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NUCLEAR
Fear mongering
Radiation in Iraq
U.S. Case Against Iran's Nuclear Program
Explosion at Decommissioned Japan Nuke Reactor Investigated
Smoke Billows From Japan Nuclear Plant
North Korea produced weapons before 1997: defector
CIA shifts on North Korean nukes
US stresses no interest in N Korea regime change
White House won't pay for disarmament
Lawmakers map North Korean initiative
Report: Top N.Korea Defector Says North Has Nukes
Significant nuclear-related news items in perspective
Court: DOE can't reclassify nuclear waste
Court Forces DOE to Clean Up Nuke Waste
Judge Voids Cleanup Plan for Wastes at Bomb Plants
Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?
First presidential address on Jan. 8, 1790
Bush Vows Pre-Emptive Attacks Against Enemies
MILITARY
Liberians implore Bush to send force
Liberia's President Agrees to Quit, But Wants Peacekeeping Force
China protests US sanctions on firms for arms sales to Iran
Jailed journalists put spotlight on Laos
Blair's spin-doctor admits tinkering with Iraq dossier
Women allege decades of gang rapes by British army
Probe Widens to Include Russia's Richest Man
U.S. Penalizes 6 Asian Firms for Helping Iran Arm Itself
Missile threat
Report: Iranian Missile Can Reach Israel
$25 million bounty offered for Saddam
US forces release Shiite Muslim leader in Iraq
British troops' burial site offers lesson to US on postwar Iraq
The Che Guevara of Iraq could turn against the Allies
Attacks Leave U.S. Soldier Dead, 18 Hurt
Centcom, ground commanders differ on cause of blast
G.I.'s Kill 11 Who Ambushed Patrol in Iraq; No U.S. Casualties
Voice Purported to Be Saddam Hussein Airs on TV
New Iranian missile threat worries Israel
Israeli Army Chief Admits Blunders Against Palestinians
Palestinian elections possible by Oct.
Israelis Sense They've Won
Japan passes landmark Iraq troop deployment law
Up to 17,000 unexploded bombs left in war zone, MP warns
SOLOMON ISLANDS - Villagers fear useas human shields
US terror trials will be "fixed" to secure convictions
The Labyrinthine Morass of Spying in the Cold War
Rumsfeld's Pentagon Gains Clout in U.S. Government
US makes plans for Liberia force as Bush says yes
Special assistant; Navy intel cuts
U.S. 'Still at War,' General Declares; G.I. Dies; 20 Hurt
Trust Is Important
Study deals a blow to claims of anti-war bias in BBC news
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Taking Liberties
You Gotta Fight for Your Rights
Ghosts in the Machine
Weapons of Mass Compliance
The War on Due Process
Check This Out Libraries quietly sound alarm against PATRIOT Act
Judge Upholds Release of a Terrorism Defendant
The Gang That Can't Shoot Straight
Vigilance Heightened for Events on Mall
Tribunals Move From Theory to Reality
Six Detainees Soon May Face Military Trials
US terror trials condemned
US and Europe set for clash over terrorist trials
OTHER
Earth's weather and climate becoming increasingly harsh
Europe lifts ban on GM food
ACTIVISTS
Please Support HR-2647
Brainerd peace group denied a spot in city's July 4th parade
Judge says parade can exclude gay group
Liberty first
Website turns tables on government officials
Letter from a young soldier in Iraq
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
[To reply - http://www.helenair.com/contact/contact.html ]
Fear mongering
By Charles Pennington
07/04/03
Helena Independent Record
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2003/07/04/opinions/a04070403_03.txt
Mr. Cohea's letter of June 25 regarding Depleted Uranium (DU) [below] is most discouraging, demonstrating how irrational fear-mongering can pervade our society. I presume that Mr. Cohea is one that has been "mongered" by Dr. Rokke.
The facts: many non-nuclear technologies produce high radiation exposure levels worldwide from natural radionuclides. U.S. EPA, National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, and United Nations data show radon in buildings contributes more than 20 million person-rem (unit of radiation exposure) annually to Americans (that's 5 "Chernobyls" annually). Millions of Americans experience individual radon exposures in the 10's of rem annually (well beyond average Chernobyl exposures). This is thousands-to-millions of times higher than any DU exposure of anyone in Iraq. Other EPA information suggests radon has more than twice the morbidity/mortality risk of uranium, for the same inhalation or ingestion intake. Yet, extensive studies of high radon exposures (e.g. by Dr. Bernard L. Cohen of the University of Pittsburgh, and others) show that cancer mortality declines with increased radon exposure.
Therefore, DU from weapons cannot produce whatever effects are being claimed.
Charles W. Pennington
3930 East Jones Bridge Road
Norcross, GA 30092
---
Radiation in Iraq
BY The Helena IR
06/25/03
Reader's Alley
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2003/06/25/opinions/a04062503_03.txt
Dr. Doug Rokke, army health specialist, was amazed by his Geiger counter and by the fact he had been sent on his mission with no better protective gear than a dust mask. He was standing in an old Gulf War I battlefield. Of the 100 others sent with him, 30 are now dead, and he is riddled with health problems. The source of this radiation was spent American munitions, the key to their great penetrating power, depleted uranium. Many Gulf War I vets were also exposed during their brief sojourn in Iraq.
Our troops currently in Iraq are hanging around much longer on ground richer yet in uranium. In the explosions it gets blown into tiny dust particles and later inhaled.
If the military planners knew the hazards, their behavior was callous in the extreme; if not, plain old incompetence. Either way we can chalk it up to friendly fire: tens, probably hundreds, of thousands of American service men and women debilitated and dead before their time. You bet we should support our troops.
If not us, then who? Certainly not the far-removed old men who sent them there and chose to prepare the ground.
Phil Cohea
214. E. Broadway
-------- iran
U.S. Case Against Iran's Nuclear Program Should Be Viewed With Severe Skepticism
By WILLIAM O. BEEMAN and THOMAS STAUFFER
Pacific News Service
Berkeley Daily Planet
Friday, July 4, 2003
http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=07-01-03&storyID=16918
The furor in Washington over possible nuclear weapons development in Iran is fueled in part because Bush administration officials claim that Iran doesn't need to generate nuclear power. They assert that Iran's nuclear energy program is unnecessary given its oil reserves. Therefore, officials say, its nuclear plants must exist for weapons production.
In fact, for Iran, generating nuclear power makes sense. Moreover, the plans to do this were started decades ago, and with American approval.
Ex-CIA director James Woolsey, in an interview on the PBS program Frontline on Feb. 23, claimed "there is no underlying [reason] for one of the greatest oil producers in the world to need to get into the nuclear [energy] business."
At first glance, such logic seems sound. Countries with vast oil reserves also have large reserves of natural gas sitting on top of those reserves. Some years ago, the natural gas was regularly burned off to get at the oil beneath. However, technological advances today make it feasible to use this gas for power generation.
Even so, nuclear power still makes sense in a country with vast amounts of natural gas, particularly given the unusual circumstances in the Iranian hydrocarbons industry. There are needs for gas in Iran that command much higher priorities than the construction of gas power plants.
First, gas is vitally needed for reinjection into existing oil reservoirs (repressurizing). This is indispensable for maintaining oil output levels, as well as for increasing overall, long-term recovery of oil.
Second, natural gas is needed for growing domestic use, such as in cooking fuel and domestic heating (Iranians typically use kerosene for both), where it can free up oil for more profitable export. New uses such as powering bus and taxi fleets in Iran's smoggy urban areas are also essential for development.
Third, natural gas exports-via pipelines to Turkey or in liquefied form to the subcontinent-set an attractive minimum value for any available natural gas. With adequate nuclear power generation, Iran can profit more from selling its gas than using it to generate power.
Fourth, the economics of gas production in Iran are almost backwards, certainly counter-intuitive. Much of Iran's gas is "rich"-it contains by-products, such as liquid-petrolem gas (LPG, better known as propane), which are more valuable than the natural gas they are derived from. Iran can profit by selling these derivatives, but not if it burns the natural gas to generate power. Furthermore, Iran adheres to OPEC production quotas, which combine oil and natural gas production. Therefore Iran cannot simply increase natural gas for export to make up for what it burns at home.
Overall, therefore, it can reasonably be argued that natural gas in Iran has economic uses that are superior to power generation, in spite of Iran's much-touted large reserves. The economic rationale is therefore plausible-the costs of gas versus nuclear power generation are sufficiently close that the choice is a standoff, especially given the reported bargain price for the Russian reactor.
The great irony in America's accusations is that Iran's nuclear program was first developed on the advice of American specialists, who urged the government of the Shah to begin producing nuclear power in order to save oil reserves for more lucrative purposes than fuel. The prospect of an industrial base built on petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals never materialized, but the nuclear power program continued unabated.
Now, to have American officials express alarm over the exact same program is illogical at best and utterly disingenuous at worst. Much of the criticism of Iran's nuclear program comes from the same people who insisted that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons development program before the American invasion of that nation on March 19. That fact alone should raise severe skepticism throughout the world.
Thomas Stauffer is a former nuclear engineer and a specialist in Middle Eastern energy economics. William O. Beeman is director of Middle East studies at Brown University. Both have conducted research in Iran for more than 30 years.
-------- japan
Explosion at Decommissioned Japan Nuke Reactor Investigated
July 4, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-energy-japan-alarm.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - Fire crews raced to a decommissioned nuclear reactor complex 350 km (215 miles) west of Tokyo on Friday after a small explosion at a building housing an incinerator, officials said.
Officials said there were no reports of radiation leaks at the 165,000-kilowatt Fugen experimental reactor, which stopped operating in March so it could be scrapped.
An official at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said firefighters at the scene determined there had been no fire.
``It's been confirmed that this wasn't a fire... It seems there was a small explosion,'' said Masahiro Yagi, a deputy director at the agency. Yagi said the agency was investigating the cause of the explosion, which broke a window at a building housing an incinerator that burns items such as protective clothing worn by workers at the reactor complex.
There were no signs of radiation leaks and the situation seemed to be under control, he said.
``There's no change in the figures on the 24-hour (radiation) monitors... so there was no leak to the outside and there are no injuries,'' Yagi said.
The incinerator building was kept at negative pressure so no radioactive material would escape, Yagi added.
The incident followed a string of accidents over the past decade that have dented public confidence in Japan's nuclear industry.
Japan's worst nuclear accident occurred in September 1999, when two workers at a uranium-processing plant at Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, died and hundreds of residents, plant workers and emergency personnel were exposed to radiation.
--------
Smoke Billows From Japan Nuclear Plant
July 4, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-Nuclear-Plant.html
TSURUGA, Japan (AP) -- An overheated incinerator at a shuttered nuclear power plant in central Japan spewed smoke into the sky Friday, causing no injuries and releasing no radiation but rattling a nation that relies heavily on atomic energy.
It wasn't immediately clear what triggered the accident at the experimental plant near the town of Tsuruga, about 200 miles west of Tokyo. Workers in the plant's control room said they heard an explosion coming from the nuclear complex's incinerator just before noon and the incinerator shut off automatically after it began overheating and smoking.
Firefighters rushed to the scene, but there was no sign of fire from the outside and the smoke died down without firefighters turning on their hoses, a local fire official said.
A spokesman at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said on condition of anonymity there was no danger of leaking radiation because the plant had not generated power since its reactors were shut in March.
Although the accident didn't appear to be serious, it could rekindle doubts about whether Japan's nuclear energy policies are sound.
In March, Tokyo Electric Power Co., which runs a separate network of 17 nuclear power plants in Japan, took its plants off line for emergency inspections ordered by authorities following revelations it covered up structural problems a decade ago. It reopened one plant in May and a second in June, after getting the go-ahead from local authorities.
The shutdown had stoked concerns that heavy electricity use during Japan's balmy summer months could mean Tokyo's first major blackouts in 20 years. Nuclear power accounts for about 30 percent of Japan's electricity needs.
