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NUCLEAR
GAO Releases Radioactive Material Report
India monitoring China's nuclear base for 30 years
Dr. Helen Caldicott: Nuclear Cowboys in the White House
America's legacy of radioactive weaponry
DU = 'Disarm USA' or 'Depleted Uranium'? Part II
'DU' weapons
Depleted uranium use may pose health risk
EU ministers to endorse use of force on WMD
European Union Toughening Stance on Weapons Policy
EU Outlines Conditions for War Over WMD
Nuclear issue unites Iranian foes
Iran rejects tougher nuclear checks
Iran: Nuclear squeeze is on
IAEA Meets on Iran's Nuclear Program
UN watchdog presses Iran on nuclear inspections
Iran Is Pressured to Open Its Nuclear Program to Inspection
U.S. Insists It's Not Meddling in Iran
PAPER: N. Korea exports missiles to Iran by air
DMZ Twist: U.S. Retreat Unsettles North Korea
'Dirty Bomb' Materials Seized in Georgia
Georgia Finds Dirty Bomb Material in Taxi
GAO Faults U.S. Effort to Secure Dirty Bomb Material
Georgia finds 'dirty bomb' material
Expanded nuclear subsidies unfair and undesirable
Senate Panel to Review Weapons Data
Levin Seeks Release of WMD Intelligence
A House Divided
Former Aide Takes Aim at War on Terror
The Mideast: Neocons on the Line
Levin Seeks Release of Iraq Intelligence
U.S. May Hit National Debt Ceiling in 2004
MILITARY
Marines headed to Liberia
U.S. Weapons Aid Repression in Aceh
Thailand hosts U.S. war game
Suu Kyi Detention Sparks Rare Dissent at Asian Meet
AMA Pushes Bioterror Preparedness Effort
Lockheed, Boeing Spar In a Battle Of Rivals
British Arms Concern Plays Down Merger Reports
Secrecy shrouds Halliburton hiring frenzy at Houston hotel
Ultra-Fast Processing
Colombia Deploys 10,000 Peasant Soldiers
Wanted: Bulgaria's military properties
Call To Iran Head To Nix God Claim
Iraq trailer a biological weapons lab, claims PM
US forces raid militia 'hideouts'
'Scorpion' Strikes At Iraqis Again
U.S. Raids Homes West of Baghdad
Massive US operation to uproot Iraqi resistance yields nearly nil results
G.I.'s in Iraq Offer Carrot of Relief as Well as Stick of Raids
Water war leaves Palestinians thirsty
Ananova: Hamas condemns Bush's call to fight militants
Sharon Vows Tough Line After Hamas Rejects Cease-Fire
Analysis / Bush may be 'deeply troubled,' but Israel isn't
Hamas Says It Will Not Accept Mideast Cease-Fire Proposal
Defining Hamas: Roots in Charity and Branches of Violence
10,000 landmines laid in Nepal: ICBL
Pain of Past Resurfaces in Guatemala
Hagen wants Clinton to head NATO
Russians massively favour joining EU
Jailing in Russia Is a Reminder That Spy Wars Still Smolder
Weak spy network hurt hunt for arms
Agency Urges Iran to Cooperate on Nukes
The Truth About The Lies
Iraq occupation has deadly toll for US
MARINE DIES FROM GUNSHOT WOUND
Foreign Hot Spots Holding America's Feet to the Fire
Rumsfeld and the Army
No dissension between DIA, CIA
World Opposed to Bush and Iraq War, BBC Poll Says
US is taking liberties with law in Iraq
War Crimes Prosecutor Vows Impartiality
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Unmanned Drones Explored for Border Use
Warning: Emergency alert system full of holes
''Operation Iraqi Freedom: Just another chapter''
ENERGY AND OTHER
Kerry Touts Security Through Energy Independence
U.S. Seeks Hydrogen Fuel Partnership
Trans-Atlantic Fuel Cell Development Pact Signed
Wind Park Would Blow Energy Into Long Island
Solar Cars Get Kicks on Route 66
Devastating the Earth
ACTIVISTS
Activist seeks tally of Iraq's casualties
Intellectuals Join Iran Reform Effort
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
GAO Releases Radioactive Material Report
June 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Radioactive-Material.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Devices that contain radioactive material have been distributed -- and in many cases lost -- around the world, a congressional report said Monday.
The report by the General Accounting Office said that nearly 10 million devices that contain radioactive material exist in the United States and the 49 countries responding to a survey.
Though there is limited information about the number of devices that have been lost, stolen or abandoned, it is estimated to be in the thousands worldwide, the GAO said.
The report was the GAO's second in a little over a month on radioactive devices. Its previous report focused on only the United States. Both reports were requested by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii.
The countries that responded to the survey said that a total of 612 devices had been reported lost or stolen since 1995 with almost a third of them never recovered.
Most of the devices lost, stolen or abandoned was located in Russia, the GAO said. Of particular concern were hundreds of electric generators spread across rural Russia, containing strontium-90.
While each of these contain only small amounts of the radioisotope, there could be enough for a so-called ``dirty bomb'' if a number of generators were stripped of the material, nuclear experts warn.
The Energy Department earlier this year said discussions have been underway for some time with Russian officials over securing the generators.
The International Atomic Energy Agency estimates that as many as 110 countries worldwide do not have adequate controls over radioactive devices that -- if enough of them were obtained -- could be used to build a conventional explosive device that could spread radioactive material.
On the Net:
General Accounting Office: http://www.gao.gov
-------- asia
India monitoring China's nuclear base for 30 years
Monday, June 16, 2003
Daily Times (Pakistan)
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_15-6-2003_pg4_18
BEIJING: A Chinese scholar Zhang Shile expressed his anger and dismay over India's attempt of monitoring China's nuclear base.
Talking to APP here on Saturday, Zhang, a member of China Institute for International Strategic Studies expressed his displeasure over press report that India in collaboration with the United States had been monitoring China's nuclear installations for 30 years.
The report was published by the People's Daily today, quoting Indian Express. He said China reserves the right to protest against it with US and Indian governments.
The press report says that although there had been many contradictions in US-Indian relations in 1966, both sides easily come to a consensus on this issue keeping check on China's nuclear capability. India also closely watched China's nuclear tests.
According to the report, just as the whole world was celebrating the 50th anniversary of humans' successful scaling Mt. Qomolangma, the Indian Express recently opened a special column to give detailed introduction to the new work titled "Spy on the Roof of the World" by Sydney Wignall, a well-known Indian mountaineer and former navy lieutenant commander.
This hero, who successfully scaled the Qomolangma peak for the first time on behalf of India, joined hands with a US policy analyst in unraveling to the world the little-known historical secrets under the snow mountain covered with dust.
Wignall disclosed in the book that when he led the Indian mountaineering team in a victorious return from Qomolangma Mountains in May 1965, as soon as they got down from the plane in Palam Airport, New Delhi, they were brought to a secluded place by Balbir Singh, director of Indian intelligence bureau.
Singh told Wignall that R N Kao (called the first ancestor of Indian intelligence circle), director of the Indian Aviation Research Center, was waiting behind the airplane to see him. R N Kao informed Wignall and seven other persons that they would go to the United States to carry out a task two weeks later.
On June 19, 1965, Wignall and his party secretly flew to New York to contact an official in charge of CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) affairs. Afterwards, they were sent by the American side to Alaska to conduct three-week secret training.
It was only then they came to know that the CIA of the United States asked them to help install a secret nuclear test monitoring instrument on the 8,598-meter high Kanchanjunga Peak on the Chinese border, so as to come to know the situation in China's nuclear test base.
After Wignall and his party returned to India, they began, with the help of the US side, making preparations for the mountaineering expedition. The movement proceeded in a very covert manner, so even the then Indian chief of staff of the three services was not in the know.
As to the reason why the Qomolangma was not chosen for the mountaineering event, Wignall explained in the book that because the equipment provided by the US side was very heavy which, according to experts, was simply impossible to be carried up to the Qomolangma peak, leaving them no alternative but to take the second best.
After having made a trial, they discovered that even Kanchanjunga was too high to climb, so the two sides could not but once again change their plan, setting the target at the 7,817-meter Nanda Devi, India's first peak along the Sino-Indian border.
The US policy analyst disclosed in the book that the idea of keeping watch on China through the Himalayas came from the then US air force chief of staff. In 1964, this US air force officer had a chat with a photographer for the book "Geography of the Country" who once climbed the Qomolangma.
The photographer never for a moment forgot the height of Qomolangma as he exclaimed: Standing on the Qomolangma, one can command the whole view of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
These words brought the following sudden idea on this officer: Why not install a monitoring equipment on top of the snow mountain so as to keep persistent watch on China's nuclear base and its missile tests? The surveillance effect may be better than the reconnaissance satellite. At that time, China had succeeded in the test of its first atom bomb. US intelligence departments, after feeling astonished, were actively seeking counter-measures, therefore this US officer's idea was welcomed by CIA. The US side accepted a Wignall's proposal, gave up the idea of installing equipment on the mountain top and decided to put the equipment at a place 7,300 meters above sea level on the Nanda Devi peak. Later their actions proceeded fairly successfully.
According to Wignall's reminiscences, a signal sent out from the equipment was received by the department concerned soon after it was successfully installed. These pieces of monitoring equipment did not suspend work until October 1997, several repairs were made during the intervening period. -APP
-------- depleted uranium
Dr. Helen Caldicott: Nuclear Cowboys in the White House
In Person
By Thomas P. Healy
6.16.03
In These Times
http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=215_0_2_0_C
Dr. Helen Caldicott, one of the foremost peace activists of our time, is co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND, now Women's Action for New Directions). She is also the author of five books, most recently The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex. Caldicott spoke with In These Times from Salt Lake City.
You have characterized the first Gulf War as the United States' second nuclear war because of the use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons. What's your take on military action in Iraq?
It's the third [nuclear war]. Well, actually it's not, because they used uranium weapons in Kosovo and in Afghanistan, so actually it's the fifth.
Some consider DU weapons to be in violation of the Geneva Convention because they are "indiscriminate weapons"-that is, they do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
They also leave a radioactive battlefield for the rest of time. This is a gross violation of the Geneva Convention, but more than that, from a medical perspective-I'm a pediatrician-it is just almost unbelievable that they would use these weapons in an indiscriminate way.
My friend, the late Adm. Gene Carroll, of the Center for Defense Information, said, "Helen, our mission in the Pentagon is to destroy property and to kill people." Clearly it is, and that takes my breath away. I mean, haven't we evolved beyond the primitive notion of killing? If we haven't moved away from the primitive notion of killing-and we clearly haven't-we'll destroy life on Earth. We're heading rapidly in that direction.
You saw some major victories in the '80s and at the end of the Cold War. What happened to the "peace dividend"?
If you read my new book, the whole story's in there. Nothing's changed since the '80s. Well, two things have changed. One, nobody knows the weapons are there, whereas in the '80s at least we were all worried and scared about it. And two, we've got nuclear cowboys in the White House who say that they will use nuclear weapons on any country they so desire [regardless of whether the country has nuclear capability or not]. Now that's a totally new concept in the history of the United States.
What's the status of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, which is a group you've set up to provide education about nuclear weapons and power programs?
We're just setting ourselves up now. The pain in the neck is you have to raise money. The federal government should be funding me because I'm trying to save life on the planet-I'm a conservative. Anyone who has notions to use nuclear weapons is a radical!
We've opened an office in D.C. located among all the right-wing think tanks that I want to take on. We're in the process of hiring a communications director so that we can get ourselves and all the wonderful scientists around the country on television to negate what Rumsfeld, et al. say.
Fundraising for progressive organizations is always difficult, but it is especially tough in the current economic climate.
Yeah. But I'm getting the money. There are a lot of wealthy people in this country who care deeply about the status quo at the moment. I will get the money for sure. Rosie O'Donnell just gave me $100,000.
What about some of the more insidious ways that nuclear terror has entered our lives, such as leaky power plants?
The power plants routinely vent gasses every second of every day and routinely pollute the cooling water, and then you get bioconcentration of the radioisotopes in the food chain. And nuclear power plants are targets for terrorists. They don't need nuclear weapons; they're deployed all over the country in the form of 103 reactors. So the American people are in grave danger.
My goal with the Institute is to end the nuclear age in five years-to close down all reactors in five years and to abolish nuclear weapons between Russia and America, and then all the other nuclear nations will step into line and do the same thing. Russia's ready. It's America that's holding up that process. We nearly got there at the end of the '80s, so I plan to finish the work. It's a work in process.
Do scientists have to check their humanity at the door when they enter a laboratory to work on nuclear weapons or cluster bombs?
All the people who build these cluster bombs or uranium bombs check their humanity at the door. They've sold their souls like Faust.
How do we change their minds?
I once spoke at Sandia Labs, a major defense contractor, and there were thousands of scientists there. I told them they should leave their jobs, that they shouldn't be doing this work that could destroy life on our planet. They lined up in queues afterward to ask me questions, and they said, looking behind them, "That was terrific-those people here needed to hear that.' "
You've sacrificed a lot for your work.
I have, really. I've sacrificed my life. Because my vocation is medicine, it's like being a nun. And I've had to give that up. I really resent it because I think I only get one go at this life, and if we had eliminated nuclear weapons at least I would feel like my life's been worthwhile. At the moment I don't [feel that way], and that's why I'm really determined to finish the work before I die.
----
America's legacy of radioactive weaponry
Heather Wokusch
16 June 2003
http://www.oneworld.net/article/view/61866/1/
A study by the Washington, D.C. based Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC) suggests coalition forces used Afghanistan as a testing ground for radioactive weaponry, thereby placing generations of civilians - not to mention US service members - at unspeakable future risk.
The UMRC study found "astonishing" levels of uranium in the urine of Afghan civilians living in Nangarhar province, one of many places coalition forces bombarded with a new generation of "cave-busting" and seismic shock warheads. Interestingly, none of the civilians tested at Nangarhar showed traces of depleted uranium (DU), yet hundreds exhibited symptoms resembling those of DU-exposed Gulf War veterans.
The implications are ominous. Independent studies show coalition forces used toxic uranium alloys and hard-target uranium warheads in Afghanistan, but if the "mystery" uranium in Nangahar isn't DU, what is it? What kinds of radioactive ammunition were used elsewhere in Afghanistan? What are the long-term health implications for civilians and service members? And what are the moral, let alone criminal, implications of radiating civilian populations?
Unfortunately, Afghanistan isn't the only country reeling under the Bush administration's idea of "liberation" - Iraq has arguably fared worse. New evidence suggests the US invasion may have killed up to 10,000 Iraqi civilians, many from cluster bombs dropped into densely populated civilian areas. Meanwhile, US and British occupying forces are accused of illegally detaining and torturing Iraqi civilians, and the US military has kicked around the idea of having Iraqi "hooligans ... either captured or killed."
Of course, if Iraq was used as a testing ground for radioactive weaponry, as appears to have been the case in Afghanistan, then the true civilian costs in cancers, birth defects and human suffering could be immeasurable.
As might be expected, the US Department of Defense (DOD) has shown little interest in pinpointing the medical effects of radioactive weaponry. In the 1991 Gulf War, an estimated 320 tons of DU ammunition was dumped on Iraq, and the Pentagon later acknowledged over 900 American soldiers had sustained "moderate to heavy" DU exposure. Few epidemiological studies have been conducted to assess the damage though, and even worse, US government officials have lied to cover up bad results.
For example, a Pentagon spokesperson recently told the NATO press corps, "We have seen no cancers or leukemia" in a group of 60 Gulf War vets involved in a DU-study program, despite that fact that two participants had in fact contracted cancer. And in a press briefing last March, a DOD spokesperson downplayed health risks associated with DU, claiming Iraqis complained about it only "because we kicked the crap out of them."
Fortunately, British researchers have taken the DU issue more seriously. Scientific studies in the UK have shown Gulf veterans can have up to 14 times the normal level of genetic chromosome abnormalities, which means their children are also at increased risk for deformities and genetic diseases. It's also been proven that DU-exposed vets have a greater likelihood of contracting lymphatic or bone marrow cancer.
Findings like these have prompted the European Parliament to call for a moratorium on DU ammunition (and other types of uranium warheads) pending independent investigations into their possible harmful effects. Similarly, the UN Environment Program (UNEP) has announced plans to test the Iraqi environment for DU, and the World Health Organization (WHO) may begin similar testing on the human population. The ultimate irony, of course, is that America may have used radioactive weaponry to justify invading other countries to search for radioactive weaponry. Bitter irony too that US service members were put at increased risk because of the weapons our government provided.
----
DU = 'Disarm USA' or 'Depleted Uranium'? Part II
By Lamya Tawfik
16/06/2003
Islam Online
http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2003/06/article05.shtml
In the first part of this article we saw how the United States used depleted uranium in nearly every military operation it has conducted over the last decade. This article will discuss how DU was used by the U.S. in the 2001 war on Afghanistan , and also in this year's war on Iraq . It is also used by Israel against the Palestinians.
AFGHANISTAN :2001
The United States used DU weapons to pulverize Afghanistan 's barren mountains and harsh plains
According to some reports, the "Afghan War Syndrome" that started to appear among soldiers after the war is "marked by a state of vague ailments and carcinomas, and is linked with the usage of depleted uranium as part of missiles, projectiles and bombs in the battlefield."[1]
The Baltimore Chronicle published an extensive report in December 2001 and said that there is a "growing concern in central Asia that the United States has used depleted uranium in its strikes against Afghanistan ."
"As a result of the current conflicts, people of Afghanistan, who had been dying of starvation up till now, are likely to savor a more modern mode of death: death owing to radioactive materials pulverized over barren mountains and harsh plains in modern world's war on terrorism," the Chronicle said.
However, the paper also said that not only are the Afghani people in danger, but so are people living in nearby countries (such as Pakistan -the U.S. 's staunches ally on the "war on terrorism"). [2]
IRAQ :2003
An effective clean-up and monitoring program of both soldiers and civilians must begin
Right after the U.S. and U.K. forces wrapped their war against Iraq in April, environmental agencies around the world raised red flags to the catastrophic situation in Iraq .
According to a report issued by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) there is a need for "urgent measures to address humanitarian issues. Priorities should include restoring the water supply and sanitation systems, cleaning-up possible pollution 'hot spots' and cleaning-up waste sites to reduce the risk of disease epidemics from accumulated municipal and medical wastes. [3]
"Another priority activity should be conducting a scientific assessment of sites struck with weapons containing depleted uranium (DU). The report recommends that guidelines be distributed immediately to military and civilian personnel, and to the general public, on how to minimize the risk of accidental exposure to DU."
The report also said that the war on Iraq has added to the "chronic environmental stresses that have accumulated in Iraq over the past two decades." [4]
It also added that the extent of damage caused by DU is unknown and a study in the region would require "receiving precise coordinates of the targeted sites from the military."
"Long-term monitoring of water and milk to detect any increase in uranium levels should be introduced in Iraq ."
Royal Society
The Royal Society of England also called on the coalition forces to reveal where and how much depleted uranium was used in the conflict in Iraq, so that an effective clean-up and monitoring program of both soldiers and civilians can begin and also highlighted the need to obtain further data on the exposure levels that can occur on the battlefield and in residential areas.[5]
Professor Brian Spratt FRS, Chair of the Royal Society working group on depleted uranium, said: "About 340tons of DU were fired in the 1991 Gulf War. The coalition needs to make clear where and how much depleted uranium was used in the recent conflict in Iraq . We need this information to identify civilians and soldiers who should be monitored for depleted uranium exposure and to begin a clean-up of the environment.
"Fragments of depleted uranium penetrators are potentially hazardous, and a recent Royal Society study recommended that they should be removed, and areas of contamination around impact sites identified, and where necessary made safe. Impact sites in residential areas should be a particular priority. Long-term monitoring of water and milk to detect any increase in uranium levels should also be introduced in Iraq . This would provide a cost-effective method of monitoring sensitive components in the environment, and provide information about uranium levels to concerned local populations.
"Although there are more pressing problems in Iraq currently, such as ensuring that civilians have access to fresh water, food, power and medical services, and removing unexploded shells, the coalition needs to acknowledge that depleted uranium is a potential hazard and make in-roads into tackling it by being open about where and how much depleted uranium has been deployed."[6]
The Royal Society's recent study on the health hazards of depleted uranium found that most soldiers and civilians are unlikely to be exposed to dangerous levels of depleted uranium during and after its use on the battlefield, but concluded that some soldiers might suffer kidney damage and an increased risk of lung cancer if they breathe in substantial amounts of it, for instance inside an armored vehicle hit by a depleted uranium penetrator. [7]
It also called for soldiers exposed to high levels of depleted uranium to be tested for its levels in their bodies. In its latest report, the Society recommended that in any future conflict using DU munitions, measurements of uranium in urine and modern biochemical tests of kidney function should be carried out on soldiers exposed to substantial levels as soon after exposure as practical and at subsequent intervals thereafter, the Society said on their website.
The Society also said that "exposure to DU on the battlefield may cause a doubling of the usual risk of death from lung cancer among a small group of soldiers in extreme circumstances, for example, if they inhale large amounts after their vehicle has been struck by a DU penetrator or if they have been working for long periods of time inside and around contaminated vehicles." It also said that risks of leukemia and other cancers from exposure to DU radioactivity are likely to be very low for all conceivable battlefield situations.[8]
The study emphasizes that the impact sites of depleted uranium penetrators may be heavily contaminated, and could be harmful if swallowed by children for example. In addition, large numbers of corroding depleted uranium penetrators embedded in the ground might pose a long-term threat if the uranium leaches into water supplies.[9]
The day following the Royal Society's statement, the U.K. 's Guardian newspaper reported that the Ministry of Defense will offer tests to soldiers returning from the war on Iraq to check the levels of DU in their bodies to "assess whether they are in danger of suffering kidney damage and lung cancer as a result of exposure".[10]
"Experts have calculated that from all sources, between1 , 000and2 , 000tons of depleted uranium were used by the coalition in the three-week conflict," said the Guardian.
Perhaps the troops coming in from the U.K. will be offered tests to check levels of depleted uranium in their bodies, but who will offer the same tests to the millions of Iraqi civilians?
Israel Too
Israeli Apache helicopters are equipped to fire DU shells
In November 2000 the International Action Center, an organization founded by former U.S. Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, called on international organizations, NGOs, environmental and health organizations to "investigate the Israeli military's use of prohibited weapons in the West Bank and Gaza, and to mobilize to stop it."[11] These weapons included dumdum bullets, CS gas as well as DU weapons.
"The effect of dumdum bullets and CS gas is immediate, easily shown and obvious. Using radioactive and toxic depleted-uranium weapons is an additional crime that has an insidious long-term effect, not only on combatants and civilians in the vicinity, but over a broad area and to the general environment, as has been shown by the Pentagon's massive use of DU weapons in Yugoslavia and especially in Iraq ."[12]
"We know that Israel is DU-armed and capable, and shielding on Israeli tanks is DU-reinforced.... U.S. arms make up the major part of the Israeli arsenal and Israel has been the number one recipient of U.S. arms aid for decades. These U.S. weapons include the M 1Abrams tank-which fires DU shells and is armored with DU-reinforced metal. The "Apache" and the Cobra helicopter gun ships are also equipped to fire DU shells. Since this latest Intifada started, the U.S. has shipped Israel 'the newest and most advanced multi-mission attack helicopters in the U.S. inventory,' as reported in the Jerusalem Post. These were Apache helicopters." [13]
The IAC delegation, after collecting shell casings and metal fragments from areas that had been bombed in Ramallah, were stopped and interrogated by Israeli officials at the Ben Gurion airport and the items collected were confiscated. "While this prevented the IAC from arranging its own tests, it made them even more suspicious that the Israeli forces were using DU shells and trying to hide it," the organization said.
"Whether from shells or from the scrapings from tanks moving around the countryside, radioactive materials enter into the land, the water and the whole food chain, contaminating the densely populated West Bank and Gaza, where water is a scarce resource. Wanton radioactive contamination of this region is a crime against all of humanity and a threat to the entire region now and for generations to come.
"According to the LAKA Foundation in the Netherlands , the Israeli army first used depleted-uranium weapons in the 1973 war, under direction from U.S. advisers.
"The ... 1995 report from the U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute ... asserts that Israel is one of the countries with DU munitions in its arsenal." [14]
The organization also said that Israel has a nuclear weapons program more developed than that of any country except the five major nuclear powers. "For exposing this nuclear program, Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear-weapons technician, was kidnapped by the Mossad and held in solitary confinement14 years," the organization said.
"Given Israel 's own nuclear program and well-developed military industry, the likelihood is that Israel is a manufacturer of DU ammunition. The firm Rafael of Israel is named in numerous reports as being such a manufacturer. But even if this were not the case, Israel has been able to import DU weapons from the United States ," it added. And Finally...
There are just a few questions that badly need to be posed here...
"Our government... should be made to pay for the cleanup."
Ramsey Clark
The whole logic about having the U.S. say that it's all right for some countries to keep their WMDs and not the rest of the world is because they are a 'democracy' and can be trusted. How different is the current 'democratic' regime in the U.S. from the 'dictatorships' it seeks to uproot in the Middle East ? Are they really responsible enough to have WMDs, including but not limited to DU, in their possession?
Yet, Bush, who is supposedly a former member of the 'Skulls and Bones' secret society at Yale University, rules this democracy, and so was his father. There was even a movie made about it. Could it be that their sadistic aim is to reduce the world to just that... skulls and bones?[15]
Ten years after the damage was done in Iraq , former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark went with a multi-national delegation to Baghdad in2001 , to 'investigate' DU impact used in the 1991 war.
"Our government [ U.S. ] is responsible for enormous suffering in Iraq and should be made to pay for the cleanup and care of the population," he said at the time.[16] Perhaps in the year2003 , there was a phone call to the White House that Clark should have made. Then again, perhaps he did.
References:
[1] Report Says U.S. Forces Used Depleted Uranium in Afghan War http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2001-12/29/article3.shtml [2] Ibid.
[3] UNEP outlines strategy for protecting people and the environment in post-war Iraq http://www.unep.org/Documents/Default.asp?DocumentID=309&ArticleID=3965
[4] Ibid.
[5] Royal Society calls on coalition forces to reveal where DU has been used in Iraq http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/templates/press/showpresspage.cfm?file=445.txt
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Depleted Uranium http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/du/#metal
[9] Depleted uranium might damage kidneys of some soldiers http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/templates/press/releasedetails.cfm?file=352.txt
[10] Gulf Troops Face Tests For Cancer http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,9830,943301,00.html
[11] Is the Israeli military using depleted Uranium against the Palestinians? http://www.iacenter.org/israel_du.htm
[12] Ibid
[13] Ibid
[14] Ibid.
[15] EXTRA: Banging 'Skulls' http://www.hollywood.com/news/detail/article/312131
[16] Former U.S. Official In Iraq To Investigate Depleted Uranium http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2001-01/14/article11.shtml
- Lamya Tawfik is a Cairo-based freelancer. She is currently preparing her master's degree in Mass Communication with a specialization in Children's Media Education at the American University in Cairo . She has previously worked as a news editor at IslamOnline.net and as a journalist and public relations specialist in Dubai , UAE. You can reach her at lamyatawfik@islam-online.net
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'DU' weapons
Depleted uranium arsenal gives U.S. soldiers an edge in combat, but is their own health jeopardized in the process?
By MAGGIE FARLEY,
Los Angeles Times
June 16, 2003
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_2041786,00.html
NEW YORK - Some people call depleted uranium weapons the army's "silver bullet." Others call them "America's Dirty Bomb." The Pentagon says that exposure to the munitions causes absolutely no ill health effects, while some Iraqi pediatricians and Desert Storm veterans blame it for everything from birth defects to cancer.
At a symposium at the New York Academy of Medicine on Saturday, a group of scientists had differing interpretations on the danger posed by exposure to depleted uranium weapons. But they all agreed on a few things: Every soldier returning from Iraq should be tested for exposure; Iraqi people should be warned of potential contamination; and the coalition army should clean up the hazardous mess it left behind.
"There is controversy over the science," said Charles Sheehan-Miles, executive director of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, which organized the gathering. "But if there's a substantial chance that there's a health risk, we have a moral obligation - and perhaps a legal one - to clean it up."
Depleted uranium, a byproduct of the enrichment of uranium, is valued by the military because it slices through tanks like a hot knife through butter and provides nearly pierce-proof armor for U.S. tanks and vehicles. Heavier than lead, it not only holds its shape better than any other material, but actually sharpens itself on impact, instead of splattering away.
"Nobody goes into a war and wants to be even with the enemy," said Colonel James Naughton, from the U.S. Army Materiel Command, in a briefing for reporters days before the invasion of Iraq began. "We want to be ahead, and DU gives us that advantage. We can hit, and they can't hit us."
But it also ignites on impact, creating aersolized particles that if inhaled or ingested, the Pentagon acknowledges, can lead to lung cancer, kidney damage and other health problems. Soldiers who were hit with DU shrapnel in Desert Storm still had elevated uranium levels in their urine and semen a decade later, according to some studies. But the Pentagon insists that of the 90 individuals it has tracked from among about 900 soldiers who were exposed in the first Persian Gulf War, there have been no serious medical consequences.
"We're not seeing any abnormalities in individuals," said Michael E. Kilpatrick, of the Pentagon's Deployment Health Support Directorate. "About 20 of these people still have DU in their bodies, but their kidney function is normal. They have fathered some 23 children without any birth defects."
And that is where the political battle begins. Advocates for veterans' health say that internal Department of Defense memos and reports obtained by the Freedom of Information Act reveal that one of the study participants does have cancer, and that the Veterans' Administration acknowledged that the study sample was too small to draw any conclusions. One study shows that the Pentagon was aware as early as 1990 that DU had dire health effects that could become a cause for public backlash.
"Following combat, the condition of the battlefield and the long-term health risks to natives and combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability of the continued use of DU kinetic energy perpetrators for military applications," reads a July 1990 U.S. Army study.
The issue of depleted uranium munitions has become so politicized, it's hard to tell where the science stops and the science fiction begins, said Daniel Fahey, an independent analyst who obtained the study and has made a career of debunking extreme claims on both sides of the issue. "You're not going to resolve this until you do health studies of people who are exposed. We should let science dictate the policy, not politics."
Experts at the United Nations and independent analysts have estimated that 1,100-2,200 tons of depleted uranium were used by U.S.-led coalition forces during their attack on Iraq in March and April, but the Pentagon has not yet released an official assessment. The United States fired about 320 tons in the 1991 Gulf War, and about 11 tons were used during the 1999 war against Serbia over Kosovo.
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Depleted uranium use may pose health risk
16/06/2003
http://www.dehavilland.co.uk/webhost.asp?wci=default&wcp=NationalNewsStoryPage&wcu=8S872261S8S10
Weapons deployed during the US-led war against Iraq could carry long-term environmental and health risks to British and American soldiers and local residents, according to a new study.
Depleted uranium is used to fortify tank armour and other armour-piercing weapons.
Counter to advice from the Pentagon, doctor Helen Caldicott, president of the anti-nuke Nuclear Policy Research Institute, claimed the radioactive material may cause increased incidences of kidney damage.
'They have absolutely no right to be using radioactive weapons,' she said.
The United Nations estimated some 1,000-1,995 metric tonnes of depleted uranium were used in the recent conflict in the Middle East.
There have been long-standing safety concerns surrounding the use of the material in weaponry.
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IAEA report: Kuwait not threatened by radioactive pollution
Pravda.RU
2003-06-16
http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2003/06/16/48235.html
Depleted uranium that was contained in the American weapons used during the Desert Storm military operation in the Persian Gulf in 1991 does not pose a threat of radioactive pollution to Kuwait, a country neighbouring on Iraq.
This statement is contained in the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency /IAEA/ published on Monday by the IAEA Secretariat in Vienna ahead of the Board of Managers' session. The session will consider the report of the Agency's Director General Mohammed El Baradei "On Iran's nuclear safety".
According to the report's authors, "IAEA inspectors found in Kuwait remains of depleted uranium contained in the American weapons during the Persian Gulf war, but at present this substance does not pose a threat to Kuwaiti population's health".
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EU ministers to endorse use of force on WMD
By Judy Dempsey in Brussels
June 16 2003
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1054966131536&p=1012571727166
European Union foreign ministers will today endorse the use of force as a last resort against any country failing to comply with non- proliferation and disarmament agreements, in a radical break with previous policy. Advertisement
The decision by the 15 foreign ministers marks a watershed for the EU - which has collectively shied away from using force failing all diplomatic and political pressure on countries in breach of their international obligations. They insist, however, that any force must be in accordance with the United Nations Charter.
But with Iran now the focus of attention for the US, the EU and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), European diplomats said they could no longer ignore the growing threats from weapons of mass destruction.
The rapid shift by the EU comes just weeks after the end of the US-led war against Iraq and days before the EU's summit in Thessaloniki where the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction will dominate the foreign policy agenda.
It will also become a key issue in next week's US-EU summit in Washington.
The run-up to the war against Iraq almost tore apart the transatlantic relationship and pitted several European countries against each other, notably Britain and France on the use of force against Iraq outside the UN. Since then, senior EU diplomats have been drawing up a long-term "strategic concept" or security doctrine over how it should deal with WMD.
Today's conclusions by foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg spells out several phases in which it could try to persuade any country in breach of its treaty obligations to comply, before bowing to the use of force as a last resort.
As a first stage, the EU wants to strengthen the multilateral regime for disarmament and non-proliferation while making a big bid to bring back the US as a key player in supporting disarmament based on multilateral agreements.
"The EU is committed to the multilateral regime which provides the normative basis for all non-proliferation efforts," says the statement. "If the regime is to remain credible it must be made more effective. This means working with those who share our interest in preventing proliferation and it also means dealing with those who cheat."
But "in case political and diplomatic measures have failed, coercive measures, including as a last resort, the use of force in according with the United Nations Charter will be considered".
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European Union Toughening Stance on Weapons Policy
June 16, 2003
By THOMAS FULLER
International Herald Tribune
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/international/europe/16CND-UNION.html
PARIS, June 16 - Showing signs of a more muscular approach to their common foreign policy, European Union governments said today that they were ready to use force if necessary to combat the threat of weapons of mass destruction.
Ministers from the Union's 15 member countries also issued a series of tough joint statements to governments in the world's hot spots.
Meeting in Luxembourg, the ministers urged Iran to "urgently" sign an agreement that would allow for more inspections of its nuclear facilities, told Cuba to stop repressing its dissidents, and stiffened sanctions against the military junta in Myanmar.
The more activist approach brings the Union closer into line with the United States on these issues and reasserts a common voice for Europe after the bitterly divisive internal disputes over the war in Iraq.
The Union's foreign ministers also held up the primacy of the United Nations, saying that the Security Council should play a "central role" in dealing with any threats from weapons of mass destruction.
It was the first time that European governments agreed to a specific strategy to countering weapons of mass destruction, which encompass nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Diplomats described the move as an "action plan' that made the fight against weapons of mass destruction a priority in their common foreign policy.
It remains to be seen how the Union will pursue this strategy when faced with the immediacy of a threat. Germany was initially reluctant to back the measure, diplomats said, but came around after France expressed strong support. Sweden's foreign minister, Ana Lindh, proposed the idea earlier this year.
"To address the new threats a broad approach is needed," the ministers said in a statement.
The statement listed political and diplomatic ways the Union could deal with threatening weapons. But it added that when diplomacy fails, "coercive measures" could be envisioned, including the use of force, "as appropriate."
Echoing statements by Washington, the foreign ministers said weapons of mass destruction were "a threat to international peace and security."
