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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.
-------- iraq
$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.
----
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.
----
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.J. Melton of the Norfolk Regiment, killed at age 22 on Jan. 13, 1916; gunner W. Hart of the Royal Field Artillery, who fell on Jan. 14, 1916; and Private J.W. Cuthbert, Royal Army Service Corp., dead Oct. 20, 1918. A day after the ceremony, someone broke into the cemetery and pulled down the flagpole.
----
The Che Guevara of Iraq could turn against the Allies
COLIN FREEMAN IN AL AMARA, SOUTHERN IRAQ
Fri 4 Jul 2003
Scotsman
http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=727022003
AMONG the Iraqi intelligence officers he spent 17 years humiliating, no two descriptions of Kareem Mahood were alike. Fighting in the southern marshlands he was the bearded peasant in robes. Spying in Baghdad he was the businessman in shirt and tie. The time he famously tricked his way into their headquarters, it was in a fake brigadier's uniform.
Three months ago, after surviving nearly two decades as the most hunted guerrilla leader in southern Iraq, the master of disguise recast himself yet again - as the powerful friend and ally of the British forces in the south, with nearly 8,000 loyal followers at his command.
The question now, however, with tensions rising in the area, is whether his most recent face proves as changeable as the rest.
Last Sunday, in the wake of the clashes that saw six members of the Royal Military Police killed in the town of Majar al-Kabir, he left his heavily guarded headquarters in nearby Al Amara and went to Basra for private talks with General Tom Pickett, the senior commander of British forces in southern Iraq.
The meeting, it seems, went smoothly, with Mr Mahood promising to use his considerable influence to continue to keep the peace. But with the deaths of four of his own people in last week's fighting, the so-called "Lord of the Marshes" has made it clear that his support now has its limits.
If coalition forces keep their promises of an independent government and better living standards for his dirt-poor province, he says, all will be well. If they fail, however, he has made it clear that he may no longer be their friend.
Given his extraordinary past record as a resistance fighter, the consequences could be dire indeed.
Face-to-face, there is little to suggest Mr Mahood's reputation as southern Iraq's answer to Che Guevara. In one hand he carries a satellite phone, on which he was in regular contact with the CIA during the fall of Saddam's regime.
In the other is a small rubber stamp, which he uses to authorise money, letters of recommendation and other favours to the queue of favour-seekers outside his house.
In the end, Iraqi military sources say, the failure to catch Mr Mahood was one of the main reasons why Saddam eventually decided to drain the southern marshlands which had sheltered him.
Now, as his homeland is being re-flooded again, he says he is planning a new life as a peaceful politician. Although Iraqi intelligence claims he had regular backing from Iran, whose border is just a few miles away, he insists his party, Iraqi Hizbollah, is one-nation and independent.
But behind the scenes, some reports suggest he might not shy away from fighting. On the issue of the heavy weapons searches which provided the catalyst for last week's massacre, he clashes with the allies. What they see as a vital part of the demilitarisation process, he sees as a violation of locals' historic right to arms.
In meetings in the town last week, he is also said to have suggested that prolonged allied occupation without Iraqi government would, eventually, meet his active resistance.
In some ways, that would simply fall into the Marshlands' proud tradition of resisting authority. The problem for the allies would be that the resistance could not come from a tougher opponent of the previous regime.
----
Attacks Leave U.S. Soldier Dead, 18 Hurt
July 4, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html
BALAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. troops killed 11 Iraqis who ambushed a convoy outside Baghdad on Friday, one of the heaviest clashes yet in the daily grind of attacks on American forces, and a message purportedly from Saddam Hussein called for stepped-up resistance to the U.S.-led occupation.
The ambush came hours after mortars hit a nearby base, wounding 18 U.S. soldiers, and a sniper shot and killed an American soldier guarding the Baghdad museum, the military said.
The Arab television station Al-Jazeera aired an audiotape Friday with a voice purported to be that of Saddam. In the tape, the speaker said he was directing resistance to American forces and called on all Iraqis to support the attacks.
``Not a day passes without them (suffering) losses in our great land thanks to our great mujahedeen (holy warriors),'' the speaker on the tape said. ``The coming days will, God willing, be days of hardship and trouble for the infidel invaders.''
The United States has put a $25 million bounty on Saddam's head, and U.S. officials say that the mystery over his whereabouts is encouraging anti-U.S. attacks -- though they insist the resistance is not centrally organized.
The speaker on the tape -- purportedly Saddam -- said he was in Iraq and gave the date as June 14. There was no immediate way to confirm the tape's authenticity but those who know Saddam's voice said it sounded like his.
The CIA is reviewing the tape, but has not verified that it was the ousted Iraqi leader, a U.S. intelligence official said. An analysis could take several days.
The insurgency has raised fears of a political and military quagmire just two months after President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1. At least 27 U.S. troops have been killed in hostile fire since Bush's statement.
The ambush Friday came on a highway near Balad, 55 miles north of Baghdad, when 11 men attacked a convoy with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire, the military said.
Soldiers of the Army's 4th Infantry Division fired back, killing all the men. None of the Americans was injured.
U.S. forces have frequently been ambushed on the roads of central Iraq -- usually by small groups of insurgents who fire small arms or grenades then flee.
In another bold attack, four mortar rounds rocked a huge U.S. base near Balad late Thursday, injuring 18 soldiers, said Maj. Edward Bryja, of the Army's 3rd Corps Support Command. Flares and tracer bullets sliced across the night sky after the blasts.
Two soldiers were seriously injured, with one undergoing surgery in a hospital located on the base and another evacuated for treatment, Bryja said. Others suffered cuts and small punctures from flying shrapnel, and nine soldiers quickly went back to duty, Army officials said.
``This is the first time the base was attacked -- and the first time we've seen mortars,'' said Sgt. Grant Calease, who said he and other soldiers would nonetheless carry on with a July 4th steak barbecue.
The wounded soldiers belonged to Task Force Iron Horse, a 33,000-member unit that has been conducting raids in mainly Sunni Muslim central Iraq -- the latest sweep aimed at putting down insurgents.
On Friday, attackers detonated an explosive on a highway in Baghdad's western outskirts, injuring three passengers in a civilian car and two U.S. soldiers traveling in a Humvee convoy, according to an Associated Press photographer on the scene.
On Thursday evening, a sniper shot and killed a U.S. soldier manning the gunner's hatch of a Bradley fighting vehicle outside the national museum, Pruden said. His name was not immediately available.
Despite the attacks, many of the U.S. troops planned July 4th barbecues at bases around the country.
``We should be celebrating with our families. It is sad. Everybody wants to go home. I am glad that we came here to liberate Iraq, but I think it is time for soldiers to see their families,'' said Sgt. Thas Eagans from Irving, Texas.
A few were invited to join Arnold Schwarzenegger for a screening at Baghdad International Airport of the muscle-bound actor's latest movie, ``Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.''
Schwarzenegger addressed a rambunctious crowd of soldiers in one of Saddam Hussein's former presidential palaces located inside the airport compound.
``It is really wild driving around here, I mean the poverty, and you see there is no money, it is disastrous financially and there is the leadership vacuum, pretty much like in California right now,'' he said.
Schwarzenegger, 55, has indicated he may run for governor of Californian as a Republican if residents there vote to recall the Gov. Gray Davis.
``I play terminator, but you guys are the true terminators,'' he told the soldiers, before heading to the base at Balad that came under attack.
In the north, American forces planned joint celebrations with Kurdish officials. The Kurds celebrate July 4 as the anniversary of their first government's election in 1992.
U.S. officials have said the insurgency is being fueled by doubts about Saddam's fate and crushing it is crucial.
The American sweep, dubbed Sidewinder, has netted at least 20 ``high-value'' targets, but none of the most wanted Iraqi fugitives. Arms and ammunition, including hundreds of rocket propelled grenades, or RPGs, have also been seized.
On Thursday, U.S. troops near Baqubah, northeast of the capital, tried to lure attackers into an ambush on a stretch of road known as ``RPG Alley'' because of the frequent attacks on U.S. forces there. One suspect was killed and three captured in the operation, said Lt. Kurt Chapman, with the Army's 4th Infantry Division.
The last reported sighting of Saddam was on April 9, a day before the capital fell, in northeast Baghdad. He was the target of at least two major U.S. air strikes, but there was never any proof either was successful.
----
Centcom, ground commanders differ on cause of blast
By Patrick J. McDonnell and Terry Mcdermott,
Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe,
7/4/2003
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/185/nation/Centcom_ground_commanders_differ_on_cause_of_blast%2B.shtml
FALLUJAH, Iraq -- Commanders on the ground have found no evidence to substantiate allegations by the military's Central Command that a deadly explosion at a mosque compound may be related to bombmaking activities, officers said yesterday.
''I don't think you could say any way definitively that that was what was going on,'' said Captain Joffery Watson, intelligence officer for occupying troops in this restive town west of Baghdad. ''I have no idea where Centcom got that.''
In a brief statement Wednesday, Central Command said the explosion that killed as many as 10 people Monday night ''was apparently related to a bomb-manufacturing class that was being taught inside the mosque.''
Lieutenant Colonel Eric Wesley of the Second Brigade of the Third Armored Division, which is occupying Fallujah, said yesterday, ''I'm unaware of the bomb-school information.''
The varying accounts between top military brass and some on the ground left commanders here in a difficult position. Some even suggested privately that Central Command had gotten it wrong.
Many residents blamed the blast on a US warplane, and ''eyewitness'' accounts of such an aircraft above the mosque before the explosion were disseminated widely in the Arabic-language press. Neighborhood residents dubbed the dead men ''martyrs.''
US military officials have downplayed the likely presence of explosives in the mosque as an isolated instance and not a sign of a growing Islamic front against occupying forces. US authorities have reported sporadic attacks from the vicinity of mosques.
Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of the US-led ground forces in Iraq, said in Baghdad yesterday that the Fallujah site was a suspected bomb factory.
But he also said: ''I am here to tell you that over the last month, Fallujah has been a great example of cooperation.''
For weeks, US troops have been working to calm a potentially incendiary state of affairs in this town, which has emerged as a caldron of anti-US activity.
Military authorities here have been quick not to jump to conclusions publicly about the cause of the explosion, which killed the mosque imam, or preacher, Sheik Laith Khalil Dahham, 35, and as many as nine other men described by residents as religious students.
One possible explanation circulating among moderate Iraqis here is that agitators seeking to discredit US forces deliberately planted the explosive material at the mosque compound, a scenario that would exonerate the dead.
----
G.I.'s Kill 11 Who Ambushed Patrol in Iraq; No U.S. Casualties
July 4, 2003
The New York Times
By AMY WALDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/04/international/worldspecial/04CND-IRAQ.html?hp
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 4 - A day after attacks against the United States-led coalition in Iraq escalated, American forces killed 11 attackers who ambushed them near the town of Balad today, the military said.
Officials said no American soldiers were harmed in the failed ambush, in which the attackers used small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades against an American patrol.
The incident today came less than 24 hours after an American soldier was killed in Baghdad and 18 were injured, also near Balad, on Thursday night. Those attacks, and the ambush today, seemed to affirm the comments of the commander of allied forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez of the Army, who said on Thursday, "We're still at war."
A military spokesman said a soldier was shot to death at 8:30 p.m. Thursday as he sat inside a Bradley fighting vehicle protecting the Baghdad Museum. About two hours later, a support base near Balad, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, came under mortar attack, wounding the 18 soldiers, two seriously.
Those two attacks followed a day of violence in which 10 soldiers were wounded in three other separate incidents, including a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a busy Baghdad Street at 10 in the morning.
In Dubai, , the Arab television satellite network Al Jazeera broadcast an audiotape today of a voice purporting to be that of Saddam Hussein claiming he is still in Iraq and urging Iraqis to aid the escalating resistance attacks against allied forces.
There was no way of determing whether the tape was authentic, but the mere perception that it might be could strengthen the influence of Mr. Hussein on Iraqis loyal to him at a time when the United States is intent on ending any effect he might be having on the growing resistance. On Thursday, the State Department said it was offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading to the capture of Mr. Hussein or confirmation of his death.
With the violence seemingly escalating daily, the offer of a bounty for Mr. Hussein seemed to reflect the renewed urgency allied officials and military commanders attach to finding the deposed leader and his two sons, whose specter they believe is fueling the growing resistance to the American occupation.
"Until we know for sure, their names will continue to cast a shadow of fear over this country," L. Paul Bremer III, the American civilian administrator of Iraq, said on Thursday in his weekly address to the Iraqi people.
In Washington, a group of senators just back from a three-day visit to Iraq were even more emphatic on Thursday about the need to capture or kill Mr. Hussein.
"There's a pervasive climate of fear that is impeding the recovery, particularly in central and southern Iraq," said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican. "There is a fear that he will return, that he will come back. And that fear prevents us from making progress as rapidly as we otherwise would, and that fear emboldens those who would attack our troops."
The $25 million reward for Mr. Hussein is the same amount offered for Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda. Mr. Bremer said up to $15 million apiece would be offered for similar information on Mr. Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay.
Mr. Bremer said in an interview on Sunday that the "general assessment" of people he talked to was that Mr. Hussein was still in Iraq.
While Mr. Bremer maintained that the threats and violence against American soldiers and civilians, as well as the Iraqis working with them, would not deter reconstruction, General Sanchez made clear at a news conference Thursday that rebuilding the country and fighting the enemy would have to take place side by side.
While saying the daily attacks on American forces did not appear to be centrally coordinated, the general acknowledged that there had been an "increase in sophistication of the explosive devices." He said 25 soldiers had been killed in action and 177 wounded since May 1, when Mr. Bush declared the official cessation of major hostilities.
The multiple attacks came a day after Mr. Bush seemingly invited confrontation with militant Iraqis, saying, "Bring 'em on." The American-led alliance, he said, has adequate force to deal with the security situation. Thursday's attacks seemed to defy that assertion. They also suggested that sapping the resistance might not be as simple as capturing or killing Mr. Hussein. The attacks occurred in diverse locations: a Sunni area west of Baghdad that staunchly supported the former government, a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad that did not and the center of the city.
In the Baghdad neighborhood of Kadhimiya on Thursday, a gunman opened fire on a group of soldiers from the First Armored Division on foot patrol at 2:30 a.m., wounding one of them. The soldiers returned fire, killing the gunman and wounding a 6-year-old boy with him, according to an American military spokesman.
In the city of Ramadi, about 65 miles west of Baghdad, six soldiers were wounded when their two-vehicle convoy drove over an improvised explosive device at 6:30 a.m. Thursday.
Ramadi has become a center of resistance to the American-led occupation. It is about 30 miles west of Falluja, where an explosion at a Sunni mosque killed at least six people on Monday night. An allied investigation blamed a bombmaking class being held in a building adjacent to the mosque, but many residents accused the Americans of firing a missile into the mosque and promised revenge against American troops.
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Voice Purported to Be Saddam Hussein Airs on TV
July 4, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Saddam.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A man claiming to be Saddam Hussein said in a tape aired on the Arab television station Al-Jazeera on Friday that he is in Iraq directing attacks on American forces and he urged Iraqis to help the resistance against the U.S.-led occupation.
``Oh brothers and sisters, I relay to you good news: Jihad (holy war) cells and brigades have been formed,'' the speaker on the audiotape said, addressing the Iraqi people.
The CIA is reviewing the tape, but has not verified that it was the ousted Iraqi leader, a U.S. intelligence official said. An analysis could take several days.
There was no immediate way to verify the tape's authenticity. Reporters and others who have heard Saddam speak many times before said the voice sounded like Saddam. The voice contained characteristics similar to Saddam's style of speech, particularly his typically slow and drawn out pronunciation. He also maintained his usual defiant, yet calm, demeanor.
With U.S. forces targeted daily by ambushes and sniper attacks in and around Baghdad, the United States has put a $25 million bounty on Saddam's head -- as well as a $15 million reward for each of his sons, Odai and Qusai. American officials say the mystery over Saddam's whereabouts fuels anti-U.S. attacks by his loyalists -- but insist the resistance is not centrally organized.
In the audiotape, the speaker gives the date of taping as June 14 and says: ``People have been asking why they haven't heard the voice of Saddam Hussein. We face a lot of trouble in getting our voice to you even though we have been trying.''
The speaker defends the quick fall of Saddam's regime during the U.S.-led invasion in March and April, saying it was a necessary retreat, and urges Iraqis to help insurgents.
``No to surrender and no to cooperation'' with the Americans, he said. ``I call upon you to protect these heroic fighters and not give the invaders any information about them or their whereabouts during their operations.
``There is resistance and I know you are hearing about this. Not a day passes without them (suffering) losses in our great land thanks to our great mujahedeen. The coming days will, God willing, be days of hardship and trouble for the infidel invaders,'' the speaker said.
The last reported sighting of Saddam was on April 9, a day before the capital fell, in northeast Baghdad. He was the target of at least two major U.S. air strikes, but there was never any proof either was successful.
The speaker on the tape, purporting to be Saddam, said that he is still in Iraq ``among my people'' along with a small group of his ``companions.'' He said he had been forced to ``sacrifice'' the government as U.S. troops moved in.
``We fulfilled our obligations to you and sacrificed what we had to, except our values, which are based on our deep faith and honor. We did not stab our people or our nation in the back,'' he said. ``We refused to hold onto power if that meant submitting to the American threats.''
He also dismissed U.S. claims that Iraq had biological, chemical and possibly nuclear weapons programs and was prepared to use them -- a principal justification for the war.
``They aim to destroy Iraq, and what they called the weapons of mass destruction was nothing but a cover for their plans,'' said the man claiming to be Saddam. ``I ask the invaders, where are these weapons of mass destruction?''
Al-Jazeera's chief editor Ibrahim Hilal, contacted in Doha, Qatar, said the tape was delivered to Al-Jazeera via telephone on Friday.
``Someone called us and played back the tape for us and we recorded it. It ran for over 20 minutes, but only 10 minutes are newsworthy. We don't know the source, or where the call came from. We have no reason to doubt its authenticity,'' he said.
The tape was the first purported to be from Saddam since one received May 5 by a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald, who received a 14-minute audiotape from two men in Baghdad. In that tape, the voice also claimed to be speaking from Iraq and called on citizens to oust American occupiers.
Reviews of such tapes by the American intelligence community typically include a technical analysis aimed at matching the voice to known recordings of Saddam. That process that can take days.
Experts on Saddam also listen for specific references in the language that would suggest when the message was recorded.
At the height of the war, some U.S. intelligence analysts concluded that many of Saddam's messages were prerecorded before the fighting.
-------- israel / palestine
New Iranian missile threat worries Israel
By Amir Oren, Haaretz Correspondent
Haaretz Service
04/07/2003
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/314484.html
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Friday he hoped the International Atomic Energy Agency and international powers would pressure Iran to allow weapons inspectors into the country and to sign additional nonproliferation agreements guaranteeing that it has no intention to develop nuclear weapons.
Shalom's comments come after the publication in Haaretz that Iran tested a Shihab-3 missile, which has a range that can reach Israel.
"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."
The launch last week was the most successful so far of the seven or eight tests of the missile over the last five years, and has increased worries in Washington - which spotted the test with its tracking mechanisms - and in Israel.
If the assessment proves to be true that the missile, which was launched from east to west, had an effective range beyond the 1,300-kilometer red line, meaning the range from western Iran to Israel, the Iranians could position the launching pads for the rocket deeper inside their country.
The Iranian threat will be one of the subjects under discussion when Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon visits the Pentagon and U.S. armed forces bases next week. Ya'alon's itinerary is supposed to include the Florida headquarters of two key commands: Centcom and Special Operations at MacDill air force base.
More data is now being collected and collated in the West about the missile test and about the progress being made in the Iranian missile program, which is based on North Korean missiles. In previous tests, when the rocket was powered by a North Korean engine, the tests were successful, but when the engines were Iranian-made, even with North Korean know-how, they tended to fail - despite statements by Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shakhmani in 2002 that Iran can "develop everything" and does not need help from foreign sources like China or Russia.
The report of the Shihab-3 test is an incentive for Israel equipping itself with more Arrow missiles made by the Israel Aircrafts Industries and soon to go into a joint production process with Boeing.
Israel is also concerned about the growing ties between Iran and Libya. Indeed, the Libyan threat is now the reason for a third Arrow battery even though the Iraqi threat is gone. One response to the Libyan threat would be an Arrow battery mounted on a naval vessel.
Western experts said that the 16-meter single-stage Shihab-3, which can carry up to a ton of explosives in its payload, is not very accurate, with the probability of hitting within three kilometers of any target it is launched at. But it is possible that has been improved over the past year. In any case, the missile range already includes Israel, Turkey, the Indian subcontinent and the American forces in the Gulf. Iran has plans for two longer-range missiles: a Shihab-4, with a 2,000-kilometer range and a Shihab-5, with a 5,500-kilometer range.
The last Shihab missile test resulted in a Bush administration statement expressing "serious concerns" about the Iranian missile project, which is a "threat to the region and U.S. interests."
The next commander of Centcom, Gen. John Abizaid, who replaces Tommy Franks on Monday, testified last week to a Senate committee that "Iran has the largest ballistic missile inventory in the Central Command region to include long-range weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems capable of reaching deployed U.S. forces in the theater." And he warned, "Iran's long-term ability to develop nuclear weapons remains a source of serious concern."
He told the committee that "Iran casts a shadow on security and stability in the Gulf region. Iran's military is second only to the United States. U.S. allies in the Gulf acknowledge Iran's increasingly proactive efforts to soften its image and appear less hegemonic; however, Iran's military poses a potential threat to neighboring countries."
----
Israeli Army Chief Admits Blunders Against Palestinians
"We made a certain number of mistakes," said Yaalon commenting on Israeli operations against Palestinians
July 4, 2003
(IslamOnline.net & News Agencies)
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-07/04/article07.shtml
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Israeli Chief-of-Staff Moshe Yaalon admitted Friday, July 4, Israeli forces committed blunders against Palestinians during the three-year Intifada, while a new survey indicated that most Israelis do not believe Israel emerged victorious against the Intifada.
He deplored the damage caused to the Palestinian education and culture ministries during the Israeli so-called Defensive Shield operation in the spring of 2002.
