanes while Rome burns.
While our troops search for WMD in Iraq, we have found our own WMD right here in Washington -- at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They are President Bush's weapons of mass distortion, or better, distraction. The Bush administration says one thing and does another to take the focus off the present realities.
Does he think we don't notice?
In Iraq, we have seen the inexcusable results of what happens when the Bush administration says one thing and does another. Last fall, the president said U.N. weapons inspectors would be allowed to do their job, but in reality, he didn't give them the time they needed. I am pleased to see calls for Congressional investigations to determine whether the president manipulated intelligence information to build support for the war. Why the hurry to invade a country and use military force in such an unprecedented manner? Where was the imminent threat to the United States? And where are the weapons of mass destruction?
As he prepared to invade Iraq and win the support of other nations, the president promised the world that the United States had a plan in place to rebuild that nation. But it quickly became apparent that there was no plan. While our military guarded the oil fields, we showed no compassion for the Iraqi people as we allowed their national treasures to be looted. All we see now is growing unrest with the U.S. presence in Iraq. Every day we see more lawlessness, more upheaval and more U.S. soldiers being killed. Is it any surprise that a recent Pell Research Center survey of 16,000 people from 20 nations shows a dramatic rise in distrust and skepticism toward the United States?
Does he think we don't notice?
His polls and famous advisors tell him to talk about compassion and job growth, and how he is helping Main Street. But that is all it is, talk.
In reality he adopts hard-right proposals that favor those who need help least and neglect those who need help the most. In reality we are now in the longest period of continued job loss since the Great Depression. Since the beginning of this Bush administration, 2.7 million private sector jobs have been lost and the number of unemployed Americans has increased by over 45 percent. In the first three months of this year alone, America has lost another half-million jobs. President Bush has said his tax plan is a "jobs growth package." But the only thing guaranteed to grow is the federal budget deficit. He says one thing and does another.
Does he think we don't notice?
We will be paying for his tax cuts with borrowed funds, money borrowed from our children and grandchildren who will be forced to foot the bill. And, according to reports, the Bush administration intends to ask for more tax cuts next year. The effect of these tax cuts will be enduring -- and enormously damaging. These tax cuts will widen the gap between rich and poor. These tax cuts help those who need it least and do nothing for those who need it most. These tax cuts provide a $90,000 tax cut for millionaires, while millions of parents with incomes under $26,000 will see no benefit from the increased child credit. This is compassion? Again, he says one thing and does another.
Does he think we don't notice?
President Bush is rashly piling up debt our nation can't afford even as he knows the really big bills are about to come due. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts a $300 billion deficit this fiscal year -- an all-time record. Some economists believe the deficit could approach $500 billion dollars in the near future. That's edging close to a troublingly high percentage of the economy. But the real problem is not this year or next. Rather, it's the long-term cost, combined with the budgetary hit coming just around the corner, when the baby boomers start to retire and put new huge demands on Social Security and Medicare.
The administration highlighted this problem in its own budget documents, describing the real fiscal danger as the 18 trillion dollar shortfall -- yes, trillion with a "T" -- projected in those two programs. At the same time, it was recently disclosed the Bush administration shelved a report commissioned by its own Treasury Department that shows the United States currently faces future budget deficits totaling at least $44 trillion.
The Bush tax cut will threaten the country's long-term well-being by starving the federal government of revenue for essential services, such as homeland security, transportation infrastructure, education and health care. Our States are bearing the brunt of our dismal economic conditions, and these cuts will brutalize them.
One of the most disturbing effects of the economic downturn is the lack of state and federal funding for our educational system -- where states are laying off teachers, cutting school days and eliminating early childhood programs -- most of which have only just started. The president's advisors tell him to endlessly repeat "No Child Left Behind."
But in the 17 months since that policy became law, we've seen something very different. Too many children are being left behind. President Bush says the new law will lead to stronger schools. I say it is all part of a quiet plan to starve our public schools so this country can move to vouchers and private school choice.
As the president pushes tax cut after tax cut, his administration still can not find the funding to fulfill the federal government's commitment to special education -- where we still fall $12 billion short on a commitment we made to the states more than 25 years ago, to help them finance this federal constitutional mandate. According to school boards across the nation, the number one thing the federal government can do to support education is fully fund special ed.
While pretending to have compassion for our schoolchildren, the approach of No Child Left Behind is heartless. It chronically under-funds our schools, it sets unattainable goals for our teachers and it steals from schoolchildren the quality education they deserve. Once again, the Bush administration says one thing and does another.
Does he think we don't notice?
A recent report in The New York Times noted that combined budget deficits for 50 states are estimated to be between $52 billion and $82 billion, and the schools are taking the worst hit. In Oregon, 84 school districts closed their schools ahead of schedule -- some by as much as a month -- because the money ran out. This comes at a time when schools are faced with mounting pressure to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind or face penalties.
Now we see that states are cutting back on testing standards to avoid sanctions. In the president's home state of Texas, the State Board of Education voted to reduce the number of questions that students must answer correctly to pass the standard test, to 20 out of 36, from 24, for third-grade reading. And Texas is not alone. Michigan's standards had been among the nation's highest, which caused problems last year when 1,513 schools there were labeled under the law as needing improvement, more than in any other state.
So Michigan officials lowered the percentage of students who must pass statewide tests to certify a school as making adequate progress. That reduced the number of schools "in need of improvement" to 216. In other words, we are dumbing down our standards so the Bush administration can say we have strengthened our schools.
Saying one thing, doing another.
In my home state of Vermont, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a resolution last week expressing its concerns over the policies and mandates of No Child Left Behind. They noted that the law could cost Vermont up to three times more to implement than the federal government provides -- and maybe more -- "thereby placing a major burden on the state's strained financial resources...."
If this wasn't all bad enough, we learned last week that the U.S. Department of Education plans to spend a half-million dollars -- yes, a half-million dollars! -- on a public relations campaign aimed at quieting the critics of No Child Left Behind. During three decades in Congress, I have never heard of such an ad campaign. Yet as schools are cutting early education programs for lack of money, the president has no problem with assembling an eight-person "communications" team to try and make a bad plan look good.
Saying one thing, doing another.
In an age now driven by scientific and technological advances, American students are falling behind. This is inexcusable. But despite warnings that have spanned three decades, we have done nothing to respond. "Before It's Too Late: A Report to the Nation from the National Commission on Mathematics & Science Teaching for the 21st Century," released in 2000, highlighted that problem. Recent reports of the performance of our country's students from both the Third International Mathematics and Science Study and the National Assessment of Educational Progress echo a dismal message of lackluster performance.
In December of 2000 I met with President-elect Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas to discuss education. He assured me that education would be his top priority. But his actions speak louder than his words and that promise clearly fell to the wayside long ago.
The president says one thing, but does another.
Perhaps this is most apparent when it comes to the environment. With a straight face he talks about protecting resources for our children -- even as he abandons the federal protection of land and air and water as fast as he can.
Does he think we don't notice?
The Bush administration continues to protect special interests and ignore public support for strong environmental protections and conservation measures. Candidate Bush said in September of 2000: "With the help of Congress, environmental groups and industry we will require all power plants to meet clean air standards in order to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide within a reasonable period of time." Those were heartening words for many of us. Unfortunately, just two months into his term, President Bush backed away from that statement, and abandoned his commitment to seek reductions in carbon dioxide which is the leading cause of global warming and climate change. And there has been no working together on anything.
Saying one thing, and doing another.
From the beginning, this administration has relaxed environmental laws through deregulation and lack of enforcement, and put forward legislative proposals long on public relations and short on substance. What Americans really need now is relief from air pollution, and swift and serious action to avert global warming. We have a right to breathe air that is not contaminated by pollution. At a minimum, we have a right to full and vigorous implementation of laws already on the books, such as the Clean Air Act. The devastation caused by dirty air is staggering. As many as 60,000 premature deaths each year are linked to air pollution, according to an American Cancer Society study and researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health.
I was proud to work with the first President Bush on the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, when I was a Republican. I was proud to be chosen by the first President Bush as one of the lead Senate negotiators on that bill. He called our work, "a new chapter in our environmental history, and a new era for clean air." That was an example of what we could do -- together -- when we made a shared commitment to our environmental future. Now this President Bush insists on moving us backward, undoing his father's legacy and weakening our nation's environmental laws.
This Bush administration has put forward a plan mislabeled "Clear Skies." This bill weakens or eliminates current clean air programs, accelerates global warming, and saves only one-third of the lives that could be saved by the Clean Power Act. Worse, the administration bill takes 20 years before its reduction targets are achieved.
Does he think we won't notice?
Well, we do notice. We do care. And it does matter.
Some people might not have agreed with my decision to leave the GOP two years ago, but at least I did it for the reasons I said I did. I was honest about what brought me to that decision.
What makes the actions of the Bush administration so troublesome is the lack of honesty.
It amounts, in the end, to a pattern of deception and distortion; ultimately that does not respect the wisdom of the American people.
Thank you.
Jim Jeffords represents the state of Vermont in the U.S. Senate as an Independent.
----
Source, quoting Bush: 'We have a problem with Sharon'
By Akiva Eldar,
Haaretz Correspondent
10/06/2003
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/302079.html
Behind-the-scenes exchanges between President George Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at last week's Aqaba summit may hint at a certain shift in the American stance, from the Israeli to the Palestinian side, according to a participant in the three-way meeting of the delegations.
The source quoted Bush as telling his National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that "I see that we have a problem with Sharon," while saying of the Palestinians led by Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, "We can work with them."
At one point, an irked Bush reportedly rebuked Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, telling him "Oh, but I think that you can [help the Palestinians]. And I think that you will."
At the advance request of Israel at the summit, Bush's aides had put security problems at the top of the agenda for discussion. "The first thing that Bush was required to talk about was security," the participant said, adding, "It was a request of the Israelis. So [Bush] asked Dahlan to give a briefing."
According to the source, Dahlan gave an excellent five-minute synopsis of the situation, and concluded by saying to Bush: "There are some things we can do and some things we cannot. We will do our best. But we will need help."
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz burst in at the end of Dahlan's presentation and said: "Well, they won't be getting any help from us; they have their own security service."
You could see that Bush was irritated, the participant said, and Bush turned on Mofaz angrily: "Their own security service? But you have destroyed their security service."
Mofaz shook his head and said: "I do not think that we can help them, Mr. President," - to which Bush said: "Oh, but I think that you can. And I think that you will."
Then Bush turned to Abbas - again according to a script insisted on by the Israelis - and said: "Mr. Prime Minister, perhaps you could give an overview of the situation in the West Bank and Gaza."
Abbas outlined the increasingly dire situation of the territories, saying that the humanitarian crisis was deepening, and that while recent actions of the finance minister had eased the problems, the insertion of new funding was necessary.
Sharon then interrupted and said: "The insertion of new funding must be dependent on your good behavior." Bush was again visibly irritated: "You should release their money as soon as possible. This will help the situation."
Sharon shook his head: "We have to deal with security first, and we will condition the release of their monies on this alone." Bush peered at Sharon: "But it is their money ..." Sharon said: "Nevertheless, Mr. President ..." and Bush interrupted him: "It is their money, give it to them."
After that meeting, Bush turned to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and said, "We have a problem with Sharon I can see, but I like that young man [Dahlan] and I think their prime minister is incapable of lying. I hope that they will be successful. We can work with them."
Bush was also pleased with the determination with which Abbas rebuffed pressure from his ministers, Nabil Sha'ath and Yasser Abed Rabbo, to toughen the language of the Abbas speech, which he had agreed upon with the American delegation before the summit. They said it would cause trouble in the Palestinian Authority. They argued heatedly with Abbas about his comments, at one point in front of the president. But Abbas insisted that his remarks follow the outlines set out by Bush.
Bush watched the interplay and was pleased that Abbas agreed to the American president's suggestions on the draft remarks: "If you will just do this, I pledge to you we will get where your colleagues want you to go. But we are going to take one step at a time."
----
Big Bush offer to buy Pak nod to Israel
Tuesday, 10 June, 2003
Sify News (India)
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13168085
Washington: The United States is expected to offer lucrative financial package, including 1.8 billion dollar waiver, to Pakistan in return for its recognition of Israel.
The offer is high on the agenda drawn up for the forthcoming crucial meeting between President Pervez Musharraf and US President Bush at Camp David.
However, preliminary reaction from Pakistan has been that it will not take any unilateral step in this direction.
Besides, a wide spectrum of issues like promotion of defence ties, raise in textile quota for Pakistan, provision of funds for development of social sector, nuclear armaments and Kashmir are at the centerstage of talks between the US and Pakistan.
Both the leaders are likely to exchange views on the roadmap announced by the US for the lasting Mideast peace and respect for the sovereignty and independence of Israeli and Palestinian states. ANI
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Karzai blames outsiders for attack
From combined dispatches
June 10, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030609-114510-1166r.htm
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai blamed foreigners yesterday for a car bombing that killed four German peacekeepers in Kabul, his latest attempt to dispel the view abroad that the Taliban is making a comeback.
His interior minister pointed the finger of blame for instability in Afghanistan at Pakistan, saying training camps and staging posts for attacks continued to operate there.
Attacks on aid agencies, peacekeepers and U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan since the fall of the hard-line Taliban regime in 2001 show no sign of letting up. The attack Saturday on German peacekeepers was the worst against the security force.
"I am not worried about the resurgence of the Taliban," Mr. Karzai said at a news briefing at the presidential palace in Kabul. "The Taliban movement as a movement is finished, is gone."
"Are we concerned about terrorist activities of the kind that occur at the borders or inside Afghanistan, of the kind that happened the day before yesterday? Yes."
Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali was more specific.
"The one thing we learned so far is that the terrorists and anti-government elements cannot stay for long inside the country, so they take refuge in these areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border," he said at the same briefing.
"We hope that Pakistan security forces who are also committed to fight terrorism will intensify their activities to go after these terrorist centers, including training areas, staging areas and also areas where some of their leaders are residing."
The frequency of attacks on foreign and Afghan targets across the south and in the capital in recent months have led many commentators to speak of a Taliban resurgence.
Earlier yesterday, a provincial official in the restive southern province of Zabul said the Taliban was calling on the army and police to join the hard-line Islamic movement in its campaign against Mr. Karzai and U.S.-led forces in the country.
The removal of land mines has been suspended in many areas because of threats and violence. The 5,000-member International Security Assistance Force in Kabul has stopped using buses to transport troops around the city since the incident on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Pakistan yesterday complained to Afghanistan about the bodies of 22 Taliban suspects being dumped on its side of the border.
Afghanistan brought the bodies to the Pakistani town of Chaman after a battle Wednesday in which seven Afghan soldiers and 40 Taliban suspects died.
Afghan officials say they took the bodies to the border to give Afghan refugees living in camps in Chaman a chance to identify them. No one claimed the remains, and Afghanistan took them back.
Pakistan summoned Afghan Ambassador Naunguyalai Tarzi to the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad to protest the action. None of the dead was a Pakistani citizen, a spokesman said.
--------
U.S. Troops Kill Four in Afghanistan
June 10, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-US-Fighting.html
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Insurgents in eastern Afghanistan opened fire Tuesday on patrolling U.S. forces, setting off a firefight that left four attackers dead, a military spokesman said. No U.S. casualties were reported.
The U.S. troops came under attack before dawn near Shkin, a volatile town in Paktika province near the Pakistan border, the spokesman, Col. Rodney Davis, said from Bagram Air Base.
U.S. soldiers fired four artillery shells along with several illumination rounds during a three-hour exchange, Davis said.
After an initial gunfight, ``coalition forces then conducted a search of the contact site and a nearby compound,'' Davis said. ``They found three enemy killed in action and engaged a fourth who attempted to throw a hand-grenade at coalition forces, killing him.''
It was not known how large the group of insurgents was. They were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, Davis said.
The U.S. patrol was searching out guerrilla fighters, he said.
In a separate incident on Monday, also near Shkin, unidentified attackers fired four rocket-propelled grenades at an Afghan military checkpoint on the Pakistan border. No casualties or damage were reported, Davis said.
Meanwhile, near Asadabad, another town to the northwest in eastern Kunar province, U.S. special operations forces recovered three Blowpipe optically guided, shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile systems. It was not clear who it had belonged to or where exactly it was found.
Insurgents have been stepping up attacks since the start of spring in the south and east of the country.
On Saturday, a suicide bomber killed four German peacekeepers and wounded 19 others when he drove an explosives-laden car alongside a bus carrying the peacekeepers. One Afghan was also killed and up to 10 wounded in the same attack.
About 11,500 coalition troops are in Afghanistan conducting operations to route out small groups of Taliban and al-Qaida guerrillas and their allies, who authorities say are using bases in Pakistan to launch cross-border attacks. The Taliban were overthrown in a U.S.-led war in 2001.
-------- asia
The Pentagon's paradigm shift in Asia
By Phar Kim Beng,
Jun 10, 2003
Asia Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/EF10Dg01.html
HONG KONG - Last week's announcement of a redeployment of US troops based in Korea was part of an overall realignment of strategic troop placement in Asia, the first sign of which was a May 29 article in the Los Angeles times that caused a frenzy among US allies in the region, who claimed they had not been consulted. All indications are, however, that the Pentagon is in no hurry to carry out its plans.
The Los Angeles Times reported that "the Pentagon wants to move US troops from South Korea and Japan to new bases in Southeast Asia and Australia". The report also affirmed that the Pentagon was seeking agreements to increase its military presence in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines, and to base navy ships in Vietnamese waters.
Although Japan and Australia denied that the Pentagon has any such plans, citing the absence of any mutual agreement, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told reporters at the International Institute for Strategic Studies defense dialogue in Singapore a day after the LA Times report was released that while the account was wrong on the exact number of troop deployments, it was "broadly accurate" on Pentagon plans. If the LA Times report needed any vindication, that was it.
Since then stories of Pentagon's latest plans have expanded to include references to India. That country, according to one Pentagon official, lies "at the center of Asia", so it would be logical to locate some US troops there too. While the Defense Ministry of India has yet to repudiate the report, the flurry of news about Pentagon's plans are serving as the perfect grist for the intelligence and defense community throughout the region.
To be sure, the Pentagon's plans have been in motion for some time. The present plans attempt to redistribute the security risks that have accrued to US military bases, an objective consistent with the September 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). Indeed, the rationale for more places to host US military troops also stemmed from the fear of a decisive attack launched against the military base in South Korea and Japan. Many US military installations remain just as vulnerable as they were before the attacks of September 11, 2001, despite a heightened awareness of terrorist threats. As Richard Marcinko, a former US Navy SEAL (Sea-Air-Land special forces member), explained: "It would take one determined suicide bomber, for example, to wreak havoc on a major naval base. A kamikaze truck could ram through the gates, plunge into the water, detonate a bomb right next to sleeping nuclear submarines, spreading enough radio- activity to pollute large sections of the ocean. It could be a one man job."
The recent suicidal attacks in Riyadh and Casablanca, while not directed at any military targets, brought home the real threat of a team of terrorists shooting their way through, before detonating themselves.
In the case of South Korea, troop redeployment has verged on something of a taboo for the past five decades prior to the Pentagon's latest plans. Thus, the fact that Pentagon was willing to act on it at all marked a critical phase in military rethinking.
Unlike other US defense secretaries before him, Donald Rumsfeld does not believe that troop transfer should only occur as a tit-for-tat with Pyongyang. Rumsfeld believes that since long-range US military supremacy has already improved vastly, shown not least by the military prowess of US war campaigns over the last decade, it is high time to move the troops from harm's way.
Nor does the US military want to expose itself to the direct tactical assault of North Korea in one strike, a prospect that has strengthened considerably since North Korea's confession of having nuclear weapons. This has also enhanced Pyongyang's negotiation posture with the US.
At any rate, the LA Times report continued to resonate, one might add, at amazing speed. Last Wednesday, it was announced by Seoul that the US 2nd Infantry Division would relinquish its frontline defensive role in two stages over the next few years.
The division, whose motto is "In Front of Them All," has stood eye to eye with North Korean troops on the border since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, which killed 3 million people. So far, what is open to question is the issue of when the troop redeployment would begin.
If the Pentagon's plans in South Korea may be proceeding swiftly, those in Southeast Asia have come under some disrepute. Malaysia, which is afraid of an Islamic backlash against hosting a US military presence, has opposed the initiative. As one of the pioneers of the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) in 1970, a concept meant to prevent great powers from interfering in regional affairs, Malaysia has a stake in keeping the region free from excessive US forward deployment.
Although the Philippines has been promoted to the status of a full ally by the administration of US President George W Bush in the "war on terror", the Philippine Congress's reception remains lukewarm.
Be that as it may, this situation can change according to the national security of the country. Southeast Asia has always met its defense needs through various bilateral, rather than multilateral, arrangements.
To balance the perennial fear of an emergent China, for example, the Philippines took a U-turn by signing the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the US during the short tenure of president Joseph Estrada.
Vietnam has in turn warmed to the Pentagon's plans; not in permitting the physical presence of US troops on Vietnam soil, but to allow US Navy vessels to ply its waters.
Nevertheless, even if these countries accept the Pentagon's plans in principle, they are still reluctant to upgrade their defense ties with the US formally. That is, not until three issues are effectively managed.
The first has to do with the terms under which US military access may be allowed. Prior to the withdrawal of US military from the Clark and Subic air bases, for instance, the Philippine government insisted that US aid programs be regarded as "rent" for the bases. The US government refused to budge.
It became a long-standing irritant, which heightened during 1990 when Manila argued there had been a US$222 million shortfall. The United States eventually conceded a sum less than half that, and opted for a complete withdrawal in 1991. Learning from this lesson, some leaders in Southeast Asia are invariably not committed to supporting Pentagon's plans in principle before this sensitive issue is resolved.
Second, when the US military left Clark and Subic, it also left a litany of environmental problems. In 1992, the US General Accounting Office (GAO) admitted as much when it reported contaminated sites in Clark and Subic but claimed "no responsibility for environmental damage". Leaders in Southeast Asia would be aware of this point too.
At any rate, if leaders in Southeast Asia should somehow feel that they can squeeze more money and control out of the Bush administration, that is given Washington's concern with terrorist attacks, the threat of North Korea, indeed even the growing power of China, they had better reconsider. Their leverage may not be much. While Pentagon does want more places for its troops, it will not enter into any arrangement that might require the United States to surrender too much control or taxpayers' dollars. After all, the US military has already developed considerable accuracy in its armament, on land, air and sea. It has access to the Changi naval base in Singapore too - a facility also built and maintained at the expense of the Singaporean government - which has the means to host the deployment of the US 7th Fleet.
Despite the paradigm shift in US military thinking, it would not be wrong to assume that the United States is willing to bide its time in order to extract the best arrangement.
-------- business
Northrop to Pay $111 Million to Settle Suit
Subsidiary TRW Allegedly Overcharged U.S. on 1990s Space Project Work
By Anitha Reddy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36891-2003Jun9?language=printer
Northrop Grumman Corp. agreed to pay $111.2 million to settle a civil lawsuit alleging that a subsidiary overcharged the government for work done on space projects during most of the 1990s.
The settlement resolves charges that TRW Inc., a Cleveland-based firm that Northrop acquired last year, shifted expenses from commercial jobs to government contracts and wrongly classified other expenses to evade federally imposed reimbursement caps on research and development costs.
Northrop, headquartered in Los Angeles, said it had factored the possible cost of a settlement into the purchase of TRW and still expects earnings per share of $3.80 to $4.20 this year. The aerospace contractor did not admit or deny any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
The suit has been in the courts for nearly a decade. Richard Bagley, director of financial control of TRW's space unit, first accused the company of accounting improprieties in a federal suit in Los Angeles in 1994.
Bagley, who was responsible for enforcing government cost accounting rules, reported directly to Daniel S. Goldin, the general manager of TRW's space unit. The suit alleges that Goldin, who later became head of NASA, approved at least some of the company's deceptive accounting. Goldin has denied any wrongdoing and was not named as a defendant in the case.
Bagley filed his case under the federal False Claims Act, which allows whistle-blowers to sue government contractors on behalf of themselves and the government if they suspect misuse of federal dollars.
TRW declined to settle the case for roughly $30 million in 1998, said Eric Havian, Bagley's lawyer and a partner in Phillips & Cohen in San Francisco. Then, the government decided that a major part of the final settlement, involving excess charges at two satellite projects, was too weak to pursue. But over the next two years, Bagley's lawyers uncovered enough evidence to make the government's attorneys change their minds.
The government has agreed to pay Bagley $27.2 million, or 24.5 percent of the settlement, because of the unusual length and complexity of the case and the close cooperation between Bagley's private lawyers and the government's lawyers, said Susan Hershman, an attorney who worked on the case for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.
As an incentive to report fraud, the False Claims Act entitles whistle-blowers to between 15 and 25 percent of damages and penalties collected, but rewards so near the cap are unusual in large settlements, Havian said.
Northrop Grumman still faces three other lawsuits alleging violations of the False Claims Act. The plaintiffs, who in two cases include the federal government, accuse the company of knowingly selling defective military target drones and overbilling on government projects. The plaintiffs are demanding a total of $395 million in damages and penalties, which can be tripled under the law. The company denies these charges and intends to "vigorously" defend itself, according to its last annual report.
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Watchdog Groups Slam Boeing Lease Deal
June 10, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-arms-boeing-tanker.html
WASHINGTON ( Reuters) - Seven independent groups on Tuesday blasted a $16 billion Boeing Co. (BA.N) lease deal with the Air Force as ``a profligate waste of taxpayer dollars'' and said lawmakers should delay its approval until a criminal investigation into another Boeing contract is completed.
``In light of the fact that Boeing is currently under criminal and civil investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice for possible misconduct involving government contracts, such an apparent sweetheart deal seems particularly troublesome,'' they said in a joint letter to top lawmakers.