On Friday, Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma said Japan's utilities need to work harder to ensure that nuclear reactors are safe.
``The government is indeed very concerned,'' he told reporters, adding that officials were trying to reassure people while conducting strict monitoring of plants.
Many Japanese have been nervous about possible nuclear mishaps since 1999, when two workers trying to save time at a reprocessing plant north of Tokyo set off an uncontrolled nuclear reaction while they were mixing uranium in buckets instead of in mechanized tanks.
The radiation leak forced 161 people to evacuate their homes and another 310,000 to stay indoors for 18 hours as a precaution. A total of 439 people were exposed to radiation. The two workers died from extreme exposure.
Chikara Gunji, a spokesman at the Tsuruga facility's operator, Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute, said authorities were still investigating the cause of Friday's incident.
It appeared to have started when a viewing window on an incinerator duct broke, possibly due to high temperatures or wear, said a plant official who gave reporters a tour of the incinerator control room.
The broken window may have allowed too much air into the incinerator, stirring up ash inside the burning chamber and causing the smoke that triggered an alarm, said the official, who declined to be identified. About 100 people were in the complex at the time.
-------- korea
North Korea produced weapons before 1997: defector
Friday, 04-Jul-2003
Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/ch/Qnkorea-nuclear-defector.R-jt_Dl4.html
SEOUL, July 4 (AFP) - A former member of North Korea's ruling elite said Friday that leader Kim Jong-Il told him before his defection in 1997 that the communist state had developed nuclear weapons.
Hwang Jang-Yop, the most senior North Korean official to defect to South Korea, also said that North Korea signed a contract with Pakistan in 1996 for help in enriching uranium to produce nuclear weapons.
"I heard from Kim Jong-Il and others including Jun Byong-Ho that nuclear weapons had been produced," Hwang told a forum here.
Jun is a secretary of the central committe of the ruling Korean Workers Party who is in charge of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons development, Hwang said.
Hwang, 78, who was a secretary in the North's ruling Workers' Party until he defected, is considered the chief ideologue of North Korea's brand of communism known as Juche, or self-reliance.
North Korea admitted publicly last month that it is seeking nuclear weapons but Washington believes that it has already produced at least one or two.
Following the nuclear crisis that erupted eight months ago, North Korea also maintains that it is reprocessing 8,000 spend fuel rods that would deliver enough weapons-grade plutonium for several more weapons.
Earlier this week the New York Times reported that North Korea's weapons prgramme may be more advanced than previously thought.
It said US intelligence officials believe North Korea is developing the technology to make nuclear warheads small enough to fit atop the country's arsenal of missiles.
Citing unnamed officials familiar with intelligence reports, the newspaper said the Central Intelligence Agency had informed US allies in Asia that American satellites had identified an advanced testing site in an area called Youngdoktong.
At the site, equipment has been set up to test conventional explosives that, when detonated, could compress a plutonium core and set off a compact nuclear explosion, the report said.
In his first public speech since his defection five years ago, Hwang also said the North Korea regime had starved three million people to death in the space of only a few years while building weapons of mass destruction.
"The Kim Jong-Il regime, which is a ring of crime opposing democracy and infringing on human rights, must be subject to disarmament," he said in a prepared statement.
He said it would be like "turning a blind eye on a criminal committing murder and robbery" if the North goes unpunished for "breaching human rights and killing its own people en masse."
However, any plan to launch military action against the Stalinist state must bear in mind that the entire country has become a military garrison, he warned.
"It would be almost impossible to mount short-term military operations against the North by using conventional weapons only as the North has piled up on weapons of mass destruction and turned the whole country into a fortress," he said.
"It is more important than anything else to bring to light the nature of North Korea, part of the 'axis of evil'," he said, employing the term used by US President George W. Bush last year to describe North Korea, Iraq and Iran.
News reports in Seoul said South Korea had given permission to Hwang to visit Washington.
Seoul has so far refused to allow Hwang to travel abroad, citing concerns for his personal safety.
He has been invited by US Defense Forum Foundation as a guest speaker on North Korean affairs.
Kim Yeon-Chul, professor at Korea University's Asiatic Research Centre, said Hwang's hostility to North Korea was characteristic of defectors.
"The common points of perception toward North Korea among defectors from the North are that they want it to collapse soon so that they return home," he said. "They are also blinded by feelings of personal vendetta against the regime."
----
CIA shifts on North Korean nukes
July 04, 2003
By Bill Gertz
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030703-114656-2535r.htm
The CIA has revised an earlier intelligence estimate and now believes North Korea has begun reprocessing spent nuclear-fuel rods into plutonium for weapons, U.S. officials said.
Reprocessing the 8,000 stored nuclear fuel rods would be a key indicator that Pyongyang has abandoned past commitments to freeze its nuclear-arms program.
A review of intelligence on the nuclear-rod reprocessing began in April after North Korea's representative to nuclear talks with the United States and China in Beijing stated that the reprocessing was nearly finished.
The CIA review included re-examining intelligence that showed North Korea had imported plutonium secretly from Russia or a former Soviet republic during the 1990s. It could not be learned whether that intelligence was confirmed.
A senior U.S. official familiar with the review said the new estimate states that "some" reprocessing could be under way.
"If it is, we don't believe it is anywhere near completed," the official said.
A senior Asian diplomat also said new intelligence reports indicate that the fuel reprocessing is under way, although not completed.
In April, the CIA reported that North Korea was not separating the fuel, although trucks that could move the rods to a reprocessing facility had been seen at the storage facility at the Yongbyon nuclear complex.
No reprocessing, however, had been detected before Li Gun, the North Korean negotiator at the Beijing talks last April, stated that it was nearly finished.
Mr. Li also told Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in an aside during the talks that North Korea planned to export nuclear weapons or add to its existing nuclear arsenal. U.S. officials view the statement as a threat and say Pyongyang will not blackmail the United States.
The United States wants to expand any new talks to include representatives of South Korea and Japan.
The fuel rods were taken from a 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon and stored in cannisters in a fuel pond that had been sealed by the International Atomic Energy Agency according to the terms of a 1994 agreement between North Korea and the United States to freeze Pyongyang's nuclear program in exchange for economic and energy aid.
The storage program was completed in April 2000.
North Korea announced last year that it had a secret program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. It then expelled international inspectors who had been monitoring the nuclear weapons freeze and restarted the small 5-megawatt reactor.
The communist government is believed to have enough plutonium for two or three nuclear devices. The plutonium in the fuel rods would give Pyongyang enough for five or six more weapons.
Reprocessing takes place at a large facility where the rods are chopped up and dissolved in nitric acid. The material is then treated with a mixture of tributyl phosphate and kerosene in several steps, and a small amount of weapons-grade plutonium is produced.
In December, U.S. intelligence agencies detected North Korea's purchase from a Chinese company of 20 tons of tributyl phosphate - one of the first indicators that the North Koreans were preparing to reprocess the spent fuel rods.
Robert Alvarez, a former Energy Department adviser, wrote in the current issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that the North Koreans could take the fuel rods to a cave or other hidden location to conduct the reprocessing.
"Work in this kind of makeshift environment would be even more dangerous and definitely more time-consuming - it would involve handling much smaller batches of rods than the reprocessing plant and using 'hot cells' to extract the tiny fraction of plutonium in the spent reactor fuel," Mr. Alvarez stated.
The North Koreans will need anywhere from "several months" to more than a year to produce the plutonium, he stated.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told Congress on April 30 that North Korean officials told the United States that they had reprocessed all the fuel rods in storage.
"We can't establish that as a matter of fact with our intelligence community, but they said they did it. That is their assertion. That is their position," Mr. Powell said.
On Wednesday, according to reports, China and Russia delayed U.N. Security Council action on a U.S.-sought condemnation of the North Korean nuclear-weapons program.
The administration also is pushing South Korea to stop helping to build two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea - one provision of the 1994 Agreed Framework aimed at halting the North Korean nuclear program.
Asked about the reactor-building effort yesterday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "This is obviously a subject of continuing discussions."
North Korea has said it would consider any imposition of sanctions as a declaration of war, and South Korea is resisting U.S. pressure to halt the new reactors.
----
US stresses no interest in N Korea regime change, praises China role
Fri Jul 4, 2003
(AFP)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1504&ncid=1504&e=5&u=/afp/20030704/ts_afp/nkorea_nuclear_china_us_030704082617
BEIJING - US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage says that Washington has no interest in regime change in North Korea and warned there was no quick fix to the festering nuclear issue.
In an interview with Radio Free Asia, he praised Chinese cooperation, but was lukewarm in his appraisal of Russia's input.
His comments came as delegates from China, Japan, and South Korea converged on Washington this week to discuss the next course of action.
South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun meanwhile arrives in Beijing Monday for talks with Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.
Despite China and Russia this week blocking a US bid to have the United Nations Security Council condemn Pyongyang's nuclear drive, Armitage said the United States will keep working with other nations for a peaceful resolution.
Moscow and Beijing "have some concerns about this (US-sponsored Security Council resolution)," Armitage said.
"I think they're not the only ones who have some concerns.
"We, who are often accused of being unilateralists, are interested in trying to resolve these issues in multilateral forums like the United Nations, but we're taking into consideration the views of others such as China and Russia."
China and Russia, permanent UN Security Council members, sought to delay UN condemnation after a senior North Korean general said any US-led sanctions would amount to a break of the armistice than ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
The Central Intelligence Agency has meanwhile revised an earlier intelligence estimate and now believes North Korea has begun reprocessing spent nuclear-fuel rods into plutonium for weapons, The Washington Times reported Friday.
Citing unnamed US officials said, the newspaper said reprocessing the 8,000 stored nuclear fuel rods would be a key indicator that Pyongyang has abandoned past commitments to freeze its nuclear-arms program.
But Armitage said the nuclear crisis, which erupted after Washington said in October Pyongyang admitted to having a nuclear weapons program, could not be solved in a hurry.
"There are many people who are very interested in rushing the international community along on this issue of North Korea," he said.
"This is one that's going to require dialogue. It's going to require, I think, a lot of patience.
"And although it may be somewhere considered that patience is an Asian virtue, it's something that the United States has."
He dismissed suggestions that Washington wanted to topple unpredictable North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
"No," he said when asked the question.
"The desired goal is a government in Pyongyang that eschews the possession of nuclear weapons -- that is, a de-nuclearized peninsula -- and a country which is not a threat to our friends in the Republic of Korea (South
Korea) and which treats their population with dignity and respect. That is the goal."
China, Pyongyang's biggest donor of fuel and other aid, was praised for hosting a first round of trilateral talks in April, while Russia was starting to "play a more constructive role".
"Our Russian friends can speak for themselves, (but) it's clearly not in Russia's interest, either, for North Korea to develop further these nuclear capabilities," he said.
"We've found China to be an excellent partner, Russia becoming a much better partner, and we'll continue the search for a peaceful solution."
----
White House won't pay for disarmament
July 04, 2003
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030703-085853-5050r.htm
The Bush administration, reacting to a proposal that it pay North Korea $3 billion to $5 billion yearly if it stops making missiles and nuclear weapons, said it would offer "no inducements" to the belligerent communist nation.
"We continue to insist that North Korea must terminate its nuclear-weapons program completely, verifiably and irreversibly," Undersecretary of State John Bolton told the House International Relations Committee. "And there will be no inducements to get them to do so."
Mr. Bolton made his remarks last month in response to the proposal by Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican, who had just returned from a fact-finding trip to North Korea.
Mr. Bolton said that giving in to nuclear blackmail would only encourage similar behavior by other nuclear aspirants around the world and, therefore, North Korean efforts to pressure the United States must not bear fruit.
"We are not going to pay for the elimination of North Korea's nuclear-weapons program - a program the North should never have begun in the first place," said Mr. Bolton, the undersecretary of state for disarmament and international security.