The statement comes two weeks after the Union announced it was sending heavily armed peacekeepers to Congo in what is the European Union's first such operation outside of Europe. The Congo mission is also the first time the European Union sends a peacekeeping mission without planning or assistance from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The ministers today issued "a strong appeal to all Congolese parties and all states in the Great Lakes region to refrain from any military or other activity in the region that could further destabilize the situation."
Among the decisions taken by EU governments today:
¶Iran. European foreign ministers issued a statement urging the Iranian government to "very quickly and unconditionally" sign an international protocol committing itself not to produce nuclear weapons.
By signing the document, Iran would accept stricter United Nations inspections. The United States has made a similar demand on Tehran.
As its largest trading partner, the European Union has significant commercial leverage on Iran and is in the process of negotiating a trade deal with Tehran.
The ministers pointedly said progress toward resolving the nuclear issue was "interdependent" with progress in the trade talks.
"We want firm assurances that there is no nuclear weapons program," Finland's foreign minister, Erkki Tuomioja, told reporters, according to Reuters. "The onus is on them to come clean," the foreign minister said.
¶Cuba. The foreign ministers said that recent government-sponsored anti-European demonstrations in Havana were "unacceptable" and repeated their demand that Cuba cease its crackdown on dissidents.
In a statement, the 15 ministers said they had "grave concerns about the serious deterioration of the human rights situation" in Cuba.
The European Union had started a "review of relations," the ministers said, and would "continue to monitor" the situation in Cuba.
¶Myanmar. Foreign ministers said they would stiffen existing sanctions against the Burmese government "in light of the serious deterioration of the situation in the country."
For the past two weeks, the Burmese government has detained the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a location it would not disclose.
The Union has already suspended trade privileges, imposed an arms embargo on the Burmese government and denied visas to more than 150 officials in the military government. The officials' assets in the European Union have also been frozen. Foreign ministers said today that they would lengthen the list officials immediately.
The ministers also said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as China, India and Japan, should use their influence to promote political change in Myanmar.
¶Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Ministers met with the Palestinian foreign minister, Nabil Shaath, and reiterated their support for the Middle-East "road map" to peace, which is also supported by the United States and Russia.
The foreign ministers backed away from a call by France for the deployment of a European peacekeeping force in the occupied territories.
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EU Outlines Conditions for War Over WMD
June 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Europe-WMD-Strategy.html
LUXEMBOURG (AP) -- The European Union said Monday it could accept going to war to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction but only after exhausting all diplomatic means.
At a meeting, the EU foreign ministers issued a strategy paper in response to the significant differences in the run-up to the Iraq war between Washington and European capitals over how to deal with weapons of mass destruction.
Ideally, according to the strategy paper, war would need the approval of the United Nations Security Council. But the EU foreign ministers left open the question of whether approval was mandatory, saying the council ``should play a central role.''
Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy and security chief Javier Solana, said the reference to the role of the United Nations had been left intentionally ambiguous in order to satisfy all sides in the debate.
The paper says that, when diplomacy has failed, ``coercive measures under Chapter VII of the U.N. charter and international law -- sanctions, selective or global, interceptions of shipments and, as appropriate, the use of force -- could be envisioned.''
It suggested a multilateral approach to containing the spread of weapons of mass destruction through such steps as strengthening export controls, ensuring compliance with nonproliferation commitments and promoting close coordination with the United States.
``We will not go immediately to military action,'' Solana told reporters. ``Many things have to be done before we go to the United Nations to see if measures are taken.''
Although adopted by all 15 EU nations, it is not legally binding, leaving open the possibility of a repeat of the sort of trans-Atlantic friction that preceded the Iraq war.
Britain and Spain -- and, to a lesser extent, Denmark, Italy, Portugal and the Netherlands -- sided with Washington over the Iraq war, whereas German and France led an anti-war camp in Europe.
The United States and Britain cited the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify the war. No such weapons have been found yet. Most EU governments insisted diplomacy and arms inspections in Iraq be given more time.
``The EU is committed to the multilateral system,'' the strategy paper says, adding that the European Union will seek to bolster compliance with international treaties banning the production and use of weapons of mass destruction.
For these treaties to be credible they must be made more effective, the paper adds.
``This means working with those who share our interest in preventing proliferation. And it also means dealing with those who cheat,'' it said.
The paper -- along with an action plan to give the fight against weapons of mass destruction greater priority in the EU's dealings with other countries -- was approved on a day when the foreign ministers also debated Iran and allegations Tehran uses its nuclear energy program to make atomic weapons.
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Nuclear issue unites Iranian foes
By Sadeq Saba
BBC regional analyst
16 June, 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2994294.stm
Iran has confirmed that it will not sign an additional protocol allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency greater and faster access to its nuclear sites.
The statement is likely to cause concern within the European Union, which has been urging the Iranians to approve the protocol unconditionally.
Tehran needs to please the EU in order to get trade concessions and try to alleviate American pressures.
But the question of nuclear capability has become a key concern for Iran's leaders, and unites even the warring factions in the government.
Both the reformists and hardliners - who are at loggerheads over so many issues - are enthusiastic supporters of the country's nuclear programme.
It was the pro-reform President, Mohammad Khatami, who proudly announced on national television in February that Iran had become independent in producing fuel for its nuclear power station.
Iranian leaders from both factions hailed the surprise declaration as a huge achievement.
They say Iran's nuclear technology has been developed by its own scientists and they describe it as a source of power and pride for the nation.
Clout
During a recent parliamentary debate on Iran's nuclear programme, pro-reform MPs were more forceful than their hardline colleagues in insisting that Iran should not bow to external pressure and give up its nuclear capabilities.
Iran, of course, insists that its nuclear ambitions are entirely peaceful.
But for some Iranians, even those who are opposed to the Islamic government, nuclear arms are a legitimate national aspiration.
They say that the nuclear status of some of Iran's neighbours - such as Pakistan and its arch-enemy, Israel - means it has every right to make such weapons to boost the country's security and bargaining power.
Some circles in the Iranian Government may also believe that if the country possesses nuclear arms, the United States would not be able to exert such significant pressure on the Islamic government.
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Iran rejects tougher nuclear checks
Iran says it has nothing to hide
Monday, 16 June, 2003
(BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2994674.stm
Iran has confirmed that it will not sign up to tougher, short-notice inspections of suspected nuclear sites.
The European Union joined growing international pressure on Iran on Monday, saying Tehran should comply with the measures "urgently and unconditionally".
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has also urged Iran to agree to strengthened inspections under an additional protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
But Iran said a ban on the country's access to nuclear technology would have to be lifted before it can agree to such a move.
The head of the IAEA, Mohammed ElBaradei, said Iran had failed to report some of its nuclear activities - an accusation Tehran rejects.
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, for his part, urged Iran to meet its non-proliferation obligations, as it continues trade negotiations with the European Union.
So far EU foreign ministers have stopped short of backing US accusations that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons programme.
Iran has repeatedly said the aim of its programme was to generate electricity.
Conditions
An Iranian representative at the IAEA in Vienna said the nuclear issue had been "politically motivated and politically charged", but would be resolved.
In Tehran, a spokesman for the country's Atomic Energy Organisation said Iran was studying the call to sign an additional protocol "with a positive view".
He said Tehran might agree to sign it, but reiterated Iran's demand for access to nuclear technology in exchange.
However analysts say this has already been ruled out by the US and other countries.
Mr ElBaradei urged the Iranians to sign the protocols unconditionally.
He said Tehran's co-operation would enable the IAEA "to provide credible assurances regarding the peaceful nature" of the country's nuclear programme.
Some EU countries want trade talks with Iran halted, but a majority believe the EU should keep the door open to dialogue, as a means of obtaining greater transparency on nuclear issues and more progress on human rights and political reforms in Iran.
Concerns
The EU meeting came a few days after an IAEA report on Iran was leaked.
It says Tehran has failed to:
- Account for nuclear material
- Provide documentation for imports of nuclear material
- Report its subsequent processing and use
- Declare facilities where the material is stored and processed
Mr ElBaradei visited Iran in February, and toured a nuclear plant under construction at Natanz, 320 kilometres (200 miles) south of Tehran.
The site is crucial, because it is where Iran is developing a series of centrifuges, which could be used to produce enriched uranium - the material used for making a nuclear bomb.
The IAEA reports says that Iran's failure to provide information in a timely manner has become "a matter for concern".
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Iran: Nuclear squeeze is on
By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent
Monday, 16 June, 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2993678.stm
Centrifuge drawing: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39168000/gif/_39168736_centrifuge3_416inf.gif
Efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to get Iran to allow full inspections of its nuclear facilities are part of a desperate attempt to shore up the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which has failed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
The squeeze is now on to show that a country can be brought into line.
There appears to be a determination to prevent the development of the crisis which would be precipitated with the United States and Israel if Iran built the bomb. Iran's neighbour, Iraq, is seen as a warning of what can happen when the international community loses control.
Backing from European Union
The European Union threw its weight behind these efforts by linking progress on an EU-Iran trade agreement to Iranian nuclear compliance.
Satellite image of nuclear power reactor in Bushehr, Iran Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes But Iran will not necessarily be prevented from developing nuclear weapons even if it signs up to a stricter inspections regime.
In the final analysis, a country cannot be stopped from making a nuclear weapon.
India, Pakistan and Israel, for example, have done so by refusing to join the NPT and North Korea has simply left the Treaty, declaring its own nuclear ambitions.
Gary Samore, a former US official who negotiated with Iran and is now with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, told News Online: "Iran can sign the extra protocol and retain its weapons option.
"All it has to do is to allow the inspections and continue its programme. The IAEA has no powers to stop it. It can then give 90 days notice to leave the NTP."
Failure to comply
The IAEA has reported that Iran failed to comply with its obligations by not revealing until a very late stage that it was building a uranium enrichment plant and that it had imported uranium from China in 1991.
Iran is being urged to sign an additional protocol to the monitoring agreement which it, like other members of the Treaty developing nuclear power, already has with the IAEA.
"Iran can sign the extra protocol and retain its weapons option... All it has to do is to allow the inspections and continue its programme" - Gary Samore, International Institute for Strategic Studies
This protocol would allow extra inspections (such as the sampling of air and soil) for suspected undeclared nuclear sites.
At issue is Iran's development at Natanz of a centrifuge for separating uranium 235 from the rest of the uranium ore.
Click here to see how a gas centrifuge works
Uranium 235 is needed to make the nuclear reaction. Though only a tiny proportion (0.7%), it is the heaviest part of the ore and sticks to the centre when the ore is spun in the centrifuge.
Experts say that by using this technology, which Iraq also tried to develop, Iran could eventually separate enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear device - 20 kilograms is needed as a minimum.
Mr Samore said: "Normally, you buy the enriched uranium from your supplier, which in Iran's case is Russia. Iran argues that it needs to do it itself for future expansion but there is no reasonable justification for this.
"It only has a nuclear reactor. Only a very few countries have enrichment plants."
Too late?
Iran has said that it is developing a nuclear programme for peaceful purposes. Its former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said: "It is our right to benefit from nuclear power."
It attributes its failure to report its nuclear programme fully to differences of interpretation of the rules.
"It is our right to benefit from nuclear power" - Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Former Iranian President
If Iran went for the nuclear bomb, it could trigger a confrontation with the United States and Israel.
The US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has said that Iran might do "things that could lead to a nuclear weapons programme and that is unacceptable".
Israel showed in 1981, when it bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor, that it will act against what it sees as a fundamental threat.
There are fears that it is all getting too late to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, though there have been major successes such as the agreement to keep South America nuclear free.
"The genie is out of the bottle" according to the former Nato commander, retired US General Wesley Clark.
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IAEA Meets on Iran's Nuclear Program
VOA News
16 Jun 2003
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=8F7CC2D9-D5DD-4071-9B6D2A70DC374587
The International Atomic Energy Agency is meeting in Vienna to discuss a report that says Iran has failed to honor nuclear accords.
A confidential IAEA report, obtained by Western news agencies, says Tehran has fallen short of its nuclear treaty obligations by failing to disclose its use of nuclear material.
The Associated Press quotes the head of the U.N. nuclear agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, as urging Iran to give "credible assurances" of the peaceful nature of its nuclear activities.
The Bush administration says Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies this.
European Union foreign ministers also are discussing Iran's nuclear program Monday in Luxembourg. They are expected to urge Iran to sign a protocol allowing U.N. inspections of the nuclear sites.
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UN watchdog presses Iran on nuclear inspections
Even Russia now fears Tehran is on the way to an independent ability to make a bomb
Ian Traynor and Dan De Luce in Tehran
Monday June 16, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,978184,00.html
Amid growing fears in America, Europe and Russia that Iran could develop an atomic bomb within the next few years, United Nations officials meet today to try to decide how to tackle the threat of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is under strong pressure from the United States to accuse Tehran of non-compliance with its obligations under the 1970 nuclear non-proliferation treaty. However, the UN watchdog's 35-strong board is likely to opt for a milder reprimand in order to keep diplomatic channels with Iran open.
A "non-compliance" declaration would entail reporting Iran to the UN security council and could trigger sanctions and isolation. Instead, according to a leaked report to the meeting by the IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, the meeting will conclude that Iran has "failed in its obligations" to report its nuclear activities to the watchdog.
Washington insists that Iran is engaged in a clandestine nuclear weapons project. Initial scepticism in Europe and Russia about hawkish US claims has given way in recent months to suspicions about Tehran's activities.
The Iranians imported small amounts of uranium from China in 1991. They failed to report this to the Vienna-based IAEA, declined to say what they were doing with the nuclear material and omitted to disclose how and where it was being stored.
At Natanz, 200 miles south of Tehran, the Iranians have built an underground pilot complex of centrifuges for enriching uranium, and plan to build a much bigger system of 5,000 centrifuges which could be operational within two years and which, say US officials and international atomic experts, could lead to an Iranian bomb by 2006.
Dr ElBaradei was the first outsider to be given access to the Natanz operation in February. He was said to be stunned by its sophistication.
"It's clear the Iranians have mastered the [uranium] enrichment technology which puts them in a [nuclear] club of 10," said a well-connected diplomat in Vienna.
UN inspectors flew to Tehran at the weekend, hoping to be able to take samples at Iranian sites. Last week, another team of three IAEA inspectors was barred from taking swabs of environmental samples at the Kalaye electricity plant in Tehran where centrifuge components have been built and tested. The samples would have revealed whether the testing was conducted with nuclear material, in breach of Iran's international obligations. The suspicion is that the Kalaye plant has been used illicitly to enrich a small amount of uranium.
The inspectors, according to a diplomatic source in Vienna, "need access to other places to take samples and to see if they've been playing around with enrichment of nuclear materials that haven't been declared. They say they haven't, but that stretches credibility."
Given the rising international anxiety, the key IAEA demand is that Iran sign up for a more transparent regime of snap inspections, allowing IAEA teams to go anywhere, any time, at 24 hours notice - an operation similar to that performed by the UN arms inspectors in Iraq.
In Brussels today, the European Union will step up the international pressure by linking an EU-Iran trade deal to progress on answering the nuclear questions, and calling on Tehran to agree to the snap inspections "urgently and unconditionally".
Russia, which has traditionally pooh-poohed allegations of an Iranian bomb project, is also now voicing concern. Russia is the sole supplier of nuclear technology and expertise to Iran and is helping to build an atomic power plant at Bushehr in the south. Given its influence, Moscow is in a strong position to persuade the Iranians to accept the snap inspections, say western diplomats.
Despite the international pressure, however, Iran appears determined to press ahead with its ambitious nuclear programme in an attempt to pre-empt any US moves to secure "regime change".
Deterrent
Iran is anxious about growing American military power in the region and Washington's tough rhetoric, and sees the nuclear programme as a possible deterrent.
Sayeed Leylaz, a senior analyst at Sharif University in Tehran, said: "Iraq's experience shows that nothing can stop a US attack if that's what Washington wants. But North Korea's experience shows that maybe one thing can stop the United States - the threat of an atomic bomb."
Iran is also seeking to use the negotiations over snap inspections to get US-led sanctions lifted. Kamal Kharrazi, Tehran's foreign minister, said recently: "If all the sanctions, pressures and restrictions against Iran are lifted and nuclear technology for peaceful purposes is put at its disposal, Iran will sign the [inspections] protocol."
In the meantime, as Washington ratchets up the pressure, Iran believes that agreeing to more elaborate inspections would be tantamount to capitulation. Mr Leylaz said: "The more we withdraw from our plans and the more concessions we offer, the more arrogant the US will be."
The Iranians also argue that they are living in a dangerous region, and point to India's, Pakistan's, and Israel's possession of nuclear arsenals, as well as the former Iraqi regime's clandestine bomb project that was well-advanced until thwarted by the international community.
Unlike North Korea, Iran is not believed to possess nuclear weapons and it has yet to be found in violation of the 1970 non-proliferation treaty, which it has signed.
However, western governments suspect that Iran may have received crucial technical advice for a weapons programme from experts in Pakistan, Russia or other former Soviet states and may no longer require outside assistance.
To allay Washington's concerns, Moscow promised it would provide all the nuclear fuel needed for the Bushehr plant and then transport spent fuel back to Russia to prevent it from being diverted for weapons purposes.
But despite years of negotiations, the agreement on the repatriation of spent fuel is not yet concluded. And to Russia's embarrassment, Iran announced earlier this year that it would mine and enrich its own uranium and manage the entire fuel cycle, including spent nuclear material, meaning it could produce weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.
Tehran says it needs to secure its own fuel supply because it plans to build several new plants over the next 20 years. But arms-control experts argue that even if it does construct more nuclear plants, buying fuel commercially from foreign suppliers is much cheaper and simpler.
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Iran Is Pressured to Open Its Nuclear Program to Inspection
June 16, 2003
The New York Times
By FELICITY BARRINGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/international/middleeast/16CND-IRAN.html
UNITED NATIONS, June 16 - Iran came under increased international pressure today to be more forthcoming about its nuclear program, as a chorus of diplomats ranging from the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency to a collection of European Union ministers urged Tehran to allow international inspectors to conduct more intrusive examinations of existing operations.
The Iranian nuclear program, the focus of a Vienna meeting of the agency's 35-member board, which began today, has been the subject of heightened international concern since a recent report from the atomic energy agency disclosed previously unreported details of Iran's emerging nuclear capabilities.
Both the European Union, Iran's main trading partner, and Russia, a large supplier of components for the construction of Iran's nuclear reactor, called on Tehran to provide the necessary cooperation.
"While the council (of ministers) recognizes Iran's right to develop a nuclear program for civilian purposes, the nature of some aspects of this program raises serious concern," European Union ministers said in a statement issued in Luxembourg. It also emphasized "the need for Iran to answer timely, fully and adequately all questions raised regarding its nuclear program" and to sign "very quickly and unconditionally" an additional protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty allowing the intrusive examinations.
The Russian foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, visiting New Delhi, said, "We hope that Iran will sign the additional I.A.E.A. protocol, which will allow the extension of the provision of the I.A.E.A. over all nuclear facilities in the territory of the country. "
Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in a speech to the agency's 35-member governing board, said, "I also continue to call on Iran to permit us to take environmental samples" at one suspect site and to allow inspectors greater access "to provide credible assurances regarding the peaceful nature of its nuclear activities."
The Reuters news agency reported today that the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said that Tehran might be willing to sign the protocol, but it reiterated that it wanted a quid pro quo: access to Western nuclear technology. "We have not yet decided about signing the additional protocol, but we are studying it with a positive view," a spokesman, Khalil Mousavi, told Reuters.
The Bush administration, which last year labeled Iran part of its "axis of evil," has been pressing the International Atomic Energy Agency to conclude that Iran is in violation of its obligations as a signatory of the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, administration officials said last month.
Last week, one Western diplomat said today, Iranian officials refused to let inspectors at the Kalaye power plant take environmental samples by swiping a cloth over exposed surfaces to determine if unreported testing of nuclear equipment had taken place there, as intelligence agencies and a Washington-based Iranian exile group have asserted.
The I.A.E.A. report distributed 10 days ago revealed new details about Iran's plans for developing a heavy-water research reactor, a type often associated with production of plutonium for nuclear weapons programs. The report concluded, in part, that Iran had not met its obligations in terms of "the reporting of nuclear material, the subsequent processing and use of that material and the declaration of facilities where the material was stored and processed."
But the report also indicated that the very revelations of the previously concealed activity and plans might be a sign of a newly cooperative attitude in Tehran.
Late last week, an administration official, speaking on condition that he not be identified, said he did not expect the I.A.E.A. board to refer the Iranian situation to the United Nations Security Council at this meeting.
Today, another diplomat, speaking on the same condition, said there was no consensus among the agency's board members that there has been any clear-cut breach of the Nonproliferation Treaty. "There are still too many outstanding questions that we need to probe," he said.
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U.S. Insists It's Not Meddling in Iran
Monday June 16, 2003
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2797823,00.html
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration endorsed demonstrators in Iran ``who are asking to join the modern world,'' but said U.S. support is limited to that and nothing more.
Pro-democracy demonstrators have protested for a week and clashed with police and vigilantes who back the clerical regime in Tehran.
``We've been concerned about the use of violence against the demonstrators,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday. ``It's time for the voices of the Iranian people to be listened to and heard.''
Asked about Iranian government allegations that the administration was providing material support to the protesters, the spokesman said ``the demonstrations are not about the United States, they are about Iran, by Iranians, about Iranian policy. They don't have anything to do with the United States.''
And so, Boucher said, ``we've offered our support, our encouragement and we made clear what side we stand on, and that these are Iranians protesting Iranian policy.''
``They need to be seen that way, not blamed on something outside,'' he said.
On Capitol Hill, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., and 12 co-sponsors introduced a bill Friday to provide U.S. help for democratic opponents of the Iranian government and for dissident broadcasters based in the United States.
The legislation also would impose an embargo on importation of Iranian goods and allow the president to reduce U.S. contributions to the World Bank and other institutions that assist Iran.
``It is important that American policy-makers adopt a strong position in support of those brave Iranians who take to the streets to demand democracy and respect for human rights,'' the senior Democrat on the House terrorism subcommittee said.
Iran, like Iraq, was included by President Bush in the ``axis of evil'' along with North Korea. But unlike Iraq, against which Bush went to war to bring down the government, he has not threatened to use force against Iran.
On the diplomatic front, the administration is trying to organize world opinion against what it insists are Iranian and North Korean programs to produce nuclear weapons.
And the administration publicly has expressed confidence there were forces of moderation in the Iranian legislature and among the people.
``All that we're involved in here is expressing our moral support, our rhetorical support, our solidarity with the demonstrators,'' Boucher said. ``That's as much as I can speak for at this point.''
-------- korea
PAPER: N. Korea exports missiles to Iran by air
SUN Jun 15 2003
Drudge Report
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash.htm
SEOUL, June 16 (Kyodo) _ North Korea transported containers believed to be carrying missiles to Iran by air six times over about two months from April, a Seoul daily reported Monday.
The JoonAng Ilbo quoted South Korean and U.S. intelligence sources as saying U.S. intelligence satellite data indicate an Iranian Il-76 transport plane made direct flights with the containers from Pyongyang's Sunan airport to Iran six times from April to June 10.
After analyzing information obtained through various channels, South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities tentatively concluded that disassembled warheads and Rodong missiles -- the same type sold to Pakistan in 1998 -- were inside the containers, the paper said.
They believe North Korea has changed the way it exports missiles after a North Korean vessel carrying missiles was seized on its way to Yemen last December, it said.
----
DMZ Twist: U.S. Retreat Unsettles North Korea
NEWS ANALYSIS
June 16, 2003
New York Times
By JAMES BROOKE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/international/asia/16KORE.html
SEOUL, South Korea, June 10 - When the Pentagon announced its plans to pull American troops away from the border with North Korea, attention focused mostly on South Korea and its objections to losing the protection of the so-called tripwire. What was largely overlooked were the protests from the party that felt most threatened by the change: North Korea.
The tripwire, it seems, works both ways.
Ever since the armistice ending the Korean War was signed on July 27, 1953, North Korea has bitterly denounced the presence of American garrisons near the border. While the 700,000 North Korean soldiers in the border area outnumber the 14,000 American troops by 50 to 1, North Korea implicitly accepted the real strategic value of the tripwire: if the North Koreans ever repeated their surprise attack of 1950, American deaths would draw the United States into a second Korean War.
In a new twist, North Korea now fears that if the United States rolls up its human tripwire, it will free the United States to bomb nuclear sites near Pyongyang, the capital. In the military chess game on the Korean Peninsula, by moving American troops out of range of North Korea's border artillery, the United States gains a strategic advantage.
"Our army and people will answer the U.S. arms buildup with a corresponding powerful deterrent force and its pre-emptive attack with a prompt retaliation to destroy it at the initial stage of war," North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said recently.
Alexandre Mansourov, a former Russian diplomat in Pyongyang who now teaches at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii, translated North Korea's concerns, saying, "If the U.S. pulls out of the bases, North Korea knows that the U.S. is preparing a pre-emptive strike."
Removing the tripwire deprives North Korea of two other critical strategic advantages. Without the American bases near the demilitarized zone, North Korean military leaders lose the chance to drape themselves in nationalist colors by killing large numbers of Americans. Lacking those American targets, North Korea would have to resume threatening to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire," which would undermine its stated desire for harmonious relations with South Korea.
In addition, China, which increasingly sees North Korea as an economic millstone, is likely to oppose strongly any attack on South Korea, which is now one of China's top five trading partners and foreign investors.
For their part, South Koreans, by and large, are almost as nervous as the North Koreans. While the public image of South Korea is which often focuses on anti-American protests, polls indicate that a largely silent majority want the American troops to stay put.
Calling the tripwire "a psychological defense line" against North Korea, a group of 133 National Assembly members, about half the total, have begun a drive to collect 10 million signatures to oppose the move.
To reassure the South Koreans, the United States promised to continue to carry out training in areas near the demilitarized zone.
This American pledge "will mean that U.S. troops will continue to play the role of a tripwire to deter war," said South Korea's assistant defense minister for policy, Lt. Gen. Cha Young Koo, in an effort to sell the public on the unpopular deal that he was forced to accept.
For Americans, this concept is glaringly out of date in light of the war in Iraq, where much of the attack was waged by long-distance bombs and cruise missiles instead of soldiers climbing out of trenches. In an age when American and British forces took over Iraq in three weeks and lost fewer than 200 soldiers, the idea of leaving 14,000 troops exposed to withering bombardments seems nonsensical.
"The term or concept of tripwire is an antiquated one and doesn't bear a lot of relevance to current data," Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, commander of the American Pacific Command, said recently in Tokyo. "When you have missiles that go hundreds of miles or actually thousands of miles; you can threaten a porch or an airfield a couple of hundred miles away, forces that are tens of miles away don't constitute a tripwire. So that's a term that I think has outlived its usefulness."
But not, perhaps, to the North Koreans.
-------- terrorism
'Dirty Bomb' Materials Seized in Georgia
June 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GEORGIA_RADIOACTIVE_MATERIAL?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Georgia-Radioactive-Material.html
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) -- A taxi driver was detained after authorities in the Georgian capital found nerve gas and radioactive materials that can make a ``dirty bomb'' in his cab, officials said Monday.
Tedo Mokeliya was detained May 31 after police in this former Soviet republic discovered two containers holding cesium-137 and strontium in his taxi, said Givi Mgebrishvili, chief of the Interior Ministry's main criminal investigation department.
Cesium and strontium, which have medical and industrial applications, also are considered likely ingredients for a so-called ``dirty bomb,'' in which conventional explosives are combined with radioactive material.
Police also found a dark brown liquid later determined to be nerve gas concentrate, Mgebrishvili said. No other details were immediately available.
Police said the illicit materials might have been earmarked for sale in Turkey.
Officials did not say where Mokeliya is believed to have obtained the substances or why they chose to search his taxi in the first place.
Thefts of the materials became common after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and, according to some estimates, dozens of such containers remain unaccounted for.
Environment Minister Nino Chkhobadze said the materials allegedly seized from the taxi had not contaminated the surrounding environment.
---
Georgia Finds Dirty Bomb Material in Taxi
June 16, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-georgia.html
TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgian authorities have found highly radioactive material that could be used in a ``dirty'' bomb and a container of lethal Mustard Gas in a taxi in the capital Tbilisi, police said on Monday.
Police searched the taxi on May 31 and found two metal boxes stuffed with radioactive by-products of nuclear fission, Cesium-137 and Strontium-90. One container, inscribed in Russian and English, weighed at least 170 pounds.
A separate container had Mustard Gas, or Yperite, an odorless chemical used in World War One and which can be lethal in small quantities.
``The most likely version is that the containers were intended to be transported on to Turkey and to be resold,'' police spokesman Givi Mgebrishvili told a news conference.
Mgebrishvili said police found the material during a routine raid in a Tbilisi suburb.
The taxi driver was unaware of his dangerous cargo and has been released. Two suspects are in police custody, accused of trying to take the material to the former Soviet state's Adzhara autonomous republic on the border with Turkey.
``A dirty bomb could be easily made from these substances,'' said Leri Meskhi, a nuclear expert at Tbilisi University.
In March, the United Nations nuclear watchdog called for stricter international security measures to keep radioactive material out of the hands of terrorists, who could use it to wreak havoc with dirty bombs.
A dirty bomb combines conventional explosives with radioactive material. It may not cause more casualties than a conventional blast, but the threat of radioactive contamination could create widespread panic.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, nuclear materials once under Moscow's control have turned up in many of its former republics and beyond.
In one of the most serious incidents, three men were arrested at Munich airport in Germany in 1994 carrying 12 ounces of Russian weapons-grade plutonium.
----
GAO Faults U.S. Effort to Secure Dirty Bomb Material
June 16, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-arms-congress-dirtybombs.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Thousands of containers of radioactive materials used in medicine, industry and research that could be used to make crude but potentially deadly ``dirty bombs'' have been lost or stolen worldwide, the General Accounting Office said on Monday.
The GAO criticized the Energy Department, which leads the U.S. effort to secure these containers, for not having an adequate plan to help countries that pose the biggest security risks amid rising concerns the material could fall into the hands of rogue nations or terror groups.
The GAO, Congress' investigative arm, also complained the Energy Department has spent most of the program's money in the United States instead of to secure materials in the former Soviet Union where the materials are concentrated.
While it said information is limited on the number of lost or stolen containers of radioactive materials originally intended for peaceful uses, the GAO said ``it is estimated to be in the thousands worldwide.''
The GAO said there was a particular need to secure more than 1,000 electrical generators powered by strontium-90, a destructive radiological material, throughout the former Soviet Union.
The Energy Department has received about $37 million since fiscal year 2002 to launch a program to help other countries control their sealed sources, and is to get $22 million more this year.
But the GAO said the department's initial efforts ``have lacked adequate planning and coordination,'' and said it has not worked effectively with agencies such as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Most of the funds have been spent in the United States, largely by the department's laboratories, instead of in the former Soviet Union, it said.
Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, top Democrat on the Governmental Affairs subcommittee on international security and proliferation, said the report showed that ``there is a worldwide crisis in tracking and securing'' the containers, and said the Energy Department ``needs to work much harder to make sure U.S. assistance goes overseas where it's needed.''
----
Georgia finds 'dirty bomb' material
Monday, 16 June, 2003
(BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2994680.stm
The authorities in Georgia have said that two metal boxes seized last month in the capital Tbilisi were filled with radioactive material that could be used to make a "dirty bomb".
Georgian officials said the green boxes - found in a taxi during a routine raid near the city's railway station - contained a mixture of substances including Caesium and Strontium.
"These substances could be used to create a so-called 'dirty bomb' which would be operational within a 500 to 600-metre radius, and would create a bigger [area of] radioactive fallout ," Interior Ministry spokesman Givi Mgebriashvili said at a news conference.
According to the Reuters news agency, one of the boxes weighted at least 80kg (170 lbs).
Associated Press said the haul included three curies of Caesium and 12 microcuries of Strontium.
Agencies have described another substance found in the taxi variously as Mustard Gas and a "nerve gas concentrate".
Two arrested
Police suspect the radioactive substances were going to be smuggled into Turkey and sold.
One man was arrested when the taxi was searched on 31 May.
Police say he was intending to take the substances to a relative in the south-western Georgian region of Adzharia, near the Turkish border.
Last year, a team of international experts retrieved two cylinders emitting lethal levels of radiation from a remote forest in the western part of Georgia.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned after the discovery that there may be other radioactive devices scattered across remote areas of Georgia.
In March this year it called for stricter international security measures to keep such materials out of terrorist hands.
More than 280 radioactive sources have already been recovered from Georgia since the mid-1990s. Some were from abandoned Soviet military bases.
Russia and the United States last year claimed that Al-Qaeda members were taking refuge in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Expanded nuclear subsidies unfair and undesirable
June 16, 2003
Washington Times
Letters to the Editor
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20030615-112306-2845r.htm
I couldn't disagree more with [the Washington Times] editorial in support of expanded federal subsidies for the nuclear power industry ("A needed nuclear boost," Editorials, Thursday, 6/12/03). The narrow defeat of a bipartisan amendment to the Senate energy bill that proposed to strike federal financing for nuclear construction projects was a loss to consumers, taxpayers and the environment.
Even the first nuclear reactors did not require the level of taxpayer financing proposed by current Senate energy legislation. Nearly five decades and more than 100 reactors later, the nuclear industry should no longer need hand-holding. Extending these unparalleled subsidies to the nuclear industry would distort electricity markets, granting costly nuclear power an unfair and undesirable advantage over safe, clean energy alternatives. New nuclear power plants and the radioactive waste they generate would burden the public with expenses and potential liabilities while imposing additional safety and security threats.
Fiscally, environmentally and in terms of safety, promoting the construction of new nuclear reactors just doesn't make sense - much like the Senate energy bill as a whole.
WENONAH HAUTER Director
Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program
Washington
-------- us politics
Senate Panel to Review Weapons Data
By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 16, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62664-2003Jun15?language=printer
Senate intelligence committee Chairman Pat Roberts said yesterday his panel will hold closed hearings and probably will produce a report on what U.S. intelligence agencies knew about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the war and whether the Bush administration conveyed that information accurately to the public.
He said that intelligence agencies have delivered "voluminous" material to the committee and that he has encouraged all members to read it before they begin questioning analysts or policymakers. Hearings, he said, will take place behind closed doors but could conclude with a public hearing if members think one is warranted.
Roberts, appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," pledged to move on a bipartisan basis to examine the issue outside a "political context." He said he thinks the committee "will probably have a classified report and a public report."
Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, complained during the same program that Senate Republicans are not doing enough to ensure there is a thorough bipartisan review of whether the information about Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction was hyped to build support for the war, a question he said "goes to the heart of our intelligence."
Roberts (R-Kan.) said he plans to interview administration officials. He reiterated his "open invitation" to anyone in the intelligence community "who thinks that their analytical product was skewed in any way, or if they were intimidated, or if they were coerced." He said the committee has already heard from one person who would want to share such concerns, he said.
The CIA has previously said that one of its employees complained to the agency ombudsman late last year that information was being distorted to support going to war, but that the complaint was ill-founded. An official has denied that three such complaints have been filed with the CIA ombudsman, as The Washington Post reported May 31.
CIA Director George J. Tenet and senior foreign policy officials in the Bush administration have sought to rebut criticism that the agency's intelligence on Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons was exaggerated. The search for such weapons in Iraq continues.
There was continued speculation yesterday that material may have been moved to Iran or Syria, including from Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee.
Her panel is set to begin hearings this week on whether intelligence was politicized. So far, Harman told "Fox News Sunday," she does not believe the intelligence was distorted, as some have charged, but she said she wants to examine whether it was credible in the first place, and whether it was oversimplified in Bush administration rhetoric. "We're going to find that out," she said.