``Congress should -- at a minimum -- delay the required additional authorization for this program until questions are resolved relating to this contract and Boeing's conduct on a range of issues,'' said the letter, signed by Taxpayers for Common Sense, Public Citizen, National Taxpayers Union, the National Legal and Policy Center, and three other groups.
Chicago-based Boeing, anticipating the letter, on Monday bought full-page advertisements in major U.S. newspapers, admitting its employees acted improperly during a fierce competition with Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT.N) for a $2 billion rocket deal.
But Boeing Chairman and Chief Executive Phil Condit said the company had taken appropriate action after it learned of the errors and would not tolerate unethical behavior.
The Project on Government Oversight, which also signed the letter, rejected Condit's statement and said it had documented 36 cases of misconduct or alleged misconduct by Boeing workers between 1990 and 2002, resulting in about $348 million in fines or penalties, restitution and settlement fees.
GROUPS CITE 'EXCESSIVE WASTE'
The groups cited several estimates that it would be cheaper for the Air Force to modernize its aging fleet of KC-135 refueling tankers instead of leasing new 767 jets from Boeing, a deal approved by the Pentagon on May 23.
They also questioned the military's decision to award the contract without a formal competition, saying it reinforced ``a widespread perception of ... excessive and unnecessary waste.''
In their letter to the lawmakers who oversee defense spending, the groups cited a General Accounting Office report that Boeing obtained proprietary documents from another competitor, Raytheon Co. (RTN.N), on a missile defense contract.
They said this was particularly alarming, given Boeing's role as the ``lead system integrator'' on missile defense, which gave it easy access to proprietary documents of competitors.
Given the circumstances, the groups said Congress should not approve the lease until after a complete investigation into the Air Force plan, and the conclusion of the Justice Department's probe of the rocket contract.
In addition, it said the government and Congress should review a decision to make Boeing the lead contractor for the Army's Future Combat Systems, a multibillion-dollar deal.
Boeing said it was cooperating with the Justice Department and the Air Force as they investigate whether Boeing used documents from Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT.N) when the two firms were competing to build a new rocket launcher for spy satellites, known as the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle.
Boeing eventually won the lion's share of the $1.88 billion contract, although the Pentagon has said it is committed to keeping both companies working on the program.
Boeing spokesman Dan Beck said the investigation focused on one incident and should not reflect on the overall company.
--------
Lockheed Martin Sues Boeing Over Contract
June 10, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Boeing-Contract.html
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) -- Lockheed Martin Corp. filed suit Tuesday against competitor Boeing Co. and three of its former employees, claiming Boeing used Lockheed internal documents to win an Air Force rocket contract.
The 23-count complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Orlando, Fla., claims a former Lockheed employee gave Boeing more than 37,000 pages of documents that include financial details on Lockheed's planned bid for the $1.88 billion contract.
The contract, part of the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Program, was divided between the two companies in 1999. But Boeing was eventually awarded 21 rocket launches, while Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed was given seven.
Lockheed, the nation's largest defense contractor, alleges Boeing and its employees broke federal and Florida racketeering and antitrust laws by soliciting, acquiring and using Lockheed data. The lawsuit does not seek specific damages.
``We are filing suit to ensure our legal rights are protected,'' said Meghan Mariman, a Lockheed spokeswoman.
Lockheed's lawsuit came a day after Chicago-based Boeing ran a full-page advertisement in several national newspapers acknowledging that some of its employees improperly used the proprietary documents to win the contract.
CEO Phil Condit said in the ad that ``the actions of a handful of people'' during the contract competition do not reflect the company's ethics.
Boeing spokesman Dan Beck referred Tuesday to Condit's statement, saying the wrongdoing was limited to the three workers named in the suit, all of whom have either been fired or no longer work for the company. Boeing will ``respond in appropriate legal venues,'' he said.
The Justice Department and Air Force are also investigating the case.
Lockheed and Boeing fought in the late 1990s for the right to build rockets to launch spy and communications satellites under the EELV program.
In its complaint, Lockheed alleges that Kenneth Branch, an engineer and former Lockheed EELV project manager, took company documents with him when he left Lockheed and joined Boeing in 1997. Boeing fired Branch in 1999 after an internal probe found he had used the documents.
Lockheed also named Branch's supervisor, William Erskine, and Larry Satchell, whose job was to ensure Boeing's bid came in under Lockheed's, in the complaint. Boeing fired Erskine in 1999, while Satchell was suspended and has since retired, Beck said.
The complaint alleges Boeing and the employees covered up their activity by telling Lockheed and the Air Force that the individuals and documents involved were limited in number and that Boeing did not use any of Lockheed's proprietary information in the launch vehicle competition.
Erskine and Branch filed a wrongful termination suit against Boeing in federal court, a case that was dismissed last year. Their attorney in that case, Natasha Roit, said the Lockheed lawsuit was expected.
``We think it is a shame that Erskine and Branch continue to be pawns in this game between two giant companies,'' she said.
Boeing has returned many of the Lockheed documents, according to the complaint.
Lockheed and Boeing collaborate on several major contracts, including the F-22 jet, the proposed national missile defense system and United Space Alliance, a joint venture that operates much of the space shuttle program.
On the Net:
Lockheed Martin Corp.: http://www.lockheedmartin.com
Boeing Co.: http://www.boeing.com
-------- europe
Possible Military Move East Makes Czechs Uneasy
10.06.2003
Deutsche Welle World
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1430_A_889276_1_A,00.html
The possibility of U.S. military bases in Western Europe moving east to NATO members like the Czech Republic has sparked a debate in a country still getting over decades of Soviet occupation. The last foreign troops based in the Czech Republic swore allegiance to the USSR.
When the 75,000 Soviet soldiers left the country following the collapse of the Iron Curtain in the early 1990s, many in the Czech Republic hoped it was the last time soldiers under a foreign flag would set up shop on their home soil.
Now, there's very serious talk in the Pentagon of relocating U.S. bases in Western Europe east to countries like Poland and the Czech Republic - and the country finds itself in the middle of a hot debate.
Czechs "are very touchy when it comes to foreign soldiers on our territory. The renewed stationing of foreign troops would probably not be welcome," said Czech President Vaclav Klaus in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung last month.
Czechs more skeptical than Poles
The remarks unleashed hefty discussion within the government and parliament. Though government officials largely supported the war against Saddam Hussein, they stopped short of committing any military personnel, like Poland. There are other signs to indicate they do not share their neighbor's euphoria in supporting America.
Poll numbers suggest that some 43 percent of the Czechs would reject the stationing of U.S. troops in their country. Parliamentarians, such as the chair of the foreign affairs committee, also remain skeptical.
"I understand this future, but for us, for me, it's a problem, a question," Vladimir Lastuvka told Deutsche Welle in an interview.
U.S.: too early for such talk
U.S. military leaders insist it's too early for any talk of soldiers on Czech soil. Military planners said the current discussion on the movement of some troops out of Germany into Eastern European countries is taking part as part of a long-term military reconfiguration. Speculation on the actual move and where it might bring U.S. troops is still premature, they say.
But that hasn't stopped Eastern European officials from advocating the merits of such a move.
"In the future where are the prevalent possible sources of conflict? It's still the Balkans, still the Middle East. We can talk about this movement of American bases as a step towards a higher efficiency for the future deployment of American forces," Deputy Prime Minister Petr Mares told Deutsche Welle.
The new NATO member would stand to gain as well, with an American military base lending a feeling of protection and security to the country. There are also the economic benefits American soldiers will bring to the country, benefits the German towns surrounding U.S. bases in Ramstein and Landstuhl have known for quite some time.
"I think that it's maybe a good idea, because American soldiers are professional," said one Czech man in an on-the-street interview with Deutsche Welle. "And I think it's good for the economy in our country too."
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NORWEGIAN 'NO' TO WAR STRENGTHENED
Norway rubs salt into Bush's war wound
Nettavisen (Norway):
Ole Berthelsen / Hanne Dankertsen
10. jun 13:53
http://www.nettavisen.no/servlets/page?section=1706&item=271637
The pressure against the US and Great Britain is increasing as no weapons of mass destruction have yet been found. On Tuesday Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik rubbed salt into the wounds.
"It is interesting that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq", said Bondevik during a conference in Oslo on Tuesday.
"As long as no weapons of mass destruction have been found, it strengthens the stand Norway took against the war", the PM said, stressing that the whole point of the war was the fear that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq.
More time Bondevik told TV 2 Nettavisen that before the break of war, everyone agreed on finding and destroying any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
"Nobody disagreed on that question. The disagreement was about whether we could find out if there were any weapons of mass destruction and, if weapons were found, whether we could destruct them without starting a war. Norway thought one could do this and believed that the weapon inspectors should be given more time", he said.
Bondevik is now awaiting an investigation initiated by the English House of Commons.
Watergate Former President Richard M. Nixon's advisor, John Dean, said on Monday that the lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq could become president Bush's Watergate.
Kjell Magne Bondevik said he did not want to comment on whether the US and the UK were exaggerating the danger of weapons of mass destruction:
"I do not want to draw any conclusions before they have come further in their own investigations", Bondevik said, referring to the investigations initiated by the House of Commons.
-------- iraq
Iraq's children bear brunt of unexploded munitions
Story by Ruth Gidley
REUTERS UK:
June 10, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/21113/newsDate/10-Jun-2003/story.htm
LONDON - The war in Iraq has left the country littered with explosives - landmines, ammunition left behind by Iraqi forces and live bomblets from U.S. and British attacks - which have injured at least 15 people a day since Saddam Hussein's government fell on April 9.
U.S. and British coalition officials admit they used cluster bombs in Iraq, in spite of pleas from advocacy groups to avoid using them in civilian areas where inquisitive children and men scavenging for scrap metal have paid a high price.
Sean Sutton of the British-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG) told Reuters: "There's going to be a lot of reminders around for other children not to play with the stuff. I can't imagine there's going to be a classroom in the north without scarred children in it. It's so widespread."
Many deaths and injuries are not registered, so it is difficult to estimate casualties, but Sutton said MAG reported 320 injuries in northern Iraq in the first month after April 9.
He said the real figure was probably much higher, since deaths were recorded only if they occurred in hospital, or if MAG gathered data by speaking to victims in hospital and found out from relatives or doctors that other people had been killed in the same accident.
"Averaging all of that out, it was over 500 injuries from April 10 to the end of April, and 80 deaths that we knew of," Sutton said.
In northern Iraq, some explosives date from the war between Iran and Iraq from 1980 to 1988, military action by Saddam Hussein's government against the predominantly Kurdish population and the first Gulf war in 1991.
Richard Lloyd, director of the British non-government agency Landmine Action, told Reuters: "The conflict this year has made what we knew was a serious problem much worse."
The most dangerous areas for landmines are on the former front line between the Kurdish-controlled north and government-held areas, and the border with Iran.
"Where there were Iraqi positions, at the moment we must assume unless proven otherwise that they were protected with minefields, since it was standard procedure," Sutton said.
CLUSTER BOMBS
There is a danger throughout the country from abandoned Iraqi stockpiles and the debris of cluster bombs and explosives used by U.S. and British forces.
Lloyd said there were reports of unexploded ordnance in Najaf, Nassiriyah and Hillah in the south of the country, as well as Baghdad and Basra, Iraq's second largest city.
British Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said on May 29 that British forces had used cluster bombs in built-up areas around Basra. NGOs said there were a large number of strikes around Kirkuk and Mosul.
The use of cluster bombs is controversial because they often fail to explode at the moment of impact and can cause serious injuries if picked up.
The British Defence Ministry says the cluster bombs used by its army have a failure rate of about two percent. The models used by Britain's Royal Air Force and the U.S. army have a failure rate of about 10 percent.
"Before the conflict, we tried to persuade the United States and United Kingdom to at least restrict their use, based on what we've seen in other recent conflicts where it's caused major humanitarian problems," Lloyd said.
"Both the U.S. and the U.K. have used them in massive numbers."
Ingram told BBC radio: "Cluster bombs are not illegal. They are effective weapons. "There were troops, there was equipment in and around built-up areas, therefore the bombs were used accordingly to take out the threat to our troops."
Sutton said the biggest problem was stockpiles of munitions left behind by the Iraqi army.
"Kids were taking out the boosters from shells and mortars which is like cordite - gunpowder - and making big flashes out of it."
EDUCATING COMMUNITIES
The strategy of organisations such as MAG is to work through through schools and religious leaders to educate communities about the dangers of explosives, mark dangerous areas and fence them off, and then remove or destroy dangerous items.
Sutton said he was photographing children picking flowers and playing next to a minefield when he was approached by a man who told him the family had returned to their village two weeks before, after years in Baghdad. They had fled the bombing and unexploded ordnance in the city.
"This is the joke," he told Sutton. "Look what my son's playing with." "I turned around and his son was holding four machinegun rounds," Sutton said.
"I told him what MAG was doing and asked him what he thought. 'I could kiss you!' he said."
Archie Law, U.N. Mine Action Service (UNMAS) programme officer for Iraq, told Reuters from New York that the Swiss Federation for Demining was surveying access routes for the U.N. World Food Programme.
He said they were checking if food distribution points, warehouses and flour mills were safe from mines and unexploded ordnance.
UNMAS is coordinating U.N. work on landmines and its emergency response programme in Iraq is based in Basra. Law said UNMAS was working closely with occupying authorities.
"We're not in the business of telling people where to go. It's a very collaborative effort."
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U.S. Soldiers Face Growing Resistance
Attacks in Central Iraq Become More Frequent and Sophisticated
By William Booth and Daniel Williams
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 10, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37082-2003Jun9?language=printer
TIKRIT, Iraq, June 9 -- Attacks on American troops are growing in frequency and sophistication across central Iraq, a crescent of discontent and hostility where many Iraqis remain opposed to the U.S. occupation of their country.
Almost every day, well-organized groups of assailants using assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars are ambushing U.S. Army convoys, patrols, checkpoints, garrisons and public offices used by troops to interact with the civilian population.
In response, U.S. forces are trying to crush resistance through house-to-house searches, arms seizures and deadly force, in some cases with fatal consequences for innocent bystanders.
Army commanders say the attacks are locally planned and attribute them to "remnants" of the Baath Party and other supporters of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. While they describe the attacks as the work of a single resistance group, they suspect that some armed fighters may be moving from city to city, looking for vulnerable targets and pressuring the local population to secretly support their activities. They say these fighters appear to be staging hit-and-run actions designed to kill American troops, but not engage them in firefights.
The persistence and evolution of tactics is giving the violence the appearance of a guerrilla movement. In the last two weeks, eight U.S. soldiers have been killed and another 25 wounded, according to Pentagon announcements and news reports. The numbers of Iraqis killed, wounded or apprehended number in the dozens.
On Sunday night, a U.S. soldier was killed at a checkpoint near the Syrian border. The assailants first requested medical assistance for a passenger in their vehicle and when the soldiers approached, they fired handguns at them. U.S. troops returned fire, killing one and capturing another. At least one assailant fled in the vehicle, according to the U.S. Central Command. The soldier has not been identified.
The hostility to U.S. forces appears to be most intense in a region west and north of Baghdad dominated by Sunni Muslims who were at the core of the Baath Party and Hussein's government. Cities such as Baqubah, Samarra, Habaniyah, Khaldiya, Fallujah and Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town, have been particularly dangerous for U.S. troops.
"These are military-type attacks," said Capt. John Ives, of the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade in Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad. "It could get worse before it gets better. It's a matter that some people want us dead. We're just going to have to take them out." The division was recently dispatched from Baghdad to reinforce the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in west central Iraq.
In Tikrit early Saturday morning, U.S. troops were besieged at the central building used by the military to deal with Iraqi civilians seeking help. Army officers today recalled the assault as sophisticated and organized. "They were definitely not some kids with pistols. It was well planned and well executed. They knew where we were in the building. They had done reconnaissance," said Army Maj. George Pitt in Tikrit, about 90 miles north of Baghdad.
The Tikrit attack began with small-arms fire. "They were probing us, seeing how we reacted. That's how we would have done it," Staff Sgt. Jaime Carrasco said. "They knew how to use their weapons."
Shots were fired from protected positions on rooftops across the street and from behind a berm. U.S. troops later found spent shells, rucksacks and food -- signaling patience and preparation, Carrasco said.
Then, suddenly, the small-arms fire died down, and the U.S.-occupied building was hit by at least six to eight volleys of rocket-propelled grenades.
"Look at the shot groups," Carrasco said, pointing to the pocked mortar and gaping holes on the third floor of the building. "See how tight they are."
The rocket-propelled grenades hit their targets within four feet of each other. One barely missed a window. Another projectile penetrated a metal door, flew across the room and exited through the back wall. The grenades were fragmentary devices, designed to spew shrapnel upon impact. Only one did, and the wall below impact was flecked with deep gouges. "This is very, very lucky thing," Carrasco said. "Somebody was looking out for us."
Carrasco said he believed the assailants knew that this was the room where the infantry soldiers guarding the building at night slept or relaxed on their breaks. After the rocket-propelled grenades were fired, the U.S. forces returned fire.
During the fight, a group of military police three houses away were also attacked. "This was coordinated. Two locations. Same time," Carrasco said. Five soldiers were wounded, one seriously. A military policeman was shot in the face outside the building and drowned in his own blood; medics performed an emergency tracheotomy, but he died. The Pentagon has identified him as Pvt. Jesse M. Halling, 19, of Indianapolis, of the 401st Military Police Company, based at Ft. Hood, Tex. Pitt said military investigators do not know who attacked them or why.
The Tikrit attack took place where the military does its community outreach, taking complaints about stolen vehicles, looting, or the fate of men missing or arrested, and answering questions from pensioners or former state employees about when they might get paid again. The troops in the building say they believe that some Iraqis who come seeking help during the day are actually looking for targets to hit at night. "You can't tell friend from foe," one soldier said.
Several soldiers said the increased hostilities had made their job of winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis more difficult, and after the attack, the Tikrit building was fortified with sandbags and heavier weapons.
On Sunday night, U.S. patrols arrested two men outside the building who were carrying binoculars and rough map and outline of the site and its possible vulnerabilities, Pitt said.
In Fallujah, there are also signs of increasing organization and tactical efficiency of resisters, U.S. officers said. Some groups have begun to give themselves names -- things as simple as "The Fighters," according to graffiti on the walls in the town. Gunmen are using spotters placed along the roads or in mosques to signal the arrival of U.S. troops, Capt. Ives said. Once, someone cut electricity to a neighborhood as U.S. forces were approaching.
In Fallujah early today, a convoy of seven U.S. Humvees was attacked as the vehicles moved down Old Cinema Street, a main commercial thoroughfare. The vehicles were ambushed by rifle fire from four sides. The Americans fired at buildings on both sides of the street, chipping concrete off the facades. No one on either side was injured.
There have been attacks on U.S. forces every night in Fallujah since Wednesday, when Iraqis fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a group of soldiers positioned at a ruined police station, killing one. The assailants escaped. Fallujah has been embittered since U.S. forces killed 17 Iraqis during two separate protests in April. U.S. authorities said the soldiers fired in self-defense.
"We've got to be on our toes all the time. Eyes open, scanning the buildings. It's not tanks and infantry we're fighting anymore. It's something more hidden," said Staff Sgt. Fred Frisbie, a military policeman.
"There's some speculation that Iraqis were disoriented when we first arrived, but now some are getting together to organize and attack," added Sgt. Conrad Sheley, who belongs to the 66th Military Intelligence Group of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "We have to get it under control."
In Fallujah, U.S. forces are rounding up suspected troublemakers, searching houses for weapons, and patrolling every neighborhood. Closing down Fallujah's arms market, a longtime center of business in the desert town, is a priority, Ives said.
On Sunday, U.S. troops chased a suspected arms-parts dealer named Ahmed Junabi into the cluttered and crowded weapons market area. U.S. officials say that Junabi pulled out a pistol as he was fleeing the Americans in an old Iraqi army car, which he had evidently looted. The troops shot and killed him. Iraqi witnesses said he was unarmed.
The incident enraged merchants in the bazaar. They had grown accustomed -- even under Hussein's rule -- to smuggling and selling weapons with impunity. "We never saw a policeman in here before. Now the Americans send in their soldiers," said Hassan Ali Azobayi, a butcher.
Mohammed Dulaimi, a self-described engineer, led a crowd in chants of "vengeance" and "We want Saddam." When a German reporter arrived, they chanted, "Hitler, Hitler." One protester displayed a small bullet and insisted it was uranium.
"You will see. We will avenge this killing. For every Iraqi dead, an American must die," said Dulaimi.
Some of the inhabitants of Fallujah's Old Cinema Street said that today's ambush was a response to the market killing. "We don't accept that the Americans roam our streets," declared Khalaf Jumeili, who said he was an Islamic scholar.
Errors are compounding the problems for the U.S. forces in Fallujah. On Saturday night, U.S. soldiers guarding the mayor's offices shot and killed a member of the mayor's own security detachment. The victim, Sami Montasir, along with another guard, ran from the building to pursue two thieves they saw loading rubber tubing onto a truck in a construction area. When the security guards fired on the suspects, the Americans fired on them. The second guard, Omar Menah, suffered a leg wound. "These men were doing what they were supposed to do. They weren't shooting anywhere near the Americans," said Lt. Ayad Abel, head of the city hall Iraqi security unit. "The Americans are usually cool, but they have to be more careful."
The day before, a convoy of U.S. troops came under fire near the Maadithi mosque and cemetery, located near Fallujah's railway station, U.S. officers said. They fired into the cemetery and on adjacent roads. One Iraqi died -- a man named Kudair, according to officials in the mayor's office. Kudair was repairing his truck on a side street.
Many residents of Fallujah are demanding that U.S. forces withdraw from the town. The U.S. response has been to step up patrols. Almost every day, motorists with cars battered by errant tanks or Bradley fighting vehicles show up at city hall to ask for compensation. Maj. Peter Buotte, with the 411th Civil Affairs Battalion, said he instructs the Iraqis to fill out a form, which he tells them will eventually result in payment for the damage.
Williams reported from Fallujah and Ramadi.
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IRAQ - Paper lists names of Saddam's victims
June 10, 2003
Washington Times
World Scene
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene.htm
BAGHDAD - An Iraqi newspaper yesterday began publishing the names of thousands of Iraqis who went missing and were executed by the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein.
The weekly Al-Ahrar carried an initial list of 2,001 Iraqis with their addresses and the dates of their execution between 1979 and 2001 and said it would publish more names in the future.
Dozens of mass graves have been uncovered in Iraq since his regime was ousted on April 9.
...
Damascus stops fleeing Iraqi officials at border
BEIRUT - Syria's president, seeking to allay U.S. concerns, said his country stopped fleeing Iraqi officials and turned back those at the border who had slipped in to Syria.
U.S. officials had threatened sanctions against Syria, accusing it of harboring fleeing members of Iraq's ousted regime, and of providing Iraq with military equipment.
The pressure led to speculation that Washington saw Damascus as the next U.S. military target after Iraq, but U.S.-Syrian tensions eased after a May 3 visit by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to Damascus.
From wire dispatches and staff reports
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Lifting Iraqi Embargo after 2 million Deaths
What Have We Learned From the Embargo's Lessons?
2003-06-10
http://www.paknews.com/specialNews.php?id=2261&date1=2003-06-10
(full article) http://www.faair.org/pages/955995/index.htm
On May 22, 2003, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 1483 finally lifting the 12-year embargo on Iraq. The United Nations had imposed a comprehensive ban on trade with Iraq on August 6, 1990, under resolution 661, amounting to a complete siege on the country. The embargo was then enforced by a military land, air, and sea blockade. This blockade continued until the end of the recent 2003 war, with land border checkpoints in Jordan, naval interdiction of ships, and no-fly zones imposed in the north and south of the country.
After the imposition of the embargo, a devastating bombing campaign against Iraq in 1991 destroyed the country's civilian infrastructure (water, sewage, and electrical power infrastructure, among other sectors). Much of the diseases rampant in Iraq are due to the destruction of the civilian infrastructure and lack of spare parts in the 1991 war. Some of which was modestly repaired between 1991 and 2003, was destroyed again in the 2003 war. Contaminated drinking water and lack of electricity for hospitals are a major cause of the suffering for Iraq's twenty five million people today.
In addition, the depleted uranium (DU) shells used in both the 1991 and 2003 wars have caused a significant increase in radiation-related cancers and birth defects. Iraq still does not have the necessary tools (primarily due to the embargo) to clean up the DU contamination.
What Was Destroyed in War
The 2003 war can only be a continuation of what happened in 1991, since the 12-year embargo did not allow the rebuilding of what was destroyed then. The 1991 war destroyed or severely damaged the following sectors of the civilian infrastructure, and the 12-year embargo prevented its the proper reconstruction:
1) Drinking water infrastructure
2) Sewage system
3) Electrical power grid
4) National healthcare infrastructure (more than 100 hospitals and healthcare centers destroyed)
5) National education system (over 4,000 schools, institutes, colleges, universities destroyed)
6) Transportation sector (air traffic banned, sea vessels damaged, railroad cars & trucks crumbling)
7) Telecommunications (telephone exchanges and transmitters destroyed)
8) Textile and other light industries (factories destroyed)
9) Pharmaceutical sector (factories destroyed and components and ingredients banned by embargo)
10) Social fabric and modernity (modern society reduced to sufficing with obtaining food and medicine only)
Summary of the Effects
According to the humanitarian reports, the ongoing embargo imposed in 1990, coupled with the destruction caused by the 1991 Gulf war, has in turn directly caused the following:
1). As of March 2003 (just prior to the war), between 1.7 and 2 million Iraqi civilians have died due to malnutrition and disease, about 700,000 of them are children. (Health Ministry documents under-5 and over-50 deaths due to disease and/or malnutrition at 1.7 million. If over-5 and under-50 age sectors are added, which is well over 500,000 deaths, that makes the total number of deaths over 2 million. Estimates of deaths due to the 2003 war range from 10,000 to 100,000.