"Indeed, resolution of the problem North Korea has created by its own pursuit of nuclear weapons can only come through verified elimination of its nuclear-weapons program," he added.
Mr. Bolton urged North Korea to refrain from further "escalatory steps," but made clear that U.S. aid might be provided to the hermit Stalinist state only after it made dramatic policy changes.
"If North Korea verifiably and irreversibly terminates its nuclear-weapons program, the United States is willing to reconsider discussing its 'bold approach,' " he said.
----
Lawmakers map North Korean initiative
July 04, 2003
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030703-101335-2346r.htm
Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican, spoke last week to members and friends of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia about his recent trip to North Korea. An audio file of the lecture is posted at the Institute's Web site at (www.fpri.org); the text is reprinted with the permission of FPRI.
A Korea peace initiative
I. Introduction
[From May 30 to June 2] I led a bipartisan congressional delegation composed of six members of the House of Representatives to Pyongyang, North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea/DPRK). The delegation included Solomon Ortiz and Silvestre Reyes, both Texas Democrats; Republicans Joe Wilson of South Carolina and Jeff Miller of Florida, and Eliot Engel, Democrat of New York. The delegation was the largest congressional delegation to visit the DPRK, and the first to visit the DPRK in five years.
The visit occurred during a period of escalating tensions between the DPRK, the United States, and nations of the region resulting from the DPRK October 2002 admission of its nuclear weapons-related uranium-enrichment program.
Subsequent DPRK withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); confirmation of its possession of nuclear weapons; expelling of [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors; declared intentions to reprocess its spent fuel; continued sales of missiles and technology to terrorist nations; and allegations of nation-sponsored drug trafficking all served to further raise tensions between the DPRK and the international community.
Discussions with senior DPRK officials included the predictable hard-line rhetoric associated with recent DPRK public statements. Still, balanced discussion took place in the formal, as well as more personal, informal sessions. The demonstrated goodwill and willingness to go beyond first-level posturing gave the delegation reason to believe that there are options that should be considered to avoid conflict and resolve critical outstanding issues in a way satisfactory to both sides.
Failure to address these critical issues in a timely manner could result in the proliferation of nuclear weapons and/or technology to terrorist organizations and states. DPRK officials repeatedly stated their belief that the Bush administration seeks regime change in North Korea: "The Bush Administration finds regime change in different nations very attractive and is trying to have regime change, one by one. This kind of conduct damages the U.S. image in the world and weakens the leadership role of the U.S. This is the heart of the question. If the U.S. would sign a nonaggression pact, we would give up nuclear programs and weapons."
The DPRK seeks normalization of relations and noninterference with its economic relations with South Korea and Japan. They see the issue of regime change as the determining factor in whether a peaceful resolution to the current standoff is possible.
II. Two steps forward
The purpose of our visit was neither to negotiate, nor to bring any messages from President Bush. We wanted simply to open a channel of communication. After hearing the DPRK presentations, I developed a two-step plan intended to ease tensions that was presented to our North Korean counterparts. It is presented here in outline.
A. Step one
Five simultaneous actions to begin the peace process
1. The U.S. shall enter into a one-year nonaggression pact with the DPRK.
2. The DPRK shall officially renounce its entire nuclear weapons and research program allowing for full and unimpeded inspections of its nuclear facilities. The inspections should result in a full inventory of DPRK nuclear facilities and locations, including underground facilities. The inspections will be conducted by a designee of the United States government and will include a complete inventory of the DPRK's nuclear weapons and materials.
3. The DPRK must rejoin the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
4. The U.S., DPRK, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China - the Korean Peace Coalition - shall negotiate and ratify a comprehensive Korean economic development and security initiative to promote investment, economic growth, trade and humanitarian aid on the Korean Peninsula. Funding levels for the initiative must be in the range of $3 billion to 5 billion per year for the next 10 years. The cost of the initiative will be funded by the five member nations of the Korean Peace Coalition with participation from European partners. The largest percentage of the cost for the initiative should be provided by Japan and South Korea.
5. The U.S. shall officially recognize the government of the DPRK and open a mission in Pyongyang.
B. Step two
Following the end of one year or the agreed-upon time frame and the satisfactory completion of the inspection of DPRK facilities and locations, compilation of nuclear weapon and material inventories and ratification of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
1. The U.S. nonaggression pact becomes permanent.
2. DPRK shall sign the Missile Technology Control Regime.
3. The DPRK shall agree to observer status with the Helsinki Commission and lay out a time frame for improving humanitarian rights in North Korea.
4. A multilateral cooperative threat-reduction program shall be developed by the five member nations of the Korean Peace Coalition to remove all DPRK nuclear weapons, materials, resources and capabilities within two years.
5. The United States Congress shall establish a direct interparliamentary relationship with members of North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly for the express purpose of developing a plan to implement a broad range of comprehensive recommendations in the following areas:
Agricultural development Cultural/educational development Defense and security Economic development Energy/natural resources Environmental cooperation Health care Judicial/legal systems Local governments Science and technology Space and aeronautics
The recommendations shall be implemented by [nongovernmental organizations], academic institutions, national associations, health care organizations, and the United States government.
III. Conclusion
Each of the senior DPRK officials with whom the delegation met cited the importance of the visit, given the current tense relationship between the DPRK and the U.S. They also noted their understanding of the role of Congress and that the delegation was not visiting to negotiate issues for the United States, but to enhance mutual understanding between the two nations.
Each of the senior DPRK officials noted the tense international situation and sought to place the blame on the U.S. "because the U.S. seeks to make us give up our military forces, which safeguard our political system." Each of the leaders also cited their preference for the "Clinton approach" in the bilateral relationship and took strong exception to President Bush's inclusion of the DPRK as part of the "axis of evil."
They stated their belief that such a characterization demonstrates that the U.S. is unwilling to "accommodate with our country" and the U.S. seeks regime change. "Further, the U.S. is enlisting other nations to prepare a nuclear first strike - seeking to blackmail and intimidate us ... The U.S. does not want to coexist with us ... And not only does the Bush administration not want to co-exist, but wishes to get rid of my nation with its nuclear strength ... We see the U.S. preparing for a military strike ... . The U.S. must change its hostile policy."
Without necessarily supporting the Bush administration policies toward the DPRK, all members of the delegation agreed with Rep. Engel's point to DPRK officials, that violations of the 1994 Agreed Framework by the DPRK were the reason for the current tensions, not the Bush administration.
The DPRK officials stated their belief that the situation can only be resolved by acceptance of the current leadership - coexistence - and dialogue. And in the meantime, it intends to continue to develop its "restraint capability" (nuclear deterrent). "We have tried dialogue and have been patient. Our willingness to meet in Beijing in April shows our flexibility to allow the U.S. to save face, showing our flexibility and sincerity to resolve the issues at any cost. We have not had concrete results.
"The Bush administration has not responded to our request for bilateral talks - they are more focused on our first giving up our nuclear program. This causes us to believe that the Bush administration has not changed its policy about disarming my nation. We want to conclude a nonaggression treaty between the two countries and avoid a military strike on my country."
Clearly, American agreement to a nonaggression agreement by the United States and continued dialogue would send the message to North Korea that the goal of the United States is to have a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, and that such a goal can be achieved without war or regime change. It would also remove their only argument for continuing to pursue the development of nuclear weapons - a possible attack by the United States.
Removing that argument would force the North Koreans to reveal their true intentions with respect to their nuclear program, while simultaneously sending the message to the DPRK and America's detractors around the world that we are not intent on imposing our will around the globe through the use of force.
DPRK officials maintained that their nuclear program is only for deterrence and not being pursued to seek economic aid - that "we only wish to be left alone."
"The nuclear issue is directly linked to the security of our nation. We need frank exchange on nuclear policies. Our purpose in having a [deterrent] is related to the war in Iraq. This is also related to statements by the hawks within the U.S. administration. Our lesson learned is that if we don't have nuclear restraint (deterrent), we cannot defend ourselves."
Finally, I deem it essential that the five member nations of the Korean Peace Coalition continue to support increased levels of discussion and cooperation between North and South Korea and strive for the eventual normalization of relations between the DPRK and the rest of the world.
--------
Report: Top N.Korea Defector Says North Has Nukes
July 4, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-korea-north.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - A top North Korean defector said he had heard from the communist state's leader, Kim Jong-il, and his aides that it had developed nuclear weapons, a local paper said in its early Saturday edition.
Hwang Jang-yop, the former secretary of the North Korean Workers' Party who defected to Seoul in 1997, said Kim and his close lieutenants had told him the North conducted underground nuclear weapons testing in 1991, the Korea Times reported.
``The North has fortified itself with weapons of mass destruction, therefore it is virtually impossible to finish any war quickly with conventional weapons,'' Hwang said at a seminar at the National Assembly. He is the highest-ranking North Korean to defect to Seoul
The crisis on the Korean peninsula -- the last Cold War frontier -- emerged last year when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted to pursuing an atomic arms program in violation of a 1994 pact.
North Korea, branded by the United States as part of an ``axis of evil'' along with Iran and pre-war Iraq, last month vowed to strengthen its nuclear deterrent.
North and South Korea remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Significant nuclear-related news items in perspective
World Nuclear Association Weekly Digest
4 July 2003
http://www.world-nuclear.org/news/2003/wd_jul04.htm
Green light for Pebble-Bed reactor.
After three years of environmental impact assessment, the South African Department of Environmental Affairs & Tourism has approved proceeding with the demonstration unit of the locally-designed Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR). The next stage is building the 125 MWe plant at Koeberg near Cape Town - the site of the country's two present PWR reactors, and a fuel fabrication plant at Pelindaba near Pretoria. A construction licence from the country's National Nuclear Regulator is still required, and approval by cabinet. The utility Eskom leads the consortium - including BNFL - developing the PBMR, and it has committed to purchasing both the demonstration unit and subsequent 165 MWe production units if performance targets are met. The PBMR is widely seen as an important step forward especially for developing countries as its design features mean that there is much less requirement for skilled staff in its safe operation and refuelling than with other reactors, and it has a proliferation-resistant fuel cycle which will mean that developed countries will more readily support its deployment under Article IV of NPT. It may also use thorium fuel. PMBR Co 30/6/03.
IAEA focuses on innovation.
An international conference under IAEA auspices has outlined some of the opportunities and challenges of nuclear power over the next few decades in meeting the energy needs not only of industrialised but also developing countries. The need for international collaboration was emphasised, and in particular the need for IAEA's endeavours to be coordinated with those of the US-initiated Generation IV program (GIF). The IAEA International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO) is making progress but has not yet identified possible technological routes forward to the same extent as GIF. Beyond both of these, the IAEA Director-General stressed the need for attention to policy and polity issues. IAEA 23/6/03 & cf Newsletter # 6/02.
Cameco resumes McArthur River mining.
Cameco has restarted underground mining and expects full production to resume at McArthur River during July, a month earlier than expected. 2003 production is expected to be about one third below capacity. Cameco 2/7/03.
OSPAR puts marine radioactivity into perspective.
Environment ministers from 15 Ospar Convention countries plus the EC have resolved to take an interest in all radioactive discharges to the European marine environment, not simply those from the nuclear industry, which comprise a very small part of the total. Most are from the oil and gas industry. The Bremen statement said that "in the light of the Marina II study by the European Commission, and taking into account new information from Contracting Parties and other studies, we shall ensure that discharges, emissions and losses of radioactive substances from sources outside the nuclear industry equally comply with the Radioactive Substances Strategy." The ministers meet every five years, and in 1998 had called for a reduction in radioactive discharges to "close to zero" by 2020. Norway and Ireland have called for discharges of technetium-99 from UK and French reprocessing plants to cease. However, an Irish attempt to close the Sellafield MOX plant has been rejected by the UN Court of Arbitration, with a further hearing set for December. Nucleonics Week 26/6/03, Ospar 25/6/03, cf Newsletter # 3/03.