----
Levin Seeks Release of WMD Intelligence
Monday June 16, 2003
By KEN GUGGENHEIM
Associated Press Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2797807,00.html
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Democratic senator urged the CIA on Monday to release information that he said would prove the United States withheld from U.N. inspectors key information on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., has said for months that CIA Director George Tenet's open statements about how much intelligence was shared with inspectors contradict classified information. The contradictions show the need for a Senate investigation into whether U.S. intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs was ``shaded or exaggerated,'' he said.
``If Director Tenet said that we have done something in terms of sharing information with the U.N. which was not factually accurate, that is part of the same question,'' said Levin, top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee and a member of the Intelligence Committee.
Republican leaders of both committees have rejected Democrats' calls for a formal investigation, contending there is no sign of wrongdoing, and said the committees will review the intelligence as part of their regular oversight processes. In the House, Democrats and Republicans on the Intelligence Committee have agreed to hold a review.
Levin said of 550 suspected weapons sites, 150 were considered ``top suspect sites,'' according to recently declassified figures. Of those 150, a secret number were considered high and medium priority sites.
Tenet told lawmakers in February and March that U.N. inspectors were briefed on all the ``high value and moderate value sites.'' Levin said classified figures show that wasn't true and has urged Tenet to declassify the number of those sites and the number of sites that had been provided to the United Nations.
In a May 23 letter to Levin, Tenet refused to release the figures, citing a need to maintain secrecy in its relationships with international organizations. By releasing the data, ``we risk undermining our credibility with other international organizations with whom we continue to interact,'' Tenet wrote.
Levin released Monday a letter dated last Wednesday that he received from chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, saying he had no objection to making the information public.
``In light of Dr. Blix's letter to me, I know of no legitimate reason for keeping those numbers classified any longer,'' Levin said.
A CIA spokesman would not comment.
Levin said if Americans had known that not all information about top weapons sites had been shared with inspectors, ``there could have been greater public demand that the inspection process continue.''
He said his main concern is whether future U.S. intelligence would be viewed as objective and accurate.
``It undermines the credibility of the director of intelligence to be making public statements relative to intelligence which are not factually accurate,'' Levin said.
----
A House Divided
White House, CIA Trade Blows Over Intelligence That Justified Iraq War
ABCNEWS.com
June 16, 2003
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/World/iraq030616_uranium.html
June 16- The U.S. failure to find any significant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, months after toppling Saddam Hussein's regime, has sparked a heated, behind-the-scenes argument between the White House and the CIA over what intelligence the agency actually provided, and how the Bush administration used it.
The most contentious point is an assertion the president made in his State of the Union address on Jan. 29.
In making his case for war on Iraq, Bush stated: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
But U.S. inspectors in Iraq have so far found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program, and other U.S. officials say the administration should have known such allegations were, as they said, "bogus."
A former U.S. ambassador told ABCNEWS he visited the African country of Niger in February 2002 upon CIA request to investigate claims that it was selling uranium to Iraq, and found the claims "bogus and unrealistic."
On March 9, 2002, details about the ambassador's investigation were relayed to the White House, the secretary of state, the U.S. Central Command and British officials via a classified cable.
The cable said senior officials in Niger said they were unaware of any contracts being signed with Iraq or the sale of yellowcake [an unprocessed form of uranium] and that the Nigerien officials said they thought it was unlikely any yellowcake was leaving their country and going to places that it not ought to go.
Still, the uranium charge found its way into the president's State of the Union address 10 months later.
No Allegations, No Concerns
If the administration somehow missed that cable doubting uranium sales to Iraq, there have been other chances for it to learn, sources told ABCNEWS.
On Sept. 24, in a classified briefing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, an intelligence official testified that the CIA had "concerns" about the allegations that Niger was selling uranium, ABCNEWS has learned.
That same day, the president urged Congress to "pass a resolution which will hold Saddam Hussein to account for a decade of defiance."
After the president made his statement, the first reporter to question him noted that "Tony Blair said today that Saddam has tried to acquire significant quantities of uranium ... But there seems to be little new information in the dossier."
The president sounded a defensive note, saying: "[Blair] explained why he didn't put new information - to protect sources."
A senior intelligence official told ABCNEWS: "The CIA conducted more than 20 briefings on the Hill and elsewhere in the run-up to the war and in none of those did we offer up the yellowcake allegations."
Asked if they voiced concerns about the allegations in these briefings, the official said, "We didn't report the allegations, so we didn't need to voice concerns."
The official said CIA Director George Tenet supported this assessment of the Niger allegations. "As far as I know, if Tenet talked about it, he mentioned the caveat that it was suspect," the official said.
The allegations were not in "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs," the CIA's definitve report on the rogue nation's weapons programs that was released in October 2002, nor were they in the annual worldwide threat assessment, the official said.
In Search of Proof
However, the allegations were in another, more specific document the CIA also put out in October.
A national intelligence estimate talked about Iraq having yellowcake in general, and mentioned that foreign governments had reported that Niger was considering selling uranium to Iraq, but the estimate added, "We do not know the status of this arrangement."
A senior White House official told ABCNEWS that everyone was in agreement over the president's State of the Union remarks. "We were very careful with what the president said. We vetted the information at the highest levels," the official said.
But the intelligence official dismissed these claims. When told that the White House said draft after draft or "annotated" versions of the speech were sent over, he said, "Oh yeah? Ask them to show you any of those drafts."
ABCNEWS' Martha Raddatz contributed to this report.
Denying a Denial
While the CIA asserts it had doubts about claims that Iraq was buying uranium, another branch of U.S. intelligence is denying it ever had doubts about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, in spite of language in one of its own reports that suggested that it did.
A September 2002 report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the intelligence wing of the Pentagon, said:
"There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has - or will - establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities."
Last week, top officials in the DIA responded to the report in a top secret hearing before Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
"The sentence that is being parried is a single sentence. It is from a planning document which referred, at the time, to a specific individual's facilities. It is not in any way meant to convey that we had doubts that such a program existed," said Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Critics are quick to point out that report clearly did not refer to a "specific individual," but Iraq itself. One former analyst told ABCNEWS: "'No reliable evidence' means just what it says - English is English and this was ground truth."
However, Warner declared the answer satisfactory. "The questions that are on the minds of Americans and others were answered," he said.
He also said, though, that the Senate Armed Services Committee would continue to press on the questions surrounding the intelligence which led the United States to war.
He has requested the Department of Defense to declassify the DIA's September 2002 report that contained the seemingly equivocal language. He also promised to hold further hearings.
"There are always times when a single sentence or a single report raises concern or doubts ... my committee will be assessing a great amount of documents ... and we will dispel whatever doubts remain," Warner said.
- Edward O'Keefe and Martha Raddatz, ABCNEWS
----
Former Aide Takes Aim at War on Terror
By Laura Blumenfeld
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 16, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62941-2003Jun15?language=printer
Five days before the war began in Iraq, as President Bush prepared to raise the terrorism threat level to orange, a top White House counterterrorism adviser unlocked the steel door to his office, an intelligence vault secured by an electronic keypad, a combination lock and an alarm. He sat down and turned to his inbox.
"Things were dicey," said Rand Beers, recalling the stack of classified reports about plots to shoot, bomb, burn and poison Americans. He stared at the color-coded threats for five minutes. Then he called his wife: I'm quitting.
Beers's resignation surprised Washington, but what he did next was even more astounding. Eight weeks after leaving the Bush White House, he volunteered as national security adviser for Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), a Democratic candidate for president, in a campaign to oust his former boss. All of which points to a question: What does this intelligence insider know?
"The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism. They're making us less secure, not more secure," said Beers, who until now has remained largely silent about leaving his National Security Council job as special assistant to the president for combating terrorism. "As an insider, I saw the things that weren't being done. And the longer I sat and watched, the more concerned I became, until I got up and walked out."
No single issue has defined the Bush presidency more than fighting terrorism. And no issue has both animated and intimidated Democrats. Into this tricky intersection of terrorism, policy and politics steps Beers, a lifelong bureaucrat, unassuming and tight-lipped until now. He is an unlikely insurgent. He served on the NSC under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and the current Bush. The oath of office hangs on the wall by his bed; he tears up when he watches "The West Wing." Yet Beers decided that he wanted out, and he is offering a rare glimpse in.
"Counterterrorism is like a team sport. The game is deadly. There has to be offense and defense," Beers said. "The Bush administration is primarily offense, and not into teamwork."
In a series of interviews, Beers, 60, critiqued Bush's war on terrorism. He is a man in transition, alternately reluctant about and empowered by his criticism of the government. After 35 years of issuing measured statements from inside intelligence circles, he speaks more like a public servant than a public figure. Much of what he knows is classified and cannot be discussed. Nevertheless, Beers will say that the administration is "underestimating the enemy." It has failed to address the root causes of terror, he said. "The difficult, long-term issues both at home and abroad have been avoided, neglected or shortchanged and generally underfunded."
The focus on Iraq has robbed domestic security of manpower, brainpower and money, he said. The Iraq war created fissures in the United States' counterterrorism alliances, he said, and could breed a new generation of al Qaeda recruits. Many of his government colleagues, he said, thought Iraq was an "ill-conceived and poorly executed strategy."
"I continue to be puzzled by it," said Beers, who did not oppose the war but thought it should have been fought with a broader coalition. "Why was it such a policy priority?" The official rationale was the search for weapons of mass destruction, he said, "although the evidence was pretty qualified, if you listened carefully."
He thinks the war in Afghanistan was a job begun, then abandoned. Rather than destroying al Qaeda terrorists, the fighting only dispersed them. The flow of aid has been slow and the U.S. military presence is too small, he said. "Terrorists move around the country with ease. We don't even know what's going on. Osama bin Laden could be almost anywhere in Afghanistan," he said.
As for the Saudis, he said, the administration has not pushed them hard enough to address their own problem with terrorism. Even last September, he said, "attacks in Saudi Arabia sounded like they were going to happen imminently."
Within U.S. borders, homeland security is suffering from "policy constipation. Nothing gets done," Beers said. "Fixing an agency management problem doesn't make headlines or produce voter support. So if you're looking at things from a political perspective, it's easier to go to war."
The Immigration and Naturalization Service, he said, needs further reorganization. The Homeland Security Department is underfunded. There has been little, if any, follow-through on cybersecurity, port security, infrastructure protection and immigration management. Authorities don't know where the sleeper cells are, he said. Vulnerable segments of the economy, such as the chemical industry, "cry out for protection."
"We are asking our firemen, policemen, Customs and Coast Guard to do far more with far less than we ever ask of our military," he said. Abroad, the CIA has done a good job in targeting the al Qaeda leadership. But domestically, the antiterrorism effort is one of talk, not action: "a rhetorical policy. What else can you say -- 'We don't care about 3,000 people dying in New York City and Washington?' "
When asked about Beers, Sean McCormack, an NSC spokesman, said, "At the time he submitted his resignation, he said he had decided to leave government. We thanked him for his three decades of government service." McCormack declined to comment further.
However it was viewed inside the administration, onlookers saw it as a rare Washington event. "I can't think of a single example in the last 30 years of a person who has done something so extreme," said Paul C. Light, a scholar with the Brookings Institution. "He's not just declaring that he's a Democrat. He's declaring that he's a Kerry Democrat, and the way he wants to make a difference in the world is to get his former boss out of office."
Although Beers has worked in three Republican administrations, he is a registered Democrat. He wanted to leave the NSC quietly, so when he resigned, he said it was for "personal reasons." His friends called, worried: "Are you sick?"
When Beers joined the White House counterterrorism team last August, the unit had suffered several abrupt departures. People had warned him the job was impossible, but Beers was upbeat. On Reagan's NSC staff, he had replaced Oliver North as director for counterterrorism and counternarcotics, known as the "office of drugs and thugs."
"Randy's your model government worker," said Wendy Chamberlin, a U.S. Agency for International Development administrator for Iraq, who worked with Beers on counterterrorism on the NSC of the first Bush administration. "He works for the common good of the American people. He's fair, balanced, honest. No one ever gets hurt feelings hearing the truth from Randy."
The first thing Beers noticed when he walked into his new office was the pile of intelligence reports. The "threat stuff," as Beers calls it, was 10 times thicker than it had been before the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings.
He was in a job that would grind down anyone. Every day, 500 to 1,000 pieces of threat information crossed his desk. The typical mix included suspicious surveillance at a U.S. embassy; surveillance of a nuclear power plant or a bridge; a person caught by airport security with a weapon, or an airplane flying too close to the CIA; a tanker truck, which might contain a bomb, crossing the border and heading for a city; an intercepted phone call between suspected terrorists. Most of the top-secret reports -- pumped into his office from the White House Situation Room -- didn't pan out. Often they came from a disgruntled employee or a spouse.
When the chemical agent ricin surfaced in the London subway, "we were worried it might manifest here," he said. The challenge was: "Who do we alert? How do you tell them to organize?"
Every time the government raises an alarm, it costs time and money. "There's less filtering now because people don't want to make the mistake of not warning," he said. Before Sept. 11, 2001, the office met three times a week to discuss intelligence. Now, twice a day, at 7 a.m. and 3 p.m., it holds "threat matrix meetings," tracking the threats on CIA spreadsheets.
It was Beers's task to evaluate the warnings and to act on them. "It's a monstrous responsibility," said William Wechsler, director for transnational threats on Clinton's NSC staff. "You sit around every day, thinking about how people want to kill thousands of Americans."
Steven Simon, director for counterterrorism in the Clinton White House, said, "When we read a piece of intelligence, we'd apply the old how-straight-does-your-hair-stand-up-on-your-head test."
The government's first counterterrorism czar, Richard Clarke, who left his White House job in February after more than 10 years, said officials judged the human intelligence based on two factors: Would the source have access to the information? How reliable was his previous reporting? They scored access to information, 12345; previous reporting, abcd. "A score of D5, you don't believe. A1 -- you do," Clarke said. "It's like a jolt of espresso, and you feel like -- whoop -- it pumps you up, and wakes you up."
It's easier to raise the threat level -- from code yellow to code orange, for example -- than to lower it, Beers said: "It's easier to see the increase in intelligence suggesting something's going to happen. What do you say when we're coming back down? Does nothing happening mean it's not going to happen? It's still out there."
After spending all day wrestling with global jihad, Beers would go home to his Adams Morgan townhouse. "You knew not to get the phone in the middle of the night, because it was for Dad," said his son Benjamin, 28. When the Situation Room called, Beers would switch to a black, secure phone that scrambled the signal, after fishing the key out of his sock drawer. There were times he would throw on sweats over his pajamas and drive downtown.
"The first day, I came in fresh and eager," he said. "On the last day, I came home tired and burned out. And it only took seven months."
Part of that stemmed from his frustration with the culture of the White House. He was loath to discuss it. His wife, Bonnie, a school administrator, was not: "It's a very closed, small, controlled group. This is an administration that determines what it thinks and then sets about to prove it. There's almost a religious kind of certainty. There's no curiosity about opposing points of view. It's very scary. There's kind of a ghost agenda."
In the end, Beers was arriving at work each day with knots in his stomach. He did not want to abandon his colleagues at such a critical, dangerous time. When he finally decided to quit, he drove to a friend's house in Arlington. Clarke, his old counterterrorism pal, took one look at the haggard man on his stoop and opened a bottle of Russian River Pinot Noir. Then he opened another bottle. Clarke toasted Beers, saying: You can still fight the fight.
Shortly after that, Beers joined the Kerry campaign. He had briefly considered a think tank or an academic job but realized that he "never felt so strongly about something in my life" than he did about changing current U.S. policies. Of the Democratic candidates, Kerry offered the greatest expertise in foreign affairs and security issues, he decided. Like Beers, Kerry had served in Vietnam. As a civil servant, Beers liked Kerry's emphasis on national service.
On a recent hot night, at 10 o'clock, Beers sat by an open bedroom window, wearing a T-shirt, his bare feet propped on a table.
Beers was on a three-hour conference call, the weekly Monday night foreign policy briefing for the campaign. The black, secure phone by his bedside was gone. Instead, there was a red, white and blue bumper sticker: "John Kerry -- President." The buzz of helicopters blew through the window. Since Sept. 11, 2001, it seemed, there were more helicopters circling the city.
"And we need to return to that kind of diplomatic effort . . . ," Beers was saying, over the droning sound. His war goes on.
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The Mideast: Neocons on the Line
A growing number of critics on Capitol Hill and around the world are questioning the Bush administration's credibility-and its assumptions-as never before.
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek International
6/16/03
http://www.msnbc.com/news/926946.asp?0cv=KB10
June 23 issue - Paul Wolfowitz seems a bundle of contradictions, all of them roiling inside him. Calm yet driven, a champion of bold action who speaks in a soft, somewhat quavery voice, Wolfowitz today finds himself pacing the world stage like a nervous father. He is a father in a sense-to an idea, one that has taken on a life of its own and, somewhat in the manner of a wayward child, is causing its parent no end of grief.
IT WAS WOLFOWITZ, the gentlemanly superhawk, who within days of 9-11 prodded the Bush administration into a radical new strategy: forcefully confronting states that sponsor terrorism. It was Wolfowitz-the ex math whiz who fell in love with the idea of "national greatness" as a youth and is now seen as the Bush administration's chief intellectual-who pressed Bush hardest to transform the war on terror into a campaign for regime change and democracy in rogue nations, especially in Iraq and the Islamic world.
Now the deputy defense secretary and his fellow neoconservatives are on the defensive. They are battling a growing crowd of critics on Capitol Hill and around the world as the Bush administration's credibility-and its assumptions-are tested as never before. In Iraq, after another week in which U.S. troops died and got into fierce fire fights, elements of more than half of America's Army divisions are tied down. Some U.S. officials have begun muttering the dreaded Q word-quagmire, a term Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had mocked on a visit to Baghdad in the days just after the three-week war. In the Mideast, the hard-liners' move to replace Yasir Arafat with the moderate Mahmoud Abbas-and to ignore the conflict until after the Iraq war-has touched off a new cycle of violence that stunned even the White House in its savagery. It seems increasingly difficult to argue that "the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad." In the face of a possible congressional probe into why Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction have not been found, two Pentagon neocons, Doug Feith and Bill Luti, sought earlier this month to identify themselves with, of all people, Bill Clinton. In a fumbling news conference, they insisted that their intel squared with the previous administration's.
QUESTIONS ON U.S. CREDIBILITY
Fairly or not, Paul Wolfowitz has become a lightning rod for much of this criticism, and to "cry Wolfowitz" has already become a catchphrase for the pressing questions about U.S. credibility. At a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Wolfowitz-always a striking presence with his thick black hair, vaguely lupine looks and air of tense repose-was rocked by hostile questioning. Wolfowitz not long ago dismissed Army chief Eric Shinseki's call for a large peacekeeping force as "wildly off the mark." Now he indicated that Iraq looked more complicated than Bosnia. "We've been in Bosnia for eight years," Sen. Joseph Biden snapped back. "That would seem to compute that we're likely to be in Iraq for a long time-a long time."
Wolfowitz himself never thought that his long-sought goal of democratic transformation would be easy. This week, Wolfowitz and the neocon elite gather again for their annual conclave in Beaver Creek, Colo., the ritzy ski resort where last year Natan Sharansky, the Israeli politician and hard-line advocate of Arab democracy, gave the keynote speech (inspiring Dick Cheney, among others). And in Beaver Creek the neocons can-and will-claim an uncertain triumph. There is a kind of emerging democracy in the Palestinian territories. And there is regime change in Iraq. If WMD evidence remains elusive, the horrific evidence of Saddam's savagery only grows: many Iraqis remain grateful for the U.S. intervention. In some ways, things have been easier than expected: U.S. troops scored a lightning victory in Iraq and the worst fears proved unfounded. Americans were not hit by chemical or biological weapons, and the country hasn't yet disintegrated into civil war as some warned. Certainly no one expected a sudden flowering of Mideast peace.
Yet even as the neocons savor these victories, some critics suggest their moment may already have passed. Few in the Bush administration invoke the toppling of Saddam's statue in Baghdad any longer, as they did so euphorically in early May. The future does look messier and more ambiguous than some neocons had hoped, and the hawks now have to figure out how to build things up, rather than knock them down. Among those at last year's Beaver Creek gathering-which is sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, the neocon think tank-was Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile leader who was then seen as the neocon candidate of choice to lead postwar Iraq. Now he's been sidelined by the American czar in Baghdad, State Department careerist L. Paul Bremer. Other key neocons, like Wolfowitz's old ally and friend Richard Perle, have withdrawn from public view; Perle resigned as chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board in March amid questions over alleged conflicts of interest related to his business dealings. Most deflating of all, a new Pew Research poll shows rampant anti-Americanism has overtaken even formerly pro-American Muslim countries like Indonesia and Nigeria, both chaotic places where terrorists can congregate.
PAINTED INTO A CORNER?
Just as worrisome is the issue of how to confront other state sponsors of terror and WMD, like Iran, Syria and North Korea. The administration seems far less willing to go to war in those places than it was in Iraq, pushing for multilateral solutions for the moment. But "the neocons have painted themselves, rhetorically, into a corner," says a former senior Bush official. "They're kind of stuck in a position where they can't just let this go. If they're not seen as doing something to get Syria and Iran to take care of terror, they'll look incoherent."
Yet on these issues the administration seems adrift, and once again internally conflicted. Officials talk of waiting for grass-roots democracy in Iran, but some civilian hawks are still discussing a strategy with parallels to their pre-invasion designs on Iraq: funding covert activity and sponsoring exile leaders like Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late Shah of Iran. North Korea is again brazenly threatening to build nuclear weapons and here, too, the administration is flirting with regime change, reducing food aid in an apparent effort to strangle the totalitarian state. Wolfowitz, on a recent trip to South Korea, commented that North Korea "is teetering on the edge of economic collapse." In the wake of a string of suicide attacks in Israel, like this one that killed 17 people last week, Wolfowitz has suggested that Bush will press
Hovering over all this is a more philosophical question: can democracy really be imposed by force, or even outside pressure? And is it such a panacea?
What is clear is that the neocon vision has become the hard core of American foreign policy, making the neocons every critic's favorite demon. Wolfowitz and Perle are the leading lights, most agree, joined by a supporting cast including I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Cheney's chief of staff; Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3, and leading ideologues in the Beltway commentariat like William Kristol and Robert Kagan. Collectively, they are often misportrayed as a cabal of conspiring former Democratic hawks who grew alienated from their party after Vietnam. Typically, the neocons are characterized as intellectual groupies who worship Leo Strauss, a mid-20th-century philosopher who idealized Platonic virtues in rulers and whose views have been summed up as "it's the regime, stupid."
In fact, some like Perle and Kagan say their views have nothing to do with Strauss, and Wolfowitz, for one, mocks the idea that he is a Straussian. Yes, he took two college courses from Strauss, but he asks, chuckling, "You need an obscure political philosopher to understand that it makes a difference what kind of regime rules Iraq?" The neocons, many of whom are Jewish, are also sometimes maliciously caricatured as shills for Israel's hard-right Likud Party-even by some in the senior GOP establishment. But that does little to explain how the neocons have won the hearts and minds of good Methodists like Cheney, Presbyterians like national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice or WASPs like Rumsfeld.
A MARRIAGE OF POWER AND PRINCIPLE
The neocon view is, in truth, far more complex than most of these portraits suggest. Essentially a rebirth of Reaganism, today's neoconservatism has deep roots in the old ideological fights of the cold-war era. It stands at heart for a robust marriage of power and principle, a fusing of America's precision-guided ability to change regimes with an evangelical belief that the only right regime is democracy. Driving it all is the idea that thanks to America's unrivaled might, this is the moment in history to complete the global transformation begun by Ronald Reagan-who declared in 1982 that tyranny was destined for the ash heap of history-and left unfinished after the cold war. Especially in a post-9-11 world, this is no time for old-fashioned conservatism. It is a time to be bold. Sharansky, who first got to know the neocons when he was a Soviet dissident, says hard-liners like Wolfowitz and moderates like Secretary of State Colin Powell are mainly refighting the battles of detente vs. confrontation over the Soviet Union. "It's the same debate-trying to make dictators more friendly or replacing them with democracy and not with other dictators."
Wolfowitz, for one, resists neat labels to describe his views. He also denies that he has any grand global strategy. For hawks like him, the invasion of Iraq was in large part about finishing a war that never really ended in 1991. But it was also about dispensing with a traditional GOP foreign policy dependent on careful consensus and alliance-building in favor of a more aggressive one. Leaving Saddam in power in 1991, merely handing Kuwait back to its rulers after the gulf war, had been a classic "realist" response once favored by the GOP establishment. But after 9-11 conservatives considered the decision to restore the Arab status quo their biggest mistake, the chief sin of Bush the father. Over the next decade it generated hatemongers like Osama bin Laden, left WMD in the hands of defiant tyrants like Saddam and "peace" in the hands of corrupt autocrats like Yasir Arafat. September 11 was an indictment of every policymaker over the decade who'd seen the Arab world merely as a gas station to the globe. The Arabs had to change, too, fundamentally.
Partly what fuels the neocons' air of certainty is the sense that they've been vindicated by history. Wolfowitz, like Perle, is only in his latest of many incarnations in power. Thirty-four years ago he and Perle had first worked together in pushing for missile defense, decrying the arms-control accords that needlessly held America's superior technology back, fulfilling the agenda of their mutual mentor, cold-war hawk and grand theorist Albert Wohlstetter. On this, as on so many things, they believed they had been prescient: the Soviet Union, more economically backward than anyone knew, collapsed in the face of U.S. Defense spending, unable to keep up with the high-tech wizardry that today gives America its unparalleled might. It was Wolfowitz who, as far back as the Carter administration, also first warned of the danger from Saddam. And it was Wolfowitz who, in 1992, authored a Defense planning paper that stirred a huge controversy in Washington by declaring that America intended to remain the world's only great power.
THE NEO-REAGANITE VISION
This aggressive world view has, by most accounts, won over George W. Bush, who is himself far more of a Reaganite than he is an acolyte of his father. The neo-Reaganite vision has provided a liturgy and a purpose to the president's Christian evangelical sense of destiny, and imbued his Texas tough-guy persona with a historic mission. Even before 9-11, the neocons felt they had a soulmate, says Perle-that the son had "a more robust world view" than the father. "He was prepared to assume greater risk for greater gains," says Perle.
Until now, Democrats and moderate Republicans have found themselves at a loss to counter this ideological onslaught. "These guys are the conservative version of the best and brightest," says Biden, harking back to the Democratic-policy establishment during the Vietnam War. Republican-establishment types, meanwhile, grumble that their revered Grand Old Party has been body-snatched by a foreign host, former Democratic hawks who have tossed moderation to the winds. "I think the party basically has been taken over by the neocons," says a senior official from the first Bush administration.
For Wolfowitz, the irony is that while he is known as the most powerful neoconservative in Washington, he's never swallowed all of the neocon Kool-Aid. True, he seems to have been a hawk from childhood, deeply influenced by his father-famed mathematician Jack Wolfowitz, a Vietnam hard-liner who drilled the lessons of the Holocaust (appeasement never works) into his children. (Wolfowitz's sister, Laura Sachs, says her brother often jokingly told their father: "You have only yourself to blame for all this.") Later, at the University of Chicago grad school, a haven for right-wing thinkers, Wolfowitz was smitten with the grandeur of great empires, says Charles Fairbanks, a fellow Chicago grad and friend. Fairbanks remembers a long drive back from Chicago to New York with Wolfowitz. "He had just been reading Livy's history of Rome. He was obviously somehow in love with political greatness, I think in the same way as the young Lincoln was. He talked for hours at a time about the ancient Romans, about what kind of men they were and what they achieved."
But wolfowitz is far too pragmatic and smart to push blindly for regime change everywhere. "I actually am a great believer in the importance of evolutionary change," he says. On Mideast peace, Wolfowitz has privately suggested that the Bushies will end up where Clinton did: pressing the Israelis to give up their settlements (though as yet Ariel Sharon is adamantly resisting). Wolfowitz's sister, who is an Israeli citizen and holds moderate political views, says her brother "is not a Likud supporter. He believes in the peace process." And even as Wolfowitz talks of economic collapse in North Korea, he is still seeking to prod dictator Kim Jong Il to follow China's path: reform from within. On Iran, says Fairbanks, it was Wolfowitz who 20 years ago suggested regime change may not always be a good thing. As State policy-planning chief in 1982, when he and others were conceiving the Reagan Doctrine (the precursor to today's democracy-transformation vision), Wolfowitz cited the disaster of the then young Khomeini revolution. The Islamist takeover, of course, had been inspired by a 1953 U.S.-orchestrated coup that installed the shah.
The problem that Bush hard-liners must confront is that power and democracy don't mix easily, that America is not the Rome of Livy. Speaking in the sober tones now coming out of the White House, one senior administration official sums up the problem: America has the power of a true empire, like Rome or like Britain in the 19th century, but not the taste for acting like one. "Look at us in Iraq-how much difficulty we have in saying we will not anoint people to run the country. Does anyone think the Romans or the Brits would have been deterred for one second?" he says. "People keep accusing the administration of being imperialist, or neo-imperialist, or seeking an American empire. It's just not in our nature to be imperialist."
It is possible the neocon embrace of regime change and pre-emption may prove to be as important and enduring as cold-war-era containment doctrine. Or it may just be that the military triumph in Iraq marks the high tide of neocon thinking. Having had two regime-changing wars, and having corrected the historic mistake of 1991, the hawks don't seem eager for another. Even Kristol, never shy about asserting U.S. power (he can afford to be: he's a magazine editor, not a policymaker), says, "I don't quite know what to do about North Korea." The ultimate question, he adds, is whether "Iraq was sort of a one-off deal. Bush understands that if North Korea and Iran are still chugging toward nukes a year from now unimpeded in any way, and the dynamics of the Middle East haven't been changed at all, then the Bush doctrine gets called into question." Paul Wolfowitz may be the one who is called in to answer.
With Dan Ephron in Jerusalem and Tamara Lipper in Washington
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Levin Seeks Release of Iraq Intelligence
June 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Iraq-Weapons.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Democratic senator urged the CIA on Monday to release information that he said would prove the United States withheld from U.N. inspectors key information on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., has said for months that CIA Director George Tenet's open statements about how much intelligence was shared with inspectors contradict classified information. The contradictions show the need for a Senate investigation into whether U.S. intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs was ``shaded or exaggerated,'' he said.
``If Director Tenet said that we have done something in terms of sharing information with the U.N. which was not factually accurate, that is part of the same question,'' said Levin, top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee and a member of the Intelligence Committee.
Republican leaders of both committees have rejected Democrats' calls for a formal investigation, contending there is no sign of wrongdoing, and said the committees will review the intelligence as part of their regular oversight processes. In the House, Democrats and Republicans on the Intelligence Committee have agreed to hold a review.
Levin said of 550 suspected weapons sites, 150 were considered ``top suspect sites,'' according to recently declassified figures. Of those 150, a secret number were considered high and medium priority sites.
Tenet told lawmakers in February and March that U.N. inspectors were briefed on all the ``high value and moderate value sites.'' Levin said classified figures show that wasn't true and has urged Tenet to declassify the number of those sites and the number of sites that had been provided to the United Nations.
In a May 23 letter to Levin, Tenet refused to release the figures, citing a need to maintain secrecy in its relationships with international organizations. By releasing the data, ``we risk undermining our credibility with other international organizations with whom we continue to interact,'' Tenet wrote.
Levin released Monday a letter dated last Wednesday that he received from chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, saying he had no objection to making the information public.
``In light of Dr. Blix's letter to me, I know of no legitimate reason for keeping those numbers classified any longer,'' Levin said.
A CIA spokesman would not comment.
Levin said if Americans had known that not all information about top weapons sites had been shared with inspectors, ``there could have been greater public demand that the inspection process continue.''
He said his main concern is whether future U.S. intelligence would be viewed as objective and accurate.
``It undermines the credibility of the director of intelligence to be making public statements relative to intelligence which are not factually accurate,'' Levin said.
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U.S. May Hit National Debt Ceiling in 2004
June 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BRF-Debt-Limit.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government could hit the new $7.4 trillion limit on the national debt next year-- any time from April through October, Treasury Department spokesman Rob Nichols said Monday.
President Bush last month signed a bill allowing a record $984 billion increase in the amount the federal government can borrow. It marked the second increase in the debt ceiling in roughly a year. In June 2002, the debt ceiling was increased by $450 billion to $6.4 trillion.
The issue is politically touchy. Democrats have blamed the government's need to borrow more on Bush's tax cuts, his handling of the economy and ballooning federal government budget deficits. Republicans have blamed the weak economy and the costs of fighting terrorism for the need to extend the debt limit.
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-------- africa
Marines headed to Liberia
June 16, 2003
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030615-102551-1669r.htm
WASHINGTON, June 15 -- An amphibious assault ship carrying more than 2,000 Marines is headed toward the west coast of Africa to help if Americans need to be evacuated.
The Kearsarge is expected to arrive in the region by midweek, the New York Times reported.
More than 500 foreigners were evacuated last week from the Liberian capital of Monrovia, amid fierce fighting between the government and rebels seeking the ouster of President Charles Taylor.
No Americans have been evacuated, yet, however.
Peace talks between the two warring factions in Ghana broke down last week when the rebels said they would not put down their arms until Taylor resigned.
Taylor, whose power is now limited to only Monrovia, has said he would step down when his term expires next year if his safety is guaranteed, Voice of America reported.
Taylor, who has been indicted for war crimes by a United Nations court, also wants those charges dropped.
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U.S. Weapons Aid Repression in Aceh
By Frida Berrigan
June 11, 2003
Foreign Policy In Focus
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0306aceh.html
Far from the spotlight and far from Baghdad, another shock and awe campaign is underway. On May 19th, Indonesia launched a military campaign to "strike and paralyze" a small band of separatist rebels in the Aceh province. In a made-for-TV photo op, 458 soldiers parachuted onto the island from six C-130 Hercules transport aircraft manufactured by Lockheed Martin, the United States' largest defense contractor. As many as 40,000 Indonesian troops and a police force of 10,000 followed close behind, backed up by warships, fighter planes, and other high-tech military equipment, declaring war on 5,000 separatist guerillas armed with automatic weapons, mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades.
The attack, which is Indonesia's biggest military campaign since its invasion and occupation of East Timor in 1975, follows the breakdown of five months of peace talks between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government. Nongovernmental organizations working to bridge the gap between GAM's assertion of total Acehnese independence and Jakarta's insistence that Aceh remain part of the nation, campaigned for both sides to accept greater Acehnese autonomy and at least some say over how profits from the island's rich resources--including oil and gas reserves--are apportioned. While there was popular support for these compromises throughout Indonesia, and the peace talks had broad support--including from the Bush administration and international lending institutions--the negotiations broke off in mid-May.
Indiscriminate Killing
Acehnese rebels have been fighting for independence for 27 years, in a guerrilla war that has cost the lives of 10,000 civilians and forced tens of thousands more to leave their homes.
While Indonesian military officials claim to be targeting armed rebels, they are employing "drain the ocean to kill the fish" tactics, with brutality and indiscriminate killing. On May 21st, Indonesian soldiers carried out two massacres; killing at least 14 unarmed people, including two 12-year-old boys. That was not an isolated incident. According to Amnesty International, the Indonesian military has engaged in extrajudicial executions of civilians--even children. The human rights group also charges that there is "widespread ... torture of detainees in both military and police custody."
Two weeks into the intervention, the Indonesian military claims that it has killed 112 GAM fighters and captured 160, with an additional 92 surrendering. It also says that its own casualties and civilian deaths have been kept to a minimum, reporting that 10 soldiers and one civilian have been killed. Rebel sources contest these figures, saying that scores of civilians and hundreds of government soldiers have been killed.
