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NUCLEAR
A New Direction for Chinese Diplomacy
R&R for Charlie Company
South Korean president puts aid on the table
U.S. Tests Land-Based Defense Missile
Lugar Focuses on Russian Disarmament
'Unusual Events' at Nuke Power Plants
Automatic Shutdowns Went Smoothly at Nuclear Plants
MILITARY
Massive military contractor's media mess
US troops risk being "like Israelis" -Iraqi royal
Iraq's cleric who would be heard
Inside the resistance
Training begins for Iraq's militia
Saddam's sorcerer says he'll be found, but dead
Just another day
Shiite Group Plans Militia to Protect Holy Sites From G.I.'s
Cleric Warns U.S. to Leave Baghdad Slum
Blackout? Iraqis say try it for four months
Saddam Hussein can tap billions in dollars, gold, diamonds
Israel Agrees to Pull Out of Four Towns
Israel to Turn Over Security in 2 Cities
Turkey asks U.S. to foil Israeli plans for Mount
NATO calls the shots on bases
Sending troops to Iraq un-Islamic: MMA
Rebels Attack Russian Troops in Chechnya
Pentagon Scales Back Training Exercises Abroad
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Post-9/11 Emergency Training Pays Off
Bhutan refugees remain in limbo
Momentum growing against Patriot Act
Tips, Traced Call Led to Capture of Al Qaeda Suspect
ENERGY AND OTHER
Incident Shines Light on Stalled Energy Upgrade
Bush Says National Parks Need Repairs
ACTIVISTS
Tax Protester Faces Justice Dept.
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- china
A New Direction for Chinese Diplomacy
Nuclear Threat in North Korea Prompts Ambitious Moves Toward Multilateralism
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 16, 2003; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1356-2003Aug15.html
BEIJING, Aug. 15 -- Fearing chaos on its borders, China has come to a new realization about the risk of nuclear weapons and war on the Korean Peninsula and launched its most significant diplomatic offensive in years to find a peaceful solution to the standoff, Chinese analysts and government officials said.
Since July, Chinese diplomats have been crisscrossing the globe in an attempt to secure a new meeting between officials from the United States and North Korea. That activity bore fruit on Thursday with the announcement that talks would be held Aug. 27-29 in Beijing among North Korea, China, the United States, Russia, Japan and South Korea.
Despite the gulf separating the United States and North Korea, Chinese officials sounded upbeat today.
"China is playing a constructive role in helping to bring the nuclear issue of the peninsula on to the track of a peaceful solution," Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said after returning to Beijing from talks in Seoul and Tokyo. "And we are happy that we seem to enjoy full support of all the international community."
China played a key role in persuading North Korea to shelve its opposition to multi-party talks and its insistence that only North Korea and the United States should negotiate, Chinese officials said. They added that Chinese interlocutors helped persuade the Bush administration to consider offering North Korea some type of security guarantee, which the administration had been loath to do.
Chinese officials and analysts said Beijing's fresh efforts appear to be driven by several factors. China now generally accepts U.S. intelligence suggesting that North Korea has nuclear devices, marking a significant change from last year when Chinese officials routinely questioned the quality of U.S. information. One Chinese military officer noted that that China now has more nuclear neighbors -- Russia, India, Pakistan and potentially North Korea -- than any country in the world.
Also, with the failure of the first round of talks between North Korea and the United States in April, also brokered by Beijing, China was forced to take a more active role in the region. China has a special relationship with North Korea; it lost 1 million men defending North Korea against the United States in the Korean War and today supplies 70 percent of the country's energy needs and much of its food. This role meant that China needed to get more deeply involved, Western diplomats said.
"China realized that if things got out of control, North Korea could go crazy and President Bush could go crazy, too," said Chu Shulong, an expert in international security at Tsinghua University. "We saw danger on both sides."
More broadly, experts say, China's dynamism on this issue also reflects a deeper change in Chinese foreign policy. For years, China railed against the international political and economic system, calling for world revolution. It opposed almost all multilateral organizations, viewing them as platforms for China's enemies to gang up on Beijing. But with its accession to the World Trade Organization, its seat on the U.N. Security Council and its participation in other international bodies, China has garnered considerable benefits from the system it once criticized.
China has helped start its own multilateral group, the Shanghai Cooperative Organization, which includes China, Russia and several Central Asian states. In another breakthrough, that group has just finished its first joint military training exercises in Kazakhstan and China's restive Xinjiang Autonomous Region.
Hu Jintao became the first Chinese president to attend the Group of Eight summit in June. Just a few years ago, China lambasted the organization as a "rich man's club." Last October, Chinese negotiators began talks with NATO, once viewed here as a tool of American imperialism.
"As China rises," Chu said, "there is a sense that we are now insiders in the international system. We benefit from it. It's in our interest to maintain it."
Another trigger for China's change is the transformation in the global security environment after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Chinese officials and analysts said. Before Sept. 11, China's rise was viewed by many in the Bush administration as a nascent threat to American interests in Asia. Now such talk is muted as the United States concentrates on fighting terrorists, conquering Iraq and other challenges.
"As long as the U.S. is fighting terrorism," Chu said, "China will not be the focus of U.S. concerns."
For the first time in more than a decade, the Communist Party did not mention "opposing hegemonism," code for the United States, in its party platform issued at the end of its 16th Congress, which ushered in new leadership last November.
Shi Yinhong, an expert on international security issues at People's University, said China's position on the North Korean issue has evolved as the situation deteriorated following the April talks.
First, North Korea all but admitted it was pursuing a nuclear weapon. Then the Bush administration began making preparations for sanctions against North Korea, which Chinese officials believed could lead to war. Beijing opposed U.S. plans to take the issue to the U.N. Security Council. China was also alarmed by Pentagon plans to redeploy U.S. troops in South Korea away from the border.
Last month, China embarked on an unusually active diplomatic effort. On July 17, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that China believed the situation on the Korean Peninsula was at a "critical and sensitive moment." Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo spent four days in Pyongyang, where he presented North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, with a letter from President Hu Jintao urging a resumption of talks. Dai then flew to Washington, where he met Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Dai then brought a proposal back from the United States for more talks. Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi has also shuttled between Washington and Pyongyang, delivering tough messages to both sides, Chinese officials said.
Visiting Beijing last month, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said "pressure from China" played a particularly important role in convincing North Korea to return to the bargaining table.
Shi said China's views on the issue have evolved considerably since the nuclear crisis erupted last October, when North Korean negotiators told Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly in Pyongyang about North Korea's secret nuclear program.
"Then China's view was that it was all America's fault and that the U.S. should solve it," Shi said. "We believed North Korea had a nuclear program but it was unclear how much North Korea really wanted a bomb."
Now, he said, China's assessment of the situation "has become more serious."
"China's attitude since last October has steadily hardened against any North Korean nuclear program," he said.
Shi and others say China's gambit is a risky one, especially in a political system that is so averse to risk-taking. However, China now realizes the prospect of a nuclear bomb on the Korean Peninsula is a real one and that it could trigger proliferation to neighbors such as Japan and South Korea, and even prompt Taiwan to resume a program that the United States helped suppress in the 1970s.
"If there is success on the Korean Peninsula, China's influence will rise all over northeast Asia," Shi said. "Slowly, a more mature foreign policy is in the making here. China is undergoing an intensive learning process."
-------- depleted uranium
R&R for Charlie Company
Home from Iraq, soldiers fight another enemy: Stress
By RON MARTZ,
August 16, 2003
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0803/16charlie.html
FORT STEWART -- Still giddy from their homecoming high of a week ago, soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division's Task Force 1-64 began scattering across the country on Friday for some much-needed rest and relaxation.
For these soldiers, who spent more than 10 months in Iraq and Kuwait and saw some of the toughest fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the next few weeks will provide one of the first major tests of the Army's renewed efforts to help GIs deal with the psychological and physical stresses of war.
"There is a huge difference now in what the Army is providing soldiers to help them cope with these issues than there was before," said Capt. Jason Conroy, commander of the task force's Charlie Company.
Ever since the bulk of major combat ended in Iraq in late April, Charlie Company soldiers have been going through what the Army refers to as "decompression tasks." The tasks are a series of physical and psychological tests designed to alert military officials to any health or emotional issues that might eventually cause problems, such as new illnesses related to the war or post traumatic stress disorder. The program includes a complete physical examination, blood tests for various diseases, a tuberculosis test, a urine test for depleted uranium contamination, plus additional inoculations to prevent anthrax.
The soldiers also were instructed on how to deal with stress and anger, common reactions to being in a combat zone in which they had to kill and see friends killed or wounded.
The military is attempting to help soldiers alleviate combat stress after virtually ignoring it for decades. The efforts were prompted in part when four soldiers who had recently returned to Fort Bragg, N.C., from Afghanistan were accused of killing their wives last summer. Although military officials believe the marriages had problems before the soldiers went overseas, they say combat stress was likely a contributing factor in the deaths.
Conroy said Charlie Company's decompression was helped along after the soldiers left Baghdad for Fallujah in early June. Fallujah was considered a hotbed of anti-American and pro-Saddam Hussein sentiment, but the situation there gave soldiers a chance to reflect on the previous nine months.
"When we were in Baghdad, you could still feel the tension and frustration among the troops. But when we got to Fallujah we were off in a compound by ourselves, and although it was still a combat zone, the guys were able to do things like play computer games or watch a [DVD] movie or write a letter home that let them get back to more of a normal life," he said.
Since their return to Fort Stewart, Charlie Company soldiers had four days off to get reacquainted with their families. They returned to work Wednesday, and have spent much of the time since then getting physical exams or filling out paperwork for their time off.
They also spent time together away from the combat zone, telling and retelling war stories and talking about what they will do over the next few weeks. There were few responsibilities, except to show up on time and fill out forms.
The time since Wednesday also has been filled with some important discussions. Conroy and other military officials have repeatedly urged soldiers to take care of themselves and each other, and to seek counseling if needed. Seeking help no longer carries the stigma it once did, the soldiers were told, and it will not be reflected in their military records.
"If you have some issues, call us," Conroy told them.
Spec. Michael Harris, a tank driver for Charlie Company, said the big problem for most of the single soldiers has been readjusting to the time change.
"Some of us can't sleep at all because of the time change. There isn't much you can do, so you just force yourself to sleep," said Harris, 22, of Missoula, Mont.
It's a different story for young married soldiers, said Spec. Michael Donohue, also a tank driver.
"You come home, and things aren't the same as you left them, and you get frustrated," said Donohue, 23, of Nashua, N.H. He said his wife, who has handled everything at home during the past 10 months, is much more independent now -- something he will have to adjust to.
Donohue said he plans to seek counseling to help him deal with being back home. "I don't know how they did it in other wars," he said.
Col. Joseph DiSalvo, commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, of which Charlie Company is a part, said Friday, "A lot of delayed stress may crop up" while the soldiers are taking time off. He urged task force soldiers to remember the unit's legacy and the nine brigade soldiers who died in combat in Iraq.
"Don't do anything dumb that's going to detract from [the legacy]," he said.
-------- korea
South Korean president puts aid on the table
Roh promises economic assistance to North if it halts its nuclear weapons programs.
By JAE-SUK YOO
The Associated Press
Saturday, August 16, 2003
http://www.antiwar.com/ocregister/korea-aid.html
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - South Korea's president promised economic help for North Korea if it ends its nuclear development, while thousands of activists - some opposing of U.S. policy, others critical of Pyongyang - marched Friday demanding an end to the nuclear standoff.
Roh Moo-hyun's offer on the 58th anniversary of the Korean Peninsula's liberation from Japan at the end of World War II came ahead of Aug. 27-29 multilateral talks in Beijing aimed at defusing tension over the North's suspected development of nuclear weapons.
"North Korea should not miss this opportunity," Roh said in a nationally televised speech during a ceremony at the Independence Hall of Korea, south of Seoul.
Since the mid-1990s, North Korea has depended on outside help to feed its 22 million people.
Roh's offer came a day after Secretary of State Colin Pow ell said Washington and its allies "have put no economic proposals forward at the moment."
The Beijing talks involve the United States, China, Russia, Japan and both Koreas.
South Korean activists rallied in Seoul, hoping for a peaceful end to the nuclear standoff. But they differed widely on how to deal with North Korea.
In one demonstration in central Seoul, 10,000 students and civic leaders echoed a key North Korean demand, urging Washington to sign a nonaggression treaty with Pyong yang. Washington rejects such a treaty, but says it could put in writing assurances that it does not intend to attack North Korea.
"We condemn the United States, threatening a war on the Korean Peninsula," they chanted.
In another rally several blocks away, 5,000 activists and retired military officers demanded that Pyongyang immediately end its nuclear weapons programs. They burned a picture of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and a large North Korean flag, and accused anti-U.S. activists of trying to drive a wedge between Seoul and its key ally, Washington.
-------- missile defense
U.S. Tests Land-Based Defense Missile
Sat Aug 16,
(AP)
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=542&u=/ap/20030816/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/brf_missile_launch_1&printer=1
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - A missile was launched Saturday in a test of its flight performance and potential for use as part of a land-based defense system.
The prototype, launched from a silo at Vandenberg Air Force Base, is designed to intercept limited long-range ballistic missiles. The Bush administration wants a missile defense system to include rockets based at Vandenberg.
The launch did not test the missile's ability to intercept an incoming rocket. Maj. Stacee Bako said more tests are planned this fall in the Marshall Islands.
The three-stage booster was designed by Orbital Sciences Corp.