Briefing/information papers updated: Energy subsidies & external costs
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf68.htm
-------- idaho
Court: DOE can't reclassify nuclear waste
Judge says feds must move it all to permanent site
Idaho Statesman
07-04-2003
http://www.idahostatesman.com/story.asp?ID=43690
A federal judge overturned an Energy Department regulation the government claimed allowed it to reclassify highly radioactive waste in Idaho, Washington and South Carolina so that it would not have to be permanently removed.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill said the Energy Department regulation directly conflicts with the provisions of the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
"DOE does not have discretion to dispose of defense (high-level waste) somewhere other than a repository established under (the Nuclear Waste Policy Act)," Winmill said in his decision.
Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said an appeal was being considered.
"If the decision stands, it could lead to a tremendous burden on the taxpayers and jeopardize our ability to clean up our sites sooner," Davis said.
Winmill refused to issue an order requiring the department to follow the law, saying there was no indication the government would ignore his ruling.
Unless overturned, Winmill´s 15-page decision, filed on Thursday, will require the Energy Department to remove all 85 million gallons of high-level liquid waste now stored in hundreds of tanks at federal installations in the three states.
It must be processed for permanent disposal at the federal dump for highly radioactive waste, now planned for Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
The government wanted to mix grout with about 1,000 gallons of residual material left in each tank after the rest of the highly radioactive liquid is removed. That residual matter would be left in place.
It claimed the material, a byproduct of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel for bomb construction, was exempt from the 1982 law - a claim Winmill rejected.
Officials in the three states had argued throughout that the government was using the rule to avoid the expense of dealing with the waste stored at Washington´s Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and the Savannah River site in South Carolina.
"You can´t just call a monkey a turkey and say it doesn´t need to be in a cage," said Sheryl Hutchison of the Washington Department of Ecology. "They can´t do cleanup on the cheap - they´ve got to deal with the high-level waste."
Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire said the state was concerned the Energy Department would attempt to reclassify high-level waste in order to avoid cleanup and permanently leave it in Hanford´s leaking underground tanks.
"Today´s decision is a victory for the people of the Tri-Cities, Washington state and other communities near DOE facilities who deserve cleanups that will protect the public health and environment," Gregoire said.
The Energy Department´s attempt to reclassify the material as low-level waste was originally challenged by National Resources Defense Council and the Snake River Alliance. The states of Idaho, Washington, South Carolina and Oregon and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes supported them.
As much as 100 million gallons of material were stored over the years in 239 tanks in the three states. Some of it has been removed and processed for permanent disposal. But about 85 million gallons remains to be processed.
Critics contended that leaving any waste in those tanks will threaten the Snake River aquifer under the INEEL, the Columbia River near the Hanford site, and the groundwater at the Savannah River site.
Thomas Cochran, a physicist and director of NRDC´s Nuclear Program, noted that "this case is the most egregious of several ongoing efforts by the Department of Energy and the nuclear industry to ´solve´ their nuclear waste problems by relaxing regulatory standards instead of cleaning up their mess."
Idaho Statesman reporter Rocky Barker contributed to this report.
-------- us nuc waste
Court Forces DOE to Clean Up Nuke Waste
Friday July 4, 2003
By BOB FICK
Associated Press Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2868027,00.html
BOISE, Idaho (AP) - A federal judge has overturned an Energy Department regulation the government said allowed it to store highly radioactive waste in Idaho, Washington and South Carolina.
The 15-page decision filed Thursday will require the U.S. Energy Department to remove all 85 million gallons of high-level liquid waste now stored in hundreds of tanks at federal installations in the three states.
``Today's decision is a victory for the people of the Tri-Cities, Washington state and other communities near DOE facilities who deserve cleanups that will protect the public health and environment,'' said Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill said the Energy Department regulation directly conflicts with the provisions of the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
The government said the material, a byproduct of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel for bomb construction, was exempt from the 1982 law - a claim Winmill rejected.
Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said an appeal was being considered.
``If the decision stands, it could lead to a tremendous burden on the taxpayers and jeopardize our ability to clean up our sites sooner,'' Davis said.
It must be processed for permanent disposal at the federal dump for highly radioactive waste, now planned for Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Officials in the three states had argued throughout that the government was using the rule to avoid the expense of dealing with the waste.
As much as 100 million gallons of material were stored over the years in 239 tanks in the three states. Some of it has been removed and processed for permanent disposal. About 85 million gallons remain.
--------
Judge Voids Cleanup Plan for Wastes at Bomb Plants
July 4, 2003
The New York Times
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/04/politics/04NUKE.html
WASHINGTON, July 3 - The Energy Department's plan for cutting billions of dollars and several years off the bomb-waste cleanup at three government nuclear reservations is illegal, a federal judge has ruled, because it would leave some of the wastes in shallow burial despite Congress's prescription that they can be safely disposed of only in a deep "geologic" repository.
The radioactive wastes are in tanks, many already rusting, at a reservation in Hanford, Wash., another near Aiken, S.C., and a third in Idaho.
The original plan was to clean out the tanks and, in preparation for transfer to a deep repository, solidify the wastes. But in 1999, facing major technical problems and cost overruns, the department issued internal rules allowing itself to redefine some unspecified percentage of the material as "incidental." This incidental waste was to be covered with a material much like cement and left behind in the tanks, under only a few feet of dirt.
Exactly how much of this radioactive waste was to be left behind is not clear. But Geoffrey H. Fettus, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, quoted from a government memorandum implying that it could have been in the tens of millions of gallons.
In any event, the judge's decision has overturned the department's approach. In the ruling, dated Wednesday and made public today, the judge, B. Lynn Winmill of Federal District Court in Boise, Idaho, said that the department's rules for reclassifying some of the wastes as incidental were based on little more than "whim" and that they violated a 1982 law requiring that high-level wastes be buried deep within the earth. Judge Winmill issued a summary judgment in favor of environmentalists, who were led by the Natural Resources Defense Council and supported by the three states where the reservations lie as well as by Oregon, whose border is close to Hanford.
Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Energy Department, said, "If this decision stands, it could lead to a tremendous burden on the taxpayers with respect to cost of cleanup, and jeopardize our ability to clean up our sites sooner."
But Mr. Davis said he did not have an estimate of how much more money and time would be required, and would not say whether the department would appeal the ruling.
Jeremy Maxand, executive director of the Snake River Alliance, an environmental group in Boise that was among the plaintiffs, said, "There has been an attempt to cut corners and shave off dollars," and added: "We're not as interested in doing the job as quickly as possible with the least amount of money. We'd like to see it done right the first time, as safely as possible."
Joseph E. Shorin, an assistant attorney general of Washington State, said, "Our fear was that they were going to cut the cost and the duration of cleanup by sweeping the stuff under the rug, or leaving it under the rug." Mr. Shorin said the Energy Department had been planning by "semantic fiat" to leave in place material that Congress had determined was so dangerous that it had to be buried deep underground.
The Energy Department itself has announced many cleanup timetables over the years but had never made clear how much of the waste it would proceed with solidifying under its plan to exempt some of it. In general, though, the less solidified, the less time needed to complete the job. So the judge's decision does add years and billions of dollars to cleanup costs.
The case also pointed to a weakness in the government's broader plan for disposing of nuclear waste: burying it inside Yucca Mountain at a repository that the government is trying, in fits and starts, to open near Las Vegas. According to briefs filed by the government in the case, Yucca is too small for all the bomb wastes plus the civilian nuclear power wastes; the implication was that a requirement to put the military wastes in a deep hole would create the need for another repository.
There are 117 underground tanks at Hanford, storing about 53 million gallons of wastes that come from the production of nuclear bombs, but some of the liquids have already leaked into the soil and joined underground water that flows toward the Columbia River. There are an additional 34 million gallons at the South Carolina reservation, and 900,000 gallons more at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.
-------- us politics
Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?
By Robert Winer
07-04-2003
http://www.sunspot.net/cgi-bin/ultbb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=18;t=031162
http://develnet.org/166.html
Q: Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?
A: Because they had weapons of mass destruction honey.
Q: But the inspectors didn't find any weapons of mass destruction.
A: That's because the Iraqis were hiding them.
Q: And that's why we invaded Iraq?
A: Yep. Invasions always work better than inspections.
Q: But after we invaded them, we STILL didn't find any weapons of mass destruction, did we?
A: That's because the weapons are so well hidden. Don't worry, we'll find something, probably right before the 2004 election.
Q: Why did Iraq want all those weapons of mass destruction?
A: To use them in a war, silly.
Q: I'm confused. If they had all those weapons that they planned to use in a war, then why didn't they use any of those weapons when we went to war with them?
A: Well, obviously they didn't want anyone to know they had those weapons, so they chose to die by the thousands rather than defend themselves.
Q: That doesn't make sense Daddy. Why would they choose to die if they had all those big weapons to fight us back with?
A: It's a different culture. It's not supposed to make sense.
Q: I don't know about you, but I don't think they had any of those weapons our government said they did.
A: Well, you know, it doesn't matter whether or not they had those weapons. We had another good reason to invade them anyway.
Q: And what was that?
A: Even if Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, which is another good reason to invade another country.
Q: Why? What does a cruel dictator do that makes it OK to invade his country?
A: Well, for one thing, he tortured his own people.
Q: Kind of like what they do in China?
A: Don't go comparing China to Iraq. China is a good economic competitor, where millions of people work for slave wages in sweatshops to make U.S. corporations richer.
Q: So if a country lets its people be exploited for American corporate gain, it's a good country, even if that country tortures people?
A: Right.
Q: Why were people in Iraq being tortured?
A: For political crimes, mostly, like criticizing the government. People who criticized the government in Iraq were sent to prison and tortured.
Q: Isn't that exactly what happens in China?
A: I told you, China is different.
Q: What's the difference between China and Iraq?
A: Well, for one thing, Iraq was ruled by the Ba'ath party, while China is Communist.
Q: Didn't you once tell me Communists were bad?
A: No, just Cuban Communists are bad.
Q: How are the Cuban Communists bad?
A: Well, for one thing, people who criticize the government in Cuba are sent to prison and tortured.
Q: Like in Iraq?
A: Exactly.
Q: And like in China, too?
A: I told you, China's a good economic competitor. Cuba, on the other hand, is not.
Q: How come Cuba isn't a good economic competitor?
A: Well, you see, back in the early 1960s, our government passed some laws that made it illegal for Americans to trade or do any business with Cuba until they stopped being Communists and started being capitalists like us.
Q: But if we got rid of those laws, opened up trade with Cuba, and started doing business with them, wouldn't that help the Cubans become capitalists?
A: Don't be a smart-ass.
Q: I didn't think I was being one.
A: Well, anyway, they also don't have freedom of religion in Cuba.
Q: Kind of like China and the Falun Gong movement?
A: I told you, stop saying bad things about China. Anyway, Saddam Hussein came to power through a military coup, so he's not really a legitimate leader anyway.
Q: What's a military coup?
A: That's when a military general takes over the government of a country by force, instead of holding free elections like we do in the United States.
Q: Didn't the ruler of Pakistan come to power by a military coup?
A: You mean General Pervez Musharraf? Uh, yeah, he did, but Pakistan is our friend.
Q: Why is Pakistan our friend if their leader is illegitimate?
A: I never said Pervez Musharraf was illegitimate.
Q: Didn't you just say a military general who comes to power by forcibly overthrowing the legitimate government of a nation is an illegitimate leader?
A: Only Saddam Hussein. Pervez Musharraf is our friend, because he helped us invade Afghanistan.
Q: Why did we invade Afghanistan?
A: Because of what they did to us on September 11th.
Q: What did Afghanistan do to us on September 11th?
A: Well, on September 11th, nineteen men, fifteen of them Saudi Arabians, hijacked four airplanes and flew three of them into buildings, killing over 3,000 Americans.