While the true number of civilians killed in this intervention probably lie somewhere between the GAM and military counts, the displacement of civilians by the military is ongoing and well-documented by outside sources. The London-based Times quotes the Jakarta government as saying that as many as 200,000 civilians living in GAM strongholds will be interned in "strategic hamlets" for the duration of the war.
The majority of the schools in the region have been burned to the ground. While GAM and the Indonesian military each blame the other for the arson, the destruction was well orchestrated, which points to the military as the culprit. This seems to be part of a larger plan to draw popular support away from the rebels.
U.S. Weapons Do Not Equal Influence
In addition to the well-publicized use of U.S. origin C-130s, the Indonesian Air Force has deployed Rockwell International OV-10 Bronco attack planes, firing air-to-surface missiles at targets in Aceh. Other U.S. systems, like the F-16 Fighting Falcon multi-role fighter jets, S-58 Twinpack helicopters, and numerous small arms, are ready for deployment. The United States Arms Export Control Act stipulates that weapons are transferred to other countries to be used for self-defense, internal security, and participation in UN operations. It is difficult to see how one could classify what is going on in Aceh as meeting any of these three criteria.
In light of these violations of U.S. law and the fact the Washington backed the peace talks between GAM and Jakarta, the criticism of the military operation from the Bush administration has been exceedingly weak. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who served as Ambassador to Indonesia under President Reagan and was friendly with Dictator Suharto, issued a statement saying that "it would be helpful if Indonesia would make sure that the actions of its forces are transparent ... it will help encourage the world that Indonesia is behaving professionally and carefully."
While the Indonesian military has taken a page from the U.S. war in Iraq, embedding journalists and providing media access, its actions are far from transparent. Members of the media have been fired upon, threatened, and detained in the conflict area, and the military authorities have sought to curtail what news does appear, demanding for instance that journalists stop quoting GAM leaders.
Local human rights organizations have been attacked and international observers dispelled from the region, triggering concerns about the safety of civilians and the "transparency" with which the operation is being carried out.
For many years, the U.S. was Indonesia's largest weapons source, equipping the country with everything from F-16 fighter planes to M-16 combat rifles. From the bloody 1975 invasion through the 1990s, the U.S. transferred more than $1 billion in weaponry to Jakarta. Congress moved to ban some military exports to and training for Indonesia after the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre in East Timor, where soldiers wielding U.S. M-16s mowed down more than 270 unarmed people. And then, in response to military and paramilitary violence after East Timor's vote for independence in 1999, Congress strengthened the ban, establishing a set of criteria Indonesia must meet before military ties can be resumed. None of the criteria, including the transparency in military budget and the prosecution of soldiers involved in human rights violations, have been fully met.
Judicial Process Gives Military a Free Pass
While the Indonesian government claims it is making strides to address human rights and military impunity, all the signs point in the exact opposite direction. In January an Indonesian court acquitted Brigadier General Tono Suratman, who was accused of human rights violations in East Timor. He is the 12th defendant acquitted by the court. Even worse is the case of Major General Adam Damiri, who is on trial before a Jakarta human rights court for perpetrating crimes against humanity in East Timor. He has missed three consecutive court appearances because he is helping supervise the military assault on Aceh. Now the Indonesian prosecutors have recommended that all charges against him be dropped. This action makes it likely that there will be no serious penalties levied against the Indonesian military for its brutality in East Timor.
Despite the worsening crisis in Indonesia, the U.S.'s military embargo is under serious pressure as the Bush administration seeks a closer relationship with the world's largest Muslim democracy. In an effort to win support in the war on terrorism, the White House is seeking to renew military aid and training. The embargo on commercial sales of non-lethal defense articles has been lifted and contact between the two militaries is on the rise. Now, Indonesia's military benefits from the Regional Defense Counter-terrorism Fellowship Program, a $17.9 million military training program for Asian militaries. These steps send a message of support to Jakarta, even as many of the problems that sparked Congress' decision to freeze all military aid have not been resolved.
There has been some good news though. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently passed an amendment restricting International Military Education and Training (IMET) for 2004 for Indonesia until the government takes "effective measures" to investigate and criminally prosecute those responsible for a 2002 attack on U.S. citizens. Indonesian police and NGO investigations have implicated the Indonesian military (TNI) in the attack, which killed two Americans. This is a step in the right direction, but the Indonesia military technically still has access to IMET funding for 2003.
Washington often argues that weapons sales allow the administration to wield influence over the policies of purchasing nations. Well, Indonesian General Endriartono Sutarto has a response to that. When asked about the use of UK-origin Hawk fighters in Aceh, he said, "I am going to use what I have. After all, I have paid already." The same can be said for U.S. weapons. These weapons do not go away. The Bronco planes bombing Aceh today are very likely the same ones that dropped napalm and missiles (and maybe even the bomb that killed the sister of Nobel Prize-winning Timorese leader Jose Ramos Horta) in East Timor in 1975.
Given the central role of U.S. weapons in this new round of government sanctioned killing, weapons that Indonesia has paid for already, how can the Bush administration wield its influence to demand more from our ally than "transparent" indiscriminate killing?
If the assertions that weapons sales equal influence are to be believed, the White House and Congress must muster the courage and compassion to demand an immediate cessation of military activities and a return to the negotiating table. Otherwise, our government bears some responsibility for the indiscriminate (but transparent) killing of unarmed Acehnese civilians.
(Frida Berrigan <BerrigaF@newschool.edu> is a senior research associate with the Arms Trade Resource Center, a project of the World Policy Institute. She writes regularly for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)
-------- asia
Thailand hosts U.S. war game
June 16, 2003
By Richard Halloran
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030615-113936-6967r.htm
U-TAPAO, Thailand - The U.S. Marine general leaned across the table in the briefing room and told his staff and subordinate commanders: "We are in an era of complex contingencies. In this operation, there will not be a military phase and then a humanitarian phase. They have to be done together."
Lt. Gen. Wallace C. Gregson, commanding the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force based in Okinawa, Japan, left no doubt in anyone's mind of the difficulties ahead.
"What we are embarked on here," he said, "is to negotiate issues for which there is no doctrine."
The Marines were recently deployed to this Thai air base from which U.S. B-52 bombers flew sorties over Vietnam three decades ago to take part in an annual war game known as Cobra Gold.
Officers from Thailand, Singapore and the United States were required to devise an operation that would expel an invader, set up a buffer zone and restore order to a strife-ridden land.
In this third task, they were confronted with unfamiliar troubles that bore striking parallels to those in Iraq, which was to work with civilian agencies to relieve the human suffering that is the consequence of war. That task continues to baffle U.S., British, and Australian forces in and around Baghdad.
Six weeks after President Bush declared victory, a breakdown in law and order continues; the flow of water and electricity is half of what is needed; and American soldiers are being ambushed daily.
A report from the Center of Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance in Honolulu said warning signs had arisen from increases in diarrhea, cholera, dysentery and typhoid even though there have been "no major outbreaks of disease."
In the Cobra Gold command post exercise, the joint task force commanded by Vice Adm. Somjai Watanaothin of Thailand was confronted with 10 camps holding 750,000 starving, sick, and poorly sheltered refugees or displaced people, some of them along routes over which the task force planned to attack.
Commanders had three options: move the camps, plow through them or go around.
Initially, military planners sought to move the camps. When civilians in a humanitarian operations center pointed out the resulting logistic and security problems, the planners prepared to send the forces around the camps, with some breaking off to provide security to the displaced people.
In a planning meeting, Peter Leentjes, a retired Canadian colonel with extensive experience in humanitarian operations, said, "We would like the humanitarian organizations to move right behind the military forces so that we can render assistance in the camps right away."
Gen. Gregson nodded his head in agreement, saying the combined task force "is thoroughly engaged in this issue."
In another instance, the civilians urged Gen. Gregson, nominally second in command of the joint task force, to post Marines as police officers, but he demurred, saying "Military people are not law-enforcement people."
When pressed, he elaborated: "The problem is using third-party people in the middle of a conflict when they don't speak the language, don't know the area, are unfamiliar with the customs and are not responsible to a local authority."
"Our people would be pulled in two directions," he said, referring to their training as warriors employing violence to win battles and their lack of training as police officers using restraint to keep order.
"This does not make for good law enforcement," he said. "That has been proven in Iraq, where soldiers have been pressed into service as cops, duty for which they have not been trained."
--------
Suu Kyi Detention Sparks Rare Dissent at Asian Meet
June 16, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-cambodia-asia.html
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Southeast Asia's main political grouping broke with more than 30 years of diplomatic niceties on Monday, turning on one of its own members when foreign ministers urged Myanmar to free Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Ministers of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) met in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, for talks dominated by the junta's detention of pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi, the war on terror and a review of the group's basic principle not to interfere in a member's affairs.
``We saw a very candid discussion,'' said Singapore Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar.
``In the discussion of Myanmar, many of the ASEAN ministers conveyed their concerns to the Myanmar foreign minister.
``The point was made that the recent developments were a setback not just for Myanmar but also a setback for ASEAN.''
Ministers pressed for the release of Suu Kyi, saying such frank discussion would have been impossible a few years ago and could herald one of the biggest policy shifts in the 36-year history of a group often seen as little more than a talking shop.
Several members are concerned about an issue that has embarrassed the group on the international stage and are looking at breaking with basic principles to issue unprecedented public criticism of a member nation.
``What we would like to happen is a discussion of broadening the interpretation and application of that principle,'' ASEAN spokesman M.C. Abad told reporters.
THE TIME WILL COME
Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung said he would convey the concerns to his military government but gave no date for the release of Suu Kyi, detained on May 30 after a clash between her supporters and those of the junta.
``The time will come some time later,'' he told reporters.
The talks precede Wednesday's annual security gathering of the ASEAN Regional Forum that will bring Secretary of State Colin Powell on a whirlwind trip to a region where he is anxious about the spread of extremist violence and has urged tougher sanctions against Myanmar's junta because of Suu Kyi.
Myanmar is detaining Suu Kyi amid vague fears that assassins are on the prowl in the country but she will be freed when the time is ripe, Win Aung said on Sunday. Myanmar students went back to universities on Monday after the military allowed classes to restart, ending a two-week suspension amid fears of unrest following Suu Kyi's detention.
Several ASEAN members are concerned Myanmar's actions will tarnish the reputation of an organization that has prided itself on engaging the junta but say overly harsh criticism could prompt it to hold Suu Kyi for even longer to avoid losing face.
Officials say Myanmar may not be able to escape some censure in a final communique given the international condemnation heaped on its military rulers.
The meeting also focused on the war on terror. ASEAN, which groups mainly Islamic states Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei with the Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Laos, should agree on closer cooperation, officials say.
In recent days, Cambodia and Thailand have announced arrests of a number of suspected militants with links to the al Qaeda-affiliated Jemaah Islamiah group blamed for the Bali bombs.
``ASEAN, as a result of the recent arrests of suspected terrorists, is no longer an easy theater of operations for international terrorism,'' ASEAN spokesman M.C. Abad quoted Secretary General Ong Keng Yong as telling the ministers.
-------- biological weapons
AMA Pushes Bioterror Preparedness Effort
June 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Doctors-Preparedness.html
CHICAGO (AP) -- The American Medical Association on Monday announced a new program that aims to standardize bioterrorism training for doctors and others nationwide who respond to mass disasters.
The voluntary program is designed to create a single playbook or training manual for all hospitals, doctors, public health officials and military officials to avoid chaos and confusion if a large-scale disaster strikes.
Preparedness training is currently available on a more piecemeal basis without much consistency, said Dr. James James, director of the AMA's new Center for Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response, which is coordinating the program.
``We need to be thinking of standardization and what is required in terms of basic skills and knowledge to make our health care providers and physicians more ready,'' James said at a news conference in Chicago during the AMA's annual meeting.
The coursework was developed with input from the military and four medical institutions that will provide the training in person and eventually over the Internet.
Coursework will include subjects like how to decontaminate people exposed to biological or nuclear weapons and setting up triage systems for determining what type of immediate care victims need. It will also seek to ensure that all emergency response personnel understand and use the same medical terms and triage systems, which sometimes vary in military and civilian medicine, officials said.
Preparedness efforts for natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes also will be addressed.
The program ``will significantly enhance our national security when it comes to acts of terrorism'' and other mass disasters, said Jerome Hauer, who coordinates public health emergency preparedness at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
With HHS oversight, the coursework is being developed by authorities from the University of Georgia, the Medical College of Georgia, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and the University of Texas at Houston.
The training will be offered as continuing medical education for physicians and for medical students. Development costs and fees for trainees are still being worked out, James said.
A pilot program ran earlier this year, but the first training sessions are slated to start in August at the University of Georgia, the AMA said. Courses at the other institutions and on the Internet are expected to be available over the next several months.
The AMA hopes public awareness efforts will persuade individuals and institutions nationwide to become involved in the training. Hauer acknowledged that it will take time for large numbers to come on board.
``The more people we can reach ... the better,'' he said.
On the Net:
AMA: http://www.ama-assn.org
-------- business
Lockheed, Boeing Spar In a Battle Of Rivals
2 Key Contractors As Allies and Foes
By Greg Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 16, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62869-2003Jun15?language=printer
In the half-dozen years since they emerged as the strongest survivors of wrenching changes in the country's defense and aerospace industry, Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. have grown into bitter rivals whose skirmishes are beginning to rattle the military-industrial establishment.
The struggle between the two titans, in the past mostly confined to maneuvering behind the scenes, is now spilling into public view. Last week, Lockheed sued Boeing, alleging it had engaged in industrial espionage to win a major rocket contract. A day before the legal papers were filed, Boeing took out extraordinary full-page advertisements in several newspapers, apologizing for the unethical conduct of some of its employees but arguing that the company otherwise keeps to high standards of honesty.
Lockheed, based in Bethesda, and Boeing, which moved its headquarters in 2001 to Chicago from Seattle, share one of the great head-to-head rivalries of American business, much like General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. dueling for the domestic auto crown.
Industry officials say it has become increasingly common for one company to mount whispering campaigns about flaws in the other. Each lobbies the Pentagon and the media for advantage, and each scrutinizes the other's public statements for signs of aggression or weakness.
The level of combat worries some observers, because Boeing and Lockheed also cooperate on some of the nation's most sensitive programs, from managing the space shuttle to ballistic missile defense. The board investigating the space shuttle Columbia disaster, for example, is looking into whether the relationship between the two contractors was a problem in management of United Space Alliance, their joint venture that runs the shuttle program for NASA.
"They're now taking everything personally and remembering every time they lost to the other, and the cooperation going on between them is not what it used to be," a former senior executive at one of the companies said. "Every time they're cooperating on a contract, it's something each one felt they should have had the lead on. That's true on both sides."
Both companies have grown so big through industry consolidation that they are ravenous to win contracts. Lockheed Martin needs to find $500 million worth of work every week just to keep from shrinking. Boeing needs a staggering $1 billion per week, and it can no longer rely on its struggling commercial aircraft business to supply most of that figure.
To make up the difference, Boeing has expanded intensively into military and space contracting, which puts Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon's top supplier, directly in its path. The result is tension, conflict and, some would say, paranoia.
Lockheed is the insider, the dominant government contractor whose tendrils reach throughout the bureaucracy, from the Postal Service to Homeland Defense. Boeing plays the brash newcomer, buying its way into Lockheed's markets by absorbing competing companies. It carries the mystique of big commerce from its global passenger jet business.
Lockheed has scored the biggest single win over its rival, beating Boeing in 2001 for the Pentagon's richest contract, the $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter program. But Boeing has logged upset after upset in other contests, competing so aggressively that critics say the company sometimes overextends itself.
The rivalry plays out daily in ways large and small. Lockheed wins the Joint Strike Fighter race, so Boeing promotes unmanned combat drones as a replacement for fighter planes. Boeing takes the lead in a rocket launch competition, so Lockheed leaks word that the Boeing rocket is flawed.
Lockheed takes out advertisements honoring military personnel, so Boeing sponsors a coffee-table picture book called "A Day in the Life of the U.S. Armed Forces."
"You get to a certain point on this stuff where it can become pernicious," said one former Pentagon official. "You get to a point where you're just killing each other."
As is often the case with rivals, Boeing and Lockheed clash partly because they're so much alike. They're both old-school aerospace companies, American industry's last major havens for guys in oil-stained jumpsuits who make things whoosh and zoom.
"Boeing and Lockheed Martin are most of what's left from the old Cold War defense and aerospace sector. They're almost all the launch capability, most of the satellite capability, most of the aircraft capability and a big chunk of the missile capability," said Loren Thompson, an industry analyst who does consulting work for Lockheed. "To a large degree America's future in the aerospace sector depends on how they fare."
While they have other rivals in particular segments of the industry -- Lockheed vies with Raytheon Co. in air-traffic control, for instance -- no two contractors are in as many similar lines of work as Lockheed and Boeing.
But style and culture set them apart. Led by chief executive Vance D. Coffman, a former spy satellite engineer who can't talk about most of his super-secret career, Lockheed comes across as all pocket protectors and slide rules.
"Lockheed Martin's view is that Boeing is great at public relations but not at substance, and Lockheed sees itself as the other way around. And that's how they want it," a former Lockheed executive said.
Still, Lockheed officials worry increasingly that government decision makers simply don't like them as much as Boeing.
In 1999, for example, then-Air Force weapons buyer Darleen A. Druyun criticized Lockheed Martin's management style during a private meeting. Details leaked around Washington, and the scolding reportedly contributed to a Lockheed management shakeup. Earlier this year, Druyun retired from the Pentagon and went to work for Boeing.
There is a special sense of status for Boeing that comes from being one of the world's top commercial brands. It is among the 30 closely watched companies of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and carries political weight as the nation's biggest exporter and sole remaining competitor to Europe's Airbus Industrie in manufacturing jetliners.
A former Boeing executive recalled working earlier in his career for a different aerospace company and making a pitch against Boeing on a particular program. "I remember someone on Capitol Hill pulling me aside and saying . . . 'Be careful. You need to understand, people like the Boeing company,' " he said. "I think the reason people feel differently about Boeing is because Boeing is more than a government contractor. They are essentially our national entry in the commercial airplane world."
Boeing can leverage its experience managing commercial programs to present itself to the Pentagon as a different breed of contractor. "Lockheed is an engineering company where Boeing is probably more of a management-oriented company," said Jacques S. Gansler, a University of Maryland professor who was the Pentagon's top weapons buyer during the Clinton administration. "[Boeing's] commercial business requires really sophisticated management." That reputation has fueled Boeing's push into government contracting. The company began girding for its run back in 1996, when it bought Rockwell's space business. Then came McDonnell Douglas and its long warplane heritage in 1997, and the satellite expertise of Hughes in 2000.
Now Boeing markets itself to the Pentagon as the new guy, the fresh set of eyes.
"I think we've benefited sometimes from walking in with a clean sheet of paper instead of walking in with preconceptions," said Shep Hill, Boeing's vice president for business development. "In terms of technical credibility, [Lockheed and Boeing] are equals with each other. We just think we've brought to bear some innovative concepts in terms of how you look at things."
Boeing has scored major wins at Lockheed's expense. In 2001, for instance, the Air Force wanted to upgrade electronics on more than 500 C-130 transport planes. The roughly $4 billion contract was supposed to be an automatic win for Lockheed, which built the planes in the first place. But Boeing won, drawing on its expertise maintaining passenger jets worldwide.
Arguably the most dramatic upset came in 1999 after Boeing won the job of building a new generation of spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. Lockheed had done that work since satellites were invented.
"They obviously had a more attractive proposal," said Gansler, who helped make the decision but wouldn't discuss details of the classified program. "To take something major away from somebody you've got to have something not just marginally more appealing, but it has to be significantly more appealing."
What Boeing did, according to knowledgeable insiders, was promise it could make spy satellites both smaller and with sharper vision than ever before, as well as significantly cheaper. Boeing had also worked to get to know the customer, setting up an annual golf tournament for top-secret NRO staffers and other agency contractors.
Today, Boeing is reportedly struggling to make its big promises come true. The program, called Future Imagery Architecture, was as much as $900 million over budget earlier this year, and has only gotten more expensive, congressional sources said. Difficulty in delivering the technology could leave gaps in the nation's ability to track terrorists and monitor hostile foreign regimes, according to a senior intelligence official.
Lockheed officials have fumed over what they see as a job they could have done better, and some have seized every opportunity to point out Boeing's flaws to reporters for trade publications popular within the Pentagon, one former company official said.
Contracts such as FIA represent a franchise, a line of work that produces revenue for years. The Pentagon is turning increasingly to another type of contract that represents even more power and prosperity for the winning company, one in which the chosen contractor has control over awarding subcontracts and shaping the entire program.
The new type of contract creates a "lead systems integrator," or a supervising company that wields government-like powers to assemble an entire weapons system, rather than just build a specific product.
Boeing has made a special push to win such work, with great success. It beat Lockheed and General Dynamics for the Army's Future Combat Systems, a contract to develop a new generation of Army weapons, which is a lead-systems-integrator job. Boeing's management of the International Space Station for NASA and its overseeing of the National Missile Defense program are similar projects.
The trend puts great pressure on contractors to function ethically, because a firm chosen as a lead systems integrator gets secret technology and pricing information from competitors who want a piece of the job.
That, in turn, has made Boeing's performance in the rocket launch competition an especially sensitive topic within the industry. According to court documents, Boeing hired someone from Lockheed who brought along boxes of proprietary Lockheed information.
The Air Force and Justice Department are looking into whether Boeing used that information to beat Lockheed for a majority of the space launch work. If so, Boeing could lose its contracts and face fines.
Lockheed Martin has pushed the matter further, charging in its court complaint that Boeing has shown a pattern of such behavior. But chief executive Coffman wrote employees last Tuesday to remind them that Boeing "is not just a competitor but a valued partner on many of our programs. For this reason, we must remain focused exclusively on meeting the needs of our customers."
One of the companies' biggest partnerships is the United Space Alliance, which manages the space shuttle program. There reportedly was finger pointing behind the scenes after the Columbia disaster earlier this year, with officials from each company quick to assign blame to the other, but both sides say they've put partisanship aside in the effort to troubleshoot the program.
Nonetheless, a spokesman for the Columbia Accident Investigation Board said the panel is looking into the companies' relationship as part of the overall review.
Staff writers Renae Merle and Vernon Loeb contributed to this report.
--------
British Arms Concern Plays Down Merger Reports
June 16, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/business/worldbusiness/16MILI.html
PARIS, June 15 - A top official of BAE Systems, the largest military contractor in Europe, today played down reports that the company was in merger talks with American companies and said that BAE was under pressure to improve some European ventures.
"Any merger talk is just speculation," the chief executive, Michael J. Turner, said at the Paris Air Show, although later he reiterated that his company's long-term strategy was to expand in the United States through internal growth, acquisitions and mergers.
Last week, BAE, of Britain, confirmed that it had rejected the idea of merging with its French competitor, Thales.
Mr. Turner's comments today came after newspaper reports suggested that BAE Systems had been considering possible tie-ups with leading military contractors in the United States, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics.
Mr. Turner also dismissed an article in The Sunday Times in London that BAE was considering General Dynamics as either a full-blown merger partner or as a buyer of its shipbuilding business under a three-way deal including Boeing.
He told reporters that BAE had been in close contact with General Dynamics about BAE's Astute-class nuclear attack submarine after the program ran into significant cost overruns, and that General Dynamics had assigned a dozen of its engineering managers to help with the contract.
Shareholders remain concerned about some of BAE's European joint ventures, Mr. Turner said, referring to its partnership with the Italian government-controlled Finmeccanica and BAE's 49 percent-owned STN Atlas, a submarine systems venture with a unit of the Rheinmetall Group of Germany.
"Our shareholders don't like the lack of clarity in management and responsibilities in our European joint ventures," he said. "Our focus in Europe is on changes that improve the performance of our joint ventures."
----
Secrecy shrouds Halliburton hiring frenzy at Houston hotel
By Monica Perin
Houston Business Journal
Jun. 16, 2003
http://famulus.msnbc.com/famuluscom/bizjournal06-16-010158.asp?bizj=HOU
A pair of Houston pest control contractors are among hundreds of American and foreign workers being recruited by a division of Houston-based Halliburton to work on the rebuilding of Iraq.
The recruitment operation is headquartered at the Wyndham Greenspoint Hotel and the Holiday Inn Intercontinental on John F. Kennedy Boulevard.
KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root, is recruiting a wide array of workers from all over the world and bringing them to Houston for orientation, background checks, training and deployment.
They are being sent primarily to Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.
KBR's Web site last week listed 60 job openings in Iraq, 90 in Kuwait and 50 in Afghanistan.
But the recruitment operation is being kept under tight wraps, apparently due to continuing political controversy over Halliburton's role in the lucrative post-war work.
The recruits are required to sign an agreement pledging not to talk to the media, according to one of the pest control contractors, who asked that his name not be used.
The contractor says the KBR people conducting the orientation meeting he attended last month asked if there were any reporters in the room.
The pest controller hopes to go to Kuwait and exterminate bugs there for the next five or six years -- if he can last that long. He will be leaving his family here in Houston.
But he expects to make as much as $125,000 a year, which he says is significantly more than he would make here in Houston, where he has been in business for himself since the early 1980s. He was recruited by a friend in the pest business who has already been sent off to his assignment.
The pest controller said he met recruits from a number of different countries and different trades. Before being hired, however, they must pass a physical and background check.
"It was just like an Army recruiting center," he says. Not the usual business crowd
Milling around the lobby of the Wyndham Hotel earlier this week was a different crowd than the usual business-suited men and women who attend conferences at the hotel.
Filing into a roped-off area for lunch were young to middle-aged males wearing shorts or jeans, work boots or athletic shoes, T-shirts and caps.
A shoe-shine concessionaire at the hotel was sitting in one of his own chairs reading the newspaper.
While the KBR recruits are good business for the hotel, he said, they're not interested in shoe shines.
According to a Wyndham employee, KBR has been conducting the recruitment operation at the hotel since the first of the year and is expected to continue hiring through the end of the year and possibly into the next.
The hotel's management would not comment.
Halliburton is under contract to handle about $425 million worth of logistical support work for the Department of Defense in Iraq and Afghanistan under the U.S. Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP.
KBR first won this contract to provide basic services to the military in 1992, and was again awarded the contract in 2001.
Halliburton, which also was given a $71 million Pentagon contract to repair Iraq's oil fields, has come under fire by critics in Congress who say the company is favored by the Bush administration.
Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton before running on the Presidential ticket with George W. Bush in 2000.
Among the jobs listed on KBR's Web site for Kuwait and Iraq are health, safety and environmental inspectors; food and laundry service employees; construction and electrical contractors; truck and bus drivers; warehousemen; firefighters; and accountants.
The jobs listed earlier this week were posted between May 20 and June 1.
Representatives for KBR and Halliburton did not respond to phone calls or e-mail messages requesting comment on the recruiting program.
--------
Ultra-Fast Processing, Electro-Optics Trigger Military-System Advances
Greg Shelton
ED Online ID #5069
June 16, 2003
http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=5069
Two important technologies will drive the military/aerospace market over the next couple of years: high-throughput processing and advanced electro-optics sensor technology.
High-throughput processing is the catalyst for revolutionary advances in military systems. Fueled by commercial investments in semiconductor technology and focused through the DoD and industry developments, new systems capabilities are emerging that range from multipurpose, high-fidelity sensing systems to robust, autonomous cognitive systems.
Today's military computing systems feature open-system architectures that allow for rapid insertion of the latest technologies while protecting the system functionality implemented in software. Large, complex systems feature heterogeneous computing architectures that interconnect processing engines ranging from conventional CPUs to DSPs and FPGA-based processing accelerators. These processing engines are woven together with high-bandwidth interconnects and a distributed software architecture.
Most importantly, military computer systems must be designed to operate reliably, never missing a beat. And that's while executing complex tasks under stressing conditions that weren't envisioned when some of the basic technologies we rely on were invented.
Advances in electro-optics sensor technology will impact the market with both significant improvements to the war fighter and reductions in cost and maintainability. Two drivers will be uncooled IR sensors and flash ladar. In the short term, uncooled IR sensors enable long-wave IR sensing at room temperature using vanadium oxide and MEMS technology. Elimination of the cooling reduces systems size, weight, power, and costs. Cooled IR sensors will always exhibit superior sensitivity. Flash ladar creates high-resolution 3D images that enable robust target detection and identification with minimum collateral damage.
-------- colombia
Colombia Deploys 10,000 Peasant Soldiers
June 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/COLOMBIA_PEASANT_SOLDIERS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Colombia-Peasant-Soldiers.html
GUASCA, Colombia (AP) -- President Alvaro Uribe helped deploy the nation's latest weapon in a nearly 40-year civil war, sending 10,000 peasant soldiers back to their villages Monday to confront rebels and paramilitary fighters.
The soldiers, who completed three months of military training, were sent to 426 villages across this Andean nation. The government hopes their knowledge of the terrain and people of their home areas will help turn the tide in Colombia's conflict, which kills some 3,500 people -- most of them civilians -- each year.
The ``soldados campesinos'' have been trained in combat tactics and how to respect human rights. Some 5,000 peasant soldiers were trained and deployed earlier this year.
Uribe, standing in a school soccer field in Guasca, urged the peasant soldiers to fight hard for their country. He denounced both the rebels and paramilitaries as outlaws who must be dealt with severely.
``This is not the hour to administer the conflict,'' Uribe said. ``This is the hour to defeat terrorism.''
The rebels began waging war in Colombia four decades ago, claiming to fight for Colombia's majority poor, but since have turned to drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion. They often attack isolated villages in Colombia.
Their paramilitary foes also traffic in drugs.
Human rights groups and foreign diplomats say they are watching whether the government's new strategy will lead to abuses. When Uribe governed Antioquia state in the 1990s, some armed citizens' groups there were accused of serious human rights abuses and were infiltrated by paramilitary death squads.
Guasca, a Spanish colonial town 25 miles northeast of Bogota, is in an area where the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the nation's main rebel group, has a presence.
Carlos Sarmiento, a 62-year-old construction worker whose son, Eduardo, is one of the new soldiers, watched the ceremony with pride and apprehension.
``We now feel much safer now because the village will be better defended,'' Sarmiento said. ``But of course, we can't help but feel worried about our sons.''
The newly minted soldiers stood sternly in formation, assault rifles at their sides, as Uribe walked through their ranks. Similar ceremonies were held Monday in villages across Colombia.
``I'm proud to be here to protect my village and my family,'' said 20-year-old Daniel Rodriguez, clad in a camouflage uniform.
The government also has deployed police officers to 157 municipalities that previously had no police presence.
-------- europe
Wanted: Bulgaria's military properties
By Jon R. Anderson,
Stars and Stripes European edition,
Monday, June 16, 2003
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=15476&archive=true
When U.S. military officials began scouting basing possibilities in Bulgaria, one of the first places they were shown was Bezmer Air Base along the country's southeast border with Turkey.
Until just a decade ago, the base served as one of the first lines of defense against Turkey's NATO squadrons.
Today, old enemies are new friends, and Bulgaria, which wants to join NATO, has declared open house at Bezmer, pitching the base as prime real estate for U.S. troops.
And it may be right. The commander of U.S. forces in Europe, Gen. James L. Jones, said his ideal base in eastern Europe would include room enough for Army and Air Force units, plenty of space for hassle-free training and enough logistics facilities to surge forces in and out quickly.
Much of the media attention in Bulgaria has centered on the air base in Burgas, which currently is being used by the U.S. Air Force as a way station into Iraq. Local officials think Bezmer might be a better fit.
"Our vision is that this one air base could be a main center for U.S. forces in Bulgaria," said Velizar Shalamanov, who is helping broker Bulgaria's bases.
"Bezmer is very close to two of our most important training ranges," said Shalamanov, chairman of the George C. Marshall Association in Bulgaria and a former deputy defense minister. Those ranges - the Koren and Novo Selo maneuver areas - are already seeing heavy use by British, French and Italian forces.
Unlike Burgas, which is a commercial airport serving Bulgaria's Black Sea resorts, Bezmer is far from any major city.
Sitting inland along Bulgaria's southern border, Bezmer has an 8,200-foot runway big enough not only for fighters but also for heavy-lifting cargo planes, and has already received several million dollars in U.S. Air Force upgrades.
"Also nearby is a testing range specially prepared by the Soviet munitions industry for everything from anti-tank missiles to artillery," Shalamanov said.
Within a few hours' drive from Bezmer is Agia Naval Base, south of Burgas, on the Black Sea.
"It has good facilities that can be used as a port of entry for heavy equipment," such as tanks and other armored vehicles," Shalamanov said.
About 100 miles west of Bezmer lies Graf Ignatievo Air Base, near the city of Plovdiv. It also has received major upgrades from the U.S. Air Force in recent years, including runway extensions that put it on par with even the largest NATO airfields. It hosted one of the alliance's largest air exercises in 2001.
Mixed reviews
Recent tenants of Bulgarian military properties offer mixed reviews.
Late last year, the French moved a brigade of tanks and mechanized infantry into Novo Selo for four months of maneuvers.
"It only took us about an hour to get from the port to the training area," said Col. Marc Rivayrand, Paris' defense attaché in Bulgaria.
Novo Selo offered "an excellent live-fire range," he said. The units that trained there could use all types of ammunition and shoot all day and night. The only restriction was the use of tracer rounds during a dry period when brush began catching fire.
Because of a network of irrigation ditches, however, the maneuver area was limited, he said, especially for the heavy armored vehicles.
"Our tanks had to stay on the reinforced roads," he said, "otherwise we would have just destroyed the place."
The Koren training range, which the French and other NATO nations also have used extensively, "is perfect, with a large-scale maneuver area."
Not so great were the troop facilities. Barracks, he said, were dilapidated and flea infested.
The Graf Ignatievo Air Base, said defense analyst Tom Donnelly, who traveled there last year, would "require significant investment to make it fully useful to American or modern NATO air forces."
Still, he said, planned upgrades will provide the base with a modern air traffic control system. The recent runway expansion - as well as apron and taxiway improvements - has opened the airfield for wide use.
"British Jaguar units have deployed to Graf Ignatievo for training successfully, and bombing and air combat ranges are said to have few restrictions," Donnelly said. "There is ample surrounding land to expand the base, which has a railhead running to it. The local populace seemingly would like nothing better than to host an American or NATO permanent installation."
Test drive
Bulgarian government officials, said Shalamanov, are encouraging the U.S. military to try out the facilities.
In addition to test-driving the bases, he said, temporary leases for training would also help the cash-strapped country finance its support of U.S.-led international efforts.
Better yet, he said, training could focus on helping bring Bulgarian forces up to standard for those missions.
"Because Bulgaria is without serious experience, especially with large formations, the U.S. could really help us during the training," Sholamanov said. "The military is eager for training, as well as suggestions for equipment and tactics."
The country already is supplying peacekeepers in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Bulgaria also has volunteered to deploy a battalion into northern Iraq this summer with a second battalion following in October.
"We believe joint training of these troops with the U.S. will improve interoperability and will give Americans a chance to train on our ranges," said Shalamanov.
"The money earned from the use of those facilities could then help offset the cost of our deployments."
-------- iran
Call To Iran Head To Nix God Claim
June 16, 2003
(CBS/AP)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/12/world/main558295.shtml
TEHRAN, Iran, More than 250 university lecturers and writers have called on Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to abandon the principle of being God's representative on earth and to accept he is accountable to the people.
In a statement made available to The Associated Press on Monday, the intellectuals say they stand behind last month's call for democratic reform by liberal legislators.