-------- russia
Lugar Focuses on Russian Disarmament
By David Holley
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer,
August 16, 2003
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-lugar16aug16,1,1092560.story?coll=la-headlines-world
MOSCOW - Despite shortcomings in Russian cooperation on arms control, U.S. funding for the destruction of Soviet-era weaponry should proceed unimpeded, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said here Friday.
"Our objective, and the Russian objective at the highest level, is to destroy weapons of mass destruction," Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) told a news conference. "It is not useful to set up conditions that there must be 100% compliance before we do anything."
Out of 44,000 tons of chemical weapons that Moscow has acknowledged producing during Soviet times, only about 400 tons have been destroyed, Lugar said. And despite improved security at Russian arms depots, the risk of such weapons falling into terrorist hands is a significant threat, he added.
Comparing Russia's situation concerning chemical weapons with Iraq's, Lugar said: "To the extent the Iraqis have destroyed everything they ever produced, that simply puts them well ahead of where Russia is. We still have 39,600 [metric] tons to go, at enormous expense that cannot be sustained by the economy of this country presently, and that is why we are involved in attempting to accelerate the process."
Lugar is in Russia for talks with government officials about the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, under which the United States has spent about $7 billion to help destroy nuclear warheads, ballistic missiles, bombers, submarines and other weapons in former Soviet states.
The senator met Friday in Moscow with Munitions Agency Director Viktor Kholstov to discuss joint efforts to accelerate the elimination of chemical weapons.
Today, Lugar is scheduled to fly to Perm, about 700 miles east of Moscow, to observe the U.S.-financed destruction of mobile SS-24 and SS-25 intercontinental ballistic missiles that once threatened the United States.
At his news conference, Lugar criticized members of Congress who have tried to attach conditions to U.S. funding of the weapons destruction program. He also complained that Russian officials played into those critics' hands by being less than forthcoming about what might be left over from the Soviet Union's biological weapons program.
"Some members of Congress say, 'Is Russia complying, literally, to the dotted line, with all arms control treaties? There can't be cheating going on on the side while American taxpayer money is going in,' " Lugar said. "There is almost every year a dispute over whether Russia is complying with every aspect of this."
He said another battle over conditions for funding - and the approval of waivers allowing the president to ignore those conditions - was likely next month.
Lugar placed particular emphasis on a plant being built in the Siberian town of Shchuchye to destroy nearly 1.9 million chemical artillery shells stored there. Many are small enough to fit in a suitcase, he said. Just one of those shells can kill thousands of people, according to materials distributed at the news conference.
U.S. funding has helped bring enormous improvements in security at Russian weapons depots, but major risks remain, Lugar added.
The United States should "be active with Russian friends to destroy all of this so it cannot be appropriated by others, whether it be Chechens or Al Qaeda or whoever else might want to pick up a few," he said.
Security at Shchuchye and many other sites is strong enough to protect the chemical weapons against "passersby or a few persons who are out for mischief," he said, but there is a potential risk from armed attack as long as the weapons exist.
Lugar complained that Russian officials were still in denial over the Soviet Union's biological weapons program and what might remain from it. "I heard the phrase again yesterday in conversation: 'Sen. Lugar, you must understand, we do not have any biological weapons,' " he said.
"The United States believes that there were four installations that are military bio-facilities," he said. "Now, conceivably, the general who visited with me yesterday may be correct that at all four of these, there is not a single weapon at this moment. There may be pathogens in an icebox. The fact is, we don't know."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
'Unusual Events' at Nuke Power Plants
A Timeline for August 14, 2003
By DON MONIAK
August 16, 2003
http://www.counterpunch.org/moniak08162003.html
August 14, 2003 was an historic day for the nuclear power industry, as nine nuclear reactors at seven power plants in New York, Ohio, Michigan, and New Jersey were forced to shut down during largest and most severe electricity blackout in U.S. history.
While the rest of the world described the blackout as a massive power failure, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), in perhaps its most classic understatement to date, termed the widespread loss of power as "instabilities" in the electrical transmission grid, while assuring people that All plants are in a safe condition, using their emergency diesel generators where appropriate.(1).
The Commission elaborated on the issue Friday, stating that "Safety systems at all the shut-down plants operated successfully, and plants stabilized in a safe shut-down condition. Adequate safety was maintained at all times."
All seven plants issued an "unusual" event report, which the Commission described as "the lowest of four classes of emergency, and means an incident is in process or has occurred indicating a potential degradation of plant safety. No releases of radioactive material requiring off-site response or monitoring have occurred or are expected."
The Commission neglected to mention that had the unexpected occurred, and a full-blown higher-level emergency developed, the emergency sirens were not working at most plants--meaning that a safety system was not operating correctly. The Indian Point NPP in New York also suffered additional complications. This will not prevent the Commission from issuing glowering reports that the plants successfully prevented a major catastrophe--which in the nuclear industry is the primary standard for "safe" conditions.
Following is the timeline of events as published by the NRC in its "Event Notification Report for August 15, 2003." All times are Eastern Daylight Time, and indicate time of report, not of actual event--in general a 30-60 minute difference.
09:10 The Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Wisconsin, which did not suffer any outages, did report that, "all 13 Kewaunee County sirens had a communications problem that rendered them out of service. The percent siren coverage population lost is 68.52%."
16:33: The Perry NPP in Ohio declared an emergency unusual event, stating: "Automatic reactor scram due to a loss of offsite power. All [control] rods fully inserted. Supplying power to vital buses via emergency diesel generators. All system operating properly."
16:39 to 16:50: The infamous Indian Point NPP in New York reported its two reactors having suffered an "Automatic reactor scram due to a loss of offsite power. All rods fully inserted. Supplying power to vital buses via emergency diesel generators. All systems operating properly." The event was later updated, with a declaration that "RPS Actuation (loss of flow) due to loss of site ' power. Auto actuation of AFW in response to the unit trips. Auto Start and Load of Emergency diesel generators in response to the loss of off-site power."
16:46: The Ginna NPP in Upstate New York reported an "Automatic reactor trip due to a loss of offsite power. All rods fully inserted into the core. All emergency systems operated as expected."
16:54: Davis Besse NPP in Ohio, which is shut down due to numerous safety problems, declared an unusual event due to loss of offsite power, stating " All systems operated as expected. Decay Heat pumps are available if needed."
17:10: The Palisades NPP in Michigan reported that, "At 1607 EDT a significant electrical power grid disturbance occurred resulting in a momentary drop in voltage at the site, including both 2400 VAC safety busses 1C and 1D. The reduced voltage on the 2400VAC safety busses caused both emergency diesel generators to auto start, but not load. The plant is stable at pre-event conditions."
17:15: The Nine-mile NPP, Reactor 1, in Upstate New York reported "Automatic reactor scram due to a loss of offsite power. All rods fully inserted into the core. All emergency core cooling systems are operating properly and the emergency diesel generators are operating properly."
17:17: The FitzPatrick NPP in New York reported, "Automatic reactor scram due to a loss of offsite power. All rods fully inserted into the core. All emergency core cooling systems and the emergency diesel generators are operating properly."
17:34: The Nine-mile NPP, Reactor 2, in Upstate New York reported, "The plant lost off site power due to grid disturbance which resulted in a reactor trip from 100% power. The NOUE was declared because of loss of off site power was greater than 15 minutes."
18:16: The Oyster Creek NPP in New Jersey reported a "Reactor scram from 100% due to off site electrical grid instability, but did not lose off site power. Reactor conditions at 1730 are normal reactor water level, reactor pressure 850-1000psig, MSIV's closed and all recirc pumps are off and reactor is in hot shutdown with all rods inserted."
18:49: Indian Point NPP reported that "Emergency sirens lost in four counties due to a loss of power. At approximately 1830 hours power starting to be returned to the sirens." 20:07 Ginna NPP updated its situation, stating that it "Received grid disturbance that caused reactor trip at 1611. The trip occurred due to over temperature delta set point being reached from load swings experienced on the generator. Subsequently in the recovery process, the Auxiliary Feedwater Pumps auto started from a signal from the Main Feedwater Pumps being secured. As a result of grid problems it was noted that Ginna did not meet the required number of emergency sirens (greater than 25% of sirens without power).
20:08. The Fermi NPP in Michigan reported, "The reactor scrammed from 100% power due to fluctuations occurring on the main generator and a loss of off site power. All rods fully inserted and all MSIV's closed. Reactor level is being maintained in the normal band of 173 to 214 inches using RCIC. Reactor pressure is being controlled via SRV's in lo-lo set mode between 905 and 1017 psig. Isolations occurred as expected for level 2 and level 3. HPCI and RCIC started on level 2 signal."
21:08 Ginna NPP "exited" the unusual event condition after restoration of off-site power.
23:40: More problems emerged at Indian Point NPP Unit 3, which reported, "RPS Actuation (loss of flow) due to loss of offsite power. Auto actuation of AFW in response to the unit trips. Auto start & load of Emergency Diesel Generators in response to the loss of offsite power. Unit 3 also experienced a second AFW auto start during the event. Unit 3 also entered Tech Spec LCO 3.0.3 for loss of two offsite circuits and one EDG inoperable. #31 EDG was declared inoperable when its associated Fuel oil storage tank inventory decreased below required."
August 15, 2003
00:35: Fitzpatrick NPP reported that, "Reactor vessel pressure is 93 psig. Plant electrical loads have been shifted back to offsite power and the EDGs were secured. The licensee exited the Unusual Event at 0039. The licensee tentatively plans to remain shutdown for a brief period to do some maintenance work."
01:45. Nine Mile NPP units "exited" unusual event status when power was restored.
02:10 Indian Point "exited" the unusual event "upon confirmation of a stable off-site power."
[1] NRC News Release. August 14, 2003.
The plants were:
Indian Point 2 and 3 (in New York) Perry (in Ohio) Fermi (in Michigan) Ginna (in New York) FitzPatrick (in New York) Oyster Creek (in N.J.) Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 (in New York) Davis-Besse, Ohio. (already in shut down for "other reasons)
Don Moniak is an anti-nuke organizer living in Aiken, South Carolina. He can be reached at: donmoniak@bellsouth.net
--------
Automatic Shutdowns Went Smoothly at Nuclear Plants
Procedure Risky Because It Puts Strain on the Systems
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 16, 2003; Page A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1304-2003Aug15.html
When a blackout swept across the country Thursday afternoon, it was time to scram.
At 4:13 p.m., sensors at the Nine Mile Point nuclear reactors in upstate New York detected a sharp fluctuation in the electricity grid, initiating an automatic shutdown of the reactors. This kind of shutdown is known as "scramming" in industry jargon, and it's designed to protect equipment when power cannot be delivered reliably.
Almost immediately, control rods shot into the nuclear reactor core to stop the fission process, five diesel generators kicked in to keep the reactors cool, and power generation stopped abruptly, said Michael J. Wallace, chief nuclear officer at Constellation Energy Group, which operates the two reactors.
"The plant sensed a problem and automatically shut itself down . . . with very little operator involvement," Wallace said.
Nine nuclear reactors at seven plants in New York, New Jersey, Michigan and Ohio shut down automatically because of the grid failure Thursday, the largest stoppage in memory. There are 50 nuclear reactors in the Northeast and Midwest regions, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which monitors the safety of the industry.
Such abrupt stoppages can be risky, nuclear experts say, as the procedure can strain the plant's equipment. Water-cooled nuclear reactors operate at extremely high temperatures and pressures, on the order of 550 degrees Fahrenheit and 1,800 pounds per cubic inch, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, and rapid changes can damage machinery.
"It's obviously hard on the equipment, what you'd rather do is a very controlled shutdown, where you reduce temperature and pressure slowly. You have large valves slamming shut, pumps coming on, breakers opening and closing in a fast sequence," said Stephen Floyd, the vice president of regulatory affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute. "It's like running your car at 60 miles an hour down the highway and then slamming on the brakes. It's not very good, but nonetheless it's designed to do it."
The reactors shut down without any major incident, said Ken Clark, NRC spokesman.
"All of those plants functioned as they were designed and safely shut down," he said. "We have no reports of any equipment damage at this point."
Although stressful on the system, automatic shutdowns at nuclear plants are not uncommon, and can happen for several reasons, such as incorrect pressure levels in the reactor and problems with the pumps that provide water for the steam-powered turbines. The 103 nuclear reactors in the United States each shut down on average of about once every 18 months, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.
This shutdown occurred because the disturbance in the grid made it impossible to deliver energy produced by the plant. With no outlet for the energy, heat and pressure would continue to build up in the reactor, forcing the spinning turbines to unmanageable speeds. If the reactor did not shut down during a grid failure, it could be destroyed.
"If the generator went too fast it could tear itself apart due to centrifugal force," Floyd said.
Once the electrical system detects the need for a shutdown, 50 to 100 control rods automatically shoot inside the fuel elements in the reactor core. These rods absorb neutrons necessary for the chemical reactions involved in the fission process. When nuclear plants shut down for routine maintenance, it takes a couple of hours to drive in the control rods, while during the scram it takes seconds, said Michael Wallace.
Two of the nine reactors that shut down Thursday were at the Indian Point nuclear generating plant, about 20 miles north of New York City in Westchester County. By that night, power was back on, but the two Indian Point reactors wouldn't be functional until Sunday or early next week, said spokesman James Steets, as technicians must inspect the machinery for breakdowns.