"This was a blunder. There were intolerable acts of vandalism," said Yaalon, who was second-in-command at the time, in an interview with published in the Israeli Yediot Aharonot newspaper, making his first year in office.
"We made a certain number of mistakes, such as the recent strike on the car of a Hamas terrorist, not knowing that his wife and girl were with him," said the Israeli army chief.
He was referring to the June 12 helicopter raid in Gaza City that killed Yasser Taha, wife and their infant daughter, as well as four civilians.
Four Israeli helicopter gunships rained the car with six missiles, while a seventh was fired as bystanders rushed to help the injured.
Yaalon also cited the killing by Israeli troops in October 2002 of a sexagenarian Palestinian woman in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
International human rights groups have repeatedly slammed Israeli army for incessant aggressions on innocent Palestinians over the past three years, including home demolitions, assassinations, daily humiliations at checkpoints and excessive use military force on civilian populations.
Recalling staunch opposition to the Israeli siege of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, the Israeli army chief admitted that Arafat came out stronger after the five-week siege of his Ramallah presidential headquarters.
"My position was not accepted. We paid a price for it. The Americans issued us a severe reprimand," Yaalon said.
Not Victorious
The top Israeli brass argued that "in the light of the resistance shown by the Israeli people and the heroic struggle of the Tsahal (the Israeli army) against terrorism we can announce that we have won," the Intifada.
However, a new survey indicated that the majority of Israelis believe they were not victorious.
The poll, carried by the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily, said 73 percent of Israelis did not think Israel won against the Intifada.
Among them, 33 percent argued the Palestinians had won the Intifada, which started in September2000 .
Yaalon's declaration of victory drew sharp criticism with the Maariv newspaper which quoted senior defense sources as saying this would "only complicate" the situation.
On Sunday, June 29, Israeli forces pulled out of some areas in the northern Gaza Strip - occupied since the beginning of the Intifada - and transferred security responsibilities to the Palestinians and reopened the main road linking the north of the strip to the south.
On Wednesday, July 2, they also completed the transfer of security control in the West Bank city of Bethlehem to Palestinian authorities.
According to a report by Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) in September 2002, many Jewish settlers have left their areas built on Palestinian land in large numbers due to the Palestinian Intifada.
----
Palestinian elections possible by Oct.
7/4/2003
(AP)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-07-04-palestinian-elections_x.htm
JERUSALEM - Palestinians could have general elections by October if Israel withdraws from major population centers, with Yasser Arafat likely to be the only major candidate for president, the Palestinian foreign minister said Friday.
Arafat's re-election would likely frustrate Washington's moves to sideline him and nurture an alternative Palestinian leadership. It remains unclear what would happen to the post of prime minister, created under intense U.S. pressure to reduce Arafat's role.
With a cease-fire agreement holding, Israeli soldiers withdrew from parts of Gaza and the West Bank town of Bethlehem last week. The Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers, Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, will meet Tuesday to discuss further pullbacks.
The pullbacks are part of a U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan that calls on Israel to withdraw to positions held before fighting began in September 2000. In turn, Palestinians must dismantle militant groups that have attacked Israelis. However, Abbas has rejected fighting the militants, fearing a civil war.
Although fighting has decreased dramatically since the cease-fire began Sunday, there still were scattered incidents.
A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in a small Israeli farming village and Palestinians fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli army post in Gaza, but there were no injuries in either incident, the military said.
Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan has vowed that his forces will pursue militants who break the truce.
That promise was tested after several dozen militants rallied in Gaza late Thursday, firing their guns into the air to protest the arrests of seven militants by Palestinian security forces. The seven were detained apparently for firing rockets at a Jewish settlement, an attack that left four Israelis wounded.
There were no clashes with police.
A senior Israeli official said Friday the rate and the scope of further Israeli withdrawals depend on how quickly the Palestinians disarm militant groups.
"The faster they take control, the faster we move out," the official said on condition of anonymity.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath called on Israel to leave the remaining West Bank cities by the end of August and added that Palestinians would then prepare to hold presidential and parliamentary elections.
"We can conduct elections by October," Shaath told The Associated Press. "We have told all the parties that Israel should conclude its withdrawal from Palestinian cities within six weeks."
Shaath said Arafat would be the candidate for president from the ruling Fatah movement. Since Hamas, the other major faction, has been boycotting elections, Arafat would be the only major contender.
But Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi said Shaath's timetable was too optimistic.
"It is very ambitious," she said, adding it would take at least six months to prepare elections officials, register voters and set up election places after an Israeli withdrawal.
The Palestinian parliament also would have to adopt an elections law.
----
NEWS ANALYSIS
Israelis Sense They've Won
July 4, 2003
New York Times
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/04/international/middleeast/04ISRA.html
TEL AVIV, July 3 - Israeli officials are expressing growing confidence that after 33 months they have defeated the Palestinian uprising, or intifada.
The Israeli chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, told Israeli reporters on Wednesday that the developments this week might eventually be seen "as the end" of the conflict. "It is certainly a victory" for Israel, he was quoted as saying.
Some Israeli analysts criticized that conclusion as premature, if not hubristic. Yet for now, the American-brokered talks between the adversaries are being held on what appear to be largely Israeli terms.
Negotiators who three years ago were discussing how to divide Jerusalem are debating how to return partial control of cities that were then under Palestinian authority.
"When the intifada began, the demand was, `End the occupation, because the negotiations led to nothing,' " said Samir al-Mashharawi, a leader of the mainstream Palestinian faction, Fatah. "Now, Palestinian demands are to return back to the situation right before the intifada, and we are negotiating about this."
He said that during one of his terms as an Israeli prisoner, he and other inmates demanded chairs and tables. In response, he said, the Israelis took their mattresses. The prisoners demanded them back.
"After a month, they returned the mattresses, and we felt very happy we achieved something," he said. "Israeli diplomacy is based on this idea."
How the Bush administration will press the peace plan forward is unclear. Violence could erupt again at any moment, and Palestinians have proven they can inflict tremendous pain - including economic loss - on Israel. It was no accident that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon chose an economic conference in Jerusalem today to declare, "For the first time since I entered the office of prime minister, there is a real possibility of an end to terror and the return to normal life."
The Israelis appear to be filling in the details of a new American-backed peace plan, which Israel had resisted, to better suit its perceived interests.
The Israeli Army will not withdraw from any more Palestinian cities until it sees that Palestinian security officers are acting against violent groups in Bethlehem and Gaza, where forces pulled back this week, a senior Israeli military official said today.
Mahmoud Abbas, the appointed Palestinian prime minister, may be seen as an Israeli agent if he jails those who violate the truce. He hopes to gain strength as Israel makes concessions, and for now, the main Palestinian factions have voluntarily suspended attacks.
Israel says that it cannot risk being too indulgent and that Mr. Abbas must act against militants in the next two or three weeks or the peace process will freeze.
Over the course of the conflict, Israel maximized its bargaining position, by taking back territory and encouraging settlers to set up new outposts to extend their grip on the West Bank. By contrast, the Palestinians, whose main demand is statehood, find their negotiating leverage much reduced.
Mr. Mashharawi said they had shown that unless the Israeli occupation ended "there will be no peace and security in the region." And he warned of "another intifada" unless the Israelis moved swiftly to give Palestinians independence.
Israelis say they have forced Palestinians to rethink violence. In March 2002, during a wave of Palestinian attacks, Mr. Sharon declared: "The aim is to increase the number of losses on the other side. Only after they've been battered will we be able to conduct talks."
At the end of that March, Israel launched military offensives to seize Palestinian cities in the West Bank, control of which had been ceded under the Oslo peace process.
Now, the senior military official said, "the Palestinians - at least the ones who make decisions - came to the conclusion that violence will not achieve their political goals."
"I cannot say it is over," he cautioned, but he said that if the peace process succeeded, the Palestinian street might come to the same conclusion about violence "in a few weeks, and a few months."
He said the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as new pressure from European and Arab states, had also helped change the Palestinian view on violence.
If the Palestinians end their uprising, their remaining levers for negotiations may be time and demography. With the Palestinian population growing rapidly, Jews will become a minority in Israel and its occupied territories within a few years, Israeli experts say. That may put either Israel's Jewish character or its democracy at risk if Palestinians do not form a separate state.
The new American-backed peace plan, known as the road map, calls for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza in just three years. But Mr. Sharon has a longer time line in mind. The second of the peace plan's three phases - a Palestinian state with "provisional" borders - could ease Israel's demographic predicament without forcing it to confront the deepest disputes between the two sides, such as control of Jerusalem.
The military official said that Israel would not begin substantive political negotiations over questions like Jerusalem until the Palestinians had fully broken up militant groups, confiscating their weapons, destroying their training centers, arresting their dangerous members and ending all "incitement" to violence.
"They will have to get rid of all their terrorist capabilities," he said, acknowledging this could take years.
The Bush administration does not appear to be pressing Israel to abide by the plan's schedule. A Western diplomat said the administration was more interested in commitments met than dates kept.
As demanded under the plan, Israel has begun taking down some of the settlers' outposts, though new ones are going up. Little has been said about a freeze on further growth of established settlements called for in the plan's first phase.
To try to raise Mr. Abbas's popularity, Israel has begun releasing some of its more than 5,000 Palestinian prisoners, a step not in the plan. But as one senior Israeli official noted, there is a difference between releasing prisoners and conceding land: freed prisoners can always be arrested again.
-------- japan
Japan passes landmark Iraq troop deployment law
By Teruaki Ueno,
July 4, 2003
Reuters
http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters07-03-220844.asp?reg=MIDEAST
TOKYO - Japan's powerful Lower House of parliament gave the go-ahead for the nation's biggest foreign troop deployment since World War Two on Friday, passing a law that allows the government to send soldiers to help rebuild Iraq.
The law, the latest in a series of steps boosting the military that critics say is undermining Japan's pacifist constitution, paves the way for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to send about 1,000 troops to Iraq in the near future.
The bill is expected to become law later this month upon endorsement by parliament's Upper House.
Critics, including some ruling party heavyweights, have raised their voice against the plan, saying it would violate the 1947 constitution which forbids the use of force to settle international conflicts except in self-defence.
In a protest against the bill and the parliament's decision not to use named ballots, Hiromu Nonaka and Makoto Koga -- powerful figures in Koizumi's ruling party -- walked out of the plenary session of the Lower House.
''This is a bill that could take the lives of Self-Defence Forces (military) personnel and kill and injure people of other nations,'' Kyodo news agency quoted Nonaka as saying. ''We should leave a clear record of which lawmakers voted for it and who voted against it.''
Koizumi and his cabinet ministers have insisted the troops will only be sent to areas ''free of military conflict.''
But critics have argued that it is almost impossible to designate such areas given a string of attacks on U.S. and British soldiers since President George W. Bush declared major combat over in Iraq in May.
Since May 1, at least 25 U.S. troops and six British troops have been killed in hostile circumstances in Iraq, in a conflict experts say is fast becoming a low-level guerrilla war.
Japan's mission to Iraq would mainly provide logistical support to U.S. and other allied forces, paving the way for the world's second-largest economy to play a greater role in global security. Asian neighbours such as China and South Korea -- victims of Japan's wartime aggression -- have traditionally been extremely wary of such moves.
'BOOTS ON THE GROUND'
At a meeting at his Texas ranch in May, Bush asked Koizumi for visible cooperation in the reconstruction of Iraq, and the Japanese prime minister said Tokyo would take an active role.
During a visit to Japan last month, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage hailed the proposed law.
''Japan, if successful in the Diet (parliament) deliberations, coming forward with any assistance and/or 'boots on the ground', would be a most welcome development,'' he told Japanese media.
''It would leave me with a great feeling of confidence that Japan is willing to take her place with the major nations of the world and play a positive role for security.''
Despite fearful and suspicious eyes from its Asian neighbours, Japan has been taking steps to boost its security role overseas since the early 1990s.
It took three years of haggling before the government brought a Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) bill into effect in 1992, permitting Japanese troops to take part in U.N. peacekeeping.
Since then, Japan has dispatched troops to war-torn Cambodia, Mozambique, Zaire and the Golan Heights under the PKO law.
Japan passed another law in late 2001 that enabled it to provide back-up in the form of refuelling and supplies for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, anxious to avoid the embarrassment it suffered in 1991 when it shied away from sending troops to the Gulf War.
-------- landmines
Up to 17,000 unexploded bombs left in war zone, MP warns
Owen Bowcott
Friday July 4, 2003
The Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,990996,00.html
Anything between 2,000 and 17,000 unexploded British bomblets may remain on the ground in Iraq, posing a daily threat to civilian lives, according to estimates by a British MP.
The Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb's figures are based on the likely failure rates of the "sub-munitions" inside the cluster bombs used during the invasion.
Landmine Action, one of the main campaigners against the use of these weapons, believes that the US and UK forces delivered about 300,000 bomblets in the war.
Cluster bombs are highly effective against troop concentrations, but a significant proportion of the bomblets fail to explode on impact.
They remain on the battlefield, in some cases in urban areas, where they can easily be picked up and detonated by children.
UN agencies say hundreds of Iraqi children have been killed or injured since the end of the fighting after collecting unexploded shells and bomblets.
The government says British aircraft dropped 66 cluster bombs, each containing 147 bomblets, and fired 2,000 artillery shells containing 49 bomblets each. That would amount to almost 100,000 bomblets.
Mr Lamb, the MP for North Norfolk, said: "Given a failure rate of just 2%, the minimum quoted by their manufacturers, this means that over 2,000 unexploded sub-munitions are left in Iraq as a result of the use of cluster bombs by British forces alone."
A 5% failure rate was seen as accurate after the war in Afghanistan, he said, which would translate to 5,385 unexploded bomblets in Iraq; the manufacturers' maximum 16% failure rate would mean 17,232.
"The government needs to take urgent action to speed up the clearance of these deadly remnants of conflict," Mr Lamb said.
The international development minister, Hilary Benn, told the Commons yesterday that he did not know the total number of cluster bombs used by US and British forces.
In an earlier reply, he said: "We recognise that unexploded ordnance is a matter of grave humanitarian concern. The UK is fully committed to facilitating clearance as part of the post-conflict reconstruction of Iraq."
The department has given more than £4m to the UN mine action service and mines advisory group.
Despite the international concern about the danger of cluster bombs, a UN conference in Geneva last week failed to agree on proposals that would oblige belligerent countries to pay for their safe destruction after a war.
The talks will resume in the autumn.
-------- pacific
SOLOMON ISLANDS - Villagers fear useas human shields
July 04, 2003
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Briefly
http://www.washtimes.com/world/briefly.htm
HONIARA - Followers of a notorious Solomon Islands warlord tortured, then beheaded, at least three men and razed an entire village, said survivors who fear being used as human shields against an Australian-led intervention force.
With Australia planning to lead 2,000 police and troops to quell violence in the lawless and near-bankrupt South Pacific state, survivors this week told of an attack 12 days ago by warlord Harold Keke in his Weathercoast stronghold. Augustine Manakako, a former senior government official, said every house in Marasa, a village of about 500 people south of the capital, Honiara, was burned to the ground.
The 1,000-island Solomons Archipelago has slipped deeper into chaos since a 2000 coup. Armed gangs roam the streets of the capital. Prime Minister Allan Kemakeza's Cabinet has to meet in hiding, and militants have used his residence for target practice.
-------- prisoners of war
US terror trials will be "fixed" to secure convictions
July 4, 2003,
IRNA
http://www.irna.ir/en/world/030704184717.ewo.shtml
London - The US decision to include two Britons among six al-Qaeda suspects to be tried by secretive military tribunals has caused consternation in the UK that they would be "fixed" to secure convictions. "The US Department of Defence will appoint the judges and prosecutors, control the defence and make up the rules of the trials. It appears to have only one objective to secure a conviction," said Stephen Jakobi, director of the British pressure group Fair Trails Abroad.
Moazzam Begg, from Birmingham, central England, and Feroz Abbasi, from Croydon, south London, were named on an initial list of six people to face trial from the hundreds held outside US jurisdiction at the notorious Camp X-Ray prison set up at the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "The whole Cuban exercise has become a failed and cynical public relations stunt. After 18 months, six people out of over 600 are to be tried have to be fixed, otherwise there might be no convictions," Jakobi said. He said that if the Americans were prepared to take the people that had been seized during the war against Afghanistan to American soil and put them on trial under normal US prosecution, "the evidence wouldn't stand up." Amnesty International also said that it was "extremely" concerned and in particular with the case of Begg, who was seized by special US forces in Pakistan, before being taken to Afghanistan for a year and then shipped to Camp X-Ray.
"The outline plan for the military commissions shows they are discriminatory, as they apply only to non-US nationals and seem to afford a second-class form of justice," Neil Durkin from Amnesty said. He said that the human right group was alarmed at the prospect of the six being sent to the death chamber after facing these military courts and urged the British government to strenuously protest at any UK other national facing execution after the tribunals.
Former president of the National Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers, Neal Sonnet accused the US of double-standards, saying the State Department criticises other nations for conducting secret military tribunals, the US terror trial sounded "alarmingly" similar.
According to PA News, Begg's father, Azmat, only learnt that his son would be tried after he rang the Foreign Office on Friday morning following a message being left on his answer-phone.
"If the (US) government or military are appointing people in the court that is absolutely wrong. It should be an independent person." he said, repeating that his 35-year old son, who is a father of four himself, was never involved in al-Qaeda.
Prime Minister Tony Blair has refused to condemn the US for holding a total of nine Britons without charge at Camp X-Ray, but has suggested that the information obtained in interrogating those held has been useful in the war against terrorism.
-------- spies
BOOKS OF THE TIMES | 'THE MAIN ENEMY'
The Labyrinthine Morass of Spying in the Cold War
July 4, 2003
The New York Times
By JAMES BAMFORD
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/04/books/04BOOK.html
On a warm May afternoon in 1989 a pair of wire cutters sliced through the first link in a rusty, barb-encrusted fence separating Hungary from Austria. For more than four decades the cold war had threatened the world with nuclear annihilation. Now, instead, the war was ending with a simple metallic snap.
In 1946 the erection of the fearsome barrier had inspired Winston Churchill's famous warning that "an iron curtain has descended across the Continent." But by the end of the 1980's Hungary had decided that enough was enough; Communism had failed; it was time to lower the curtain. Soon a tidal wave of freedom-seekers from across Eastern Europe began pouring across the border, and within months it would sweep across East Germany and topple the Berlin Wall. The Soviet Union would follow a few years later.
As chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Soviet Division, Milt Bearden had a unique perch from which to watch the end come. And in "The Main Enemy," his memoir written with James Risen, a reporter for The New York Times, he lays it all out.
Writing in diary style from June 13, 1985, to Dec. 31, 1991, Mr. Bearden begins with the tragic capture by Soviet agents of one of the C.I.A.'s most valuable Russian moles, Adolf Tolkachev, the first of many. It ends with a spirited New Year's Eve celebration at C.I.A. headquarters, where everyone sports a campaign-style button containing a Soviet hammer and sickle and the words "The Party's Over." In between is a fascinating look at two wars - the external one between the Soviet and American spies, and the internal one between the old-line and new-school C.I.A. bureaucrats.
While it is clear that the United States won the cold war, the Soviet K.G.B. certainly won the spy war. By the mid-1980's most of the dozen or so Russian spies the C.I.A. had in place in the Soviet Union, including Tolkachev, had been compromised by turncoat Americans like the C.I.A. officer Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen of the F.B.I. And while the K.G.B. had these senior American intelligence officers - and many more - secretly working for them, the C.I.A. was overjoyed to recruit a Russian fighter pilot to diagram his plane. "The harsh truth was that we didn't have any spies in place who could give us much insight into the plans of the East German government," Mr. Bearden writes, "or, for that matter, the intentions of the Soviet leadership in the Kremlin."
Many of the most promising prospects the C.I.A. was able to recruit turned out to be Soviet plants, some discovered only after years of expensive and painstaking debriefing. When a new agency station chief arrived in East Berlin in 1988 to begin his assignment, says Mr. Bearden, "the C.I.A. had no agents inside the internal security apparatus" of its foreign intelligence arm. "It wasn't for lack of trying. But every one of the men who seemed ready to change sides turned out to be a double agent; the C.I.A. had had no luck in recruiting even the dullest functionaries."
The agency's luck changed when the Soviet bloc collapsed and Mr. Bearden was flooded with more former K.G.B. agents than he could handle. Because each defector cost American taxpayers about $1 million in relocation expenses, and because Mr. Bearden said that he felt the information coming from these low- and middle-level officials was not worth it, he sent word to the field to become far more selective. "I had been assured in each case that the most recent defector had been a `gold mine' of counterintelligence," he writes, "but the claims never lived up to the hype."
The slowdown in recruitment led to a rebellion by many of the agency's old-line officers, who accused Mr. Bearden of going dangerously soft on "the main enemy." But Mr. Bearden believed that it was time for the C.I.A. to begin changing direction and focusing on new targets and new ways of doing business. "I saw the collapse of the Soviet empire as a moment that called for new ideas," he says. "On the one hand, we needed all the policy-relevant intelligence we could get, but on the other, we were beginning to find common ground with the Soviets on issues such as international terrorism, narcotics and control of their arsenal of tens of thousands of nuclear warheads. We were making the first steps toward cooperation in these areas, and we needed to change the way we dealt with the Soviets."
As the Sept. 11 attacks showed, the changes did not come fast enough.
Mr. Bearden is critical of the current Bush administration's war in Afghanistan, comparing it to Soviet operations there in 1984. "Crisp military briefers giving cheerily optimistic but unconvincing accounts of a beaten enemy, of high enemy body counts," he says, "but again without the bodies." Here he also writes from a unique perspective, having run the C.I.A.'s secret war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980's. Additionally, he blames the Bush administration and its allies for "the continued failure . . . to make good on the pledges of massive reconstruction assistance - more than $4 billion pledged but undelivered." It is comparable, he says, to "the reduction of tribute paid by the 19th-century British to the tribal chiefs."