Q: So how did Afghanistan figure into all that?
A: Afghanistan was where those bad men trained, under the oppressive rule of the Taliban.
Q: Aren't the Taliban those bad radical Islamics who chopped off people's heads and hands?
A: Yes, that's exactly who they were. Not only did they chop off people's heads and hands, but they oppressed women, too.
Q: Didn't the Bush administration give the Taliban 43 million dollars back in May of 2001?
A: Yes, but that money was a reward because they did such a good job fighting drugs.
Q: Fighting drugs?
A: Yes, the Taliban were very helpful in stopping people from growing opium poppies.
Q: How did they do such a good job?
A: Simple. If people were caught growing opium poppies, the Taliban would have their hands and heads cut off.
Q: So, when the Taliban cut off people's heads and hands for growing flowers, that was OK, but not if they cut people's heads and hands off for other reasons?
A: Yes. It's OK with us if radical Islamic fundamentalists cut off people's hands for growing flowers, but it's cruel if they cut off people's hands for stealing bread.
Q: Don't they also cut off people's hands and heads in Saudi Arabia?
A: That's different. Afghanistan was ruled by a tyrannical patriarchy that oppressed women and forced them to wear burqas whenever they were in public, with death by stoning as the penalty for women who did not comply.
Q: Don't Saudi women have to wear burqas in public, too?
A: No, Saudi women merely wear a traditional Islamic body covering.
Q: What's the difference?
A: The traditional Islamic covering worn by Saudi women is a modest yet fashionable garment that covers all of a woman's body except for her eyes and fingers. The burqa, on the other hand, is an evil tool of patriarchal oppression that covers all of a woman's body except for her eyes and fingers.
Q: It sounds like the same thing with a different name.
A: Now, don't go comparing Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are our friends.
Q: But I thought you said 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11th were from Saudi Arabia.
A: Yes, but they trained in Afghanistan.
Q: Who trained them?
A: A very bad man named Osama bin Laden.
Q: Was he from Afghanistan?
A: Uh, no, he was from Saudi Arabia too. But he was a bad man, a very bad man.
Q: I seem to recall he was our friend once.
A: Only when we helped him and the mujahadeen repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan back in the 1980s.
Q: Who are the Soviets? Was that the Evil Communist Empire Ronald Reagan talked about?
A: There are no more Soviets. The Soviet Union broke up in 1990 or thereabouts, and now they have elections and capitalism like us. We call them Russians now.
Q: So the Soviets, I mean, the Russians, are now our friends?
A: Well, not really. You see, they were our friends for many years after they stopped being Soviets, but then they decided not to support our invasion of Iraq, so we're mad at them now. We're also mad at the French and the Germans because they didn't help us invade Iraq either.
Q: So the French and Germans are evil, too?
A: Not exactly evil, but just bad enough that we had to rename French fries and French toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast.
Q: Do we always rename foods whenever another country doesn't do what we want them to do?
A: No, we just do that to our friends. Our enemies, we invade.
Q: But wasn't Iraq one of our friends back in the 1980s?
A: Well, yeah. For a while.
Q: Was Saddam Hussein ruler of Iraq back then?
A: Yes, but at the time he was fighting against Iran, which made him our friend, temporarily.
Q: Why did that make him our friend?
A: Because at that time, Iran was our enemy.
Q: Isn't that when he gassed the Kurds?
A: Yeah, but since he was fighting against Iran at the time, we looked the other way, to show him we were his friend.
Q: So anyone who fights against one of our enemies automatically becomes our friend?
A: Most of the time, yes.
Q: And anyone who fights against one of our friends is automatically an enemy?
A: Sometimes that's true, too. However, if American corporations can profit by selling weapons to both sides at the same time, all the better.
Q: Why?
A: Because war is good for the economy, which means war is good for America. Also, since God is on America's side, anyone who opposes war is a godless un-American Communist. Do you understand now why we attacked Iraq?
Q: I think so. We attacked them because God wanted us to, right?
A: Yes.
Q: But how did we know God wanted us to attack Iraq?
A: Well, you see, God personally speaks to George W. Bush and tells him what to do.
Q: So basically, what you're saying is that we attacked Iraq because George W. Bush hears voices in his head?
A: Yes! You finally understand how the world works. Now close your eyes, make yourself comfortable, and go to sleep. Good night.
Q: Good night, Daddy.
Reference Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq? http://develnet.org/ThisAndThat/DaddyWhyDidWeHaveToAttackIraq
http://boston.craigslist.org/pol/12038114.html :
----
[And so a pattern of militarism began....]
First presidential address on Jan. 8, 1790
July 04, 2003
WASHINGTON TIMES
Letters to the Editor
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20030703-101338-7982r.htm
In resuming your consultations for the general good, you cannot but derive encouragement from the reflection, that the measures of the last session have been as satisfactory to your constituents, as the novelty and difficulty of the work allowed you to hope. Still further to realize their expectations, and to secure the blessings, which a gracious Providence has placed within our reach, will, in the course of the present important session, call for the cool and deliberate exertion of your patriotism, firmness, and wisdom.
Among the many interesting objects, which will engage your attention, that of providing for the common defense will merit particular regard. To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require, that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent on others for essentials, particularly for military supplies.
The proper establishment of the troops, which may be deemed indispensable, will be entitled to mature consideration. In the arrangements which may be made respecting it, it will be of importance to conciliate the comfortable support of the officers and soldiers with a due regard to economy.
There was reason to hope, that the pacific measures, adopted with regard to certain hostile tribes of Indians, would have relieved the inhabitants of our southern and western frontiers from their depredations. But you will perceive, from the information contained in the papers, which I shall direct to be laid before you, [comprehending a communication from the commonwealth of Virginia,] that we ought to be prepared to afford protection to those parts of the Union, and, if necessary, to punish aggressors.
The interest of the United States requires, that our intercourse with other nations should be facilitated by such provisions as will enable me to fulfill my duty in that respect, in the manner which circumstances may render most conducive to the public good; and, to this end, that the compensations, to be made to the persons who may be employed, should, according to the nature of their appointments, be defined by law, and a competent fund designated for defraying the expenses incident to the conduct of our foreign affairs.
Various considerations also render it expedient, that the terms, on which foreigners may be admitted to the rights of citizens, should be speedily ascertained by a uniform rule of naturalization.
Uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United States is an object of great importance, and will, I am persuaded, be duly attended to.
The advancement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, by all proper means, will not, I trust, need recommendation. But I cannot forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encouragement, as well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad, as to the exertions of skill and genius in producing them at home; and of facilitating the intercourse between the distant parts of our country by a due attention to the post-office and post-roads.
Nor am I less persuaded, that you will agree with me in opinion, that there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. In one, in which the measures of government receive their impression so immediately from the sense of the community, as in ours, it is proportionably essential. To the security of a free constitution it contributes in various ways; by convincing those who are intrusted with the public administration, that every valuable end of government is best answered by the enlightened confidence of the people; and by teaching the people themselves to know, and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority, between burdens proceeding from a disregard to their convenience and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of society; to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness, cherishing the first, avoiding the last, and uniting a speedy but temperate vigilance against encroachments, with an inviolable respect to the laws.
Whether this desirable object will be the best promoted by affording aids to seminaries of learning already established, by the institution of a national university, or by any other expedients, will be well worthy of a place in the deliberations of the legislature.
Gentlemen of the House of Representatives, I saw with peculiar pleasure, at the close of the last session, the resolution entered into by you, expressive of your opinion, that an adequate provision for the support of the public credit is a matter of high importance to the national honor and prosperity. In this sentiment I entirely concur. And to a perfect confidence in your best endeavors to devise such a provision as will be truly consistent with the end, I add an equal reliance on the cheerful cooperation of the other branch of the legislature. It would be superfluous to specify inducements to a measure, in which the character and permanent interests of the United States are so obviously and so deeply concerned, and which has received so explicit a sanction from your declaration.
Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives, I have directed the proper officers to lay before you respectively such papers and estimates as regard the affairs particularly recommended to your consideration, and necessary to convey to you that information of the state of the Union, which it is my duty to afford.
The welfare of our country is the great object to which our cares and efforts ought to be directed; and I shall derive great satisfaction from a cooperation with you in the pleasing though arduous task of insuring to our fellow-citizens the blessings, which they have a right to expect from a free, efficient, and equal government.
GEORGE WASHINGTON New York
-
England issues a proclamation of rebellion (August 23, 1775)
Whereas many of our subjects in divers parts of our Colonies and Plantations in North America, misled by dangerous and ill designing men, and forgetting the allegiance which they owe to the power that has protected and supported them; after various disorderly acts committed in disturbance of the publick peace, to the obstruction of lawful commerce, and to the oppression of our loyal subjects carrying on the same; have at length proceeded to open and avowed rebellion, by arraying themselves in a hostile manner, to withstand the execution of the law, and traitorously preparing, ordering and levying war against us: And whereas, there is reason to apprehend that such rebellion hath been much promoted and encouraged by the traitorous correspondence, counsels and comfort of divers wicked and desperate persons within this realm: To the end therefore, that none of our subjects may neglect or violate their duty through ignorance thereof, or through any doubt of the protection which the law will afford to their loyalty and zeal, we have thought fit, by and with the advice of our Privy Council, to issue our Royal Proclamation, hereby declaring, that not only all our Officers, civil and military, are obliged to exert their utmost endeavors to suppress such rebellion, and to bring the traitors to justice, but that all our subjects of this Realm, and the dominions thereunto belonging, are bound by law to be aiding and assisting in the suppression of such rebellion, and to disclose and make known all traitorous conspiracies and attempts against us our crown and dignity; and we do accordingly strictly charge and command all our Officers, as well civil as military, and all others our obedient and loyal subjects, to use their utmost endeavors to withstand and suppress such rebellion, and to disclose and make known all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which they shall know to be against us, our crown and dignity; and for that purpose, that they transmit to one of our principal Secretaries of State, or other proper officer, due and full information of all persons who shall be found carrying on correspondence with, or in any manner or degree aiding or abetting the persons now in open arms and rebellion against our Government, within any of our Colonies and Plantations in North America, in order to bring to condign punishment the authors, perpetrators, and abetters of such traitorous designs.
Given at our Court at St. James's the twenty-third day of August, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, in the fifteenth year of our reign.
God save the King.
KING GEORGE III London
----
Bush Vows Pre-Emptive Attacks Against Enemies
Fri July 4, 2003
By Patricia Wilson
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=BFCM54HXIQY2KCRBAEZSFEY?type=topNews&storyID=3040300
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (Reuters) - President Bush said on Friday the United States is still at war and vowed to attack any "terrorist group or outlaw regime" that threatens the United States with mass murder.
Bush's tough message came as he marked the July 4 Independence Day holiday with a flag-waving speech before 25,000 or so military personnel and families at a base where Orville and Wilbur Wright's invention of the first flying machine 100 years ago is being celebrated.
"The United States will not stand by and wait for another attack or trust in the restraint and good intentions of evil men," Bush said on a sun-scorched day in the U.S. heartland.
"We are on the offensive against terrorists and all who support them. We will not permit any terrorist group or outlaw regime to threaten us with weapons of mass murder. We will act, whenever it is necessary, to protect the lives and the liberty of the American people," he said.
A giant American flag provided the backdrop for Bush on a makeshift stage set up on a base airfield. It was flanked by bomber, fighter and attack aircraft including a B-1 bomber and a Stealth F-117 fighter.
DAILY ATTACKS
Bush did not refer directly to the situation in Iraq or the daily attacks on U.S. forces struggling to bring stability there after the ouster of Saddam Hussein and the fall of Baghdad.
Hostile fire has killed 26 American soldiers in Iraq since Bush declared major combat over on May 1. Washington has accused Saddam loyalists of launching the attacks.