"No question there's the nuclear component that makes the process more deliberative. It's always safety first in our business," Steets said. "A lot of time spent is just the review, testing equipment, determining its operability. . . . There may be issues and repairs that need to be done."
-------- MILITARY
-------- business
Massive military contractor's media mess
Inter Press Service
By Katrin Dauenhauer and Jim Lobe
Aug 16, 2003
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EH16Ak02.html
WASHINGTON - It is no secret that US defense and construction companies - particularly those with close ties to the administration of President George W Bush - are making a lot of money in the post-war rush for contracts in Iraq.
Firms whose directors held membership in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board (DPB) or in the "Committee for the Liberation of Iraq" (CLI) did not appear to suffer any handicap, either.
Two big winners, of course, were Halliburton, whose last CEO was Vice President Dick Cheney, and engineering giant Bechtel, whose senior vice president, Jack Sheehan, serves on the DPB. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, a Bechtel board member and former top executive, also chaired CLI, a supposedly non-governmental body that helped lead the march to war and dissolved itself late last month.
Less well known is San Diego-based Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC), one of the Pentagon's largest, most lucrative and politically connected contractors. Of the six billion dollars it earned in revenue last year, about two thirds came from the US Treasury, mostly from the defense budget.
SAIC is among the most mysterious and feared of the big 10 defense giants - feared because of its ruthlessness in procuring contracts, says the Washington Post; mysterious, in part because, as an employee-owned company, it does not have to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and because its press officers are notorious for not providing information. Indeed, for this article, SAIC press officers referred all questions to the Pentagon's general press office.
SAIC, which specializes in advanced technologies that can be applied to the battlefield, particularly in command and control systems, is now deeply involved in the Pentagon's most important operations in Iraq.
That it should be is really no surprise, taking into account its various connections. Among the hawks on the DPB, Rumsfeld's mini-think tank, for example, is retired Admiral William Owens, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who also served as SAIC's president and CEO and is currently its vice chairman.
Another member of SAIC's board is retired Army General Wayne Downing, who until last summer served as the chief counter-terrorism expert on the National Security Council (NSC) staff.
Before that, Downing also served as a lobbyist for the Iraqi National Congress (INC) led by Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial Iraqi expatriate long championed by the neo-conservatives in the administration and the DPB. Like Shultz, Downing was also on the board of the CLI, which, not coincidentally, worked closely with the INC.
Another prominent SAIC executive and former vice president also has a long-standing connection with Iraq: David Kay, the former UN weapons inspector who was hired by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in June to head the effort to track down Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
A former senior science official in the Reagan administration, Kay argued forcefully last fall against relying on UN weapons inspections to "contain" Iraq and for removing Saddam Hussein from power.
These connections may account for some of SAIC's success in landing Iraqi-related contracts.
For example, it has been running the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council (IRDC) since the body was established by the Pentagon in February.
According to press accounts, the 150 mostly-expatriate Iraqis employed in the program, most of whom have been in Baghdad since May, are to serve as the "Iraqi face" of the occupation authority. Senior members of the IRDC, many of who have been closely associated with the INC, hold posts at each of Iraq's 23 ministries with a mandate to rebuild them.
Perhaps not coincidentally, SAIC's corporate vice president for strategic assessment and development, Christopher Ryan Henry, joined the Pentagon as deputy undersecretary of defense for policy at the same time as the IRDC got underway, serving with Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, who was in overall charge of preparing for post-war Iraq.
SAIC is also a subcontractor under Vinnell Corporation, another big defense contractor that has long been in charge of training for the Saudi National Guard, hired to reconstitute and train a new Iraqi army.
Not much is known about the progress that is being made in either of those projects, but a third has become, by all accounts, a major disaster.
The Iraqi (sometimes referred to as "Indigenous") Media Network (IMN) project, valued initially at a minimum of US$25 million, was formally launched in mid-April as a successor to a psychological warfare program that beamed radio broadcasts before and during the war into Iraq from a C130 cargo plane called "Commando Solo". But the IMN was considerably more ambitious in scope, since its aim, as an outgrowth of the IRDC operation, was to put together a new information ministry, complete with television, radio and a newspaper, and the content that would make all three attractive to average Iraqis.
To oversee the job, SAIC hired away the director of Voice of America (VOA), Robert Reilly, an outspoken right-wing ideologue who began his public career in the 1980s as a propagandist in the White House for the Nicaraguan contras.
Reilly tangled immediately with his deputy, Mike Furlong, a Pentagon contractor who worked on media issues in Kosovo. Both men were out of the project by the end of June, according to knowledgeable sources.
"SAIC didn't have any suitable qualification to run a media network," according to Rohan Jayasekera, who has kept an eye on media developments in Iraq for London-based Index on Censorship. "The whole thing was so incredibly badly planned by them that no one could make sense of what they were doing," he said.
Jayasekera noted, for example, that SAIC ordered equipment that was incompatible with existing systems in Iraq and that it had made no plans for TV programming. When it asked for help from VOA, which considers itself a professional news organization, it was forced to rely on hastily patched together and dubbed network news programs, much of which would appeal only to a domestic audience.
"Increasingly, the newscasts became irrelevant for Iraqis," one source told The Washington Post in May. "They're not really interested in the Laci Peterson [murder] case."
A page reserved for the project on the website of the US provisional authority in Iraq said Wednesday, "There is no information available at this time."
Three months into the project, Ahmad Rikabi, a highly-regarded Iraqi expatriate brought in to help manage the operation, abruptly quit, apparently frustrated at the lack of planning, resources and investment that SAIC put in the project and the hemorrhaging of his professional staff, some of whom had not been paid for weeks.
"Saddam Hussein is doing better at marketing himself, through al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya Gulf channels," Rikabi told reporters.
One of the project's principal trainers, Don North, who had worked with media in Afghanistan, has also quit, complaining to the New York Times that the Pentagon was not interested in professional journalism.
"Its role was envisioned to be an information conduit," he said, "and not just rubberstamp flacking for the CPA", the initials of the occupation authority run by L Paul Bremer.
The Pentagon itself has kept the project stumbling along on short-term contracts with SAIC, but, according to Jayasekera, is actively looking for an alternative. The fact that that SAIC was hired in the first place, however, "appears to have been a serious mistake".
-------- iraq
US troops risk being "like Israelis" -Iraqi royal
16 Aug 2003
(Reuters)
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/4944520.htm
KUWAIT, Aug 16 - U.S. troops must step back and let Iraqis run their own affairs or risk being equated in Arab minds with the Israeli forces in Palestinian territory, a leading member of Iraq's former royal house said.
"What we want is to change the relationship between the coalition forces and our people," Sharif Ali bin Hussein said in an interview published in Kuwait on Saturday.
He stressed, however, that the Americans should remain for now to provide stability:
"On the basis that they should not interfere in our constitutional or political issues...and that they are our guests, not that we are prisoners in the hands of these forces," the former exile told the Gulf state's al-Qabas newspaper.
"What I fear most is that the picture will be similar to that of the Israeli forces in the Palestinian lands," said the 47-year-old London banker who returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein to promote the restoration of the monarchy.
He had left aged two when his cousin King Faisal II was killed in the 1958 revolt that ousted the British-installed royal family, a branch of Arabia's Hashemite dynasty.
"The reasons under which these forces entered Iraq have expired," he said. But he added: "I hope that my remarks are not understood that I want them to leave, because what is hoped for is that they help us rebuild the country and other things."
"We are an occupied people. It is our right to discuss the best ways and decisions to deal with this situation," he said.
Sharif Ali heads the Constitutional Monarchy Movement, which wants a democratic Iraq under a royal figurehead. Its support is not clear. The monarchy was not especially popular in its day.
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Iraq's cleric who would be heard
By Nir Rosen,
Aug 16, 2003
Asia Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EH16Ak01.html
BAGHDAD - The young cleric in black robes and white imama, or turban, dragged the older shop keeper to the door of Muqtada al-Sadr's barani, or office in Najaf. The barani is in an alley just before the Tomb of Ali, the holiest place for the world's 100 million Shi'ites after Mecca and Medina. Across from a store selling religious books, CDs and watches with pictures of Muqtada, his father and brothers on their faces, is an unmarked door identifiable only by the crowds that stand before it, earnestly making their case for entry and a meeting with Muqtada to an indifferent young cleric who peers down at them from behind the barely-opened door. The shop keeper was ordered to wait as the cleric entered to inquire whether it was permitted to sell shirts bearing the image of Muqtada's father, Muhamad Sadiq al-Sadr.
Although he is probably the single most powerful individual in Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr does not convey confidence. He is chubby, with the unkempt beard of the not entirely mature. He tries to maintain a permanent scowl to give himself more gravity. He sits hunched over, with arms folded, and his gentle feminine fingers intertwined. He has a lisp that might be caused by his broken or rotten front teeth.
Unlike other Shi'ite leaders, whose education and age bestows on them a rich vocabulary and an eloquent fus-hah, or classical Arabic, Muqtada speaks in a strong amia or colloquial Arabic, replete with slang and street expressions. His associates are all young like him, and have the same arrogance when dealing with others, as if acknowledging that they do not deserve all the attention they are receiving.
Muqtada has recently taken to claiming that he is 30, but his real age is probably more like 23, according to most people who have associated with him, including a former bodyguard. He punctuates his points with a dismissive puff, "eh" and sneers. He is very aggressive, which is highly unusual in the labyrinth of rumors, hints and innuendoes that typically make up a conversation with a Shi'ite leader.
He is the young upstart of the Shi'ite world, taking on the establishment, showing no respect for his elders, or his betters. In the eyes of the Shi'ite establishment embodied in the Hawza, or religious academy based in Najaf, Muqtada is just an arrogant street punk benefiting from his father's reputation and universal admiration. But he cannot be so easily ignored.
In July, Muqtada visited Baghdad for the first time since his father's death in 1999, on Monday June 23. He visited the Kadhimiya and Shaala neighborhoods before arriving in Thawra, where tens of thousands greeted him with tribal flags as well as Iraqi flags. Before Muqtada took the stage, a speaker read the "victory verse" from the Koran: "If you receive god's victory and you witness people joining Islam in great numbers thank your god and ask him to forgive you for god is very merciful." People chanted: "Muqtada don't worry we will sacrifice our blood for the you!" A melody for a song that had once praised Saddam Hussein now carried a song praising Muqtada.
Witnesses said that Muqtada cried and then he said, "I visited this city when my father was alive and I will visit this city on this day every year ... do not believe in rumors, verify them with us first." Muqtada spoke of the memory of the martyrs and promised the Iraqi people that the unemployment problem would soon be solved because companies will return to Iraq. He spoke for seven minutes and then the crowds of adulators would not let him leave.
Hazem Saghiyeh, an Arab intellectual and writer, was disturbed by this phenomenon and in al-Hayat last week described the sight of Muqtada surrounded by excited young men as a "neurotic mass, furious in its refusal of modernity". Clashes erupted between communists and followers of Muqtada after the communists called Muqtada "the turbaned statue" and said his photos everywhere resemble those of Saddam. Muqtada's followers have also recently begun once more to threaten and attack ideological opponents. Most observers and residents of Najaf believe that Muqtada was involved in the murder of Abo Majid al-Khoei, a moderate Shi'ite cleric who returned from exile in April and was murdered his first day in Najaf outside the tomb of Ali. Muqtada followers then surrounded the house of conservative Shi'ite clerics, including that of the highest ranking cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and gave him 24 hours to leave Najaf. This provoked 1,500 tribesmen loyal to Sistani to descend on Najaf in his defense. Muqtada controls thousands of fiercely loyal armed followers in key Shi'ite cities and neighborhoods, many of whom view him as the Mahdi, or the revered Shi'ite leader who supernaturally disappeared in the 9th century and will return like the Messiah.
Immediately after Saddam's regime fell, Muqtada dispatched young associates to take over key mosques throughout Iraq and to provide security and social services, thereby establishing a rival authority to the US-imposed government, and one with more legitimacy in much of Iraq.
He has also recently called for the establishment of a Mahdi army of loyal followers and he described it recently as an "organizational army" and not an "armed one", its objective is to "protect Iraq and the Marja'iya [Shi'ite clerics] when necessary". He also accused the Americans of besieging his house, but added that they could not prevent him from going out to see his people because of the Mahdi army. "Americans dispersed," he said, after knowing that they would face a "grave test called the Shi'ites". He also reiterated that the American-appointed Iraqi government council is the best "agent for Americans" and that services were much better under the old regime. He said that the new governing council was not representative and that "a people's council should be formed instead".
"When America attacked Iraq it neglected world opinion," he said. "The whole world stood against America and the US ignored it. Likewise, the US will ignore the opinion of the Iraqi people and it will compose the new government according to its own desires." He does not thank the US for freeing Iraq, he thanks god. Muqtada denied any ambitions to lead Iraq. "I don't want the chair of the government because it will be controlled by the US and I don't want to be controlled by the US."
Muqtada dismissed the traditional Shi'ite leadership and singled out Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, for particular ridicule. "The Badr corps have 10,000 or 12,000 supporters, while three quarters of Iraq are soldiers of Sadr. The Iraqi people don't follow any Marja but my father. The followers of Sadr don't like Hakim because he betrayed the people of Basra and the south when he urged them to fight [in the 1991 intifada] and didn't come in to help them, causing the intifada to fail. The Badr forces came from the outside and do not represent the people." Muqtada also dismisses Sistani, who was born in Iran and has a slight Iranian accent, for being a foreigner, although US military intelligence believes that Muqtada himself receives money from Iran, though it is not clear whether it is from the government of from religious leaders.