2). Prior to the 2003 war, 1.5 million children were made orphans.
3). Prior to the 2003 war, 10,000 Iraqi civilians were dying every month (half of which were children). That amounted to 333 deaths a day, or 14 deaths an hour. An Iraqi civilian died from malnutrition and disease every 4 minutes. Since the 2003 war caused even more destruction of the civilian infrastructure (water, electricity, etc), coupled with the extensive of anti-personnel cluster bombs dropped on Iraq, and the mass lootings of hospitals and pharmacies, this average will be greatly skewed for the initial months after the 2003 war, until such a time when the civilian infrastructure is properly rebuilt.
4). The combination of the destruction of the water pipes and the water pumping stations in the 1991 war and the looting after the 2003 war, coupled with the lack of chlorine and electricity to re-activate the pumps for over 12 years due largely to the embargo, all make clean drinking water widely unavailable today in Iraq, and thereby creating a dangerous recipe for a rapid spread of infectious diseases and possible epidemics. Prior to 1990, over 90% of Iraqis has access to clean drinking water, whereas it was between 33-50% just prior to the 2003 war (1999 UN Report).
5). The destruction of the national medical healthcare system has been one of the largest single contributors to the death and disease in Iraq. Over 100 hospitals and healthcare centers were destroyed in the 1991 war. Prior to 1990, over 90% of Iraqis had access to high quality medical care, free of charge, whereas as the majority of Iraqis lack it now (1999 UN Report).
6). The destruction of the national school system in the 1991 war has caused a sharp decline in the overall literacy rate. Half of Iraq's schools (4,000 out of 8,000) were bombed. The remaining schools (4,000) sharply decayed and became dilapidated due to the 12-year embargo. This lack of enough schools coupled with Iraq's growing population, made the problem even worse. When Iraq had over 8,000 functioning schools in 1990, the country's population was about 18 million. Now that Iraq's population is well over 25 million, the number of functioning schools is less than a quarter of what it was in 1990. This severe shortage of schools has caused a sharp increase in the illiteracy rate and led to children wondering in the streets. Prior to 1990, over 80% of Iraqis could read and write, whereas now the school attendance is almost 50% (1999 UN report).
7). Prior to the 2003 war, the local Iraqi currency (dinar) had been decimated as a result of U.S. counterfeiting efforts, the 1991 destruction of the civilian infrastructure, and the 12-year embargo which banned foreign (hard) currency from legally entering the country. The combination of the counterfeiting, bombing, and embargo has caused the value of the dinar to drop from its original value of just over three dollars to being worth 1/20th of a cent (20 dinars makes a cent), just prior to the 2003 war.
8). Prior to the fall of the former government, Iraq was essentially a massive welfare state. The state employed over a million people and provided food coupons for over 80% of Iraq's 25 million people. The fall of the government meant the effective end of this welfare state. In addition, the U.S. administration's firing of hundreds of thousands of paid state employees has made the situation even worse. The government employees, who were barely living above the starvation level, are now unemployed and income-less.
9). Clearly the most short-sighted decision taken yet by the U.S. administration in Baghdad was to totally dissolve Iraq's military, leaving its employees with no compensation at all. That decision meant that over half a million ex-military men with left to starve, along with their families. Since the typical Iraqi family is made of at least five members, that meant at least 2.5 million Iraqis were left to starve. What would prevent these starving men from armed revolt to avoid starvation? Anyone with some common sense would have devised a plan to either retire these men with some type of retirement income to prevent them from starving and revolting, or offering them new jobs as policemen or the like, similar to what the U.S. military did with the former Japanese soldiers after World War 2 in Vietnam. This decision is indeed a recipe for disaster.
Unfortunately Iraq is to remain a military occupied zone for the forseeable future. The new UN Security Council resolution 1483, in essence handed the administration of Iraq to the U.S. and Britain "as occupying powers under unified command [now called] (the 'Authority')." It also states that other countries "now or in the future may work under the Authority...by contributing personnel, equipment, and other resources under the Authority."
Although, the resolution calls for "a process leading to an internationally recognized, representative government of Iraq," it does not place any time limits or bench marks for this to happen. In other words, the U.S. and British military occupation can take as long as they want to before forming a new Iraqi government. And although paragraph 25 calls for a "review [of] the implementation of this resolution within twelve months of adoption," it does not specifically place any deadlines whatsoever to establish an Iraqi government. In other words, Iraq is now the property of the U.S. and British militaries, with no deadline or specified timeframe of when Iraq can be free and independent.
The text referring to the lifting of the 12-year embargo is in paragraphs 10 and 16 of resolution 1483, which specifically voided the original embargo resolution 661 of 1990 and the so-called "oil-for-food" resolution 986 of 1995, which allowed the UN to control Iraq's oil exports. The resolution honored the current 6-month UN oil plan, but specifically dissolved the UN oil program and handed over all responsibility and monies over to the newly formed Development Bank administered by the US and British military authority.
A very strange paragraph in this resolution obliges Iraq to continuing paying 5% of its oil revenues to the 1991 war compensation fund. According to the UN's official website as of 5-20-2003, Iraq has already paid almost 20 billion dollars to this compensation fund established under resolution 687 in 1991.
Resolution 986 of 1995 originally ordered Iraq to pay one-third of its UN oil plan to this compensation fund. This 33% percent of Iraq's oil revenue was paid from December 1996 until December 2000. After December 2000, the percentage was changed to 25%. The latest resolution, 1483, now sets this compensation to 5%.
Since Iraq already has paid almost 20 billion dollars to a host of nations and multinational corporations, why is Iraq still ordered to pay this compensation, especially when Iraq badly needs the money to repair its civilian infrastructure still suffering from the 1991 war? Further, since the UN did NOT authorize the 2003 war, thereby making it an illegal war, why should Iraq be forced to continue pay compensation, when it itself deserves compensation for being attacked in the 2003 war?
The ironic part in all this is the original embargo resolution 661 of 1990 stated that it would be lifted after Iraq left Kuwait. After the 1991 war, the conditions for lifting the embargo were the so-called "weapons of mass destruction." The 12-year embargo was maintained and justified by this unsubstantiated excuse. It is quite clear now after the 2003 war that those weapons were destroyed immediately after the 1991 war. The reason why the U.S. and British military failed to prove or find any prohibited weapons in Iraq, after the 2003 invasion, was because there weren't any. The 2003 war clearly proved what earlier UN reports and weapons inspectors like Scott Ritter had said all along, that Iraq destroyed its weapons in the early years after the 1991 war, and that Iraq was effectively disarmed by the mid-1990's.
In other words, the excuse of "weapons of mass destruction" used to maintain this crippling embargo for 12-years and then to invade Iraq, was just that, an excuse, not backed up by any facts. Twelve years of starvation and deprivation was justified by non-existent weapons. Almost 2 million Iraqis died needlessly due to the embargo for an imaginary excuse, called "weapons of mass destruction."
The 2003 war proved that the 12-year embargo itself was the only real weapon of mass destruction in Iraq, a weapon that the Iraqi people are still paying a high price for and still suffering from this failed policy built on misinformation and/or disinformation.
This embargo has killed so many and devasted the lives of almost all Iraqis. Almost everyone is in agreement that lifting the embargo is a good thing. It is long overdue, but still a good thing. Nevertheless the sufferings and injustices of the embargo has left a permanent mark on Iraqi society. This should help explain the phenomenon of why not many Iraqis are celebrating this long overdue action.
Many Iraqis are asking "Who will compensate the families of almost 2 million Iraqis who needlessly died for this terrible policy of maintaining the embargo for 12 years?" That injustice remains as a legacy for a failed policy that we as a nation should learn from, in order to avoid similar mistakes in the future.
The most important lesson that we should learn from this catastorphe is that embargos (sanctions) do NOT work to force behavioral changes from governments, rather they only hurt and kill innocent civilians. Let us hope we never again use embargos (sanctions) as a tool of foreign policy.
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Three Iraqis killed in ammunition facility blast
Reuters,
June 10, 2003
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_276575,00050004.htm
Baghdad - An explosion at an Iraqi ammunition facility has killed three Iraqis and wounded two others, the United States Central Command said.
The explosion at Ad Diwaniyah, about 120 km south of the capital Baghdad, happened on Monday morning, CentCom said in a statement posted on its Web site early on Tuesday.
It said US-led coalition forces in Iraq sustained no casualties in the explosion.
The cause of the blast was not immediately clear and an investigation was underway, it added.
An explosion at Diwaniyah last month killed one U.S. soldier and injured another. The U.S. Central Command said at the time it did not believe the blast was the result of "hostile action."
CentCom said U.S. troops in Iraq intend to help clear the ammunition facility on Tuesday once they make sure it was safe to do so.
In a separate incident, CentCom said a fire caused a series of explosions at an ammunition supply point near the Muslim holy city of Kerbala, also south of Baghdad, on Monday afternoon but caused no casualties. It said no "hostile action" was believed to be behind the fire.
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Assistance to reporter imperiled key contact
By Scott Peterson
The Christian Science Monitor
June 10, 2003
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0610/p09s01-woiq.html
BAGHDAD - Khalid's nightmare started the morning of Jan. 6, 1999, when he was taken from a bus stop 500 yards from his home as he headed to work.
Hustling him into a black Buick, the two men told Khalid they were his "brothers" - a euphemism for agents of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's internal security police.
Many stories of persecution in the old Iraq begin this way. But in this case, I knew the detainee personally. Khalid is not his real name. He was a key government contact when I was reporting on the issue of depleted uranium (DU) in Iraq.
Khalid's harrowing experience offers a glimpse of the Big Brother methods of fear and intimidation practiced daily under Saddam Hussein. It also reveals the pitfalls that Western correspondents and editors can stumble upon while reporting from a closed and paranoid country.
In 1998, I began working on articles about the effects on Iraq of DU ammunition, used by the US during the 1991 Gulf War. Iraqi authorities granted me access unprecedented for any other Western journalist - including a visit to former Gulf War battlefields with radiation detectors. As head of an official research center that dealt with DU issues, Khalid was crucial in organizing interviews with Iraqi officials, military officers, soldiers, and doctors.
A high-level committee headed by Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz had calculated that press coverage of DU - which they blamed for a surge of serious health problems in southern Iraq - was in Iraq's interest.
But, due to the project's size and a grueling editing and fact-checking process, the stories did not run until 14 months after reporting began. The time gap raised suspicion in Baghdad, where authorities began to believe that I was not a journalist but a spy, with Khalid in cahoots with me.
"You spend 50 years serving your country, and this is the result," the graying Khalid recalls, after seeking me out in Baghdad four years after his ordeal to tell his story. "[Mr. Hussein's loyalists] will never change their way of thinking. They suspect their mothers and fathers," said Khalid.
On that January day, the two agents drove Khalid to the infamous Mukhabarat investigation center at Kadamiya and forced him to change into a dirty set of prisoner's clothes.
"Then they came: three champions of torture. Huge," Khalid says. "They started asking: Do you know American journalist Scott Peterson?"
Khalid says that his interrogators then proceeded to describe a tangled web of details that raised their suspicions, and though completely innocent in reality, were difficult to explain. Khalid was told that I was an expert on ballistic missiles, and that I had paid Khalid for information. "I insisted you had nothing to do with espionage," Khalid told me.
The first pieces of "evidence" came from a videotape shot as I attended a two-day DU conference held in Baghdad in July 1998. It included footage of me dashing to catch up to Khalid and quickly slipping a folded note into his hand.
Khalid explained that I was returning a fake $100 bill a French journalist had given him to aid Iraqi children with health problems. Khalid loaned me the counterfeit to use for a story on fake bills being printed in Lebanon.
"OK. We believe you," Khalid was told. "But what about these documents we found in his room?"
The documents were extra photocopies of reports that I didn't need, and had torn up before throwing them out in my hotel trash can. To Iraqi intelligence, they were evidence of spying, and the agents had carefully taped them back together.
Khalid was handcuffed and sent to Cell 63, where there was human waste on the floor and no blanket to ward off the cold.
On the second day, Khalid was grilled by seven interrogators. "They put a video into the machine, and I was there, in the Rashid Hotel. And you were there, with a small bag," Khalid told me. "You put your right hand on my shoulder." It is a typical gesture between men in the Middle East, but one that the security agents found suspicious between an Iraqi and a foreigner.
The interrogators wanted to know whether I had paid any money to the Iraqi officers who escorted me to the southern city of Basra, and to the former battlefields.
While Khalid was being questioned and denying the accusations, one interrogator, who Khalid remembers had an "awful face," asked his boss twice for permission to "take him to the operation room" - a place Khalid understood to be a torture chamber.
Another interrogator asked: "Why don't you accept that he [Mr. Peterson] tried to recruit you, and say you refused because you love your nation and your leader?"
"It wasn't like that," Khalid recalls answering.
The agents had checked his bank account, and found he had no money. They had traced Khalid's latest car purchase, and found the legitimate source of funds. "They had everything," Khalid says.
But they didn't have the reporter they were after. They wanted Khalid to help them lure me back to Iraq from my base in Jordan, and say that I was welcome to return to Iraq. It was a request that set off alarm bells, Khalid says, reminding him of another journalist, Farzad Barzoft. The Iranian-born writer for the British newspaper the Observer was accused of spying and hanged after being caught in 1989 disguising himself as a doctor to get close to an Iraqi nuclear design facility.
Though I did not know of Khalid's trouble, I knew something was wrong when months later, I was put on a blacklist of journalists barred from Iraq.
Khalid was interrogated intensively for three days about his assistance to the Monitor. He was then released, after signing a letter that committed him to cooperating with the Mukhabarat. Every two to three weeks for the next few months, he was called in for a "chat" with a local Mukhabarat officer.
His file was closed in April 1999, when the DU stories were printed in the paper. Copies finally arrived in Iraq two months later, Khalid says, providing proof that his American connection was indeed a journalist and not a spy.
But the impact has never left Khalid, who to this day resents his arrest and humiliation at the hands of Hussein's thugs. The intelligence chief gave him two pens, a signal that the case was closed.
"They are still there," Khalid says. "I hate to touch them."
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Exile leader says information on Iraq's weapons program was accurate
BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Tue, Jun. 10, 2003
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/6057654.htm
NEW YORK - (KRT) - Iraqi political leader Ahmad Chalabi on Tuesday denied allegations that he supplied the United States with flawed intelligence on Saddam Hussein's nuclear, biological and chemical-warfare programs.
Chalabi's comments came in his first U.S. appearance since questions have arisen about President Bush's charges that Saddam hid stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and a program to develop nuclear warheads.
Those allegations were Bush's main justification for invading Iraq. But American forces haven't uncovered any unconventional weapons there in two months of searching. Lawmakers in Congress are questioning whether the administration misused U.S. intelligence to mislead people into supporting the war.
Some current and former American military, diplomatic and intelligence officials have identified Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella organization of exile groups that opposed Saddam, as sources of flawed intelligence that administration hard-liners used to justify war. They also dispute information provided by INC-supplied defectors about Saddam's alleged cooperation in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. No proof of such cooperation has been found.
"We gave very accurate information, and we produced people who we handed over to the United States who told them very significant things," Chalabi asserted.
"The weapons of mass destruction are in Iraq," he said before the Council on Foreign Relations, a private foreign-policy institute.
The CIA, which distanced itself from Chalabi in the mid-1990s after a failed INC-sponsored coup against Saddam, spurned the group's information. But Chalabi's allies in the Pentagon, who distrusted the CIA and funded the INC's information-gathering activities, created a special Pentagon office in which INC information was melded with raw intelligence from the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The resulting assumptions and analyses, according to current and former U.S. intelligence, diplomatic and military officials, were used by Vice President Dick Cheney and other pro-invasion officials to bolster the case for toppling Saddam.
Chalabi, who was favored by hard-liners in the Pentagon and Cheney's office as a possible successor to Saddam, said one defector whom the INC turned over knew the locations of biological-warfare sites. Another defector, he said, told U.S. officials about mobile biological-weapons laboratories, two of which are now in American custody.
Bush insists that illicit weapons will be found. The United Nations ordered Iraq to end nuclear, biological and chemical warfare programs after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Chalabi, who fled Iraq with his family after a 1958 military coup, is a former banker who was convicted of bank fraud in Jordan in 1992, a conviction he disparages as political. For years, he lobbied in Washington for a U.S. military operation to topple Saddam.
Chalabi said Tuesday that the INC provided the United States with three defectors who had personal knowledge of Saddam's illicit weapons programs.
"One of the people we handed over back in December 2001, we never saw him again," Chalabi said. "They (U.S. officials) thought that he was so important they put him in the Witness Protection Program."
He said the man, an engineer who specialized in concrete injection techniques, had worked to make Iraqi biological-warfare facilities undetectable by high-tech sensors.
Another defector, introduced to U.S. officials in Amman, Jordan, on an undisclosed date, provided a description of truck trailers equipped to produce germs for weapons, Chalabi said. A majority of intelligence officials believe the trailers in U.S. custody were mobile biological-warfare laboratories.
American officials refused to talk with the third defector, Chalabi said.
While Chalabi said he was convinced that illicit weapons would be uncovered in Iraq, he criticized the U.S. military's search. He said the United States hadn't pursued Iraqis who were involved in the programs aggressively enough immediately after Saddam fell.
"I don't think they (American troops) have (in custody) many of the scientists who were in his (Saddam's) weapons program at this time. There were thousands of people, engineers and scientists. They know where the weapons are," Chalabi said. "They should have gone and sought them out right away. The main scientists, some of them are not even in Iraq. Some of them have left for the gulf. We get reports of them going out of the country."
"It's the same situation with finding Saddam," he continued, saying the U.S. military hasn't pursued the deposed dictator zealously enough.
He said that as recently as several weeks ago, the INC had heard of sightings of Saddam in an arc running northeast and west of Baghdad.
Saddam is offering to pay a bounty for every American soldier who is killed, Chalabi contended, although a senior defense official said the Pentagon had no U.S. reports of such a bounty. The official declined to be identified because he was speaking about classified information.
------- israel / palestine
ISRAEL AGREES TO 'TOLERABLE' LEVEL OF ATTACKS
Tue, 10 Jun 2003
Middle East Newsline
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2003/june/06_11_2.html
WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Israel has relayed its agreement to accept what a senior official termed a tolerable level of Palestinian attacks on the Jewish state.
The assertion came from a senior official who served as an envoy of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and discussed the roadmap with the Bush administration in April and May. The roadmap calls for the establishment of an interim Palestinian state by the end of the year.
"We want terrorism to go down to a tolerable level," Dov Weisglass, head of Sharon's bureau, told American Jewish leaders. "All we are asking the PA [Palestinian Authority] is to do is to reduce terrorism to a tolerable level."
Weisglass briefed the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on June 5 in a teleconference. American Jewish leaders who attended the briefing said Weisglass was often inconsistent regarding Israel's positions toward the PA.
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Abbas Says He Will Use Persuasion, Not Force, in Dealing With Palestinian Militants
By GREG MYRE
June 10, 2003
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/10/international/middleeast/10MIDE.html
RAMALLAH, West Bank, June 9 - The Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, said today that he was committed to ending violence against Israel, but stressed that he would use persuasion, not force, to deal with Palestinian militants.
In his first news conference since becoming prime minister over a month ago, Mr. Abbas, who is often shy with the news media, defended himself against widespread Palestinian criticism that he was too willing to address Israeli demands and did not receive enough in return at a Middle East summit meeting last week in Aqaba, Jordan. President Bush and the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, also took part.
Directing his remarks to the Palestinian people, Mr. Abbas said all the positions he announced at the meeting were "fully coordinated" with Yasir Arafat, who remains the pre-eminent Palestinian leader.
Mr. Abbas took a jab at Hamas, one of three factions involved in shootings on Sunday, in which five Israeli soldiers and their five Palestinian assailants were killed, saying the militant Islamic group was exploiting the conflict for its own political gain.
"I disagree with the opinion of the brothers in Hamas," Mr. Abbas said. "The suffering of the Palestinian people is not material for propaganda."
He also criticized the Sunday attacks, saying that "political dialogue is our answer." His condemnation of the assaults on Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza was highly unusual, because an overwhelming majority of Palestinians consider troops in those areas to be legitimate targets.
When asked repeatedly about how he would approach Hamas, which called off cease-fire negotiations with the prime minister on Friday, Mr. Abbas said there would be no confrontations. "We need a dialogue that leads to a truce," he said, adding that he was prepared to hold a new round of meetings with the Hamas leadership in Gaza.
In a sign of the regional determination to push for calm, Egypt's intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, is scheduled to arrive for talks with the Palestinian leadership this week. Mr. Suleiman has been a frequent visitor, and Egypt has been working with the various Palestinian factions for months in an attempt to work out a truce.
Mr. Abbas, widely known as Abu Mazen, has not explained how he will handle Hamas and other militant groups that oppose the Middle East peace plan, known as the road map, other than to call for a truce. The groups have simply pressed ahead with attacks, and late tonight, Israeli troops killed two Palestinian gunmen trying to infiltrate the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in central Gaza, the Israeli Army said.
After the news conference, Nabil Amr, the Palestinian Authority's information minister, was asked if under any circumstances the authority would call on the security forces to arrest and disarm the militants.
"We will not use weapons or force," Mr. Amr said. "We will go to them with a quiet dialogue. We will tell them the dialogue will not go on forever, we need to reach a conclusion. The world will not wait for us."
Hamas, meanwhile, said it would carry on with attacks.
"We oppose the Abu Mazen government's way of dialogue," Hamas said in a statement. "What they offered Sharon and Bush at the Aqaba summit were commitments that will be very harmful to our people."
Israel says a cease-fire will be welcome, but that it falls short of the demands in the road map, which calls for the Palestinian Authority to round up weapons and militants.
In an odd moment during the news conference, Mr. Abbas was joined by Ahmed Jubarah, a Palestinian prisoner freed last week after serving 28 years for a 1975 bombing in Jerusalem that killed 13 civilians.
The intent was to show that Mr. Abbas had won the release of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, who was freed after a meeting between Mr. Abbas and Mr. Sharon.
Israel has arrested more than 5,000 Palestinians in the current fighting, and their freedom is a top priority for Palestinians.
But to Israelis, the sight of a convicted bomber sitting beside Mr. Abbas at a time when Mr. Abbas is expected to get tough with militants was perhaps less than reassuring.
Mr. Jubarah was asked if he agreed with Mr. Abbas's proposed truce. "I agree with each word he said," he said.
In Israel, Mr. Sharon is facing right-wing critics who say his proposed concessions to Palestinians amount to a "prize for terrorism." But he said any Israeli moves are conditional on Palestinian action against violence.
"In order to make political progress, terror has to come to an end," Mr. Sharon said today at a meeting with his Italian counterpart, Silvio Berlusconi.
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Israeli DM: Arafat likely to be expelled
10-06-2003
Al-Bawaba
http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=251430&lang=e&dir=news
Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat will likely have to be expelled "in the near future," Israel's Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, was quoted as saying Tuesday. Mofaz spoke to Parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Israel Radio reported he told lawmakers "it is likely that Arafat will have to be expelled in the near future." "Today isn't the right time but the situation can change," Mofaz added. (Albawaba.com)
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Israeli Rocket Attack Wounds Hamas Leader
June 10, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Israeli helicopters fired missiles at the car of a senior Hamas leader Tuesday, wounding him, killing two bystanders and jeopardizing the U.S.-backed road map to Mideast peace.
The botched attack against Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the most high-profile political leader of the Islamic militant group to be targeted, came just as some Hamas leaders were saying they would consider talks with the Palestinian Authority on signing on to a truce with Israel. Hamas threatened revenge after the strike.
Outraged Palestinian Authority leaders accused Israel of trying to destroy the road map, a plan for Palestinian statehood by 2005 that was formally launched by President Bush with local leaders at the Aqaba summit last week.
Israeli officials declined comment.
Israel was sending mixed messages with its actions Tuesday. On the one hand, Israeli troops dismantled 10 tiny uninhabited settlement outposts in the West Bank overnight, in line with the first road map requirements. However, the missile strike threatened to unleash more attacks on Israelis, just as Egypt was trying to persuade Hamas to resume truce talks with the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas.
The attack on Rantisi also undercut the already shaky position of Abbas, who has been criticized at home for pledging to end the ``armed intefadeh'' while getting little in return from Israel.
The road map says Israel must refrain from actions that undermine trust, but does not specifically rule out the targeted killings of Palestinian militants.
However, Israel indicated after its acceptance of the road map last month that it would from now on reserve the practice of targeted killings to ``ticking bomb'' scenarios, as a last means of preventing an attack on Israelis.
Rantisi is a political leader of Hamas and a frequent spokesman for the group, but he has been careful to deny all knowledge of the actions of the military wing.
The attack on Rantisi began before noon Tuesday, when three Israeli Apache helicopter gunships appeared over the skies of Gaza City. In quick succession, they fired seven missiles toward Rantisi's Jeep Pajero as it was driving in a crowded thoroughfare, near a 16-floor apartment building.
The jeep burst into flames and was reduced to a scorched pile of metal.
A witness, bread vendor Salim Abdullah, 23, said the first missile missed Rantisi's car. ``The doctor (Rantisi) ran from the car. One of the helicopters started firing machine guns at him while he was running. At the time, I was hiding next to a wall. I saw the doctor bleeding,'' said Abdullah, who was also injured.
Two bystanders, an 8-year-old girl and a 44-year-old woman, were killed, said Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, director of Shifa Hospital. Twenty-seven people were hurt, including Rantisi, his son and three of his bodyguards. The others were bystanders, including three who were in critical condition, Hassanain said.
Rantisi was injured in the right leg and underwent an operation. ``Rantisi is suffering from torn arteries,'' said another Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, a surgeon who was in the operating room. ``He's in stable condition.''
Thousands of Hamas supporters crowded the courtyard outside Shifa Hospital after the missile strike, chanting slogans against Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen. ``Abu Mazen, we want resistance,'' the crowded shouted.