A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll this week found that the share of Americans who said things were going well for U.S. forces in Iraq had dropped to 56 percent from 70 percent a month ago.
Bush spoke more in general about the war on terrorism, which has produced military missions in Afghanistan, the Philippines and Georgia in addition to Iraq.
"Our nation is still at war. The enemies of America plot against us. And many of our fellow citizens are still serving and sacrificing and facing danger in distant places," Bush said.
Bush appeared to be trying to maintain American support for the far-flung military missions around the world.
"Without America's active involvement in the world, the ambitions of tyrants would go unopposed, and millions would live at mercy of terrorists. With Americans' active involvement in the world, tyrants learn to fear, and terrorists are on the run," he said.
FLYING MACHINE
It was in a bicycle shop in nearby Dayton, Ohio, that the Wright brothers built the aircraft they would fly on the North Carolina coast in 1903.
"I wonder what Wilbur and Orville would have thought if they'd have seen that flying machine I came in on today," Bush chuckled, referring to the giant Air Force One 747 that carried him to Ohio.
After his visit, Bush was returning to Washington. First lady Laura Bush has planned a party for the president's 57th birthday on Sunday.
Guests were to watch Washington's July 4 fireworks show from the White House's Truman Balcony.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Liberians implore Bush to send force
July 04, 2003
By Jonathan Paye-Layleh
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030703-101327-9285r.htm
MONROVIA, Liberia - Thousands of Liberians marched behind an American flag yesterday, imploring President Bush to send troops to help stanch years of bloodshed in their West African nation.
About 2,000 demonstrators walked to the U.S. Embassy chanting slogans praising Mr. Bush, whose administration yesterday repeated its call for Liberia President Charles Taylor to resign. Mr. Taylor, indicted by the United Nations for war crimes, is battling a three-year insurgency to unseat him from power.
A few demonstrators stoned cars and brawled with police patrolling the rally, but there were no immediate reports of arrests or injuries. Across town, 300 Taylor supporters said his departure would set a precedent for Washington to topple any African leader it dislikes.
As the anti-Taylor crowd shouted, "No more Taylor! We want Bush! We want peace!" demonstrator Andrew N'golo expressed his desperation in the wake of recent fighting between Taylor loyalists and rebels.
"We are prepared to give our bodies as living sacrifices if that's what it takes to bring peace to Liberia," Mr. N'golo said.
Rebels last month launched their strongest-ever offensive against the Taylor government, with the main insurgent group eventually laying siege to Monrovia, the capital city of 1 million residents and hundreds of thousands of refugees.
The fighting killed hundreds of people.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan would like to see the United States lead a multinational peacekeeping force. African nations have offered 3,000 troops for any deployment.
As U.S. officials in Washington deliberated what action to take to quell unrest in Liberia, former President Jimmy Carter joined his voice to those calling for U.S. intervention in the war-torn country.
"U.S. leadership can and should extend to the deployment of U.S. forces," Mr. Carter said in a statement released by his foundation, the Atlanta-based Carter Center. "American leadership now is critical to create the security on which long-term stability for Liberia and the region can be built."
Sporadic fighting has continued despite a June 17 cease-fire agreement between the warring parties.
Rebels began fighting three years ago to oust Mr Taylor, who won contested elections and took the presidency in 1997 after the end of a 1989-1996 civil war that he launched.
On June 4, a U.N.-backed court indicted Mr. Taylor, whose gun-trafficking supported Sierra Leone rebels in their vicious 10-year terror campaign, where rebel atrocities included hacking off victims' limbs. He also is accused of plundering that nation's rich diamond reserves.
Liberia was founded as a haven of liberty by freed American slaves in the 19th century.
Liberia's crisis hangs over Mr. Bush's visit to Africa next week, with the United States under pressure to act because of its historical ties to Liberia.
West African military chiefs of staff met in Ghana yesterday to discuss a possible deployment of regional troops but many Liberians think only U.S. soldiers can save them.
Many West African leaders say that rather than see Mr. Taylor on trial, they would like to end Liberia's war. But prosecutors at the court in Sierra Leone say they will pursue Mr. Taylor, wanted for his role in that country's civil war.
Mr. Taylor has offered to step down in January, but he wants the indictment lifted. He emerged dominant in 1997 elections after a war in which 200,000 people died but his foes rose up again in 2000 and now control an estimated 60 percent of the country.
--------
Liberia's President Agrees to Quit, But Wants Peacekeeping Force
July 4, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-liberia.html?hp
MONROVIA (Reuters) - Liberia's President Charles Taylor, under U.S. pressure to quit, said on Friday he had agreed to step down but urged the world to send peacekeepers to prevent chaos in the aftermath.
A senior Nigerian official said the former warlord, suspected of instigating a tangle of West African conflicts and hunted by a war crimes court in Sierra Leone, had accepted an offer of asylum.
Taylor's departure has been called essential for peace by President Bush, who visits Africa next week and is mulling the possibility of sending hundreds of troops to help end nearly 14 years of non-stop violence in Liberia.
``The important thing here is for international peacekeepers to come to Liberia as quickly as possible to take charge of the situation if I am going to step down,'' Taylor told reporters outside the presidential mansion, warning that if they did not it ``could be extremely chaotic.''
``The ball is in the international community's court,'' he said.
Taylor has been under growing pressure to quit since some 700 people were killed last month in rebel attacks on Monrovia. The insurgents hold nearly two-thirds of a country founded more than 150 years ago by freed American slaves.
Hundreds of people jogged through Monrovia's streets in a second day of unprecedented protests on Friday. One carried a U.S. flag, others had scrawled slogans like ``No More Taylor'' on torn sheets of cardboard.
A senior official in regional giant Nigeria said Taylor had accepted an offer of asylum and been told he should take it up this month instead of within 40 days as he had requested.
When asked, Taylor did not deny that he had accepted. But he said it was not the most important issue for now.
``Leaving to go into a foreign land, into exile, leaving my people that I know I can still be of help to, it is a pill that would be very difficult to swallow,'' he told a gathering of religious leaders earlier on Friday.
BUSH MULLING TROOPS
Bush said on Thursday he had made no decision on sending U.S. troops but that the ``first step'' was for Taylor to leave.
West African military chiefs of staff were to meet in Ghana on Friday to discuss a possible deployment of regional troops.
``Some countries have made pledges... There are indications that South Africa is interested. We are also hoping that Morocco and the United States will contribute,'' said one official.
A Nigerian official said President Olusegun Obasanjo had agreed to ask Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, a close ally of Taylor from before his days as a guerrilla leader, to help facilitate the asylum deal and possibly fund his stay.
U.N. diplomats said this week that Taylor had rejected an earlier Nigerian exile offer because authorities could not guarantee that he would not be extradited to face trial in Sierra Leone at a U.N.-backed court for war crimes.
Taylor is accused of trading guns for diamonds with rebels who left a trail of mutilation, rape and murder.
But a U.N. Security Council team this week pointed out that Nigeria was under no legal obligation to turn him over because it had no extradition treaty for the special court in Sierra Leone.
Taylor won 1997 elections, emerging as the dominant faction leader after a war that left 200,000 dead in the 1990s. Foes from that conflict started a new one to overthrow him three years ago.
Under the constitution, Taylor's successor would be Vice-President Moses Blah. A loyalist from the days of the bush struggle, Blah was detained briefly last month on suspicion of involvement in an alleged U.S. instigated coup plot.
U.S. officials have not said who they want to fill Taylor's shoes, and most regional analysts say the rebels are not an option as they lack political maturity. Liberia's opposition is also weak and fragmented.
-------- arms sales
China protests US sanctions on firms for arms sales to Iran
Friday, 04-Jul-2003
Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/di/Qus-china-nkorea-iran.Ra_V_Dl3.html
BEIJING, July 4 (AFP) - China strongly protested Friday against the United States imposition of sanctions on five Chinese firms for arms sales to Iran that the US said could be used for building weapons of mass destruction.
"It is not reasonable at all that the United States forces its national policy and laws on others, putting sanctions against enterprises of other countries," the foreign ministry said in a statement to AFP.
"We have expressed strong dissatisfaction and firm objection to the American side."
China also insisted it strictly controls weapons trade and strongly supports anti-proliferation efforts.
"China has a strict control policy on military trade and export," the statement said.
"All along, we have resolutely supported and actively participated in international efforts against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and do not allow any Chinese enterprises or people to be involved in proliferation activities."
The sanctions are provided for in the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000.
Some 15 entities from a number of countries are now subject to US sanctions under that act, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
The exact nature of the items sold was not disclosed.
The penalties have been imposed against the Taian Foreign Trade General Corporation of China, the Zibo Chemical Equipment Plant of China, the Liyang Yunlong Chemical Equipment Group Company of China, China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO) and the China Precision Machinery Import/Export Corporation (CPMIEC).
China has vehemently protested such sanctions in the past and the firms have denied any wrongdoing.
Thursday's sanctions include a ban on any US government contracts with the named companies, any US assistance to them, a ban on US arms sales to the firms and a ban on US export licenses for the sale of any controlled munitions.
However the measures, which will remain in place for two years, are unlikely to have a major impact given the fact that most of the firms are already covered by existing penalties and do little business with the United States.
The main exception is NORINCO, a key supplier of the People's Liberation Army of China, which has a visible presence in the US market as an exporter of hunting rifles and other firearms.
A North Korean company accused of selling arms to Iran was also slapped with the sanctions.
-------- asia
Jailed journalists put spotlight on Laos
July 04, 2003
By John Hail
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030703-051749-9180r.htm
BANGKOK, Thailand, July 3 (UPI) -- Two European journalists and a Hmong-American Christian pastor slapped with 15-year jail terms in Laos have provided a timely reminder of conditions in one of Asia's most repressive and least reported countries.
No journalists were allowed to cover the two-hour trial last Monday in Xiangkhoang province, 100 miles north of the capital, Vientiane, so news bureaus in Bangkok and Hanoi had to rely on diplomats who attended the trial and brought along cell phones.
No foreign news organizations are allowed to be based in Laos and visiting journalists are supervised by the government.
The xenophobic, camera-shy communist regime in Laos is particularly sensitive about the story the two European journalists came to cover: Anti-communist Hmong rebels still holding out in the jungle 28 years after their American backers pulled out of Indochina and took most of the Hmong leaders with them.
The most famous of those leaders -- some would say infamous -- was General Vang Pao, who led the CIA-funded "Secret War" in Laos in the 1960s and early '70s.
Like the holdouts in the jungles of Xiangkhoang, Vang Pao and other members of the 170,000-strong Hmong community in the United States have never given up, although fighting officially ended with the communist victories of 1975.
The Lao government has accused the exiles of carrying out bombings and other sabotage inside Laos, not to mention the exiles' sophisticated propaganda war in cyberspace.
The exile groups have accused the communist government of carrying out a genocidal war against the Hmong that has included tactics of deliberate starvation and poison gas.
The two Bangkok-based journalists, Thierry Falise and Vincent Reynaud, were accompanied into Laos by Naw Karl Mua, an ethnic Hmong American citizen and Christian pastor based in Minnesota who acted as their interpreter.
Falise, 46, a photo-journalist from Belgium, and Reynaud, 38, a French cameraman, hoped to bring the plight of the beleaguered, starving, yet still defiant Hmong rebels to the attention of the outside world.
After entering the country as tourists, the three made contact with the Hmong rebels and spent ten days with them in their jungle base in the mountains of Xiangkhoang.
But on the way out of the jungle their Hmong rebel escorts got involved in a firefight with government forces, resulting in the death of one Lao security guard.
In the confusion that followed, the journalists and their interpreter were cut off from the rebels and captured by Lao soldiers on June 4.
The Lao government's official Radio Vientiane commented on June 13 that the captured journalists and pastor "surely will face heavy punishment." The broadcast went on to denounce Western news media for failing to follow government regulations requiring all journalists to register with the Foreign Ministry before reporting in the country.