When asked if he wanted to attack America, Muqtada snorted and replied in a very colloquial expression that means "why would I want to f... myself," implying that if he answers the question he will only get into trouble. He said only, "I will fight America when Muhamad al-Mahdi [the 12th leader of the Shi'ites who disappeared and will return to save them] will appear because this is the land of Muhamad al-Mahdi and they occupy his land."
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Inside the resistance
August 16, 2003
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/15/1060936052309.html
There's a knock on the door. Standing in the first-floor corridor of the Al Safeer Hotel are two men - Ahmed, a weapons dealer and group commander in the Iraqi resistance, and Haqi, one of his foot soldiers. They enter and take a seat on the sofa, edgy but full of bravado after what they claim was a successful strike against a US convoy in a rural area north of Baghdad.
They had agreed, after weeks of negotiation through a go-between, to talk about the resistance. Now they are here to recount the detail of their most recent offensive against the US occupation forces in Iraq.
Ahmed begins: "Yesterday we were told about the new movement of convoys, so we used a special car to take our RPG [rocket-propelled grenades] and guns up there. We struck at sunset, in an area surrounded by farms.
"We positioned ourselves as locals, just standing around. But as the convoy came into view we picked up the weapons which we had lying on the ground. There were 19 soldiers. I could see their faces. I fired three grenades - two at a truck and one at a Humvee. Then we escaped across the fields to a car that was waiting for us. It took just a few seconds because God makes it easy for us."
This is the third mission for Ahmed, a 32-year-old who has inherited family wealth, including a factory and a farm, and the fourth for Haqi, a 25-year-old Baghdad taxi-driver who defers to Ahmed as "my instructor".
Their claim to success is in keeping with exaggerated local accounts of the hundreds of hit-and-miss resistance attacks on the US.
I checked. At Al Meshahda, near Tarmiya, which is 60 kilometres north of Baghdad, the road is scorched and gouged. Two local farmers, brothers Muhammad and Ibrahim Al Mishadani, insist three US soldiers died when the tail-end vehicles in a convoy were hit.
But the Americans reported no deaths from Tarmiya on Tuesday.
The postwar US death toll in fighting in Iraq now stands at 60, with almost 500 wounded. The conflict is showing all the early signs of what could be a protracted guerilla war.
When he took up his commission in mid-July, the new US military chief in Iraq, General John Abizaid, acknowledged the rapid development of the resistance: "They're better co-ordinated now. They're less amateurish and their ability to use improvised explosive devices combined with tactical activity - say, for example, attacking [our] quick-reaction forces - is more sophisticated."
Washington has been reluctant to accept that what is happening in Iraq constitutes a guerilla war. It has repeatedly pinned the blame for instability on Saddam Hussein and Baath Party loyalists; and, particularly since last week's bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, on foreigners associated with the terrorist network al-Qaeda and its offshoots.
So it fell to Abizaid to finally acknowledge the Americans face a "classic guerilla-type campaign". But he, too, stuck to the Washington script, insisting the critical threat to the Americans was from "mid-level Baathists" and from an organisational and financial structure that was, at best, localised.
The Pentagon, the US military and American analysts are reluctant to acknowledge popular support for the Iraqi resistance. But the chaos has tribal sheiks, Baghdad businessmen and many ordinary Iraqis speaking in such harsh anti-American terms that it is hard not to conclude there is a growing body of Palestinian or Belfast-style empathy with the resistance.
If the accounts of the resistance given to the Herald in interviews in the past 10 days are accurate, US intelligence is way behind understanding that what is emerging in Iraq is a centrally controlled movement, driven as much by nationalism as the mosque, a movement that has left Saddam and the Baath Party behind and already is getting foreign funds for its bid to drive out the US army.
The warm night air is so heavy that, when Ahmed exhales, his cigarette smoke hangs just where he parks it. It is a week before the attack, and we are in the garden at the comfortable home of one of his relatives in a west Baghdad suburb.
Ahmed denies having served in Saddam's military or any of the security agencies. He offers a peculiar account of how he avoided military service: "I put lots of tea leaves in cold water and gulped it down so that it filled my lungs. The tea showed up as spots in my lungs and, after I paid the doctor some money, I was rejected on health grounds."
Asked why he has joined the resistance after going to such lengths to avoid doing time for Saddam, Ahmed declares: "Saddam was a loser. His wars were useless and he made enemies of our Muslim neighbours."
But this weapons dealer is uncomfortable talking war in a family environment, so he makes a call on a satellite phone, organising the use of a room in a nondescript hotel nearer to the city. Its ground-floor windows and all but one of its doors are still bricked up to fend off looters.
Slightly more at ease, Ahmed sits in a formal armchair at the hotel, the folds of his white dishdasha draped over the chair's red brocade upholstery. Toying with his beard, he describes a Sunni resistance that is a disciplined, religiously focused force. Asked where authority rests, he says: "It's with the sheiks in the mosques. Baath Party people and former members of the military are not allowed to be our leaders. Baathists are losers; they didn't succeed when they worked for the party.
"We now have a single, jihadist leadership group that operates nationally. Everything is done on instructions carried by messengers. There are 35 men in my cell and I'm a leader of three other cells. The number of foreigners who are coming to help us is increasing - Syrian, Palestinian, Saudi and Qatari.
"US claims about al-Qaeda and Ansar al Islam are just propaganda." But then he goes on: "We don't even ask the fighters if they belong to these groups or to political parties."
Speaking through an interpreter, he continues in guttural Arabic: "Our fighters are protecting our religion. We cannot allow foreigners to occupy our country."
Then he repeats the argument in much of the anti-American graffiti around Baghdad: "We suffered under Saddam and we hate him, but we would put him in our hearts ahead of a Christian or a Jew, because he is a Muslim."
This is a culture in which revenge is honourable, and Ahmed vents his opinion freely: "The Americans do not respect us, so we cannot respect them. They are a cancer of bad things: prostitution, gambling and drugs."
Haqi: "This struggle is not about Saddam. It's about our country and our God. Our aim is not to have power or to rule the country. We just want the US out and for the word of Allah to be the power in Iraq."
THIS POCKET of the resistance calls itself the Army of Right. Like others, including the Army of Mohammed and the White Flags, it first came to notice in leaflets and graffiti around the fabled Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad's Aadamiyah district.
Both Ahmed and Haqi refuse to give their real names or any information about where they live. "Iraq is my home," Ahmed says.
However, their chat is peppered with references to life on the land and a tribal background. Ahmed tells stories of dropping explosives into the Euphrates as a child to stun fish which he would then gather; and of learning how to conceal weapons in his clothing from the sheep smugglers who criss-cross the Jordan-Iraq border.
Estimates of how many resistance fighters are on call run as high as 7000, but these two will not discuss numbers.
And just as Iraqi children are being coached to lie when foreigners inquire about their parents or the whereabouts of their homes, the families of resistance fighters deny their involvement in the war.
In a far-flung Baghdad suburb, dentist Amar Abbass insists his "little brother" Ameer was armed only with his "student papers and a calculator" when he was arrested six weeks ago. But neighbours say the 20-year-old - now prisoner No. 10496 at the Baghdad Airport prison - was carrying an RPG launcher when the Americans grabbed him from the street.
Ahmed's first mission was an attack on a small US convoy near Balad, in the Tikrit region, in June. Weeks later he was part of a failed attempt to down an American helicopter at Mahmoudiya, 25 kilometres south-east of the capital.
He adopts a worldly tone as he talks about the missions: "First we watch the Americans to understand their movements. We know from the way they shoot in every direction that they are afraid."
Usually the cells operate teams of four or five - two to manage the rocket-propelled grenade launcher and two or three to provide covering fire. In most cases the identity of each fighter is withheld from the others.
Because the roots of Iraqi offence at the American presence are to be found in their tribal culture as much as in the Koran, the resistance fighters confidently rely on tribal networks for information on the Americans and for help to get away in a hurry after an attack.
Ahmed says: "The people offer us hiding places when we are in danger. They support us with words and blessings and sometimes they hide our fighters in the boot of their cars to take them to safety."
Their approach is as effective as it is simple. Usually they explode a landmine to halt an US convoy and to disorient the soldiers. Then one group of resistance fighters opens fire from one side of the road, drawing the attention of the Americans, while the men with an RPG take aim from a position about 150 metres back from the other side of the road.
Many of the fighters draw on their experience in national service under Saddam and they have acquired bomb-making and other manuals from the disbanded Iraqi military. They have been having lethal success with remote-controlled devices, including one that was floated down a river on a palm log to explode under a bridge used by the US.
On the highway south of Tikrit later in the week, a US soldier explains to me how a series of four IEDs - improvised explosive devices - had been found on a track routinely used by his convoy. The explosives were spaced at precise 25-metre intervals, the distance that separates vehicles in the American convoys.
At one of our early meetings Ahmed is irritable. He has just spent the day meeting colleagues to nut out a new problem: the Americans have started jamming the radio frequencies the resistance uses to detonate its bombs. He laughs when I ask if his group found a solution, but makes it clear he is not going to answer.
The resistance missions are opportunity-driven. Local fighters are assigned to keep up low-level attacks in their areas, maybe three or four a week. Then new cells are dispatched to areas for ambushes at a rate of three and four a day.
Ahmed claims his cells are responsible for the death of at least a dozen Americans, but there is no way to confirm this.
He declares: "The Americans say they are still looking for weapons of mass destruction. But they have found them. We are their WMD!"
Resistance weapons are stashed around the country, hidden in homes, buried in graveyards and concealed in the fringes of tall, reedy grass that grows by rivers and irrigation canals.
The US makes regular announcements of success in its efforts to block the attacks, like Operation Soda Mountain, in which, it says, 128 raids in mid-July detained 971 Iraqis - 67 described as "former regime leaders" - with the confiscation of 665 small weapons, 1356 rocket-propelled grenades, 300 155-mm artillery rounds, 4297 mortar rounds, 4.3 tonnes of C4 explosive and 563 hand grenades.
The figures are impressive. But they pale against the reality that under Saddam there were estimated to be more than 5 million AK-47s alone in the country - in a recent US-run amnesty, fewer than 100 were surrendered - and against the suggestion implicit in the figures that much of the seized weapons are from unmanageable prewar stockpiles put in place by Saddam's military which subsequently fell into the hands of the resistance.
Haggling in the country's illegal arms bazaars, the resistance never pays more than $US100 ($154) for an RPG launcher while hand grenades sell for as little as $US2. In the days after the fall of Baghdad, AK-47s could be bought for as little as $US3; today they cost about $US40.
Ahmed, whose illegal weapons business grew out of his teenage hobby of restoring guns, says: "We thank God the gun stores of the Iraqi army and the Baath Party were opened for us. But we get donations. The other day a rich man gave us an expensive SUV which we will use for carrying weapons or for observing the Americans - or we can sell it to buy more weapons.
"But we also get weapons from outside Iraq. We allowed some of the fighters to appear on the Arab TV channels because we knew that would make wealthy Arabs send aid and encourage Arab mujahideen to join us. It was a very intelligent and effective operation.
"They didn't just send money. They send fighters and ammunition; and they give us good intelligence and ideas for dealing with the Americans."
Ahmed and Haqi laugh as they describe the ease with which they are able to move weapons around Baghdad and beyond.
Ahmed: "Once I passed through three American checkpoints in a pick-up that was half-filled with explosives and weapons. They didn't even look."
Haqi: "One night I was driving during the curfew hours with a box of grenades in the car. The Americans stopped me and I told them that my wife was in the hospital. 'Go, go,' they yelled without searching the car. We thank God they are so stupid."
Despite thousands of Iraqi detentions, the Americans are still hit by a dozen or more attacks a day.
US commanders are buoyed by their history. With the glaring exception of Vietnam, they have always managed to best guerilla movements. However, the outcome of America's 16 attempts at nation building is more sobering. Germany, Japan, Panama and Grenada succeeded. But the seeds planted in 11 others, including Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, were overgrown by dictatorship, corruption and autocracy. Afghanistan remains a cot case.
And, for now, the Americans' inability to deliver the security, political and economic miracle implicit in the promised liberation of Iraq is playing into the hands of the resistance. Public anger at the US is morphing into popular support for the guerillas, creating the likelihood of a descent into prolonged cycles of violence.
Few Iraqis are present when the Americans reopen a refurbished school or hospital. But all are deeply aware that their "liberators" live a world apart, in well-provisioned, little-America bunkers, and that every time they come among the Iraqis they do so behind armour plating and with guns at the ready.
Challenged about the chaos this week, US administrator Paul Bremer urged his questioners to consider the new freedoms that Iraqis have, before firing back: "The north is quiet and the south is quiet. There is a small group of bitter-end people resisting the new Iraq. We'll deal with them.They will be killed or they'll be captured."
Ahmed loves that kind of talk. Relishing the challenge as he sits in the evening cool, beneath a date palm heavy with fruit, he says: "Before the war I was a hunter; we'd shoot pigs. Now I can't go hunting but the pigs are coming to me."
As a US surveillance helicopter flies high above us, he instantly adopts the pose of firing an RPG. "Our country has been occupied for only four months," he says, "this is just the beginning."
What seems clear is that the US has not begun to grasp the depth of Iraqi resentment and continues to feed the anger, as I note following my first meeting with Ahmed.