Zahar said Hamas will retaliate. ``Hamas' response will be like an earthquake,'' Zahar said. ``The Palestinian people must throw the road map into the garbage and commit to the map of holy war.''
Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis in bombings and shootings in the past 32 months of fighting. On Sunday, Hamas, along with two other militias, killed four Israeli soldiers in a shooting attack at an army outpost in Gaza.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a Palestinian Cabinet minister, accused Israel of trying to destroy the peace plan by making it impossible for Abbas to negotiate a cease-fire with Hamas. ``This is an attack against the road map. This is an attack against George Bush,'' Abed Rabbo said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has only reluctantly accepted the three-stage prescription for Palestinian statehood by 2005. Sharon has said he would meet Israel's obligations under the road map, but has been evasive about full compliance with the first step -- the dismantling of dozens of settlement outposts established in the West Bank since he took office March 2001.
Overnight, troops pulled down 10 uninhabited outposts, and were to remove five more, including four populated ones, later in the day.
The missile strike came just hours after Hamas leaders said they were considering resuming truce talks with Abbas. Only four days earlier, Hamas had said it was breaking off contacts with the Palestinian prime minister, accusing him of making too many concessions to Israel.
Egypt has been intensifying pressure on Palestinian militias to halt shooting and bombing attacks on Israelis. The Egyptian intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, who presided over truce talks with Palestinian militias earlier this year, was to have met with Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, Palestinian officials said.
It was not clear whether Suleiman would still make the trip.
Under the Mideast peace plan, Palestinians must disarm and dismantle Palestinian militias. Abbas has said he would not use force against the militias under any circumstances because he wants to avoid civil war. However, at a news conference Monday, he also issued a veiled threat, telling the groups that those who walk away from truce talks will be responsible for the consequences.
----
Abbas denounces attacks as Powell pleads for road map
By Ed O'Loughlin,
Herald Correspondent in Jerusalem and agencies
June 10 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/09/1055010934855.html
The Palestinian Prime Minister yesterday denounced new attacks by militant groups that threaten a US-backed peace plan and vowed to press on with efforts to persuade them to agree to a ceasefire.
"We reject these acts and if they continue they will complicate the situation and make the peace process difficult," Mahmoud Abbas said in the West Bank city of Ramallah after attacks on Sunday in which five Israeli soldiers were killed and troops shot dead five Palestinian gunmen.
Referring to efforts to persuade militants to halt attacks against Israelis, he said: "We . . . underline our determination to pursue the dialogue with the movements which criticised us on this issue."
But he added "we are forcing no one" to take part in the ceasefire talks.
The Islamic militant group Hamas, which has carried out many suicide bombings in Israel, said on Friday it was pulling out of talks with Mr Abbas aimed at procuring a ceasefire. It accused the reformist Prime Minister of being too conciliatory towards Israel. It was also reported yesterday, however, that secret contacts may already have resumed, and that Egypt is sending its intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, to Ramallah for talks with Mr Abbas and besieged Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat.
Hamas's Gaza spokesman, Mahmud Zahar, welcomed Mr Abbas's remarks on dialogue.
On Sunday the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said the attack on Israeli soldiers must not be allowed to wreck President George Bush's road map for peace in the Middle East. "What we have to do now is make sure we don't allow this tragic, terrible incident to derail the momentum of the road map that got started . . . last week," he said.
The attacks came as Mr Sharon faced down the hardline central committee of his Likud party in Jerusalem. He ploughed ahead with his speech as hundreds of delegates jeered and blew whistles, while burly bouncers waded into the scuffling crowd. Mr Sharon repeated his belief that the peace process could bring an end to terrorism, but said "we will not give anything as long as the terror, violence and incitement continues".
Watching the chaos, he could take comfort in the fact that a majority of Likud apparatchiks have always opposed peace deals, but the same is not true of the Israeli population in general.
Mr Abbas refused to hold talks yesterday with the visiting Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, over the latter's refusal to meet Yasser Arafat, his office said.
----
Linda S. Heard: USS Liberty: How past relates to the future
10/06/2003
Gulf News
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/print.asp?ArticleID=89852
Athens | USS Liberty Dead in the Water, BBC4's documentary broadcast on the 36th anniversary of Israel's attack on the unarmed American spy-ship the USS Liberty served as a chilling warning to all those lucky enough to be able to tune in, given its unsociable broadcast slot.
Israel's claim that it attempted to sink the Liberty under the mistaken belief that it was El Queseir - a decrepit Egyptian coastal transport ship, less than half the size of the Liberty - is an old one, discredited by Liberty survivors.
For decades survivors have accused the U.S. of covering up the real reasons the vessel was targeted, implying that successive American administrations have put Israel's interests before the truth.
More than USS Liberty Dead in the Water's shocking suggestion that Israel may have pre-planned a deliberate bombardment of an American ship by air and sea - so as to bring the Americans onboard their cause, assuming they would believe that Egypt was behind the attack - we learned how close the Middle East came to nuclear devastation on that warm June day.
After Liberty's astonished crew managed to send out an SOS signal using a makeshift antenna, a U.S fleet of war some 500 miles away received an order to dispatch two nuclear-armed fighter jets to exact a terrible retribution on Cairo.
These were recalled by the then U.S. Defence Secretary literally minutes before they could drop their deadly nuclear load. In usual American double-standard style when it comes to the Mid-East, Israel escaped coming under a similar threat when it was discovered to be the perpetrator.
In fact, the case was closed by order of President Lyndon B. Johnson even though he personally doubted Israel's version of events.
It is surely ironic that while the Bush administration puts out lurid warnings concerning the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea, America is the only nation, which has ever actually used them, and is abnormally silent when it comes to Israel's nuclear arsenal.
Officially, Israel doesn't possess nuclear weapons and is, therefore, not compelled to allow IAEA inspectors around its Dimona site. In reality, it has one of the most advanced nuclear and missile launch capabilities on the planet.
In June last year, the Israeli daily Haaretz quoted two top Israeli space experts, who both declared that Israel now has the capacity to fire missiles at targets anywhere on earth with the launch of its Ofek5 satellite.
A few days after the Ha'aretz report, Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy told Ha'aretz that the Mossad is convinced that Iran is developing intermediate and long-range missiles, weapons-grade nuclear capabilities, as well as VX gas and biological weapons.
Halevy added: "Israel cannot spare any effort to foil, prevent or delay the attainment of mass destruction by countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya."
"Thanks" to the U.S. and Britain, one's down with three to go, or rather four if you add North Korea, which openly admits that it has nuclear weapons and the capability of launching them as far as Hawaii and Alaska.
In the case of Iraq, U.S., British and Israeli "intelligence" has been proven lacking in substance since not only have no proscribed weapons been found in that country sincethe invasion, even the two much-lauded trailers - once supposed mobile bio-labs -are now thought to have been used innocuously to chemically produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Britain's Observer broke the story last Sunday, backing up claims by senior Iraqi officials at the Al Kindi Research, Testing, Development and Engineering facility in Mosul that the trailers were linked to weather balloons with its report that such a system was sold to the Iraqis in 1987 by the British.
Without even a puff of smoke from a toy pistol to support its Iraqi WMD accusations, the coalition has been illuminated as a nuclear aggressor, coercing sovereign nations to toe its line, or else end up like Iraq.
Perhaps it isn't Iraq or Iran's alleged nuclear capabilities that we should be worrying about, but those of the U.S., Britain and Israel. This powerful axis either has them, threatened to use them, or actually has.
But far from a desire to dilute worldwide fears as to its nuclear arsenal, one of the first things the Bush administration did was to shred the ABM Treaty, and work on developing a nuclear shield.
Further, we were recently informed by The Guardian that "the Bush administration is planning a secret meeting in August to discuss the construction of a new generation of nuclear weapons, including mini-nukes, bunker-busters and neutron bombs, designed to destroy chemical or biological agents."
Opponents of the development of smaller nukes argue that they blur the distinction between conventional and non-conventional weapons, making the use of nuclear arms somehow 'more palatable'.
Head of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear watchdog organisation, said the meeting would prepare the ground for a U.S. breakaway from global arms control treaties and the moratorium on conducting nuclear tests.
The publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Stephen Schwartz, indicated that these new American nuclear strategies opened it up to charges of hypocrisy.
"How can we possibly go to the international community and say, 'How dare you develop these weapons,' when it's exactly what we're doing?" asks Schwartz.
The answer is that America has challenged the international community and it will continue doing so simply because it can. It isn't functioning from a higher moral imperative.
It isn't operating from a basis of what's fair and what isn't but from an overwhelming sense of its own and Israel's survival, nay the furtherance of their joint global hegemony. Britain is needed to add a touch of respectability.
The U.S. isn't crying crocodile tears because it is looking more and more that the former Iraqi regime complied with UN Secur-ity Council Resolution 1441 and was, therefore, illegally invaded.
It isn't embarrassed because much of its intelligence concerning Iraqi weapons has been discredited or that its claims that Iraq was harbouring members of Al Qaida remain unsubstantiated. On the contrary, it is now directing the exact same accusations towards Iran while attempting to stir up dissent against the Iranian government.
We live in a dangerous world, one in which anything could happen at any moment.
If the two nuke-carrying U.S. jets, referred to in Dead in the Water, hadn't been recalled at the ninth minute, one of the most ancient cities in the world - Cairo - would now be dust, and we can only imagine what the broader regional consequences might have been. What is to prevent something similar happening today?
The Arab street is ominously silent these days, while Arabs watch in disbelief as their leaders unfailingly comply with American demands. The U.S. and Britain have strolled into a brother Arab nation under spurious pretexts, announced that they are occupying powers and taken control of its valuable natural resources.
Even so, American leaders are given the red carpet treatment by Jordan and Egypt, with photographs taken at the recent Sharm El Sheikh roadmap summit showing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and George Bush smiling and interacting like long lost blood brothers.
As U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing on the "war on terror", "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."
When it comes to the capabilities and intentions of the U.S., the Arabs are beginning to discover much that they didn't know and might have felt more comfortable never knowing via courageous reportage from respected networks like the BBCas well as viathe Internet.
America's pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and its trigger-happy readiness to nuke Cairo in 1967 may be just the tip of the iceberg.
The clock can't be turned back, but Arab leaders must surely ponder on how the past relates to the future and what's more to the point, what, if anything, they can do to avert what is looking more and more like a bleak and stormy period ahead.
Appeasement should be viewed as a sticking plaster on an ever suppurating wound, and not a long-term solution.
The writer is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com
----
Palestinian PM Says Israel Sabotages Peace Process
June 10, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast-attack-abbas.html
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas condemned an Israeli missile strike against a leader of the militant Hamas movement Tuesday as a ``terrorist'' attack intended to sabotage peace moves.
Abbas demanded immediate action from the United States, the main Middle East peace broker, to stop what he called a ``serious deterioration'' but also vowed to continue trying to persuade militant groups to halt attacks on Israelis.
``We consider this (assassination) attempt an awful crime and a terrorist operation in the full sense of the word because it targets innocent people,'' Abbas told the Palestine satellite television channel in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
He said in a written statement issued by his office: ``Such attacks obstruct and sabotage the political process.''
Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, a senior political aide to Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, was wounded in the attack by two Israeli helicopter gunships on his car in Gaza City. Two people were killed in the strike and about 20 wounded.
The militant Islamic group has carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel and opposes the U.S.-backed ``road map'' to peace which outlines reciprocal steps to end 32 months of violence and establish a Palestinian state.
Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have backed the road map, although Sharon has reservations and the missile strike could stir violence and threaten the peace plan.
``He (Abbas) demanded immediate action from the United States to stop this serious deterioration,'' the statement issued by Abbas's office said.
Hamas has threatened retaliation for the attack. But Abbas said he would continue efforts to secure a cease-fire agreement from militant groups spearheading a Palestinian uprising for an independent state.
``The prime minister emphasized that the Palestinian government will continue consultations with all Palestinian factions to reach an understanding and an agreement despite this foolish Israeli attack,'' his office said.
-------- mideast
Putin snubs Israeli foreign minister over Iran
Tuesday June 10,
(AFP)
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030610/1/3bokv.html
Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to meet with visiting Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, possibly because of their dispute over Iran, the Kommersant business daily reported.
However an Israeli official in Moscow denied that a meeting between Shalom and Putin had ever been planned.
Shalom arrived on his first visit to Moscow on Monday for talks with his counterpart Igor Ivanov focusing both on the new Palestinian-Israeli peace plan and Russia's controversial nuclear cooperation with Iran.
Israel views Iran as a grave threat to its national security and Shalom has said that Tehran could develop weapons of mass destruction within three years with the direct aim of wiping out the Jewish state.
Moscow however insists that its construction of Iran's first nuclear power reactor will no way assist Tehran's military ambitions. Russia has delayed that Bushehr nuclear power plant's completion until 2005.
The respected Kommersant business daily reported that Shalom had intended to visit Moscow earlier this month with the specific aim of discussing Iran with Putin.
Without revealing its sources, the newspapers said that the Kremlin "politely refused" the talks at the time.
The visit, after a series of key regional summits, was rescheduled for this week, with Sharon still insisting on meeting Putin.
The Russian leader had made a habit of meeting senior visiting Israeli officials, as Moscow plays up its efforts to help mediate in the Middle Eastern conflict.
However Kommersant said the Kremlin still felt uncomfortable discussing Iran with Shalom.
"The Kremlin has grown tired of US and Israeli reproaches about this subject," Kommersant wrote.
An Israeli official in Moscow denied the Kommersant report.
"These are just journalistic inventions. They are not true," said the Israeli embassy's press attache Yaron Gamburg.
Shalom still made his intentions clear Monday, mincing no words about Iran following his closed-door talks with Ivanov.
"Iran is an extremist state that does not recognize Israel. Iran constantly states that a Jewish presence in the Middle East is impossible, and repeatedly calls for the elimination of Israel. And now it is developing nuclear weapons with this aim," Shalom said.
Shalom had a more relaxed scheduled Tuesday, laying a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldiers near the Kremlin's wall. He was then scheduled to meet leaders of Russia's two chambers of parliament.
-------- nato
Rumsfeld Discusses NATO Membership With Albanians
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service,
June 10, 2003
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2003/n06102003_200306103.html
TIRANA, Albania - American and Albanian defense officials discussed the Balkan nation's desire to become a full-fledged member of NATO and the war on terrorism during meetings here today.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld also thanked Albanian Defense Minister Pandeli Majko and the rest of his government for their help in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"The whole Albanian population in the region considers the United States of America a strategic ally," Majko said through a translator during a press conference at the Tirana airport. "In hot areas of the globe where (the war on terror) is being fought for peace and democracy, Albania is carrying its duty there."
Rumsfeld said the United States appreciates Albania's contributions to the war against terror. "We particularly appreciate and value the assistance in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq," Rumsfeld said. "Albania also stepped forward and signed the Vilnius 10 letter, which came at a time that was important. We recognize that and appreciate it as well."
Defense officials said the Vilnius 10 letter was important because it signaled to the world that there was support for taking on Saddam Hussein. The letter came out before the United Nations turned down a U.S. proposal to use force against Iraq.
Albanian forces are part of the International Security Assistance Force based in Kabul, Afghanistan. "The work that is being done in Afghanistan is important and the participation in the ISAF is something that is valuable and appreciated by the Afghan people," Rumsfeld said.
Albanian forces are also in Mosul, Iraq, under the operational control of the 101st Airborne Division, Majko said.
U.S. embassy officials said the fact that most Albanians are Muslims has helped the Albanian forces with the Muslim populations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
But Albania's desire to be part of NATO was at the center of discussions. An Albanian officer said that the November invitation to Slovenia to be a part of NATO was seen as an encouraging sign in Albania. He said Slovenia's military is small and professional. "We can achieve this too," he said.
The United States will continue to help Albania fulfill the requirements of NATO's Membership Action Plan. In the meantime, Albania and the United States will continue bilateral ties and continue robust military-to-military ties.
Majko pointed to the recently completed exercise that Albanian forces and 1,500 U.S. Marines held in Albania as an example of the type of progress he would like to make. He said Albanian participation in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom and the continuing series of exercises will "open new perspectives of different kinds" for both countries.
Majko said the operations and exercises take the relationship into new territory. "We're no longer discussing the matter as theory or as the will of the politicians," he said. "The military experts are doing an excellent job. There are many American citizens at work at the Albanian Ministry of Defense. Such an efficient cooperation with such a vision will yield results in the future.
"The United States of America stood on the side of the Albanians in 1999 when it was a matter of the existence of our nation," he continued. "I hope this proves to the American taxpayers that they have not spent their money in vain to help this nation. Our gratitude will be long-term."
He was referring to U.S. support then during peacekeeping efforts in the Balkans.
-------- prisoners of war
Guantanamo Eyes Possible Execution Chamber
By PAISLEY DODDS
Associated Press Writer
Jun 10, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GUANTANAMO_DETAINEES?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Guantanamo officials are working on plans to provide a courtroom, a prison and an execution chamber if the order comes to try terror suspects at the base in Cuba, the mission commander said.
Although no new directive has been given and no plan has been approved, a handful of experts are looking at what it will take to try, imprison and, if need be, execute detainees accused of links to Afghanistan's fallen Taliban regime or to the al-Qaida terror network.
"We have a number of plans that we work for short-term and long-term strategies but that's all they are - plans," Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller said in a telephone interview Monday.
Isolated on Cuba's eastern tip and out of the jurisdiction of U.S. civilian courts, Guantanamo is a likely location for U.S. military trials.
Last month, officials named Army Col. Frederic Borch III the chief prosecutor and Air Force Col. Will Gunn as chief defense lawyer for the proposed trials. The Pentagon has listed 18 war crimes and eight other offenses that could be tried, including terrorist acts, and has issued rules for the tribunals. Advertisement
Borch said he was looking at prosecuting at least 10 possible cases before a tribunal.
Some 680 detainees from 42 countries are in Guantanamo, categorized as unlawful combatants by the U.S. government. It has refused demands from human rights organizations to recognize them as prisoners of war. They have no constitutional rights as non-U.S. citizens being held outside U.S. territory, and none have been formally charged or allowed access to attorneys.
The cases would be decided by a panel of three to seven military officers who act as both judge and jury. Convictions could be handed down by a majority vote; a decision to sentence a defendant to death would have to be unanimous.
Some civil liberties advocates have criticized the process.
"Any further movement in the direction of trying these men in commissions that could have the power to carry out death sentences is cause for great concern," Vienna Colucci of Amnesty International's Washington D.C. office said Monday.
Miller said renovations on a building being considered as a courtroom began in March and likely will be completed next month. The building is being rewired and could be used as a courthouse with facilities for media and military officers.
There also are plans to build a permanent modular detention facility, to imprison detainees who might be sentenced to indefinite terms, and an execution chamber should any be sentenced to death, he said.
"We're getting ready so we won't be starting from scratch," Miller said, speaking while on a visit to Washington D.C.
About five people have been drafting several plans for the last six months, he said. It was unclear how much money it would take to sustain such a permanent mission.
After the detention center opened in January 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld called the detainees "among the most dangerous, best trained, vicious killers on the face of the Earth." But, after lengthy interrogation, many are thought to be low-level former Taliban fighters and unlikely prospects for commission trials.
On the Net:
Rules for military tribunals: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2003/b05022003(underscore)bt297-03.html
-------- russia / chechnya
Chechen violence helps Putin's hand
By Matthew Riemer,
Jun 10, 2003
Asia Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/EF10Ag01.html
Russian President Vladimir Putin wants the world - and more specifically the Bush administration - to believe that Moscow is fighting the same enemy in Chechnya that Washington is fighting in the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and South America. But just how compelling of an argument is this? In many regards, the conflict in Chechnya is significantly different from those of other regions and is the result of a much older yet simpler history.
Washington's "war on terrorism" is far broader than Moscow's intervention in Chechnya and certainly more ambiguous historically, if only because of its makeup: It pits the United States against a variety of nation-states (North Korea, Iran, Syria), organizations (al-Qaeda and Hizbollah) and financial support networks. Aside from the varied collection of those who are the war's focus, the "war" is a conceptual one in the sense that it more describes an envisioned future and policy than an actual past. It is the taking of many separate situations, conditions and conflicts and grouping them together because they share one, specific, subjective quality: "terrorism".
In contrast, Russia's conflict in Chechnya is a highly specific and focused affair. Begun almost five centuries ago when the northern Caucasus were on the southern edge of the expanding Russian empire, it is essentially a war of independence and continues to be one to this day. It involves a former imperialist power and its recalcitrant subject turned republic on its territorial fringes playing out a common historical theme: foreign power vs suppressed ethnic minority. Chechens remember when Joseph Stalin deported them by the hundreds of thousands to Central Asia during World War II because he thought that they were Nazi sympathizers.
Further, comparing Chechnya to the focal point of the US campaign - al-Qaeda - there are additional contrasts. Al-Qaeda by its very nature as an organization is multi-ethnic and not based in one country, let alone being nationalistically attached to a specific nation-state, whether established or aspiring. In this sense, al-Qaeda has broken the nation-state mold for US geopolitical strategy by its existence as a significant global enemy that is not one politically demarcated on the world's map.
Al-Qaeda is not fighting a specific foreign power for self-determination as the Chechens are, but a conglomerate led by the US and its various client governments throughout the world, including, most notably, Saudi Arabia. And al-Qaeda has never used traditional methods of warfare as the Chechens have.
Any US/al-Qaeda conflict is certainly in its infancy, if not in an embryonic state, when compared to the conflagration in Chechnya. Al-Qaeda was formed in 1988, only 15 years ago; prior to its genesis, Osama bin Laden was aided by the US in an effort to stall the Soviet army in Afghanistan. Washington, then, is fighting a militant organization that - at the very least it indirectly created with its training and funds throughout the 1980s. The real enemy of al-Qaeda is also as much globalization and Westernization - not necessarily modernization - as it is the US specifically. Such a relationship is certainly disparately paired with a centuries old ethnic and imperial war in the Caucasus.
However, what is now occurring, to Putin's benefit, is the "terrorization" of the battle for Chechnya; the last decade's gory war of attrition has found an increasing number of Chechen guerrillas associated with Middle Eastern and Central Asian militants as the Chechen cause has become increasingly internationalized. The last 10 years of fighting reveals a grim trail of executions, rapes, mass graves, destroyed infrastructure and extensive loss of civilian life. Many of the atrocities are laid at the Russian military's doorstep, and human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch have expressed their concern with the behavior of the Russian military in Chechnya. Putin has occasionally been scolded by other leaders for his military's conduct.
Chechen forces have also employed extreme measures, adopting other more traditional terrorist methods, such as hostage taking. In 1995, Chechen rebels led by Shamil Basayev seized a hospital in Budennovsk - a town in southern Russia - taking more than 1,000 people hostage; as many as 150 were killed and 200 hundred injured in the ensuing violence. In October 2002, 700 people were taken hostage in a Moscow theater by about 40 Chechen rebels; almost 150 hostages died in the end - largely due to a narcotic gas used by the Russians - as well as all the hostage-takers.
Now, suicide bombings have become a feature of Chechen resistance. In December 2002, explosives-laden trucks crashed into an administrative building in Chechnya's capital, Grozny, killing over 70 and injuring more than 200. On May 12, there was another truck bombing that targeted the local Russian secret service (FSB) headquarters. Two days later there was a further attack by two female suicide bombers in a town outside of Grozny. Then, on June 5 in Vladikavkaz, Russia, a suicide bomber killed 16 people in the third bombing in the Caucasus in a month.
The very concept of suicide bombing would seem to strengthen Putin's argument because of its highly symbolic and poignant nature, though the bombings still remain infrequent and are a more recent development in the evolution of the conflict. Suicide bombing is seemingly such a potent symbol of "terrorism" as to convince many that Washington and Moscow do, indeed, face the same enemy. Less so, the taking of hostages is also a symptomatic act and seen as being very dramatic by the press and general public - as was the case in Iran in 1979 at the US embassy. It is to Putin's advantage to have the international spotlight on such incidents.
So Russia's war in Chechnya is different in a fundamental sense - both historically and practically. But Chechen resistance has now begun to selectively employ the more outwardly symbolic and traditional methods of Middle Eastern militants: the taking of hostages and suicide bombings. But the latter - aside from such obvious similarities as Islam - remains the only shared characteristic between what Washington and Moscow are fighting. Also, simply being Muslim does not mean that Chechens are necessarily fighting for an Islamic republic or that their resistance to Russia is rooted in religious causes, as is the case with many of the groups throughout the Middle East.
Putin can at least point to a common religion and shared techniques when comparing Moscow's military efforts in Chechnya with the US's "war on terrorism". But for many already unconvinced by Russia's attempts to garner global sympathy for its undesirable and unfortunate situation in Chechnya, these analogies will remain superficial and unconvincing.
Published with permission of the Power and Interest News Report, an analysis-based publication that seeks to provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com
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Soros's Mission In Russia Ends, $1 Billion Later
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36995-2003Jun9?language=printer
MOSCOW -- He first came to the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and found a society beginning a long, dismal spiral of deterioration. Armed with one of the world's great fortunes, he took it upon himself to rescue scientists and scholars, then tried to midwife the birth of democratic institutions in a place where they were a foreign concept.
Now more than 15 years and $1 billion later, George Soros has concluded that his mission is over. With the government in Moscow stabilized and a new generation of homegrown philanthropists emerging, the international financier has decided to leave Russia to the Russians and effectively withdraw from a country that has absorbed much of his time and energy.
"I'm basically closing it down in its present form," Soros said of his foundation in an interview this weekend. "I've spent a very large amount of money here and a lot of it was really money where I was substituting for the state. I don't think that's appropriate anymore. Russia as a state is reestablished and doesn't need my subsidy."