Failure in Afghanistan, Mr. Bearden warns, "could allow the country to become a haven for international terrorists once again." Although his book was completed before the recent war in Iraq, the same warning might apply to that conflict. As many conclude that Saddam Hussein was more interested in palaces of vast expense than in weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration may have replaced a paper tiger with a new generation of vengeful terrorists.
--------
Rumsfeld's Pentagon Gains Clout in U.S. Government
July 4, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-arms-usa-pentagon.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Defense Department, with Donald Rumsfeld at the helm, has expanded its clout within the U.S. government, reaching into realms such as foreign policy and intelligence usually handled by other agencies.
Defense analysts said world events starting with the Sept. 11, attacks on the United States, and then wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, have contributed to this bolstered sway.
They also point to Rumsfeld's White House connections and the strength of his personality as factors in enabling the Pentagon to encroach upon State Department and CIA territory.
Some analysts expressed concern the growing new responsibilities might overwhelm the Pentagon leadership, arguing that Rumsfeld concentrates real power in only a handful of people, primarily Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary, and Stephen Cambone, under secretary for intelligence.
``The expansion of Pentagon power and influence is real,'' said defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute think tank.
``This is a dangerous trend, but not because the Pentagon is too powerful. It's a dangerous trend because the Pentagon has a relatively thin management team. They can't keep on top of all the responsibilities that are accumulating,'' Thompson said.
Andrew Krepinevich, who heads the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank, said the closest comparison to Rumsfeld's department in terms of clout is the Pentagon under Robert McNamara, defense secretary from 1961 to 1968.
McNamara sought to reorganize the military and the defense bureaucracy. He helped shape nuclear policy. And he advocated a hard-line approach toward Vietnam before becoming disillusioned with the Vietnam War and his role in it.
Rumsfeld has sought to shake the U.S. military free of its Cold War past, and decried the Pentagon bureaucracy. He has pushed for research into a possible new class of smaller nuclear weapons. And he has infused his fancy for special forces, speed on the battlefield and high-tech weapons into the strategies used in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
MORE SUCCESSFUL
``The big point in Rumsfeld's favor, at this point in time, is that Rumsfeld has been a hell of a lot more successful than McNamara,'' Krepinevich said.
Analysts cited numerous examples of the Pentagon's heightened influence under Rumsfeld.
In the months before the Iraq war, Rumsfeld became a key spokesman of Bush administration policy, dismissively calling long-time allies Germany and France denizens of ``old Europe'' while saying the center of gravity in NATO was shifting to former Soviet bloc nations in eastern Europe.
Behind the scenes, Rumsfeld is known for sending foreign policy memos, some directly to President Bush or policy rival Secretary of State Colin Powell. Detractors have labeled these ``Rummygrams.'' Since Bush came into office in January 2001, Rumsfeld and Powell have offered differing views on Iraq, North Korea, the Middle East and Russia.
Rumsfeld is presiding over a restructuring of U.S. military forces overseas that could establish numerous new U.S. bases in places such as eastern Europe and Asia.
The Pentagon has become increasingly involved in U.S. intelligence matters. Cambone in March assumed the new post of under secretary of defense for intelligence, as Rumsfeld established a single office responsible for planning and carrying out military-intelligence missions.
``Almost every observer agrees that the Pentagon influence over intelligence is greater now than at any other time in living memory,'' Thompson said.
-------- us
US makes plans for Liberia force as Bush says yes
By Toby Harnden in Washington
04/07/2003
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$D32ZPX4NO0G43QFIQMGSFFOAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2003/07/04/wlib04.xml/
The commander of US forces in Europe was drawing up military options last night for sending American troops into Liberia after President George W Bush decided to intervene in the war-torn country.
Gen James Jones was issued with a "warning order" to give the Pentagon his estimates of how the mission, the first big international peacekeeping undertaking of Mr Bush's presidency, could be conducted.
His recommendations were to be ready by today and an announcement about the nature of the US-led mission to West Africa is imminent. A fierce debate has raged in the Bush administration over how many soldiers would go and what role they would play. Some Pentagon officials continued to argue that a military intervention would be ill-conceived.
Mr Bush was facing competing pressures, with the complicating factor that he is to make a five-day trip to Africa next week, visiting Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria.
He is keen to promote the US-African partnership and promote his global Aids initiative. With West African nations clamouring for US troops and Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, urging action, there would be a high political cost to remaining aloof.
Mr Bush's officials had divided on either side of a familiar fault line within his administration. On the one hand, Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, said creating an American-led force could help to pacify Liberia and restore international goodwill towards the White House.
On the other, Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon chief, and senior generals raised the spectre of Somalia, where 18 elite Delta Force soldiers, US Rangers and aircrew were killed in Mogadishu after two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down in 1993.
Several months after that Bill Clinton, then president, withdrew US troops in a move that was seen by many as a surrender to the Somali warlords.
Somalia was often cited by Republicans during the 2000 election as an example of what they saw as Mr Clinton's muddled foreign policy.
Military options range at the lower end from sending several dozen US marines into Monrovia to dispatching 2,000 troops to lead 3,000 peacekeepers from African countries.
Fox News reported that the Bush administration had decided to send a "fast team" of 50 to 75 marines currently based in Spain to Liberia to serve as peacekeepers while CNN said 500-1,000 marines would go.
There was a consensus that Mr Bush had decided some form of US military invention would take place. "A decision in principle to go has been made," a military official told the New York Times.
Mr Bush, who had previously decided not to deploy peacekeeping troops to other countries, including Congo, told Mr Rumsfeld that troops involved in the Liberian operation had to be given a clear mission that included an exit strategy.
Historic US ties to Liberia were understood to have played a key role in Mr Bush's decision. The country was created so that freed American slaves could return to Africa. It was formed in 1822 by settlers, who named the capital Monrovia after President James Monroe, and in 1847 it became Africa's first independent republic.
Mr Bush, an emotional man who appears increasingly motivated by a desire to show that America can help the oppressed people of the world, was also said to have been affected by demonstrations in Monrovia cheering the prospect of US troops being sent in.
----
Special assistant; Navy intel cuts
Inside the Ring
By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 04, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm
Defense officials tell us that Jaymie Durnan, the special assistant to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, is among contenders for the plum post of undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics - the Pentagon's top arms-buying job.
Mr. Durnan, a lawyer by training, has been Mr. Wolfowitz's point man on a number of thorny issues. He played a large role in the Pentagon's decision to back one of the Army's top priorities - the Stryker light armored vehicle.
The undersecretary post was left vacant after Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge retired in May. The job has been carried out since then by Michael W. Wynne, principal deputy undersecretary for AT&L.
Lockheed Martin announced June 26 that Mr. Aldridge was elected to the defense contractor's board of directors.
In another vacancy, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is looking at four candidates from which to pick the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, including one who has media experience. Victoria Clarke resigned from the job last month.
Navy intel cuts
In its efforts to free up part-time sailors, the Navy last month deactivated several hundred intelligence reservists who were playing an important role in the war on terrorism.
The cuts, including Navy intelligence officials who had up to 18 months left on their tours, have angered some officials who see the move as potentially dangerous.
"The decision to cut by a third the reserve intelligence and operations assets fighting the war on terrorism is a conscious if foolish decision," one analyst told us. "Rest assured, should this country suffer an intelligence failure and a resultant terrorism attack, the Navy's action will be cited by some of us in the intelligence community as a contributing cause."
Among the agencies hit hard by the reserve cutback are the Office of Naval Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency Counter-Terrorism Operations Group and the DIA's Joint Intelligence Task Force Countering Terrorism.
Many of the reserve intelligence officers are specialists in terrorist group personalities, doctrine and modes of operation and "are the central and core element" of the reservists working the counterterrorism problem.
A Navy spokesman said the demobilizaton of reservists is a management issue related to making sure the Navy has enough money for its critical missions.
--------
U.S. 'Still at War,' General Declares; G.I. Dies; 20 Hurt
July 4, 2003
The New York Times
By AMY WALDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/04/international/worldspecial/04IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Friday, July 4 - Two months after President Bush declared the end of major combat, the commander of allied forces in Iraq acknowledged on Thursday that "we're still at war," and the United States announced a reward of up to $25 million for the capture of Saddam Hussein or confirmation of his death.
The statement from the commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez of the Army, came on a day in which 20 American soldiers were wounded and one was killed in five separate attacks.
One American soldier was killed and 10 were wounded in two attacks in central Iraq on Thursday night, the American military said today.
The American soldier who was killed was shot by a sniper in Baghdad, while the 19 American soldiers were wounded in a mortar attack near the town of Balad, north of the capital, a military spokesman said.
With the violence seemingly escalating daily, the offer of a bounty for Mr. Hussein seemed to reflect the renewed urgency allied officials and military commanders attach to finding the deposed leader and his two sons, whose specter they believe is fueling the growing resistance to the American occupation.
"Until we know for sure, their names will continue to cast a shadow of fear over this country," L. Paul Bremer III, the American civilian administrator of Iraq, said on Thursday in his weekly address to the Iraqi people.
In Washington on Thursday, a group of senators just back from a three-day visit to Iraq were even more emphatic about the need to capture or kill Mr. Hussein.
"There's a pervasive climate of fear that is impeding the recovery, particularly in central and southern Iraq," said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican. "There is a fear that he will return, that he will come back. And that fear prevents us from making progress as rapidly as we otherwise would, and that fear emboldens those who would attack our troops."
The $25 million reward for Mr. Hussein is the same amount offered for Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda. Mr. Bremer said up to $15 million apiece would be offered for similar information on Mr. Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay.
Mr. Bremer said in an interview on Sunday that the "general assessment" of people he talked to was that Mr. Hussein was still in Iraq.
While Mr. Bremer maintained that the threats and violence against American soldiers and civilians, as well as the Iraqis working with them, would not deter reconstruction, General Sanchez made clear at a news conference Thursday that rebuilding the country and fighting the enemy would have to take place side by side.
While saying the daily attacks on American forces did not appear to be centrally coordinated, the general acknowledged that there had been an "increase in sophistication of the explosive devices." He said 25 soldiers had been killed in action and 177 wounded since May 1, when Mr. Bush declared the official cessation of major hostilities.
The multiple attacks came a day after Mr. Bush seemingly invited confrontation with militant Iraqis, saying, "Bring 'em on." The American-led alliance, he said, has adequate force to deal with the security situation.
Thursday's attacks seemed to defy that assertion. They also suggested that sapping the resistance might not be as simple as capturing or killing Mr. Hussein. The attacks occurred in diverse locations: a Sunni area west of Baghdad that staunchly supported the former government, a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad that did not and the center of the city.
In the Baghdad neighborhood of Kadhimiya on Thursday, a gunman opened fire on a group of soldiers from the First Armored Division on foot patrol at 2:30 a.m., wounding one of them. The soldiers returned fire, killing the gunman and wounding a 6-year-old boy with him, according to an American military spokesman.
In the city of Ramadi, about 65 miles west of Baghdad, six soldiers were wounded when their two-vehicle convoy drove over an improvised explosive device at 6:30 a.m. Thursday.
Ramadi has become a center of resistance to the American-led occupation. It is about 30 miles west of Falluja, where an explosion at a Sunni mosque killed at least six people on Monday night. An allied investigation blamed a bombmaking class being held in a building adjacent to the mosque, but many residents accused the Americans of firing a missile into the mosque and promised revenge against American troops.
In Baghdad, just before 10 a.m. on Thursday, a man on foot fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a three-vehicle military convoy moving down Haifa Street, a busy thoroughfare. One Humvee was struck, wounding three soldiers, witnesses and a military spokesman said.
Witnesses also said that in response, soldiers in one of the other vehicles opened fire indiscriminately, seriously wounding, and possibly killing, at least one Iraqi driver nearby. Blood pooled next to the driver's blue car soon after the attack.
The attack suggested that the urban warfare that had so concerned military planners before the fall of the Hussein government was materializing in unexpected forms. The attack against the convoy on Haifa Street was at least the second rocket-propelled grenade assault in Baghdad during daylight hours this week.
In both cases, the attackers escaped. Whether out of fear or sympathy for their cause, bystanders and witnesses have done nothing to help allied forces apprehend attackers.
Soldiers who arrived at the scene of the Haifa Street attack in Baghdad this morning crouched by their vehicles or pointed their weapons at the high-rise apartment buildings lining that section of the street. In the distance, an AK-47 rifle sounded.
A crowd of people gathered around the destroyed Humvee and looted it, taking whatever they could remove. Children and adults climbed on top, stomping on it and chanting, "God bless Muhammad!" Then someone set the vehicle on fire, and the crowd backed away, watching it slowly burn. Children hurled stones at the blazing vehicle.
More American reinforcements arrived to clear the crowd and guard the vehicle. An armored vehicle drove through and paused, training its gun first on the crowd and then on the apartments above. Helicopters circled low overhead.
Some bystanders expressed support for the attack. "All men should fight," Nidhal Latif Tawfiq said. "If I wasn't a woman, I would go to that car," she said of the Humvee surrounded by looters. "I have no job."
The crowd's ire seemed to be fueled as much by a lack of jobs and electric power in Baghdad - most parts of the city still have no more than 8 to 10 hours of electricity a day - as by anti-American sentiment.
"It's not because of Saddam that people are doing these things," one man said. "It is because there's no government, there's no electricity and just false promises."
A 12-year-old boy, Ghanim Hamid, carrying part of a military food ration taken from the Humvee, asked if it was true that the Americans were withholding water and power from the Iraqis because Iraqis were shooting at the troops. "Get out from our country," someone had scrawled on a wall nearby. It was written in English, so for the soldiers passing by there would be no mistaking its meaning.
-------- propaganda wars
Trust Is Important
Charley Reese,
Friday, July 4, 2003
King Features Syndicate
http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20030704/index.php
Five and a half days after a U.S. strike against a convoy of vehicles on the road near the Iraq-Syria border, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense claimed they had no details of the action.
That's not believable.
This attack was deemed so important that the president was notified of it in advance, so it is simply not believable that a full report of the incident had not been sent up the chain of command. Private journalists had already interviewed survivors and reported that the convoy, instead of carrying high-ranking Iraqi officials, contained nothing more than common sheep smugglers. U.S. forces in a nearby village also killed a young mother and a little girl. The Pentagon was probably too embarrassed to admit that they killed innocent people for no good reason.
That is no excuse for lying. If there are national-security reasons for not discussing the incident, all Gen. Richard Myers and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have to say is, "No comment."
Instead, they stood there and expected the press to believe that some junior officer who no doubt commanded the raid had not filed an after-action report five and a half days after it was completed, or if he had, it had not gone up the chain of command - connected, of course, electronically. Bull.
Lying, directly or indirectly, is a mortal sin for a public official in a free society. It erodes trust, which is the glue that holds society together. And it is entirely unjustifiable. When I was flacking for politicians, I always told my clients they had two, and only two, choices if asked a question: tell the truth or say "No comment." It was part of my agreement from the get-go that I would give them the best advice I could, but I would never, under any circumstances, lie for them.
Unfortunately, most Americans don't seem to care if their public officials lie to them. Many seem to expect it. No wonder we are coming unglued at the seams of our society. Trust is imperative. And trust is based on truth.
We have no right to expect public officials to be infallible or omniscient, but we do have the right to demand that they always tell us the truth. That means that when they say something, they themselves must believe it to be true even if it turns out later to be in error. That is an honest mistake. A lie is when they tell us something that they know at the time of the telling is not true.
I have no respect for Rumsfeld. He's arrogant and contemptuous of the American public. His claim not to know the details of the raid is typical of his style. It's pointless for anyone to attend or listen to a Pentagon briefing. Officials never tell the public anything important.
While it's true that Iraq might be better off without Saddam Hussein, it's also true that the United States is much worse off if it turns out that the Bush administration persuaded Americans to go to war by deceiving them. The administration said Iraq was an imminent danger to the United States. It implied cleverly that Iraq had ties to al-Qaida. Nine weeks after the major combat is over, there is not a thimbleful of evidence to support either proposition. On the contrary, the evidence is that the regime in Iraq was far, far weaker than we thought. Even Saddam's palaces turn out to be ersatz. I read one report that said the chandeliers are plastic, not crystal, and the floors are concrete with only a thin veneer of marble. Saddam, it turns out, had more in common with the Wizard of Oz than with a real menace like Hitler or Stalin.
The Republicans in the House and Senate, to their discredit, are blocking a real investigation of the claims that led up to the war. They and the administration folks are slip-sliding all over the place. Pretty soon they will be saying, "We never said Saddam had weapons of mass destruction." Bull again.
As far as I'm concerned, the Bush administration has lost all of its credibility, and an administration no one can believe is an administration that needs to be replaced.
--------
Study deals a blow to claims of anti-war bias in BBC news
Matt Wells, media correspondent
Friday July 4, 2003
The Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/media/story/0,12123,991227,00.html
Downing Street's complaints about anti-war bias within the BBC appear to be disproved by an academic analysis that shows the corporation displayed the most "pro-war" agenda of any broadcaster.
A detailed study of peak-time television news bulletins during the course of the Iraq war shows that the BBC was more reliant than any of its rivals on government and military sources.
The findings, by academics at Cardiff University, give little support to the deep-rooted suspicions in government circles that lie at the heart of the row with the BBC. Instead, ahead of the report by the foreign affairs select committee into the government's use of intelligence, they give comfort to the corporation.
Over the three weeks of conflict, 11% of the sources quoted by the BBC were of coalition government or military origin, the highest proportion of all the main television broadcasters. The BBC was the least likely to quote official Iraqi sources, and less likely than Sky, ITV or Channel 4 News to use independent (and often sceptical) sources such as the Red Cross.
The study found the BBC placed least emphasis on Iraqi casualties, which were mentioned in 22% of its stories about the Iraqi people. Casualties received most prominence on Channel 4 News, figuring in 40% of its reports about Iraqis. The corporation was least likely to report on the unhappiness of Iraqis about the invasion.
The research, funded by Cardiff University, covers the BBC1 news at 6pm, the ITV Evening News at 6.30pm, Channel 4 News at 7pm and Sky News at 9pm. Channel 4 News was the most questioning of the coalition line, while ITV News used the lowest proportion of coalition sources.
Presenting the findings in the Guardian today, Justin Lewis, deputy head of the school of journalism, media and cultural studies at Cardiff University, says: "Far from revealing an anti-war BBC, our findings tend to give credence to those who criticised the BBC for being too sympathetic to the government's pro-war stance. Either way, to accuse the BBC of an anti-war bias fails to stand up to any serious or sustained analysis."
The BBC says it received a stream of complaints about its war coverage. Richard Sambrook, the director of news, said in a letter to Alastair Campbell, the director of communications at Downing Street, at the height of the row: "It is our firm view that No 10 tried to intimidate the BBC in its reporting of events leading up to the war and during the course of the war itself."
Mr Campbell chose to fight a public battle on the subject of a BBC story that reported a claim he had "sexed up" an intelligence dossier about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. He told the foreign affairs select committee two weeks ago that the claim in the BBC report was "a lie". Later in the week, he dismissed the BBC's response as a combination of "weasel words and sophistry".
But the Guardian understands that Mr Campbell had an equally heated row on the eve of war when 139 rebel Labour MPs voted against the government in a Commons vote on the case for the conflict.
He was furious that the BBC presented the result as a "record rebellion" - which it was - instead of a significant victory for Tony Blair because the rebels did not win the vote.
Some commentators sympathetic with Downing Street's case have supported the claim that the BBC was anti-war: this week the Sun ran a story claiming that senior BBC journalists Jeremy Paxman, John Simpson, Peter Sissons and David Dimbleby were "alarmed" about the effect the row may have on the BBC's reputation for impartiality.
Yesterday, the four sent an open letter to the Sun, attacking its political editor for failing to contact them before running the story. They wrote: "Neither Trevor Kavanagh, nor anyone else from the Sun, has ever sought our opinions on this matter. Had they done so, they would know that we don't indulge in private comment on matters of public debate."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Taking Liberties
by Christine Pelisek
JULY 4 - 10, 2003
Los Angeles Weekly
(Illustrations by Juan Alvarado)
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/33/features-pelisek2.php
Our history has been the story of the often ugly but always steady advance of civil liberties and constitutional guarantees into once-dark corners. Until recently, that is. In a bit more than two years, the Bush administration has not only stopped the progressive march of civil liberties, but is threatening to rout many of the basic rights to which we've all grown accustomed. In this package: JOHN POWERS on what rights are being threatened and how to take them back. JEFFREY ANDERSON on how Homeland Security has turned El Centro's detention center into purgatory for immigrants. BEN EHRENREICH on the scary future of crowd control. BRUCE SHAPIRO on Bushcroft's hijacking of the legal system. CHRISTINE PELISEK on library monitors. Plus, the incredible shrinking liberties list.
The List
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/33/features-pelisek2.php
• Number of al Qaeda or allied terror suspects arrested by officials since 9/11: 2,700.
• Number of U.S. citizens indicted by a federal grand jury for al Qaeda-related activities: 5.
• Number of immigrants detained after 9/11 - some up to eight months: 762.
• Number of people arrested by the LAPD's anti-terrorism bureau since 9/11: 75.
• Number of convicted al Qaeda members: 0.
• Number of people the Justice Department charged with terrorism in the first two months of 2003: 56.
• After a Philadelphia Inquirer investigation, the number of those cases that were found to have nothing to do with terrorism: 41.
• Number of cases that involved Latinos using phony Social Security numbers: 28.
• As of April 22, number of passengers in San Francisco who have been detained for questioning because of the government's "no-fly list": 339.
• Since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, the number of people secretly detained without charges as "material witnesses" in the 9/11 attacks: 50.
• Percentage of those held up to 90 days: 90.
• Year that many of the USA Patriot Act provisions, including one that gives the FBI greater authority to investigate libraries, are set to expire: 2005.
• As of June 27, number of states that have adopted measures protesting the USA Patriot Act: 3.
• As of June 27, number of cities, towns and counties adopting measures: 129.
• Number of lawsuits the ACLU is juggling on the terrorism front: 33.
• Percentage of librarians who said they "probably" would defy an agent's order to see patrons' records: 16.1.
• Percentage of librarians who said they "definitely" would defy an agent's order to see patrons' records: 5.5.