I have just returned to my Baghdad hotel, on Abu Nuwas Street which runs along the east bank of the Tigris, when a US Humvee roars past. Blaring from a block of six big speakers strapped to its rooftop is John Mellencamp's 1980s American anthem Pink Houses: Ain't that America? You and me! Ain't that America? Something to seeeee!
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Training begins for Iraq's militia
August 16, 2003
By Sameer N. Yacoub
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030815-101314-7310r.htm
TIKRIT, Iraq - The U.S. Army began training an Iraqi militia force yesterday to take on civil defense duties and pave the way for U.S. forces to leave Iraq.
Fifty young men handpicked by tribal leaders started three weeks of intensive training at one of Saddam Hussein's main palaces in the northern town of Tikrit, which is now headquarters for the 4th Infantry Division.
Lt. Col. Steve Russell said similar training programs are expected to begin in other cities across Iraq shortly.
"Our goal is that you will take our place and take over the security of your own people," Col. Russell told recruits and tribal leaders.
"We are training you to be the leaders of a larger force that we will be creating in the coming months," he said.
The militia will start off working with U.S. soldiers in joint patrols but eventually will be responsible for defending key infrastructure and government buildings, he said.
The founding members of the militia will be paid $125 a month - more than twice the salary of former Iraqi soldiers - and are expected to commit to joining the civil defense force for a minimum of a year, Col. Russell said.
In a Shi'ite Muslim slum in Baghdad, meanwhile, an imam equated the American occupation with Saddam Hussein's brutal repression of the Shi'ite majority. An estimated 25,000 people jammed the mosque and the surrounding area for Friday prayers.
The imam's sermon was heavy with references to an incident Wednesday in which a Black Hawk helicopter appeared to have purposely blown down a Shi'ite religious banner from a communications tower, sparking a melee in which one Iraqi was killed and four were injured.
The Americans said the dead man fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a Humvee and was killed when soldiers returned fire.
Abdul al-Hadi al-Daraji, preaching at the Ahil al-Bait mosque in Sadr City, stopped short of calling for an uprising against Americans but said their occupation was driven by greed for Iraqi oil.
"The Iraqi people should be aware of the fact that America is not a charity organization that works to liberate the Arabs and the Muslims. America needs Iraq for its resources," he said.
An American commander apologized to the people of Sadr City, saying he was investigating the banner incident and would punish anyone found to have violated military policies.
Also yesterday, the Army evacuated two Apache helicopter crew members to a military hospital in Germany after they were injured in an accident just north of Tikrit, 4th Infantry Division spokesman Lt. Col. Bill MacDonald said.
The helicopter's systems failed during a maintenance flight and the craft fell to the ground, he said. Both crew members were in serious but stable condition.
Col. MacDonald also said two U.S. soldiers were wounded when insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at their convoy just outside Balad, north of Baghdad. The soldiers were in stable condition.
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Saddam's sorcerer says he'll be found, but dead
August 16, 2003
By Niko Price
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030815-110112-6612r.htm
HEET, Iraq - The wrinkled old man sprays perfume around the sparse, dingy room, then holds out his hands and feet and instructs one of his visitors to tie him up, knot the cloth three times and blow on it.
The lights die and small red flashes go off beneath the black cloak that covers a bowl of magic powders and water. The visitors feel pokes and jabs and things fluttering over their heads in the darkness - "birds," the wizard says. Water splashes from the bowl.
The genies have arrived, and the questions begin.
Will Saddam be found? A genie answers in the old man's voice: "Yes."
Dead or alive? "Dead."
And the $25 million question: Where is he? "Dhuluaiyah," he says. Dhuluaiyah is a village 55 miles north of Baghdad.
Thousands of magicians, fortunetellers and faith healers make up a huge world of Iraqi spirituality that thrives despite being considered by many Muslims to be sinful.
But this man is different. He was Saddam's own sorcerer, and therefore, for Iraqis, his visions of the dictator's demise carry special weight.
The sorcerer asks that he not be identified, and won't even pronounce the name of the man he once served.
"That man is still alive, so I'm afraid," he says. "I helped him, his sons, his ministers, his wife, his cousins, but I can't mention names. When he is dead I can talk about him."
According to the magician and several others interviewed in Baghdad, Saddam was a firm believer in magic, and even applied himself, with modest success, to "studying the sands" and summoning genies.
He consulted frequently with two magicians from Iraq, one from Turkey, one from India, a French Arab and a beautiful Jewish witch from Morocco, the wizard says.
Saddam is still protected, he says, by a pair of magic-infused golden statues. The deposed president speaks daily with the king and queen of genies - the same ones who provided the information on his whereabouts.
Other magicians also talk about Saddam, some describing fleeting meetings in which the dictator measured them up. Several said he has a powerful stone - or the bone of a parrot - implanted under the skin of his right arm to protect him against bullets and to make people love him.
Maher al-Kadhami, a Baghdad faith healer, repeated a story often told in postwar Iraq: Some years ago, a fortuneteller told Saddam he would fall on April 9, 2003. Saddam flew into a rage, killed the fortuneteller and launched a violent campaign against all those dealing in the occult.
And lo and behold, April 9 turned out to be the day the world saw Saddam's statue topple in Baghdad.
Tales such as these abound in Iraq and are firmly believed, Islam's abhorrence of witchcraft notwithstanding. Saddam's oppressive rule actually made the magicians stronger, academics say.
"When you are weak, when you are oppressed, where can you go? You can't go outside. You go inside yourself," says Haareth Hassan al-Asadi, who studies parapsychology at Baghdad University. "You stimulate the superstitious part of your psyche, which is there innately."
It was Saddam himself who ordered the parapsychology department set up to help him wage psychological warfare during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and later to mind-read U.N. inspectors searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to former Iraqi officials.
Mr. Al-Asadi reckons that more than half of Iraq's 24 million people use some sort of magic, and a tour of magicians in Baghdad bears out his words.
Unannounced storefronts across Iraq boast a rich array of psychics, fortunetellers, healers and spellmasters, most of whom invoke the Islamic, Christian and even Jewish holy books in their bids to control the genies, or spirits, that many Iraqis believe rule their lives.
In his dingy Baghdad house, Sayed Sadoun Hamid el-Moussaoui al-Refai, 56, squats on cushions wearing a traditional Iraqi robe and skullcap. To demonstrate his prowess, he pushes a kebab skewer through his cheek and wipes away the blood.
His 7-year-old son, Hassan, is his medium. Recently, he says, a family came asking about their son, who disappeared during the war. Hassan entered into a trance and looked into a mirror.
"I saw him tied up, surrounded by Americans," the boy says. "He was in Basra, but I knew he would be released soon."
Indeed, Mr. al-Refai claims, the young man returned home days later, having been a prisoner of the Americans in the southern city of Basra.
"We use the genies or the angels," the magician says. "But we prefer the angels, because the genies lie 75 percent of the time."
Saddam's wizard has been studying magic since he was 10, learning from his aunt's husband. Now 62, he is one of the most revered magicians in Iraq.
He shows visitors a guest book of other powerful clients: a Saudi prince who paid 20,000 riyals, or about $75,000, for a spell to make a woman love him; a Jordanian businessman who wanted his daughter to divorce her abusive husband; a Syrian singer who wanted more success.
For Saddam's family, he dealt mostly with issues of love, faithfulness and sexual prowess. He says he was once imprisoned for six months when Saddam suspected his wife of having the magician throw a spell that made his leg hurt. The magician was pardoned.
As for the magician's information about Saddam's whereabouts, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the coalition commander in Iraq, laughed when told about it. But he noted the name of the town and said he'd order a raid.
"We know it's about a one-in-a-thousand chance, but we do check stuff out," his spokesman, Col. Guy Shields, said. "When the boss says, 'Check it out,' we check it out."
----
Just another day
By Paul McGeough
August 16, 2003
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/15/1060936061504.html
It happens in a flash - a massive explosion and two US tanks are engulfed in a ball of smoke that rises to 60 metres. One is lifted sideways by the force of the blast, but it can still limp to the shoulder of the highway.
It is Friday morning and we are only 50 metres from the blast, from 155 mm artillery rounds crudely detonated by a wire running off to the north of the highway.
Sergeant Robert Proteau, of the US 2/3 Armoured Cavalry Regiment, says a series of the artillery shells was planted in the road, only two of which exploded.
This resistance attack takes place on the road from Faluya to Ramadi, west of Baghdad.
US reinforcements materialise - another tank and four track-mounted troop carriers.
Dozens of soldiers fan out, most of them to the north as their vehicles whip up clouds of dust in farm fields.
There is sporadic gunfire but by now the resistance fighters are likely to have escaped. This is a perfect attack point; another raised road 200 metres to the north will have made for a speedy getaway.
There are two huge craters at the point of the explosion but none of the Americans appear to be injured. There is no medivac.
Minutes later there is the sound of another big explosion followed by a tower of smoke beyond a ridge about 500 metres to the south.
It's just another day in Iraq - the Americans fire warning shots at a car that ventures too close. The occupants of another car are ordered to lie face down on the bitumen before being sent on their way. Hundreds of vehicles are banked up after the Americans close the highway.
Surveillance helicopters fly overhead at 50 metres and a US tank has moved to a point 30 metres from our car at the head of the banked-up traffic. Its barrel is trained on our windscreen.
----
Shiite Group Plans Militia to Protect Holy Sites From G.I.'s
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
August 16, 2003
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/16/international/worldspecial/16IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 15 - The most combative group of Shiite Muslims announced during their main prayer sermon today that they would proceed with a proposal to form their own militia to safeguard holy sites from any transgressions by American troops.
More than 3,000 of the faithful flooded one of the dusty main thoroughfares in Sadr City, a predominately Shiite slum in Baghdad, to hear the prayer leader, Sheik Abdel Hadi al-Daraji, denounce the American forces, accusing them of defiling sacred places after an incident on Wednesday in which an American Black Hawk helicopter forced down a flag near a Sadr City mosque.
"Yesterday Saddam the infidel used to assault our sacred sites and especially the people of this holy city," Sheik Daraji said. "Now the Americans are doing the same thing. So what is the difference between Saddam and America?"
The sheik also belittled America's ability to improve the lives of Iraqis, who get about 10 hours of electricity a day in Baghdad.
He hinted that the United States might be selling Iraq's electricity elsewhere, perhaps to Israel, and led the crowd in special prayers to ask God to provide power 24 hours a day.
"To denounce the lack of services provided by the Americans, pray to Muhammad," he said as the crowd roared back their prayer. "To denounce the lack of electricity, pray to Muhammad."
The proposal for a Shiite religious militia initially received a tepid response from other, senior clergymen. Its revival could set the stage for renewed tension between the older, more respected scholars who control the influential seminary movement - known as the Hawza - and Mr. Sadr's young clerics, who have a wide street following in Baghdad.
Also today, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim, in a sermon in the holy city of Najaf, called on the Arab and Islamic world to support the Iraqi Governing Council, an interim government organized with American backing. But in what appeared to be a stab at mollifying growing anti-American sentiment, he also suggested that the United States had initially pushed the council away from Islamic principles.
The mood in Sadr City was subdued today after the incident on Wednesday.
The American military and local residents gave conflicting accounts of what had happened. Residents said someone on the American helicopter seemed to be trying to remove a holy banner intentionally. That led to a riot, and American gunfire ultimately left one Iraqi dead and four Iraqis wounded.
American officials said downward "rotor wash" generated by the hovering helicopter had stripped the flag from the tower.
The American forces issued an apology for the incident that seemed to largely mollify the public. But the followers of Moktada al-Sadr, a militant young cleric descended from a long line of illustrious clergymen, seized on the response to the incident to revive a proposal he made last month to form a special clerical army, the Army of Muhammad.
Sheik Daraji said in his sermon that it would consist of eight units deployed in different Baghdad neighborhoods. Women would be among the fighters.
"It is only to tell the enemy that we have the ability to respond," Sheik Daraji told reporters. "That will prevent them from assaulting us."
At the same time, he said, American forces should welcome the militia because it will give the clergy a means to control the inevitable anger of the crowds after any incident like to the one involving the helicopter.
"We think the situation has deteriorated, and I think people will move against the Americans whether the army interferes or not," the sheik said of the new force. "One person could use a Kalashnikov to express his frustration, so how can we quell these masses?"
He told the worshipers to control their emotions, and they dispersed peacefully. Indeed, the powerful influence of the Hawza in telling the Shiites not to confront the Americans accounts for the minimal attacks against American and British troops in the predominately Shiite southern parts of Iraq. Shiites make up about 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people.
But tempers are fraying given the heat, lack of electricity and rising prices needed for the fuel to power generators. No one interviewed in Sadr City today had ever heard one of the explanations by American officials, that a severely battered infrastructure suffering from years of neglect and recent sabotage would take time to revive.
Some thought it was time to put the Americans on notice that they should leave.
"Confrontation, confrontation, we don't want them anymore," said Ghazak, a 23-year-old student who said he would join the Army of Muhammad because of the helicopter incident. "When they assault the name of Muhammad's family, they assault all Muslims. This is the only response they could understand, confrontation."
Others, happy to be free of Saddam Hussein, said they were willing to give the Americans the benefit of the doubt.
The United States has been channeling its efforts for a security force into a civil defense force, discouraging or disarming previously formed private armed forces. There was no specific reaction to the proposal for a clerical-run militia.
"Our hope is that nothing is done to destabilize the country, because ultimately it is the Iraqi people who are the ones who suffer," said Capt. Jeff Fitzgibbons, a military spokesman.