He will remain involved in small projects. But Soros's exit as a major benefactor is a milestone in Russia's development since the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991. No other private initiative from the West has had such influence in shaping the new Russia as his Open Society Institute. "The Soros foundation was instrumental in the development of nonprofit organizations in Russia," said Olga Alexeeva, director of the Moscow office of the Charities Aid Foundation, a British organization. "I can't compare anyone else with Soros and that will leave a significant gap."
In some parts of the world, Soros, 72, is a mistrusted figure. The Hungarian immigrant made a fortune on Wall Street, and in 1992 was dubbed the "man who broke the Bank of England" after engaging in a series of speculative transactions that helped devalue the pound. He has been accused of triggering the Asian economic crisis that began in 1997. Last year he was convicted of insider trading in France and fined $2.2 million, a ruling he dismissed as "a queer decision" and promised to appeal.
But to Russians building a new nation, he has been the godfather of change. In the early days, he sponsored programs that gave grants to tens of thousands of Russian scientists whose state employers were suddenly unable to pay their salaries. He introduced the Internet to provincial Russian universities, supported independent media, funded artists and writers, commissioned textbooks that took a more honest view of history, and provided clean needles for drug users to stem the spread of AIDS.
Even as he gave away funds in Russia, he also was trying to make money here. Just months after denouncing the "robber capitalism" developing in Russia in 1997, he joined with one of its biggest business leaders, Vladimir Potanin, in a consortium to buy a 25 percent share of the Svyazinvest telecommunications company for $1.9 billion. He lost $2 billion a year later in the financial crash of August 1998.
Russia today bears little resemblance to the country Soros encountered in 1988. Under President Vladimir Putin, the government has balanced its books, shed a lot of debt and built a growing economy. At least some of the "robber capitalists" Soros condemned have begun opening their books for inspection and starting their own charitable activities.
"It's a big change," Soros said in his hotel room during a visit to Moscow. "I came here to help in the transition from a closed to an open society when the Soviet system collapsed. . . . The transition is over. Fifteen years is enough for transition." While much more needs to be done, he said, it is time for the Russians to do it themselves.
It's a mark of the change that one of the corporate leaders who emerged during that transition now eclipses Soros in wealth. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the 39-year-old chairman of Yukos, Russia's largest oil company, is worth $8 billion, making him the 26th richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine, compared to Soros's $7 billion and 38th place ranking.
Khodorkovsky has led the introduction of native philanthropy in Russia with $50 million a year in giving by Yukos. Khodorkovsky adopted Soros's interest in helping scientists and even patterned the name of his new organization after his predecessor's by calling it the Open Russia Institute.
Russian private philanthropy now totals $500 million a year, according to Charities Aid Foundation; for the first time last year most of the foundation's own budget in Russia came from Russians.
"Russia is quite a wealthy country despite all the problems we have, and we have quite a good deal of Russian philanthropy and it's starting to institutionalize," said Alexeeva, of the Charities Aid Foundation.
But Alexeeva and others worry that Russian philanthropy has not developed nearly enough to make up for Soros's departure. "Our budget is like a shadow, a glimpse of what Open Society Institute was giving," she said. "None of the private foundations working in Russia can do it."
Hugo Erikssen, an executive at Khodorkovsky's Yukos, expressed doubts about his employer's ability to fill the gap.
"It's a sad fact that at a time when corporate philanthropy is maturing in Russia, Western philanthropists and governments are reconsidering their commitment to building civil society in Russia," said Erikssen. "There's a danger that will result not in a boost in Russian philanthropy but a reduction in programs for which no Russian funding can be made available." The Bush administration recently recommended slashing aid programs for Russia by a third as part of a process in which Russia would "graduate" from democracy assistance. The kinds of programs financed by such money, including human rights and free expression advocacy groups, are unlikely to find replacement funds from the Russian government they often battle, in the view of critics of the Bush proposal.
Soros's decision could be seen as validating the judgment that Russia no longer needs such assistance. But in the interview he rejected that logic and acknowledged that, whatever its progress, Russia still remains far from the open society he envisions.
"I don't think Russia is graduating," he said. ". . . The future of Russia is very open and institutions of civil society and independent media are fragile and it's a mistake to abandon them and I'm not abandoning them. I'm simply stopping subsidizing the state."
The Open Society Institute in Russia will become 15 organizations that will continue their work but will have to find other funding. After spending $1 billion in Russia over the last 15 years, Soros said he will scale back to just $10 million a year.
He has taken a greater interest in the developing and still largely corrupt nations ringing Russia. Soros arrived in Moscow after touring Central Asia and the Caucasus region, where he plans to increase his activities. "These are areas of instability and my involvement is undiminished in these areas," he said.
But his main focus, he said, will be his adopted country. He said he worries that concepts of open society may be endangered in the United States by some policies of the Bush administration. "I feel now the battle for an open society has got to be fought in the United States because the United States is inarguably the dominant power in the world. It sets the tone, it calls the tune for the way the rest of the world is going."
-------- spies / spy agencies
Hoodwinked
Jun 10 2003
by TomPaine.com
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8035
John Prados is a senior analyst with the National Security Archive in Washington, DC. His current book is Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby. Like a band of street hustlers hawking their three-card monte, Bush officials have been changing their reasoning for going to war with Iraq. As the days pass, and U.S. occupation forces continue to turn up little evidence of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Americans are beginning to realize they have been duped by a president in whom they have instilled immense trust.
The administration's cleverness would be fascinating were it not so insidious, not so destructive of America's position in the world. In rapid succession we were told that: U.S. inspectors cannot find the weapons because looters carried away the evidence; Saddam had too long to hide them; that we never expected to find evidence; that the administration never claimed Iraq actually had such weapons. First it was supposed to be just a matter of time, then it was maybe because Saddam destroyed them.
Most recently, President Bush told us they had found the weapons after all! End of story? Is this the smoking gun the administration so desperately needs? Nope. Bush was referring to several trailers found in different parts of Iraq. Before the war, officials filled the airwaves with lurid claims of fleets of Winnebagos cruising Iraq's superhighways spewing out toxic chemicals or biological toxins. Colin Powell described such a trailer-based system in his February 2003 speech to the U.N. Security Council.
A couple of the trailers seemed identical to the units Powell described, and indeed the CIA issued a May 28 report on "Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants" that served as the basis for the latest assertions.
Now it appears those claims too are unraveling. The CIA report found that the trailers were second- or possibly third-generation designs and that biological weapons production "is the only consistent, logical purpose for these vehicles."
U.S. officials rejected Iraqi descriptions of the trailers as labs for producing hydrogen gas for weather balloons or as mobile units used to produce pesticides. Yet the captured trailers contained features suited to extracting gas (as in the balloon theory) and lacked equipment necessary for biological fermentation. Other technologies -- which have yet to be found -- would be necessary to convert the low-grade sludge obtained from some of these trailers into lethal toxins. Such facilities do exist elsewhere -- including in the United States and Poland -- and are marketed commercially. These facts have, as The New York Times reported on June 7, led some intelligence analysts to dispute the conclusions in the CIA report.
While analysis of old trailers may be tedious, it's what's necessary to figure out if the war was justified. When a coalition of nations claims a country must be invaded because it is a threat to humanity, that coalition must prove its claim.
Yet, the opposite is happening. In the most recent chapter of this unraveling, a leaked passage of a September 2002 report from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) -- the kind of report used to plan military operations -- conceded that there was "no reliable information" on either the location of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons facilities or "on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons" at all.
The DIA, which works for the Pentagon, usually takes a more extreme view of foreign military threats than CIA. So, if there was evidence of an Iraqi weapons infrastructure it would certainly have been articulated in a DIA document.
This is especially true since Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were -- by the time the report came out -- already making claims about Iraqi weapons. Cheney declared, "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction" on Aug. 26, 2002 and Bush made claims regarding expansion of Iraqi weapons labs on Sept. 12, 2002.
Instead, the DIA information is consistent with the CIA's reports to Congress (up until September of 2001) which outlined Iraq's desire to reconstitute a weapons infrastructure but did not declare there was a clear and present threat.
The extensive record of declassified CIA reports from the '90s portrays a decayed and destroyed Iraqi weapons-production infrastructure. So does the account Iraqi weapons manager Hussein Kamel issued to U.N. inspectors (his CIA debriefings have also been declassified), as do U.N. and media reports.
Yet none of this information stopped the administration from hyping its crusade. Remember when Condoleezza Rice scared Americans by invoking an Iraqi mushroom cloud (where there was even less evidence for an active nuclear weapons program)? Or when Ari Fleischer confidently asserted, "We know for a fact that there are weapons in there?" Or how President Bush made the Iraqi threat the centerpiece of his 2003 State of the Union address? By the way, in that address Bush relied on specific evidence about an Iraqi uranium ore deal with Niger that has now been proven to be fabricated -- and Rice has since conceded that "somebody" in the Bush administration may have known of the fabrication before the speech. Then there was Colin Powell's extensive bill of particulars before the United Nations n Feb. 5, 2003.
Intelligence analysts, whether at CIA, DIA or elsewhere, were certainly aware of what the Bush White House wanted to hear on these matters. In private, Cheney or members of his staff visited the CIA a half-dozen times or more to demand additional intelligence. At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld created a special staff to tease out the kind of intelligence he needed on alleged Iraqi links with Al Qaeda (it now appears that two of the most senior Al Qaeda figures captured since 9/11 have told their CIA interrogators there were no such links). Their testimony, though, is reflected nowhere in what the American people were told before the war, because it was important to the Bush administration that it not be. Arm-twisting efforts like these have prompted the CIA ombudsman to investigate several formal complaints from analysts.
By contrast, U.N. weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq for four months prior to the start of the war found no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program and refused to certify U.S. claims that Iraq had other kinds of weapons of mass destruction underway. This was not sufficient for Bush, who actually sent Condoleezza Rice to New York to pressure U.N. chief inspector Hans Blix (unsuccessfully) into making his report conform to the White House.
This nasty mess of hyped claims was recently described by German U.N. Inspector Peter Franck as "a big bluff." The White House is obviously sensing the onslaught. Bush officials have gone into full damage control to muzzle the charges that Bush was hoodwinking the public.
On May 30, CIA Director George J. Tenet issued a public statement which insisted, "The integrity of our process was maintained throughout and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong." One June 4 Department of Defense policy chief Douglas J. Feith held a news conference. "I know nobody who pressured anybody," he said. And both Condi Rice and Colin Powell went on the Sunday morning news shows on June 8 to make similar denials, even as the administration is said to be considering declassifying more of the suddenly-notorious DIA report to demonstrate it did not mean what the leak seemed to indicate. Rice called the charges of intelligence manipulations "revisionist history." True enough, history is being revised before our eyes -- to reflect the facts.
The wise old Arkansas senator J. William Fulbright, during the bad old days of the Vietnam War, once tried to warn President Lyndon B. Johnson that a colleague was about to come out against the war. Fulbright said, through a Johnson aide, "I don't know anyone who can turn on a dime quicker" than the senator in question. Government lying was a major issue during the Vietnam era and a big reason why that senator changed his stance on the war. The Bush people are trying to turn just as quickly. Trouble is, they're turning on themselves and are bound to slip.
The Senate intelligence and armed services committees, the House intelligence committee and a special panel of retired CIA officers are all now set to investigate the Iraq intelligence question.
It's getting hot in Washington.
----
Who's Accountable?
June 10, 2003
The New York Times
By PAUL KRUGMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/10/opinion/10KRUG.html
The Bush and Blair administrations are trying to silence critics - many of them current or former intelligence analysts - who say that they exaggerated the threat from Iraq. Last week a Blair official accused Britain's intelligence agencies of plotting against the government. (Tony Blair's government has since apologized for January's "dodgy dossier.") In this country, Colin Powell has declared that questions about the justification for war are "outrageous."
Yet dishonest salesmanship has been the hallmark of the Bush administration's approach to domestic policy. And it has become increasingly clear that the selling of the war with Iraq was no different.
For example, look at the way the administration rhetorically linked Saddam to Sept. 11. As The Associated Press put it: "The implication from Bush on down was that Saddam supported Osama bin Laden's network. Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks frequently were mentioned in the same sentence, even though officials have no good evidence of such a link." Not only was there no good evidence: according to The New York Times, captured leaders of Al Qaeda explicitly told the C.I.A. that they had not been working with Saddam.
Or look at the affair of the infamous "germ warfare" trailers. I don't know whether those trailers were intended to produce bioweapons or merely to inflate balloons, as the Iraqis claim - a claim supported by a number of outside experts. (According to the newspaper The Observer, Britain sold Iraq a similar system back in 1987.) What is clear is that an initial report concluding that they were weapons labs was, as one analyst told The Times, "a rushed job and looks political." President Bush had no business declaring "we have found the weapons of mass destruction."
We can guess how Mr. Bush came to make that statement. The first teams of analysts told administration officials what they wanted to hear, doubts were brushed aside, and officials then made public pronouncements greatly overstating even what the analysts had said.
A similar process of cherry-picking, of choosing and exaggerating intelligence that suited the administration's preconceptions, unfolded over the issue of W.M.D.'s before the war. Most intelligence professionals believed that Saddam had some biological and chemical weapons, but they did not believe that these posed any imminent threat. According to the newspaper The Independent, a March 2002 report by Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee found no evidence that Saddam posed a significantly greater threat than in 1991. But such conclusions weren't acceptable.
Last fall former U.S. intelligence officials began warning that official pronouncements were being based on "cooked intelligence." British intelligence officials were so concerned that, The Independent reports, they kept detailed records of the process. "A smoking gun may well exist over W.M.D., but it may not be to the government's liking," a source said.
But the Bush administration found scraps of intelligence suiting its agenda, and officials began making strong pronouncements. "Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons - the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have," Mr. Bush said on Feb. 8. On March 16 Dick Cheney declared, "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
It's now two months since Baghdad fell - and according to The A.P., military units searching for W.M.D.'s have run out of places to look.
One last point: the Bush administration's determination to see what it wanted to see led not just to a gross exaggeration of the threat Iraq posed, but to a severe underestimation of the problems of postwar occupation. When Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, warned that occupying Iraq might require hundreds of thousands of soldiers for an extended period, Paul Wolfowitz said he was "wildly off the mark" - and the secretary of the Army may have been fired for backing up the general. Now a force of 150,000 is stretched thin, facing increasingly frequent guerrilla attacks, and a senior officer told The Washington Post that it might be two years before an Iraqi government takes over. The Independent reports that British military chiefs are resisting calls to send more forces, fearing being "sucked into a quagmire."
I'll tell you what's outrageous. It's not the fact that people are criticizing the administration; it's the fact that nobody is being held accountable for misleading the nation into war.
--------
Iraq's Weapons, Our Intelligence (4 Letters)
June 10, 2003
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/10/opinion/L10IRAQ.html
To the Editor:
Re "Some Analysts of Iraq Trailers Reject Germ Use" (front page, June 7):
While it now seems likely that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence reports about Iraqi weapons, there is another possibility that is even more ominous: that the intelligence itself was grossly inaccurate.
Despite the resources lavished upon them, American intelligence services have an impressive history of extreme error. In recent years, they failed to detect the 9/11 plot, were caught by surprise when India detonated nuclear warheads, and hyped the threat from the Soviet Union right up to its collapse.
In the current world political climate, the United States cannot afford any more dramatic failures of insight and prediction.
While intelligence-gathering is as much art as science, we have proved deficient in both domains.
DAVID HAYDEN
Wilton, Conn., June 7, 2003
• To the Editor:
Re "Bush Aides Deny Effort to Slant Data on Iraq Arms" (news article, June 9):
I am angered by your report that President Bush now "appeared to be edging toward" the argument that Saddam Hussein had several weapons development programs under way "but few or no weapons ready for use."
The idea that he is "edging toward" any position at this point suggests that he is willing to support any argument that will temporarily mollify a skeptical public and media, a course that he took before the war when he tried out - some might say test-marketed - different reasons for invading Iraq as antiwar sentiment continued to build.
SAM LUDU
Baldwin, N.Y., June 9, 2003
• To the Editor:
Re "Was the Intelligence Cooked?" (editorial, June 8):
You are letting President Bush off rather lightly.
The lack of weapons of mass destruction would mean more than just an injury to American credibility. It would signify the brutality of this government.
This was about war, not some detail in a budget bill.
This was about the loss of thousands of lives that the Bush administration was willing to destroy in the attainment of its political and supposed security goals.
That President Bush didn't mind bombing and invading Iraq based upon flimsy or nonexistent evidence would show that he didn't really care about Iraqis to begin with.
Any justifications for Iraqi democracy were just a whitewash, just to add a humanitarian glow to an unjustified war.
George W. Bush had the military muscle, and he felt like flexing it. A lack of credibility is one thing, but a warlike nature is very troubling and just as much or more so a cause for concern.
JEREMY MATTHEWS
Richardson, Tex., June 9, 2003
• To the Editor:
The question of the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction ("Was the Intelligence Cooked?," editorial, June 8) is easily answered.
Saddam Hussein made it clear by his actions that he had something to hide, something of such magnitude that he was willing to accept sanctions and eventually to sacrifice his country and possibly his life rather than reveal it.
For 12 years of United Nations inspections, he stonewalled, stalled and moved the goal posts.
Was all this for no reason? If he didn't have any weapons of mass destruction, he surely gave us every reason to believe that he did.
EDWARD J. PRENNER
Forest Hills, Queens, June 8, 2003
-------- us
Guard, Reserve short on recruits
By Dave Moniz,
USA TODAY
6/10/2003
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-06-09-reserve-recruits_x.htm
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's heavy use of part-time military units in the war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq may be starting to exact a price: The nation's largest auxiliary forces - the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve - are beginning to have trouble meeting their recruiting targets.
As of April 30, the Guard was nearly 6,000 recruits short of where it needed to be on that date to meet its Sept. 30 target of enlisting 62,000 soldiers, Pentagon statistics show. If the Guard can't reverse the shortfall, it will mark the first time since 1998 that it has failed to fill its ranks.
The Army Reserve is also lagging behind and was more than 700 soldiers short of where it needed to be in April to meet its Sept. 30 goal of 42,000.
Defense officials and civilian analysts say the numbers demonstrate that the unusually intense use of part-time soldiers over the past year and a half is beginning to seriously affect the Guard and Reserve. Units have been called up for numerous missions that include guarding bases around the world, fixing war-torn towns in Afghanistan and flying refueling jets over Iraq. Two months after the fall of Baghdad, there are still 215,000 Guard and Reserve troops on active duty around the world, many in Iraq.
"I think it is reasonable to conclude that people are looking at the last 19 to 20 months of mobilization and they are voting with their feet," says Tom White, a former secretary of the Army. "I think we're seeing the leading edge of a problem."
Recruiters aren't helped by the apparent transformation of part-time soldiering into full-time jobs. For much of the decade before the Sept. 11 attacks, men and women who joined the Guard and Reserve knew that in most cases, they would train one weekend a month and perform two weeks of summer drills. Most were unlikely to be called for active duty.
A recruiting drought could have serious implications for homeland security and the war on terrorism because Guard and Reserve troops are shouldering much of the burden of guarding U.S. airports and performing other domestic security missions.
The demands on National Guard and Reserve troops, most of whom have full-time civilian jobs, have been unrelenting. Some units, including military police and nation-building soldiers known as civil affairs specialists, have been on active duty almost constantly since the Sept. 11 attacks. Last year, the Pentagon extended about 15,000 Reservists for a second consecutive year of active duty, the first time that has happened since the Vietnam War.
For now, the recruiting trouble seems to be confined to the Army's part-time units. The active-duty forces are on target to meet recruiting goals, as are the Air Force Reserve, the Air National Guard, the Naval Reserve and the Marine Corps Reserve - though those part-time units are smaller than the Army's and usually have an easier time meeting their goals.
----
The ever-growing US military footprint
By David Isenberg,
Jun 10, 2003
Asia Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EF10Ak01.html
The war in Iraq is over, so that means that the troops are coming home and the United States is reducing its presence - what military planners like to call its "footprint" in the region, right? Well, wrong, actually.
Contrary to much of the recent news coverage about Pentagon pronouncements on the US seeking to reduce its presence in Saudi Arabia, the fact of the matter is that when one looks at the big picture, the US has a huge military presence in the region. And it is not going anywhere. Considering the rhetoric that has come out in the past month from the neoconservative camp and administration officials about their unhappiness with countries such as Syria and Iran, the US military ability to reach out and touch someone must be taken very seriously.
A report by the Pacific Life Research Center, "Understanding the War On Terrorism": Preemptive Force - A Sequel" by Bob Aldridge details the bases that are now under the control of the US Central Command (CENTCOM).
Contrary to US policy during the Cold War when the US stationed hundreds of thousands of troops in Europe, the current Pentagon strategy is to have "long-term access" to bases, rather than a permanent presence. Thus, forces can be shifted among numerous accessible points to meet various "threats", rather than have a full complement of troops at a few permanent locations.
Some bases are reasonably well known, due to their use in the war against Iraq. For example, in Qatar the army base at Camp As-Sayliyah served as CENTCOM's forward headquarters and command center. Similarly, al-Udeid Air Base serves as the headquarters for CENTAF, CENTCOM's air component. There is also a base for pre-positioned army equipment at Doha airport, dubbed Camp Snoopy. This equipment is officially known as War Reserve Materiel (WRM) and provides support to bare base systems, medical, munitions, fuels mobility support equipment, vehicles, rations, aerospace ground equipment, air base operability equipment and associated spares and other consumables at designated locations.
Kuwait sponsors four US military bases - Camp Doha, Camp Arifjan, Ali al-Salem Air Base and Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base - and is also the headquarters for CENTCOM's army component.
The port of Manama in Bahrain is headquarters for the US Navy's 5th Fleet and hosts the headquarters of CENTCOM's navy and marine corps leaders. The Naval Support Activity occupies 79 acres of land in the center of downtown Manama. Also in Bahrain is Sheik Isa Air Base.
In Saudi Arabia the main US Air Force control center for air operations was moved from Prince Sultan Air Base to Qatar prior to the start of the war. It is unclear if another base, the Eskan Village Air Base, home for air force and other military people deployed to Riyadh Air Base, is available for US use.
Oman allows the use of three bases by the US military; the Masirah Air Base, the Thumrait Naval Air Base for anti-submarine patrol planes, and the US Air Force use of Seeb International Airport, which is Oman's largest airport.
According to the Washington-DC based group Global Security, the transfer of Seeb International Airport to private sector management signaled the end of the airport's role as a base for the Royal Air Force of Oman. As of early-2002, Oman's Air Force was in search of new facilities, and contractors were bidding for the contract to build one of the first of these air bases at al-Masanah (Masana), northwest of Muscat. Completion of the project, which was first proposed a decade ago, was expected within 18 months of a contract award. Oman has worked with the US Air Force to ensure the base is built to American standards and can be used by American warplanes without further upgrades. Oman has long been a strong supporter of a US military presence in the Gulf. It signed an access agreement with Washington in 1981.
And in Iraq there are four bases to which the US plans access: Baghdad International Airport, an airport at Tallil near Nasiriya in the south; the Bashur airfield in the northern Kurdish area, and a small airstrip in the western desert called H-1. The Baghdad airport is an army base, Talil and Bashur are air force bases and the H-1 airstrip was a foothold for special forces for rapid conquest. Use of the Bashur airfield means that the US will not have to rely on using Turkey's Incirlik air base
Some dozen bases in Central Asia have also been made available to US forces since the war against Afghanistan. In Georgia, the Vaziani base will be the home for special forces instructors for a current mandate of two years, until May 2004.
Turkmenistan has given permission for flyover and refueling of US military planes. This would be particularly important in allowing US aircraft based in Uzbekistan to reach Iran with munitions and special forces troops.
According to Global Security, in November 2001 Tajikistan agreed to allow the US to evaluate three former Soviet airbases for potential use by US aircraft to support Operation Enduring Freedom. The agreement was announced after a meeting in Dushanbe between US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Tajik Foreign Minister Talbak Nazarov. The agreement followed an inspection of several airports in southern Tajikistan.
In Uzbekistan, 1,500 to 1,800 special forces troops can be stationed at a former Soviet base in Khanabad. During the war against Afghanistan about 1,000 US troops worked at the facility handling tons of supplies for the war.
In Kazakhstan, US military activities are shrouded in secrecy. But it is known that the government there allows military overflights, refueling and landing rights in emergencies.
In Kyrgystan the base at Manas Airport near Bishek will eventually accommodate 3,000 troops and an unspecified number of aircraft. Manas has a 13,800-foot runway, built for Soviet bombers. There is room for four C-17 or C-5 cargo planes to park along the taxiway. The facility covers 37 acres.
And in Afghanistan there are five airfields that could be used by US forces; at Bagram, Kandahar, Khost, Lwara, Mazar-e-Sharif and Pul-i-Kandahar.
Also, sites outside the region are being considered as staging bases in order to deploy forces into the region. Consider that on June 3 Associated Press reported that US troops may soon use Balkans bases for training sites and staging points for possible interventions in the Middle East as the Pentagon weighs withdrawing 15,000 soldiers from Germany. Reportedly, the Pentagon wants to use big Romanian and Bulgarian training grounds in year-round programs that would have up to 3,000 battle-ready US soldiers at any time.
In Romania, the Americans are interested in the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, the Babadag training range and the Black Sea military port of Mangalia. In Bulgaria, talks are focusing on the use of the Sarafovo and Graf Ignatievo military airports and the Koren and Novo Selo training areas.
-------- propaganda wars
BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Skepticism mounting about motive for war
President Bush thinks that history will vindicate his decision to invade Iraq, though weapons of mass destruction haven't been found. Others aren't so certain.
By G. ROBERT HILLMAN
Dallas Morning News
6/10/2003
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20030610/1028010.asp
WASHINGTON - Facing mounting worldwide skepticism of repeated U.S. assertions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, President Bush declared Monday that he is "absolutely convinced" that his administration will be vindicated.