The trial of the three men in the Xiangkhoang town of Phonsavan on June 30, although open to some Vientiane-based Western diplomats, did not ease fears that the three were being made examples for others who might dare to draw public attention to conditions in Laos.
They were convicted of carrying weapons and obstructing government security forces and, in addition to their jail terms, ordered to pay the equivalent of $1,100 to the family of the security guard killed in the firefight.
"Fifteen year prison terms after a trial lasting two hours defies belief," Amnesty International commented in a statement after the verdict. "This show trial only confirms our continued concerns about fair trial and access to due process in Laos and makes a mockery of justice."
"We don't believe that this trial and its outcome have served the cause of justice," said U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "The trial has fallen well short of international standards of jurisprudence."
As one of the poorest countries in Asia, with the bulk of its budget coming from foreign aid, Laos can ill afford a diplomatic battle over the fate of the journalists and the pastor.
The U.S. Congress is currently considering plans by the Bush administration to grant normal trade relations (NTR) to Laos, the only country remaining in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that does still not enjoy this status.
Western diplomats in Vientiane said talks were underway to strike a deal that would result in the deportation of the three now that the government has sent a clear message to the foreign press against lifting the veil of secrecy imposed by the communist government.
"Journalists should not be arrested for doing their job," said Lin Neumann of the Committee to Protect Journalists. "These guys were just doing their job."
-------- britain
Blair's spin-doctor admits tinkering with Iraq dossier
July 4 2003
AFP
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/03/1057179096040.html
British Prime Minister Tony Blair's top aide, Alastair Campbell, has admitted to tinkering with a security report seen as bolstering the campaign for US-led action against Iraq, a confidential letter published in a London newspaper showed.
But Mr Campbell denied a BBC allegation, which came from an unnamed source, that he personally inserted into the report a claim that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.
Details of the letter, sent to a parliamentary committee investigating the government's case for war, were leaked to The Guardian newspaper.
The letter is expected to form a crucial part of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee's final assessment, due next Monday, into whether ministers deliberately misled parliament and exaggerated intelligence, against the wishes of security services, over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the daily said.
The letter is said to have been cleared by the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which brings together the chiefs of all British intelligence agencies.
It reveals that Mr Campbell, Mr Blair's director of communications, suggested 11 changes be made to a draft of the Iraq dossier, published in its final form by the British Government on September 22, six months before it launched war on Iraq alongside the United States.
According to Mr Campbell's letter, six of his proposed changes were acted upon, four others were not, while the other was already under way.
Among changes made were the removal of the words "vivid and horrifying" in the human rights section of the dossier after Mr Campbell deemed them to be unnecessary.
He also questioned why the draft report said Saddam's sons "may have" the authority to launch chemical weapons, instead of "have". But Mr Campbell's request for the removal of the word "may" was turned down by the JIC.
He was also told there was no intelligence to suggest Iraq had secured uranium and that the phrase "sought to secure" would have to remain.
Meanwhile, in a passage dealing with Iraqi dual-use facilities Mr Campbell successfully argued that the phrase "could be used" be replaced with "are capable of being used".
He also successfully proposed that the section detailing how long it might take for Iraq to develop nuclear weapons be more clearly explained, although the letter does not give details of what changes were made.
Significantly, Mr Campbell denies allegations that he personally "sexed-up" the 50-page dossier by insisting it state that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.
"The chairman of the JIC has also confirmed and authorised me to say that it [the claim] reflected recent intelligence already in the JIC's classified assessment and that I played no part in the decision to include the intelligence in the dossier," Mr Campbell wrote.
Asked to comment on the letter, a spokesman for Mr Blair's office said simply: "We await the committee's report on Monday."
Mr Campbell, 46, is a former tabloid newspaper political editor known in British political circles as the "sultan of spin".
----
Women allege decades of gang rapes by British army
July 4 2003
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/03/1057179094630.html
Amnesty International has called for an independent inquiry to examine claims that more than 650 Masai and Samburu women have been raped by British soldiers stationed on exercise in Kenya over 36 years.
Amnesty's Irene Khan said the current investigation by the Royal Military Police in Kenya was inadequate. "Allegations of serious human rights violations should be investigated by the civilian authorities, not by an internal military investigation."
More than two-thirds of the alleged rapes, between 1965 and 2001, were by gangs, and about 40 resulted in the birth of mixed-race children.
The call came as the women were on Tuesday granted legal aid to pursue a civil action against the British Ministry of Defence in which they will claim that the army knew or ought to have known that the rapes were taking place and that it was negligent in not investigating the allegations or taking steps to prevent them occurring.
Amnesty says British and Kenyan authorities were aware of the allegations as long ago as 1977. They accused the army of "institutional acquiescence" for failing to act, saying the failure encouraged a pattern that allowed soldiers to continue raping women with impunity.
"It is almost as if the British Army could throw away its rule book when it came to Kenya," said Martyn Day, the British solicitor representing the women. "Year after year nothing ever happened. It simply promotes a culture that they could do what they liked."
Mr Day said: "In virtually every instance, we are talking about two, three, four soldiers lying in wait, seeing the women, running after them and group-raping them."
In one reported incident four years ago, 18 Gurkhas were said to have lain in wait near a river where they knew women took their animals, and to have raped six women.
Mr Day is seeking compensation of about $A44,000 for each woman, and will also be seeking punitive damages.
The British Ministry of Defence has said the first it knew of the allegations was when Mr Day brought them to its notice last November.
But Mr Day and Impact, an organisation based in Kenya, have found evidence that allegations of rapes were made to British Army officers in Kenya over the past 25 years. In some instances these reports were dismissed; in others action was pledged but none taken.
The Guardian; The Telegraph, London
-------- business
Probe Widens to Include Russia's Richest Man
By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 4, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7102-2003Jul3?language=printer
MOSCOW, July 3 -- Russian authorities have summoned billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky for questioning in a widening investigation of alleged stock embezzlement, informed sources said today. The probe already has led to the arrest of one of the oil magnate's close associates.
The case was followed anxiously in business circles here, with concern that the questioning of Khodorkovsky and the arrest of Platon Lebedev might signal a new campaign by President Vladimir Putin to rein in Khodorkovsky, the country's richest and most politically influential "oligarch," or senior corporate leader.
The 40-year-old former communist youth leader was scheduled to report for questioning on Friday, sources familiar with the case said.
Khodorkovsky's firm, Yukos, is Russia's second-largest oil producer. He has an estimated $8 billion fortune, making him the country's richest man, according to Forbes magazine. He also funds two Western-oriented political parties opposed to Putin and has been praised by Western investors for his efforts to make his company a model of corporate openness.
Lebedev, described by one acquaintance as the "financial genius" behind Khodorkovsky's rise, was arrested Wednesday night and charged by the prosecutor general's office with stock embezzlement in the 1994 sale of the state-owned Apatit fertilizer company. The government contends that Lebedev stole $283 million worth of shares.
But Lebedev's lawyers called the case against him illegal. They said a $15.1 million settlement reached with the government last year ended the matter.
Lebedev was arrested at a hospital where he was seeking treatment for a heart condition, according to Yukos spokesman Hugo Erikssen. Erikssen said authorities denied Lebedev "the right to talk privately with his lawyer, a blatant violation of Russian law."
Lebedev, a former Soviet-era oil executive who has worked with Khodorkovsky since the late 1980s, is chairman of Yukos's parent company, Menatep, a conglomerate with $30 billion in assets. Lebedev has a net worth of $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
Khodorkovsky's allies and independent analysts described the investigation as a politically oriented move in advance of December parliamentary elections. "Khodorkovsky is Mr. Russian Oil, and this is a shot across the bow, not just to him but to all the oligarchs: 'Mind your place,' " said Stephen O'Sullivan, an oil specialist at United Financial Group.
Khodorkovsky today attended an Independence Day celebration hosted by the U.S. ambassador. "In my view, this has nothing to do with substantive legal issues, and I hope the leadership of the country will draw the necessary conclusions," Khodorkovsky said of the government investigation.
Kremlin officials declined to comment. "There is nothing political" about the investigation, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor general told the Interfax news agency. "What politics can there be when the government has not received a kopeck for its stock of nearly $300 million over eight years?"
Financial analysts and political commentators here said that the arrest of a high-profile business figure such as Lebedev was unlikely without approval from Putin or his top advisers. Early in Putin's presidency, the Kremlin investigated two other politically influential oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, who owned independent media outlets. The men eventually sold their holdings and left the country for self-imposed exile.
Since then, many analysts assumed Putin had made a deal with the remaining oligarchs, allowing them to keep the fortunes they acquired in the 1990s state sell-offs in exchange for not interfering in Putin's government. "I deal with politics, you deal with business, and don't get involved in my business," said Georgy Satarov, head of the INDEM research and policy group, describing that bargain.
"The Kremlin is concerned that Mr. Khodorkovsky could take on the same role as Berezovsky or Gusinsky in the past," said Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst. "They are concerned about his political ambitions, and they are sending signals to follow the rules."
Analysts also expressed concern about possible business risks connected to the investigation.
"Almost anyone could be found guilty of privatization-related misdeeds," warned a report from Aton Capital, a leading Russian brokerage firm. "Lebedev's arrest highlights the existence of many Russia-specific risks that investors might have forgotten about."
Several other Yukos officials also have been targeted, including a top security official, Alexei Pichugin, who was recently arrested and charged with conspiracy to murder in connection with the death of a Yukos business rival. Leonid Nevzlin, the former Yukos deputy chairman and a billionaire, has been called for questioning on Friday.
--------
U.S. Penalizes 6 Asian Firms for Helping Iran Arm Itself
July 4, 2003
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/04/international/asia/04KORE.html
WASHINGTON, July 3 - The Bush administration imposed economic sanctions today on five Chinese firms and a North Korean company that it said had assisted Iran's weapons programs. It did so even as American officials were meeting with a senior Chinese diplomat, trying to coax Beijing into forcing North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program.
The administration's mixed signals underscored the difficulties it faces in aggressively countering the proliferation of arms. It is publicly praising China in an effort to persuade it to put pressure on North Korea and Iran to dismantle their nuclear programs, while quietly protesting that Chinese companies are a major source of arms technology. Four of the Chinese firms cited today are already being penalized for their role in the arms trade.
"It shows you how far we have to go to get the basic technology cut off," one senior administration official said. "In China, in Pakistan, in Russia, you get government cooperation, and then you discover all the side deals that companies have made with rogue states."
At the State Department today, Richard A. Boucher, the spokesman, told reporters that the sanctions, which were quietly announced in the Federal Register this morning, were "not done in any manner to coincide with a visit" by China's deputy foreign minister, Wang Yi.
American and Asian officials said the Chinese intended to use today's visit to urge the United States to meet again with North Korea, with only China as an additional participant and intermediary in the talks. So far, North Korea has refused to allow South Korea and Japan to join the talks, as President Bush has insisted. The first meeting, in April, ended badly, with North Korea declaring that it had nuclear weapons and might sell them.
It is unclear whether the economic sanctions imposed today will affect Beijing's cooperation with Washington. But the practical effects of the penalties will be minimal. Most of the companies cited by the State Department do no business with the United States government because of existing sanctions against them.
Still, Mr. Bush and his aides are clearly signaling an intent to move forward aggressively with a broad new strategy to cut off aid to the North Korean and Iranian weapons programs. They have described a new approach that calls for the use of domestic law-enforcement agencies in ports in Japan, Singapore and Europe to stop and search ships suspected of carrying missiles or nuclear technology.
The State Department offered no details of the shipments that prompted the sanctions. The announcement simply said the shipments had "the potential to make a material contribution to weapons of mass destruction or missiles."
The sanctions were imposed against five Chinese firms: the Taian Foreign Trade General Corporation, the Zibo Chemical Equipment Plant, the Liyang Yunlong Chemical Equipment Group Company of China, the China Precision Machinery Import/Export Corporation and one of the largest companies in the Chinese military complex, the China North Industries Corporation, better known as Norinco.