----
Cleric Warns U.S. to Leave Baghdad Slum
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 16, 2003; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A361-2003Aug15.html
BAGHDAD, Aug. 15 -- In a sermon to thousands of worshipers in Baghdad's largest slum, a militant Shiite Muslim cleric warned American forces today not to reenter the neighborhood and dismissed as insufficient an apology from U.S. officials for the toppling of a religious banner that set off a protest this week in which an Iraqi was killed.
The statement was the latest in a back-and-forth between U.S. officials and influential clerics in the Sadr City neighborhood, whose population of 3 million makes it pivotal in Baghdad politics. U.S. officials have said gusts from a low-flying helicopter accidentally knocked over the black flag, which fluttered atop a transmission tower. Residents, already disenchanted with the lack of electricity and basic services, said they saw a soldier either kick it or try to cut it down.
In the protest that ensued Wednesday, U.S. forces killed one Iraqi -- a boy of 10 or 11, residents said -- and wounded at least three. Both sides say the other fired first. U.S. officials have said they are investigating the incident, which marked some of the sharpest tension between U.S. forces and Iraq's Shiite majority since the overthrow of president Saddam Hussein's government on April 9.
"What happened clearly shows that America and international Zionism have declared war on Islam," said Sheik Hadi Darraji, a leading cleric in the neighborhood, who delivered the sermon to a crowd of as many as 10,000.
He warned that Iraqis would "retaliate twice as hard" against anyone who attacked "us or our sacred symbols" and said the events of the past week showed that "there are no differences between Saddam and America."
At a news conference Thursday, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. ground troops here, said military commanders had apologized to the neighborhood's clergy and promised that "we're not going to let this happen again."
But Darraji insisted the apology come from a higher-ranking U.S. official, presumably L. Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator of Iraq. He reiterated demands that U.S. forces stage a "complete and comprehensive withdrawal" from Sadr City, provide compensation to families of the dead and wounded and agree to the demands in a written statement in both English and Arabic.
Wearing a funeral shawl, meant to symbolize his willingness to sacrifice himself, Darraji gave them what he described as a short period to agree. "After that, we're not responsible for the reactions of the people if the Americans enter again," he said.
In their statements since the unrest, the clergy have been careful not to issue a call for arms, given the U.S. crackdown that would likely invite. In today's sermon, Darraji urged worshipers not to act except on the clergy's orders.
A U.S. military spokesman said talks were continuing with the clergy and that officials took the incident "very seriously." But another spokesman, also speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested it was unlikely U.S. forces would actually withdraw.
"There is no policy of no-go areas anywhere in Iraq," he said.
The neighborhood, which bore the brunt of some of Hussein's heaviest repression over the past decade and welcomed his fall, has remained quiet since Wednesday's unrest. But today, thousands surged through the streets toward the site of the clash, where Friday prayers were held along a broad thoroughfare. The marches were organized by a faction loyal to Moqtada Sadr, the son of a slain ayatollah who has repeatedly denounced the occupation and the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.
Darraji's sermon was repeatedly interrupted by chants. "No, no to America!" shouted members of the crowd, waving Iraqi flags and religious banners. Some carried portraits of the elder Sadr and his son. One banner read, "Yes, yes to Moqtada, no, no to the council."
In the street, a makeshift market sprang up, where pictures of the helicopter near the transmission tower sold for about 50 cents. Other vendors hawked newspapers published by Sadr's faction, devotional CDs, pictures of the elder Sadr and portraits of descendants of the prophet Muhammad who Shiites believe inherited leadership of the Muslim community after Muhammad's death in 632. Worshipers carried umbrellas and threw towels over their heads under a relentless sun, and young men sprayed water over the crowd.
"It will be massacres if the Americans enter again," said Rahim Mahmoud, a 47-year-old mechanic who sat amid the crowds, some kneeling on Persian-designed prayer carpets, others on straw mats and cheap rugs. "It will be a war in the streets."
Mustafa Saad, an 18-year-old cobbler, stood nearby. "Saddam could not defeat us, and neither can the Americans," he said.
----
Blackout? Iraqis say try it for four months
By Hannah Allam
August 16, 2003
Knight Ridder News Service
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Aug/08162003/nation_w/84500.asp
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A power generator hummed in the corner of a popular Baghdad menswear shop where Leith Tamimi sat smirking Friday as he listened to news of the blackout that plagued the Northeastern United States for the second day.
"It's not in Iraqi nature to be happy when someone is suffering, but I thank God for allowing them to see how we live," Tamimi said. "I saw Americans on TV and they were enraged. If they were enraged after two days without power, how do they think we feel after four months?"
Iraqis, who have endured widespread power outages since the U.S.-led war ended in April, expressed little sympathy for the Americans who got a dose of life without lights or air conditioning -- or water, for some -- when a major electricity grid shut down Thursday afternoon. Many Iraqis said they believed the blackout was a gift from God to show Americans the hardships of life without electricity.
A group of Iraqi retirees packed away their backgammon game at dusk, when it became too dark too see at their favorite outdoor cafe. The men -- former professors and government workers -- laughed at President Bush's speech urging patience for Americans eager to get back to life with streetlamps, traffic lights and elevators.
"We had electricity today for only two hours, which is about normal for us," said Ibrahim al Shadidi, 52, who used to work in the oil ministry. "But look, America turns upside down when it loses electricity for a few hours."
Faiza Hassan, 43, hasn't used her washing machine or kept meat in her freezer in four months because the electricity is so sporadic. Still, she said, she prayed Friday for Americans caught in the blackout.
"We are all human beings," Hassan began, before her 20-year-old daughter rolled her eyes and interrupted.
"Mom, I don't care. They deserve it," Sonia Abdirahman said. "God is punishing them now. I hope they are never able to fix their power. In fact, I hope it spreads to all the states."
Along a candlelit row of boutiques Friday, shopkeepers counted their earnings by hand next to unplugged electric cash registers and said they hadn't heard a word about the American power outage. Smiling, they pointed at small TV sets plugged into lifeless sockets and shrugged.
One shop owner, 42-year-old Salam al Khafaji, refused to believe that "mighty America" could succumb to the same problems that have halved his income because meat and dairy products spoil before they sell in his neighborhood market.
"It's impossible that they don't have electricity," Khafaji said. "Are you sure power is out for the Americans? Maybe they just made it look like that to make Iraqis feel better."
----
Saddam Hussein can tap billions in dollars, gold, diamonds
Resources hidden all over world may finance resistance
Jay Bushinsky,
Chronicle Foreign Service
Saturday, August 16, 2003
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/16/MN297299.DTL
Geneva -- If Saddam Hussein is indeed orchestrating an anti-American guerrilla campaign from a hideout in Iraq, he can count on billions of dollars stashed in offshore companies to finance hit-and-run operations, investigators say.
Estimates of Hussein's hidden wealth range from several billion dollars to $40 billion, and the Bush administration fears that the money could finance not only resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq but terrorist activities as well.
Most of Hussein's fortune came from kickbacks on oil sales and smuggled cigarettes and other luxury goods, financial sleuths say. According to the General Accounting Office, the deposed dictator skimmed more than $6.6 billion from the U.N.-sponsored oil-for-food program.
Fresh evidence of Hussein's ability to cover the costs of a protracted guerrilla war emerged in April when U.S. soldiers found some of the laundered money -- $656 million in makeshift vaults in a Baghdad neighborhood and an additional $112 million found in dog kennels.
More recently, investigators discovered $4 million in gold bars in June at a Swiss metal processing company called Metalor. The gold had been deposited in the late 1980s by Hussein's half-brother and finance chief, Barzan al- Tikriti, who was captured by U.S. forces April 17.
Nicolas Giannakopoulos, head of the Organized Crime Observatory (OCO), an independent investigative group in Geneva, says that just may be the tip of the iceberg. He says Hussein's worldwide financial network includes gold and diamonds concealed in such tax havens as Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Panama and the Bahamas.
Paolo Fusi, an Italian reporter who began investigating Hussein's money trail after Sept. 11 and is the author of "Saddam's Cashier," says the ousted leader patterned his overseas empire after his political mentor -- Egypt's late President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
"(Hussein) became an admirer of the Egyptian regime and its leader's methods," said Fusi.
Nasser, who ruled Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970, deposited several million dollars in foreign banks in case he was ever forced into exile by his political enemies. Hussein lived in Cairo after a failed coup forced him to flee Iraq in 1959.
Fusi began his inquiry in Geneva by interviewing Arab bankers, who led him to Hussein's financial agents. Fusi also developed close ties with Italian judges, financial police and a Swiss-Italian attorney named Gianluca Boscaro, who reportedly secured evidence of how Hussein hid money around the world after being hired by the family of a man the dictator executed for skimming profits from the network.
These sources helped the Italian reporter cut through the web of bank transfers, money laundering and dummy companies that enabled Hussein to build lavish palaces and buy enough weapons to turn Iraq into a regional military power.
According to the Sunday Times of London, hundreds of documents show that Hussein held bank accounts at the Bahamas branch of Switzerland's Banca del Gottardo and channeled millions of dollars to them from arms deals and construction contracts.
Bank officials have denied the existence of Hussein accounts and filed a legal complaint in May against unknown persons hoping to identify "those responsible for such serious acts, harmful to the bank's name."
But Elio Borrodori, the subject of Fusi's book, who served as a company trustee for Hussein in Liechtenstein and Switzerland for more than a decade, told reporters in April that he funneled millions in "commissions" and "consultancy fees" into a Banca del Gottardo account in Nassau code-named Satan and controlled by a Hussein nephew named Saad al-Mahdi, based in Milan.
Borrodori, a retired Swiss lawyer, said the financial empire's major entity was the Mediterranean Enterprises Development Projects (MEDP), which he said had links to 300 other front companies, mainly in Panama and Liechtenstein.
Ernst Backes, an international banking expert in Luxembourg, says the network remained active after U.N. sanctions were imposed on Iraq at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, reaching a financial peak of $31 billion annually.
Fusi says an Italian government report showed one of the network's boldest exploits -- the laundering of millions of Iraqi and Kuwaiti dinars, the latter plundered by Iraqi troops during the Gulf War.
"The money was packed into suitcases that were transported by truck from Slovenia to Zurich, where a fair exchange in gold and diamonds was guaranteed by Youssef Nada of al Taqwa Bank," Fusi said. (Al Taqwa Bank was included in President Bush's list of al Qaeda money suppliers.) "The neatly packed bills then were shipped to Lebanon and Syria, after which they disappeared."
No matter how desperate his situation may be these days, it is doubtful that an on-the-lam Hussein would run short of funds. Swiss experts believe he secreted away enormous sums on the eve of the U.S.-led April 9 attack.
While all Iraqi funds are now frozen in Switzerland, cash can still be withdrawn from the Hussein financial network's numerous accounts in other countries -- Liechtenstein, the Bahamas, Panama and elsewhere. None of these accounts are in his own name, and the withdrawals could be made by agents whose motives would not be known to the banks involved.
The money can be hand-carried by couriers to the Iraqi border, possibly through Syria or Turkey, smuggled across and delivered to Hussein's hideout.
Borrodori says Hussein's penchant for cruelty extended to his financial emissaries. When he learned that Saad al-Mahdi and a colleague were siphoning off more cash than usual in 1987, he summoned both to Baghdad and had them beheaded.
"Saddam Hussein is a bloodthirsty, crazy man," Borrodori told reporters in April. "I hated what he did to Saad al-Mahdi. This poor young man. To cut the head off such a close relative. I can't understand that."
Years later, al-Mahdi's family hired attorney Boscaro to sue Hussein for some of the millions laundered through the offshore companies. The case never went to court because Boscaro, a champion skydiver, was killed last August when the ropes on his hang glider became tangled over Italy's Lake Orta, and he plummeted to the ground.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Agrees to Pull Out of Four Towns
By PETER ENAV
Associated Press Writer
Aug 16, 2003 8:33 AM EDT
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/ISRAEL_PALESTINIANS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
The Bush administration is welcoming Israel's decision to hand over four more West Bank cities to Palestinian control. (Audio)
JERUSALEM (AP) -- A troubled U.S.-backed Middle East peace plan received a significant boost when Israel agreed to withdraw from four more West Bank towns after an upsurge in violence brought a fragile cease-fire close to the breaking point.
The withdrawal agreement was reached Friday between Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan. It came three days after a pair of Palestinian suicide bombings killed two Israelis, and 36 hours after Israeli forces killed a senior Palestinian militant during an arrest operation in the West Bank city of Hebron.
It was not clear how much U.S. pressure was involved in ending the dispute over who should move first - Israel in pulling back from more areas of the West Bank, or the Palestinians in starting to dismantle militant groups. Both are required by the "road map" peace plan, officially launched by President Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas on June 4.
Under the plan announced Friday, Israel would withdraw from the West Bank towns of Jericho and Qalqiliya next week and remove some military roadblocks.
The easing of travel bans is seen as a major confidence booster. Israeli checkpoints, set up at the start of fighting nearly there years ago to keep out militants, have virtually paralyzed life in the West Bank.
The withdrawal from the towns of Ramallah and Tulkarem would begin in the last week of August, provided there are no shooting and bombing attacks and the Palestinian security forces begin dismantling militant groups, said Shirli Eden, an Israeli Defense Ministry spokeswoman.
A pullback from Ramallah has been a top Palestinian priority, in part to allow Yasser Arafat some freedom of movement. For nearly two years the Palestinian leader has been confined to his Ramallah headquarters, mostly destroyed by the Israeli army in an attempt to isolate him.