The move follows a week of protests and riots in Tehran in which pro-democracy demonstrators clashed with police and vigilantes who support the hard-line clerical regime. The protests witnessed unprecedented condemnation of Khamenei - calls for his death - in a land where criticism of the supreme leader is punishable by imprisonment.
Khamenei has the final say on all matters. The ruling clerics regard Khamenei as God's representative and that his word cannot be challenged.
"Considering individuals to be in the position of a divinity and absolute power...is open polytheism (in contradiction to) almighty God and blatant oppression of the dignity of human being," said the statement issued Sunday.
"People (and their elected lawmakers) have the right to fully supervise their rulers, criticize them, and remove them from power if they are not satisfied," said the statement, which was published in the reformist newspaper Yas-e-nou on Monday.
Prominent among the 252 signatories were Hashem Aghajari, a lecturer who was condemned to death last year on charges of insulting Islam and questioning clerical rule, and Ebrahim Yazdi, the leader of the opposition party, the Freedom Movement of Iran.
After mass protests, Aghajari's death sentenced was revoked in February, but he remains in prison.
The signatories included two aides to reformist President Mohammad Khatami - Saeed Pourazizi, an official in the president's office, and Saeed Hajjarian, who is widely regarded as the architect of Khatami's reform program. Hard-line vigilantes shot and wounded Hajjarian in 2000.
The statement said: "We, university teachers, students, writers and political activists, thank and support the letter by lawmakers addressed to the supreme leader that respectfully mentioned people's minimum demands and voiced national concerns."
Last month, some 127 lawmakers wrote an open letter to Khamenei calling on him to accept reform before "the whole establishment and the country's independence and territorial integrity are jeopardized."
Conservatives answerable to Khamenei have been using their power in unelected bodies such as the judiciary and the Guardians Council to thwart the reform program of Khatami. The council has vetoed reformist legislation. Judges have closed about 90 pro-democracy publications in the past three years and jailed dozens of liberal writers and activists on charges of insulting Islam and the authorities.
In their letter, the legislators said the closure of publications, imprisonment of activists, and rejection of pro-reform bills had made elections "meaningless."
They also warned that increasing U.S. threats against Iran since the ouster of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq had made the situation worse for the ruling clerics.
The protests last week began as demonstrations against a proposal to privatize Iran's universities, but evolved into a statement against the country's ruling theocracy.
Iran's universities have long been hotbeds for dissent and activism. Students filled the ranks of the Iranian revolution in 1979, and were key supporters of Khatami's election victory in 1997. However, they have been frustrated by hard-liners blocking of Khatami's attempts to liberalize the state.
Some protesters have vowed to continue their vigil until the July anniversary of an earlier protest that was crushed by hard-liners with deadly results.
Only July 9, 1999, vigilantes stormed a dormitory that had been occupied by students protesting the closure of a reform-minded publication. Four students died and 300 were wounded, according to Amnesty International.
Some policy advisers to the Bush administration, such as Richard Perle, say the U.S. should adopt a policy of regime change toward Iran and supporting internal efforts to unseat the theocratic rulers.
U.S. pressure on Iran has increased since the end of the war in neighboring Iraq, with Washington accusing Tehran of abetting al Qaeda members, developing nuclear weapons and trying to destabilize postwar Iraq.
The Iranian government has blamed U.S. agents for fomenting the recent civil unrest.
-------- iraq
Iraq trailer a biological weapons lab, claims PM
June 16 2003
AAP
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/16/1055615721193.html
British and American intelligence reports had concluded that a trailer found in Iraq was a biological weapons facility, Prime Minister John Howard said today.
"United States and United kingdom intelligence agencies have concluded that at least one of the three vehicle trailers found in Iraq is a mobile production biological weapons production facility, and closely matches the description given to the United Nations Security Council in February by the United States," Mr Howard told parliament.
Labor foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd had asked Mr Howard to respond to media reports that British intelligence had concluded that two trailers captured by allied forces in Iraq were not (not) mobile germ warfare labs, but were used for producing hydrogen for artillery balloons.
Mr Howard said the government was proud of Australian involvement in the Iraq war.
"Those on the opposition who now seek to denigrate what this government and this country did are in effect calling for the restoration of Saddam Hussein," Mr Howard said.
"I and the government I lead remains intensely proud of what Australia did in relation to Iraq."
Mr Howard said former Labor leader Kim Beazley had said in a television interview that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) may eventually be found in Iraq.
"Which seems to run a little counter to the cacophony coming from the current leader of the Labor Party," Mr Howard said.
"The Office of National Assessments remains confident in the judgment that there was a WMD capability in Iraq in the lead up to the war and is continuing to assess the scope and the nature in the light of post-conflict investigations."
Mr Howard said Australia had entered the war because Iraq had failed to comply with resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.
"That moral justification has been reinforced by the successive discovery, Mr Speaker, since the end of hostilities in Iraq, of the atrocities practised by Saddam Hussein," he said.
----
US forces raid militia 'hideouts'
Monday, 16 June, 2003
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2992960.stm
US troops backed by helicopters have stepped up the hunt for fighters loyal to Saddam Hussein, raiding towns and villages in central Iraq.
Soldiers poured into the town of Khaldiyah, 70 kilometres (45 miles) west of Baghdad on Monday, arresting nine men and seizing guns and explosives.
It comes after at least four American soldiers were hurt by rocket-propelled grenades in two separate incidents on Sunday.
Thousands of troops are taking part in the new operations, called Desert Scorpion, which US Central Command has called a combat and humanitarian operation designed to pinpoint Saddam Hussein loyalists.
Pockets of resistance
More than 100 military police and infantrymen raided Khaldiyah following a tip-off from an Iraqi man captured after attacking US troops at an ammunition dump on Saturday night, American officials said.
US troops arrest a man during a raid at Khaldiyah, 70 km (40 miles) west of Baghdad
US forces in Iraq have continued to come under fire from pockets of resistance since the end of the war in April.
In another incident, a civilian bus was hit during an attack on a US convoy near the town of al-Mushahidah, about 25 km (15 miles) north of Baghdad on Sunday.
At least two Americans were seriously injured, but it is unclear whether any civilians were hurt.
Elsewhere, the US military said "enemy forces" used rocket propelled grenades to attack a military convoy near Ad Dujayl, 55km (35 miles) north of Baghdad, on Sunday, lightly wounding two soldiers.
The BBC's Jim Muir, in Baghdad, says the attacks on US convoys are a considerable embarrassment for the Americans, coming soon after the end of the much-publicised offensive around the town of Balad, 90 km (60 miles) north of the capital.
Last week, more than 100 Iraqis were reported to have been killed in US raids on suspected militia hideouts around Balad, in an operation codenamed Peninsula Strike.
----
'Scorpion' Strikes At Iraqis Again
Jun 16, 2003
(CBS)
http://wcco.com/topstories/topstories_story_166221808.html
FALLUJAH, Iraq Armor-mounted American troops swept through towns and villages west of Baghdad after dawn Monday, arresting suspected resistance leaders and searching for outlawed weapons.
It was the second day of a forceful new operation called Desert Scorpion based on intelligence pinpointing opponents of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. It followed the expiration on Sunday of an amnesty program for people turning in heavy weapons.
Families of those arrested warned resistance would only increase.
Meanwhile, a U.S. Central Command spokesman denied reports that U.S. soldiers were wounded in an ambush on a military vehicle near the town of Balad north of Baghdad.
In other developments:
# Iraq's U.N. ambassador during the final days of Saddam Hussein's regime now says his government deserved to be overthrown - but it should have been done by Iraqis not the U.S.-led coalition. In a television interview broadcast Monday by BBC World, Mohammed al-Douri said he advised Baghdad the threat of war was serious and he still cannot explain why they refused to accept it.
# Air force commander Hamid Raja Shalah al-Tikriti, another member of the U.S. most-wanted list of Iraqis has been captured.
# According to the Washington Post, the hunt for al Qaeda in Iraq is slow and frustrating for U.S. troops. In one incident last week, Central Command reported 74 arrests of al Qaeda sympathizers. But the people detained were all questioned and released.
# Sergeant Hasan Akbar, the soldier charged in a deadly grenade attack on troops in Kuwait, has a hearing today at Fort Knox in Kentucky. He could face the death penalty if convicted in a court martial for killing two officers and injuring 14 others in the March 23rd attack.
# The New York Times reports that in the high-stakes competition to get the first interview with former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch, CBS News offered the young soldier exposure through other parts of its parent company, Viacom - such as MTV and Simon & Schuster books - if she agreed to a CBS interview. CBS News has declined comment on the report. NBC sent her patriotic-themed books, while ABC mailed a locket containing a picture of Lynch's West Virginia home.
# The CIA disagrees with British government experts on the purpose of two trailers found in northern Iraq, which the American spy agency has concluded are probably mobile biological weapons factories.
Britain's Observer newspaper reports that a British report has determined the trailers are for producing hydrogen to fill balloons used in artillery - as some Iraqis have claimed all along. Last week, the Times reported similar doubts among some U.S. experts that the trailers were used for weapons of mass destruction.
The revelation could hurt Prime Minister Tony Blair's efforts to maintain support for the war, which has been undercut by the failure of weapons hunting teams to uncover any evidence of the massive stockpiles that the U.S. and British claimed Iraq possessed.
Those questions have fueled calls for Congressional hearings on the quality of prewar intelligence, which begin this week
On Sunday, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Pat Roberts of Kansas, said there could be open hearings. That's been one of the key demands of Democrats.
Roberts told CBS News Face the Nation the hearings would likely be followed by a classified report as well as a public report, something the Democrats also have called for.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Army's Psychological Operations unit is increasing radio appeals for Iraqis involved in weapons of mass destruction programs to surrender for trial, offering leniency for those who cooperate.
"If you come voluntarily and give information about weapons of mass destruction and their launch vehicles, the United States will do its best to give you a just trial in accordance with the law," an announcer said in Arabic on air Sunday.
Coalition troops are having little trouble finding conventional weapons on their sweep through bastions of Iraqi resistance.
In Khaldiyah, U.S. commanders said they were acting on a tip from an Iraqi man captured after he and two other men fired rocket-propelled grenades Saturday night at a routine U.S. patrol near an abandoned Iraqi ammunition dump. The other two men escaped and the prisoner pointed to two homes he said the insurgents had been using as a hideout.
When military police entered the homes, they found only families and a few hundred rounds of pistol and assault rifle ammunition buried in the backyard of one of them.
In an old box used to transport artillery shells, the soldiers found strips of highly explosive cordite that had been emptied out of artillery shells.
Next door, soldiers found one pound of C4 explosives on the roof along with a detonator cord.
The explosives appeared to come from an Iraqi ammunition dump about 1,000 yards away across an open field. Soldiers scanning the field spotted about 50 crates of artillery shells and a place nearby where looters were taking off the explosive warheads, dumping out the cordite and taking away the brass shells to sell as scrap metal.
U.S. troops had armed local volunteers to guard the hundreds of ammunition bunkers, but they had apparently failed to protect it at night.
As the low-flying helicopters spotted more ammunition cases on the roofs of other homes, they directed the military police to raid those buildings. The soldiers arrested eight more men, seized more C4 explosives weapons and anti-tank weapons. They allowed each family to keep an assault rifle for home protection.
----
U.S. Raids Homes West of Baghdad
June 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html
KHALDIYAH, Iraq (AP) -- Armor-mounted American troops swept through towns and villages west of Baghdad after dawn Monday, arresting suspected resistance leaders and searching for outlawed weapons.
It was the second day of a forceful operation called Desert Scorpion, based on intelligence pinpointing opponents of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. It followed the expiration on Sunday of an amnesty program for people turning in heavy weapons.
Families of those arrested warned that resistance would only increase.
Also Monday, the U.S. military announced that ambushers fired rocket-propelled grenades at two U.S. military convoys Sunday, wounding 10 Americans -- two of them seriously -- in the separate attacks.
In the first attack, a grenade hit a civilian Iraqi bus that was passing a 4th Infantry Division convoy near the town of Mushahidah, about 15 miles north of Baghdad. Two Americans were seriously wounded, and six others were lightly injured, the U.S. military said. The number of casualties on the bus was unknown.
Soldiers returned fire ``to protect the convoy and the civilian bus,'' U.S. Central Command said in a statement.
Also Sunday, assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a U.S. military convoy near Dujayl, 35 miles north of Baghdad, lightly wounding two soldiers, said Capt. John Morgan, an Army spokesman.
Qusai Taha, 33, a grocery store owner in the area, said he heard gunfire while in his store, ran outside and saw that the last vehicle in a 15-vehicle convoy had been hit.
Taha said he saw two American soldiers being taken out of the truck, and that they appeared to be wounded. Later, Taha said, two Iraqis arrived on a motorbike and set the truck ablaze. Other witnesses gave similar accounts.
American soldiers were working Monday to remove the burned out vehicle.
Forty-five miles west of Baghdad, more than 100 military police and infantrymen in 30 Humvees and four Bradley fighting vehicles poured into the small town of Khaldiyah. Observation helicopters hovered a few hundred yards overhead.
They targeted six homes and took away nine men, acting on information about where suspected anti-American insurgents were hiding and illegal weapons stockpiled.
On the outskirts of Ramadi, about 20 miles farther west, troops seized four brothers from one home and two brothers from a neighboring family.
There were no immediate reports of injuries in the raids.
In the Ramadi area, families were still asleep when the armored column rumbled into their village at 5:15 a.m., blaring an Arabic-language warning from loudspeakers: ``These are coalition forces. Please stay in your homes and open your doors. Thank you for your cooperation.''
Troops bound men and women in the two houses with plastic handcuffs and moved them into a nearby field while they searched the homes, residents said. They found one rifle.
Omar Mishrif Saleh, an older brother of the detainees, said the soldiers knew what they were looking for and sought out the house of his brother, who served in Saddam Hussein's army.
``Someone must have informed on us,'' he said, although he denied that his arrested brothers, aged 20 to 30, were engaged in anti-American activities.
Minutes after the soldiers left, the Saleh house was crowded with sympathizing neighbors who tried to comfort the weeping mother.
``The resistance is going to increase,'' said Abdul Qader Fahd, 30, a teacher. ``Dealing with civilians like this is terrorism.''
In Khaldiyah, U.S. commanders said they were acting on a tip from an Iraqi man captured after he and two other men fired rocket-propelled grenades Saturday night at a U.S. patrol near an abandoned Iraqi ammunition dump. The two other men escaped and the prisoner pointed to two homes he said the insurgents had been using as a hideout.
When military police entered the homes, they found only families and a few hundred rounds of pistol and assault rifle ammunition buried in the backyard of one of them. Female military police officers and medics stayed with the women and children as the troops searched the house, finding Iraqi Republican Guard uniforms and other military items, but nothing illegal.
In an old box used to transport artillery shells, the soldiers found strips of highly explosive cordite that had been emptied out of artillery shells.
Ibrahim Assam, a 30-year old man living in the house, said he and his father had sold their guns, but couldn't find a buyer for the ammunition. He said the children used the cordite to make fireworks.
``I don't know anything about attacks on the Americans,'' Assam insisted.
Next door, soldiers found one pound of C4 explosives on the roof along with a detonator cord.
The explosives appeared to come from an Iraqi ammunition dump about 1,000 yards away across an open field. Soldiers scanning the field spotted about 50 crates of artillery shells and a place nearby where looters were taking off the explosive warheads, dumping out the cordite and taking away the brass shells to sell as scrap metal.
U.S. troops had armed local volunteers to guard the hundreds of ammunition bunkers, but they had apparently failed to protect it at night.
As the low-flying helicopters spotted more ammunition cases on the roofs of other homes, they directed the military police to raid those buildings. The soldiers arrested eight more men, seized more C4 explosives weapons and anti-tank weapons. They allowed each family to keep an assault rifle for home protection.
The raids are not meant to disarm Iraqis completely. Heavy weapons such as rocket propelled grenade launchers are banned, as is taking weapons outside the home or workplace.
In another development, a U.S. Marine from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force died Sunday night in Najaf, 100 miles southwest of Baghdad ``as a result of a non-hostile gunshot wound,'' a military statement said.
The Marine's name was withheld pending notification of relatives, and the death was being investigated, the statement said. AP Correspondent Nadia Abou el-Magd contributed to this report.
----
Massive US operation to uproot Iraqi resistance yields nearly nil results
16-06-2003
(Albawaba.com)
http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=251871&lang=e&dir=news
US soldiers swept through towns and villages west of Baghdad after dawn Monday, detaining several suspected resistance operatives and searching for weapons.
According to AP, it was the second day of a massive operation called Desert Scorpion. It followed the expiration on Sunday of an amnesty program for people turning in heavy weapons.
Families of those arrested warned resistance would only intensify.
Meanwhile, a U.S. Central Command spokesman denied reports that U.S. troops were wounded in an ambush on a military vehicle near the town of Balad north of Baghdad.
Lt. Ryan Fitzgerald said initial accounts indicated a vehicle caught fire due to "mechanical failure."
However, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday ambushers fired rocket-propelled grenades at two U.S. military convoys Sunday, in separate attacks that wounded at least four Americans, two of them seriously.
In the first attack, a grenade hit a civilian Iraqi bus that was passing a 4th Infantry Division convoy near the town of Mushahidah, about 15 miles north of Baghdad. A U.S. military statement said the number of casualties on the bus were unknown.
At least two Americans were seriously wounded in that attack, said Capt. John Morgan, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.
Also Sunday, assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a U.S. military convoy near Dujayl, a town 35 miles north of Baghdad, lightly wounding two soldiers, Morgan said.
"The convoy returned fire, and the attackers fled the area. A quick reactionary force was dispatched to provide security for the convoy and pursue the attackers," the Centcom statement said.
Elsewhere, backed by helicopters, more than 100 military police and infantrymen in 30 Humvees and four Bradley fighting vehicles poured into the small town of Khaldiyah, some 70 kilometers west of Baghdad. They targeted six homes and took away nine men.
On the outskirts of Ramadi, less than 30 kilometers farther west, US forces detained four brothers from one home and two brothers from a neighboring family.
In the Ramadi area, the families were still asleep when the armored column moved into their village at5 : 15a.m..
Troops bound men and women in the two houses with plastic handcuffs and moved them into a nearby field while they searched the homes, residents said. They found one rifle, AP reported.
In Khaldiyah, U.S. commanders said they were acting on a tip from an Iraqi man captured after he and two other men fired rocket-propelled grenades Saturday night at a routine U.S. patrol near an abandoned Iraqi ammunition dump. The other two men escaped and the prisoner pointed to two homes he said the operatives had been using as a hideout.
When military police entered the homes, they found only families and a few hundred rounds of pistol and assault rifle ammunition buried in the backyard of one of them.
Commenting on the results of the current raids, Capt. Chris Carter, an infantry commander, was quoted as saying "I didn't think we'd find anything, I figured the bad guys would have left by now." "But it shows the people here that we are willing and able to do this kind of thing if we need to."
----
G.I.'s in Iraq Offer Carrot of Relief as Well as Stick of Raids
June 16, 2003
The New York Times
By DAVID ROHDE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/international/worldspecial/16IRAQ.html
FALLUJA, Iraq, June 15 - American troops pressed forward today in a new campaign combining military raids against suspected supporters of Saddam Hussein with high-visibility relief projects for Iraqi civilians. Commanders said they hoped that the two-sided approach would help eradicate armed resistance against American forces.
Hours after soldiers carried out raids in Baghdad today, military engineers set out to build soccer fields for children there.
When commanders opened the new campaign in this city 35 miles west of Baghdad, they promised that the stick of American military might would be matched with the carrot of civilian aid.
Three hours after 1,300 soldiers raided locations across Falluja, arresting seven suspected Hussein supporters and seizing a pipe bomb and communications equipment, the carrot emerged in the person of Carleigh McCrory, 20, an Army reserve engineer from Louisiana whose unit was painting walls at a school and putting up blackboards.
In other parts of town, soldiers were giving out free gasoline and building soccer fields.
The tension between the operation's dual aspects had been evident the day before, she said, as her unit installed fans and blackboards at another school. For four hours, she said, a crowd of children and adults pelted her and other soldiers with stones, glass and apples while the soldiers stood guard outside the school.
"It's kind of contradictory for them," she said. "You bomb them, and three roads over you're fixing the school."
Lt. Col. James Danna, of the First Armored Division, said the American military was trying to convey the message that it was not an enemy of the Iraqi people, even while conducting operations against remnants of the old government.
"We're here to make Iraq better," he said. "We're targeting individuals."
The new campaign echoes the pattern of American bombing during the war, when military planners made presidential palaces and government ministries their targets and tried to avoid civilian neighborhoods, bridges and public utilities in an effort to convey that the United States was attacking Mr. Hussein's government, and not the Iraqi people.
Commanders said today that the first stage of the campaign would involve raids on specific individuals and locations every 48 hours for the next two to four weeks. Colonel Dana said American forces would look to their British counterparts for advice on techniques used in Northern Ireland to thwart attacks without harming the broader population.
Military officials said the possible capture of Mr. Hussein, who has not been seen publicly since the war, is not the central goal of the campaign. But they said his capture or the discovery of his remains would be a boon to their efforts. In the last three weeks, attacks by suspected Hussein supporters have killed 10 Americans and wounded dozens more in central Iraq areas dominated by Sunnis of Mr. Hussein's branch of Islam.
In Baghdad today, soldiers from the First Armored Division raided a suspected weapons market in the Karadah neighborhood, Colonel Danna said. Ten men were detained after soldiers found eight 23-millimeter antiaircraft guns and three 105-millimeter artillery pieces. Later in the day, engineering units built two soccer fields in the same district.
Without disclosing details, Colonel Danna described multiple raids being considered in Baghdad. One, for example, would involve searching apartments believed to be used by former Saddam Fedayeen militiamen for storing weapons and firing on American forces. Another would follow a tip on the whereabouts of hidden documents related to Iraq's suspected arsenal of illicit weapons.
The success of those raids would depend heavily on the quality of tips received from Iraqis. "This is 95 percent humint," he said, referring to human intelligence.
Over the last 24 hours, a prototype of the new approach played out here in Falluja.
Two weeks ago, 4,000 soldiers from the Third Infantry Division were deployed here, quadrupling the size of the American force in the town. Falluja, where American soldiers killed 18 protesters in disputed shootings in April, has been the scene of repeated attacks on American troops.
Today, at a run-down cinderblock elementary school near the one where Iraqis threw stones at American soldiers on Saturday, about 100 children gathered, seemingly delighted as the Americans painted a classroom and installed blackboards inside.
Laughing and shouting in broken English, boys tried to communicate with Americans standing guard with M-16's slung across their chests. At one point, a soldier played the game "Simon Says" with the children, prompting squeals of delight.
But there were also signs of hostility from civilians.
At one point, a veiled Iraqi woman issued strict instructions to her young daughter.
"You shouldn't speak with them," she said, referring to Americans. "They are infidels. We are Muslims."
A few feet away, a boy tacked a new ending onto a traditional prayer, chiming "There is no God but God, and America is the enemy of God."
Others praised the Americans, but said they feared the fighting.
"No, we don't want them to leave," Muthana Asad, a 30-year-old butcher cradling his infant son in his arm, said of the American military. "We don't want them to harm anyone. We don't want anyone to harm them."
Inside the school, children were clearly delighted by the renovations. But the school's director, a woman dressed in a religiously conservative black robe and white head scarf, said the Americans should focus on maintaining law and order, not repairing schools.
Omar Ahmed, a 22-year-old college student also dressed in a religiously conservative outfit, said the Americans should be focusing their energies on creating a new Iraqi government, and end the military occupation. "We don't want them to paint the school," he said. "We want them to form a government."
Ms. McCrory, the 20-year-old reservist, said she was confused by the mixed Iraqi reactions, but also felt sympathy for the Iraqis' suffering. The bright-eyed young woman with short blond hair said she had hated her time in Baghdad. "Have you ever smelled a burning body?" she asked. "I'll never forget the smell of a burning body."
That morning as she walked into the school, a frightened-looking woman approached her in tears.
"Why are you here?" she recalled the woman asking. "Are you here to kill my children?"
No, the young soldier responded, she was there to repair the school.
-------- israel / palestine
Water war leaves Palestinians thirsty
Monday, 16 June, 2003
The River Jordan (white line, top right) is a crucial water source in the region Like many other things in the region, water is in hot dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Under international law, Israel is committed to supplying drinking water to the Palestinians and not denying them.
But Israel itself is a very arid area surrounded by desert. It rains only a few months a year - and for the past few years the region has been in the grip of drought.
"We have a chronic water shortage, and it is getting worse year to year," Jacob Kaidar, the director of multilateral peace talks coordination and water issues in the Israeli foreign ministry, told BBC World Service's Politics Of Water programme.
"Basically we have a drought almost every year, we have to cut our water supplies almost every year."
'Unfair'
The water that Israel receives comes mainly from the Jordan river system, the Sea of Galilee and two underground sources.
The supply is shared between Israelis and Palestinians, but, as ever, is a source of great controversy.
At the Third World Water Conference in Kyoto, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev outlined the history of water conflict around the world.
He said there had been 21 armed disputes over water in recent history - and 18 of them involved Israel.
"It's highly unfair," said Yehezkel Lein, a water expert for Israeli human rights group B'tselem, who help to solve water problems in Palestinian areas.
"We are talking about mainly the mountain aquifer and the Jordan River system. Regarding the first one Israel exploits approximately 80% of the renewal water resources, and the Palestinians the remaining 20%.
"Regarding the Jordan River system, the Palestinians do not have any access."
Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee can supply parts of Israel, but not the Palestinian areas Mr Lein added that the conflict in the region had dramatically exacerbated the problem.
"There is a clear linkage between the gap in water availability, and the occupation," he said.
"Israel has taken advantage of its control of the West Bank in order to appropriate more water sources and to prevent Palestinians from developing new water sources that are under the land."
Israel has controlled water supplies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since it first occupied the areas in 1967.
The 1993 Oslo Peace Accord stated that the Palestinians should have more water resources and greater control, although the Israelis disagree, insisting they supply 40 million cubic metres of water.
Many Palestinians struggle, however, as they remain unconnected to any water infrastructure.
Checkpoint controversy
One such place is Beit Furik, a village in the West Bank near the Palestinian town of Nablus.
"The real problem is at the beginning of their hot summer - they will have used up their water and they will begin to suffer," explained Beit Furik's Mayor, Atef Atif Hanani.
"We have about 12 tanks to collect water from Nablus, but during the Intifada the Israeli authorities have imposed checkpoints on the roads.
"These checkpoints started to forbid these tanks from reaching Nablus, so sometimes they have to wait for about five or six hours - and some days they were forbidden."
He added that even when the tanks were allowed through, sometimes Israeli soldiers would undo the valves and let the water back out.
Israel's Water Minister Mr Kaidar said he was "not happy" about a lack of co-operation, acknowledging that turning water trucks away was "totally unacceptable."
"Israel is committed to supplying drinking water to the Palestinians, and not to deny them," he added.
But Jacob Dallal of the Israel army said that delays were unfortunate, but necessary to stop the militants.
Israeli soldier Oxfam says Israeli soldiers target Palestinian water tanks "This is the nature of this conflict when people are trying to smuggle things including suicide bombers through the West Bank and into Israel," he said.
"We have to be very careful, but at no time lose sight of the importance of getting essential materials to people.
"We do have to check because in the past, as has been the case with ambulances, people have taken advantage of vehicles that are supposed to be only for humanitarian purposes."
Some statistics suggest that, in large part because of these constant arguments at checkpoints, the Palestinians use on average four times less water than the Israelis.
Illegal wells
The mother of one family in Beit Furik, Fuaz Hanani, told Politics Of Water that they were only able to wash every two weeks, such was the shortage of water.
"I feel angry that Israeli settlers in Itmar drink clean water while my dear family drink water from a well which sometimes has dirty or polluted water," Mrs Hanani said.
However, Jacob Kaidar insisted that, while he hoped co-operation between the two sides would be better in the future, Mrs Hanani should direct her anger towards her own people.
He said Palestinians were stealing water from Israeli pipes and drilling illegal wells.
"In Gaza we have some 2,000 illegal wells, in the West Bank the report is 250 or more," he said.
According to Oxfam, an additional problem is that what little infrastructure the Palestinians do have is targeted by the Israelis.
"We are helping very poor families to build new tanks on their roofs... unfortunately it's a really good target for Israeli soldiers to shoot at," Oxfam's Ton Berg stated.
"We've just finished a really big water tank that would serve half a village in El Boursh and now the Israeli defence forces have announced that they will destroy it, because they need land that is officially Palestinian to build a wall.
"So that whole village this summer will again be without clean drinking water."
With the publication of the roadmap to peace, there had been hopes that political leaders would begin to look more closely at the water crisis in the region.
But with the roadmap apparently in crisis, it seems the Palestinians may be thirsty for a good while longer.
----
Ananova: Hamas condemns Bush's call to fight militants
Associated Press
Monday 16th June 2003
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_791131.html?menu
Palestinian militant group Hamas has condemned the US President's call to deal harshly with militants, saying it amounts to "a new aggression" against Palestinians.
The group has claimed responsibility for last week's attack on a bus in Jerusalem killing 17 people.
An unidentified Hamas official says in the statement that George Bush's call will not make Hamas change its strategy to fight Israel.
He is calling on Arabs and Muslims to reject and confront the "American aggression and incitement".
The statement also denounces US Senator Richard Lugar, who says American forces may be needed to help the Palestinian Prime Minister crack down on militant groups.
Mr Lugar, who is to visit Iraq and Jordan next week, believes Mahmoud Abbas may not have adequate security forces to take on Hamas, but that America must weigh carefully any decision to use its forces.
"But clearly, if force is required ultimately to rout out terrorism, it is possible that there will be an American participation," the Indiana Republican said. "Pragmatically, there has to be a fill in."
Hamas has said the Jerusalem bus bombing was in retaliation for Israel's failed attempt to assassinate its political leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has declared an all-out hunt for Hamas leaders following the bombing.
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Sharon Vows Tough Line After Hamas Rejects Cease-Fire
By GREG MYRE with IAN FISHER
June 16, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/international/middleeast/16CND-MIDE.html?ei=1&en=853594734da34cf2&ex=1056781335&pagewanted=print&position=
JERUSALEM, June 16 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel said today that Mideast diplomacy would make no headway until Palestinian violence stops, and he pledged to "hound the terrorists" until Palestinian security forces clamp down on them.
Mr. Sharon's tough talk in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, came only hours after a visiting Egyptian delegation failed to win a cease-fire pledge from Hamas and other militant Palestinian factions during two days of talks in the Gaza Strip.
The developments pointed to the formidable obstacles against any quick progress on the international peace plan, which has been jeopardized by last week's violence that left almost 60 dead.
Still, Israeli and Palestinian officials renewed security talks over the weekend, and further discussions are considered likely on a proposal for withdrawing Israeli troops from northern Gaza and having Palestinian security forces take their place.
Also, the past three days have been relatively quiet in contrast to last week's spasm of violence.
But with Mr. Sharon insisting on calm, and with Hamas refusing to suspend its bombing campaign, talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders could be undermined at any moment by extremists who have derailed numerous peace efforts in the past.
"As long as there is terror, it will not be possible to make progress," Mr. Sharon told parliament after both liberal and conservative lawmakers criticized his approach to seeking peace.
The prime minister was called before parliament by legislators who insisted that he explain his position on the peace plan, commonly called the road map, which has the backing of the United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union.
Mr. Sharon said he had not brought the peace plan before parliament for a debate or a vote because "the road map is not an agreement, but rather a framework."
"As long as there is no one on the other side willing or able to take on the responsibility for security, Israel will continue to hound the terrorists and the terror organizations," the prime minister said.
"When terror ends and the agreements come around, I plan to have them approved" by Israel's parliament, he added.
Zehava Gal-On, a member of the left-wing Meretz party, sharply criticized the prime minister for the targeted killings of Palestinian militants. Israel carried out six strikes against Hamas figures during last week's fighting.
"Each time there is some calm, or some hope, the prime minister approves the eliminations," she said. "Is this the way a peace-seeking prime minister should behave?"
The leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, Eli Yishai, said the previous peace talks, which collapsed with the Palestinian uprising that began in September 2000, were bad for Israel. "Today, we are talking about a plan that is much worse," he added.
The Israeli parliament, however, voted 57-42 in favor of Mr. Sharon's position. The vote was nonbinding, but it showed the prime minister still has solid support despite the barrage of criticism.
In Gaza, meanwhile, Egyptian intelligence officials held two days of talks with the Palestinian factions, including Hamas, but were unable to persuade them to accept a truce.
Hamas has been facing political pressure from the Egyptians and the Palestinian Authority, as well as the Israeli air strikes.
But the group has always rejected peace talks with Israel, and it said its demands for a cease-fire included a halt to Israeli targeted killings, the release of Palestinian prisoners, and an Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza.
"Cease-fire means surrender to occupation," a senior Hamas official, Ismail Abu Shanab, said after the talks.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, arrived in Gaza City today and planned to hold additional discussions with Hamas and other factions.
Mr. Abbas, widely known as Abu Mazen, has said he will not use force against Hamas, and the group broke off truce talks with him after a June 4 Mideast summit meeting in which Mr. Abbas called for an end to the "armed intifada," or uprising.
Palestinian officials said they were in a tough position, caught between the widely divergent demands of the Israeli government and Hamas.
"We have to get an agreement with Israel in order to get an agreement with Hamas," said Michael Tarazi, a legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization. "And we have to get an agreement with Hamas in order to get an agreement with Israel."
Israel says it is remains ready to work with the Palestinian Authority leadership, and it would have placed almost no value on a cease-fire pledge by Hamas.
"We're not holding our breath for Hamas. They are not a peace partner," said Gideon Meir, an official in Israel's Foreign Ministry. "However, we have a great interest in seeing that the Palestinian Authority moves ahead and succeeds."
But Israel insists that Mr. Abbas and the Palestinian security forces disarm militants and dismantle their organizations, as the peace plan specifies.
Meanwhile, John S. Wolf, the diplomat heading a visiting American team that is to monitor the road map, held talks with Mr. Sharon tonight, officials said. Mr. Wolf, who plans to see Palestinian leaders on Tuesday, has maintained a low profile since arriving over the weekend.
----
Analysis / Bush may be 'deeply troubled,' but Israel isn't
By Aluf Benn,
Haaretz Correspondent
Monday, June 16, 2003 Sivan 16, 5763
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=302538&displayTypeCd=1&sideCd=1&contrassID=2
Israel's failed assassination attempt on Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi on Tuesday highlighted the limits on coordination and understandings between Washington and Jerusalem.
The operation has prompted concerns in the White House that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is pulling away from the promises he made at last week's Aqaba summit, and has instead gone back to looking for a more heavy-handed solution to the conflict with the Palestinians rather than giving the new
Palestinian government a chance.
U.S. President George W. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, telephoned her contact in Jerusalem, Sharon's chief of staff Dov Weisglass, and warned him that the attempt on Rantisi would probably strengthen Hamas and damage America's ward - new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). She also wished to learn why such an operation was decided upon at such a sensitive time.
Weisglass explained to her the various factors leading up to the decisions, saying that Rantisi was planning mass terror attacks likely to derail the Aqaba process. He told her of Rantisi's plans for joint terror attacks carried out by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Fatah-affiliated Tanzim group, which was realized Sunday when four IDF soldiers were killed in an attack on an army post in Gaza.
The U.S. Administration was also promised that Israel would supply it with classified information linking Rantisi to various terror attacks.
Sources in Jerusalem said Tuesday that the American condemnation of the attack was particularly weak. The criticism was passed through relatively low levels - Weisglass and Israel's Ambassador to Washington Danny Ayalon. The administration decided not to talk directly with Sharon, nor with his defense minister, Shaul Mofaz.