• Number of pages in the USA PATRIOT Act: 340.
• Number of House co-sponsors of a bill that would exempt libraries and bookstores from Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act: 122.
• Number from California: 20.
• Under the proposed USA PATRIOT Act II, the number of additional crimes that would be punishable by death: 15.
• Under the proposed USA PATRIOT Act II, the number of days the government could wiretap a suspected terrorist without a judge's approval: 15.
• Number of computer intrusions or hackers investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2002: 814.
• Number of computer intrusions or hacker investigations still pending in the U.S. Department of Justice in 2002: 1,956.
• Number of computer intrusion or hacker convictions or pretrial diversions by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2002: 101.
• Number of state and local bomb techs trained in 2002: 882.
• Number of terrorist cases investigated, both pending and received, by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2002: 15,455.
• Number of terrorist cases closed by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2002: 5,533.
• Number of terrorism-related convictions by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2002: 251.
• Number of terrorism convictions by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2002: 153.
• Number of hazardous-duty mobile robots in the LAPD Bomb Squad: 2.
• Cost of each: $160,000.
• Weight: 350 pounds.
• High-speed capability: 3.5 mph.
• Number of times deployed in 2003: 0.
• In a poll of 2,000 Americans conducted by National Public Radio and others, the percentage who felt it was more important to protect constitutional rights than to find every potential terrorist: 44.
• Percentage who said finding the terrorists was more important: 47.
• Percentage who believe the federal government threatens their own personal rights and freedoms: 32.
• President Bush's defense-budget request for 2004: $380 billion.
• Amount set aside for missile defense by the U.S. Senate: $9.1 billion.
• Amount set aside for developing chemical-and biological-weapon detection and protection technology: $181 million.
• Amount set aside for 12 civil-support teams to help first responders in the event of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack by terrorists: $88.4 million.
• Number of major chemical facilities nationwide: 15,000.
• If attacked, the number of those facilities that would endanger the lives of a million or more Americans: 100.
• Number of the government-appointed Defense Policy Board members out of 30 who were linked to companies that have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts in 2001 and 2002: 9.
• Requested down payment in 2002 for the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agencies' Total Information Awareness System (TIPS), a system that allows the government to study the purchases and activities of its citizens: $200 million.
• When it was defunded: March 2003.
• Percentage of Americans TIPS sought to turn into snitches before it was dismantled: one in 24.
• Right after 9/11, percentage of Americans who favored putting Arabs under "special surveillance" like that used against Japanese-Americans during World War II: 32.
• Percentage who favored "heightened surveillance of Middle Eastern immigrants": 66.
• Number of days Nacer Fathi Mustafa and his father, both American citizens of Palestinian descent, were held in a Texas jail after being falsely accused on September 15, 2001, of altering their passports: 67.
• Number of countries whose citizens are required to register with the Bush Administration's National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS): 25.
• Number of people who have registered across the country with NSEERS: 138,053.
• Total number of men and boys who showed up at immigration offices to register for NSEERS: 82,414.
• Total number of men and boys detained after registering for NSEERS: 2,747.
• Number of those subjected to enforcement actions: 739.
• Number of those who were considered by the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services as "criminals": 130.
• Number of those held in custody: 114.
• Total number linked to terrorism: 11.
• Estimated number of Iranians arrested in Los Angeles by the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services as part of NSEERS: 700.
• Number of illegal immigrants removed from the United States in March 2003: 14,137.
• Number of those considered "criminals" by the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services: 5,818.
• Number deported: 3,556.
• Number deemed "inadmissible": 10,581.
• Number of immigration inspections in March 2003 in the U.S.: 34,941,527.
• Number of inspections conducted at airports: 5,941,752.
• Number of inspections conducted at land borders: 27,274,733.
• Number of inspections conducted at sea: 1,239,029.
• Number of applications for asylum in March 2003: 4,670.
• Number of applications for asylum approved: 1,141.
• Number of applications for asylum denied: 1,252.
• Country that submitted the most asylum applications: Indonesia.
• From January to August 2002, the number of "no match" letters the Social Security Administration sent out to employers asking them to explain why names and numbers of their employees didn't match: 800,000.
• Estimated number of immigrant workers who lost their jobs because of Operation Tarmac raids at airports, the new citizenship requirements for screeners and Social Security "no match" letters: 10,000.
• In L.A., the number of employees out of 150 at Super Assi Market who lost their jobs after receiving Social Security Administration "no match" letters in August 2002: 60.
• Number of applications to surveil suspected foreign-intelligence and terrorist targets under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2000: 1,012.
• Number of applications approved in 2002: 1,228.
• Number of FISA warrants challenged by federal judges in 2002: 2.
• Number of times the FISA court has admonished the FBI for misrepresenting facts since 9/11: 75.
• Number of terrorist attacks around the world in 2001: 355.
• Number of terrorist attacks around the world in 2002: 199.
• Number of deaths due to terrorist attacks: 725.
• Number of people killed in the terrorist bombing at the nightclub in Bali: 200.
• Number of Iraqi civilians killed during the recent war: 3,240. • Number of Afghan civilians killed during the 2001 war: 1,800.
• New name of the Immigration and Naturalization Service: Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services.
• Number of foreign nationals inspected at LAX in 2000: 4,465,206.
• Number of foreign nationals inspected at LAX in 2001: 4,330,501.
• Number of foreign nationals inspected at LAX in 2002: 3,655,193.
• Number of applicants refused entry at LAX - excluding people who claimed asylum, parole cases or those subjected to deferred inspection in 2000: 3,161.
• Number of similar applicants refused entry at LAX in 2001: 3,015.
• Number of similar applicants refused entry at LAX in 2002: 3,797.
• Number of Japanese rounded up - most of them U.S. citizens - on the West Coast during World War II: 120,000.
• Number of allegedly "subversive" aliens President Woodrow Wilson's attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer, rounded up for deportation during the Palmer raids: 3,000.
• Number of suspected al Qaeda members the U.S. claims it has detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba: 680.
• Number of nationalities: 42.
• Number of confirmed suicide attempts by Guantánamo Bay prisoners: 28.
• Number of prisoners under monitoring by a psychiatrist in the newly opened mental ward at Guantánamo Bay: 24.
• Number of hours prisoners were handcuffed, shackled, made to wear mittens, surgical masks and ear muffs, and blindfolded by the use of taped-over ski goggles during their flight to Guantánamo Bay: 22.
• Amount the NYPD spends per day on security since 9/11: $700,000.
• Number of full- and part-time airport screeners at 420 U.S. airports: 55,600.
• Number of screeners Congress has sought to limit the work force to: 50,000.
• Number of passenger and baggage screeners employed by LAX as of June 5, 2003: 2,695.
• Number of those recently fired for poor performance: 360.
• Average hourly wage for screeners nationwide: $13 to $14.
• Number of health-care workers Bush announced would be given the first set of shots to protect against an intentional release of the smallpox virus: 500,000.
• Number of hospitals nationwide that refused to participate: 80.
• In the 90 days after 9/11, the number of anthrax scares in the L.A. Unified School District: 33.
• Yearly salary Donald Rumsfeld was making while a board member of ABB, the engineering company that won a $200 million contract to provide the design and key components of two light-water nuclear reactors to North Korea in 2000: $190,000.
• Average pay increase of defense-company CEOs from 2001 to 2002: 79 percent.
• Average pay increase of company CEOs from 2001 to 2002: 6 percent.
• Pay increase of the CEO of Lockheed Martin, the country's largest defense contractor: 400 percent.
• The distance from which the Pentagon wants to be able to identify people with its new radar-based device that identifies people by the way they walk: 500 feet.
• Amount U.S. government agencies have spent in the past five years on camera surveillance technology - with a notable increase in spending proposals after 9/11: $50 million.
• Percentage funneled toward facial-recognition programs: 90.
• Percentage of the time that face-recognition biometric technology turned up false positives in matching scans with a database according to a study by the National Institute for Standards in Technology: 43.
• Cost of the proposed national-identity-card system: $4 billion.
• Amount the 9/11 Independent Commission originally received to explore the causes of the attacks: $3 million.
• Amount a 1996 federal commission was given to study legalized gambling: $5 million.
• Amount a commission was given to look into the Columbia shuttle crash: $50 million.
• Amount the Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, received from the family of Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz: $1 million.
• Amount made available by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from the 2003 budget to California to beef up security at local ports: $28,511,178.
• Amount given to the Los Angeles Harbor Department: $800,000.
• Amount given to the city of Long Beach and the Port of Long Beach: $10 million.
• Number of communities in Los Angeles County that took part in weekly vigils to protest the war with Iraq: 45.
• Number of people arrested during an anti-war protest on March 20, which forced the police to close down a section of Wilshire Boulevard: 14.
• Number of law-enforcement officers deployed: 600.
• Number of peaceful demonstrators herded into a trap and arrested during a September 2002 protest near the White House: 400.
• Number of protesters arrested in San Francisco the day after the Iraq war started: 2,300.
• Percentage increase in membership of the ACLU since 9/11: 25.
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You Gotta Fight for Your Rights
by John Powers
(Illustrations by Juan Alvarado)
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/33/features-powers.php
"Difficile est saturam non scribere," declared Juvenal, the great scourge of Roman corruption: "It is difficult not to write satire."
The task has gotten no easier in today's America, where political reality often seems like a joke cooked up by The Daily Show. Back in March, Justice Antonin Scalia, the intellectual Torquemada of Supreme Court conservatives, went to Cleveland to accept the local City Club's "Citadel of Free Speech Award." Demonstrating his love for the First Amendment, he banned broadcast media from his speech and refused to answer any questions from reporters.
But the previous day at John Carroll University, Scalia had let it all hang out. "The Constitution just sets minimums," he declared with unnerving bluntness. "Most of the rights you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires."
The Bush administration evidently agrees, for ever since 9/11, it has been rolling back civil liberties that most of us take for granted. The most obvious example is 2001's preposterously acronymed USA PATRIOT Act (as in Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required To Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism). This hastily thrown-together bill was passed 96-1 by a Senate whose members didn't have time to scan its highly detailed 342 pages, let alone ponder its niceties. Flouting numerous principles of constitutional law, the act gave the federal government unprecedented new power to secretly round up suspects, hold them indefinitely without charge and snoop into people's private lives (phone calls, credit-card bills, library records) by invoking national security in a special closed court. ‰
Bad as it was, the PATRIOT Act didn't turn America into a police state. Howard Dean isn't under house arrest; the Dixie Chicks haven't been "disappeared"; I don't write these words in fear that I'll be arrested and put in a cell with Andrew Luster ("Whatever you do, don't fall asleep!"). Of course, things would have been much worse had John Ashcroft been allowed to run as wild as he desired. Indeed, one fascinating detail to emerge from Steven Brill's massive, breathtakingly anal After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era is that the attorney general's initial proposals were so nakedly repressive that they shocked Republican congressmen and the White House, neither of which he'd bothered to consult as he laid waste to the Constitution. Even they thought he sounded like a witch-finder general.
If most Americans don't yet view the PATRIOT Act as an assault on our common rights, this is largely because its worst provisions have barely touched them or the people they know. The real target has been Muslim noncitizens, hundreds of whom have been locked up at inordinate length - unnamed, uncharged and sometimes physically abused - for the sort of run-of-the-mill immigration violations that I myself have committed in other countries that somehow managed not to jail me with no legal recourse. And things are every bit as dire at the Guantánamo Bay base, where, virtually the whole world agrees, the U.S. government's treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners (some of them children) is in clear violation of the Geneva Accords.
Although less disgraceful than World War II internment camps, such rough justice is so un-American as to be shocking. Yet it comes as little surprise that it has prompted scant outcry from elected officials, the mass media or the population at large. For starters, it takes courage to oppose restrictions on freedom after a traumatic terror attack, which is why vaunted liberal politicians quickly hopped aboard the PATRIOT Act juggernaut ("Hello, Senator Kerry." "Hi, Hillary.") and New York Times Constitution-hugger William Safire didn't start bashing Ashcroft until almost two months after the legislative damage had been done. But there's a deeper attitude at work here, too. As Michael Kinsley recently noted in Slate, Americans have become blasé about the liberty that some of those imprisoned noncitizens risked everything to get. "After 230 years," he observed wryly, "we don't need to love freedom in order to have it." Most of us - as Kinsley admitted of himself with disarming honesty - don't bother to do the homework about the state of our constitutional protections.
Well, it's time to get started. For even as the White House fights hard to protect its own "right" not to tell us things that might prove embarrassing - it has blocked public release of the 800-page congressional report on 9/11 and refused to reveal the workings of Dick Cheney's secret energy task force - our own freedoms are being whittled away.
Just consider:
• In March, the Senate passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which will be ratified by the House this summer and signed into law by President Bush. This marks another step in the slow dismantling of abortion rights, a process that could suddenly kick into high gear if Bush is able to appoint a new Supreme Court justice to replace Sandra Day O'Connor.
• On May 27, the Rehnquist court gutted the 1966 Miranda decision designed to assure suspects' rights against self-incrimination. It accepted the Bush administration's chilling argument that "police can hold people in custody and force them to talk, so long as their incriminating statements are not used to prosecute them." In this particular case, the court ruled that police were justified in interrogating Oliverio Martinez, who'd just been shot five times, once in the face, and was shrieking for help even as they grilled him.
• Meanwhile, the Bush administration is proceeding with Total Information Awareness (TIA, now renamed Terrorist Information Awareness), a program headed by former Reagan National Security Adviser John Poindexter, an admirable fellow who was convicted in 1990 of five counts of giving misleading and false statements to Congress. (The conviction was later overturned on a technicality.) Working under the aegis of the Pentagon, Poindexter's Information Awareness Office intends to create a vast electronic dragnet that would (among other things) let the FBI, CIA and other intelligence groups reconstruct the movements of citizens through scrutiny of bank records, credit-card purchases, e-mail messages, phone calls, government forms, drug prescriptions, library checkouts and even the movies we buy on pay-per-view. Done in the name of anti-terrorism (what isn't, these days?), TIA implies a level of Big Brotherish snooping that has even me listening for the black helicopters.
• And if all that weren't enough, the White House is currently seeking to fill the lower courts with more Scalias and Clarence Thomases, right-wing judges who threaten to use the bench to push through the ultraconservative agenda the Republicans can't muster the votes to pass into law.
Naturally, it's tempting to blame our eroding liberties on a president who has joked more than once that, compared to democracy, "a dictatorship would be a whole lot easier." (Any thoughts on that one, Dr. Freud?) But Bush's lack of concern for our rights is hardly unique to him or his party. Just last month the California Assembly displayed an utter lack of concern for its constituents' privacy in the face of corporate power: By an egregious 9-3 margin - which suggests a small fortune in campaign contributions - a Democrat-dominated committee killed a landmark bill that would require our written approval before our financial information could be sold to telemarketers and other businesses. Perhaps the committee members thought we enjoy all those mechanized, dinnertime phone calls.
This, too, was no aberration. Although Republicans are perceived as moralistic champions of the punitive crackdown - anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-Hollywood, anti-anti-anti-anti - the Democrat Party is itself not exactly bursting with loyalty to the idea of personal freedom. Accustomed to defending government power against conservatives eager to privatize everything, it often loses sight of the state's own capacity for tyranny.
This blindness was on display during the presidency of Bill Clinton, who, after executing the retarded Ricky Ray Rector as part of his 1992 election campaign, led an administration known for high-profile civil-liberties debacles - from the slaughter in Waco (which killed children in order to save them) to the jackbooted seizure of Elián González. Eager to prove himself tough on crime, Clinton was behind both the 1994 crime bill, which expanded application of the death penalty for over 50 crimes and forced communications companies to make their systems wiretap-ready, and the ghastly Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which limited habeas corpus petitions by the condemned. The latter bill led ACLU chief Ira Glasser to a crushing judgment: "When historians write the story of civil liberties in the 20th century, they will say that the Clinton administration adopted an agenda that has everything to do with weakening civil rights and nothing to do with combating terrorism."
Before I'm inundated with angry letters, let me add that I'm not denying the difference between Clinton and Bush. Although disappointingly "moderate," Clinton's judicial appointments were less reactionary than his successor's and his attitude toward government more committed to ordinary people. If Clinton expanded the state's power over the individual, he also believed that the state has profound responsibilities to the individual: It is there to provide life-enhancing services. Not so Bush, who pursues a far cruder ideological agenda. Even as he exploits fear of terrorism to chip away at constitutional rights, he champions the inalienable rights of property (think of his horror at the "double" taxation of dividends) and mistrusts the idea of public services being provided by the government - which is why he apparently doesn't mind bankrupting it with his budget.
Still, the fact remains that both Republicans and Democrats have willingly backed policies that increase the government's power at the expense of constitutional rights; they are part of the same continuum. That's one reason why we're seeing the collapse of the old categories of left and right. These days, the strongest voices for civil rights come from the anti-corporate left and the libertarian right - The Nation lies down with the Cato Institute. For the left, this is not without its awkwardness. It means recognizing that Bob Barr, the mouth-breathing Georgia congressman who was among the first to call for Clinton's impeachment, has worked hard to diminish Ashcroft's assaults on the Constitution; it means acknowledging that former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a wacko Texas right-winger, led the fight against the Bush administration's proposed Operation TIPS, a Stalin-worthy scheme designed to get millions of Americans reporting on each other to the authorities. (Now, that's Neighborhood Watch.)
While it's easy to scoff at the libertarian right, whose ideas about personal property make Bush look like Proudhon, its soaring confidence provides a valuable jolt of pro-rights energy in a period when too many progressives have fallen into a hysterical defeatism: They keep trying to paint a Hitler mustache on Bush or to inflate cheap attacks on Sean Penn into a new McCarthyism. It's a measure of the left's disarray that one senses in it a perverse nostalgia for the glory days when Der Führer was hanging communists on meat hooks or Tail-Gunner Joe was ruining the lives of supposed "Reds." You know, back when the left occupied the high ground, morally superior and doomed.
Now, there's no denying that these are hard times for our civil liberties, which are feebly defended by the centrist ruling elite (which complains about the loss of rights only after it has voted to remove them) and erratically covered by the mainstream media, which get riled up only by attacks on freedom of the press. Then again, we should never count on our liberties being defended by leaders of any kind. As the great socialist Eugene V. Debs famously declared, "I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I could lead you in, someone else would lead you out." The same logic holds true here: If we expect other people to protect our freedoms, then other people can also take them away.
To stop this from happening, one has to fight - even when it's hard or boring. This means paying heed to the machinations of Washington (the Bush administration feeds on the public's lack of attention), sending money to constitutional-watchdog groups such as the ACLU (which Kinsley aptly terms the canary down the mineshaft of constitutional rights) and, if necessary, carrying the battle to the streets, which is where most of our freedoms were won in the first place. Although the Bush administration encourages a pacifying sense of powerlessness (think of Dubya's air of lordly disdain about the anti-war demonstrations), it is fearful of popular opinion - it hasn't forgotten that the majority of voters were against him last time. When the shockingly tyrannical provisions of PATRIOT Act II were leaked to the wider world, the instant outcry helped stop things cold - even Bill O'Reilly got into the act. Once the public heard about Operation TIPS, which turned informing on one's neighbor into a national ethic, the revulsion was so powerful that Congress wound up explicitly banning it. After the media finally began covering the FCC's recent decision on media ownership, the reaction was so negative that the Senate Commerce Committee actually found the courage to roll it back (though the White House is likely to push for it once it falls off the radar).
Such triumphs may not sound big and glamorous, but that's how freedom is usually gained - slowly, painfully, against the wishes of those in power, however benevolent they may think themselves. As Woodrow Wilson put it during the 1912 election campaign: "Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance."
Wilson was absolutely right, which is why on Independence Day, 2003, it's worth remembering that the constitutional freedoms we enjoy weren't sent down from heaven or plucked off a tree. They were born of centuries of struggle by untold millions who fought and bled and died to make sure that our government can't just walk into our bedroom or read our mail, can't throw us in jail without proving to the world its right to hold us, can't torture us into making confessions, can't compel us to pray to a god we don't believe in or prohibit us from saying whatever damn thing is on our mind. It's our fault and our shame if we forget that such hard-won liberties can be taken away by the likes of Justice Scalia, that constitutional minimalist, who won't simply feel self-righteous as he takes away our rights, but will do so behind closed doors where there are no TV cameras or reporters to ask unwanted questions about all we've lost.
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Ghosts in the Machine
When you're lost in El Centro's immigrant detention center you may be lost for good
by Jeffrey Anderson
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/33/features-anderson.php
Identity crisis: Gilmer Leyva insists he's Gilmer Leyva. (Photos by Virginia Lee Hunter)
After five months of sweeping floors and breathing the stale air inside El Centro Immigration Services Processing Center, Gilmer Leyva enters the interview booth with the bearing of a desperate man. Wearing a blue T-shirt that identifies him as a low-risk inmate, with his identification badge clipped to his broad shoulders and a stack of papers in his hand, he has a vacant look in his eye and stares at the ground when he speaks.
Gilmer Leyva is a taxi driver from Lima, Peru, who is fighting to prove his identity before U.S. officials deport him for good. In 1997, he was living in New Jersey along with his mother, three of four sisters and two children - all of them legal residents or citizens - when U.S. officials noticed an inconsistency on his birth certificate. His mother, Maria Rosa Aspillaga de Leyva, had become a legal resident in 1990 and had sought approval for her children to become residents under what is known as the immigrant relative provision. The government had approved the petition for Gilmer Leyva to receive his visa in 1991 and he had been waiting for six years while each of his four sisters requested and received theirs.
The glitch was that Maria Rosa Aspillaga de Leyva appears on her son's birth certificate as Rosa Martha Aspillaga. In the mid-1990s authorities began to question if she was really Leyva's mother. Aspillaga's husband died in 1958 and she had used various names throughout her adult life, including Rosa Aspillaga Quijano - Quijano being her mother's maiden name - and Maria Rosa Aspillaga Quijano, in addition to Rosa Martha Aspillaga. She also has a twin sister, Maria Felicitas Aspillaga, and all of this confusion led to Leyva being deported in 1997.
Gilmer Leyva's sister (left) also says Gilmer Leyva is Gilmer Leyva. The government still can't decide.