"With time, we'll find out that they did have a weapons program," Bush told reporters at the White House, dismissing suggestions that the nation's credibility is on the line.
"The credibility of this country is based upon our strong desire to make the world more peaceful - and the world is now more peaceful," he said. "The Iraqi people are now free."
Pressed by a reporter after a Cabinet meeting, Bush challenged the growing criticism that one of the primary U.S. premises for waging war against President Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi regime might have been based on faulty or doctored intelligence analysis.
Sunday, during a blitz of the morning news broadcasts, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice faced similar questions and, in sometimes-forceful language, defended the prewar intelligence assessments.
"There's a very large body of evidence here that connects together to paint a picture of a very dangerous regime with very dangerous weapons that had deceived the world for 12 years, that had allowed international sanctions to stay on rather than come clean about what it was doing," Rice said on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos."
"Either you believe Saddam Hussein or you believe the overwhelming bulk of evidence," she said.
On Capitol Hill, several key members of Congress from both parties are calling for a thorough congressional inquiry.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., is contending that intelligence analysis appears to have been shaped politically. "There is significant evidence that the intelligence was shaded in order to support a policy, presumably of the administration," Levin said Monday on CNN.
Still, he said, it was "very likely" that the U.S.-led search in Iraq for evidence of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons programs would be successful.
"But that is a separate issue from whether or not the intelligence relating to those weapons was shaded to support a particular position," said Levin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"If it was not a black-or-white issue, if it was a probability or possibility, that's what we should have been told," he said.
To buttress his contention, Levin cited three intelligence assertions by the Bush administration that have been questioned or discredited - that Iraq was acquiring aluminum tubes to develop nuclear weapons, that it was seeking uranium from Africa and that two semitrailers found in Iraq were, in fact, mobile laboratories to make biological agents.
"They make it into much more black and white than it really is," Levin said, referring specifically to the CIA.
In the months before the war with Iraq, Bush and his top aides, including Powell in a dramatic presentation to the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5, made what they portrayed as a compelling case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was continuing to develop them - and that Saddam should be disarmed, by force if necessary.
So far, though, U.S. military forces searching Iraq have found chemical protective gear, nerve gas antidotes and the two trailers - but no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Now, U.S. combat forces are winding down their hunt, to be replaced by hundreds of other inspectors and analysts who the Bush administration thinks will be better suited to track down weapons.
Visiting U.S. troops in Qatar on Thursday, Bush repeated his assertion that the semitrailers could be used to make biological agents and vowed to "reveal the truth."
On Sept. 26, as he marshaled congressional support to use force against Iraq, Bush had said flatly in the White House Rose Garden: "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons. The Iraqi regime is building facilities necessary to make more biological and chemical weapons."
In his weekly radio address Oct. 5, Bush repeated his assertion and added: "Saddam Hussein has used these weapons of death against innocent Iraqi people, and we have every reason to believe he will use them again."
Earlier, however, the Defense Intelligence Agency had reported that there was no reliable evidence that Iraq was producing or stockpiling chemical weapons.
Asked to reconcile the differences, Fleischer told reporters Monday that the defense intelligence summary had been taken out of context from a larger report that he said "talks about how Iraq is distributing chemical weapons munitions."
History, Bush concluded, "will prove that the United States made the absolute right decision in freeing the people of Iraq from the clutches of Saddam Hussein."
----
Bush defends Saddam terror link claim
By David Rennie in Washington
10/06/2003
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/10/wbush10.xml/
President George W Bush yesterday defended pre-war claims of a link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
He rounded on media reports that his administration suppressed unhelpful intelligence from two top al-Qa'eda captives suggesting that the terror network did not co-operate with Saddam.
President Bush: rebuttal
Disgruntled intelligence officials told yesterday's New York Times that, in interrogations before the war, Abu Zubaidah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed both told US captors that the idea of co-operation with Iraq had been discussed by al-Qa'eda leaders, but rejected.
Abu Zubaidah, the al-Qa'eda planner arrested in March 2002, said bin Laden vetoed the proposals because he did not want to be beholden to Saddam Hussein.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the group's chief of operations captured in March this year, also said there was no co-operation with Baghdad.
Speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting, Mr Bush offered a rare presidential rebuttal of an individual newspaper article.
Mr Bush accused the New York Times of overlooking evidence that an al-Qa'eda leader hiding in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was behind last October's murder in Jordan of Laurence Foley, a US aid official.
"I guess the people that wrote that article forgot about al-Zarqawi's network inside of Baghdad that ordered the killing of a US citizen named Foley," Mr Bush said.
Asked if America's credibility was on the line over the presence of banned weapons in Iraq, Mr Bush said: "I'm absolutely convinced, with time, we'll find out that they did have a weapons programme."
Then, shifting his argument to broader justifications for the war, Mr Bush concluded: "History in time will prove that the United States made the absolute right decision in freeing the people of Iraq."
Angry intelligence officials have been briefing reporters for weeks that intelligence was "hyped" to fit the policy objectives of senior administration officials in the Pentagon and the office of Dick Cheney, the vice-president.
To date, leaks have centred on what exactly was known about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, with CIA analysts accusing political leaders of omitting to mention the ambiguous, unconfirmed nature of much of the available data.
Officials told the New York Times that reports of the interrogations with Abu Zubaidah were circulated within the intelligence community, but that his denial of any link with Iraq was not among the details shared with the public.
Abu Zubaidah has been described previously as skilled at disinformation, and one senior intelligence official played down the significance of the debriefing reports, saying that any information from al-Qa'eda captives must be treated with great caution.
It is generally accepted that al-Qa'eda had contacts in Iraqi intelligence. American officials have stated that Iraq provided training in bomb-making, document forging and the use of poisons to at least two al-Qa'eda associates, and offered havens and medical treatment to al-Qa'eda operatives in Baghdad. At least one Iraqi official is believed to have visited an al-Qa'eda camp in Afghanistan.
----
CIA had doubts on Iraq link to al-Qaida
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Tuesday June 10, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,974182,00.html
The debunking of the Bush administration's pre-war certainties on Iraq gathered pace yesterday when it emerged that the CIA knew for months that a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida was highly unlikely.
As President George Bush was forced for the second time in days to defend the decision to go to war, a new set of leaks from CIA officials suggested a tendency in the White House to suppress or ignore intelligence findings which did not shore up the case for war.
The interrogation reports of two senior al-Qaida members, both in US custody, showed that the CIA had reason to doubt the allegations of a connection between Saddam's regime and the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
Such assertions, promoted vigorously by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, were used as an additional justification for war, after the central argument that Iraq's arsenal of banned weapons posed an imminent danger.
The charge of a link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam was contentious even at the time, and yesterday's report in the New York Times that the two al-Qaida members, Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, dismissed the idea deepened the impression that Americans had been deliberately misled to support the decision for war.
In recent days that impression has become sufficiently widespread to put officials on the defensive.
Yesterday Mr Bush predicted that US inspectors scouring Iraq would soon find evidence of a programme of weapons of mass destruction. He also reaffirmed that al-Qaida maintained a network in Baghdad.
"Intelligence throughout the decade shows they had a weapons programme," Mr Bush said. "I am absolutely convinced that with time, we'll find out they did have a weapons programme."
That assertion stops well short of Mr Bush's statement during a visit to Poland on May 31 that US troops had already found weapons of mass destruction: two trailers the US said at the time had been used as mobile biological labs.
With the White House fighting for its credibility, the New York Times reported that the two al-Qaida lieutenants had dismissed the notion of cooperation between Saddam and Bin Laden.
Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March last year, told his CIA interrogators that Bin Laden had considered and then rejected the idea of working with Saddam because he did not want to be in the Iraqi leader's debt.
His information was supported on the eve of war after Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan on March 1. Mohammed, who had been al-Qaida's chief of operations, told the CIA the group did not work with Saddam.
While the CIA shared its interrogation record of Zubaydah with other intelligence agencies, it did not release its conclusions to the public.
That omission could prove extremely damaging to the administration because it suggests that officials ignored intelligence that did not fit with their plans for Iraq.
"This gets to the serious question of to what extent did they try to align the facts with the conclusions that they wanted," an intelligence official told the New York Times.
"Things pointing in one direction were given a lot of weight, and other things were discounted."
----
Weapon threat not the motive for war, ex-spy says
By Tom Allard, Foreign Affairs Writer in Canberra and agencies
June 10 2003
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/10/1055010936009.html
Iraqi children play under SAM anti-aircraft missiles loaded on an abandoned Iraqi armored vehicle in Baghdad yesterday. Photo: AFP
Australia's premier intelligence analysis agency told the Federal Government that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction threat was not the prime motive for the United States going to war against Iraq, a former intelligence officer said yesterday.
It was regarded as a "secondary issue", less important than regime change and reshaping the Middle East by putting in place a pro-US government in an oil-rich country and introducing democracy to the region.
Domestic political considerations were also considered an important factor by Australia's Office of National Assessments, according the former ONA officer, Andrew Wilkie.
Before the war, the ONA, which is answerable to the Prime Minister and cabinet, gave the Government reports on the US, as well as intelligence assessments on Iraq.
"In the assessments on the US, it was being made very clear to government all the things which were driving the US on Iraq. WMD wasn't the most important issue. In fact, it was seen as a secondary issue," Mr Wilkie said yesterday.
"It was also about the credibility of the US military. The US sees its military and threat of force as one of its most important foreign policy tools. They had threatened to use force and would lose credibility if they didn't," Mr Wilkie said.
"The sum of all of these things was bigger than the impact of WMD."
The Australian Government cited the destruction of Iraq's WMD and the possibility Saddam Hussein's lethal arms could be given to terrorists as the casus belli.
It never mentioned re-fashioning the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East as an objective of the war until after the war was won.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister noted that the ONA director-general, Kim Jones, had said Mr Wilkie had been involved only in providing reports on humanitarian aspects of the war.
Mr Wilkie left ONA in protest on the eve of the war in March.
The opposition parties are pushing for an independent inquiry into any intelligence failure in the lead-up to the war.
Mr Wilkie's revelations came as a British newspaper reported that the mobile laboratories found in Iraq and said to be built to make chemical and biological weapons had been supplied by Britain in the late 1980s to produce hydrogen for military balloons.
Also in Britain, the Prime Minister Tony Blair's spin doctor, Alistair Campbell, wrote to the head of MI6 and promised to take more care in presenting intelligence material to the public after a damaging row over a dossier on Iraq's weapons.
The document - dubbed the "dodgy dossier" by British media - failed to make clear the source of some information used to back the Government's case for war.
Chunks of the report came from a student's thesis, which leaned heavily on documents more than 10 years old.
The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, on Sunday became the most senior minister to admit publicly it was wrong to publish the "dodgy dossier".
In the US, the White House launched a co-ordinated effort to quell accusations that it had exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
----
All hail to the pods
AL Kennedy
Tuesday June 10, 2003
The Guardian
comment@guardian.co.uk
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,974049,00.html
Remember those films in which alien pods would appear for no good reason in cellars and massage parlours and the like and one unsuspecting night almost everyone goes to sleep and disappears, because the pod people have killed them, reproduced their bodies and then woken up bright and early the following morning and taken control of the world? Those films used to worry me a lot. I would imagine I'd be one of the few nocturnal types that managed to escape being podded and then ended up in an environment run by militant aliens, with everything familiar turned inhospitable and scary.
Well, it's happened. The pods came, the day shift nodded off and the rest of us survivors are stuffed. (By the way, read this very carefully - there may be a pod person watching you for signs of incipient dissent.) Massive podding in high places is the only thing that can really explain most of this century, with particular reference to the last few weeks.
For example, only a pod person would stand up in public and claim that, because something can't be found, it must be there. And don't think that hasn't tempted me over to the pod side more than somewhat. After all, according to pod logic, that means that I must be enjoying a mature, varied and satisfying sex life. I must be swinging from my light fitments in a sweating haze of glory before somersaulting into the fur-lined gondola that is my bed, swiping a few of the hot, buttered dwarfs out of my way and getting down to something utterly unnatural. There's not a shred of evidence that anything like this has happened, is happening, will, or ever could - so it must be real. All hail to the pods.
Goodness, I'm glad to be having so much fun - and that so many Iraqi children are also having fun, scampering about between the cluster bombs and playing catch with all their extremities indubitably in place. Because clearly, if even fully qualified reconstructive surgeons can no longer locate the kiddies' hands and feet, this must mean that they're absolutely there. All hail to the pods.
These are the same pods who can prove the Axis of Good is just dripping with freedom, because there's hardly a shred of it remaining. Westminster is surrounded with breeze blocks and razor wire, trainspotters are being pre-emptively boiled in acid and over in George W's kingdom, human rights are fairly blossoming. Take the entirely innocent Mr Oliverio Martinez, shot five times by police due to a night-time confusion provoked by Mr Martinez's suspiciously squeaky bicycle. Wounded in the eyes, legs and spine, lucky Mr Martinez had the democratic privilege of being questioned repeatedly in the ambulance and during his hospital treatment. For 45 minutes he screamed, begged and denied that his injuries were his own fault, until his medication finally rendered him unconscious. But, in these times of terrorist menace, the supreme court has wisely ruled that Mr Martinez's treatment in no way violated his fifth amendment rights. He is now paralysed and blind. Coincidentally, independent observers are still being barred from several US holding and interrogation facilities in Iraq. All hail to the pods.
Of course, pod reasoning works equally well in reverse. If something is right there in front of you and undeniably exists, then it cannot be so. Therefore veterans of the first Gulf war who exhibit innumerable signs of serious illness and disability have nothing whatever wrong with them - even those among them who are dead now. And there is nothing remotely approaching a present casualty rate of 30%, due to chemical mishap and depleted uranium poisoning. This is the same depleted uranium that hasn't been dumped in hundreds of tons all over Afghanistan and Iraq and doesn't continue to poison civilians and troops of various nations, even as I type. The evidence is overwhelming, so it can't possibly be true. And - hey - while we're ignoring our armed forces, why not slash every kind of support for the disabled, vulnerable and poor, because they plainly don't exist, either. Far better to spend our money on stoking and suppressing the endless terrors we create. All hail to the pods.
The pods are the reason the world's most powerful bankrupt nation is ruled by an unelected Texan, rather than Bill Hicks. (I'd pick a dead comedian over a live fundamentalist flake any day.) They're why the bend in Clinton's dick provoked more outrage and investigation than Georgie's bloodlust ever will. They're why we make money arming countries - so we can bomb them to hell and back. They're why we haven't simply drowned Tony Blair in a bucket of his own, conniving sweat. All hail to the pods - they're here to stay.
-------- war crimes
New Reports Implicate Soldiers in Death of Journalists
By Ian Urbina,
Asia Times
June 10, 2003
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16125
On April 8, two journalists were killed in Baghdad. By this date, only weeks into the conflict, the death toll for journalists in Iraq was an alarming 10, more than double the total killed in the entirety of the first Gulf War in 1991. But what was especially worrisome about the deaths of Ukraine-born Reuters cameraman, Taras Protsyuk, and Spanish photographer Jose Couso, was that neither man was near the front lines.
Both were in their hotels. Alongside roughly 100 other journalists from virtually every major international news outlet in the country at the time, Protsyuk and Couso were recouping in an officially recognized safe zone - the Palestine Hotel. But an American tank on the opposite bank of the Tigris River, roughly three-quarters of a mile away, fired directly at the hotel anyway.
The U.S. military stated that the incident was a regrettable though unavoidable mistake. However, with the recent release of an investigation by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists there is new evidence that the incident was in fact entirely avoidable, and a Spanish judge is being asked to file formal extradition charges against the three US military officers responsible.
The defendants are Lieutenant Colonel Philip DeCamp, commander of the Fourth Battalion 64th Armored Regiment of the Third Infantry Division; Captain Philip Wolford, company commander of the tank unit that fired on the hotel; and Sergeant Shawn Gibson, the officer who asked Wolford for permission to fire and received it.
The Pentagon has claimed that the tank fire was a purely defensive move. Specifically, military spokeswoman Victoria Clarke wrote the committee a week after the event, stating "coalition forces were fired upon and acted in self defense by returning fire". At the time of the incident, U.S. forces were attempting to find and kill an Iraqi "spotter" who was believed to be watching American troop movements and relaying the information back to snipers scattered throughout the city.
But interviews with more than a dozen eyewitnesses at the hotel tell a different story. The unanimous rendition given to the investigators was that no shots of any sort were fired from the hotel. Some of the most damning evidence came in the investigation from Associated Press reporter Chris Tomlinson, who was embedded with the Fourth Battalion. Tomlinson was waiting in Baghdad at a military facility and therefore had access to a military radio. He followed the entire incident closely, listening to the full conversations between company members, as well as between a commander and his superiors.
While listening to events unfold, Tomlinson, who served with the army for seven years, was approached by Colonel David Perkins, the commander of the Second Brigade of the Third Infantry. Perkins, too, was following events on the military radio, and he expressed concern that U.S. tank personnel might decide to fire on the Palestine Hotel. Perkins decided to ask Tomlinson to help more clearly identify the hotel so as to prevent it from being hit.
Tomlinson agreed to help and called the AP office in Doha, Qatar, to find out what the hotel looked like. Soon after, Tomlinson tried to relay the message to the journalists in the hotel, asking them to hang sheets out the windows. Unfortunately, it was too late. At this very moment, the tank commander, having seen someone with binoculars at the hotel, and assuming that this person was the Iraqi spotter, asked and received permission to fire on the Palestine Hotel.
Immediately after the hotel was hit one of the commanding officers, Lieutenant Colonel Philip, started screaming over the radio. "Who just shot the Palestinian [sic] Hotel? Did you just fucking shoot the Palestinian Hotel?" Shortly afterward, Perkins reiterated the policy that no one was to shoot the hotel under any circumstances.
One thing that the recent investigation makes quite clear is that it would be difficult to mistake the Palestine Hotel. It was known to all. On the other side of the world, anyone who watched even five minutes of war coverage knew that virtually the entire international press corps was headquartered at this location. The video and reporting feeds coming from the rooftops and balconies at this spot were constant.
On the facade of the building facing the tank, the name of the hotel was written in huge letters. The 14-story building is by far the tallest on the skyline. There is only one other building nearly as tall, and it, too, was a militarily off-limits hotel. With the naked eye, and no help from distance-vision technology that are standard in most U.S. tanks, the Palestine Hotel is apparent.
Investigators drove this point home by commissioning a photographer to take pictures, included in the recent report, from where the tank fired. The hotel could not be clearer in these photographs.
After the incident, the Spanish government called the deaths a tragic error but also stated that it accepted the official U.S. explanation. Despite opposition from more than 90 percent of the Spanish population, the country's Prime Minister, Jose Aznar, staunchly backed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Since then Aznar has continued to dismiss the incident at the Palestine Hotel.
However, the Spanish judiciary may have something else to say about the matter now that evidence seems clearly to indicate avoidable error. In the coming weeks, Spanish investigative magistrate Guillermo Ruiz de Polanco will decide whether there are sufficient grounds for a trial.
Under the Geneva Convention, firing on media facilities is unequivocally illegal. In a court of law, be it international jurisprudence or otherwise, neither accident nor the perception of nearby threat stands as just cause or sufficient excuse for such action.
Of course, American soldiers do not operate under these concerns. They are exempt from such battlefield limitations. But for the rest of the world, for which violations of UN resolutions and breaches of international law can have dire consequences, pursuing this case is important. If nothing else, honest disclosure of wrongdoing and proper procedure in accordance with law are owed to the family of the deceased. Washington would likely agree if the tank had been Iraqi, and the victims had been American journalists.
Ian Urbina is associate editor of the Middle East Research and Information Project in Washington.
----
U.S. Confronts EU On War Crimes Court
Immunity Pact Issue Threatens Relations
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37014-2003Jun9?language=printer
UNITED NATIONS, June 9 -- The Bush administration charged the European Union with actively undermining U.S. efforts to shield Americans from prosecution by the International Criminal Court and warned that the impact on transatlantic relations will be "very damaging" if the EU does not stop.
The unusually tough warning, which was issued in a confidential note to EU governments last week, threatens to complicate the United States' relations with its European allies as a June 25 summit in Washington approaches. It also comes as the United States formally tabled a Security Council resolution today that would extend immunity for at least one year to Americans serving in U.N.-authorized military operations from prosecution by the world's first permanent war crimes court.
The United States has been struggling for a year to negotiate accords barring individual governments around the globe from surrendering Americans to the war crimes court, which went into force on July 1, 2002. So far, the United States has signed 37 immunity pacts, primarily with poor, small countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
The U.S. effort has encountered stiff resistance from European allies, who believe that the terms set by the United States would undermine the power of the court before it has tried its first case.
U.S. officials and one European diplomat said Germany, a stalwart supporter of the court, has led European opposition to the U.S. campaign. But the U.S. memorandum noted that there have been reports that a number of EU member ambassadors have "lobbied against U.S. bilateral efforts" outside of the extended European community. "The tone is equally aggressive on both sides," the European diplomat said.
The United States accused the 15-member European Union of actively lobbying countries, including the 10 future members of the union, not to sign the U.S.-drafted agreements. The United States warned that recent improvement in relations with France, Germany and other countries that opposed the war in Iraq could be undone.
"This will undercut all our efforts to repair and rebuild the transatlantic relationship just as we are taking a turn for the better after a number of difficult months," according to the note, known as a démarche, which was obtained by The Washington Post. "We are dismayed that the European Union would actively seek to undermine U.S. efforts."
The dispute centers on a provision of the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the war crimes court. The provision allows states that have ratified the treaty to seek immunity for their troops -- through bilateral accords known as Article 98 agreements -- in countries where the troops are serving.
Britain, France and other European governments have signed such agreements with Afghanistan, shielding thousands of European peacekeepers from surrender by Afghan authorities to the Hague-based court, which has been ratified by 90 nations. But the EU published guidelines last year that set limits on the scope of immunity that can be granted to individuals serving in a foreign military operation without undermining the international court. For instance, the exemption "should cover only persons present on the territory" of a nation that signed the agreement.
European officials maintain that the U.S. immunity pacts go too far, granting broad immunity to all U.S. citizens -- including stationed troops, government officials in Washington and international contract workers -- for crimes committed anywhere in the world.
U.S. officials grew alarmed when the European Union issued a letter in April to the new EU members urging them to honor the Sept. 30, 2002, guidelines, according to Richard Dicker, an expert on the court at the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch. "The European Union is asserting the principles they have adopted and urging those states that want to join the EU to keep those principles in mind," he said. "It's the U.S. putting those governments that have ratified the treaty between a rock and a hard place."
The United States argued in the démarche that its efforts to shield Americans from prosecution are consistent with the ICC treaty: "The EU guidelines for Article 98 agreements are inconsistent with the Rome Statute. We disagree. We continue to believe that our language does not contradict or undermine the ICC."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- courts
Court allows veterans to reopen chemical cases
June 10, 2003
By Frank J. Murray
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030610-125716-3894r.htm
The Supreme Court, for lack of a tie-breaking vote, cleared the way yesterday for veterans who believe Agent Orange caused their cancer to reopen long-settled legal actions against Dow Chemical Co. and Monsanto Co.
The two-paragraph Agent Orange decision was among a handful of otherwise routine cases resolved by the justices who begin Monday two climactic weeks in which they will decide the 14 remaining cases on which arguments were heard.
Those appeals include constitutional challenges to the University of Michigan's race-based system for selecting new students, and a Texas sodomy law that applies only to homosexual conduct.
Monsanto and Dow feared that yesterday's 4-4 decision would reopen a broad range of assertions that the 1984 settlement was intended to close and renew the companies' exposure to an open-ended series of expensive lawsuits.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed while considering a case filed by veterans whose cancer was diagnosed after that historic settlement. Under Supreme Court rules, the rare deadlock affirmed the 2nd Circuit decision in favor of retired helicopter pilot Daniel Stephenson of Florida and remanded for reconsideration the case of New Jersey vice principal Joe Isaacson, who also said his cancer was related to use of the herbicide in Vietnam.
The tie occurred because Justice John Paul Stevens refused to participate. As is the custom, he did not give a reason, but the Associated Press suggested that his decision was based on the 1996 cancer death of his son, John J., 47, a Vietnam veteran.
Yesterday's rulings also included:
• A 9-0 decision that Iowa may tax slot machines at dog and horse tracks more heavily (36 percent) than riverboat slots (20 percent).
• Refusal to hear the appeal of pornography merchant Stephen Cohen, who says he is under house arrest in Mexico and seeks to avoid paying a $65 million judgment to Gary Kremen of San Francisco for fraudulently taking control of Mr. Kremen's Sex.com Web site.
• Agreement to decide next term whether Sylvia Crawford's incriminating statement to police was properly admitted as evidence at the assault trial of her husband, Michael Crawford. Mrs. Crawford, described as both a victim and a "potential accomplice," invoked the spousal right not to testify against her husband, but a court admitted her written statement given to police on the night of the attack.
• Revival of lawsuits by Arizona and Nevada dairies contesting California milk-pricing regulations, which they say usurp congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. The only dissenter from the 8-1 vote was Justice Clarence Thomas, who formerly led the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
• The unanimous decision that the only woman employed at a Caesars Palace casino warehouse need not show "direct evidence of discrimination" and may use circumstantial evidence for her lawsuit charging that her firing was based on sex discrimination. Catharina Costa and Herbert Gerber were both disciplined for fighting, but she was fired and he was suspended for five days, ostensibly because he had a better disciplinary record.
• Rejected Cincinnati's appeal to restore what is a "drug-dealer-free" zone in a high-crime neighborhood. The 1996 ordinance banned from city streets in the Over the Rhine neighborhood people arrested or convicted of certain drug crimes. Lower courts held the ordinance unconstitutional for intruding on freedoms of association and travel.
The law was successfully attacked by Patricia Johnson, who was arrested but never indicted on a marijuana-trafficking offense. She was barred for 90 days from entering the neighborhood, where one of her children and five grandchildren lived.