Even the public condemnation was relatively feeble ("The president is deeply troubled"). American sources confirm that this was the intention: "We were not happy with the operation, but it's not the end of the world."
Israel's main argument is that there is no difference between the well-known Hamas leaders who appear on television and those who plan and carry out the terror attacks. Referring to Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Rantisi and organization spokesman Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Shin Bet source said a few days ago during a private meeting that there is only "an imaginary line between the diplomatic and military echelons of this group."
It is possible to assume that Sharon drew inspiration from the harsh things Bush said about terrorism during the Aqaba summit. The version out of the prime minister's bureau is that Bush warned the Palestinians that if they do not deal with security and if there is not a complete end to terrorism "nothing set out in the road map will happen."
Bush, like Sharon, made it clear to Abbas that the elimination of terrorism was a prerequisite for any progress in the talks process. On Monday, Bush said that Hamas activists were "the enemies of peace." Jerusalem possibly took this for a green light to strike at its leaders.
Washington's angry response, however, proves that this what not what Bush meant, even though Sharon had told him and Abbas that Israel would continue to take steps against "ticking bombs" and had declared Monday that Israel would fight terrorism while dismantling illegal outposts.
The idea to kill Rantisi is not a new one. His name has come up a number of times in the past as a possible assassination candidate, although the politicians have frequently decided to spare his life. The decision, however, to carry out the strike this week just after the Aqaba summit raises a number of questions about Sharon's motives.
Were there only operational factors that led to his decision, or did he want to balance the images of outposts being torn down and the booing at Sunday's Likud convention with a display of power? Did he want to make it clear to Abbas and Bush that his agreeing to the American demands of accepting the road map and doing away with the outposts are not a sign of weakness.
Sharon's bureau claims that the strike was justified and designed to thwart a terrible wave of terror attacks.
Either way, the outcome of Tuesday's attack is that Israel has well and truly dropped the metaphorical ball (and conflict) back in its own side of the court, thus easing off Abbas international pressure to deal with terror and once again leaving Sharon susceptible to claims that every time there is a chance to calm the situation, he is quick to order an assassination.
----
Hamas Says It Will Not Accept Mideast Cease-Fire Proposal
June 16, 2003
The New York Times
By GREG MYRE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/international/middleeast/16CND-MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, June 16 - Officials of the militant group Hamas ended two days of scheduled talks with an Egyptian delegation in the Gaza Strip today, and said they were not prepared to accept a Mideast cease-fire proposal, despite strong pressure on the group to suspend its attacks on Israelis.
"Cease-fire means surrender to occupation," a senior Hamas official, Ismail Abu Shanab, told reporters in Gaza.
Representatives of Hamas and other militant groups meeting in Gaza said they had demanded international guarantees for a halt to Israeli military strikes on their leaders before they would agree to stop their own attacks.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, in an address intended to assure Israelis that he would offer no concessions without security guarantees, told Parliament that there could be no peace unless Palestinians cracked down on the militant groups.
"We cannot achieve a political arrangement, and certainly not a peace deal, when terror runs rampant," he told Israeli lawmakers at a special parliamentary session.
In a related development, an American team headed by the diplomat John S. Wolf has arrived for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and to monitor progress on the international peace plan, known as the road map, which has been jeopardized by the past week of violence that left close to 60 people dead.
The new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, widely known as Abu Mazen, was expected to hold additional talks with the factions in an attempt to arrange a cease-fire.
Israel says it is prepared to pull back its troops in northern Gaza, the scene of repeated clashes with Palestinian militants, if the Palestinian security forces can move in and assume control.
However, Israel has been somewhat vague on how it would respond to a Palestinian cease-fire declaration.
Some Israeli officials say it would be a welcome first step, though they also expect the Palestinians to arrest and disarm militants in accordance with the peace plan.
But Israel's foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, said that a truce would only allow the militant organizations to regroup. "We can't accept this," Mr. Shalom told Israel radio.
Middle East peace efforts have zigged and zagged dramatically in the past two weeks.
On June 4, Mr. Abbas and Mr. Sharon joined President Bush for a summit meeting in Jordan, the most ambitious peace effort since the current period of attacks and counterattacks began in September 2000.
But last week brought a surge of violence and was accompanied by angry promises from both sides of still greater violence to come. In the past three days, pressure from the United States and others has induced the warring parties to restart talks.
The Israeli and Palestinian cabinets held separate sessions on Sunday in which they endorsed the basic principle of having the Palestinians police part of the Gaza Strip, though each side set conditions.
Mr. Sharon said the army would continue to pursue members of the Islamic group Hamas and other Palestinian militants if they were planning to strike Israel. He said he had the backing for the United States.
President Bush, speaking in Kennebunkport, Me., on Sunday, said, "The free world and those who love freedom and peace must deal harshly with Hamas and the killers."
Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, suggested that American forces might be needed to fight Hamas. In a television interview on Sunday, he said, "Clearly, if force is required, ultimately to rout out terrorism, it is possible that there will be an American participation."
Hamas, which has always opposed peace talks with Israel, has rejected the Mideast peace plan, but it is facing intense pressure to suspend attacks.
The group carried out a suicide bombing on Wednesday that killed 17 people on a Jerusalem bus, including Anna Orgal, 55, identified as the cousin of Daniel C. Kurtzer, the American ambassador to Israel.
The Palestinians, meanwhile, said that they were prepared to take over security in northern Gaza, and that they wanted the Israeli forces to leave other areas in the coastal strip, as well as the West Bank town of Bethlehem. They also want American guarantees that Israel will not reoccupy areas it vacates, and that it will stop the targeted killings.
"We don't want a random Israeli withdrawal," said Nabil Amr, the Palestinian information minister. "It should be based on a political vision."
Meanwhile, Peace Now, an Israeli group that monitors settlements, said Jewish settlers had established five outposts in the West Bank in the past week, though the peace plan calls for recently erected settlements to be dismantled.
"The settlers are nervous, and things are much more tense," said Dror Etkes, a Peace Now official. "But it's the same old story. The construction is still going on."
The Israeli military demolished 10 uninhabited settlements last week, and planned to remove five that had a small number of residents. The settlers have challenged the plan in court, and no action has been taken.
The army took down one additional outpost on Sunday, removing a bus that had been fashioned into living quarters on a hill south of Hebron, in the West Bank, witnesses said. No one was living there.
----
Defining Hamas: Roots in Charity and Branches of Violence
By IAN FISHER
June 16, 2003
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/international/middleeast/16HAMA.html
GAZA, June 15 - To most Israelis, Hamas is a terrorist group and little more, the core of Palestinian hatred that explodes against Israeli civilians who are innocently shopping or riding on buses. When talk of any peace accord nears, Hamas advocates the ideological extreme: no compromise on a Palestinian state, based on Islam, that stretches from the Mediterranean east to the Jordan River. It talks often of driving all Jews from the land. But to a Palestinian brother and sister here who are raising the four children of another brother who was killed in a construction accident in 1997, Hamas is a very practically minded savior. It pays for the children's school, transportation, clothing, even food.
"I am so happy Hamas is taking care of them," said the brother, Abu Shaher Safdi, 26, a tailor. "There is no way I could afford it now."
Since Hamas was founded in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising, these have been the group's pillars: religion, charity and the fight against Israel. It is zealous on all three fronts, and that makes it a difficult foe, not easy to "deal harshly with," as President Bush urged today. Hamas itself, the Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement, means "zeal" or "bravery."
The difficulty, many experts say, is the acceptance of Hamas by ordinary Palestinians, an acceptance that has grown over 32 months of renewed violence here, allowing Hamas to rival more mainstream political groups like Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement.
There is no agreement among Palestinians on suicide bombing, and many do not want an Islamic state either. But still Hamas has gained currency as a serious alternative to Mr. Arafat's Palestinian Authority: better organized, less corrupt and more effective against what they see as Israeli aggression.
"Hamas is not some dark, shadowy organization in a corner," said Magnus Ranstorp, a Hamas expert at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. "They are part of Palestinian society."
But many Palestinians are also exhausted by this conflict. The question now is whether Hamas, itself under much pressure here and in strongholds like Syria and Lebanon, is prepared to act on that and to agree to a cease-fire against Israel that would make room for the new peace plan pushed by the Bush administration.
For several days, this looked unlikely: Following the killing a week ago of five Israeli soldiers by Hamas, which had just rejected the peace plan, Israel tried to kill a top Hamas leader, Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi.
Hamas struck back with a suicide bombing in which 17 Israelis were killed. After that, Israel and Hamas vowed all-out war. In a storm of bombs, bullets and missiles, about 60 Israelis and Palestinians died.
But this weekend, both sides crept back from the edge. As American monitors arrived and the Bush administration ratcheted up pressure on Arab governments to help rein in Hamas, Israel proposed halting its strikes on Hamas to allow the Palestinian Authority to renew cease-fire talks with the group.
Hamas, which had pulled out of the talks a week and a half ago, said it was ready to begin negotiations again. Today it met with an Egyptian delegation, and on Monday it may meet with the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas.
What Hamas is willing to accept is not likely to please Israel's hard-line prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Mr. Rantisi, recovering from wounds, said today that Hamas would halt suicide bombings inside Israel, but with conditions that included a halt to actions directed against Hamas. He said the group would not, however, stop its attacks on Israeli soldiers or Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza.
"We have an initiative," Mr. Rantisi said in an interview with an Arab journalist working for The New York Times. "We will avoid attacking Israeli civilians as long as Israelis stop killing our children, our women and stop destroying our houses."
Whether Hamas is actually willing to honor a cease-fire that might give the peace plan a chance goes to the very heart of what Hamas is.
Many Israelis believe that Hamas would scuttle any peace plan. Its commitment to military action, suicide attacks and to one Palestinian state on land that includes Israel, they argue, makes it impossible for the group to accept one state for Israelis, one for Palestinians. In 1997, it was added to the American list of terrorist organizations.
But Dr. Ziad Abu Amr, the Palestinian minister of culture in charge of negotiations with Hamas, said today that he believed that was a misreading of Hamas's roots. He noted that Hamas rose from the Muslim Brotherhood, which he said compromised and worked within mainstream politics while adhering to its long-term goals.
"Let's remember the history of Hamas and the history of its mother organization," he said. "Violence is a tactic. We had flare-ups, and we had periods of attacks and counterattacks. But they can refrain from these suicide attacks and other attacks if there is an alternative."
The roots of Hamas begin in the person of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who was active in Muslim Brotherhood politics in Gaza and established a social welfare group.
In 1987, when Palestinians rose up against the Israeli military occupation, he founded Hamas.
The group's popularity stemmed in part from the absence of the P.L.O., whose leaders were exiled in 1982. Some experts contend that Israel encouraged the development of Hamas indirectly as a way to weaken Mr. Arafat's Fatah party.
"The intention at the time was to try to stop the increasing power of Fatah," said Yohanan Tzoref of the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Israel.
From demonstrations against Israeli soldiers, the resistance grew more severe: Hamas members kidnapped and killed Israeli soldiers, engaged in battles with P.L.O. members and turned to suicide bombing as a tactic.
Mr. Arafat began a campaign to rein in Hamas, and had some success, but then Hamas became more active during the second Palestinian uprising, which began in 2000. Since then, Hamas has carried out wave after wave of suicide attacks, gaining much support among ordinary Palestinians as the group most willing to resist Israel.
But in these three years, the lives of Palestinians have gotten much worse. This has led to some rethinking by many Palestinians about the wisdom of suicide attacks.
"The suicide attacks have been very, very damaging to us," said Dr. Haider Abdel-Shafi, once a top P.L.O. negotiator. "They deprived us of the sympathy of the world."
Still, Dr. Shafi said he believed that Hamas had developed organizationally to the point that it could replace the Palestinian Authority, though he added that most Palestinians could not, in the end, subscribe to its militant doctrine.
"At least they are more consistent in their attitude," he said. "They are more organized than the authority. They have to be looked at as an alternative."
Dr. Shafi and Dr. Abu Amr said the important thing in these next delicate days of the peace efforts would be to assure Hamas that it would have a role in any new Palestinian order. Then, they said, Hamas could be persuaded to renounce violence.
The problem in this for many Israelis is that they believe such a renunciation would probably be only a pause on the way to Hamas's ultimate goal.
Dr. Ranstorp said that the group believed that history would eventually reward it with a Palestinian, Islamic state on all the land that is now Israel.
"When I interviewed over 100 Hamas activists and all leadership, I was quite astonished because everyone told me that an Islamic state would begin about the years 2022 or 2023," he said. "I asked them, `What are the conditions?' They said: `Life after Yasir Arafat. Islamic revolution in Jordan and Egypt. Time and demography are on our side.' "
-------- landmines
10,000 landmines laid in Nepal: ICBL
Monday June 16, 2003
News International, Pakistan
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jun2003-daily/16-06-2003/world/w9.htm
KATHMANDU: The Nepalese army has laid 10,000 anti-personnel mines across Nepal, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).
"10,000 landmines have been laid around 50 army posts as defensive measures," said Miriam Coronel Ferrer, one of a six-member ICBL team which has been in Nepal for the last week. She said they had been given the figure by Director of Military Operations (DMO) Brigadier General Kul Bahadur Khadka.
Khadka told them the army would clear the landmines before they left the posts. It was not known when they were laid. During a week-long visit, the team met with government and army officials and Maoist rebel leaders to discuss banning the use of landmines in the Himalayan kingdom.
The government and the rebels declared a ceasefire on January 29 and have since held two rounds of peace talks aimed at ending seven years of insurgency. "Since the ceasefire, the Nepal Campaign to Ban Landmines received only one report of a civilian injured by landmines," Ferrer told reporters late Saturday.
"But there is a danger that people will fall victim to these mines unless the security forces and the Maoists commit not to use them and clear those areas," she said. Ferrer said they had met senior Maoist leader Krishna Bahadur Mahara who said he would consult the rebel leadership on a long term commitment to a total ban on the use of landmines.
Nepal is not a signatory to the 1997 Ottowa Convention, ratified by more than 130 countries, which bans the production and use of anti-personnel mines as well as their storage and transportation. Ferrer said that between January and December 2002, 5,946 people were killed in fighting between security forces and the Maoists.
They included 4,760 rebels, 539 policemen, 219 soldiers, 22 children and 26 women, Ferrer said, adding the figures were based on reports from ex-lawmakers, newspapers, the army and the police.
-------- latin america
Pain of Past Resurfaces in Guatemala
Ex-Dictator Rios Montt Campaigns for Presidency, Denying Role in Atrocities
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 16, 2003; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62647-2003Jun15?language=printer
SANTA ANITA LAS CANOAS, Guatemala -- Jose Lorenzo Nicho can still picture the soldiers tying 14 men to fence posts at dawn. Before they drew their rifles and executed them, they tortured the suspected guerrillas all night. Nicho, 56, said he remembers hearing their screams, including the cries of his two brothers that echoed around this mountaintop village and still haunt survivors 21 years later.
That massacre, on Oct. 14, 1982, was one of hundreds committed during this country's 36-year civil war, in which more than 200,000 people were killed by military or paramilitary forces. The majority of the victims were poor Mayan Indians killed in the government's often indiscriminate "scorched earth" anti-insurgency campaign in rural communities like this one.
Efrain Rios Montt, the former army general who was dictator for 16 months in 1982-83 at the height of the violence, is now running for president, reopening national wounds seven years after U.N.-brokered peace accords ended the war.
"How can he be president again after the things he did?" said Nicho, a straw-thin farmer, interviewed in his home here in the highlands 30 miles west of Guatemala City. "We heard their screams and we watched them die. Rios Montt was the commander. He is responsible for what happened here."
Rios Montt, 77, said in an interview he is not convinced the massacres and other atrocities really happened. He said the evidence compiled in the past two decades, including scores of exhumations of mass graves by forensic scientists and testimony from hundreds of witnesses, "comes from I don't know where."
"The General," as he is known here, is accused in a genocide case filed in a Guatemalan court by more than 1,000 residents of 23 villages, including Santa Anita Las Canoas, where people are still mourning the dead. He called the evidence against him "lies."
He was shown a "wanted" poster bearing his photo, circulated by human rights workers who filed the genocide case. Rios Montt, who as a member of Congress enjoys immunity from prosecution, said he knows many people consider him "a devil."
"But I am not," he said, sitting forward in his seat with the poster in his hand. "Do you want me to start crying or get gastritis about it? I am not [a devil]. If I were, I wouldn't be here." He said that even if military atrocities occurred, he would not necessarily have known about them. "I was president, not a platoon commander," he said.
Rios Montt's candidacy in the November election, already denounced by the Bush administration, is the latest reminder of how Guatemala -- like much of Central America -- has been unable to fully shake off the legacy of brutal civil wars that reached their peaks in the 1980s.
The country is still plagued by lawlessness, violence and rampant government corruption. Current and former soldiers and paramilitaries are suspected of threatening and murdering several human rights workers, judges and lawyers working to unearth abuses committed by Guatemala's military during the civil war.
Vast political power is concentrated among a relatively small, closed group of wealthy families, business owners and their allies in the military. The government recently caused an uproar when it decided to pay thousands of paramilitaries about $660 each for helping the government take military action against suspected insurgents during the war. Rios Montt created the paramilitary groups in 1982. During the past year, they staged violent protests over not getting paid, until President Alfonso Portillo, a Rios Montt protégé, agreed to compensate them.
"They are really Jurassic," Helen Mack, one of the country's leading human rights activists, said of Rios Montt and the country's other power brokers. "Their thinking hasn't changed since the '80s. That is why we are going backward." Last month, Mack appealed a court ruling that freed a colonel convicted in the high-profile murder of her sister, Myra Mack, an anthropologist who was killed in 1990. "This was a political decision, not a judicial one," she said.
Two decades after he was overthrown, Rios Montt is still widely considered the most powerful man in the country. He is the president of the Congress, head of the ruling Guatemalan Republican Front party and a key power behind the president. His daughter is vice president of Congress, his son is one of the country's top military leaders and his brother is a Roman Catholic bishop.
Rios Montt said that as head of the Congress, in which his party holds a majority, "I make the laws of Congress, I approve the budget of Congress, so I already am president." Asked if he were more powerful than President Portillo, he said, "maybe a little."
Despite Rios Montt's assertion in the interview that Guatemala has "the best economy in the world," the economic and social disparities that were at the root of the anti-government insurgency remain intact. About 80 percent of the country's 11 million people live in poverty and there are still high levels of illiteracy and chronic malnutrition.
"This country is an absolute mess," said Frank LaRue, a human rights attorney who has helped press the genocide case against Rios Montt and called his candidacy not simply a step backward for the country but also "offensive to the victims."
Rodrigo Carpio, son of Jorge Carpio, a leading presidential candidate who was assassinated in 1993, said he believes his father was killed because his progressive politics were perceived as a threat by the military and political powers allied with Rios Montt.
"It makes me really, really sick that he is running," said Carpio, 43, who now publishes a newspaper in the colonial city of Antigua. "Dictators are out; after what the United States did in Iraq, it's not possible to have a new dictator right around the corner. For the country, it's like we are back in the Middle Ages."
Rios Montt is also well known here for his fiery brand of fundamentalist Christianity; his critics call him a fanatic. He said he converted from Catholicism to evangelical Christianity in 1976 or 1977, after "crying to God" about the 1974 presidential election, which analysts said was stolen from him by fraud.
In his elegant congressional office in Guatemala City, Rios Montt said his mission as president would be to reverse the poverty, neglect and abuse that Guatemala had suffered since the arrival of Spanish colonialists in the 16th century. "We're trying to transform a plantation into a nation," he said.
Although Rios Montt was chosen as his party's presidential candidate on May 24, stirring strong emotions in Guatemala and Washington, it is unclear whether his name will actually appear on the November ballot. His two previous bids to regain the presidency in 1990 and 1995 were rejected by electoral officials, who cited a constitutional prohibition against former dictators and those who participated in coups becoming president. Rios Montt took power in a military coup in March 1982 and was ousted in another coup in the following year.
But observers said Rios Montt has a much stronger chance of making the ballot this year, because he and his party now control Congress and have installed allies in key judicial positions. Electoral officials last week again rejected his argument that the constitutional ban, written in 1986, should not be applied to him retroactively.
Rios Montt said he would appeal to the nation's Constitutional Court. Observers here say that court is stacked with Rios Montt cronies, and he acknowledged that it included some of his "friends."
Rios Montt, whose "I am Guatemala" signs are posted along major highways, said he was running because the Guatemalan people want him to be president.
"I don't want to be president -- but I am ready to do it, which is different," he said. "I have no ambition to be president. I already was. I have been president of Congress for five years. Why would I want more? I'm tired. I'm old. I want to rest."
Analysts here said Rios Montt has strong support among those who remember him as a tough, law-and-order president. "I would vote for him if he were a candidate," said Jose Equivel, 43, of Guatemala City. Like many here, Esquivel said Rios Montt was justified in using a "hard hand" to put down a communist insurgency in the 1980s and said he could be what the country needs now to deal with rising crime.
Bush administration officials do not agree. The State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said last month it would be difficult for the United States to have positive relations with Guatemala if Rios Montt were president.
"I think that's good for my candidacy," said Rios Montt, adding that Boucher's comment reflected the "arrogance" of the United States, which "wants to control the whole world." Portillo said in a radio interview Tuesday that Bush administration officials should not criticize Guatemala's political candidates. "It's none of their business," he said.
In Santa Anita Las Canoas, Eulogia Lopez's memory of the massacre is still vivid. Her husband, Eduardo Ambrocio Calicio, was one of those tortured and killed. She said that when the soldiers shot him, he didn't die right away. As he lay on the ground bleeding, she said, he had to beg his executioners to put him out of his pain. They did, she said, with a single shot to the skull.
Lopez said the soldiers buried all the bodies in a common grave, where they remained until they were exhumed six years ago. Now the remains are stored in tiny wooden boxes inside a concrete shed at a local cemetery. A plaque on the wall bears their names and calls for a "new day" in Guatemala.
-------- nato
Hagen wants Clinton to head NATO
Aftenposten Multimedia A/S, Oslo, Norway
16 Jun,
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=565295
One of Norway's most highly profiled and right-wing politicians, Carl I Hagen, is urging the nomination of former US President Bill Clinton as new NATO boss. Norwegian officials have given up hopes that their own defense minister, Kristin Krohn Devold, will get the job.
Progress Party boss Carl I Hagen thinks Bill Clinton should take over as NATO boss. PHOTO: KNUT FALCH/SCANPIX
Hagen, who heads Norway's Progress Party, told newspaper Aftenposten Monday that NATO's new leader should have international authority, respect and experience. He thinks Clinton, therefore, is the perfect choice.
"There are plenty of people who can be leader of a secretariat in Brussels, but that's not what NATO needs right now," Hagen told Aftenposten, adding that he thinks NATO needs a "political heavyweight" to succeed Lord Robertson as general secretary.
"NATO is in a very difficult situation, with a deep conflict between the US and the major EU countries Germany and France," Hagen said. The new general secretary, he said, must be able to bring NATO members together again.
Clinton, he notes, "has good and close contact with many of Europe's leaders, and he enjoys considerable respect. He can be the bridge-builder the alliance needs."
Hagen added that it's especially important for Norway that the conflict within NATO be eased. "Therefore Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik should propose Bill Clinton as a candidate," he said.
Devold's waning prospects He denied his proposal was meant to undermine Bondevik's own efforts to push Norwegian Defense Minister Kristin Krohn Devold's candidacy. "If NATO decides the alliance should have a general secretary who will first and foremost be a secretariat leader, I haven't said she's unqualified," he said.
Hagen also said he thinks it would be difficult for US President George W Bush to oppose Clinton if a majority of European countries want him.
Devold's informal candidacy, meanwhile, doesn't appear to have generated much support from other European leaders. One source told Aftenposten that while Devold is viewed as a having done a good job for Norway, "no one has said, 'yeah, this is the candidate we need.'"
Other strikes against her are her relatively limited international experience and the fact that Norway, while a member of NATO, is not a member of the EU.
-------- russia / chechnya
Russians massively favour joining EU
AFP
June 16 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/15/1055615678109.html
An overwhelming majority of Russians say they would like to see their country one day join the European Union, a trend that has increased sharply over the past month, according to an opinion poll published yesterday.
Seventy-three per cent of those questioned by the Public Opinion Foundation said they would like to see Russia as an EU member, with 10 per cent expressing the contrary view, the Interfax news agency reported the poll as saying.
In May, the corresponding figures were 52 per cent and 18 per cent, the poll showed.
The most significant international event likely to have influenced public opinion in the period between the two polls was the visit of more than 40 heads of state and government, including most European leaders, to St Petersburg to celebrate the tercentenary of the city's founding.
The poll indicated that 55 per cent of Russians believe most European leaders view their country favourably, with 24 per cent disagreeing.
A majority of respondents believed that the current environment is favourable to a Russian rapprochement with Europe.
Fifty per cent of respondents said that Russia should develop an equal partnership with both the European Union and the United States, while one third (31 per cent) said that priority should be given to developing relations with the European Union.
Only 2 per cent said that Russia should primarily focus on expanding its co-operation with the United States, the poll showed.
-------- spies
Jailing in Russia Is a Reminder That Spy Wars Still Smolder
June 16, 2003
The New York Times
By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/politics/16SPY.html
WASHINGTON, June 15 - When Moscow revealed last week that a Russian intelligence officer who had settled in the United States had been lured back home and arrested, the news was the talk of American and Russian veterans of the intelligence battles of the cold war, who viewed the incident as evidence that an old-fashioned spy war has quietly flared anew.
Aleksandr Zaporozhsky, a former colonel in the S.V.R., Russia's foreign intelligence service, has been sentenced to 18 years in jail for spying for the United States, Russian officials disclosed last week. Mr. Zaporozhsky had been living in Maryland but in November 2001 was somehow induced to return to Moscow, where he was quietly arrested and jailed.
To retired C.I.A. officers who battled the K.G.B. in the 1980's, Mr. Zaporozhsky's story seemed to echo one of the cold war's most infamous incidents, the Vitaly Yurchenko case. Mr. Yurchenko was a colonel in the K.G.B. who defected to the United States in 1985 then returned to the Soviet Union several months later. Unlike Mr. Zaporozhsky, however, Mr. Yurchenko was not arrested on his return, even though former K.G.B. officials now say they knew he had disclosed damaging secrets to the Central Intelligence Agency. Instead, the K.G.B. publicly accepted Mr. Yurchenko's explanation that he had been drugged and kidnapped by the C.I.A. and exploited his return for propaganda purposes.
Mr. Zaporozhsky has not been so fortunate. Russian news reports of his sentencing last week suggested that he had been drawn into an ambush because he was suspected of helping the United States identify and arrest Robert P. Hanssen, who admitted to being a Russian mole inside the F.B.I. In addition to the Russian news media, The Los Angeles Times reported on Mr. Zaporozhsky's case last week.
Mr. Hanssen, an F.B.I. agent who spied for the Soviet Union and then Russia intermittently over 20 years, was arrested in February 2001 on charges of espionage. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.
Apart from the timing of Mr. Hanssen's arrest, which occurred several months before Mr. Zaporozhsky was seized in Moscow, there is no available evidence to support the Russian news accounts that Mr. Zaporozhsky played a role in the Hanssen case. C.I.A. officials declined to comment on the matter.
Still, Mr. Zaporozhsky's arrest is one small sign that today, a dozen years after the end of the cold war, the hunt for spies burrowed deep into the American and Russian governments continues in Washington and Moscow.
Officials in Moscow have said that counterintelligence investigators are trying to detect spies for the United States. Russian investigators believe that agents inside their own intelligence service provided information that led to the arrests of Aldrich H. Ames and Mr. Hanssen, the two most important Russian spies discovered in the past decade inside the American government.
Mr. Ames, a C.I.A. official, was arrested in 1994 and accused of spying for Moscow for nine years. The agency has always maintained that it uncovered Mr. Ames' espionage purely through the analytical work of its counterintelligence experts, but Russian officials have never accepted that explanation. Ever since his arrest, Russian officials have been hunting for the source they believe betrayed Mr. Ames, according to current and former American and Russian officials.
New evidence suggests that the Russians may have good reason for their suspicions. In interviews, several former United States intelligence officials have said that the agency had a Russian source who helped in the Ames case. The agency did not want to reveal that information at the time of Mr. Ames's arrest, although people familiar with the case still debate how significant the assistance from the Russian source was in detecting Mr. Ames.
In the more recent Hanssen case, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has acknowledged that it received information from a Russian source that led to Mr. Hanssen's arrest. That source is not the same person who provided help in the Ames case, officials said. The Russian source in the Hanssen case provided files and other materials from Russian intelligence archives that identified Mr. Hanssen as a longtime spy for Moscow. Among the materials the source provided was the plastic that Mr. Hanssen had used to wrap classified F.B.I. documents when he left them for the Russians at clandestine drop sites in the Washington area. After obtaining the plastic from the Russian source, the bureau found Mr. Hanssen's fingerprints on the wrapping.
After handing over the files used in the Hanssen case, the Russian source defected and was paid $7 million by the United States for his assistance, according to a recent book about the case by David Wise. The Russian's identity remains a closely guarded secret in the United States government.
While the Russians are searching for American spies in Moscow, the United States is hunting for Russian moles here as well. After Mr. Hanssen's arrest in 2001, the Bush administration ousted a large number of Russian diplomats, who were actually intelligence officers operating from the Russian embassy and other missions under diplomatic cover.
Even so, American officials believe Russian intelligence is still concentrating on the United States, aggressively trying to recruit American spies who can hand over technical, economic and political secrets. Counterintelligence experts have also said that there is some evidence that suggests there was another well-placed Russian source inside the United States government in the 1990's, a source that has never been identified.
At the same time, United States counterintelligence officials are still dealing with other unfinished business from the cold war. They have examined the possibility that there was a Russian spy in the United States government in the 1980's who has gone undetected as well.
Until now, it appeared that three Russian spies in the United States government - Mr. Hanssen, Mr. Ames and Edward Lee Howard, a former C.I.A. officer who defected to Moscow - were responsible for betraying at least 10 Russians who were spying for the United States in the mid-1980's.
But investigators now suspect that those three may not have been responsible for all of the agents lost by the agency and the bureau in the mid-1980's. As a result, the possibility that a Russian agent is still at large has drawn the attention of American investigators, counterintelligence officials have said.
--------
Weak spy network hurt hunt for arms
6/16/2003
By John Diamond,
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-06-16-spy-usat_x.htm
WASHINGTON - Slightly more than a year before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the CIA launched a major effort to rebuild its network of Iraqi agents, which had been badly depleted by repeated purges, according to congressional and Bush administration officials with knowledge of the effort. (Related story: Broad purges wiped out most Iraqis helping CIA)
Despite the commitment of substantial resources, however, the CIA had only modest success in reconstituting its organization inside Iraq. By the end of 2002, Iraqis working for the CIA had begun providing helpful information about Iraq's conventional weapons and other matters relating to the looming U.S. invasion. But the agents had provided no incontrovertible evidence of chemical or biological weapons, the officials said.
The difficulty the CIA had keeping its Iraqi agents alive underscores the challenges U.S. intelligence faced in locating the banned weapons U.S. officials claimed Iraq had. The failure to find those weapons has raised doubts about how much U.S. intelligence really knew about them before the U.S. forces invaded Iraq - and whether the administration was candid about possible weaknesses in its information.
U.S. spy satellites could detect tanks, artillery and other conventional weapons. But finding chemical or biological weapons was much more dependent on spies or defecting scientists, who could point the way to microbes or lethal chemicals that might have been undetectable by virtually any other means.
The CIA's intense effort to rebuild its spy network in Iraq came after it had been almost eliminated by Saddam Hussein's security forces, according to three U.S. intelligence officials. All the officials who gave information for this story spoke on condition of anonymity. All have routine access to classified information and are familiar with the CIA's struggles inside Iraq.
CIA officials outlined a plan to rebuild a base of sources inside Saddam's regime in a series of classified briefings to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in late 2001 and early 2002, a congressional aide said. A major focus was to collect information on Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction programs, but the CIA also sought information that would help the Pentagon plan an invasion. A Bush administration official confirmed this account.
The effort came after at least four years of little intelligence from Iraqi sources within Saddam's regime. The gap in collection was the result, in part, of the difficulty of penetrating a closed and brutal regime and of the CIA's near total focus after Sept. 11, 2001, on the al-Qaeda terror group.
Beginning in 2002, after the defeat of Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan, the CIA gradually developed some sources in Iraq who passed on reports about suspected Iraqi biological, chemical and nuclear programs, according to a senior intelligence official.
But establishing spies within a regime as closed as Saddam's takes time. And by late last year, U.S. intelligence hadn't managed to develop a network that could find banned weapons or production facilities U.S. officials were sure existed. While the CIA disclosed its difficulties to congressional overseers, it did not make the problem public before the war.
Only now are intelligence and congressional officials willing to discuss some of the weaknesses in the prewar effort to gather information on Iraq's suspected weapons.
-------- un
Agency Urges Iran to Cooperate on Nukes
By DANICA KIRKA
Associated Press Writer
Jun 16, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NUCLEAR_FEARS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- The head of the U.N. nuclear agency pushed Iran on Monday to allow more intrusive inspections of its nuclear-related facilities to ease concerns that it is developing atomic weapons.
Mohamed ElBaradei's appeal before the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency came after an internal report claimed Iran failed to honor promises to disclose its use of nuclear material. The United States wants the agency to declare Iran in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
ElBaradei asked Iran to accept a new protocol that will give the agency a chance to "provide credible assurances regarding the peaceful nature of its nuclear activities."
"I also continue to call on Iran to permit us to take environmental samples at the particular location where allegations about enrichment activities exist," ElBaradei said. "This is clearly in the interest of both the agency and Iran."
Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and aimed at producing electricity for energy needs as oil supplies decline.
The meeting of the 35-nation board is expected to last several days.
Suspicion about Iran's program prompted ElBaradei to tour Iran's nuclear facilities in February.
A copy of the report that followed, obtained by The Associated Press, revealed Iran was building a heavy water production plant. Heavy water is used in nuclear power plants and can be used to produce plutonium for weapons.
The report also indicated that Iran failed to declare the importation of a small amount of nuclear material and its subsequent processing to a point short of that needed for an explosive device.
The U.S. ambassador to the agency, Kenneth Brill, described it as "a very serious and sobering report and we have to deal with it."
The European Union's foreign ministers echoed ElBaradei's position and called for Tehran to allow expanded inspections.
Iran's chief representative to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters before the meeting that "this whole issue has been politically motivated and politically charged."
One of the more critical players in the debate is Russia, which is helping build a 1,000-megawatt light-water reactor in the Iranian southern port city of Bushehr, reportedly worth $800 million.
Viktor Kozlov, the head of Russia's state-run Atomstroiexport company, which is in charge of the reactor's construction, said that 3,900 Russian and Iranian workers were building the reactor. Russian Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said last month that the Bushehr reactor was set to become operational in 2005.
Moscow has strongly urged Iran to sign an additional agreement with the IAEA that would put all its nuclear facilities under the agency's control. The government has said that Russia will still ship nuclear fuel to Bushehr even if that push fails, provided that Iran agrees to return all spent fuel to Russia.
"We hope that our point of view is heard in Iran," said Moscow's ambassador to the IAEA, Grigory Berdennikov. "We are working with Iran so that it would sign and ratify the additional protocol."
The meeting comes at a time of growing concern for the control of nuclear material worldwide.
With reports that Iran may be trying to develop a nuclear arsenal, along with worries about North Korea, experts are questioning whether it's really possible to stop countries - let alone terrorists - from acquiring such weapons.
There are fears that the nonproliferation treaty itself may be falling apart.