Israel has agreed to allow Arafat to leave his compound temporarily to visit the grave in Gaza City of a sister who died earlier this week, Elias Zananiri, Dahlan's spokesman, confirmed Saturday, adding that Israel would let Arafat return to Ramallah.
Arafat was unable to attend Thursday's funeral for his sister, Yousra Abdel Raouf Al Kidwah. Israel has said Arafat could leave Ramallah but may not be permitted to return.
Arafat was still considering whether to take up the Israeli offer, said an aide, Nabil Abu Rdeneh. "For the time being, he's staying in Ramallah until he makes up his mind," Abu Rdeneh said.
Despite the withdrawal agreement, the situation remains tense.
The militant Islamic Jihad group has threatened to take revenge for an Israeli raid on Thursday, in which the group's leader in the West Bank city of Hebron, Mohammed Sidr, was killed.
A similar raid earlier this month in the West Bank city of Nablus prompted two suicide attacks this week, one by Hamas and the second by Iranian-backed renegades from Arafat's Fatah movement.
The Palestinian groups declared a unilateral cease-fire June 29, but the Islamic militants have said that while sticking to the truce in principle, they reserve the right to respond to Israeli arrest raids.
The agreement was reached in back-to-back meetings between Dahlan and Mofaz late Thursday and Friday. "We have agreed on Israeli withdrawal from four Palestinian cities in the West Bank in the coming two weeks," Dahlan said. "The meeting was very constructive."
He said Israeli checkpoints on the outskirts of the four towns would be removed.
An Israeli pullback to positions held before the outbreak of fighting in September 2000 is required by the road map. In a first phase, Israel withdrew from parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Bethlehem in July.
However, Israel had said it would not withdraw from additional towns until the Palestinians begin dismantling militant groups, as required by the peace plan.
Dahlan reiterated Friday that he would not use force against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and renegades from his own Fatah movement. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has said he does not want to set off a civil war, and will continue to try to persuade the militants to stop attacks.
The dispute apparently was resolved because both sides feared they might be blamed for a breakdown of the truce - and therefore the road map - if they did not relent.
But some analysts cautioned that the new agreement might be difficult to implement.
"What's behind the agreement is the desire of all three parties- including the U.S.- to keep the road map alive after the events of this week," said Joseph Alper, a former official in the Israeli Defense Ministry. "But agreements are one thing and implementation is another. It's not a foregone conclusion that they will carry this one out."
Meanwhile, Israel's Channel One reported late Friday that Israeli warplanes flew low over the holiday residence of Syrian President Bashar Assad this week in an apparent message to Syria that it should act to restrain Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military declined to comment.
Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon, wields influence with the Lebanese government and Hezbollah militants, who last Sunday fired shells into northern Israel that killed an Israeli teenager.
Syrian officials say Assad defended recent attacks by Hezbollah guerrillas, telling U.S. envoy William Burns on Thursday that they were a reaction to Israeli provocations.
--------
Israel to Turn Over Security in 2 Cities
Reuters
Saturday, August 16, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A231-2003Aug15.html
JERUSALEM, Aug. 15 -- Israel agreed today to hand security control over the West Bank cities of Jericho and Qalqilyah to Palestinians next week in what it called a step to steady a shaky cease-fire and advance a U.S.-backed peace plan.
The deal, reached at high-level security talks, also offered the Palestinians the chance to regain control later over two larger cities, but Israeli security sources said any further terror attacks would scuttle handovers.
The accord appeared to be aimed at salvaging a six-week-old truce that has frayed this week from two Palestinian suicide bombings on Tuesday retaliating for continued Israeli army raids that have killed and captured wanted militants.
The Israeli defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, and the Palestinian security minister, Mohammed Dahlan, struck the deal at unannounced talks, their second meeting in as many days. "They agreed that Israel will transfer security control of Qalqilyah and Jericho to the Palestinian side early next week," a senior Israeli security source said.
"The Palestinians also will submit a plan to Israel for reassuming security responsibility over Ramallah and Tulkarm," said the source. "Israel will consider this plan over the next 10 days or so."
Palestinian officials had been demanding that Israel turn over Ramallah, where Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas are based, to prove goodwill on the peace plan.
Officials had earlier spurned offers of Qalqilyah and Jericho, noting that the first is ringed by a controversial new Israeli security wall and the other has been largely quiet and in local hands during the 34-month-old Palestinian uprising.
The Israeli army returned the West Bank city of Bethlehem and wider parts of the Gaza Strip to Palestinian control last month.
Earlier today, Israel freed 73 Palestinian prisoners in what it called a gesture to the "road map," as the peace plan is called, after a three-day delay caused by the two suicide bombings, which killed two Israelis.
Palestinian officials brushed off the release, saying the 73 had been jailed for petty crimes such as theft rather than militant activity.
-------- mideast
Turkey asks U.S. to foil Israeli plans for Mount
By Zvi Bar'el,
Haaretz Saturday,
August 16, 2003
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=329757&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
ANKARA - Turkey yesterday asked the United States to intervene urgently to halt Israel's plan to allow non-Muslims to visit and pray on the Temple Mount.
The request came after Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat appealed to the Turkish premier, saying that opening the Temple Mount to non-Muslims would rekindle violence in the Middle East.
In a message delivered to the U.S. embassy in Ankara, Turkey
warned that visits by non-Muslims to the Temple Mount could negatively impact on its ability to implement its recent decision to accede to a U.S. request to send Turkish troops to Iraq. The government's decision must still be approved by the Turkish parliament.
"We do not need a religious struggle on the Temple Mount when we are facing an internal struggle in Turkey over sending troops to Iraq," a senior Turkish official said. "A religious eruption over this issue could cause anti-American demonstrations in Turkey, leading parliament to oppose assistance to the Americans."
Turkish sources said they hope that the transmission of their message to Israel via the U.S. will be enough to persuade Israel to reconsider its plan to allow visits by non-Muslims to the Temple Mount. "However, if it turns out that the message has not been understood, we will apparently have to transmit sharper and clearer messages," one official said.
The sources said that Turkish policy toward Israel has not changed, but "Israel must understand the interests of Turkey and the U.S. These are not limited to the question of the Temple Mount but extend to events in the entire region."
Meanwhile, no decision has yet been made regarding a date for a planned visit to Israel by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The main obstacle to the visit is Israel's insistence that Erdogan not meet with Yasser Arafat. Turkey holds that Arafat is a leader who should not be boycotted. The Turkish prime minister's visit is expected to take place before the end of the year, but if Israel maintains its opposition to the Arafat visit, Erdogan will have to make separate visits to Israel and to the Palestinian Authority.
Turkey has contributed $50 million to the Palestinian Authority since 1993, and intends to contribute additional money when Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas pays an expected official visit to Ankara in September. Turkey is also advising the Palestinians on the framing of a constitution. Ankara has proposed that the Palestinians adopt a constitution similar to Turkey's, creating a secular democratic state in which Islamic law is not a source of legislation. But Palestinian experts oppose this idea, mainly due to pressure from Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
-------- nato
NATO calls the shots on bases
Staff Reporter Sofia Echo (Bulgaria)
August 16, 2003
http://www.sofiaecho.com/art.php?id=7882&catid=5
EIGHT projects, designed to bring Bulgarian armed forces in line with NATO standards, have been proposed by the Ministry of Defence.
The first to have been approved is focussed on the Bulgarian Navy, which last week celebrated its 124th anniversary.
The proposals will also be a boost for the Bulgarian arms industry. TEREM-Varna, a subsidiary of the TEREM parent company, has won the contract to construct four corvette-type battleships. The first four corvettes will go to the Navy, while others may be directed for export sales.
NATO itself has not yet discussed the need to set up a naval base in Bulgaria, US naval attache Captain Chris McDonald said last week. The alliance is expected to open a debate on the possible establishment of air and land bases in Bulgaria this autumn, he said.
Surveys of possible sites have already started on an expert level said Defence Minister Nikolai Svinarov.
The largest disused Bulgarian military base is located in the town of Gotse Delchev, in south-western Bulgaria. The site is seen by US military experts as suitable for the establishment of a large US military base, Svinarov said last week.
The base has its own landing strip, designed for emergency landings. Gotse Delchev is very close to the border with Greece and is located on a trans-border highway to be commissioned in 2004 that will link the town with the Greek town of Drama. NATO plans to establish a naval base in the Drama prefecture to allow for the rapid deployment of its forces in the region.
A number of other Bulgarian military facilities have already been used by NATO forces, mostly for training purposes, which would make them prime candidates to host NATO bases.
Graf Ignatievo Air Base, near Plovdiv, has also received major upgrades from the US Air Force in recent years. It hosted one of the alliance's largest air exercises in 2001.
Late last year, the French army moved a brigade of tanks and mechanised infantry into Novo Selo, in southern Bulgaria, for four months of manoeuvres.
The French and other NATO military forces are known to have used the Koren training range, also in southern Bulgaria, as a large-scale manoeuvre area.
Public support for setting up US military bases in Bulgaria has increased to 35 per cent of the population, from 17 per cent at the end of the last year.
-------- pakistan / india
Sending troops to Iraq un-Islamic: MMA
By Naveed Ahmad
Saturday August 16, 2003
News International, Pakistan
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/aug2003-daily/16-08-2003/main/main3.htm
ISLAMABAD: The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) has categorically opposed General Musharraf's desire to send troops to Iraq. It said not only the act is against Islamic Shariah but also soldiers would be involved in massacre of innocent people there.
Reading out the Fatwa (decree) at the MMA's public meeting here on Thursday, Maulana Samiul Haq said Islam is opposed to killing of fellow Muslims.
The seven-page Fatwa unanimously adopted by the nine-member Fatwa Council termed sending of troops to Iraq as a major sin (gunah-e-kabeera), adding soldiers killed there could not be buried according to Islamic traditions.
"Any Muslim soldier killed while fighting against the Iraqi people would be dying as an infidel (non-believer) and would not deserve Namaz-e-Janaza," read the edict.
The MMA's Fatwa Council comprised nine ulema and muftis from all religious schools of thought. They included Maulana Samiul Haq, Justice (retd) Taqi Usmani, Dr Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, Maulana Saifullah Haqqani, Maulana Abdul Malik, Allama Syed Hassan Raza Naqvi, Maulana Rafi Usmani and Maulana Abdur Razzaq.
The six-party religious alliance formed the Fatwa Council after its talks with the Jamali government broke down earlier this month.
The text of the decree states: "It is not permitted for any Muslim country including Pakistan to send troops to Iraq for cooperation with foreign occupying armies. The council's ulema believe that sending of troops by a country like Pakistan will be seen as a direct endorsement of the brutal American occupation and accepting the disgrace of Muslim state's sovereignty".
The edict noted that the United States was now looking for other nations' solders to consolidate its occupation of Iraq.
"Speaking from Islamic point of view, whenever a Muslim country is invaded by a non-Muslim state, all Muslim nations are bound to defend it against the aggressor," said the decree.
The Council also called upon the Muslim world to put its weight behind the Iraqi people instead of taking an anti-Islamic path by sending troops to Iraq under the US command. It believed that the coalition forces should quit Iraq instead of illegally trying to consolidate their position there.
The edict quoted an incident in which Hazrat Hatib Ibn-e-Abi Baltea had desired to inform his kith and kin in Makkah about preparation by Muslims to attack the infidels.
"Although, Muslims did not suffer any considerable loss as a result of this incident, yet the Holy Quran took a strong exception to it and strictly ordered Muslims against cooperating with infidels in such conditions," it added.
The religious alliance threatened to start a nationwide protest campaign with a march and sit-in in the Federal Capital if the government did not adopt a "flexible" stand to end the persisting political deadlock. It however, did not announce any date or time period for the protest.
Top leadership of the MMA slated General Pervez Musharraf for what they called his failed foreign policy, bargaining national sovereignty and endangering the country's very survival.
The alliance chief Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani took a serious exception to General Musharraf's "continued denial of rights to the democratically elected parliament".
The MMA public meeting at the historic Liaquat Bagh attracted a crowd of 12,000 to 20,000. Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Allama Sajid Naqvi, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, Maulana Samiul Haq, Allama Sajid Mir and Liaquat Baloch were among the key speakers at the rally.
The other common theme of the MMA leaders was total rejection of the controversial Legal Framework Order (LFO). "It is not a part of the constitution and never would it be so until approved by the parliament."
The MMA president Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani said, "This year's Independence Day calls for rethinking about the country's freedom."
He accused General Pervez Musharraf of "unwaveringly selling out the country's sovereignty". "Safeguarding the freedom and sovereignty of the country is our responsibility," he remarked.
He said, "The capital has become hostage to 'dishonest' and 'faithless' leadership which is allowing corruption, killings and lawlessness throughout the country."
Qazi Hussain Ahmad pledged to take the country to its destiny envisioned by its founders despite all odds.
He vowed to continue struggle as the destiny is yet to be achieved. "The people of Rawalpindi, who have started many public movements, should now be all set for a sit-in against General Pervez Musharraf," the MMA hardliner said.
He said the armed forces are now manipulating to set up more factories and industrial plants instead of preparing themselves to deal with the enemy. He said the military rule is against the development of the country and he referred to the lowering of Pakistan on the Human Development Index by 19 points and now ranking at 144.
Qazi termed Zafarullah Jamali and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain as proxy leaders for General Pervez Musharraf who himself is not a constitutional president. The MMA leader did not spare the chief justice who he said is continuing to hold the office despite reaching the age of retirement.