Leyva returned to Peru while U.S. officials put him on a watch list and investigated him for fraud. He was caught trying to return to the United States in February and remains in federal custody.
Now, Leyva, who is 48 and who has silver caps on his two front teeth and coarse black hair flecked with gray, finds himself in more trouble than he needs to be with no one but Katherine Owen, his overextended attorney, to help him prove what he needs to prove. He has been detained at the El Centro detention facility for five months, where he works cleaning the barracks and is permitted one hour a day to read in the library. By now, he has been separated from his family for five years. He has tried to get the government to reopen his case, with little success thus far. If the government wants to prosecute him for entering the country illegally then so be it, says Owen. If they really believe he has attempted a fraud, she says, then charge him with something.
While official procedure seems to leave it up to Leyva to convince the government that he is his mother's son, the system appears content to let him go about that task from behind a Plexiglas divider which both separates Leyva from and connects him to the outside world.
An official with Homeland Security says that delays in processing Leyva's case are related to the Justice Department's crowded trial court docket. Elaine Komis, a spokesperson from the Executive Office of Immigration Review - the Justice Department's immigration trial court - says detainees like Leyva are given priority and a notice to appear in court, but that it takes time for them to get their paperwork in order for a hearing before a judge.
Leyva maintains the U.S. government has rejected all the civil documents he has provided them, such as his mother's electoral card, to show that she is the same woman on his birth certificate and his visa application. And the decision to keep him in custody pending his hearing rests with the same immigration enforcement officials who have been rejecting his pleas. Due to strict homeland security requirements, those officials will not comment on his case and offer no insight into their investigation of Leyva's lineage - beyond reviewing and rejecting his documentary evidence. The L.A. Weekly did obtain State Department documents in which the INS claims to have first ordered Leyva be removed in 1987, 10 years before he actually left.
Leyva says his mother died in 2002 and he is facing an uphill battle convincing both the people who have detained him and the immigration trial judge that he is really her son. Officials seem convinced that Maria Rosa Aspillaga is really his aunt, says Owen, touching her finger to the glass that separates her from her client. Complicating matters is the fact that both Maria Rosa and her twin sister Maria Felicitas have died in the past few years. Even so, Leyva says none of this has been a problem for other members of his family.
"I have two children that are U.S. citizens," Leyva says through a fellow inmate who acts as an interpreter. "They live in New Jersey. I have three sisters there too, and one in Alaska. Two of them are citizens. The other two are legal residents. No one questioned their birth certificates."
Leyva's story is one of hundreds at this facility. Since almost all have Mexican or Latin American roots, it would be quite a feat to make a geographical or psychic connection between these detainees and the 9/11 terrorists and their sympathizers. Yet while Leyva has no criminal record and his legal situation is not directly related to post-9/11 policies, his prolonged detention is an example of how the government is overriding individual rights and due process in favor of a more efficient immigrant search-and-removal machine in the name of homeland security.
"The whole focus of the system has shifted from trying to enforce our borders efficiently to worrying about people who crash airplanes into buildings and using that as an excuse to keep immigrants out," says Thomas Logan, an immigration specialist and veteran civil attorney. "Even people who are legal residents are suffering, but the government figures, hey, they don't even vote."
Katherine Owen is hoping to beat the morning rush of visitors as she steps into the center's cramped lobby, where green-clad U.S. Border Patrol officers deposit their firearms in gun lockers and attorneys line up to see their clients.
A large metal sign on the wall informs detainees and their visitors that they "deserve to be treated with professionalism and respect." Surly but effective due process would do just fine for the woeful inhabitants who have seen U.S. immigration laws turn from shield to sword and civil liberties evaporate like mist in the desert heat, which registers a mild 98 degrees at El Centro this morning.
A private security guard in a white jumpsuit greets Owen familiarly as the lawyer hands over a list of clients to be escorted to one of five phone booth-sized consultation rooms down a narrow corridor. Each room is divided by a thick Plexiglas panel and has carpeted walls and fluorescent overhead lights. Of the facility's grim aura, Owen says, "I don't think these are the downfalls. It's the law that is hurting people."
While the PATRIOT Act is what rankles most civil libertarians, the El Centro detention center is filled with legal and illegal aliens - about 400 of them, its director estimates - who have more basic problems. They have no money, no right to free legal services and many have been detained for lengthy periods with limited access to self-help materials such as computers and law books. And the reality is that they are up against stiff immigration laws that have been in place since way before 9/11. After 9/11, though, those laws have taken on new meaning.
For example, in 1996, Congress enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), expanding the number of crimes that subject people to deportation. It also requires that noncitizens facing removal for criminal convictions as well as many non-criminal aliens be held without bond. What's more, possession of any quantity of any drugs other than an ounce or less of marijuana became automatic grounds for deportation. Under post-9/11 guidelines handed down by the Department of Justice and upheld recently by the U.S. Supreme Court, judges have no authority to waive these requirements.
Without judicial discretion to grant conditional release, legal residents subjected to retroactive enforcement of IIRIRA are kept from their families for months while they face deportation proceedings for crimes they committed and paid for years ago. The government's post-9/11 homeland security obsession coupled with a strict application of Attorney General John Ashcroft's enforcement authority has overloaded an immigration system that was never the model of efficiency to begin with, folks in El Centro say.
"An awful lot of people need help down here," says Logan. "Some are getting trampled and others are exaggerating their case, but these people do not have the full panoply of civil rights, and how to deal with whatever they have left remains to be seen.
"Judges, prosecutors and defenders are feeling their way through 50 years of guidelines that have been turned on their head."
Zealous enforcement of IIRIRA since the terrorist attacks of 2001 has increased the flow of bodies in the system. Inspection forces along the Mexican border have grown threefold, according to immigration officials, and newly hired deportation field officers are charged with tracking down visa violators and individuals who fail to comply with terms of their bond release. At the border, officials no longer grant waivers for immigrants lacking proper documentation except for dire medical or humanitarian reasons. Instead of sending them back, they take them into custody for processing.
El Centro is one of eight federal detention centers around the country into which the federal government is pumping tax dollars to make room for the increase in immigrant detentions that results from these efforts. The Department of Homeland Security plans to spend $1 billion in the next couple years to house detainees and establish a program called "U.S. Visit," which will require biometric data - fingerprints, facial and iris scans - along with visa applications so that immigration officials will know instantly who entered illegally or overstayed, resulting in even more immediate detentions.
But warehousing immigrants isn't the goal, according to the government. "Our job is to move people out," explains one immigration enforcement official who claims he is "proud of our programs" while also requesting anonymity. "We're not running a jail. We want people released or returned to their home country. That's our measure of efficiency."
Owen is a relative newcomer to El Centro and the immigration law business, but she knows efficiency when she sees it. And what used to be one semi-chaotic immigration system under one federal agency, the Department of Justice, is now split into two bulging federal agencies that are not so keen about talking to one another - or the public. In 2002, the behemoth Homeland Security swallowed the enforcement, detention and removal branches of the old INS, while administrative judges stayed behind in Justice to answer to Ashcroft. "[Homeland Security] has nothing to do with our process and we have nothing to do with theirs," explains Immigration Review's Komis.
But together these government agencies have a lot to do with the quandaries facing Owen's clients: immigrant detainees who have drug convictions, domestic violence tendencies and glitches in their identification papers that can be difficult to iron out.
"I'm always worried when I come here," Owen says. "The client is going to tell me a story, and I'm sensitive to their problems. I look at the law and I'm not sure I can help them. Even if I can, it takes a long time. There's no way to speed it up. They don't understand that. They say, 'Why can't you get me out? I have a family to feed.'"
Not all detainees here are as SYMPATHETIC as Gilmer Leyva. Heroin dealers, wife beaters and general schemers are all tossed in with hapless immigrants who have done little wrong except fail to understand and abide by the vagaries of U.S. immigration law. Yet many have experienced the same kind of diminished due process, which in some cases borders on inhumane treatment.
Jose Reyes, 33, is a Mexican national who has lived in the United States since he was four, attending public schools in Garden Grove until he dropped out during his second year at Santiago High School to help support his family. He is a construction worker and a legal resident with a 1995 drug conviction for possession and sale of heroin and cocaine. Reyes served two and a half years in county jail and was out on parole when he was convicted of misdemeanor spousal abuse in 2001, for which he served 17 days in county jail. In 2002, he says, he had a non-malignant brain tumor partially removed and was recovering from surgery when the judge in his domestic violence case told him to hold off completing his family counseling requirements until he recovered.
In February, Reyes was caught coming back into the country from Tijuana. Now, the government is using both the drug conviction and domestic violence conviction - which by forgoing counseling he failed to clear - to detain him without bond and line him up for deportation. He has a wife and seven kids, he says, and has paid his debt to society. "I was doing good," he says.
Once in detention, Reyes started experiencing debilitating seizures several times a day that lasted up to 20 minutes each. He went without medication for three weeks and was forced to wait three months before undergoing an MRI to confirm that the tumor had not grown back. His doctor would prefer that he be permitted to rest at home pending the outcome of his deportation hearing. "It is very stressful here," Reyes says. "There are fights all the time and I sleep on a metal bunk and have a brain tumor. If I have a seizure and fall down or get hit in the head I could injure my brain."
Guys like Reyes arrive at the detention center looking like lost chickens, according to Mario Avendano, who has been detained here more than a year. Some of them sign a form upon arrival that waives their right to a hearing and then get deported before they know what hit them, Avendano says.
Avendano found himself a lawyer who was willing to help, but the lawyer, Harold Goldstein, turned out to be a phony and has been indicted for fraud. Goldstein represented more than 60 detainees in this facility, many of whom have been deported already. Avendano says he has seen it all go down here. Because he speaks English and can type, he often helps other detainees who are trying to represent themselves. "They call me 'Little Goldstein,'" he says with a sheepish grin. He also acted as interpreter for other detainees interviewed for this story.
Originally from Guatemala, Avendano, 36, was raised in Texas and moved to Los Angeles in the early 1980s. He became a permanent resident in 1990. He has a wife and four children who live in Los Angeles. Acting on retroactive Homeland Security guidelines, INS picked Avendano up after his two-year stint at Soledad for domestic violence. Now, he's stuck at El Centro, having fallen into the chasm between immigration enforcement under Homeland Security and the immigration court under the Justice Department.
"[Homeland Security] doesn't have authority to release him or remove him. He pled guilty to crimes that were not deportable offenses at the time but now are under the new guidelines. The court can't remove him because he has proceedings under way. The immigration court and the appeals court keep pointing to each other to resolve his status," says Thomas Logan, who is his attorney and who, in some indication of the weirdness around these parts, also represents Avendano's indicted former counsel, Goldstein. "Mario could give up and leave voluntarily, but he'd be leaving his whole life behind."
The bottom line around here, according to veteran immigration lawyers, is that the government is getting better all the time at sticking to the letter of the law and then some. To facilitate its mission, Homeland Security created two bureaus: the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, overseeing lawful immigrant and non-immigrant petitions, ‰ and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which works with local and federal agencies to scrutinize visa issuance and border-crossing practices.
The citizenship bureau is no walk in the park, particularly for thousands of people who come to the United States to be with their families and then have to deal with the labyrinthine forms and processes that confound even English-speaking people with college educations. The unfortunate, the illegal and the ill-advised - most of whom come from Mexico and Latin American countries with no links to international terrorism - have an even bigger problem when forced to deal with the enforcement bureau, attorneys say. "Used to be that if a person came back 20 times they'd be deported 20 times," says Dario Aguirre, a former INS agent who now represents federal detainees. "Now the government is looking to hammer people with permanent removal orders or federal criminal prosecution."
Gilmer Leyva is banking on Katherine Owen's ability to navigate this unyielding environment.
Granted just a half-hour to talk, Leyva and Owen hurry through their meeting as border patrol strolls by and occasionally peers into the interview booth. The air is warm and humid and Leyva does not like what he is hearing. His petition to become an immigrant relative may have died along with his mother, his attorney tells him. He can ask the judge in his case to re-evaluate his status but it may be out of the judge's jurisdiction.
In any event the application will cost $2,000 - money he does not have.
"If the government would clean up this mess about his birth certificate then he would have been out of here by now," Owen says.
During a recent telephone interview Leyva's sister, Sonia Marlene Leyva Aspillaga, who lives in Anchorage, says that her mother simply made a mistake when she filled out Leyva's birth certificate. "Maria Rosa" became "Rosa Martha," as it is common to go by one's second name, Sonia Aspillaga says. "She did a mistake," Aspillaga says of her mother. "We use second names in our country. We call her Rosa every time."
Owen says she is in the process of putting together a compelling case to present to the immigration judge, on August 7. She is both critical of the system for what Leyva has been through and idealistic regarding the potential for a just outcome. "This is the United States," she says. "This isn't some Third World country. We're supposed to do better than this."
Experienced local lawyers interviewed for this story say it sounds as if Leyva is being set up for permanent deportation, without the government bothering to find out the truth about his status. But Owen is convinced he is telling the truth. She gets angry at the suggestion that a deeper investigation of her client's past is needed. "Why, because he is Hispanic?" she says in a telephone interview several days later. "I get those kind of questions all day in court. He applied for a visa he deserved. His mother, his four sisters, his two children all became legal residents or citizens. What's the real reason they made up this crap about his birth certificate? He has no criminal record. He just came back into the country before his time was up."
Owen, whose grandmother was a Mexican immigrant, says she would have come back too, if she hadn't seen her children in five years. The government, not Gilmer Leyva, broke the law, she says. "They broke the biggest law of all," says Owen. "They denied him the right to be in this country and to be with his family."
When asked how she plans to defend Leyva, she says maybe someone in Congress will help her pressure officials here to take a closer look at the facts. Sworn affidavits from his siblings should help, Owen says. "I'm going to put up a fight," she says. "I'm going to give 100 percent.
"If we lose him this time, he's gone for good."
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Weapons of Mass Compliance
Now at a tech lab near you, agony-inducing tools that will control your disorderly tendencies and blast those riotous urges
by Ben Ehrenreich
(Illustration by Juan Alvarado)
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/33/features-ehrenreich.php
Firing indiscriminately on unarmed crowds of civilians, long a staple method of restoring order, is today almost universally frowned upon. Maybe we have the Internet or the low price of video cameras to thank for this, one of the few identifiable advances in humanity over recent decades. But the New World Order has its discontents. Police and military alike face new challenges not only from the usual terrorist suspects, but from all manner of uppity civilians the world over, from at-times unruly displays of democratic zeal at protests in Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Philadelphia, Quebec City, Prague, Genoa and a grab bag of other Western cities, to occasional bits of ugliness in the dingier corners of the globe when the ungrateful subjects of American military "humanitarian" missions rudely snap at the hands that feed them. The primary challenge for a more media-savvy police state: to make people calm and compliant without actually making them dead.
Engineers, hard at work for years now on this problem, have come up with some creative solutions, fun gadgets that give the banalities of police work a little Flash Gordon-cum-Robocop sheen. Spurred in part by some embarrassing scenes in Somalia, the Department of Defense in 1997 established the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD), with an annual budget of about $25 million, to research toys that might hurt a lot but would - ostensibly at least - stop short of killing you. The high-tech defense industry, much of it just a couple of hours' drive down Interstate 5 from Los Angeles, has responded with predictable enthusiasm and ingenuity, and will likely get a boost of legitimacy from a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report released earlier this year, urging greater federal funding for non-lethal weapons research and evaluation.
Most of this research goes on far away from the public eye, through a network of universities (Penn State, for instance, runs an Institute for Non-Lethal Defense Technologies), military labs and tech-world entrepreneurial ventures that parallels and at times gruesomely parodies the rest of the technology sector. One weapon, though, the gracelessly named VMADS, created a small media flurry when the Pentagon formally unveiled it in March. Short for Vehicle-Mounted Active Denial System (presumably because it actively denies people the possibility of not being in pain), it's sort of like a microwave oven gone seriously bad. Bolted to a Humvee, it can disperse stubborn crowds by beaming millimeter-waves of radio-frequency energy, thus "stimulating the pain receptors but not inducing permanent damage." Cross your fingers. The Pentagon has spent $40 million on the VMADS's development, but according to the NAS report, next to nothing is known about the actual short- or long-term effects of zapping people with the thing.
Equally sci-fi scary is a weapon being developed by HSV Technologies in San Diego; it's a high-powered ultraviolet laser that ionizes channels of air, along which an electric current can then be passed, effectively creating invisible live wires wherever it's aimed. A blast at the ray gun's lowest setting, its inventor told the Defense News newsletter, "would cause a person's [skeletal] muscles to contract, effectively freezing him in place."
Jaycor, an all-purpose crowd-control technology firm, also based in San Diego, manufactures a somewhat sloppier variation on the same theme: a demonically overgrown water gun that, according to the company's Web site, "can deliver electric shocks to individuals at ranges up to 25 feet without conductive wires." (Also on the Web site: photos of riot-geared cops advancing on cringing protesters and boasts that Jaycor's "PepperBall(tm) launchers and projectiles were used by the Seattle Police Department to control the World Trade Organization protest riots in 1999.") Jaycor's "liquid stun gun," or "wireless stun gun," can be used, the Web site says, "in conjunction with a vehicle-mounted water cannon" to clear crowds fast; it shoots "an electrified conductive fluid . . . delivering debilitating but not lethal shocks."
Jaycor is also marketing something called the Sticky Shocker, a nastily barbed projectile "designed to partially penetrate thick clothing or leather" (and presumably bare skin), which, fired from a grenade launcher, proceeds to "impart a short burst of high-voltage pulses," incapacitating whomever it's stuck to. The JNLWD's Human Effects Advisory Panel, which goes by the astonishingly well-chosen acronym HEAP, studied the two physical effects of the Sticky Shocker, "blunt impact and electrical insult." Both, the HEAP determined, can cause death. The Jaycor Web site nonetheless proudly declares that "Sticky Shocker(r) is as safe as other non-lethal weapons in present use," which is very likely true.
Other high-tech firms have been banking on sound as the agony-inducing agent of choice. Properly manipulated, ultrasonic signals, according to the NAS, can cause "pain, [the] presence of irritating/aggravating noise, or the production of uncomfortable internal organ conditions." Hence, in addition to its line of sub-woofers and consumer audio products, the American Technology Corp., also based in San Diego, has come up with something called the Directed Stick Radiator, a battery-operated magic wand of sorts "that uses a high intensity acoustic pressure wave to disorient and disable targeted individuals up to 100 yards away." Likewise, Scientific Applications & Research Associates of Cypress has developed a "sonic firehose" designed for use against disorderly crowds, which it can knock to the ground and otherwise annoy with a "supersonic vortex of air." The problem, the NAS laments, is that "although repeated attempts have been made to develop high-intensity sound generators capable of eliciting desired results," they still can make people irreversibly deaf.
There is more, much more. There are remote-controlled "marsupial robots," built in San Diego for the Navy, which can fire 10 to 12 non-lethal rounds per second. There are "sticky foams" that can be sprayed on crowds to disgust and confuse them and make it very hard for them to move around. Like fun foam without the fun, colored dyes, skin irritants and foul-smelling chemicals can be added to make the experience still more unpleasant. "When sticky, black, odorous foam is discharged onto a target," one manufacturer declares, "the response should be compliance and/or quick exit." In likely contravention of anti-chemical-and-biological-weapons treaties (the Pentagon has a rather loose interpretation of these things), the military is working to develop microbes that eat asphalt and metal and turn petroleum to useless goo, and to perfect airborne delivery systems of so-called "calmatives" - aerosol versions of Valium, Prozac and powerful opiates like Fentanyl - just in case all the blunt trauma, microwave menace, and acoustic and electrical insult should fail to keep the populace sufficiently tranquil.
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The War on Due Process
With Patriot Act power, Bush and Ashcroft try to conquer the legal system
by Bruce Shapiro
Illustration by Juan Alvarado
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/33/features-shapiro.php
WASHINGTON - Representative William Delahunt leaned into his microphone and looked a stone-faced Attorney General John Ashcroft in the eye. Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat, spoke slowly, lest anyone think he was indulging in impulsive overstatement. "No prosecutor in modern history has been granted as much power as you now hold," he told Ashcroft, who, on this particular June afternoon, had come to the House Judiciary Committee seeking to broaden the USA PATRIOT Act.
Twenty-one months after al Qaeda's attacks, the courts, Congress, even the Justice Department itself, are at last attempting an accurate assessment of the civil-liberties fallout from September 11. As if by plan - but in reality just reflecting the pace of bureaucracy, judiciary and politics - recent weeks have brought a minor cascade of reports and rulings on the Bush administration's antiterrorism strategy, on the mass arrests of immigrants, the expansion of secrecy and asphyxiation of freedom of information, even as the administration has been testing the power and limits of USA PATRIOT and other measures.
At that June 5 House Judiciary Committee hearing - his first Judiciary appearance since September of 2001 - Ashcroft touted a long list of PATRIOT Act achievements: 18,000 subpoenas and search warrants; 15 plea agreements from "terrorist suspects"; more than 1,000 secret wiretaps of noncitizens under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, "more than three times the total number of emergency Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants obtained than in the prior 23-year history of the FISA law."
In fact, Ashcroft's Judiciary Committee appearance came at the end of a spring of at-best equivocal results and often-embarrassing setbacks, including the leak of internal Justice Department memos on his proposed PATRIOT Act II, which would permit warrantless searches, secret arrests and the stripping of immigrants' citizenship without any proof of their support for terrorism. PATRIOT II provoked sharp dissent even from Ashcroft's fellow conservatives, including former Congressman Bob Barr and David Keene, the president of the American Conservative Union.
This abrupt climate change was acutely evident during Ashcroft's testimony. Despite an emotional opening statement laced with the names of individuals killed on September 11 and on the USS Cole, he spent much of the hearing fielding pointed questions - sometimes awkwardly, sometimes angrily - about the abuses during the past 18 months and about his own seizure of new powers. And it wasn't just Democrats raising the questions.