Under the accord, the United States, China, France, Russia and Britain - the declared nuclear powers of the 1960s - attempted to stop the spread of weapons. They agreed to reduce their arsenals and ensure that nuclear technology was used for peaceful purposes.
But the treaty has failed to discourage other nations - such as India and Pakistan - from developing nuclear weapons. Israel is widely believed to have nuclear arms, though it is unconfirmed. North Korea is also suspected of developing nuclear weapons.
In comments on North Korea, ElBaradei said he could provide no assurances about the "non-diversion of nuclear material for weapons or other explosive devices." Pyongyang expelled agency experts from the country late last year.
On the Net:
IAEA, www.iaea.org/worldatom
----
The Truth About The Lies - Interview of Phyllis Bennis re Hans Blix
Steven Rosenfeld commentary editor and audio producer
TomPaine.com.
June 16, 2003
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8135
AUDIO: Click here to listen http://stream.realimpact.net/rihurl.ram?file=realimpact/tompaine/bennis20030616.rm
Steven Rosenfeld produced this piece.
With many Americans still exulting in the military victory in Iraq, it's hard to make a case that the administration's ends don't justify its means. However, the fact the administration has not found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction goes far deeper that whether the White House can be trusted, says Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.
The lingering WMD question reveals that this administration not only lied to Americans and the world about the reasons it went to war, but did so with a continuing disregard for some of the most fundamental U.S. and international laws. Phyllis Bennis was interviewed by TomPaine.com's Steven Rosenfeld.
TomPaine.com: Hans Blix is retiring as the head of the U.N. weapons inspection teams. In recent days, he's made some statements about the Bush administration's characterizations of the U.N.'s work prior to the war in Iraq. What has he said?
Phyllis Bennis: Well the first thing he said that was significant in this recent period was, in an exclusive interview with The Guardian in the U.K., he said that he was the victim of a smear campaign. He said "I was smeared" and he said by "bastards" -- he used that word -- in Washington.
Now when he was pressed about whether he included the members of the U.S. administration in his characterization of "bastards," he said no, that he was referring to former arms inspectors and a former Swedish prime minister, who he didn't name but it was clear who he was referring to, who had spread critical assessments of his work during the whole period.
But what's more significant, I think, is he's also taken the position that the U.S. decision to go to war based on evidence that turned out to be faulty, calls into question the whole issue of under what circumstances a war could be legal? And he comes down squarely on the side of a war is only acceptable if the [U.N.] Security Council has authorized it. Now, given the position that he's coming from, that's a very significant statement.
TP.c: Why is it significant in that context? Clearly he feels the fact that weapons of mass destruction have not been found, en masse, is, in a sense, a vindication of the U.N. inspection's prior work, right?
Bennis: Right. I don't think the issue is so much about the prior work. The attack on him from these unnamed "bastards" in Washington -- and clearly [this includes] the members of the administration -- he's presumably too diplomatic to admit it, but there's no doubt the members of the administration were furious with him. And at least on a not-for-attribution basis, were prepared to smear him as he said other bastards did from Washington.
But what's also significant about this is that he referred specifically to earlier occasions in which the use of force had been based on intelligence claims that turned out to be false.
He cited, specifically, U.S. attacks. He cited the bombing of the Chinese Embassy during the Kosovo War, in Belgrade, and said that was the result of false intelligence. He spoke of the bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan, having been destroyed in the same way, also based on false intelligence. Then he went on to say, and I quote here, "A war was started based on intelligence (referring to Iraq). We still don't know if it was accurate. But it raises the question, on what basis can a war be started?" That's very significant, I think.
TP.c: What can one do with that question? Or where does one go from here, because clearly that's a legitimate point. But in a certain sense, might makes right with the Bush administration.
Bennis: Well, might makes might, at least. I don't know if it makes it right. But the power to do things gives them the willingness to do those things, and to claim legitimacy in doing so.
I think what this speaks to is the question of how in the future, as well in the continuing investigation on Iraq -- because we should be clear that this investigation is not over yet -- the notion of resolving whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction has become something far more important than just determining whether there is a remaining threat of a nuclear arsenal left over, or some such thing, as was once claimed.
It's now a question of whether the entire episode of this U.S. war, which was claimed to be waged in the name of weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's links with Al Qaeda, was actually based on completely false evidence: whether that evidence was false when it reached the White House; whether it was cooked by the White House; whether it was both initially false and then cooked, so that all the various players are involved. The possibilities are legion for what this really represents.
But it's extraordinary that we have not seen yet in the United States, even with these statements by Hans Blix; even with the recognition that no weapons of mass destruction have been found; even with the lies of the Bush administration -- including as recently as a couple of weeks ago, when President Bush, with great joy, it seems, announced "we have found the weapons," when he was referring to two laboratories that had been found, in which inspectors have found absolutely zero sign of any actual chemical or biological contaminants.
So this eagerness to move forward with their war, regardless of any actual information, is what's really at stake here. And the question of whether, in the future, weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq, goes directly to this issue.
Those of us who were saying before that the weapons of mass destruction claim was a false claim, that it was a bogus claim -- it wasn't because we never thought there could be any scrap of a weapon. There still could be. There may well be some scraps of some left-over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I'll say that right now just as I said it throughout the run-up to the war. But what we do know is there was nothing that was a viable strategic threat to the United States. That was a lie. That there were viable weapons was a lie.
And the notion that we were right and they were wrong has not yet reached a level of outrage in the U.S. press, or among the U.S. public, it seems, in anywhere close to the level of outrage that it has sparked in the U.K. It wasn't only the American people who were lied to by our president. But it is the whole world that was led down the primrose path of lies and deceit by this administration, claiming evidence that they simply did not have.
We don't know yet, we may never know, whether the evidence was simply ignored, made up or cooked. What we do know is they never had the evidence they claimed to have. We never had to go to war.
TP.c: Hans Blix may be trying to rescue or restore his reputation, but still the larger question remains of who is going to hold this administration accountable.
Bennis: Unfortunately, that is where the issue of might and right come into play. The United Nations should be in a position to hold this administration accountable. It should be U.N. weapons inspectors that are on the ground in Iraq, not the U.S. military, led, ironically enough, by a former U.N. weapons inspector from the earlier team -- UNSCOM -- the former director of UNSCOM, David Kay, has now been appointed special advisor to CIA Director [George] Tenet, to be his chief in charge of the weapons search. Why not go to the people who know how to do this?
It was UNSCOM in their first years, from 1991 through 1995, who found and destroyed virtually all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In the years after that, what UNSCOM found was documents, not any existing weapons after that. That situation remains in place. That's who should be in charge.
The problem is the U.S. has made clear, through its launching of this war without Security Council authorization, that they are not prepared to accept the legitimacy of U.N. rule, despite what the U.N. charter says, despite the U.S. being a signatory of the U.N. charter that says that war is only legitimate, either if it's authorized by the Security Council, which this was not, or if it's a question of direct and immediate self-defense, which this was not.
Given that the U.S. has taken itself completely outside of the parameters and the requirements of international law, we probably should not be surprised that the U.N. is simply not in a position of power to hold the U.S. accountable.
TP.c: Is anything that might come from Congress too little, too late?
Bennis: At this point, I think it's very important that Congress move on this. It certainly is too late. It is important that it happen in the context of the increasing power concentration in the executive branch, which we're seeing, which is so dangerous in how this war was launched and waged. So certainly a congressional challenge to that concentration of power would be very important.
It's not sufficient though. This is an assault on the legitimacy of international law as a whole, and it's a matter for the entire world. The whole world is paying the consequences -- the people of Iraq, most specifically -- but the whole world is paying the consequences for this Bush administration move, and it should be international jurisdiction that holds the U.S. accountable.
TP.c: Any likelihood of that?
Bennis: No so far. I don't think we can be optimistic about that anytime soon. Member states of the United Nations are terrified. The vote that the U.S. forced three weeks ago, to endorse the U.S.-British occupation of Iraq, endorse the U.S. war belatedly, came as a result of extraordinary U.S. pressure on member states. There is no willingness to stand defiant of the U.S. right now.
We saw with the passage of the new resolution, three weeks ago, we ended an eight-and-a-half month extraordinary moment, in which the U.N. was doing exactly what it was designed to do by its founders: standing against war; standing defiant of an illegal war; preventing that war from going forward.
It delayed the war. It prevented the war from happening when the U.S. wanted it. It prevented the U.S. from waging war with an international imprimatur, an international legitimization, and then it collapsed after eight-and-a-half months of doing the right thing, the Security Council collapsed under U.S. pressure.
The goal, I think, now of those of us who are committed to international law, to internationalism, to the United Nations, is to figure out what it's going to take to make the U.N. able to go back to that position once again.
TP.c: So we're in an era where might makes right, even if it may not be right. And it doesn't matter if it starts with a bunch of lies, because if you have the biggest military you can just bully your way through.
Bennis: Absolutely. The question is, are we going to be in a position in this country to hold our government responsible for those violations of international law as much as we hold it responsible for the violations of U.S. law? All of those things are important. If we allow our government to get away with this power grab, both domestically and internationally, we are setting the stage for a far graver loss of democracy, both in our country and around the world, than anything we have seen so far.
TP.c: Okay. Thank you very much for your time today.
Bennis: Thank you.
-------- us
Iraq occupation has deadly toll for US
By Robert Schlesinger, Boston Globe Staff and
Amber Mobley, Globe Correspondent,
6/16/2003
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/167/nation/Iraq_occupation_has_deadly_toll_for_USP.shtml
WASHINGTON - Since April 14, when Pentagon officials declared major combat finished in Iraq, more US military personnel have died while occupying Iraq than in a year of occupying Afghanistan, according to Department of Defense figures compiled by the Globe.
Fifty-six US troops have died in Iraq since the fall of Tikrit nearly nine weeks ago, and the majority of those deaths have come in the past six weeks - after President Bush's May 1 speech declaring that invasion operations had ended. Since then, 46 deaths have been reported among US forces, including 11 from combat wounds.
The numbers reflect the ongoing danger facing US troops in Iraq, where coalition forces have in recent days stepped up efforts to root out loyalists of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, using task force tactics strikingly similar to those used in the last year to hunt down Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants in Afghanistan. The figures also reflect the crucial difference between the US goals, presence, and activities in Iraq and those in Afghanistan.
By comparison, since the end of major operations in Operation Anaconda in mid-March 2002 - which was the biggest battle of the Afghan war and which was said to have finished the last major concentration of Al Qaeda and Taliban - 27 US troops have been killed, seven as a result of hostilities. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld did not declare an end to major combat operations in Afghanistan until the start of May this year. Lower-level combat operations continue in that country.
''We're actually trying to stabilize all of Iraq, and our ambitions aren't as great in Afghanistan,'' said Michael O'Hanlon, a defense expert with the progressive Brookings Institution.
One reason for the higher death rate in Iraq is that many more US military personnel are stationed in that nation than in Afghanistan.
''It's awfully hard for people to kill American soldiers if there aren't any on the ground,'' said Loren Thompson, a defense expert with the Lexington Institute, a libertarian-leaning research group. ''The US waged the Afghan war with a minimal ground presence, and even now the number of US troops in Afghanistan is less than 10 percent of the Iraqi presence. So part of the explanation is there are fewer targets for Taliban sympathizers to shoot.''
About 8,500 US troops are in Afghanistan, compared with 140,000 US and coalition troops in Iraq, according to GlobalSecurity.org, a Virginia-based think tank. Overall, about 220,000 US troops are in the Persian Gulf region.
The US strategy for the Afghan war focused on a relatively small US force augmented by local troops.
''Much of our fighting was actually done through indigenous warlords and ethnic forces,'' Thompson said. ''Within particular sectors of the country, there's not much reason for people to want to shoot us, whereas from one end of Iraq to the other there are displaced Ba'ath Party sympathizers that hate us.''
Following the conflict, military specialists said, US strategy has likewise relied on local indigenous authorities - warlords - to keep day-to-day order while focusing on support for the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai.
''All we're trying to do in Afghanistan is keep Karzai as mayor of Kabul and give American forces freedom of movement around the rest of the country,'' said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org. ''Whereas in Iraq we're attempting to actually govern the country. We're attempting to assert a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Not to raise the dreaded `quagmire' word, [but] what we're trying to do in Iraq is much closer to what the Soviets were doing in Afghanistan or what we were trying to do in Vietnam. We have intentionally avoided that in Afghanistan.''
The ongoing US mission in Afghanistan also has been less reactive, with the US troops that are there predominantly focused on hunting down Al Qaeda and Taliban, said Owen Cote, associate director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
''It's harder to find the persons, but when there is a fight it's usually on our terms,'' Cote said. By contrast, US troops in Iraq are engaged in a broader variety of missions that make them easier targets and leave them in a more reactive posture.
And the opposition is larger in Iraq - the Iraqi armed forces were far larger at the start of the Iraq war than the Taliban were at the start of the Afghan war.
The greatest risk for US troops occupying both Afghanistan and Iraq remains noncombat injuries, ranging from traffic accidents and unexploded ord nance to inadvertent weapon discharges.
Rumsfeld announced last month an initiative challenging the defense community to reduce the number of accidents overall by 50 percent over the next two years. ''World-class organizations do not tolerate preventable accidents,'' Rumsfeld said in a May 19 memo.
But in terms of intended harm against US forces, specialists agreed that the coming weeks will be crucial in determining whether ''the last month was the last gasp, or whether the last month is the way things are going to be for a while, or the last month was just coming attractions,'' Pike said.
Retired one-star general John Reppert, executive director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, compared the attitude of most Iraqis to that of voters before an election. ''The basic argument is how we go through national elections - are you better off than you were four years ago, or in this case are you better off than you were four months ago? The legitimate answer for much of the Iraqi population is they are not better off.''
But Jack Spencer, a military analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation, cautioned against quick judg ments. ''Six months from now, we'll have a better handle on how well we're doing.''
Robert Schlesinger can be reached at schlesinger@globe.com.
----
MARINE DIES FROM GUNSHOT WOUND
["Friendly fire"]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 16, 2003
U.S. CentCom,
Release Number: 03-06-57
http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/news_release.asp?NewsRelease=20030657.txt
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. Marine from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force died at approximately 8:45 p.m. in An Najaf June 15 as a result of a non-hostile gunshot wound.
The individual was evacuated to the combat support hospital at Ad Diwaniyah.
The name of the Marine is being withheld pending next-of-kin notification.
The incident is currently under investigation.
NEWS RELEASE HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND 7115 South Boundary Boulevard MacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101 Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894
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Foreign Hot Spots Holding America's Feet to the Fire
By Robin Wright
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 16, 2003
http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-challenges16jun16,0,6086564.story
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's three boldest foreign policy interventions - Afghanistan, Iraq and now the Arab-Israeli conflict - are all losing critical momentum and the U.S. ability to control events may slip away unless bolder action is taken, according to experts, current and former U.S. officials and two new reports.
Hanging in the balance, they warn, are America's credibility abroad and the direction of the Islamic world - moving toward moderation or deeper extremism.
"We were overconfident that American power could somehow intimidate or inhibit the local sources of power and violence. But those power centers - Hamas, Afghan warlords and anti-American forces in Iraq, be they Saddam Hussein loyalists or others - are proving resilient and extremely powerful," said Ellen Laipson, former vice chair of the National Intelligence Council and now president of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a foreign policy think tank in Washington. "And they're all proving to be significant and stubborn challenges for the United States."
Two weeks after President Bush's summits with Israeli and Mideast leaders produced pledges on a new "road map" to peace, the Arab-Israeli conflict is instead escalating. The militant Palestinian group Hamas is now threatening to target all Israeli civilians, while Israel is pledging a "war to the bitter end" against the militants.
Differences between Israel and the Palestinian Authority about how to pursue peace have now been eclipsed by extremist groups, and so far, military clampdowns have only fueled support for them.
"Control of events seems to be slipping away," said Robert Malley, a former National Security Council staff member in the Clinton administration who is now Mideast program director at the International Crisis Group, a conflict watchdog organization. "The history of U.S. initiatives has often been too little, too late - whether the Mitchell plan, the Tenet plan and perhaps now the road map. These are initiatives whose shelf life had expired by the time they were put on the table."
In Iraq, the war may be over, but the country remains a dangerous combat zone. The political transition has proved messier than anticipated and reconstruction more complex and costly.
"American forces are in a race against the clock. If they are unable to restore both personal security and public services and establish a better rapport with Iraqis before the blistering heat of summer sets in, there is a genuine risk that serious trouble will break out," the International Crisis Group concluded in a report issued last week.
And Afghanistan, where Bush launched military action to root out Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is the most precarious arena. Despite vehement American pledges not to abandon Afghanistan again, as the U.S. did a decade earlier, the nation is again in trouble.
The Western-backed interim government - now halfway into its two-year term to stabilize the country, write a new constitution and transform political and economic life - essentially controls only the capital. An estimated 100,000 Afghans in various militias hold sway in much of the country. The economy is still in tatters.
"Without greater support for the transitional government of President Hamid Karzai, security in Afghanistan will deteriorate further, prospects for economic reconstruction will dim and Afghanistan will revert to warlord-dominated anarchy," concludes a report by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Asia Society to be released this week. "This failure could gravely erode America's credibility around the globe and mark a major defeat in the U.S. war on terrorism."
Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden and Taliban leaders remain elusive. And Al Qaeda operatives continue to mount terrorist strikes.
U.S. officials say that much has been achieved in Afghanistan, Iraq and on the Israeli- Palestinian front. All three are long-term challenges that will eventually turn around - and the alternative of doing nothing would have been much worse, they add.
"People have often been in too great a rush to judgment, drawing grand conclusions from one event or one day's developments," said Judith Yaphe, a former CIA analyst who is a senior research fellow at the National Defense University.
Even critics of the administration agree that it defied dire predictions with almost breathtaking military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the new Middle East road map sets the most specific goals and deadlines - and has the widest world and regional backing - of any effort in a decade, they say.
Yet there is a growing sense of unease among foreign policy experts as well as some U.S. officials that the problems in each area will increase America's vulnerability rather than diminish it.
The enormous time required to transform these three arenas - each pivotal to the administration's broader goals of fighting terrorism and Islamic extremism and spreading democracy - is working against the U.S., they say.
"It's hard for us to produce results weeks or months after presidential proclamations," said Laipson, the Stimson Center president. "We've been humbled or reminded of what a slow and uneven path true political change takes. It is a generational experiment, and it doesn't happen in one season or one U.S. election cycle."
Short-term expectations, among both local populations and American voters, of near- miraculous transformations are now working against long-term goals in each area.
"People think wars solve problems. They don't. They simply turn over responsibilities to someone else - while the core problems remain the same," Yaphe said.
A history of failed peace efforts is undermining the Middle East road map, analysts say. Both Israelis and Palestinians had "tremendous cynicism and skepticism" about the peace process even before the latest initiative was introduced, said Shibley Telhami, a Brookings Institution fellow and holder of the Anwar Sadat chair for peace and development at the University of Maryland.
"People on both sides are so tired of promises. They've seen it so often in the past: handshakes and pictures and conferences that don't end up changing anything and, instead, more people die," he said.
Also, what happens in one arena shapes both public attitudes and U.S. prospects for success in another, analysts say.
The problems in Afghanistan have made many Muslims wary of U.S. pledges to follow through in democratizing Iraq or helping to create a Palestinian state. The failure to find chemical or biological arms in Iraq to back up U.S. claims that Baghdad posed an imminent threat has made Arabs suspicious of U.S. motives throughout the Middle East. And deployment of hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in two Muslim nations has triggered fears about American intentions and possibly an even greater confrontation between the West and the Islamic world.
"You have only one chance to make a good first impression," Telhami said. "In Iraq, a lot of people hated the regime, so the United States had something going for it. But then we ended up unprepared for what followed. So a lot of people who expected the war with Iraq to make the U.S. stronger in the eyes of the world, and therefore able to do more in the region, have found instead that the U.S. has been weakened."
The array of challenges has produced recommendations for bolder U.S. action in each arena.
On the Israeli-Palestinian front, Washington is abuzz with ideas from Congress, think tanks and former U.S. envoys about a more muscular international presence, including U.S. or North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops, to separate the two sides and allow the Palestinian government to build a new security force.
The International Crisis Group's report on Iraq urges the U.S. to empower Iraqis faster to craft policy and accelerate local elections to maximize popular support and participation. It also calls for funding an international force to conduct joint patrols with Iraqis to end disorder.
To prevent anarchy in Afghanistan, the report from the Council on Foreign Relations and Asia Society says, Washington needs to move quickly to help extend government control outside the capital and inject at least $1 billion for reconstruction in each of the next five years.
"We've been quite fortunate that not one of these crises has yet to blow up in our faces," a well-placed diplomat said last week. "Unfortunately, any one of them still could - at any moment."
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Rumsfeld and the Army
June 16, 2003
Washington Times Editorial
By David C. Isby
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20030615-112307-4307r.htm
News reports that retired Gen. Peter Jan Schoomaker has been selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as the next Army Chief of Staff have been seen in Washington as another battle between the transformation-minded secretary and an Army leadership still wedded to its big battalions. The selection of a retiree from Special Forces, the Green Berets, is seen by some as a slap at the Army's serving "conventional" generals. The selection comes on the heels of Mr. Rumsfeld's firing of Secretary of the Army Thomas White, with former Air Force Secretary (and naval officer) James Roche to replace him.
Other tensions come from the continued unrest in Iraq. There, the services - especially the Army - had asked for more troops and capabilities than Mr. Rumsfeld sent in the critical days when Saddam's regime crumbled. This time, the military leadership's position seemed to have been justified by the course of events, more so than when it initially opposed the form of the planned operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, wanting them larger and more conventional. The Army's leadership knows that superior firepower and battlefield skills do not provide commensurate advantages at imposing peace and achieving stability in Third World countries. Mr. Rumsfeld's recent declaration of military success in Afghanistan has not prevented U.S. forces there from having to deal with resurgent terrorism. The Army - despite its institutional aversion to such manpower-intensive commitments - has received open-ended missions in Iraq and Afghanistan to add to those that it reluctantly took up in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Yet the Rumsfeld-Army confrontation has been a limited conflict. While bringing in new men at the top, Mr. Rumsfeld has not fired any of the generals he supposedly sees as embodying the old ways. Nor has he killed any of the major equipment programs that they support (with the exception of the Crusader self-propelled howitzer, now reincarnated as part of the Army Future Combat System). From a man that Henry Kissinger reportedly once described as "the most ruthless I ever met, third world dictators not excluded," one would have expected blood in the A-Ring and discarded prototype weapons littering the Pentagon parking lots. The confrontation has much of its origin in appearances and attitudes rather than hard realities.
Mr. Rumsfeld will find military transformation difficult to achieve even with the cooperation of the Army leadership. Aiming for cooperation is no mere popularity contest. In the past, the military has gone along with secretaries of defense that imposed large-scale cuts, so long as it thought its institutions were being dealt with fairly and not led into actions where they would suffer. That is why retired warriors are inclined to pass over the deep spending, personnel and force structure cuts under Charles Wilson and Neil McElroy (Eisenhower's defense secretaries) but still go livid over the dealings of Robert McNamara on the path to the Vietnam War.
But today's uniformed leadership is more politicized than the one that saluted Eisenhower's "New Look." This is a legacy of the Clinton years, when military leaders acted politically to counter some of that administration's policies and the administration responded by politicizing the senior officer selection process to an unprecedented extent.Mr. Rumsfeld - and his appointees, including Mr. Roche and Gen. Schoomaker - may encounter similar opposition inside the Army. If so, a confrontation has the potential to hurt the Army and undercut needed transformation. In such a battle, secretary and service may both suffer.
Mr. Rumsfeld and the Army's leaders are potential allies in seeking to secure the changes needed for effective transformation. This will indeed require new thinking. Gen. Schoomaker may provide it; in recent years he helped expand the role of Special Operations Command, took part in the well-publicized Army Transformation Wargames and pressed CENTCOM Commander Gen. Tommy Franks to accord a greater role to special operations forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there is much more to institutional change - especially in the Pentagon - than the personnel at the top. Mr. Rumsfeld has much more to do to ensure the Army achieves transformation rather than confrontation.
David Isby is a Washington-based national security consultant and author.
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No dissension between DIA, CIA
June 16, 2003
Washington Times
Letters to the Editor
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20030615-112306-2845r.htm
An Inside the Ring item ("Intelligence Wars," Nation, Friday) states that "the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, recently locked horns with CIA Director George J. Tenet" over a signals intelligence matter. Such an assertion is baseless. Columnists Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough also suggest that there is a rift between Mr. Tenet and me over the chain of command and the role of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone. There is no such disagreement. As iterated by Mr. Cambone himself at his confirmation hearing in February, it is the responsibility of the director of central intelligence, Mr. Tenet, to manage the collection, analysis and dissemination of intelligence.
The professional men and women in DIA and CIA work hand in hand 365 days a year on intelligence issues affecting our country. The article trivializes the serious business these agencies are about and is a total misrepresentation. Had the reporters bothered to check with me, I would have corrected the inaccurate source reports and misperceptions.
VICE ADM. LOWELL E. JACOBY
U.S. Navy
Director, Defense Intelligence Agency
Washington
-------- propaganda wars
World Opposed to Bush and Iraq War, BBC Poll Says
June 16, 2003
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-usa-poll.html
LONDON (Reuters) - A majority of people around the world view President Bush unfavorably and think the United States was wrong to invade Iraq, according to a BBC poll published on Monday.
The poll, which surveyed more than 11,000 people in 11 countries, showed 57 percent of those asked had ``a very unfavorable or fairly unfavorable attitude toward the American president,'' the British broadcaster said in a statement.
Some 56 percent felt the United States was wrong to attack Iraq, including 81 percent of Russian respondents and 63 percent of those polled in France.
In Jordan and Indonesia, well over half of those asked felt the United States posed a greater danger to world peace and stability than al Qaeda.
In five of the 11 countries polled, a majority of respondents believed the United States was more dangerous than Iran, named by Bush as part of an ``axis of evil'' with Iraq and North Korea.
And in eight of the 11, respondents said the United States was more dangerous than Syria, a country which Washington accuses of sponsoring terrorism.
However, attitudes toward America, rather than the Bush administration, were slightly more positive.
Half rated the country ``fairly'' while 40 percent considered it ``unfavorable.''
Asked if their country was becoming more like America, 81 percent of Australians and 64 percent of Britons said ``Yes.''
The survey, conducted in May and June by the BBC and pollsters around the world, covered Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, France, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, South Korea, Russia and the United States.
It was commissioned for a TV program called ``What the World Thinks of America.''
-------- war crimes
US is taking liberties with law in Iraq
PILLAGE: Desperate to suppress possible anti-US attacks, reports say soldiers have stormed homes and confiscated money and weapons from some Iraqis
REUTERS
Monday, Jun 16, 2003,
Taipei Times
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/06/16/2003055474
Iraqi multi-millionaire Khalaf Shabib is not used to being manhandled into a tank, blindfolded and being made to wait for six hours with a plastic bag shoved over his head.
With tears rolling down his cheeks, the octogenarian said if US forces continued to treat Iraqis that way they would turn violently against the occupying troops. Shabib, one of the wealthiest businessmen in Iraq, says he feels humiliated.
"I am sad and pained ... because I was humiliated by the Americans. They treated me like an animal," he said.
"We are not their enemies but they are turning us into enemies. My eyes fill with tears when I remember how they treated me ... Now I would be lying if I said I don't want the occupiers out."
Shabib said that on June 6, US tanks surrounded his house at dawn while three helicopters hovered above. American soldiers stormed in, dragged him and his four sons out, tied their hands behind them, blindfolded them and covered their heads for hours.
He does not know what prompted the raid, but he thinks that someone had told the Americans he gave funds to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.
"Maybe an Iraqi who hates me whispered in the Americans' ears and lied to them about me, so they came and captured me," he said.
Shabib said he owns several bus and transport companies as well as a number of jewelry stores. He also used to smuggle goods to neighboring Arab states during the UN embargo.
He lives with his children and grandchildren, a total of 32 people, in a luxurious house in Falluja, 70km west of Baghdad. Since the occupation began, Falluja has seethed with hostility to US troops, who have deployed more forces to crack down on the violence in the Sunni Muslim city.
Rough justice
Many Iraqis are increasingly angry about what they say is unjustifiably rough treatment by US soldiers during weapons raids. They say they understand the Coalition Provisional Authority's decision to crack down on possession of weapons, but say it first has to provide them with security.
"They stopped my car, pushed me out, threw me on the ground, tied my hands behind my back and left me in the intolerable heat for four hours. They took away my pistol then let me go," said a 50-year-old teacher who gave his name as Hassan. Like others in the city of 400,000, he says he wants Saddam back.
"They said pistols were not banned. Why did they take it away? They rid us of Saddam and bring us anarchy. Thank you but no, I want Saddam and my sense of security back."
Crime rates reached unprecedented levels in Iraq after the war. Iraqis accuse the US troops of not doing enough to curb the violence and lawlessness, but US officials say security is improving and they are restoring law and order.
A campaign to collect heavy weapons from Iraqis began on June 1, but the US describes the number of guns handed in as "light."
At Shabib's home, the women and children ran away screaming while soldiers charged through the house, breaking doors and valuable vases, his wife said.
She said she fainted when she saw soldiers take her husband and sons away in a tank. Iyad, Shabib's son who was also detained, said more than US$20,000 were taken by the soldiers, as well as 10 million Iraqi dinars. He said US soldiers also confiscated 18 pistols, hunting guns, and automatic guns.
Illeagal activities?
US military spokesman Colonel Rick Thomas said the army confiscated money only if it suspected it was earned from, or used to fund, illegal activities.
"We're certainly not taking individuals' money. We conduct searches based on information and if we have reason to believe the money was gained through illegal ways or used for illicit activities, it certainly is part of the confiscation, just as in the case of illegal weapons," Thomas said.
US soldiers are on full alert in Falluja where several of their colleagues have been killed since Saddam's removal in April. Iraq's top US administrator Paul Bremer said US troops will defend themselves against attacks in Falluja and use force against the attackers if they have to.
Shabib said he and his sons were put inside a tank, driven around town and thrown into a field until noon in the sweltering heat.
"I am a sick and old man. I asked them to allow me to go to the toilet but they refused and finally when they took me indoors to interrogate me, I began bleeding and collapsed. They took me to hospital," Shabib said.
He said his sons were treated even more badly during their 10-day detention.
Iyad, 32, said he was a soldier in the Iraqi army, but did not fight during the war because he opposed Saddam.
"I refused to fight Saddam's war, and now they put me in jail and accuse me and my family of funding the Baath Party," he said. "What an irony." This story has been viewed 728 times.
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War Crimes Prosecutor Vows Impartiality
June 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-International-Court.html
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- An Argentine human rights lawyer was sworn in Monday as the first prosecutor of the fledgling international war crimes tribunal and said he would work to convince skeptics of the court's legitimacy.
Luis Moreno Ocampo sought to address concerns about the tribunal's effectiveness at the swearing-in ceremony at The Hague's Peace Palace. Advertisement
Ocampo refused to comment on U.S. opposition to the court, but said persuading skeptics of the body's independence will be a major task. He said its deeds will be the best measure of its fairness.
The court will function as a court of last resort, only acting against the most serious violations of international law, primarily functioning as an information broker in international investigations.
``The number of cases that reach the court should not be a measure of its efficiency,'' Ocampo said. ``On the contrary, the absence of trials before this court, as a consequence of the regular functioning of national institutions, would be a major success.''
The court, modeled on the ad-hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, has jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed after the tribunal officially came into existence on July 1, 2002. Although it has already received about 400 complaints from around the world alleging war crimes, it could take months before a first case is heard.
The guests at the swearing-in ceremony included Benjamin Ferencz, lead U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials after World War II.
``It is a new institution, created to bring a greater sense of justice to innocent victims of massive crimes who seek to live in peace and human dignity,'' said Ferencz, 86, who expressed hope that the U.S. government would eventually support the court.
The 1998 Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court has been ratified by 90 countries, but the court faces opposition from the United States. Washington says it fears that Americans, particularly soldiers abroad, could fall victim to politically motivated prosecutions.
The Bush administration has signed bilateral treaties with 37 countries which have agreed not to hand over American citizens to the court.
Non-governmental organizations claim Washington has strong-armed countries into signing the deals by threatening to withhold humanitarian aid or military support and even blocking NATO membership.
Last week, the United States won another yearlong exemption for American peacekeepers from prosecution by the court in a vote at the United Nations, but the EU warned the immunity would not be permanent.
Ocampo will establish the court's prosecution policy and decide which cases should go to trial.
Possibly more important, his performance will influence perceptions around the world of whether the court is seen as fair and impartial. Prosecutors will only be able to prosecute crimes in member countries, unless asked to intervene either by the United Nations Security Council or a nonmember country.
Ocampo once worked as a defense attorney and prosecutor in organized crime and governmental corruption cases in Argentina.
He gained international attention in the mid-1980s as deputy prosecutor in the trial of nine former top military commanders under junta leader Gen. Jorge Videla who were charged with torture and killings.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- courts
Unmanned Drones Explored for Border Use
June 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Customs-Borders.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The agency responsible for making sure that terrorist weapons, drugs and people aren't smuggled into the United States is exploring the possibility of using unmanned aerial drones.
Robert Bonner, commissioner of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, told a House Homeland Security subcommittee Monday that makes sense to conduct a pilot program using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones.
Bonner, who said he would be briefed on the question, said his agency still needs to examine how useful drones would be in helping to police the borders as well as how cost effective they would be.
``I do expect we'll do some sort of pilot in the near term,'' Bonner said in an interview after the hearing. He said the technology is being looked at ``to enhance our detection capability, particularly at our land borders.''
Bonner also said more Border Patrol agents are needed, although he does not yet know how many are needed. Roughly 10,000 Border Patrol agents currently are deployed along the southwestern and northern borders, the General Accounting Office says.
The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, part of the Homeland Security Department, was formed on March 1 and now includes the Border Patrol as well as agriculture, immigration and customs inspectors.
On other issues, Bonner said the government is working to expand a program to improve the security of sea cargo coming into the United States. It also wants to work out agreements with Latin American countries, such as Panama, Argentina and Brazil, that would place customs inspectors at those ports and screen cargos bound for this country.
Most current agreements cover ports in Europe and Asia.
The United States already has expressed interest in expanding the sea-container security program to include some ports in the Middle East, such as those of the United Arab Emirates.
Bonner also said an array of technologies is being used to augment pocket-sized radiation detectors is in the bureau's efforts to make sure that nuclear weapons aren't smuggled in by terrorists or others.
``We found that some of the radiation detection equipment being used -- radiation pagers -- have a limited range and are not designed to detect weapons-usable nuclear material,'' Richard Stana, director of homeland security and justice issues at the General Accounting Office, said Monday in testimony to the panel.
On other issues, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., repeated his misgivings that overseas cargo brought into the United States aboard passenger planes is not screened for explosives or other deadly weapons. Congress, which set deadlines for screening passengers and their luggage, has not done the same for cargo.
After the hearing, Bonner said his bureau has no system in place to screen overseas cargo on passenger planes, but such cargo is screened when planes arrive in the United States.
On the Net: Bureau of Customs and Border Protection: http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/
-------- homeland security
Warning: Emergency alert system full of holes
6/16/2003
By Mimi Hall,
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-06-16-warning-usat_x.htm
A truck transporting a toxic substance turns over on a highway near your house. A terrorist's radioactive "dirty bomb" goes off blocks from your downtown apartment building. A line of tornadoes is bearing down on your church.
How will you be warned right away and told what to do? Chances are you won't.