Norinco, a major supplier to the Chinese military that does billions of dollars of business in China and overseas, has previously been charged in smuggling cases in the United States, and has been accused of selling banned military hardware.
The North Korean firm, the Changgwang Sinyong Corporation, has long been linked to North Korean missile sales and was identified earlier this year as the company involved in a barter arrangement between Pakistan and North Korea. Pakistan is believed to have helped North Korea develop techniques for enriching uranium, in return for North Korean missiles.
Two years ago, Changgwang Sinyong was also penalized for missile technology transfers to Iran.
-------- china
Missile threat
Inside the Ring
By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 04, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm
The Pentagon is putting the finishing touches on its annual report to Congress about the military power of communist China.
The report is expected to be made public in the next few months, unless, as occurred in the past, its release is held up by pro-China officials who fear the report will upset Beijing.
The highlight of this year's report, as in previous years, is the dramatic increase in short-range missiles opposite Taiwan.
According to defense officials, the new report will reveal that China now has 450 CSS-6 and CSS-7 missiles within striking distance of Taiwan.
Last year's report stated that China's short-range missile force was about 350 missiles, all in the Nanjing military region, which is opposite Taiwan.
The earlier report also said that China's military is adding missiles at a rate of about 50 a year, making the 100 new missiles over the past year double the estimate.
The new report will state that the missile force is growing by 75 new missiles a year and that the number will reach 600 missiles by 2005.
The emerging report also will warn that the Chinese missiles are getting more accurate and lethal. The missiles will use global positioning system (GPS) navigation for midflight guidance corrections.
-------- iran
Report: Iranian Missile Can Reach Israel
July 4, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Iran.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Iran has successfully tested an intermediate-range ballistic missile that can reach Israel, an Israeli newspaper reported Friday.
The Haaretz daily said the test of the Shahab-3 was conducted last week and was the most successful of seven or eight launches over the past five years.
The newspaper said the Shahab-3 has a range of more than 812 miles.
Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, will discuss the threat posed by Iran when he meets with U.S. defense officials next week, Haaretz said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Friday that he hoped the International Atomic Energy Agency and international powers would pressure Iran to allow weapons inspectors into the country and to sign nonproliferation agreements guaranteeing that it has no intention to develop nuclear weapons.
``The radical regime in Iran is threatening the stability not only of the state of Israel, but the European countries also,'' Shalom said. ``Iran is a danger to the stability of all the world.''
Earlier this week, the head of the country's atomic energy organization, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, was quoted by Iranian media as saying Iran was ready to sign additional agreements to prove it did not intend to develop nuclear weapons, but only under certain conditions. It's not clear what criteria would satisfy Iran.
It's not clear how effectively the Shahab-3 missile would be in delivering a chemical, biological or nuclear payload. The missile is a modified version of North Korea's Nodong-1 surface-to-surface missile.
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$25 million bounty offered for Saddam
July 04, 2003
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030703-085848-2747r.htm
The Bush administration yesterday placed a $25 million bounty on the head of Saddam Hussein, as senior lawmakers in Washington said the uncertainty over the fate of the deposed dictator has hampered the search for Iraq's prohibited weapons programs.
L. Paul Bremer, head of the U.S.-led coalition civilian authority, announced in Baghdad that the U.S. government would also pay up to $15 million for information on the whereabouts of each of Saddam's two sons, Uday and Qusai, calling the three "among the most evil men the world has known."
Saddam and his sons have not been seen since early April, despite intense search efforts by U.S. and allied forces.
Mr. Bremer said this week U.S. authorities do not even know if the three survived the war, amid intense speculation among Iraqis over whether the dictator may be preparing a comeback.
Coalition officials say the uncertainty over Saddam has emboldened loyalists of the old regime, who have staged a daily series of strikes against U.S. and British forces and conducted numerous sabotage and looting raids.
"I have certainly not forgotten Saddam Hussein and his sons," Mr. Bremer said in a televised message to the Iraqi people.
"They may or may not still be alive. Until we know for sure, their names will continue to cast a shadow of fear over this country," he added.
Ten more American soldiers were injured in incidents yesterday, which included an explosion that rocked a convoy of Humvees 60 miles west of Baghdad and sniper attacks at two locations in the capital. Two Iraqis were also killed by soldiers returning fire, and a 6-year-old Iraqi boy was injured in one of the sniper attacks.
A reported 26 American soldiers and six British troops have been killed by hostile fire since President Bush declared the major combat phase of the Iraqi campaign over on May 1.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner, Virginia Republican, said the "specter" of Saddam was evident during a just-concluded congressional delegation he led to Iraq.
Many Iraqis with hard evidence of Saddam's weapons programs are still fearful of coming forward, he said.
"The specter of his past brutality does hang over this entire operation and does, to some extent, impede the progress by which other civilian Iraqis would feel free to come out," Mr. Warner said at a Capitol Hill press conference.
The $25 million bounty for Saddam matches the reward being offered by the U.S. government for Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the al Qaeda terrorist network blamed for the September 11 attacks.
The offer also is a departure from previous statements by Mr. Bush and other senior officials, who had said that Saddam's fate was less important than the fact that, in Mr. Bush's words, the dictator's fingers were no longer "wrapped around his people's throats."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told reporters yesterday that capturing Saddam was vital in reassuring ordinary Iraqis about their political future.
"We believe it is important to do everything we can to determine his whereabouts, whether he is alive or dead, in order to assist in stabilizing the situation and letting the people of Baghdad be absolutely sure that he's not coming back," Mr. Powell said.
Senators who accompanied Mr. Warner to Iraq said they sensed a "real and palpable concern" among Iraqis over whether Saddam was really gone, in the words of Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican.
West Virginia Sen. John. D. Rockefeller, IV, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence panel, recalled one Iraqi oil-industry worker he met on the trip who was too frightened to offer even a private opinion on whether Saddam was alive or dead, even when surrounded by a group of Americans.
"The fear built into him did not allow him to say yes or no," said Mr. Rockefeller.
The fear of Saddam still casts "a shadow over that country," he added, "far more so that I thought when I went there."
•Sharon Behn contributed to this report.
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US forces release Shiite Muslim leader in Iraq
Friday July 4, 2003
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030704/1/3cbn2.html
US troops released a Shiite Muslim leader in this town northeast of Baghdad, a day after his detention sparked a protest by thousands of his supporters, according to an AFP correspondent at the scene.
Sheikh Ali Abdul Karim Madani made no comment as he returned home where he was seen with his brother Abdul Halim, the correspondent said.
The residents of Baquba had planned a demonstration for Monday if the cleric were not released by then.
Madani was arrested early Thursday in a raid on his house by around 100 US soldiers, who arrived in armoured vehicles backed by two helicopters, according to his brother.
He was taken blindfolded and handcuffed to a US military base 60 kilometres (37 miles) northeast of Baghdad, Abdul Halim said.
A US officer told the family the arrests were linked to the seizure in Baquba of a large number of weapons in a Hussainiya, a gathering hall for Shiites, he said.
Some 3,000 Baquba residents protested Thursday at the headquarters of the prefecture in the town, occupied by the Americans, to demand Madani's release.
According to witnesses, a small bomb exploded during the protest, killing one of the demonstrators. US forces then opened fire in the their direction, wounding four.
US troops and Iraqi police, supported by tanks, broke up the protest, they said.
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British troops' burial site offers lesson to US on postwar Iraq
By Stephen J. Glain,
Boston Globe Staff,
7/4/2003
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/185/nation/British_troops_burial_site_offers_lesson_to_US_on_postwar_Iraq%2B.shtml
KUT, Iraq -- The cemetery is overgrown with reeds similar to the ones that clutter the nearby Tigris River. Headstones lean at ghoulish angles, are broken like chipped teeth, or have collapsed altogether. Residents treat it as they would an empty lot, although it is filled with more than a hundred reasons why great powers administer Iraq at their peril.
It is the graveyard for British soldiers killed here during World War I, when London opened a Mesopotamian front against Ottoman Turkey, Germany's ally. While Britain ultimately prevailed and went on to exercise influence on Iraq for four decades, the costs of subduing the country were considerably higher than expected. Iraqis fighting as an Ottoman colonial militia and under German leadership inflicted tens of thousands of casualties on British troops, about 150 of whom are buried here in this city between Baghdad and the southern port city of Basra.
Iraqi resistance to the British invasion, and its subsequent occupation, is well-studied history and to many Iraqis offers a vivid lesson to US officials now responsible for postwar Iraq.
''No one can govern Iraq but Iraqis,'' said Mualoom Farham, a history professor at Kut University. ''The Persians, Mongols, Turks, British. Many foreigners have tried. Now it's the Americans' turn. Their liberation has turned into an occupation.''
Resistance against US troops now managing a country still impaired by a lack of basic services like electricity and clean water has been on the rise. At least 26 American and six British soldiers have died as a result of hostile acts since May 1, when major combat in Iraq was declared over.
Sustained counterinsurgency raids have yet to neutralize a web of Saddam Hussein loyalists and religious fundamentalists. Grass-roots bitterness over what is perceived as American designs to rob Iraqi oil wealth and share it with Israel is widespread, and US officials worry it could worsen unless postwar shortages are addressed.
''At least the British had a plan,'' said Mohammad Taher, 78, a retired military officer in Baghdad. ''They had a lot of experience with foreign occupation. The Americans don't have a policy.''
Britain's World War I experience in Iraq, beginning with its costly first campaign that ended in disaster at Kut, offers a valuable study in the limits of great-power influence. After quickly taking Basra in 1914, an Anglo-Indian expeditionary force pushed toward Baghdad and occupied the city a year later, only to be driven back to Kut. A Turkish-led Ottoman force surrounded the city and squeezed it for 146 days.
British attempts to break the siege failed at the cost of thousands of men. A ransom of 3 million lire was offered the Turkish commander and rejected before the British surrendered, having lost scores of troops to starvation, disease, and exposure to temperatures that reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit. The defeat at Kut was among Great Britain's most painful setbacks in World War I and one of its biggest embarrassments in three centuries of empire-building. Iraqis regard the British capitulation as one of their proudest achievements. It has been immortalized in a song that celebrates how the Iraqis and Turks beat one of the most powerful armies.
The British regrouped and -- with the Ottomans distracted by incursions in the east from Russia and Persia -- reoccupied Baghdad in 1917. A triumphant Major General Stanley Maud, according to Kut University's Farham, declared to the people of the city the British had fought to liberate Iraq from autocratic rule, not to occupy it.
''The British remained for the next 40 years,'' said Farham. ''More Iraqis know who General Maud was than the English.''
Historically, foreigners had coveted Iraq for control of the land bridge linking the markets of Europe and Asia. With Britain's naval fleet now burning oil instead of coal, Iraq became a geological prize as well as a geographic one. In 1925, the British set up the Iraqi Oil Co. with US participation and aggressively developed the country's petroleum fields.
Britain also installed a pliant emir, King Faisal I of the Hashemite Dynasty, and ruled Iraq by proxy until 1958, when mobs of Arab nationalists murdered the then-king and his court. By the early 1960s, Britain and France were in full retreat from their Arab protectorates, leaving a vacuum to be filled by a fraternity of dictators that would count Saddam Hussein as a member.
The US government has said repeatedly it has no imperialist designs on Iraq. Iraqi oil is for the Iraqis, occupation officials say, and there will soon be established an interim authority that will choose a government elected by Iraqis, for Iraqis.
Soon after the fall of Baghdad, a delegation of British officials came to visit the cemetery. A maintenance crew had cleared away the rubbish that was obscuring many of the headstones, and a flagpole was installed on which the Union Jack was raised during a memorial. Members of the delegation viewed the few names on the headstones that had not been worn away or vandalized. They included Private W