----
Supreme Court evenly split in Agent Orange case
6/10/2003
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-06-09-scotus-orange_x.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court kept alive hopes of cancer-stricken Vietnam veterans who want to recover damages for Agent Orange exposure, deadlocking Monday in a case that has implications for anyone who misses out on a settlement of a class-action lawsuit.
Businesses had anxiously awaited a clear-cut decision from the court on when - or how - old class-action settlements can be reopened.
Instead, justices deadlocked 4-4 on a case involving two veterans who blame Agent Orange for their cancer, but got sick too late to claim a piece of the $180 million settlement with makers of the chemical in 1984. The non-decision allows veterans to pursue lawsuits claiming they were wrongfully shut out of the settlement.
The ninth court member, Justice John Paul Stevens, did not give a reason for recusing himself, but his only son was a Vietnam veteran who apparently suffered from cancer before his death in 1996.
Tie votes are rare, though the court had another just six months ago on a major wetlands protection case. When ties occur, the ruling from the previous court that considered the case takes effect. Monday's tie left undisturbed a lower court ruling that found the veterans were not adequately represented in the Agent Orange settlement, which included no cash for people who got sick after 1994.
"A lot of veterans have been waiting for 10 years to hear this, their rights are vindicated," said Gerson Smoger of Oakland, the attorney for the two veterans.
New York attorney Andrew Frey, who represents Dow Chemical Co., said it's important for companies to have finality in class-action settlements or they may be wary about settling future cases out of court.
"It's very frustrating for the companies to lose it 4-4 and not know why they lost," said Frey, who predicts the issue will be back at the high court eventually.
Businesses also suffered a setback in another case Monday. The court overrode the Bush administration in a 9-0 ruling making it easier for people to sue their employers for discrimination.
Justices said that forklift operator Catharina Costa did not have to produce "direct evidence" of discrimination under a federal anti-discrimination law to place her type of claim before a jury. Direct evidence requires proof based on personal knowledge or observation, which can be difficult to produce.
Her employer, Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, contended it had a valid reason to fire her - discipline problems.
An employee "need only present sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude, by a preponderance of the evidence, that 'race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating factor for any employment practice,'" Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court.
Eric Schnapper, a University of Washington law school professor who represented Costa, said he hopes the defeat sends a message to the Bush administration, which wanted a stricter standard for lawsuits under the anti-discrimination law.
"Hopefully the more moderate people in the administration will take heart from this and press the government not to do this sort of thing again," he said. "This should make employers want to work harder at stopping discrimination."
Robert Stewart, spokesman for Park Place Entertainment, the parent company for Caesars, said the Supreme Court seemed to change the rules for lawsuits. "It appears that many employers accused of workplace discrimination will be considered guilty until they can prove themselves innocent," he said.
In the Agent Orange case, the court issued a brief, unsigned opinion. It ordered more consideration on the proper venue for claims of veteran Joe Isaacson, a vice principal in Irvington, N.J. Justices left undisturbed a decision allowing the lawsuit of Daniel Stephenson, a retired helicopter pilot living in Florida.
Both men claim their cancers are related to Agent Orange, used in the 1960s and 1970s to clear dense jungle foliage that provided cover for enemy forces.
Companies that made the herbicide Agent Orange thought their liability ended with the class-action settlement. Dow, Monsanto Co. and other companies tried to reach veterans with ads in local and national newspapers and magazines. They also dispute that illnesses reported by aging vets are related to the chemical.
Susan Koniak, a law professor at Boston University School, said challenges to class-actions are important to all people.
"There's almost no American who hasn't been in a class action, whether you know it or not," she said, "whether it's a computer you bought, or rental charges on your car, or an insurance policy."
She said that after-the-fact challenges should be allowed in some circumstances.
The case is Dow Chemical Co. vs. Stephenson, 02-271.
-------- homeland security
Virus Targeting Banks
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37383-2003Jun9?language=printer
The government is warning financial institutions about a virus-like infection that has targeted computers at roughly 1,200 banks worldwide, trying to steal corporate passwords. The FBI is investigating what private security experts believe to be the first Internet attack aimed primarily at a single economic sector. Virus experts users were astonished to find inside the software code a list of about 1,200 Web addresses for many of the world's largest financial institutions, including J.P. Morgan Chase, American Express, Wachovia, Bank of America and Citibank. The infection, known as "BugBear.B," has spread to tens of thousands of consumer computers across the Internet since last week, but investigators and industry experts said they did not know whether any financial institutions had been significantly affected.
-------- police
Grenade Seized At Union Station
Amtrak Officer Secures Device
By Martin Weil and Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37623-2003Jun10?language=printer
A man who brandished a hand grenade during a robbery attempt at Union Station was arrested last night after an Amtrak police officer grabbed the partially activated device from him, authorities said.
The officer clasped a safety catch for at least 15 minutes to prevent any explosion.
A homeless man who has a record of drug arrests was charged in the incident late last night, said Terrance W. Gainer, chief of the U.S. Capitol Police. Police accused the man, identified as Juann Tubbs, 38, of assault and attempted robbery while armed.
"This man is in need of mental help," Gainer said. Speaking at a time of heightened concern about terrorism, he said there was no indication that the incident was anything other than a holdup. "This was a good old-fashioned robbery."
It was not clear whether the grenade, one of two in the man's possession, was a live weapon.
The episode began about 8 p.m. with the robbery attempt at the Redskins store inside the station, touching off a pursuit that ended near First and G streets NE, where the man wrestled with a U.S. Capitol Police officer and the Amtrak officer. "In the altercation, the pin [on the grenade] was pulled and the Amtrak officer held it closed and secured" until a bomb disposal unit reached the area and took possession of the object, an Amtrak spokesman said.
As the incident unfolded, police shut down nearby streets and officers from a variety of law enforcement agencies flocked to the scene, the emergency lights on their vehicles flashing throughout the neighborhood just west of the station. Patrons of nearby taverns gathered on curbs to watch as explosives technicians went about their work.
Authorities said that when the man touched off the incident by approaching the clerk at the Redskins store in the west hall of the station, his only demand was for money.
Amtrak spokesman Dan Stessel said the man brandished what he said was a grenade and asked for $20.
But the clerk, according to accounts, apparently did not believe that the grenade was a live weapon and refused to comply.
According to accounts provided by Amtrak, the man left the store empty-handed, and according to one of the accounts, the clerk contacted Union Station security personnel.
As the man was leaving the station, authorities said, two of the station's uniformed security guards caught sight of him and noted that he was holding an object. The guards, according to Amtrak, summoned Amtrak police.
Shortly afterward, the man was seen outside the station, heading around the corner to First Street NE, which is on the west side of the station.
Near an office building in the unit block of First Street NE, the man was spotted by the Amtrak and Capitol Police officers.
It was in that area, authorities said, that the two officers struggled with the man, who was apparently still holding the grenade that he had brandished in the store.
During the struggle, Stessel said, the railroad police officer saw that the pin of the grenade had been pulled.
The officer seized the grenade and, according to several accounts, held in place a second safety device, a kind of metal bar known as a spoon, to prevent the grenade from possibly detonating.
Capitol Police spokeswoman Jessica Gissubel said the officer "was able to grab it from [the man's] hand and hold the spoon portion and hold that down" until the bomb disposal unit arrived.
Authorities said the man was carrying a duffel bag containing a grenade similar to the one he had brandished.
An Army officer familiar with grenades in current use said that pulling the pin alone will not detonate the weapon.
Although it is widely believed that the removal of the pin will cause the grenade to explode, the officer said that removing the pin only activates the second stage in the firing process. The grenade detonates, he said, only after the strike lever or "spoon," a handle draped over the firing mechanism, flies off. If the spoon can be kept from detaching, the grenade will not explode, the officer said.
"If you can hold the spoon indefinitely," he said, "the grenade will not activate."
-------- terrorism
U.S.: High Chance of al - Qaida WMD Attack
June 10, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-UN-US-Terrorism.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- There is a ``high probability'' that al-Qaida will attempt an attack with a weapon of mass destruction in the next two years, the U.S. government said in a report Monday.
The report to a U.N. Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against the terrorist group did not say where the Bush administration believes such an attack might be launched.
But the United States said it believes that despite recent setbacks, ``al-Qaida maintains the ability to inflict significant casualties in the United States with little or no warning.''
``The al-Qaida network will remain for the foreseeable future the most immediate and serious terrorism threat facing the United States,'' the report said. ``Al-Qaida will continue to favor spectacular attacks but also may seek softer targets of opportunity, such as banks, shopping malls, supermarkets, and places of recreation and entertainment.''
The report said the terrorist organization ``will continue its efforts to acquire and develop biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons.''
``We judge that there is a high probability that al-Qaida will attempt an attack using a CBRN weapon within the next two years,'' it said.
A radiological weapon is a so-called ``dirty bomb,'' which uses traditional explosives to disperse radioactivity. Such bombs could use lower-grade radioactive material which can be more easily produced or obtained than the high-grade uranium and plutonium used for nuclear weapons.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said last year that searches of more than 40 sites in Afghanistan used by al-Qaida yielded documents, diagrams and material that showed ``an appetite for weapons of mass destruction.'' But it did not appear al-Qaida had succeeded in making such weapons before the U.S.-led military campaign began in October 2001.
The report said FBI investigations since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks ``have revealed an extensive and widespread militant Islamic presence in the United States.''
``We strongly suspect that several hundred of these extremists are linked to al-Qaida,'' it said.
The U.S. report also noted that ``there are hundreds of ongoing counter-terrorism investigations in the United States directly associated with al-Qaida,'' primarily on the east and west coasts and in the southwest.
``Identifying and neutralizing these sleeper cells remains our most serious intelligence and law enforcement challenge,'' the report said.
The activities of the groups identified by the United States center on fund raising, recruitment and training, but ``one or more groups or individuals could be used by al-Qaida to carry out operations in the United States or could decide to act independently,'' it said.
``Al Qaida most likely will use the same tactics that were successful on Sept. 11 in carrying out any future attack in the United States, including efforts by cell members to avoid drawing attention to themselves and to minimize contact with militant Islamic groups and mosques in the United States. They will also maintain strict operational and communications security,'' the report said.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Thailand to grow more palm for alternative fuel
Story by Nopporn Wong-Anan
REUTERS THAILAND:
June 10, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/21114/newsDate/10-Jun-2003/story.htm
BANGKOK - Thailand will spend nearly $200 million to more than double its palm oil production in the next four years and promote its use as an alternative fuel for vehicles to reduce diesel consumption, a minister said yesterday.
Deputy Agriculture Minister Newin Chidchob told Reuters his ministry wanted farmers to grow more palm trees and use a mixture of palm oil and diesel to run their equipment and trucks.
He said higher demand for the product would raise palm oil prices and help palm growers.
Palm oil is extracted from the yellow fruit of the palm tree, which grows abundantly in countries near the equator such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Columbia, and Nigeria. The oil is used mostly for cooking, making margarine, and cosmetics.
"The poor palm oil price is always a problem in Thailand and past governments only came up with patch-work measures to try to solve the problem," Newin said in an interview. "We are implementing His Majesty's initiative on bio-diesel to provide a sustainable solution to the low palm price issue."
Global oil price fluctuations have persuaded many Thais to explore palm oil and coconut oil as cheaper alternatives to diesel.
Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej personally patented a palm oil formula in May 2001 and passed it on to state agencies for further study into its use.
Malaysia, the biggest palm oil producer in the world, has also been promoting palm oil as an alternative fuel.
Newin said by building up domestic demand for palm oil and raising palm oil output, Thai farmers would be less threatened by cheaper palm oil imports from Malaysia.
He said the agriculture ministry would lure farmers, mainly in southern Thailand, with soft loans from a state bank to expand the country's palm plantation by another 800,000 acres by 2007. Thailand currently plants 600,000 acres of palm.
Newin said crude palm oil supply would rise tenfold to seven million tonnes a year in 2007, with most of it used by vehicles with diesel engines.
Newin said ministry studies showed drivers could save 1.30 baht/litre (31 US cents/litre) if they used one part crude palm oil to every three parts of diesel in their engine.
Recent government data showed Thai demand for diesel in the first quarter of this year rose by eight percent from last year to 302,400 barrels per day.
"We won't be held hostage by the OPEC any more if most diesel engine users turn to palm oil," Newin said.
-------- energy
Wasted Energy
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37364-2003Jun9?language=printer
ALAN GREENSPAN, the Federal Reserve chairman, is to testify today before the House Energy Committee on an issue not usually thought to be his area of special interest: the natural gas supply. On the other side of the Capitol, senators are scheduled to vote on an amendment designed to strike a clutch of nuclear energy subsidies from the Senate version of an energy bill. What do these two events have in common?
Quite a lot, as it happens. Both touch on the issue of energy supply and U.S. dependence on oil, and both concern subsidies. Most of Mr. Greenspan's testimony will probably concern the threat to the economy posed by the high price and scarcity of natural gas, supplies of which are at their lowest level since records began. He is right to worry -- but while he's at it, he should also say a few words in opposition to a Senate plan that would enable construction of a natural gas pipeline to the lower 48 states from Alaska -- where there is ample gas -- but would set a floor for the price of gas at the same time. Energy bills in both the House and Senate would mandate a route for the pipeline through Alaska, despite evidence that routes through Canada may well be cheaper. This is unnecessary: The need for more natural gas should not be used as an excuse to force taxpayers to pay for an uncompetitive delivery system or to guarantee profits to natural gas producers well into the future.
By the same logic, taxpayers should not be asked to provide subsidies for new nuclear power plants either. As it stands, Senate legislation would provide loan guarantees for up to half of the construction costs of new nuclear plants. According to the Congressional Budget Office, up to half of these loans might never be paid back, adding billions to the ultimate cost of the new plants to taxpayers. The senators behind the bill dispute these numbers and claim that nuclear energy is relatively cheap. But if that is so, then it ought to be up to the power industry to work out how to finance new plants, not Congress. If the Senate wants to encourage nuclear power plant construction, it should find means to do so that don't risk such a high price to the taxpayer.
Those who favor subsidies for the pipeline and for nuclear power like to point out that the oil, coal and wind industries are subsidized too, in both open and hidden ways. True, but it's a weak argument. Instead of finding new ways to spend taxpayer money, Congress should cut energy subsidies across the board. Only then will businesses and consumers be able to judge the true price of energy and make the right decisions about how much, or how little, to use.
----
Perilous natural gas shortage
June 10, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20030609-104541-1090r.htm
Policy-makers are beginning to pay attention to what industries have called "the other energy crisis" - the critical U.S. shortage in natural gas. According to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, natural gas storage levels are at their lowest levels in almost three decades and 42 percent below their five-year average. Meanwhile, natural gas prices have reportedly gone up by up to 700 percent since 2000.
The situation is disconcerting. Americans consume more natural gas than any other fuel besides petroleum, and demand is expected to increase steadily. "Total demand for natural gas is expected to increase at an annual average rate of 1.8 percent . . . primarily because of rapid growth in demand for electricity generation," according to the Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook 2003. Yet, given low storage levels, an increased demand in energy caused by hot summer weather could cause a surge in prices, rocking on an already teetering economy.
One of the individuals most aware of the peril posed by the natural gas shortage is Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. He is expected to testify today before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on the potential crisis. Last month, Mr. Greenspan told the Joint Economic Committee that he was surprised how little attention had been paid to the issue. He noted that importation facilities are limited, making domestic sources the best solution. However, while policy-makers have encouraged the use of natural gas, they have constrained access to it. Mr. Greenspan argued that the "contradictory federal policy" means "something has to give. And what is giving, of course, is price."
According to Mr. Abraham, approximately 40 percent of U.S. natural gas resources are inaccessible thanks to stringent environmental regulations on the federal lands under which they exist. Yet, other environmental regulations favor the use of natural gas over other fuel sources, such as coal and gasoline.
In the long term, Alaska's reserves could do a great deal to remedy the shortage. The state contains at least 35 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves of natural gas, and its federal lands could contain another 59.7 trillion cubic feet in undiscovered reserves, the mean estimate of the U.S. Geological Survey. However, since there is no natural gas pipeline to transport the fuel to the lower 48, the only Americans who benefit from those vast gas reserves are Alaskans.
Both the energy bill that passed through the House and the energy bill under consideration by the Senate have provisions for a natural gas pipeline. However, green politicians are expressing their usual alarm about the pipeline's environmental impact, and others worry about its possible fiscal impact. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles has expressed reservations about a provision in the Senate bill establishing a price floor for natural gas, under which government subsidies would kick in if prices fell below $1.35 per million British thermal units (natural gas prices are currently in the $5 to $6 range). Even if approved, the pipeline would take up to a decade to complete, and so, while it should be built, its construction offers little in the way of short-term relief.
Congressional passage of an energy bill still would provide part of the solution, since both bills contain provisions expediting the permitting process for new natural gas wells. On the executive side, Mr. Abraham has called for an emergency meeting of the National Petroleum Council to consult on the crisis.
Ultimately, the solution to the natural gas problem can, and should, largely be found on American shores. The natural gas reserves are in place to ameliorate the shortage, but it remains to be seen if policy-makers have the will to tap into them. If the future is like the past, environmental extremists in Congress will block the extraction and delivery of clean natural gas - even as they call for its greater use in other legislation.
-------- environment
Environmental consequences of war loom large
By Arne Jernelov,
Taipei Times
Tuesday, Jun 10, 2003
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2003/06/10/2003054719
Scientists are attempting to systematically record the effects of conflict on the earth's biology, leading to concerns that we may be causing more damage than we thought
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
Concern about the environmental consequences of war probably started after the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, when no one knew how long lasting the radioactive contamination would be or what clean-up measures could be taken. During the Cold War, the environmental effects of an all-out nuclear confrontation became a matter of forecast and speculation, illustrated by the concept of "nuclear winter."
It wasn't just nuclear weapons that incited these fears. The use of Agent Yellow and Agent Orange as defoliants during the Vietnam War gave rise to an intensive debate about -- and some investigations of -- such chemicals' toxicological and ecological effects. Before the first Gulf War in 1991, there was discussion of the possible effects on the global climate if Iraq set the Kuwaiti oilfields on fire -- which subsequently became the prime image of that war's environmental impact.
Attempts have been made ever since to systematically examine and document the environmental consequences of wars. Studies of the Balkan wars and the many wars that consumed Afghanistan during the 1990s have been launched through international organizations like the UN Environment Program (UNEP). Unfortunately, Africa's wars -- in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, Liberia, Sierre Leone, and the Ivory Coast -- have not yet received the attention they require.
What have we learned about the environmental consequences of wars? First of all the effects depend upon the type of war and the type of environment. A high-tech armed conflict has different -- and not necessarily more benign -- effects than one fought with machetes. A war in the jungles of Southeast Asia is different from one in the deserts of Kuwait or one in the mountains of Afghanistan.
Despite these vast differences, it is possible to draw some conclusions:
Effects following destruction of infrastructure. These include burning oil wells, along with chemical or radioactive spills from bombed factories or storage facilities, bacterial contamination of water when sewage-treatment systems are destroyed, and flooded or dessicated lands following the destruction of dams and irrigation systems;
Effects of physical or chemical impact on land cover. This category includes erosion and lack of regrowth -- or significantly different growth -- following deforestation, sand drift caused by damage to the "desert crust," or beach erosion after destruction of coral reefs (e.g., by oil spills or bombs).
Effects of chemicals used by armed forces. Restrictions on civilian use are often not applied to the military. Thus, Soviet-built tanks and artillery use PCB's in their hydraulic systems, airplanes in combat mission add ozone destroying halons to their fuel, and marine units use organic-tin compounds in the paint used on their hulls;
Effects of the weapons themselves. Ordinary bullets often consist of lead, tank-buster missiles contain uranium, and explosives are organic nitrogen compounds, sometimes containing mercury. Moreover, mines, bombs, and grenades that failed to explode during combat often continue to render areas inaccessible both for humans and larger animals long after a war ends.
Among the environmental effects are also health effects following exposure to hazardous materials, such as inhalation of smoke from burning oil fields or uranium dust, resulting in asthma and possibly lung cancer. Other health problems, such as "Gulf War Syndrome," have proven more difficult to assign to any specific cause, despite much research. Among the explanations are the combinations of pesticide-fogging military camps, the treatment with a bromide compound, the use of insect repellents, vaccinations and exposure to depleted uranium. Exposure to chemical warfare agents following the detonation of Iraq munitions in Khamisiyah has been discussed as a cause of the syndrome.
The massive scale of many wars and their impact is a special factor in their environmental impact. The amount of oil pumped into the Persian Gulf by the Iraqis in 1991, probably to prevent an American Normandy-style landing, was over a million barrels and most likely close to 1.3 million tonnes -- 50 times the amount released from the tanker "Prestige" off the Spanish coast last fall and forty times as much oil as ravaged the coast of Alaska in the 1980's, after the Exxon Valdez disaster.
Given the logistics involved in large-scale wars, there are also significant indirect or second-order effects, such as when a civilian oil tanker on route to Vietnam with fuel for America's forces there ran aground on the coral island of Kiltan in the Laccadives.
The environmental consequences measured in economic terms are also significant. The cost of environmental restoration from oil on 640km of Saudi beaches after the 1991 Gulf War was US$540 million. Removal of some 1.6 million landmines in Kuwait cost in more than US$400 million. These are only two components of the environmental debt of that war.
Paradoxically, while wars are environmentally destructive, former military zones, both within and between countries, often become wildlife refuges where endangered plant and animal species thrive. In Europe, both the black stork and the European sturgeon have survived in such areas, and the former line of demarcation between East and West Germany is today a biodiversity sanctuary.
Arne Jernelov is a professor of environmental biochemistry, an honorary scholar and former director of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna and a UN expert on environmental catastrophes. Copyright: Project Syndicate
-------- health
Former senator speaks on breast cancer
June 10, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030610-083856-1664r.htm
WARRENTON, Va., June 10 (UPI) -- Former Sen. Edward W. Brooke, R-Mass., is speaking for the first time on his experience having breast cancer.
Brooke, who in 1966 became the first black elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction, told The New York Times developing breast cancer was the most shocking thing to that ever happened to him.
Last September, Brooke underwent a double mastectomy.
While breast cancer in men is rare, a higher percentage of men than women die of the disease because it is typically detected at a much later stage.
All men have some breast tissue, even if it is not noticeable. Cancer researchers estimate breast cancer will be diagnosed in 1,500 men this year and roughly 400 of them will eventually die of the illness.
Of the approximately 211,000 new cases of breast cancer that will be diagnosed this year in women, an estimated 40,000 will lead to death.
-------- ACTIVISTS
U.N. Diplomat Meets Detained Burmese Activist
Suu Kyi 'Well and in Good Spirits' But No Word on Release
By Aye Aye Win
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37655-2003Jun10?language=printer
A U.N. envoy who met with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday said she was "well and in good spirits" and called on Myanmar's military rulers to free her immediately.
Razali Ismail, the envoy, was the first outsider to meet with Suu Kyi since she was detained by Myanmar's communist government on May 30 and moved to a secret location. Her arrest followed clashes between her supporters and military backers that prompted a crackdown on her pro-democracy party.
After Razali left the country, Deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win issued a statement saying the "safe custody measures" against Suu Kyi would be lifted, but did not disclose a specific time.
World leaders, including President Bush, have been urging Myanmar's generals to release Suu Kyi and threatened more economic sanctions against the nation, which is also known as Burma.
Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who helped broker Myanmar's early steps toward political reconciliation, urged the junta Tuesday to immediately release Suu Kyi.
There were widespread concerns that Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent struggle for democracy, had been injured during her detention.
"I can assure you she is well and in good spirits ... no injury on the face, arm. No injury. No scratch, nothing" Razali told reporters, after an hour-long meeting with Suu Kyi.
He declined to disclose the location of the meeting, but a source said on condition of anonymity that it was at a Defense Ministry guesthouse. It was not known if Suu Kyi was being held there, or whether she was taken there for the meeting.
Razali left Myanmar soon after the meeting, and told reporters during a stopover in Singapore that the detention and the crackdown have the potential to undermine the national reconciliation process.
"This is a point I have made to the government and Aung San Suu Kyi. They have to get back to discussing things with each other as expeditiously as possible," he said.
Razali also said the government must free her and several members of her party who are being held in different places.
"They have to be released immediately and they have to begin to talk to each other," he said.
Razali said in Yangon that Suu Kyi told him her version of the May 30 events and "I have taken that into account."
The government says the clash that led to Suu Kyi's detention was sparked when her motorcade tried to go through thousands of pro-government protesters, and that four people were killed.
But exiled opposition figures in Thailand say pro-junta thugs started the violence, that as many as 70 people were killed and that Suu Kyi may have received head injuries in the clash. The government has said only that she is unhurt and in custody in a "safe place."
The U.S. State Department says the May 30 clash appears to have been an ambush by junta supporters. It says the events suggest the junta has ended efforts at national reconciliation, launched most recently in late 2000 and brokered by Razali in a series of visits.
Since the clash, offices of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party have been shut and other party leaders are under house arrest. Suu Kyi spent six years under house arrest in 1989-95. Her party won general elections in 1990 but was blocked by the military from taking power.
--------
This is Your Story - The Progressive Story of America. Pass It On.
Text of speech to the 'Take Back America' Conference
by Bill Moyers June 4, 2003
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0610-11.htm
Thank you for this award and for this occasion. I don't deserve either, but as George Burns said, I have arthritis and I don't deserve that, either.
Tomorrow is my 69th birthday and I cannot imagine a better present than this award or a better party than your company.