The nation's emergency alert system is broken. And despite frequent warnings from federal officials that terrorists could strike again - possibly with chemical, biological or radiological weapons of mass destruction - little has been done since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to fix it.
As a result, many Americans risk not knowing about a potentially dangerous situation until it's too late to do anything about it.
"If you get warned, it's as much luck as anything else," says Kenneth Allen, executive director of the Partnership for Public Warning, an organization of government emergency managers and industry executives. The partnership is raising concerns about the lack of a unified, coherent warning system.
Most Americans have heard the three test beeps associated with the Cold War-era Emergency Alert System (formerly the Emergency Broadcast System) on their radio or TV. But experts say that system is functional in only a handful of states - and outdated even where it works. It relies on television networks and radio broadcasters voluntarily turning over air time to government officials in an emergency. But decades after it was created, the system is hobbled by outdated equipment and lack of local participation.
If the president needed to warn the nation of an impending nuclear attack, he would have access to thousands of TV and radio stations to do so. But for state and local emergencies, the system is spotty at best. Even if the president were to activate the system nationally - something no president has done - he would reach only those people tuned in to a TV or radio network.
"We live in a much more complex, diverse, mobile society, and we face threats that our grandparents never faced," Allen says. "They didn't have chemical-truck spills or nuclear accidents or terrorists."
His organization and members of a Federal Communications Commission advisory committee say the nation should turn to high-tech solutions to warn people about emergencies and suggest how to respond. Information could be delivered by telephones, cell phones, pagers and computers. Computer chips could be embedded in TVs and radios to make them turn on automatically when warnings are broadcast.
"We have the technology. We can do it," says Craig Fugate, director of Florida's Division of Emergency Management and chairman of the public-warning partnership's board. He says chips could be installed in all new TV sets for about 50 cents per chip. But that has never been done because industries worry that they would be held liable if the chips failed.
Technological advances would make it possible to alert small groups of people to an emergency, such as those living in a 10-block area or on a suburban cul-de-sac. Warning just those affected would reduce panic that might be caused by a broad-scale alert.
Weather radios that turn on automatically to broadcast tornado warnings are popular in some parts of the country. But less than 10% of the population owns them.
By Wednesday, the FCC advisory group will vote on suggestions for a new high-tech system. Ira Goldstone, the Tribune Co. technology coordinator who heads the panel, says he hopes the issue will pick up momentum. But no federal agency has taken the lead.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has expressed support for a new national warning system, but it has yet to become a top priority. Michael Brown, the undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response, says the department isn't going to "jump in with both feet." He says the public will rely on news media for information during major disasters. But he says new technologies will lead to better regional warning systems.
Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who is running for president, says that's not good enough. The current system "depends on television and radio that most people won't hear in the middle of the night when an attack could come," he says. "Public warnings save lives, so we have to make sure they get to every American."
The Senate tried to include $10 million toward that end in this year's budget - a small amount by federal government standards but more than enough, experts say, to develop a decent public-warning system. But the money was stripped out of the budget.
Some wonder whether the nation needs a new warning system in an age of 24-hour news coverage. On and after Sept. 11, for example, stations broadcast information from officials around the clock.
"If there was a national crisis, chances are that most radio stations and TV stations would put (the president) on," the partnership's Allen says. "But if you're watching TNT (Turner Network Television) or the shopping channel, you might never know there was something going on. I've got 130 channels on my cable network. How many would broadcast a presidential alert? Maybe 10."
Even if most channels broadcast government warnings, Fugate says, "if there's a chemical spill in the middle of the night in your neighborhood, you're probably not going to be watching CNN."
-------- terrorism
''Operation Iraqi Freedom: Just another chapter''
Monday, June 16, 2003
By Matthew Riemer YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1423
Prior to attacking Iraq, the Bush administration was warned by everyone from CIA Director George Tenet to stereotypical anti-war demonstrators that any such invasion would lead to an increase in terrorist acts against the U.S. and its interests. In short, any such invasion would not lead to a more secure America. It was also noted countless times that the war would also not help the U.S.' "image" in the Middle East and, more generally, in the rest of the world, and would only lead to further unwanted friction in future diplomatic efforts.
The recent concentration of suicide bombings stretching from northwest Africa to Chechnya is being pointed to as an indication that Director Tenet and the anti-war folk were indeed correct in their analysis. And while this is true in a broad sense, in another sense the bombings are more unconnected to the war in Iraq than one might at first naturally assume.
Washington's most recent military action in Iraq must be put in the context of other U.S. military and foreign policy endeavors and their effects before its impact can be discerned. Most importantly, it must be realized that the latest war is simply another act of aggression carried out by the United States against the Arab and Muslim worlds. Unfortunately, contempt for the U.S. has a long and rich history -- it wasn't born with the attack of several weeks ago.
If the United States had not attacked Iraq, it can only be assumed that these suicide bombings would have still taken place. Surely, abstaining from force on the United States' part alone would not have led to a cessation of terrorist acts. The events in Israel and Chechnya are, in a very literal sense, unconnected to the war and are fueled by their own conflicts, not by Iraq; even the bombings in Casablanca, Morocco and Riyadh were likely planned before the fighting in Iraq and would have occurred in any case. The attack in Riyadh stands especially well on its own because al-Qaeda and other organizations like it have long desired regime change in Saudi Arabia; this incident should be seen as targeting the Saudi monarchy as much as the more ambiguous "Western interests."
Because of this, analyses that focus on more simplistic and immediate cause and effect models and tit for tat themes will only be so revealing. The situation is best seen as comprised of two independent, self-contained streams -- U.S. foreign policy and terrorism -- that have developed over the last few decades.
Terrorism emerged and then burgeoned because of conditions found within the social and political environment throughout much of the globe during the twentieth century. As the conditions have remained, and in many cases worsened, terrorism has evolved not only as a method of resistance and reprisal but almost as a cultural tradition (though certainly one not embraced by the majority). Now, generations have fought against the Russians, Israelis, Americans, or Indonesians. Thus, because of terrorism's stature within certain ideologies and political systems, it cannot simply be eliminated or even "routed out" -- it's now an engrained way of life. And as long as there are those who wish to impose their will on others violently, there will be those who resist with "terrorism."
Terrorism will continue, much in the same way violence has since the dawn of time. The wish to eliminate terrorism permanently and completely is no less practical or idealistic than to eliminate violence in general. This is one of the streams.
U.S. foreign policy (especially with regard to, say, Eurasia since WWII) is another stream in the convoluted world of geopolitics. This, too, like terrorism, is something which has grown and been molded by decades of significant events and players (environment). It's doubtful, if indeed impossible, for a phenomenon like this to take too sharp of a u-turn or too radical of a refocus. So the war in Iraq, though unprecedented in many ways, is but another event in the wake of decades of others, which has now laid additional seeds for a new generation of terrorists.
The greatest significance of "Operation Iraqi Freedom," then, is its influence on those who will be young men and women in five, ten, or fifteen years -- as mentioned, today's bombings were already set in place by decades of war. The latest conflict is just another example of why terrorism exists and, now, why it will continue to do so.
Moreover, if the past two years are any indication, the United States not only shows no sign of changing its foreign policy of invasiveness in the Middle East and Eurasia but actually accelerating such a policy.
Politicians like to talk about peace, stability, or democracy like they are simple puzzles that can be solved with a single action or solution. But a societal, governmental, and cultural transition impeded by decades of influence is a process that must become a state of mind and an attitude. It must permeate everything that all participants do. No matter how morally superior the Bush administration felt in its insistence upon war, the effects certainly contribute to a stream of activity that acts as an incubator for unrest and terrorism in the Middle East, all but guaranteeing the existence of terrorism in another decade's time.
The attacks in Riyadh and Casablanca should be seen as a reaction to and result of decades of invasive U.S. policy in the region, of which "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is simply the most recent example. To define the attacks as an almost knee-jerk reaction to the latest war is to lessen their significance as a form of political expression -- however crude -- and representative of genuine social issues, which attempt to comment on matters that go far beyond Washington's treatment of Iraq over the last few months. Only after years, or possibly even decades, of a radical shift in foreign policy will what the U.S. defines as "terror" ever be defeated.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Kerry Touts Security Through Energy Independence
June 16, 2003
(ENS)
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2003/2003-06-16-10.asp
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry unveiled his energy plan Friday and said that he is "running for President to declare America energy independent." The United States can no longer afford the security risks that come with its current oil consumption, Kerry said, and needs to revamp its energy policy in order to put the nation on a course toward energy independence.
"If we care about the national security of America, we can settle for nothing less than energy security for America," Kerry said. "The cause is urgent, and the time is now."
His energy plan will deliver this energy security, Kerry said, and will achieve the goal of ending the nation's dependence on foreign oil within 10 years.
The nation needs to redirect its energy spending and to cut subsidies to the big energy companies, Kerry says, and to provide increased incentives for renewable energy development.
Kerry's plan centers on an alternative energy research trust fund, tougher fuel economy standards, as well as tax incentives to encourage energy efficiency and new initiatives to increase natural gas supplies and to develop clean coal technology.
"This energy security plan is not about spending more, but spending smarter," Kerry said. liebermanjoe Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is convinced the United States can be energy indepedent within a decade. (Photo courtesy Senator Kerry's office) Kerry says his energy plan will not only safeguard the environment, but will create some 500,000 new American jobs.
"We have the opportunity and potential to create an oil free future," Kerry said. "Once the idea of creating clean, renewable sources of energy right here in America was dismissed as science fiction. Today, it is potentially right around the corner - and, more often than not, the technology is already here."
In a speech that repeatedly linked national security with energy policy, the Massachusetts Senator slammed President George W. Bush for pursuing a course of "energy dependence."
"Today we have an energy policy of big oil, by big oil and for big oil," Kerry told an audience gathered in a Cedar Rapids Veterans of Foreign Wars hall. "Time and again [President Bush] has postponed, equivocated, done nothing or done the wrong thing."
"[President Bush] proposes budgets that shortchange investments in clean, renewable, domestic sources of energy like wind, solar, and biomass," Kerry said, "[and] disdains energy conservation."
Kerry, currently serving his fourth term in the Senate, is one of nine Democrats vying for the party's nomination to face Bush in the 2004 election.
The Massachusetts Senator says automobiles are the key to reducing oil consumption, and he wants tougher fuel economy standards for today's vehicles.
"The research shows that the best way to reduce oil dependence in the near term is to increase fuel efficiency in the near term," Kerry said.
New tax incentives should be offered to encourage consumers to buy more fuel efficient vehicles, Kerry said, and the auto industry should receive some $1 billion a year revamp their manufacturing processes to deliver these vehicles.
"As we require higher fuel efficiency, we have to help companies and consumers alike make the transition," Kerry explained.
To encourage the auto industry and the nation to embrace the promise of hydrogen, Kerry would create a new Hydrogen Institute to fund research to develop a hydrogen-based energy economy by 2020.
Kerry's Hydrogen Institute would be tasked with orchestrating an effort to put 100,000 hydrogen powered vehicles on the road by 2010, and 2.5 million hydrogen cars by 2020.
"Energy efficient, environmentally friendly vehicles are one of the most promising, profitable, and job creating innovations we will see in this century - from today's hybrids to tomorrow's hydrogen cars," Kerry said. "We must seize this important opportunity and make sure that America leads the way."
"If we continue to lag behind, we multiply the risks that the cars of the future will be built in Japan or Korea or Europe at the expense of American jobs," Kerry said. anwr Kerry says U.S. automakers run the risk of losing the market for new fuel efficient and alternative energy autos to foreign rivals. This is a Honda fuel cell vehicle. (Photo courtesy Honda) Kerry's plan would create an energy security and trust fund, using royalties collected from corporations for drilling on public lands to pay for research and development of alternative energy sources.
Current funding for new energy technologies is "sporadic, uncertain, and always insufficient," Kerry said.
"There is no metaphysical or miraculous way for us to drill our way out of a 60 percent foreign oil dependency," Kerry said. "We have to invent our way out of it."
The Massachusetts Senator says the nation can and should produce 20 percent of all its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
The federal government should lead by example, Kerry said, and he would put it on course to cut its energy bill 20 percent by 2020.
Kerry's energy efficiency drive would also include tax credits for builders and homeowners to make their homes meet the highest energy efficient standards.
Kerry says there is a large role for natural gas and coal in the nation's energy future.
The supply of natural gas must be expanded, Kerry said, and he calls for a North American Compact to bring together the United States, Mexico and Canada in an effort to develop and transport natural gas resources from across North America, in particular from Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.
The United States must develop and deploy clean electric power from coal, Kerry said, without "abandoning the coal industry, the families and communities that depend on it."
----
U.S. Seeks Hydrogen Fuel Partnership
Energy Chief to Urge European Support in Developing Clean Source of Power
By Peter Behr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 16, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62998-2003Jun15?language=printer
The Bush administration is answering domestic criticism of its environmental record with a U.S.-led international campaign to develop hydrogen as a clean fuel for a new generation of motor vehicles and electrical power cells over the next two decades.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is scheduled to address a European Commission energy conference in Brussels today to urge European leaders to join the hydrogen energy partnership, which is to be launched in October, according to conference participants. The venture's goals include a pooling of research on the production and distribution of hydrogen, development of fuel cells to convert the gas into electricity and safety and transportation regulations required in handling hydrogen.
While President Bush and key European leaders have fallen out on a range of issues from the Iraq war to global warming policies, the hydrogen energy partnership venture will be supported by the 15-nation commission, officials said. "The Bush administration has said, 'Let's agree to disagree,' on those issues, and let's identify other shared interests and work together on them," commission spokesman Fabio Fabbi said. Hydrogen energy is one such important interest, he said.
Bush and European Commission President Romano Prodi are scheduled to meet in Washington June 25, and an agreement between them on joint hydrogen research is expected, officials said.
The almost magical potential for hydrogen as a pollution-free fuel has given it immediate political currency, even though its widespread use lies many years away. The administration's goal is to have affordable hydrogen-powered vehicles available and a fuel distribution network in place by 2020.
Bush's advocacy of a hydrogen strategy has moved Democratic presidential candidates to advance their own hydrogen plans. It has also provoked complaints from environmental activists and clean energy advocates that the administration is using the hydrogen policy to justify increased subsidies for nuclear and coal power that could be used to produce the fuel.
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a candidate for next year's Democratic presidential nomination, chided the Bush administration Friday for setting a distant goal for the widespread use of hydrogen fuels, while ignoring many short-term actions to address global warming and promote energy conservation and renewable fuels such as wind power.
"The Bush administration's vision on hydrogen is akin to setting a goal to cure cancer decades from now and doing nothing to treat the millions who will get cancer in the meantime," Kerry said in a speech prepared for a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, political appearance.
Kerry and other Democratic rivals support a big increase in federal fuel economy standards and requirements that utilities generate part of their electricity supplies from wind and other renewable sources. The administration has opposed these steps, siding with the auto industry on the fuel economy issue and arguing that states should set renewable energy goals that fit their needs, as some have done, including Bush's home state of Texas.
Jeremy Rifkin, a Washington-based consultant to the European Commission and author of a book promoting the hydrogen option, said the Bush initiative falls far short of Europe's strategy, which calls for a rapid increase in renewable energy sources.
"I think this is a very well-thought out effort for President Bush to claim it has a program for energy security and global warming," Rifkin said. "If it turns out that the game plan for the U.S. is to use hydrogen to further the interests of coal and nuclear industry, it's going to backfire politically."
The administration countered that nearly half of its $39 million research budget on hydrogen production in fiscal 2004 focuses on renewable technologies, primarily splitting hydrogen from water with electrical energy. The electric power used for that option would have to be "clean," generated by wind or other non-polluting sources, the administration said. Research on extracting hydrogen from natural gas gets $12 million because that is the most common method now. Coal and nuclear options together get $9 million.
Administration officials said coal would not be used to generate hydrogen unless new technologies can prevent the release of greenhouse gases as byproducts of the process. "We would not taint the clean nature of hydrogen with a dirty method of production," a senior official said.
To environmental activists, the most troubling part of the administration's program is its embrace of nuclear power as a potential source of electricity to produce hydrogen. The 2004 budget calls for a $388 million investment in nuclear research, development and education support, nearly 20 percent more than this year. A major administration goal is development of a new generation of nuclear plants that could come on line between 2010 and 2030.
Former Republican congressman Bob Walker said the important point is that the administration has put the hydrogen option on the table. "I'm just pleased somebody finally took leadership on a clean, abundant energy source that can be produced in every country. If Democrats want to come in with a competing program, I say that's wonderful. Let's debate how we get there," said Walker, chairman of the Wexler & Walker lobbying firm.
The debate over hydrogen will be just a new version of the nation's current battles between industry and environmentalists over coal, nuclear, oil, gas and renewable fuel choices, said former Clinton administration energy official Dan Reicher. "Hydrogen can be part of the answer to climate change, or more of the problem, depending on how we make it. It's not a new source of energy. It's simply another way to deliver energy."
----
Trans-Atlantic Fuel Cell Development Pact Signed
June 16, 2003
(ENS)
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2003/2003-06-16-04.asp
BRUSSELS, Belgium, The United States and the European Union today signed a cooperation agreement to develop fuel cell technology. The seven point plan, brokered by European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin and the U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, aims to strengthen research by bringing together European and U.S. researchers from public and private sectors. Key challenges for fuel cells to become commercially competitive are cost reduction, improved performance and durability.
In a keynote address to the European Commission's Conference of the High Level Group on Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies, Secretary Abraham called on EU member countries to participate in a conference this fall to formally establish the International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy.
handshake
U.S. Energy Secretary spencer Abraham (left) and European Research Commissioner Phillipe Busquin shake hands on the fuel cell deal today in Brussels. (Photo courtesy Audiovisual Library European Commission) "Such a partnership would provide the best mechanism to efficiently organize, evaluate and coordinate multinational research and development programs that advance the transition to a global hydrogen economy," Abraham said. "I am convinced the partnership will speed the day when consumers everywhere can purchase a competitively priced hydrogen powered car."
Signing the agreement in Brussels, Commissioner Busquin said, "Through global scientific partnerships we can work together to develop fuel cell technologies to deliver viable, environmentally sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels."
"Today represents a landmark in energy research history," said Busquin. "With this agreement and the publication of the summary report of the High Level Group on Hydrogen and Fuel Cells, we have made real progress towards building a sustainable future for Europe, the U.S. and their peoples."
Abraham stressed the value of international partnerships in achieving progress in the energy area and noted the emphasis that both the United States and the European Commission have placed on their respective hydrogen initiatives as well as their mutual cooperation and achievements in this field.
"From his first days in office, President [George W.] Bush has focused on the significant challenges posed by our national energy and environmental needs," Abraham said. "Like many of the nations represented here, the United States has made hydrogen research and development a top priority."
A hydrogen fuel cell is an electrochemical device which converts the energy of a chemical reaction directly into electricity. By combining hydrogen fuel with oxygen from the air, electricity is formed in a fuel cell without combustion. Water and heat are the only byproducts when hydrogen is used as the fuel source. Unlike a battery, a fuel cell does not run down or require recharging. It continues operating as long as a fuel is supplied.
The agreement signed today also includes the development of other types of fuel cells besides those fueled by hydrogen such as methanol and solid oxide fuel cells.
In 2002, the European Commission established the High Level Group on Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies, which includes auto and transport companies, utilities research institutes, and policy makers, to advance the development of the hydrogen economy.
bus
Hydrogen fuel cell bus under evaluation in California. (Photo courtesy DOE) The Bush administration established the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative to develop hydrogen infrastructure and hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles, and introduced the FreedomCAR program to develop automotive systems that would use hydrogen as a fuel.
"We are so committed that over the next five years the Department of Energy will invest $1.7 billion in research and development of hydrogen vehicles and hydrogen infrastructure technologies," Abraham said.
Europe's total public expenditure in this field is estimated at some €600 million (US$709.8million) for the 2002-2006 period for the European Union and Member States. Thirty fuel cell buses will be tested and evaluated in European cities over the next several years.
"Hydrogen can be produced using renewable, fossil, and nuclear energy," Abraham noted. "We are looking at all of these options. But we intend that all our hydrogen will eventually be produced using emissions free technologies. In our most recent budget, we propose spending roughly 50 percent on hydrogen production from renewable resources."
Abraham said he believes the hydrogen option is perhaps the most significant endeavor the energy sector will see in our lifetimes. "Working together with international partners, we can leverage scarce resources and advance the schedule for research, development, and deployment of hydrogen production, storage, transport, and end-use technologies," he said.
The agreement details the development of joint initiatives in seven fuel cell related areas.
- Transportation vehicle demonstrations, including fueling infrastructure
- Fuel cells as auxiliary power units that boost the onboard power of gasoline vehicles
- Codes and standards for fuel infrastructure, vehicles and auxiliary power units
- Fuel choice studies and socio-economic assessment of critical materials availability for low temperature fuel cells
- Support studies, including assessment of critical rare earth materials for high temperature fuel cells
- Direct methanol and polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells for transportation and stationary applications
- Solid oxide fuel cells and high temperature fuel cell turbine hybrid systems
----
Wind Park Would Blow Energy Into Long Island
June 16, 2003
(ENS)
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2003/2003-06-16-09.asp#anchor5
NEW YORK, New York, The Long Island Power Authority said last week that if the summer is unusually hot, the area should expect power shortages. In response, a company that announced a bid to build an offshore wind park south of Long Island says that wind energy could end those shortages.
Bluewater Wind, which builds and operates wind power projects around the country, submitted the plan in response to the Long Island Power Authority's Request for Proposals.
"Long Island can steer the country in an exciting new direction with its offshore wind, which will be pollution free, boundless, and blow a gust of clean air into the future of energy production," said Ashok Gupta, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Air and Energy Program.
A 2002 Long Island Power Authority study showed that wind resources off Long Island's southern shore have the potential to generate enough electricity to meet more than 75 percent of Long Island's electricity needs.
The Bluewater Wind proposal would harness a portion of those resources with a wind park less than one-half square mile in total area. The collective output, Bluewater Wind says, would be enough to supply approximately 42,000 Long Island families with 100 percent of their electricity.
Wind energy systems transform the kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical or electrical energy that can be harnessed for practical use. It is most commonly used for pumping water in rural locations, but now is being used to generate electricity for homes and for sale to utilities.
Over the last 20 years, the cost of electricity from utility scale wind systems has dropped more than 80 percent. In the early 1980s, wind generated electricity cost as much as 30 cents per kilowatt hour. Today, state of the art wind power farms can generate electricity for less than five cents a kilowatt hour in many parts of the country.
Wind energy is the world's fastest growing electricity source. U.S. wind projects in 26 states produce the equivalent of what is generated by six million tons of coal.
Bluewater Wind's design places 39 turbines more than 6.5 miles off the coast and says that the turbines will only be faintly visible on the clearest of days.
The project has received widespread support, including that of Governor George Pataki and 34 Long Island based environmental, civic and faith based groups.
----
Solar Cars Get Kicks on Route 66
June 16, 2003
(ENS)
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2003/2003-06-16-09.asp#anchor8
WASHINGTON, DC, Thirty low, sleek and colorful cars will be trekking across historic Route 66, but none of them will be stopping for gasoline anywhere from Chicago to Los Angeles.
The race to determine the fastest solar powered car in North America takes place July 13 to 23, when teams from universities, companies and organizations around the world compete in the American Solar Challenge.
The winner will be the car with the best cumulative time between Chicago and Claremont, California in the Los Angeles area. At 2,300 miles, the American Solar Challenge is the longest solar car race in the world.
"The American Solar Challenge will advance renewable energy and electric vehicle technologies, promote educational and engineering excellence, and encourage environmental consciousness and teach teamwork," said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
"The race provides hands on experience for engineering students, allowing them to build their technical skills for the 21st century marketplace," he said.
The Department of Energy is sponsoring the event, which will begin at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry July 13 and finish 10 days later in Claremont.
The solar racers will follow Route 66 as much as possible, with checkpoints in Springfield, Illinois; Rolla and Joplin in Missouri; Edmond and Sayre in Oklahoma; Amarillo, Texas; Tucumcari, Albuquerque; and Gallup, New Mexico; Flagstaff and Kingman Arizona; and Barstow, California before reaching the finish in Claremont.
The cars are powered only by sunshine. Photovoltaic cells, known as solar cells, convert sunlight to electricity to power the racers.
Weather and energy management play an important role. The cars generally travel at highway speeds and are required to obey local speed limits, but in general, the sunnier the day, the faster and farther the cars can run. Bright days also allow the cars to fill up their batteries for cloudy or rainy days.
Although most solar cars are designed for one person, this year's race will see some of the first two person cars.
In the 2001 American Solar Challenge, the winner crossed the finish line in 56 hours, 10 minutes and 46 seconds - an average speed of 40 miles per hour. Improvements in solar cells and batteries could mean an even faster race this year.
-------- environment
Devastating the Earth
By Jane Goodall,
Resurgence
June 16, 2003
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16160
In 1960, I began my study of chimpanzees on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in what is now Tanzania. At that time chimpanzee habitat stretched for miles, fringing the lake from Burundi to Zambia in the south. From the hills of Gombe national park one could see the forest stretching away inland, interrupted only by a few villages with their fields of crops. Today, the scene is very different: Cultivated land crowds up to the boundaries of the park, the trees have gone, peasants are trying to grow crops on the steep rocky hillsides, causing terrible erosion, the soil is losing its fertility, the forest animals have gone, and the human population is struggling to survive.
What has caused this devastation? Partly, of course, the same kind of population growth that we have seen around the world since 1960. But the situation has been made infinitely worse by the vast numbers of refugees fleeing the wars ravaging Burundi, to the north, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on the other side of the lake, to the east.
Refugees in Africa as they trudge towards some place of safety - usually one of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission on Refugees) camps - have a terrible struggle to survive. They cut down trees for temporary shelter and for firewood, gather every kind of edible plant, and hunt wildlife for food. Sometimes entire populations flee into formerly uninhabited - even protected - areas where they must exploit the land to survive. And even when they are located in UNHCR camps, the young men, who are usually not allowed to work, go on illegal hunting trips in an ever increasing radius from their camp. Sometimes they do this to supplement their rations when, due to shortage of funds, the food supply to the camps is cut. This fuels tensions between the local people and the refugees. Scarcity of natural resources can actually trigger conflicts as well as prolonging existing wars.
Wild animals (as well as livestock) are often direct casualities of war. Soldiers as well as refugees hunt wildlife for food. According to the Biodiversity Support Program, war in the DRC in 1996 and 1997 led to an escalation in poaching in one area that reduced the elephant population by half, buffalo by two-thirds, and hippo by three-quarters. Gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos, already seriously endangered by the commercial bush meat trade, were also affected.
Not only do landmines maim innocent humans, hundreds of animals are also affected, and vast areas of farmland are made useless so that increased destruction of wilderness areas results. The instability caused by conflict enables people to take advantage of the situation to mine diamonds and other commercially valuable resources illegally, even in protected areas - where they destroy the environment and kill all available wildlife for food.
Other insults to the environment are more sinister. Defoliants, like the infamous Agent Orange, destroyed vast areas of forest in Vietnam to provide the us and South Vietnamese armed forces with improved visibility. Eleven million gallons of this chemical were used, and it is still active in the environment today. Countless children exposed to Agent Orange have suffered birth defects, and Vietnamese researchers believe that between 800,000 and one million Vietnamese people suffer health problems related to the use of the chemical. The US government questions these statistics - yet nevertheless it is finally compensating its veterans for a variety of health conditions apparently related to their time in Vietnam, and even compensating their children who suffer from spina bifida and other such diseases, often from contaminated sperm.
More recently, countless people have been exposed to depleted uranium shells as used in the Gulf War and Kosovo. The nature of Gulf War Syndrome, which has incapacitated numerous veterans of that war, is still being investigated. Huge areas of land will remain contaminated far into the future. Toxic chemicals are regularly used for fumigation as part of the war on drugs in Columbia; these too will remain to contaminate the environment and threaten human and animal health for years to come.
And then there are the weapons of mass destruction. The environment has not recovered from the atomic bombs that were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of World War II. People living in these areas are still suffering from increased rates of cancer and other diseases. That such weapons were ever created is an evil stain on human history. That governments have continued to develop and test nuclear bombs - along with chemical and biological weapons - is a crime against humanity that surely can never be justified. The sale of traditional weapons by the developed world to enable developing countries to fight each other is bad enough; selling weapons of mass destruction is infinitely worse. And, as an aside, billions of animals are tortured by scientists in the pay of the military during the development of these weapons; and who knows how many human beings, along with animals and the environment, have been affected by nuclear tests?
Much has been written about the crumbling nuclear arsenal of post-Cold-War Russia and the millions of dollars required to contain the deadly leakage. Nuclear waste from World War II was dumped in the oceans of the world. Scientists suspect that many of the containers will soon leak if they are not leaking already - but the precise location of some of them seems not to be known. Additional hazardous waste is accumulating all the time.
Another world war has been ignited, and the effect on all living things is likely to be catastrophic. Indeed, it is possible that the environment, already stressed in many places close to the point of no return, will be unable to recover. And the situation is made even worse when governments in the developed world, when preparing for war, themselves violate environmental regulations - as in exploiting protected wilderness areas for oil - persuading their citizens that such operations are to increase national safety and must therefore take priority over any concern for the environment. Our reckless burning of fossil fuel contributes to global climate change even in times of peace - imagine the monstrous increase in CO2 emissions that would be generated by modern warfare around the globe.
It is desperately important that the general public should have access to the facts. Unfortunately, a common response is to shy away from such knowledge. People prefer not to know, not to think about such things but rather, like some gigantic flock of ostriches, bury their heads in the sand. As more and more of that sand becomes contaminated as a result of war and the preparations for war, the outlook for the ostriches - and for all life on Earth - will become increasingly desolate.
Jane Goodall is founder of Roots And Shoots, an environmental and humanitarian program for young people.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Activist seeks tally of Iraq's casualties
June 16, 2003
By Peyman Pejman
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030615-113938-6251r.htm
BAGHDAD - With a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Marla Ruzicka says she is determined to discover how many civilians died in the Iraq war.
Miss Ruzicka, founder and director of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), wants "the U.S. government [to] have a clear humanitarian-response policy as a result of their military actions."
"It is a pretty apolitical objective," she said in an interview. "You could be for or against the conflict in Iraq, but the issue is that civilians should not be harmed in a conflict."
To bring about at least some level of accountability, she and a team of 150 Iraqi volunteers she has gathered have been conducting surveys in various parts of the country to assess the extent, details and number of civilian casualties.
She has set up several offices, from the southern city of Basra up north to the capital. She plans to soon to hire staff in northern Iraq. Miss Ruzicka's work is not purely academic research. It is required by U.S. law.
The final version of the $78.5 billion emergency-spending bill passed by Congress in April requires that the U.S. government "provide appropriate assistance" to Iraqi civilians for war losses.
Though the money is to come out of the $2.5 billion the Pentagon has set aside for Iraq reconstruction projects, it has not been decided how much of it will be spent for compensation.
Miss Ruzicka has been working with staff of Sen. Patrick Leahy, Vermont Democrat, who sponsored the resolution.
She said compensation will not be in cash payments, but assistance with matters such as health care bills and rebuilding schools and other damaged buildings.
Before any kind of compensation can begin, Miss Ruzicka and her team have to collect accurate data on how many Iraqi civilians were killed, where and under what circumstances.
Given the nature of the previous regime in Iraq, one tricky point might be to determine surely which victims were civilian and which military.
"It just requires a little bit of investigation. The hospitals keep a record of who was a civilian or who was a military [member]. Those are clearly indicated. At the time, I believe, the doctors kept accurate records. We can also go to the doctors and they will tell us the truth," Miss Ruzicka said.
"We are going to the families. We are going to their homes. You speak to their neighbors. You get a sense for who they are. It is not too difficult. It is not hard, and the Pentagon should be doing it themselves as well."
Last week the Associated Press reported it had documented 3,240 civilian deaths in a five-week investigation from one end of the country to the other. It called its count fragmentary and said the complete toll - if it is ever tallied - is sure to be significantly higher.
The Pentagon has yet to perform its own tally.
CIVIC has received a grant from USAID to carry on its work. USAID is the agency that will be responsible for disbursing the money allocated for civilian compensation and carrying out related support projects.
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Intellectuals Join Iran Reform Effort
June 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- More than 250 university teachers and writers added their voices to students' bold demands for democratic reforms in Iran, telling supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei he must answer to the people and abandon the idea that he is God's unchallenged representative on Earth.
The reformists' statement, published Monday in the newspaper Yas-e-nou, was an encouraging sign for the students who demonstrated for about a week and even called for Khamenei's death before their protests were broken up by police and hard-line government backers.
Many Iranians are believed to be frustrated with the rule of Muslim clerics, but the cost of speaking out can be high, including prison sentences. Most Iranians looked on as protesters clashed with police and pro-clergy militants last week, and without support from other segments of society, the students have little hope of success or even maintaining momentum for demonstrations.
Those who signed the statement did so even though the protests were put down by violence and politicians who have made similar calls have been arrested in the past. The signatories included two aides to reformist President Mohammad Khatami: Saeed Pourazizi, an official in the president's office, and Saeed Hajjarian, who is widely regarded as the architect of Khatami's reform program.
The Bush administration endorsed the demonstrators, saying they ``are asking to join the modern world,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday. He said U.S. support is limited to that and nothing more.
``We've been concerned about the use of violence against the demonstrators,'' Boucher said. ``It's time for the voices of the Iranian people to be listened to and heard.'' On Sunday, President Bush said the protests showed a yearning for freedom. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi criticized Bush for the remarks Monday, saying the comments reflect a ``lack of knowledge or animosity and deep hostility'' toward Iran.
``These remarks are a blatant interference in Iran's internal affairs,'' he said. Iran accuses the United States of playing a role in the demonstrations.
Asefi said his government delivered a formal protest to the Swiss, who represent U.S. interests in Tehran.
On Capitol Hill, 13 representatives led by Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., introduced a bill Friday to provide U.S. assistance to democratic opponents of the Iranian government and to dissident broadcasts based in the United States.
The legislation also would impose a total embargo on import of Iranian goods and allow the president to reduce U.S. contributions to the World Bank and other institutions that assist Iran.
The ruling clerics say Khamenei is God's representative on Earth and therefore his edicts cannot be challenged. The intellectuals' statement published Monday said that in itself contradicted religious teachings.
``Considering individuals to be in the position of a divinity and absolute power ... is open polytheism (in contradiction to) almighty God and blatant oppression of the dignity of human being,'' the statement said.
``People (and their elected lawmakers) have the right to fully supervise their rulers, criticize them, and remove them from power if they are not satisfied.''
The lawmakers also had warned that increasing U.S. threats against Iran since the ouster of Saddam Hussein in Iraq had made the situation worse for the ruling clerics.
Iran's regime has accused its old enemy, the United States, of increasing pressure at home and abroad, saying Washington was stirring up the anti-government protests as well as trying to turn the United Nations' international nuclear watchdog against it.
The administration is trying to organize world opinion against what it insists is an Iranian program to produce nuclear weapons.
In Vienna, Austria, the head of the U.N. nuclear agency urged Iran on Monday to allow more intrusive inspections of its nuclear-facilities to ease concerns that it is developing atomic weapons. Mohamed ElBaradei's appeal before the International Atomic Energy Agency's board came 10 days after an internal report claimed that Iran failed to honor promises to disclose its use of nuclear material. The United States wants the agency to declare Iran in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Iran's chief representative to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, told reporters before Monday's meeting that ``this whole issue has been politically motivated and politically charged.''
Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful.
Iran's Islamic government and the United States have had no diplomatic relations since 1979, when, after helping topple the U.S.-backed shah, Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took its occupants hostage.
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