Even the committee's chair, Republican James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, an original PATRIOT Act sponsor, led off questioning by declaring that his support for the measure "is neither perpetual nor unconditional." Sensenbrenner chided Ashcroft for loosening the FBI's long-standing guidelines for political surveillance - the so-called "Levy Guidelines," named for the Ford administration attorney general who curbed Hoover-era excess - without consulting Congress. Startled by Sensenbrenner's slap, Ashcroft at first fudged, conflating the FBI guidelines with the PATRIOT Act. Then he changed course and admitted he thought that letting the FBI spy on political meetings and religious groups was "in the same spirit" as the legislation passed by Congress. He wound up with a head-spinning apologia: "Any assumption that I might have made that presumed that the kind of ideas of extending the guidelines, to extend them in the same way that we had worked collaboratively to extend the law in PATRIOT, may have been one that presumed in a way that overestimated our previous consultation."
Ashcroft's entire committee appearance was marked by a defensiveness and obfuscation more noteworthy than the relatively minor adjustments to PATRIOT Act I he ended up proposing. It was marked, as well, by a new assertiveness from congressional Democrats, who, after offering little resistance to the original PATRIOT Act, now seem to have decided that civil liberties once again can make good politics.
Representative Maxine Waters, of Los Angeles, asked how many of the hundreds of immigrants incarcerated after September 11 were actually implicated in the attacks. "They were all in the U.S. illegally," Ashcroft replied, skipping over her question entirely. Wisconsin Representative Mark Green asked Ashcroft how he could justify the FBI's PATRIOT Act authority to monitor library borrowing records. "We remember the Unabomber," Ashcroft replied. "Some may remember that the capture of the Unabomber was made possible" because "investigators subpoenaed records from libraries and they developed an awareness of who had looked at these esoteric treatises." New York City Representative Jerrold Nadler had to remind a visibly irritated Ashcroft that the Unabomber was turned in by his own brother, not identified by the FBI.
Judiciary Democrats gained momentum for their tough questioning from the release, just a few days earlier, of an internal Justice Department review of Ashcroft's September 11 detentions. The 198-page report - by the Justice Department's independent Office of Inspector General - amounts to a definitive and damning investigation of how Ashcroft, his aides and the FBI handled the nationwide roundup.
Departing from the usual cool, bureaucratic tone of government reports, the inspector general charges that the evidence raises "serious questions about the treatment of September 11 detainees," and about accountability in the FBI and Department of Justice. At the Judiciary Committee hearing, Ashcroft repeatedly dodged queries about the inspector general's report, insisting yet again that all the detainees were in the country illegally.
Some of the most dramatic revelations of the inspector general's inquiry are buried in the fine print. One footnote, for instance, suggests that the generally accepted number of arrests may understate the case: The report quotes an anonymous senior Justice Department official revealing that after 1,200 arrests, Justice simply stopped counting or providing updated figures.
The report focuses on 762 immigrants incarcerated in New York and New Jersey because the FBI determined, on vague grounds, that they were "persons of interest." Many of the arrests were inspired by the scantest of tips, such as an anonymous call complaining of a late-night deli staffed entirely by Middle Eastern immigrants.
At the time, Deputy Attorney General Michael Chertoff - since confirmed to become a federal judge - promised that most detainees would be cleared within three days. Instead, the average time was nearly three months. (In a particularly embarrassing sideswipe at the FBI, the report says bureau officials falsely blamed the delay on the CIA. In fact, declares the inspector general, the CIA responded to all requests for review within days, and it was the FBI's own mismanagement that kept hundreds of individuals locked up for months on end.) The inspector general bluntly says that Ashcroft should have revised his policy of holding all September 11 detainees without bail once it became clear that the roundup was random.
Most damaging of all, the inspector general says September 11 detainees - particularly those in New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center - were subjected to "a pattern of physical and verbal abuse." Inmates were slammed against walls; others endured painfully tight handcuffs. "You're going to die here," guards promised some bewildered detainees. Corrections officers told others to "shut up" when they turned to their prayers. Inmates - nearly all innocent of any crime except overstaying a visa - were subjected to 24-hour lighting in their cells for months on end, provoking depression and exhaustion. Jail videotapes that might have documented the extent of such abuse were destroyed before reaching investigators.
If Ashcroft was vexed by the inspector general's report, he could take some comfort in another review of his post-September 11 policies, when, on June 17, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled 2-1 in favor of his keeping the names of those 1,200-plus detainees secret. Last August, a federal judge had ordered the names released after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit by the ACLU and the Center for National Security Studies. This time around, Appeals Judge David Sentelle, a Reagan appointee, wrote that Ashcroft had sound reasons to keep the names secret. "While the name of any individual detainee may appear innocuous or trivial, it could be of great use to al Qaeda in plotting future terrorist attacks or intimidating witnesses in the present investigation," Sentelle wrote.
But this was hardly a definitive verdict. Indeed, the argument within the Appeals Court panel itself only underscored how divided the courts remain over the Bush administration's policies. Sentelle was joined by Judge Karen L. Henderson, appointed by the previous Bush administration. But Judge David Tatel, a moderate Clinton appointee, wrote a lengthy and blistering dissent. Tatel scorned the Justice Department's arguments as "vague and poorly reasoned," riddled with "factual and logical gaps." The majority Appeals Court decision, he wrote, "eviscerates both the FOIA itself and the principles of openness in government that FOIA embodies." Further appeals are sure to follow.
The courtroom arguments over those detainees - most long since deported - are minor-league compared to the implications of another case now wending its way through the federal courts. Jose Padilla, the former Chicago gangbanger allegedly turned low-level al Qaeda operative, has become a subject of sharp questioning for Judiciary Democrats scrutinizing the administration's handling of its new powers.
Since his arrest last summer, Padilla - an American citizen and adult convert to Islam - has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the White House has labeled him an "enemy combatant" and confined him in a naval brig. Padilla - who authorities claim was in the early stages of evaluating the prospects for a "dirty bomb" attack - has no access to his lawyer and no right to a courtroom. In a recent Court of Appeals hearing, Ashcroft's aides argued not only that Padilla is an "enemy combatant," but that status puts him effectively beyond any judicial protection: Only the president, they said, can remove "enemy combatant" status.
Padilla may not be a sympathetic character, but by all reliable accounts, even from intelligence agencies, he is no terrorist mastermind either. The idea of the president having the unilateral power to lock up an American citizen without any access to the courts clearly riles some in Congress, and provoked emotional exchanges between Ashcroft and Judiciary Democrats. "How would someone who is factually innocent of the crime or of the charge, had nothing to do with it, false identification or bogus evidence - how would they ever get out of jail?" demanded an exasperated Representative Robert Scott of Virginia.
Ashcroft replied that an "enemy combatant" could be imprisoned "during the pendency of the conflict" - in other words, indefinitely. The San Gabriel Valley's Representative Adam Schiff recalled his own six years as an assistant U.S. attorney. "I wouldn't want the unbridled discretion to designate an American as an enemy and lock them up without judicial review," he said. Ashcroft's only reply was to wash his hands of the whole matter, insisting that "it is the president, not the Justice Department, which decides who is an enemy combatant," adding - as if it were comfort - that if there was "an abuse or mistake," he was "sure the president would correct it."
The question of how often the administration plans to use this tactic was raised again last week when President Bush named Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, 37, the third "enemy combatant" to be so designated since September 11. The other is Yaser Esam Hamdi, a Louisiana-born Saudi who was captured in Afghanistan. Al-Marri is a Qatari national, who was here on a student visa. The charges against him stem from his alleged efforts to settle al Qaeda sleeper cells here. As with the others, Al-Marri's status as an enemy combatant means jurisdiction over his case is entirely in the hands of the Pentagon; it means his due-process rights - to a lawyer, to an arraignment, to examining the evidence against him - do not exist. If Padilla, Al-Marri and Hamdi are tried anywhere, it will be before a military tribunal, with the only appeal to President Bush, but there is no guarantee even of a tribunal. Padilla, Al-Marri and Hamdi have all fallen down an extraconstitutional black hole.
The argument over "enemy combatants" gains urgency, too, from a story that has fallen off the media radar: Camp Delta, the Guantánamo Bay prison for al Qaeda fighters seized in Afghanistan. In late May, Britain's Mail on Sunday newspaper quoted camp commander General Geoffrey Miller as saying the Pentagon is planning to build a death row and execution chamber - anticipating capital convictions in upcoming military tribunals. It took nearly a month for The New York Times to hit the story, but by then European officials had registered strong protests. According to Defense Department officials, debate is now raging at the Pentagon over Camp Delta's future, with a trickle of inmates now being repatriated. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld is reportedly urging a swift start to tribunals, with other officials worried over the international implications of trials and sentences - even executions - unreviewable by anyone except George W. Bush, who displayed so little queasiness presiding over executions as governor of Texas.
While the administration's critics are challenging Ashcroft's civil-liberties policies in the courts, the Justice Department has been doing some testing of its own. Recent months have brought the first criminal cases using both new PATRIOT-granted powers and new Justice Department strategies for expanding the government's investigatory power.
Most of these cases are far away from the beltway spotlight. Temple Terrace, Florida, for instance, may seem an unlikely venue for feeling out the power and limits of the PATRIOT Act. Leafy, suburban Temple Terrace's major thoroughfares are lined by strip malls, not national monuments that would make attractive terrorist targets. When Mohammed Atta ‰ and other al Qaeda operatives wanted a Florida base, they settled across the state, near Miami, not among Tampa Bay's substantial Muslim-immigrant community.
But when federal agents arrived at the home of University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian in late February, their arrest warrant might as well have been stamped PATRIOT Act Test Case - one of a handful of indictments pushing the boundaries of antiterrorism law and challenging traditional civil-liberties premises.
The government has been watching Al-Arian - a Palestinian by birth and a longtime Islamic-affairs activist - since the mid-'90s, when a think tank he ran at USF was accused of being a front for Islamist radicals. He has been a particularly contentious figure at USF as a sometimes-hotheaded Palestinian activist and defender of his brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, who was held on secret antiterrorism charges for more than three years and ultimately deported after September 11.
Al-Arian was a tenured computer-engineering professor until his arrest. He became a national cause célèbre in the months after September 11, when USF's president - encouraged by Governor Jeb Bush - suspended Al-Arian because of past anti-Israel speeches. This ignited national support for the professor from campus free-speech groups. But his arrest in February had to do with something else: Key provisions in the PATRIOT Act granted criminal investigators new, intrusive powers - in particular, access to foreign-intelligence wiretaps, which was unheard-of even in the Cold War. The indictment alleges that those national-security wiretaps - their source shrouded in secrecy - showed Al-Arian to be a top adviser to, and U.S. fund-raiser for, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) - one of the groups behind suicide bombings in Israel. His indictment on dozens of counts of conspiracy amounts to a high-profile test run for the new antiterrorism law as much as it does a trial for Al-Arian himself.
Like Jose Padilla, Al-Arian is unlikely to win much public sympathy for his politics: The wiretap intercepts do suggest that he played a role in PIJ's fund-raising. But one of the legal and political challenges for those attempting to slow the PATRIOT Act's march on civil liberties is that the Bush administration has shrewdly chosen unappetizing characters with whom to test its sweeping new powers. Just as Padilla, Hamdi and Al-Marri are the test cases for enemy-combatant status, with Al-Arian the power grab is just as sweeping: opening the door for secret information gathered from overseas intelligence to be accepted as evidence by American grand juries and courts.
One of the main goals of the PATRIOT Act was to allow spy agencies and the criminal-justice system to trade information. Al-Arian's indictment refers repeatedly to unidentified secret informants; the wiretaps were obtained overseas without warrants and cannot have their credibility tested in court. Al-Arian may or may not be the terrorist strategist portrayed in the indictment, but the powers unleashed in his case could be applied more broadly. The PATRIOT Act, for instance, also criminalizes destruction of corporate property for political purposes. Will overseas intelligence intercepts be used to justify indictment of globalization protesters? Will notoriously unreliable secret informants form the basis for conspiracy indictments against union leaders, activists for Irish Republicanism or future Latin American revolts? Al-Arian's case raises the fundamental question of to what degree evidence from the shadowy, secret world of intelligence can support a criminal case in a legal system predicated on openness and the defendant's ability to challenge evidence.
The PATRIOT Act's many repressive measures - which also include authorizing warrantless break-ins and limiting judicial scrutiny over wiretaps, among others - received such wide attention when the bill was passed that it has become shorthand for a whole range of administration strategies. But the dangers go beyond the PATRIOT Act itself.
Increasingly, for instance, the Justice Department has turned grand juries into tools for intelligence gathering and coercing suspects, rather than for simply evaluating indictments. In several cases - such as that of computer scientist Mike Hawash in Portland - the Justice Department has used "material witness" warrants to justify an otherwise illegal detention. Hawash was arrested on March 20 and detained for five weeks without charge, with all evidence in his case deemed secret. He never testified before a grand jury. When a furious federal judge ordered his release, the government charged Hawash with "conspiracy to levy war against the United States," attaching his name to a broader Portland indictment. Ashcroft's Justice Department has detained other grand-jury "witnesses" for more than a year without charge, and in at least one case extracted a confession from one of those "material witnesses" later proved to be utterly false. Beyond the abuse of the material-witness law itself, the use of coercive grand juries evokes an ugly past. Coercive grand juries were a staple of 1960s investigations into the student and feminist movements and have long since been abandoned.
Strikingly, the Bush Justice Department's attack on civil liberties leaves it not only isolated from abroad - even Iraq war allies Britain and Australia have voiced protest at the confinement of their citizens at Guantánamo - but from local officials at home. The National Immigration Forum recently released a report with a 14-page list of local police chiefs, sheriffs and other law-enforcement leaders who object to the Bush administration's demand that they become frontline enforcers of immigration law. More than 100 municipalities have passed resolutions pledging varying degrees of noncooperation with intrusive USA PATRIOT Act provisions. Indeed, Ashcroft himself conceded that "We do not believe that the Justice Department is in a position to mandate that the local police enforce the federal laws."
All of this suggests that even with support for President Bush generally high, unease over the PATRIOT Act and its progeny is substantial, bringing the possibility that Ashcroft himself will become a flashpoint in the presidential elections. Americans, Representative Bill Delahunt told the attorney general, "feel that the government is intent on prying into every nook and cranny of people's private lives, while, at the same time, doing all it can to block access to government information that would inform the American people as to what is being done in their name."
The book is by no means closed on whether the court system will sustain stretching the boundaries of investigation this much. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, in early June, agreed to a speedy decision of Jose Padilla's "enemy combatant" status. More than anything, the July 5 Judiciary Committee hearing, along with the inspector general's report and other recent events, made clear the contradictory reality of the post-September 11 civil-liberties crisis. On the one hand, never before in American history have an attorney general and president moved so swiftly to unleash and centralize surveillance and secrecy.
At the same time, it is clear that it is a dangerous mistake to think of Ashcroft and the PATRIOT Act as simply a reincarnation of McCarythyism and COINTELPRO, the FBI's notorious surveillance-and-disruption program of the 1960s. McCarthyism and the Red Scare swept broadly over the nation's political culture, victimizing teachers, artists and union officials. Ashcroftism - at least so far - has far more narrowly targeted immigrant communities, and while administration-friendly, right-wing broadcast hosts tried to rouse hysterical attacks against anti-war protesters, those attacks had little traction. COINTELPRO enjoyed the enthusiastic support not only of the FBI but also of the broader federal bureaucracy, backed by local Red squads.
Ashcroft's surveillance state, by comparison, has met unanticipated resistance within the federal bureaucracy - those leaks and court rulings, that inspector general's report, growing congressional resentment. And it has often been rejected outright by local officials. Instead of a populist witch-hunt, Ashcroftism is mired in the Bush administration's determination to stand above the scrutiny of courts, the oversight of Congress and the authority of local government and law enforcement. In that, it comes closer to an executive-branch coup than anything since Roosevelt tried packing the Supreme Court.
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Check This Out Libraries quietly sound alarm against PATRIOT Act
by Christine Pelisek
(Illustration by Juan Alvarado)
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/33/features-pelisek.php
Libraries throughout Southern California are quietly but determinedly fighting against the federal law that makes it easier for authorities to find out what patrons are reading.
In Santa Monica, librarians have posted signs warning readers that: "The FBI has the right to obtain a court order to access any records we have of your transactions." Such signs also have gone up at libraries in South Pasadena, Monterey Park, Whittier, Santa Monica and West Hollywood. Some libraries also are deleting records as often as every day. To these librarians, at least, there is a limit to how much the domestic war on terrorism should be allowed to intrude on privacy and freedom of expression.
"We have an obligation to let the public know," said Wini Allard, Santa Monica's city librarian. She characterized federal anti-terrorism provisions that affect libraries as an assault on individual rights.
That view was seconded by South Pasadena city librarian Terri Maguire.
"Privacy and access to information are important to libraries," she said. "Do we have an obligation to inform our patrons? We decided that yes, we did."
What has fueled the ire of librarians is Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, passed in late 2001, which makes it easier for law-enforcement agencies to see what books people check out or request and what Internet sites they visit while at the library. Formerly, police or federal agents would need a court order to get library records, and they also would typically have to satisfy a higher legal standard of evidence to justify this intrusion. Now, these records can be obtained via a special federal court that, according to critics, grants search rights virtually without scrutiny. The new rules apply to bookstores as well as libraries.
Indeed, it isn't just librarians who are troubled. Thirty-two businesses and organizations, including Borders, Barnes & Noble, the PEN American Center, the Association of American Publishers, the American Library Association (ALA) and the California Library Association have publicly decried this PATRIOT Act provision. The ALA has advised members to destroy records of book borrowing and Internet visits by patrons.
Three state governments and more than 100 cities, counties and municipalities also have taken up the cause. The Northern California city of Arcata has publicly stated that it will not comply with the PATRIOT Act. Its library and police will not cooperate with federal officials if they come a-knocking.
Many critics are urging support for the Freedom To Read Protection Act, sponsored by Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders. This legislation, proposed in March, would exempt libraries and bookstores from the PATRIOT Act. Co-sponsors include Southland representatives Maxine Waters and Linda Sanchez. On May 23, California Senator Barbara Boxer put forward a somewhat different remedy. Her Library and Bookseller Protection Act would restore prior law that makes it more difficult to obtain a court-ordered warrant authorizing a search.
Justice Department officials insist that the issue has been overblown. "There is a lot of misinformation out there by groups like the ACLU who frankly thought we were doing too much prior to the terrorist attacks," said spokesman Jose Martinez.
Libraries have become a logical target of surveillance given that some of the September 11 hijackers sent e-mails from library computers to contact each other, say officials. They argue that American citizens have lost no rights and that the new law applies only to international-terrorism investigations.
"It expressly provides that the FBI cannot conduct an investigation of a U.S. person solely on the basis of activities that are protected by the first amendment of the Constitution," said Martinez.
But critics perceive ample reason for alarm. The Justice Department recently disclosed, after public pressure from Congress, the ACLU and ALA, that 50 libraries have been investigated. The ALA and legislators have asked the FBI to hand over individual case information to allay their fears about government invasion of library patrons' privacy.
Santa Monica Public Library staffers got worried after federal authorities approached them a few months after the September 11 attacks. "It turned out that the individual they were looking for was not on our database," said librarian Allard. "After that, the city's library board got concerned."
In February, the library board and city council passed resolutions opposing provisions of the PATRIOT Act. "When the government can monitor what you read and buy, that to me is a threat," said Gene Oppenheim, chair of the library board. "I don't know how a library can ignore the PATRIOT Act and not take a stand on it." Oppenheim recounted that "one customer was afraid that the FBI would come after him. People are afraid to go to the library and do things that they would normally do, like educate themselves about the issues of the day."
The first library in L.A. County to post signs was Monterey Park's Bruggemeyer Memorial Library in January 2002. On June 17, its board of trustees voted to send letters of support for the Sanders legislation. The next day the city of South Pasadena did the same.
"If you took out a book because you decided you need to know a little about smallpox, it doesn't mean you are trying to infect the entire population with it," said Monterey Park librarian Linda Wilson. "That is the foolishness about it. Would you bring a case against someone who is doing a paper for school?"
Some libraries, however, have declined to take a stand, including those in L.A. County, in the city of Los Angeles and in the cities of Torrance, Glendale and Beverly Hills, to name a few.
A warning sign "is a public notice but it is [also] a statement that you are concerned or don't agree" with the PATRIOT Act, said Norm Reeder, library-services manager at Katy Geissert Civic Center Library in Torrance. "We don't want to project that at all. The law is the law and we have to agree with what the law says."
Others fear a diversion from more pressing issues, especially during tough budget times. "Libraries are busy trying to get positive things in the media," said Barbara Custen, executive director of the Southern California-based Metropolitan Cooperative Library System. "I wouldn't necessarily make the PATRIOT Act a banner issue. Libraries are also trying to figure out how to keep the lights on." In addition, said Custen, some libraries would worry about offending patrons who might support the federal government's position.
Activists counter that if they don't make themselves heard, a disturbing situation could get worse. Right around the corner is the proposed Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 or the USA PATRIOT Act II, which critics fear will endanger personal freedoms even more.
"The government said this is what we have to do to keep us safe," said Joe Rubin, chair of the Monterey Park Library Board. "The president said our enemies attacked us because they hated the freedom that we had and we proceeded to destroy our freedom with the PATRIOT Act. I am saying, Who won the war?"
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THE KASHMIR CASE
Judge Upholds Release of a Terrorism Defendant
July 4, 2003
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/04/national/04TERR.html
ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 3 - A federal judge agreed today that a man accused of supporting a Kashmir terrorist group should be freed from custody pending trial.
Officials said they expected that the defendant, Hammad Abdur-Raheem, would be released by Friday with an electronic monitoring bracelet and other restrictions. Advertisement
But at the same time, the judge, Leonie M. Brinkema of the United States District Court for Eastern Virginia, ruled that another defendant in the case, Mohammed Aatique, should not be freed on bail.
Judge Brinkema upheld an earlier ruling by a federal magistrate judge, Theresa Buchanan, that Mr. Aatique should be held. Ruling on an appeal by his lawyers, Judge Brinkema said that Mr. Aatique, a Pakistani who the authorities say spent time at a terrorist training camp, has "significant ties" to his home country and might try to flee there if released.