Fifty three years ago tomorrow, on my 16th birthday, I went to work for the daily newspaper in the small East Texas town where I grew up. It was a good place to be a cub reporter - small enough to navigate but big enough to keep me busy and learning something every day. I soon had a stroke of luck. Some of the old timers were on vacation or out sick and I got assigned to cover what came to be known as the Housewives' Rebellion. Fifteen women in my home town decided not to pay the social security withholding tax for their domestic workers. They argued that social security was unconstitutional, that imposing it was taxation without representation, and that - here's my favorite part - "requiring us to collect (the tax) is no different from requiring us to collect the garbage." They hired themselves a lawyer - none other than Martin Dies, the former congressman best known, or worst known, for his work as head of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the 30s and 40s. He was no more effective at defending rebellious women than he had been protecting against communist subversives, and eventually the women wound up holding their noses and paying the tax.
The stories I wrote for my local paper were picked up and moved on the Associated Press wire. One day, the managing editor called me over and pointed to the AP ticker beside his desk. Moving across the wire was a notice citing one Bill Moyers and the paper for the reporting we had done on the "Rebellion."
That hooked me, and in one way or another - after a detour through seminary and then into politics and government for a spell - I've been covering the class war ever since. Those women in Marshall, Texas were its advance guard. They were not bad people. They were regulars at church, their children were my friends, many of them were active in community affairs, their husbands were pillars of the business and professional class in town. They were respectable and upstanding citizens all. So it took me awhile to figure out what had brought on that spasm of reactionary rebellion. It came to me one day, much later. They simply couldn't see beyond their own prerogatives. Fiercely loyal to their families, to their clubs, charities and congregations - fiercely loyal, in other words, to their own kind - they narrowly defined membership in democracy to include only people like them. The women who washed and ironed their laundry, wiped their children's bottoms, made their husband's beds, and cooked their family meals - these women, too, would grow old and frail, sick and decrepit, lose their husbands and face the ravages of time alone, with nothing to show from their years of labor but the crease in their brow and the knots on their knuckles; so be it; even on the distaff side of laissez faire, security was personal, not social, and what injustice existed this side of heaven would no doubt be redeemed beyond the Pearly Gates. God would surely be just to the poor once they got past Judgment Day.
In one way or another, this is the oldest story in America: the struggle to determine whether "we, the people" is a spiritual idea embedded in a political reality - one nation, indivisible - or merely a charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others.
Let me make it clear that I don't harbor any idealized notion of politics and democracy; I worked for Lyndon Johnson, remember? Nor do I romanticize "the people." You should read my mail - or listen to the vitriol virtually spat at my answering machine. I understand what the politician meant who said of the Texas House of Representatives, "If you think these guys are bad, you should see their constituents."
But there is nothing idealized or romantic about the difference between a society whose arrangements roughly serve all its citizens and one whose institutions have been converted into a stupendous fraud. That difference can be the difference between democracy and oligarchy.
Look at our history. All of us know that the American Revolution ushered in what one historian called "The Age of Democratic Revolutions." For the Great Seal of the United States the new Congress went all the way back to the Roman poet Virgil: Novus Ordo Seclorum" - "a new age now begins." Page Smith reminds us that "their ambition was not merely to free themselves from dependence and subordination to the Crown but to inspire people everywhere to create agencies of government and forms of common social life that would offer greater dignity and hope to the exploited and suppressed" - to those, in other words, who had been the losers. Not surprisingly, the winners often resisted. In the early years of constitution-making in the states and emerging nation, aristocrats wanted a government of propertied "gentlemen" to keep the scales tilted in their favor. Battling on the other side were moderates and even those radicals harboring the extraordinary idea of letting all white males have the vote. Luckily, the weapons were words and ideas, not bullets. Through compromise and conciliation the draftsmen achieved a Constitution of checks and balances that is now the oldest in the world, even as the revolution of democracy that inspired it remains a tempestuous adolescent whose destiny is still up for grabs. For all the rhetoric about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," it took a civil war to free the slaves and another hundred years to invest their freedom with meaning. Women only gained the right to vote in my mother's time. New ages don't arrive overnight, or without "blood, sweat, and tears."
You know this. You are the heirs of one of the country's great traditions - the progressive movement that started late in the l9th century and remade the American experience piece by piece until it peaked in the last third of the 20th century. I call it the progressive movement for lack of a more precise term. Its aim was to keep blood pumping through the veins of democracy when others were ready to call in the mortician. Progressives exalted and extended the original American revolution. They spelled out new terms of partnership between the people and their rulers. And they kindled a flame that lit some of the most prosperous decades in modern history, not only here but in aspiring democracies everywhere, especially those of western Europe.
Step back with me to the curtain-raiser, the founding convention of the People's Party - better known as the Populists - in 1892. The members were mainly cotton and wheat farmers from the recently reconstructed South and the newly settled Great Plains, and they had come on hard, hard times, driven to the wall by falling prices for their crops on one hand and racking interest rates, freight charges and supply costs on the other. This in the midst of a booming and growing industrial America. They were angry, and their platform - issued deliberately on the 4th of July - pulled no punches. "We meet," it said, "in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin....Corruption dominates the ballot box, the [state] legislatures and the Congress and touches even the bench.....The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced....The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few."
Furious words from rural men and women who were traditionally conservative and whose memories of taming the frontier were fresh and personal. But in their fury they invoked an American tradition as powerful as frontier individualism - the war on inequality and especially on the role that government played in promoting and preserving inequality by favoring the rich. The Founding Fathers turned their backs on the idea of property qualifications for holding office under the Constitution because they wanted no part of a 'veneration for wealth" in the document. Thomas Jefferson, while claiming no interest in politics, built up a Republican Party - no relation to the present one - to take the government back from the speculators and "stock-jobbers," as he called them, who were in the saddle in 1800. Andrew Jackson slew the monster Second Bank of the United States, the 600-pound gorilla of the credit system in the 1830s, in the name of the people versus the aristocrats who sat on the bank's governing board.
All these leaders were on record in favor of small government - but their opposition wasn't simply to government as such. It was to government's power to confer privilege on insiders; on the rich who were democracy's equivalent of the royal favorites of monarchist days. (It's what the FCC does today.) The Populists knew it was the government that granted millions of acres of public land to the railroad builders. It was the government that gave the manufacturers of farm machinery a monopoly of the domestic market by a protective tariff that was no longer necessary to shelter "infant industries." It was the government that contracted the national currency and sparked a deflationary cycle that crushed debtors and fattened the wallets of creditors. And those who made the great fortunes used them to buy the legislative and judicial favors that kept them on top. So the Populists recognized one great principle: the job of preserving equality of opportunity and democracy demanded the end of any unholy alliance between government and wealth. It was, to quote that platform again, "from the same womb of governmental injustice" that tramps and millionaires were bred.
But how? How was the democratic revolution to be revived? The promise of the Declaration reclaimed? How were Americans to restore government to its job of promoting the general welfare? And here, the Populists made a breakthrough to another principle. In a modern, large-scale, industrial and nationalized economy it wasn't enough simply to curb the government's outreach. That would simply leave power in the hands of the great corporations whose existence was inseparable from growth and progress. The answer was to turn government into an active player in the economy at the very least enforcing fair play, and when necessary being the friend, the helper and the agent of the people at large in the contest against entrenched power. So the Populist platform called for government loans to farmers about to lose their mortgaged homesteads - for government granaries to grade and store their crops fairly - for governmental inflation of the currency, which was a classical plea of debtors - and for some decidedly non-classical actions like government ownership of the railroad, telephone and telegraph systems and a graduated - i.e., progressive tax on incomes and a flat ban on subsidies to "any private corporation." And to make sure the government stayed on the side of the people, the 'Pops' called for the initiative and referendum and the direct election of Senators.
Predictably, the Populists were denounced, feared and mocked as fanatical hayseeds ignorantly playing with socialist fire. They got twenty-two electoral votes for their candidate in '92, plus some Congressional seats and state houses, but it was downhill from there for many reasons. America wasn't - and probably still isn't - ready for a new major party. The People's Party was a spent rocket by 1904. But if political organizations perish, their key ideas don't - keep that in mind, because it give prospective to your cause today. Much of the Populist agenda would become law within a few years of the party's extinction. And that was because it was generally shared by a rising generation of young Republicans and Democrats who, justly or not, were seen as less outrageously outdated than the embattled farmers. These were the progressives, your intellectual forebears and mine.
One of my heroes in all of this is William Allen White, a Kansas country editor - a Republican - who was one of them. He described his fellow progressives this way:
"What the people felt about the vast injustice that had come with the settlement of a continent, we, their servants - teachers, city councilors, legislators, governors, publishers, editors, writers, representatives in Congress and Senators - all made a part of our creed. Some way, into the hearts of the dominant middle class of this country, had come a sense that their civilization needed recasting, that their government had fallen into the hands of self-seekers, that a new relationship should be established between the haves and the have-nots."
They were a diverse lot, held together by a common admiration of progress - hence the name - and a shared dismay at the paradox of poverty stubbornly persisting in the midst of progress like an unwanted guest at a wedding. Of course they welcomed, just as we do, the new marvels in the gift-bag of technology - the telephones, the autos, the electrically-powered urban transport and lighting systems, the indoor heating and plumbing, the processed foods and home appliances and machine-made clothing that reduced the sweat and drudgery of home-making and were affordable to an ever-swelling number of people. But they saw the underside, too - the slums lurking in the shadows of the glittering cities, the exploited and unprotected workers whose low-paid labor filled the horn of plenty for others, the misery of those whom age, sickness, accident or hard times condemned to servitude and poverty with no hope of comfort or security.
This is what's hard to believe - hardly a century had passed since 1776 before the still-young revolution was being strangled in the hard grip of a merciless ruling class. The large corporations that were called into being by modern industrialism after 1865 - the end of the Civil War - had combined into trusts capable of making minions of both politics and government. What Henry George called "an immense wedge" was being forced through American society by "the maldistribution of wealth, status, and opportunity."
We should pause here to consider that this is Karl Rove's cherished period of American history; it was, as I read him, the seminal influence on the man who is said to be George W.'s brain. From his own public comments and my reading of the record, it is apparent that Karl Rove has modeled the Bush presidency on that of William McKinley, who was in the White House from 1897 to 1901, and modeled himself on Mark Hanna, the man who virtually manufactured McKinley. Hanna had one consummate passion - to serve corporate and imperial power. It was said that he believed "without compunction, that the state of Ohio existed for property. It had no other function...Great wealth was to be gained through monopoly, through using the State for private ends; it was axiomatic therefore that businessmen should run the government and run it for personal profit."
Mark Hanna - Karl Rove's hero - made William McKinley governor of Ohio by shaking down the corporate interests of the day. Fortunately, McKinley had the invaluable gift of emitting sonorous platitudes as though they were recently discovered truth. Behind his benign gaze the wily intrigues of Mark Hanna saw to it that first Ohio and then Washington were "ruled by business...by bankers, railroads and public utility corporations." Any who opposed the oligarchy were smeared as disturbers of the peace, socialists, anarchists, "or worse." Back then they didn't bother with hollow euphemisms like "compassionate conservatism" to disguise the raw reactionary politics that produced government "of, by, and for" the ruling corporate class. They just saw the loot and went for it.
The historian Clinton Rossiter describes this as the period of "the great train robbery of American intellectual history." Conservatives - or better, pro-corporate apologists - hijacked the vocabulary of Jeffersonian liberalism and turned words like "progress", "opportunity", and "individualism" into tools for making the plunder of America sound like divine right. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was hijacked, too, so that conservative politicians, judges, and publicists promoted, as if it were, the natural order of things, the notion that progress resulted from the elimination of the weak and the "survival of the fittest."
This "degenerate and unlovely age," as one historian calls it, exists in the mind of Karl Rove - the reputed brain of George W. Bush - as the seminal age of inspiration for the politics and governance of America today.
No wonder that what troubled our progressive forebears was not only the miasma of poverty in their nostrils, but the sour stink of a political system for sale. The United States Senate was a "millionaire's club." Money given to the political machines that controlled nominations could buy controlling influence in city halls, state houses and even courtrooms. Reforms and improvements ran into the immovable resistance of the almighty dollar. What, progressives wondered, would this do to the principles of popular government? Because all of them, whatever party they subscribed to, were inspired by the gospel of democracy. Inevitably, this swept them into the currents of politics, whether as active officeholders or persistent advocates.
Here's a small, but representative sampling of their ranks. Jane Addams forsook the comforts of a middle-class college graduate's life to live in Hull House in the midst of a disease-ridden and crowded Chicago immigrant neighborhood, determined to make it an educational and social center that would bring pride, health and beauty into the lives of her poor neighbors. She was inspired by "an almost passionate devotion to the ideals of democracy," to combating the prevailing notion "that the well being of a privileged few might justly be built upon the ignorance and sacrifice of the many." Community and fellowship were the lessons she drew from her teachers, Jesus and Abraham Lincoln. But people simply helping one another couldn't move mountains of disadvantage. She came to see that "private beneficence" wasn't enough. But to bring justice to the poor would take more than soup kitchens and fundraising prayer meetings. "Social arrangements," she wrote, "can be transformed through man's conscious and deliberate effort." Take note - not individual regeneration or the magic of the market, but conscious, cooperative effort.
Meet a couple of muckraking journalists. Jacob Riis lugged his heavy camera up and down the staircases of New York's disease-ridden, firetrap tenements to photograph the unspeakable crowding, the inadequate toilets, the starved and hollow-eyed children and the filth on the walls so thick that his crude flash equipment sometimes set it afire. Bound between hard covers, with Riis's commentary, they showed comfortable New Yorkers "How the Other Half Lives." They were powerful ammunition for reformers who eventually brought an end to tenement housing by state legislation. And Lincoln Steffens, college and graduate-school educated, left his books to learn life from the bottom up as a police-beat reporter on New York's streets. Then, as a magazine writer, he exposed the links between city bosses and businessmen that made it possible for builders and factory owners to ignore safety codes and get away with it. But the villain was neither the boodler nor the businessman. It was the indifference of a public that "deplore[d] our politics and laud[ed] our business; that transformed law, medicine, literature and religion into simply business. Steffens was out to slay the dragon of exalting "the commercial spirit" over the goals of patriotism and national prosperity. "I am not a scientist," he said. "I am a journalist. I did not gather the facts and arrange them patiently for permanent preservation and laboratory analysis....My purpose was. ...to see if the shameful facts, spread out in all their shame, would not burn through our civic shamelessness and set fire to American pride."
If corrupt politics bred diseases that could be fatal to democracy, then good politics was the antidote. That was the discovery of Ray Stannard Baker, another journalistic progressive who started out with a detest for election-time catchwords and slogans. But he came to see that "Politics could not be abolished or even adjourned...it was in its essence the method by which communities worked out their common problems. It was one of the principle arts of living peacefully in a crowded world," he said [Compare that to Grover Norquist's latest declaration of war on the body politic. "We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals - and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship." He went on to say that bi-partisanship is another name for date rape."]
There are more, too many more to call to the witness stand here, but I want you to hear some of the things they had to say. There were educators like the economist John R. Commons or the sociologist Edward A. Ross who believed that the function of "social science" wasn't simply to dissect society for non-judgmental analysis and academic promotion, but to help in finding solutions to social problems. It was Ross who pointed out that morality in a modern world had a social dimension. In "Sin and Society," written in 1907, he told readers that the sins "blackening the face of our time" were of a new variety, and not yet recognized as such. "The man who picks pockets with a railway rebate, murders with an adulterant instead of a bludgeon, burglarizes with a 'rake-off' instead of a jimmy, cheats with a company instead of a deck of cards, or scuttles his town instead of his ship, does not feel on his brow the brand of a malefactor." In other words upstanding individuals could plot corporate crimes and sleep the sleep of the just without the sting of social stigma or the pangs of conscience. Like Kenneth Lay, they could even be invited into the White House to write their own regulations.
And here are just two final bits of testimony from actual politicians - first, Brand Whitlock, Mayor of Toledo. He is one of my heroes because he first learned his politics as a beat reporter in Chicago, confirming my own experience that there's nothing better than journalism to turn life into a continuing course in adult education. One of his lessons was that "the alliance between the lobbyists and the lawyers of the great corporation interests on the one hand, and the managers of both the great political parties on the other, was a fact, the worst feature of which was that no one seemed to care."
And then there is Tom Johnson, the progressive mayor of Cleveland in the early nineteen hundreds - a businessman converted to social activism. His major battles were to impose regulation, or even municipal takeover, on the private companies that were meant to provide affordable public transportation and utilities but in fact crushed competitors, overcharged customers, secured franchises and licenses for a song, and paid virtually nothing in taxes - all through their pocketbook control of lawmakers and judges. Johnson's argument for public ownership was simple: "If you don't own them, they will own you. It's why advocates of Clean Elections today argue that if anybody's going to buy Congress, it should be the people." When advised that businessmen got their way in Washington because they had lobbies and consumers had none, Tom Johnson responded: "If Congress were true to the principles of democracy it would be the people's lobby." What a radical contrast to the House of Representatives today!
Our political, moral, and intellectual forbearance occupy a long and honorable roster. They include wonderful characters like Dr. Alice Hamilton, a pioneer in industrially-caused diseases, who spent long years clambering up and down ladders in factories and mineshafts - in long skirts! - tracking down the unsafe toxic substances that sickened the workers whom she would track right into their sickbeds to get leads and tip-offs on where to hunt. Or Harvey Wiley, the chemist from Indiana who, from a bureaucrat's desk in the Department of Agriculture, relentlessly warred on foods laden with risky preservatives and adulterants with the help of his "poison squad" of young assistants who volunteered as guinea pigs. Or lawyers like the brilliant Harvard graduate Louis Brandeis, who took on corporate attorneys defending child labor or long and harsh conditions for female workers. Brandeis argued that the state had a duty to protect the health of working women and children.
To be sure, these progressives weren't all saints. Their glory years coincided with the heyday of lynching and segregation, of empire and the Big Stick and the bold theft of the Panama Canal, of immigration restriction and ethnic stereotypes. Some were themselves businessmen only hoping to control an unruly marketplace by regulation. But by and large they were conservative reformers. They aimed to preserve the existing balance between wealth and commonwealth. Their common enemy was unchecked privilege, their common hope was a better democracy, and their common weapon was informed public opinion.
In a few short years the progressive spirit made possible the election not only of reform mayors and governors but of national figures like Senator George Norris of Nebraska, Senator Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsin, and even that hard-to-classify political genius, Theodore Roosevelt. All three of them Republicans. Here is the simplest laundry-list of what was accomplished at state and Federal levels: Publicly regulated or owned transportation, sanitation and utilities systems. The partial restoration of competition in the marketplace through improved antitrust laws. Increased fairness in taxation. Expansion of the public education and juvenile justice systems. Safer workplaces and guarantees of compensation to workers injured on the job. Oversight of the purity of water, medicines and foods. Conservation of the national wilderness heritage against overdevelopment, and honest bidding on any public mining, lumbering and ranching. We take these for granted today - or we did until recently. All were provided not by the automatic workings of free enterprise but by implementing the idea in the Declaration of Independence that the people had a right to governments that best promoted their "safety and happiness."
The mighty progressive wave peaked in 1912. But the ideas leashed by it forged the politics of the 20th century. Like his cousin Theodore, Franklin Roosevelt argued that the real enemy of enlightened capitalism was "the malefactors of great wealth" - the "economic royalists" - from whom capitalism would have to be saved by reform and regulation. Progressive government became an embedded tradition of Democrats - the heart of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal, and honored even by Dwight D. Eisenhower, who didn't want to tear down the house progressive ideas had built - only to put it under different managers. The progressive impulse had its final fling in the landslide of 1969 when LBJ, who was a son of the West Texas hill country, where the Populist rebellion had been nurtured in the 1890s, won the public endorsement for what he meant to be the capstone in the arch of the New Deal.
I had a modest role in that era. I shared in its exhilaration and its failures. We went too far too fast, overreached at home and in Vietnam, failed to examine some assumptions, and misjudged the rising discontents and fierce backlash engendered by war, race, civil disturbance, violence and crime. Democrats grew so proprietary in this town that a fat, complacent political establishment couldn't recognize its own intellectual bankruptcy or the beltway that was growing around it and beginning to separate it from the rest of the country. The failure of democratic politicians and public thinkers to respond to popular discontents - to the daily lives of workers, consumers, parents, and ordinary taxpayers - allowed a resurgent conservatism to convert public concern and hostility into a crusade to resurrect social Darwinism as a moral philosophy, multinational corporations as a governing class, and the theology of markets as a transcendental belief system.
As a citizen I don't like the consequences of this crusade, but you have to respect the conservatives for their successful strategy in gaining control of the national agenda. Their stated and open aim is to change how America is governed - to strip from government all its functions except those that reward their rich and privileged benefactors. They are quite candid about it, even acknowledging their mean spirit in accomplishing it. Their leading strategist in Washington - the same Grover Norquist - has famously said he wants to shrink the government down to the size that it could be drowned in a bathtub. More recently, in commenting on the fiscal crisis in the states and its affect on schools and poor people, Norquist said, "I hope one of them" - one of the states - "goes bankrupt." So much for compassionate conservatism. But at least Norquist says what he means and means what he says. The White House pursues the same homicidal dream without saying so. Instead of shrinking down the government, they're filling the bathtub with so much debt that it floods the house, water-logs the economy, and washes away services for decades that have lifted millions of Americans out of destitution and into the middle-class. And what happens once the public's property has been flooded? Privatize it. Sell it at a discounted rate to the corporations.
It is the most radical assault on the notion of one nation, indivisible, that has occurred in our lifetime. I'll be frank with you: I simply don't understand it - or the malice in which it is steeped. Many people are nostalgic for a golden age. These people seem to long for the Gilded Age. That I can grasp. They measure America only by their place on the material spectrum and they bask in the company of the new corporate aristocracy, as privileged a class as we have seen since the plantation owners of antebellum America and the court of Louis IV. What I can't explain is the rage of the counter-revolutionaries to dismantle every last brick of the social contract. At this advanced age I simply have to accept the fact that the tension between haves and have-nots is built into human psychology and society itself - it's ever with us. However, I'm just as puzzled as to why, with right wing wrecking crews blasting away at social benefits once considered invulnerable, Democrats are fearful of being branded "class warriors" in a war the other side started and is determined to win. I don't get why conceding your opponent's premises and fighting on his turf isn't the sure-fire prescription for irrelevance and ultimately obsolescence. But I confess as well that I don't know how to resolve the social issues that have driven wedges into your ranks. And I don't know how to reconfigure democratic politics to fit into an age of soundbites and polling dominated by a media oligarchy whose corporate journalists are neutered and whose right-wing publicists have no shame.
What I do know is this: While the social dislocations and meanness that galvanized progressives in the 19th century are resurgent so is the vision of justice, fairness, and equality. That's a powerful combination if only there are people around to fight for it. The battle to renew democracy has enormous resources to call upon - and great precedents for inspiration. Consider the experience of James Bryce, who published "The Great Commonwealth" back in 1895 at the height of the First Gilded Age. Americans, Bryce said, "were hopeful and philanthropic." He saw first-hand the ills of that "dark and unlovely age," but he went on to say: " A hundred times I have been disheartened by the facts I was stating: a hundred times has the recollection of the abounding strength and vitality of the nation chased away those tremors."
What will it take to get back in the fight? Understanding the real interests and deep opinions of the American people is the first thing. And what are those? That a Social Security card is not a private portfolio statement but a membership ticket in a society where we all contribute to a common treasury so that none need face the indignities of poverty in old age without that help. That tax evasion is not a form of conserving investment capital but a brazen abandonment of responsibility to the country. That income inequality is not a sign of freedom-of-opportunity at work, because if it persists and grows, then unless you believe that some people are naturally born to ride and some to wear saddles, it's a sign that opportunity is less than equal. That self-interest is a great motivator for production and progress, but is amoral unless contained within the framework of community. That the rich have the right to buy more cars than anyone else, more homes, vacations, gadgets and gizmos, but they do not have the right to buy more democracy than anyone else. That public services, when privatized, serve only those who can afford them and weaken the sense that we all rise and fall together as "one nation, indivisible." That concentration in the production of goods may sometimes be useful and efficient, but monopoly over the dissemination of ideas is evil. That prosperity requires good wages and benefits for workers. And that our nation can no more survive as half democracy and half oligarchy than it could survive "half slave and half free" - and that keeping it from becoming all oligarchy is steady work - our work.
Ideas have power - as long as they are not frozen in doctrine. But ideas need legs. The eight-hour day, the minimum wage, the conservation of natural resources and the protection of our air, water, and land, women's rights and civil rights, free trade unions, Social Security and a civil service based on merit - all these were launched as citizen's movements and won the endorsement of the political class only after long struggles and in the face of bitter opposition and sneering attacks. It's just a fact: Democracy doesn't work without citizen activism and participation, starting at the community. Trickle down politics doesn't work much better than trickle down economics. It's also a fact that civilization happens because we don't leave things to other people. What's right and good doesn't come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of democracy will never go out as long as there's one candle in your hand.
So go for it. Never mind the odds. Remember what the progressives faced. Karl Rove isn't tougher than Mark Hanna was in his time and a hundred years from now some historian will be wondering how it was that Norquist and Company got away with it as long as they did - how they waged war almost unopposed on the infrastructure of social justice, on the arrangements that make life fair, on the mutual rights and responsibilities that offer opportunity, civil liberties, and a decent standard of living to the least among us.
"Democracy is not a lie" - I first learned that from Henry Demarest Lloyd, the progressive journalist whose book, "Wealth against Commonwealth," laid open the Standard trust a century ago. Lloyd came to the conclusion to "Regenerate the individual is a half truth. The reorganization of the society which he makes and which makes him is the other part. The love of liberty became liberty in America by clothing itself in the complicated group of strengths known as the government of the United States." And it was then he said: "Democracy is not a lie. There live(s) in the body of the commonality unexhausted virtue and the ever-refreshed strength which can rise equal to any problems of progress. In the hope of tapping some reserve of their power of self-help," he said, "this story is told to the people."
This is your story - the progressive story of America.
Pass it on.
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