The split decision sent a somewhat unclear message about the latitude the Justice Department will be given in seeking to incarcerate terrorist suspects. It is highly unusual, especially since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, for a suspect in a terrorism case to be released on bail. But in ordering Mr. Abdur Raheem's release, Judge Brinkema said, "Each one of these defendants has to be evaluated on his own merits."
Mr. Abdur-Raheem and Mr. Aatique are among 11 men - 8 in the United States and 3 in Saudi Arabia - who were charged last week with organizing a paramilitary group in the Washington area to support efforts to drive India out of Kashmir. The men have maintained their innocence, saying that the F.B.I. mistook their weekend paint ball sessions for war games and that it has harassed them because they are Muslims.
Judge Brinkema scheduled the men's trials for November to avoid the specter of a trial around the time of the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
On Wednesday, Magistrate Judge T. Rawles Jones Jr. ruled that Mr. Abdur-Raheem and three of the other men arrested last week should be freed from custody on the grounds that they did not pose a sufficient threat to the community and were not likely to flee the Washington area if they were released.
-------- police
The Gang That Can't Shoot Straight
by Jim Grichar (aka Exx-Gman),
July 4, 2003
LewRockwell.com mailto:exxgman@netscape.net
http://www.lewrockwell.com/grichar/grichar22.html
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It seems that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (some refer to it as the FIB, rather than the FBI), appears to have gotten itself into a real pickle over its investigation of who sent anthrax-laced letters that killed five people in the United States in late 2001. In the panic atmosphere following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the FBI has been investigating and, in fact, appears to have been harassing, one individual whom they believe committed the crime.
But after more than 18 months of putting this individual under the federal microscope, the FBI does not appear to be any closer to finding the perpetrator of this crime. According to the July 2 New York Times (which, via one of its opinion columnists - Nicholas Kristoff, has often pointed accusing fingers at this individual), the FBI's suspect - excuse me, its "person of interest" - might just have been involved in helping to train the U.S. Delta Force to search for and dismantle the so-far undiscovered weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and associated two mobile laboratories that the U.S. has found thus far in Iraq.
The whole mess, with the Defense Department doing its thing while the FBI chases one of its contractor's former employees, would be the grist for a Keystone Cops movie if it were not the fact that people have died, one person's reputation has possibly been destroyed and property has been damaged (and this does not include the destruction in Iraq). It just demonstrates once again that depending upon government for justice and the protection of life, liberty and property is a pipe dream.
Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, "Person of Interest" or .....
The investigation of Dr. Steven J. Hatfill as the possible perpetrator of the anthrax letters apparently began in late 2001 or early 2002. Hatfill had worked for the U.S. government and for a Defense Department contractor.
After failing to get any significant clues as to the perpetrator or perpetrators of the crime, the FBI was starting to feel the political heat. Readers should recall that one of the anthrax-laced letters was sent to former Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle's office, and it's delivery to that location led to the closure of the Senate Hart office building for a number of months. Another letter, which was intercepted before reaching its target, was addressed to Senator Patrick Leahy.
To drive home the point that catching the perpetrator or perpetrators of the anthrax crimes should be a high priority, Daschle would often appear on the nightly news, asking why the FBI had not made any progress. Whether or not the FBI was providing periodic reports to Daschle regarding its progress on the investigation, Daschle, and his Democratic colleagues, wanted the public to know that Democrats were the focus of terrorist attacks.
Various outside groups, some of which may have had political connections, began expressing in public and on the internet that some person or persons with skills in handling and processing anthrax into a weapons grade material had to be the real suspect or suspects. Eventually, because of direct leaks from FBI officials or special agents, leaks from people interviewed by the FBI, leaks by colleagues or indirect leaks from Congress or Congressional staff that were briefed on the investigation's progress by the FBI, the name of Steven J. Hatfill reached the public.
Hatfill, who reportedly either got his medical degree or completed graduate course work in biology or physiology at a college in Africa, was also reported to have been involved in the war in the former African country of Rhodesia (now run by the "warm and witty" Robert Mugabe, Africa's answer to Joseph Stalin and a black KKK). Hatfill also was alleged to have been involved in some of South Africa's internal racial troubles. Thus, Hatfill apparently fit the bill for those on the left - like Daschle - who want to blame someone of an allegedly right-wing persuasion for the anthrax attacks.
Hatfill had - or stated on his resume (some have alleged that Hatfill lied extensively on his resume) - that he had experience in working on the deadly Ebola virus. He eventually - in 1997- picked up work at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, known as USAMRIID. He worked with a number of other scientists on biological warfare studies, despite the fact that the U.S. government had abandoned biological weapons in a treaty, signed by Richard Nixon, that took effect in 1975. The powers that be in the government were still concerned about terrorist acquisition and use of WMD, and Hatfill and people with his skills were still in demand.
With experience in the government, Hatfill in 1998 left USAMRIID and joined a contractor - Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) - that does extensive business with the Defense Department. In this position, Hatfill ran a study that assessed the likelihood and characteristics of sending anthrax spores through the mails, just the crime that later took place in late 2001. During this time, according to the Times' sources, Hatfill reportedly was being considered for a top secret clearance at the CIA but was supposedly not granted the clearance because he failed the polygraph test. In addition, during the investigation of Hatfill, the FBI came upon a draft novel on biological warfare that Hatfill had been writing in his spare time. In March 2002, after Hatfill's involvement in the anthrax letters was alleged in media reports, SAIC fired him.
It was these factors, and some factors not revealed until now (see below), that led the FBI to interview Hatfill, search his apartment and personal effects, and to have special agents trail and harass him. When asked at a news conference whether Hatfill was a suspect, Attorney General John Ashcroft labeled Hatfill a "person of interest." Well, that's gov-speak for you. Apparently, after the Richard Jewell fiasco (Jewell was the innocent man who was the FBI suspect in the Atlanta Olympic park bombing in 1996 whom the FBI hounded and subjected to numerous scurrilous attacks in the media), the various parts of the Justice Department tried to cover their tails by not referring to a suspect as a suspect.
Well, the harassment and trailing of Hatfill continued unabated. Last summer, Hatfill was fired from a (what else) federally-funded position at Louisiana State University where he would have been training officials in the details of countering biological warfare attacks by terrorists. Several months ago, an FBI special agent trailing Hatfill in the Georgetown area of Washington, DC drove over Hatfill's foot with his government car. Within the last few weeks, the FBI has drained a pond near Hatfill's former apartment - near Frederick, Maryland - in search of equipment that might have been used to insert anthrax into the letters. Thus far, nothing has been found.
Since last summer, Hatfill, and a person who is acting as his spokesman, have taken to television to put out his side of the story. Denying any involvement in the anthrax attacks (involvement alleged by Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times and others in the print and television media), Hatfill claimed he was a patriot, in part working on the biological warfare/terrorist attack area because he loved his country and did not want to see such biological attacks against the U.S. succeed.
..... Patriot?
The July 2 New York Times report indicated that while a contractor, Hatfill worked on devising a prototype mobile anthrax/biological weapons laboratory that was to be used to train members of the Delta Force in how to spot such weapons production facilities, determine whether or not they had been used, and also to handle, possibly dismantle, any WMD bio-weapons they found. This may have been done since American officials claim that an Iraqi defector in 1999 stated that Baghdad was going to build a fleet of such labs.
According to colleagues of Hatfill's, he was an enthusiastic participant - one said he was the instigator - in the mobile lab project. (N.B. - contractors cannot initiate projects on their own - they may suggest a project, but only a federal employee (a contract officer) can sign the contract and then a project officer, who actually controls the funds, monitors the specific tasks in a contract.)
Anyway, as part of this project, Hatfill ordered parts for the mobile lab in 2000, storing them in a warehouse until he began supervising the assembly in September 2001. The Times July 2 article quoted an expert on bio-weapons terrorism projects who said: "It's all the ordering of equipment that in hindsight looks suspicious."
By the time Hatfill was fired, in March 2002, the mobile lab prototype was only half built. Even after Hatfill was fired, and while he was being investigated, he continued to work on the mobile lab even though he was not being paid. One expert recalled that Hatfill "... was doing it on his own, using his own money."
According to the Times, "Later, as the Delta trailer was being hauled to Fort Bragg, FBI agents and experts pulled it over and thoroughly checked it for anthrax and other deadly germs." According to one expert quoted by the Times, "The FBI wanted to confiscate it."
After arguing with the FBI, the military was able to continue its trip, bringing the prototype mobile lab to Fort Bragg, North Carolina for training the Delta Force. One military officer interviewed by the Times, Col. Bill Darley, a spokesman for the Special Operations Command, said, "This is a sensitive thing." He further stated, "We are not growing anthrax or botulinum toxin. None of this equipment is functional. It looks like - it is - the real stuff, but it's nonfunctional."
Is He or Isn't He?
As I said at the top of the article, this would be a great set of events for writing a Keystone Cops script, except for the loss of lives, damage of property and ruination of a man's reputation (Hatfill has not been charged with any crime thus far).
I do not know whether Steven Hatfill is guilty of the anthrax letter attacks. But eighteen months of FBI investigation and harassment of Steven Hatfill (albeit someone involved in a project which would never be necessary if the United States minded its own business instead of acting like a modern-day version of the Roman Empire) has not produced hard evidence of his involvement in the attacks. The latest revelations, while giving some a further reason to think that this man is a modern equivalent of Professor Moriarty, only make the FBI and the rest of the feds involved in this case look like the fools and knaves that they are.
But then that is what we should always expect when the government has a monopoly power in protecting life, liberty and property and can force us to pay taxes for this protection. We should invariably expect incompetence, political and other chicanery, significant wasting of money, loss of life, ruination of reputations and careers, and a host of other evils when we entrust government with our protection.
----
Vigilance Heightened for Events on Mall
By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 4, 2003; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6935-2003Jul3?language=printer
The throng of visitors to the Mall today will be protected by a tighter and more coordinated security operation, even though the threat level is lower than it has been, authorities said yesterday.
Anyone making the trek, though, should prepare for sun, heat, crowds and, because of the continuing rain, a soggy ground.
Security points with metal detectors, 19 instead of last year's 24, will once again be the only gateways to the Mall. But, Teresa C. Chambers, chief of the U.S. Park Police, said in a phone interview, "security has been enhanced . . . with officers from different agencies doing a better job of sharing instantaneous intelligence."
The Park Police will lead 30 local, state and federal agencies in handling the operation, which will have more than 1,500 officers deployed in the area, Chambers said -- more in civilian clothes than in years past.
Based on current intelligence and assessments of threats, however, the Department of Homeland Security will keep the national threat alert as Code Yellow, said Brian Roehrkasse, department spokesman.
Tom Ridge, the secretary of homeland security, is encouraging law enforcement officials across the country to exercise heightened levels of security for large public gatherings and celebrations associated with the Fourth of July, Roehrkasse said.
Chambers worked with D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey and Deputy Mayor Margret Nedelkoff Kellems to map a strategy for that kind of vigilance. "For us, this year's celebration is not a return to normalcy -- not at all," Chambers said. "We can never really be back to normal, and I don't think people expect that out of us. Our operation this year may look the same, but it isn't."
Compared with last year, when visitors had to pass through three or more security checkpoints between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, getting around the Mall should be easier this year, said Sgt. Scott Fear of the Park Police, because people will be able to freely roam the area, within which several streets will be closed, after passing through an initial checkpoint.
Those passing through that area, even those going only to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, should be prepared for checks of bags and coolers. Fear said that some checkpoints -- particularly those on Constitution Avenue -- will be busier than others. Alcohol, firearms and fireworks are prohibited.
Surveillance cameras, from the Park Police and the D.C. police department, will again help officers monitor any suspicious or unusual activities
The fireworks celebration, on the grounds of the Washington Monument, will begin about 9:10 p.m. Metro officials say trains will begin running at 7 a.m. today and continue until 3 a.m. Like last year, because of security reasons, trains won't stop at the Smithsonian Station.
The forecast is for sunshine after some morning clouds and a high of about 90, said Neal DiPasquale, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
But that might not prevent soggy footing. "Frankly, I don't know what's underneath the grass of the Mall, but I suspect it's going to be wet," said Mark Miller, a horticulturalist for the American Horticultural Society. If what's underneath the grass is heavy clay, the water will sit there for a long time, Miller said, but if it's well-drained sandy soil, then the grass should be dry. He advised bringing something to sit on.
The Mall attracts tens of thousands on Independence Day, and law enforcement and events organizers expect no difference this year. The Fourth of July parade will start about 11:45 a.m. at Seventh and Constitution avenues NW and feature more than 60 groups, including bands and military units, and floats.
The National Archives will celebrate the 227th anniversary of the adoption of Declaration of Independence with a ceremonial reading of the document from 2 to 3:15 p.m. featuring actress Jane Alexander, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. The original document will be at Union Station from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. as a part of a multimedia exhibit.
At 8 p.m., Erich Kunzel will conduct the National Symphony Orchestra's annual concert on the West Lawn of the Capitol. The concert will pay tribute to composer John Williams.
Staff writers Lyndsey Layton, John Mintz and Susan Schmidt contributed to this report.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Tribunals Move From Theory to Reality
July 4, 2003
The New York Times
By ADAM LIPTAK
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/04/national/04LEGA.html
Yesterday's announcement that President Bush has designated six prisoners as eligible for trials before military commissions is an incremental, but significant, step in turning a theoretical possibility into a practical reality.
"What we've had so far is the establishment of a framework," said Eugene R. Fidell, the president of the National Institute of Military Justice. "The one thing they haven't had so far are defendants. Now they have a class of people who are honest-to-Pete eligible." The government did not say yesterday who the prisoners eligible for these trials were, though many people assume they are among the more than 600 prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. And it is hard to say whether they will be pleased or distressed at the prospect of a trial.
"A person who is in total limbo will welcome any change that tends to break time up a little bit," Mr. Fidell said. That is true, said David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University, but only to a point.
"When you consider," Professor Cole said, "that you are going to be prosecuted, defended and judged by your captor, with no right to see the evidence against you and no right to confidential attorney-client communications, you may think again."
Professor Cole also questioned the government's rationale for picking those who would be made eligible for trial.
"The notion that they have selected six people they might give a trial to from roughly 680 people locked up for a year raises the possibility that these are show trials of those most likely to be guilty rather than a procedure meant to separate the innocent from the guilty," he said "The other possibility is that they've gotten everything they can from these people through interrogations."
Another reason for yesterday's move may be tactical. "There is a strong possibility that this all may be a move to induce guilty pleas," said Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University. "That is a use that is particularly coercive and improper."
The government, which may seek the death penalty and has indicated that it may hold people it does not try indefinitely, could put prisoners to quite a choice in proposing that they plead to a long but still finite prison term. Should a defendant be cleared by a tribunal, moreover, there is no particular guarantee that he will go free. In other settings, the government has reserved its right to hold people found not guilty indefinitely as unlawful enemy combatants.
Some scholars and human rights activists questioned the fundamental legitimacy of the tribunals.
"The Bush administration is moving forward with trying people before the commissions even though the rules for the commission provide substandard justice," said Jamie Fellner, the director of United States programs for Human Rights Watch. She said the organization has particular concerns about defendants' access to civilian counsel beyond the military lawyers who would be provided to them.
Other experts agreed that rules concerning lawyers are a significant concern.
"It's almost impossible to render effective assistance of counsel under them," said Neal R. Sonnett, the chairman of the American Bar Association's task force on the treatment of enemy combatants.
Military tribunals have historically been conceived to address a gap between what can be done with captured enemy soldiers engaged in traditional warfare, who may be held as prisoners of war until hostilities cease, and what can be done with ordinary criminals. Military tribunals were meant to address the actions of unlawful enemy combatants, including soldiers who massacre civilians, abuse the flag of truce or commit acts of sabotage while not in uniform.
Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University, said the people made eligible for trial yesterday do not fit within the narrow historical category of unlawful enemy combatant for whom such trials might be appropriate.
"The government has declared that Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization, is at war with the United States," he said. "That's an unprecedented broadening of the concept of war."
Mr. Sonnett said the government has to work to gain the confidence of the American public and the world.
"Military tribunals can work if they are created and structured fairly and properly, if they are open so that the public can see what's going on, subject to national security considerations, and if the same quality of due process was granted as in the criminal justice system," Mr. Sonnett said.
"If military tribunals are going to be used," he continued, "this government needs to bend over backwards to make sure they are as fair and open as possible, because the entire world will be watching. So far, the rules indicate a system that will not be fair and will not appear to be fair."
--------
Six Detainees Soon May Face Military Trials
July 4, 2003
The New York Times
By NEIL A. LEWIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/04/national/04TRIB.html?hp
WASHINGTON, July 3 - President Bush today designated six captives suspected of involvement in terrorism as eligible to be tried before military tribunals, setting in motion the process that officials say will soon lead to the first use of such tribunals by the United States in more than 50 years.
Mr. Bush's action was the opening step required under rules he first put forward in November 2001, shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Some administration officials said the military tribunals would probably begin dealing with cases before the end of the summer and would meet at a specially constructed secure courtroom at the United States naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
"Things will start to move rather quickly now," a senior military officer said.
The announcement of the president's action was made at the Pentagon, where officials declined to name the captives eligible to be tried or say where they are being held or what crimes they may be charged with. The tribunals can be used to try only noncitizens.
Under the procedures adopted by the Pentagon, the president is required to start the process by designating any captives eligible for trial by military commission. Next, an official, in this case Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, decides which of them will be charged with crimes. Mr. Wolfowitz who was given authority over the commissions by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, will also choose the members of the tribunals themselves.
Although Pentagon officials who briefed reporters today disclosed few details about the six people who may be the first to be brought before tribunals, one said there was "evidence of involvement in Al Qaeda" and evidence that they had attended military training camps, though the official did not say where.
But other administration officials suggested that most or all of them were not major Qaeda figures. Rather, the officials said, they expected the first group of people charged would be lesser figures who would be enticed into entering into plea agreements. In exchange for some measure of leniency, the officials said, the people charged might agree to provide information about Al Qaeda and about other prisoners.
The officials also said that using the tribunals for less important figures would amount to a shake-down cruise for the new procedures. They said it would also provide more legitimacy for the process if and when prosecutions take place of more senior figures like Abu Zubaydah, a Qaeda planner and recruiter who is in American custody, or Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the network's senior operational commander, who was captured in March.
Even if those people charged with crimes agreed to plead guilty, they would have to do so before a military commission, the officials said.
In declaring the six captives eligible for military tribunals, Mr. Bush was required to say they met one or more of three conditions: they must be members of Al Qaeda, have engaged in or helped others commit acts of international terrorism, or harbored individuals in Al Qaeda or individuals who engaged in terrorism.
Given the prohibition against using the military tribunals for American citizens, the six captives Mr. Bush declared eligible for trial are probably among the 680 prisoners being held at Guantánamo Bay, most of whom were detained after the war in Afghanistan. They could also include some of the unknown number of captives being held by the United States military at a group of undisclosed locations abroad.
"This is a necessary first step in order to have the gavel actually come down on these proceedings," said Eugene Fidell, a Washington lawyer and authority on military law. "This is a rare criminal proceeding in that there is a threshold determination that has to made by the president before anything can begin."
The last military commissions conducted by the United States were in the immediate years after World War II and were used to try German and Japanese military personnel for war crimes.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, administration officials said they intended to move swiftly to bring suspects before military tribunals, in part to demonstrate to the public that they were responding forcefully. But senior administration officials soon shifted their approach, believing it was more valuable to keep the prisoners in detention and try to mine them for intelligence about terrorist groups.
The movement toward beginning military tribunals comes as the United States has begun sorting out the prisoners held at Guantánamo under conditions that have been criticized by foreign governments and some human rights groups. The United States has transferred 41 detainees from Guantánamo to their home countries, which released them, with the exception of some in Saudi Arabia.
Officials said they expected more releases soon, as foreign governments have complained that their citizens have been held far beyond the point needed to determine if they are a threat.
Under the procedures adopted in the spring of last year, the commissions will consist of three to seven judges, all of whom must be commissioned officers. A defendant may be found guilty by a vote of two-thirds of the panel, but a death sentence requires a unanimous seven-member panel.
The administration chose Guantánamo, the base in southeastern Cuba, and in March, a federal appeals court ruled unanimously that the prisoners there could not challenge their detentions in federal court because the United States has no legal jurisdiction over the base.
The commissions may not be used at present to try three American citizens in custody on suspicion of involvement in terrorism. They are Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member accused of exploring the possibility of setting off a crude radioactive device; Yasser Esam Hamdi, who was captured as an enemy combatant on the Afghan battlefield; and Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who was declared an enemy combatant and imprisoned in a brig in South Carolina on June 23, less than a month before he was scheduled to go on trial in a federal court in Illinois.
-------- terrorism
US terror trials condemned
There are at least 680 people being held at Guantanamo Bay
BBC
Friday, 4 July, 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3044278.stm
Human rights groups have expressed outrage at the planned use of military tribunals to try terror suspects being held in Guantanamo Bay.
There are at least 680 suspected al-Qaeda and Taleban members at the US naval base in Cuba.
President Bush decided on Thursday that six of them, including Britons Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi and Australian David Hicks should face trial in a military tribunal rather than in a regular court.
But the decision has been criticised by human rights group who say the tribunals are a "legal black hole".
Neil Durkin, a spokesman for the human rights organisation Amnesty International said the detainees could not have a fair trial.
"It is being done outside the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court without the protection of the US constitution," he told BBC News Online.
"They will have no entitlement to lawyers unless they, or their governments can afford them. It's irregular, improper and concerning."
'Fewer safeguards'
There are a number of important differences between military tribunals and civilian courts:
- Many safeguards given to defendants in civilian courts - such as protection against self-incrimination; right to the defence of one's choice; and to be told of the prosecution's charges and evidence - do not necessarily apply.
- Convictions in civilian courts must be unanimous, while military tribunals could convict by a two-thirds majority.
- Different rules of evidence apply, with lower standards for admission.
- Defendants are not guaranteed the right to appeal against convictions in military tribunals.
- Civilian trials must be open to the public, military tribunals can be held in secret.
However Colonel Will Gunn, the chief defence lawyer in military trials, said he would push for the proceedings to be as open as possible, saying the US would be judged on the fairness of the process.
Limbo
Another key difference between the two types of trials is that legally, military tribunals are not courts - they are military commissions, which is why different standards apply.
Mr Durkin said he was concerned about what evidence might be used by the tribunals.
"If you have been held for over a year in legal limbo and you have been interrogated, then you have to worry very much that 'evidence' is going to be brought before the military tribunal that has been extracted out of individuals," he said.
"We want no use of material taken from people under those circumstances. We think it should be thrown out."
Mr Durkin also pointed out that Guantanamo inmates could face the death penalty.
"We don't think governments around the world have spoken up strongly enough.
"We urge the UK Government to strenuously object to any British national, or indeed any national, facing execution following the proceedings at Guantanamo Bay."
A country at war?
Defenders of military tribunals argue that the US is at war with terrorists, and that in times of war, enemy aliens are never afforded the protections of the US legal system.
But Mr Durkin rejected that argument, as many of the Guantanamo Bay inmates had not been caught on the battlefields.
"We have never seen the rationale for this to be a military court," he said.
"Moazzam Begg is one example of the men who were taken from all around the world, he was swept up in a US sweep in Pakistan.
"The military argument doesn't hold."
Stephen Jakobi, director of the British pressure group Fair Trials Abroad, said his concerns over the use of tribunals related to the most fundamental concepts of international law.
"After 18 months, six people out of over 600 are to be tried and the rules have to be fixed, otherwise there might be no convictions," he said.
"The US Department of Defence will appoint the judges and prosecutors, control the defence and make up the rules of the trial.
"It appears to have only one objective - to secure a conviction.
"If they were prepared to take these people to American soil and try them under normal US prosecution, the evidence wouldn't stand up."
----
US and Europe set for clash over terrorist trials
By Jimmy Burns and Jean Eaglesham in London and Hugh Williamson in Berlin
July 4 2003
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1054966681755&p=1012571727088
The US faces another damaging diplomatic row with Europe over its decision to try six suspected al-Qaeda terrorists in secretive military tribunals.
The European Union's executive commission warned on Friday that applying the death penalty to any of the suspects detained at the US base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba would risk undermining international support for the US-led war on terrorism.
"The death sentence cannot be applied by military courts as this would make the international coalition lose the integrity and credibility it has so far enjoyed," said spokesman Diego de Ojeda.
The UK, America's closest ally in the war on terror, said it would raise its objections with the US government at the "highest level" after it emerged that two of the six are British citizens. News in depth: Terrorism and global security Click here
Foreign office minister Baroness Symons said London would pursue a "very vigorous discussion" to satisfy its concerns that US procedures may not guarantee a fair trial. "I think there are issues about the principle of using military commissions," she told BBC Radio.
UK ministers acknowledge they are powerless to change the US's chosen legal processes, but the decision to try two UK detainees puts Tony Blair's support for the US-led Iraq war back on the agenda just as the UK prime minister wants to move on.
Human rights lawyers said the military process was discriminatory as US detainees can be tried by ordinary civilian courts. Those accused in the tribunals, which will take place behind closed doors, will have no right to appeal outside the military.
The Pentagon said on Thursday that the six may have attended al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and had been involved in financing the group, recruiting and protecting Osama bin Laden, its leader. The continuing US presence in Iraq could have allowed al-Qaeda to mobilise supporters, German intelligence said on Friday as they warned that the organisation was still capable of attacks in European cities.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
Report: Earth's weather and climate becoming increasingly harsh
7/4/2003
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2003-07-04-extreme-weather_x.htm
GENEVA (AP) - Record extremes in weather and climate will likely become increasingly common as temperatures rise because of climate change, the United Nations weather agency said.
"New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the globe but in recent years, the number of such extremes has been increasing," the World Meteorological Organization said in a statement Wednesday.
The Switzerland-based agency has just registered the hottest June since measurements were first taken 250 years ago, with temperatures nearly 11 degrees Fahrenheit above average. In neighboring France, maximum temperatures in June were more than 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).
WMO said there were 562 tornados in the United States in May, an increase of 163 on the previous record. The southeastern part of the country was exceedingly wet and cold this spring, with some states receiving about 14 more inches of rain than usual from March through May.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, however, has found no connection between warming and the number of tornadoes in the USA. "No systematic changes in the frequency of tornadoes, thunder days, or hail events are evident in the limited areas analyzed" in the 20th century, the report, released in 2001, says.
At least 1,400 people died in India from hot weather that peaked at 120 degrees F, while in Sri Lanka heavy rainfalls from tropical cyclone 01B resulted in flooding and landslides that killed at least 300 people.
WMO said all these extreme events were taken into account by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has found average global temperatures rose by 0.6 C over the course of the 20th century and the increase is accelerating.
Still, the IPCC report's findings conclude that "no global changes have been noted during the 20th century in terms of the numbers of storms or their strength."
The WMO reports: "While the trend toward warmer globally averaged surface temperatures has been uneven over the course of the last century, the trend for the period since 1976 is roughly three times that for the past 100 years as a whole."
"Global average land and sea surface temperatures in May 2003 were the second highest since records began in 1880."
The agency said it does not yet know the extent of involvement of El Niño and other major short-term climate changes on extreme weather events but research is continuing.
El Niño is characterized by rising sea temperatures and changes in the jet stream, leading to increased rain on the Pacific Coast of Central America and lower rainfall than usual in areas like Indonesia and northern Australia. But the phenomenon can affect weather around the globe.
-------- genetics
Europe lifts ban on GM food
July 04, 2003
By Zachary A. Goldfarb
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030703-085839-8327r.htm
Africa will come under increasing pressure to accept U.S. foreign aid in the form of genetically modified (GM) food following Europe's decision this week to end its ban on GM food, officials and experts said.
President Bush is expected to press the case for GM food aid on his first trip to Africa next week.
U.S. officials had said a 5-year-old European Union ban on GM foods was starving already famished Africans, who were reluctant to accept U.S. aid out of fear that they wouldn't be able to export food products to Europe.
The EU ruled this week that member states could decide for themselves whether to import GM food, so long as it is clearly labeled and can be traced.
"I think the decision will help" get food aid to African countries, said Max Finberg, special assistant to the U.S. ambassador to U.N. food agencies, Tony P. Hall. "Anything that moves it from a war of words to a focus on science, to treating people, can only help everybody involved."
With up to 30 million Africans starving, decisions about GM food can have far-reaching implications.
"Africa is being used as the battleground for the uptake of GM," said Alex Wijeratna, a senior political lobbyist at ActionAid, a London group that says U.S. aid policy is driven by the farm industry.
He added that European policy was better because it provides cash to African countries, which they can then use to buy food surpluses from neighboring countries. GM food, he said, creates dependencies on U.S. suppliers.
The Bush administration, which is suing the EU over its GM food policy in the World Trade Organization, said the new policy still erects too many barriers to free trade.
Patrick Carey, the senior vice president for programs at CARE USA, an aid organization, pointed out that the EU's labeling requirement may be "inherently prejudicial about whether the food is safe."
Officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development and several African countries said it was too early to speculate on the new policy's impact.
John Mulutula, the press secretary for the chancery of Zambia, the only African country to reject all U.S. GM food aid, acknowledged that European pressure contributed to Zambia's position.
"There was a concern that our exports into Europe would not have been accepted," Mr. Mulutula said.
African countries who accepted U.S. GM food aid, mostly corn, worried that the corn, if planted instead of eaten, could pollinate nearby crops. If that happened, the contaminated crops would no longer be exportable to Europe.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Please Support HR-2647, the
"Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act of 2003"
July 4, 2003
Proposition One Committee
http://prop1.org
On June 26, 2003, U.S. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton re-introduced the "Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act" for the sixth time. You can read about prior introductions at http://prop1.org/prop1/
The new Bill number is . It will be assigned to Committees, each of which will need to be lobbied for passage without markups or deletions, so that the entire House and Senate can vote on the bill as it stands. You can keep up with the progress of the bill by going to http://thomas.loc.gov and requesting the information on HR-2647.
The text of the legislation follows. We urge you to contact your Congressional leaders (House and Senate) and ask for their support. We make it easy to write your legislators at http://prop1.org/prop1/letter.htm. Since this is an election year, you should also contact all presidential candidates both through email (see http://nucnews.net for candidates' websites), and by asking questions when the candidates campaign in your neighborhood. It's really important to be active in this presidential campaign. We humans might not survive another Bush administration.
We urge you to send a fax or call Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton to thank her for re-introducing this legislation for the sixth time, and thus living up to her promise in 1994. Few legislators can claim the same.
Text:
Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act of 2003
(Introduced in US House of Representatives June 26, 2003)
http://thomas.loc.gov = HR-2647
HR 2647 IH 108th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 2647
To provide for nuclear disarmament and economic conversion in accordance with District of Columbia Initiative Measure Number 37 of 1992.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
June 26, 2003
Ms. NORTON introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services, and in addition to the Committee on International Relations, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To provide for nuclear disarmament and economic conversion in accordance with District of Columbia Initiative Measure Number 37 of 1992.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act of 2003'.
SEC. 2. REQUIREMENT FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT AND ECONOMIC CONVERSION.
The United States Government shall--
(1) disable and dismantle all its nuclear weapons and refrain from replacing them at any time with any weapons of mass destruction;
(2) redirect resources that are currently being used for nuclear weapons programs to use--
(A) in converting all nuclear weapons industry employees, processes, plants, and programs smoothly to constructive, ecologically beneficial peacetime activities during the 3 years following the effective date of this Act, and
(B) in addressing human and infrastructure needs such as housing, health care, education, agriculture, and environmental restoration, including alternative fuel sources;
(3) undertake vigorous good faith efforts to eliminate war, armed conflict, and all military operations; and
(4) actively promote policies to induce all other countries to join in these commitments for world peace and security.
SEC. 3. EFFECTIVE DATE.
This Act shall take effect when the President certifies to the Congress that all foreign countries possessing nuclear weapons have established legal requirements comparable to those set forth in section 2 and those requirements have taken effect.
~~
[Final note: When this idea was voted on by the savvy and diverse citizens of Washington, DC, in 1993, as Voter Initiatve 37 (see http://prop1.org/prop1/), voters were heard to say when exiting the polls, "How could I vote against it?" Tell your legislators you feel the same way. If they don't listen, then bring it to the voters yourself in a voter initiative. We can help you - call 202-682-4282 if you decide this is something you want to do. No charge, just requirement that you MEAN it. et]
----
Brainerd peace group denied a spot in city's July 4th parade
July 4, 2003
Allen Powell II,
Minneapolis Star Tribune
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3971035.html
A Brainerd peace group has been told it can't march in today's July 4th parade, and event organizers and police say it's because they can't guarantee the safety of the marchers.
Members of the Brainerd Area Coalition for Peace wanted to march to protest the war in Iraq, but were told by Brainerd Community Action, which organized the parade, that there weren't enough police officers available to protect them.
Police Chief John Bolduc said his department will be spread too thin to have an officer march with the coalition in case of violence, and was notified too close to the event to make additional arrangements.
"We have no way of regaining control once we lose control," said Bolduc, about a possible riot. "There is no other help."
He said his office will have 22 local officers and about five Crow Wing County deputies monitoring the roughly 33,000 people expected in Brainerd for the weekend's events.
The possibilities that some crowd members will probably be drinking alcohol and that some military veterans at the parademight not react well to a peace protest also were considered, Bolduc said.
But Sara Dunlap, a coalition member and wife of a retired Marine, said the group supports U.S. troops and would not display incendiary signs.
The coalition was offered its own booth near the police station and entry into next year's parade instead of marching, Bolduc said.
But Larry Fisk, a coalition member from Fort Ripley, Minn., said the group rejected the offer because it would not give the group adequate exposure.
He said the city would have protected minority marchers if there were a racist element in the crowd, and it should protect coalition members.
"Either we're being discriminated against because of our ideology, or Brainerd is claiming that they have this event and can't control the crowd."
Fisk also said the coalition faxed its application for entry to parade organizers on June 20, more than enough time for them to arrange additional security.
Neither Nancy Cross, executive director of Brainerd Community Action, nor City Attorney Tom Fitzpatrick returned phone calls to their offices and homes Thursday, but in earlier news reports both said the tardiness of the application and safety concerns were their main reasons for denying the request.
However, James Dehen, a Brainerd City Council member and liaison between the city and Community Action, said there is no set deadline for applications. He said that while the city respects the coalition's views, it was concerned that there might be problems.
"Brainerd is a small town with a great celebration," Dehen said. "We were concerned about public safety."
But Kelly Bevans, another council member, said he cannot remember any reports of violence during demonstrations by the coalition or any other peace group. Bevans said the community has been pretty supportive of peace demonstrators.
Bolduc agreed, although he said he was uncertain how a generally patriotic crowd would react to a peace theme.
Kristen Blann, a coalition member, said she finds it disturbing that in a celebration of America's independence, a group with dissenting views about the war is not being allowed to voice them.
She also finds it troubling that Community Action, which is funded through a tax levy and received $10,000 from the city for fireworks, is responsible for that denial.
"I don't think the founding fathers would have approved of the climate in this country," she said.
Allen Powell II is at apowell@startribune.com.
----
Judge says parade can exclude gay group
July 04, 2003
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030704-090320-9665r.htm
HONOLULU, July 4 -- A federal judge has ruled organizers of a Honolulu Family Day parade can exclude gay groups.
The parade, sponsored by the Christian Coalition petitioned the court to exclude three gay groups wanting to particpate in the parade Saturday.
U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor's ruled that even though the parade is part of the city's Family Day activities, it is being privately sponsored by the coalition, which has the right to deny an application to groups it does not agree with.
The coalition had threatened to cancel the parade if the gay rights groups were allowed to march, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported.
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Brent White said the decision "sends a terrible message that it's OK for the city to behave improperly and use taxpayer money to fund discrimination." White said there is not enough time to appeal Thursday's decision but that the lawsuit against the city and the coalition will continue.
--------
Liberty first
July 4, 2003
St. Petersburg Times Editorial
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/07/04/Opinion/Liberty_first.shtml
Our Declaration of Independence, adopted July 4, 1776, described the conditions under which free men are justified in revolting against their government: "(W)henever any form of government becomes destructive of (the people's unalienable rights) it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."
The principle that government serves "from the consent of the governed" is a simple yet powerful idea that has forged much of modern history. Through that ideal, the experiment in self-determination and individual liberty that is the United States of America was born.
It has proved to be an enduring formula for the advancement and fulfillment of man. To this day, no other country on earth guarantees its citizens more freedom or more opportunity to influence their government.
But just as the Declaration's primary author, Thomas Jefferson, warned that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," there are times when even a nation devoted to the ideals of freedom is steered wrong. When fear and insecurity rise, people are naturally inclined to want to follow leaders who promise to find safety in the forfeit of liberty.
In earlier times, A. Mitchell Palmer, Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover capitalized on fear to consolidate power. Today, Attorney General John Ashcroft plays a similar role. Wrapped in the prominence of his office, Ashcroft has used the war on terrorism to reduce our system's checks and balances to scratch on a page.
Ashcroft's opportunism started only days after the attacks of Sept. 11, when he began a campaign of intimidating members of Congress into passing the 342-page USA Patriot Act - a bill giving expansive new search powers to government. His tactic was to make members think that without the new law another attack would be a certainty and Congress would be to blame. It was passed - even though a majority of Congress did not have a chance to read it.
Among the disturbing aspects of the Patriot Act is the way it sharply limits the role of the judiciary in overseeing government searches. The law gives the Justice Department the ability to access huge databases of information, including library records, without any individual suspicion of terrorism. It also expands the definition of "terrorism," potentially including environmental and animal rights activists who engage in civil disobedience. And it grants new unilateral powers to the attorney general to detain immigrants.
Today, in addition to celebrating Independence Day with fireworks and hot dogs, Americans of every political stripe are working to turn back these damaging government policies. Already, 130 local governments, including the states of Vermont, Alaska and Hawaii, have passed resolutions calling on Congress to restore civil liberties by modifying the Patriot Act. And many more are considering similar measures.
The grass-roots activism that is a quintessential part of the American character is now being exercised in defense of America's first principles. Pretty soon, the call will be too loud for Congress to ignore.
Americans still care about the principles of liberty, born that first day of independence 227 years ago.
----
Website turns tables on government officials
By Hiawatha Bray,
Globe Staff,
7/4/2003
http://business.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2003/07/04/website_turns_tables_on_government_officials
Annoyed by the prospect of a massive new federal surveillance system, two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are celebrating the Fourth of July with a new Internet service that will let citizens create dossiers on government officials.
The system will start by offering standard background information on politicians, but then go one bold step further, by asking Internet users to submit their own intelligence reports on government officials -- reports that will be published with no effort to verify their accuracy.
"It's sort of a citizen's intelligence agency," said Chris Csikszentmihalyi, assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab.
He and graduate student Ryan McKinley created the Government Information Awareness (GIA) project as a response to the US government's Total Information Awareness program (TIA).
Revealed last year, TIA seeks to track possible terrorist activity by analyzing vast amounts of information stored in government and private databases, such as credit card data. The system would use this information to analyze the actions of millions of people, in an effort to spot patterns that could indicate a terrorist threat.
News of the plan outraged civil libertarians and prompted Congress to set limits on the scope of such activity. The Defense Department then renamed the program Terrorist Information Awareness, to ease public concern.
But the controversy gave McKinley the idea for the GIA project. "If total information exists," he said, "really the same effort should be spent to make the same information at the leadership level at least as transparent -- in my opinion, more transparent."
McKinley worked with Csikszentmihalyi to design the GIA system. It's partly based on technology used to create Internet indexes such as Google. Software crawls around Internet sites that store large amounts of information about politicians. These include independent political sites like opensecrets.org, as well as sites run by government agencies. McKinley created software that ferrets out the useful data from these sites, and loads it into the GIA database. The result is a one-stop research site for basic information on key officials.
The site also takes advantage of round-the-clock political coverage provided by cable TV's C-Span networks. McKinley and Csikszentmihalyi use video cameras to capture images of people appearing on C-Span, which generally includes the names of people shown on screen. A computer program "reads" each name, and links it to any information about that person stored in the database. By clicking on the picture, a GIA user instantly gets a complete rundown on all available data about that person.
The GIA site constantly displays snapshots of the people appearing on C-Span at that moment. If there's a dossier on a particular person, clicking on the picture brings it up. A C-Span viewer watching a live government hearing could learn which companies have contributed to a member of Congress's reelection campaign, before the politician had even finished speaking.
All of the information currently on the site is available from public sources. But GIA will go one step further. Starting today, the site will allow the public to submit information about government officials, and this information will be made available to anyone visiting the site. No effort will be made to verify the accuracy of the data.
This approach to Internet publishing isn't new. It resembles a method known as Wiki, in which a website is constantly amended by visitors who contribute new information. The best known Wiki site, www.wikipedia.org, is an online encyclopedia created entirely by visitors who have voluntarily written nearly 140,000 articles, on subjects ranging from astronomy to Roman mythology. Any Wikipedia user who thinks he has spotted an error or wants to add information can modify the article. Unlike at a standard encyclopedia operation, there is no central authority to edit or reject articles.
The GIA approach, though, raises the possibility that people could post libelous information, or data that unreasonably compromises a person's privacy.
That troubles Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology & Liberty Program of the American Civil Liberties Union. "We think that there should be some restrictions on the publishing of personally identifiable information, whether it involves government officials or not," he said.
But he noted that the public has a right to know some things about a politician that would be properly kept private about an ordinary citizen. For instance, voters have a right to know where a politician sends his children to school, if that politician has taken a strong stand on school vouchers.
"Do they have the right to publish every piece of data they're going to publish?" Steinhardt asked. "It's going to depend on what they publish."
In any case, Steinhardt said, McKinley and Csikszentmihalyi have a First Amendment right to set up the GIA project. And he said that it's a valuable response to the government's TIA surveillance. "I assume the point of this is, turnabout is fair play."
On a page of the GIA website, at opengov.media.mit.edu, McKinley and Csikszentmihalyi give their answer to questions about the legitimacy of their actions.
"Is it legal?" the site reads. "It should be."
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.
--------
Letter from a young soldier in Iraq
"President Bush has lost the respect of every soldier"
07/04/03
Information Clearinghouse: NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4121.htm
From a soldier's father:
"My son is in the U.S.Army and currently stationed in Baghdad. I hear from him every three or four days. He is like most of the young men and women who went to fight over there inasmuch as he was proud to go and achieve what President Bush said was necessary. I have seen his attitude take a U-turn during the last month. At first he was saying: "I wonder why we are not doing this or that to help make life better for our soldiers?" Then he started to wonder why we were not doing more to help the Iraqi people who are suffering under terrible conditions. Not enough water or food, no electricity most of the time, a terrible shortage of medical supplies and medical staff, basically they are living like animals. Then he started to worry about the safety of our troops in the area. He says they are sitting ducks and easy targets for Iraqi people bent upon gaining revenge for slain family members and by those who hold the U.S. responsible for the terrible conditions they find themselves in. Ye sterday he had a different message altogether."
"Get us out of here now! There is nothing we can do to pacify the Iraqi people except get out of their country and allow them to restore order in whatever way THEY wish."
And, allow me to give you his remarks when he was informed of President Bush's brash remarks saying "Bring them on." He said:
"Myself and every last man in my unit are deeply offended that our President would make such a statement inviting us to be attacked. President Bush has lost the respect of every soldier I have spoken to because of his speaking those irresponsible words. Those words spread like wild-fire amoung the troops.
We are here because he ordered us to be here and now for him to make such a ridiculous statement inviting violence towards us causes us to lose respect for him and his judgement. We are learning that we never should have come here in the first place. Believe me Dad, there is a completely different attitude now. The fact that the President gave rich people a tax cut and didn't do anything for military families is hurtful. Where there was once pride and satisfaction in defeating an enemy there is now regret and shame. God Bless America.
Your loving Son, Donny
http://webx.tennessean.com/webx/cgi-bin/WebX?14@24.NaVVaJXhniB^7@.ee6ea9c/88
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