Maulana Fazlur Rahman said the constitution is a symbol of federation and absence of the same vaporises the very concept of federation.
The MMA secretary general said the Durand Line controversy is over but still the issue is being given undue attention. "The RAW as well as Indian consulates are operating all across the country to put Pakistan in an awkward position," he said.
Fazl believed that the recognition of Israel was tantamount to back-stabbing the Palestinian people. He as well as other MMA leaders termed the act of sending troops to Iraq and recognizing Israel as the acts of traitors.
Maulana Samiul Haq said the religious alliance would not let the generals', who have been eyeing more plots in Defence Housing Schemes and setting up businesses, succeed in their designs.
Allama Sajid Naqvi urged the people of Rawalpindi to shun their differences on petty issues and strive for high objectives. He said the MMA is the ideal platform for waging just political causes.
-------- russia / chechnya
Rebels Attack Russian Troops in Chechnya
BY SERGEI VENYAVSKY
Associated Press Writer
Aug 16, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RUSSIA_CHECHNYA?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (AP) -- Chechen rebels fired automatic weapons and lobbed grenades at a military commander's office, killing two soldiers and wounding 10, the Interior Ministry said Saturday.
In a separate attack, rebels on Friday ambushed Interior Ministry troops searching a forest outside of Chechnya's second-largest city, Gudermes. Two rebels were killed and two officers wounded in the gunbattle, the Interior Ministry said.
Russian forces significantly outnumber and outgun the insurgents, but rebel fighters have kept up the attacks, relying on small ambushes and land mine explosions to bloody Russian troops daily in this already four-year-old war.
The Russians carry out near-daily bombing raids, aggressively patrol checkpoints and conduct wide-ranging sweeps, which Chechen residents and human rights groups criticize for brutalizing civilians and alienating much of the population in this predominantly Muslim region.
The Interior Ministry said the commandant's office in the village of Samashki, west of the capital Grozny, came under surprise attack Friday.
The Moscow-backed Chechen administration chief Akhmad Kadyrov, who is taking a temporary leave of absence to run for the Chechen presidency, told the Interfax news agency on Saturday that rebels were trying to aggravate the situation ahead of the Oct. 5 election.
"They are badly scared of the upcoming elections because they are aware that, for the first time ever, the Chechen people will freely express their will in electing the president and parliament," Kadyrov was quoted as saying.
Chechens elected a president in 1997 after the republic became de-facto independent in the wake of the Russian military's 1996 pullout. Rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, however, was unable to restore order, and Russian forces swept back into Chechnya in September 1999 after Chechnya-based insurgents mounted an incursion into neighboring Dagestan and some 300 people died in apartment bombings that officials blamed on the rebels.
The Kremlin calls Maskhadov a terrorist and has refused to negotiate with him. Critics deride the upcoming elections as an attempt to legitimate the government of Kadyrov, who human rights groups say remains deeply distrusted by many Chechens.
-------- us
Pentagon Scales Back Training Exercises Abroad
The military has recently canceled or postponed dozens such scheduled multinational events, citing the strain of current missions.
By Esther Schrader
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 16, 2003
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-train16aug16,1,8414,print.story?coll=la-headlines-world
WASHINGTON - The strain on U.S. forces of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has forced the Pentagon to cancel dozens of military training exercises, a decision that senior defense officials say could affect the fighting edge of its troops over the long term.
The latest and largest exercise to be canceled, called Bright Star, has been conducted every two years since 1981 in Egypt. About 10,000 American and 60,000 foreign troops were to participate in this year's event, which was to begin next month.
The exercise was abruptly canceled Aug. 8 when Pentagon officials realized that it would mean recalling to the Middle East thousands of soldiers who had only recently returned home from long, arduous deployments in Iraq.
"This was an extremely difficult decision," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in a statement this week. "Given our current worldwide commitments, it seemed best to take a temporary break from one of our most important exercises."
But Bright Star is only part of the story. Since Oct. 1, the Pentagon has canceled or postponed 49 of the 182 training exercises it had scheduled for this fiscal year.
Military officials say that if the trend continues, the military skills of U.S. soldiers could deteriorate - and so could relationships with the many countries for whom such exercises provide critical contacts with American troops.
"Given the commitments and the fact that we're out there doing a lot of missions, I think a lot of the skill sets are being worked," said a senior military official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "But there is tremendous value to these exercises, and you can delay them for only so long before it starts to show."
These exercises, often elaborate combat simulations involving tens of thousands of troops, are designed to provide realistic military training and have come to serve a critical function in building military skills, especially in peacetime. Between 1995 and 2000, the Pentagon spent an average of $400 million to $500 million a year just on exercises sponsored by the Joint Chiefs, according to a study by the General Accounting Office. That does not include money spent for ongoing training at bases and training centers around the world run by the four military services.
Bright Star, the largest and most significant training exercise regularly conducted by the U.S. Central Command, which manages forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, focuses on desert fighting skills. It teaches troops everything from how to maintain their equipment in desert terrain to how to communicate with each other and with coalition forces.
"I don't think we need a lot of desert training right now," said one military official involved in running the exercise. "You're already exercising real-world, you're already operating with these countries on a real-world basis."
Bright Star, scheduled to run for several weeks, was to have drawn heavily on the very ground, air and special operations units that are and have been deployed in Iraq for months. It was last canceled in 1992, in the wake of the Persian Gulf War.
"Most of those skill sets that you get from Bright Star were well exercised in the first eight months of this year - deployment of air and sea lift, bridging of forces, movement of military equipment halfway around the world," said Daniel Goure, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based research organization. Goure is a former director of the Office of Strategic Competitiveness in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
But while many U.S. forces are presumably current on desert warfare, that's not the case for the 60,000 troops from other countries who were to participate in the exercise, Goure said. They were from Egypt, Greece, Germany, Jordan, Spain and Britain.
"The second important feature of these exercises is the collaboration with friends and allies," Goure said. "We may not need Bright Star to keep our skill sets going, but the Egyptians and others certainly do. And these exercises build friendships and connections that are valuable."
Goure and others say the real concern is not whether such exercises are canceled this year, but how many years it will take to restart the training regimen.
"I think at this point [canceling such programs] is a smart force-management tool, but it does raise the broader question of 'Where does this end?' " said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior research fellow at the Brookings Institution. "At some point there's a cumulative effect."
Regardless of such exercises' value, with nearly three-quarters of Army combat troops now deployed overseas, military officials say they just don't have the resources to maintain the pace of exercises and training.
About 138,000 of those deployed overseas are reservists, many in certain specialties that are being called up again and again. An additional 67,000 reservists from other branches of the military also are deployed. In Iraq alone, 133,000 Army soldiers are deployed, out of a total of 144,000 U.S. and 12,500 coalition personnel. There are 34,000 U.S. troops in Kuwait.
Planning for Bright Star had been underway for more than nine months when Rumsfeld intervened to cancel it, military officials said.
"We've just now redeployed troops back home," one military official said.
"The question is, is the exercise that important this year to send them back? Would you want to be the one to tell Mrs. Soldier, 'Sorry, but your husband is heading right back there again'?"
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- homeland security
Post-9/11 Emergency Training Pays Off
States' and Cities Plans Helped Smooth Out Response, Specialists Say
By John Mintz and Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 16, 2003; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A567-2003Aug15.html
The blackout of 2003 would have been far more disruptive if not for the intensive emergency planning undertaken by state and municipal workforces in the nearly two years since Sept. 11, 2001, to prepare for another terrorist attack, said independent experts, federal officials and regional leaders across the stricken area.
In New York, police had drilled for months on how to evacuate people from subway tunnels and skyscrapers, and from Cleveland to Detroit officers were hastily summoned from their days off under prearranged procedures to shepherd commuters through city streets with darkened traffic lights.
The consensus among many municipal and federal officials is that police, fire and emergency management personnel have performed well in the crisis, and that one reason is their extensive preparation for a new terrorist strike. It turns out many of the skills needed for the one emergency are helpful in the other, they said.
"What we learned is that if you prepare and practice and work out jointly the protocols of who does what, when you have an emergency, it does work," New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (R) said at a news conference yesterday. "Things, on balance, almost 100 percent did work."
"Our emergency response was good, reacted well," President Bush told reporters in California yesterday. "I doubt . . . the response would have been as good prior to September 11. The creation of the Homeland Security Department coupled with the modernization of communications between the state and local and federal officials really enabled the system to work well."
Independent emergency preparedness specialists agreed, saying the fact that states and most large cities have had to draft emergency response plans helped smooth the process.
Retired Air Force Col. Randall Larsen, a private homeland security consultant and occasional critic of government policies in that field, said the frequent training and crisis war-gaming undertaken by big-city police and fire personnel appeared to have paid off this week.
"From what I could see, it was a marvelous response, and it comes in part from the thousands of exercises that have gone on," he said.
In addition, he pointed out that, unlike the experience in the first weeks of the anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001 -- when many security experts agree that top federal officials' often misleading and contradictory public statements stoked the country's alarm -- officials' rapid dissemination of information in the first hours following Thursday's blackout calmed public nerves.
U.S. officials said that especially since the anthrax incidents, the government's crisis response plans have called for quickly publicizing news about crises -- whether disturbing or reassuring -- to show the public the government is on top of events.
Of course, when the lights went out starting just after 4 p.m., government officials and people on the street from Manhattan to Toronto initially feared a terrorist attack was the cause.
Within minutes, about two dozen Homeland Security Department officials gathered in a meeting room in their Washington headquarters, filled with secure telephone lines, and using practiced protocols they contacted electric power companies, governors, police departments and intelligence agencies. By 5 p.m. the department had released a statement that "initial reports indicate this was a power failure unrelated to terrorism."
Still, there were complaints yesterday. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), who is running for president, said in a statement that Bush has "failed to provide the leadership or resources necessary to ensure that our critical infrastructure is adequately protected."
Homeland Security spokesman Gordon Johndroe replied that the department has been working hard on exactly that task, and making "significant improvement" on protecting the electrical system's cyber and physical security.
In Cleveland, new protocols helped police and civic leaders smoothly shut down City Hall, dispatch officials into surrounding communities and escort commuters safely out of downtown, said City Council member Roosevelt Coats.
"I think that plan worked fairly well, and that is part of our terrorist plan that we have in place to move people from one section of town to the next," said Coats, who is vice chairman of the public safety panel of the National League of Cities. "A lot of people were trapped on our rapid transit system that ran off electric [power], and we found ways to get to them quicker than we probably would have had we not had some kind of plan in place."
"I did not see people panicking yesterday, and I think that goes back to the conversations about preparedness and readiness," Coats said. Before Sept. 11, he added, "everybody in this city would have panicked. I think we would have been in total chaos. We learned so much from 9/11."
In Rochester, N.Y., county and city officials cranked up their joint emergency operations center, which opened last year. Fire Chief Floyd A. Madison said that, thanks to post-Sept. 11 planning, communication between Rochester and Monroe County was much improved, with officials from both entities now in the same room when critical decisions are made.
"All of the things that we planned for in the beginning of last year, we're doing them now and implementing that," Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick told local reporters. "We were prepared for this."
-------- immigration / refugees
Bhutan refugees remain in limbo
August 16, 2003
By Chitra Tiwari
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030815-101259-7659r.htm
Bhutan, the small Buddhist kingdom nestled in the Himalayas, called off - virtually at the last minute - talks with its western neighbor, Nepal, scheduled for this week, dashing hopes that a resolution could be reached on the fate of some 100,000 Bhutanese refugees languishing in various camps in eastern Nepal.
Refugee leaders have accused the Bhutanese government of stalling the ministerial-level talks with a view to avoiding discussing the repatriation of the Bhutanese refugees.
For more than a dozen years, the Bhutanese refugee issue has remained one of the most neglected refugee crises in the world. The issue has not attracted the attention of the international community, but the situation now appears to be changing.
Generally, the refugees are ethnic Nepalese, but are Bhutanese nationals. Their ancestors crossed into southern Bhutan as farmer-settlers and lived there until they were arbitrarily stripped of their nationality and forced to flee Bhutan in the early 1990s.
The Bhutan government's attempt in the 1980s to impose its Buddhist-anchored Drukpa culture, which is akin to Tibet's, on a people with affinities to the Hindu culture of Nepal invited political opposition. There were several demonstrations against the royal regime ruling in Thimphu, demanding civil rights and radical changes in the political system.
The demonstrations became the catalyst for "ethnic cleansing" by the Bhutan government, as described by human rights activists. They said Bhutan began classifying participants and supporters as "antinationals." Facing police and army repression, southern Bhutanese began fleeing to Nepal by way of India.
As the refugee camps in eastern Nepal's Jhapa district began to swell in the early 1990s, Nepal asked Bhutan to allow the refugees to return to their homes. Bhutan denied responsibility for the refugee exodus, saying the people in the camps were illegal immigrants, Nepali nationals, migrants from India, or southern Bhutanese who had left voluntarily.
Bhutan also questioned the authenticity of the citizenship documents still held by two-thirds of the refugees in the camps, and voiced suspicions of a conspiracy to turn Bhutan into a Nepali-dominated state.
Under pressure from Nepal and human rights organizations, Bhutan agreed in May 1993 that "the royal government of Bhutan will accept full responsibility, for [any] bona fide Bhutanese national who has been forcibly evicted from Bhutan."
In July of that year, the interior ministers of Nepal and Bhutan met in Thimphu and announced that a joint committee would be set up to "determine the different categories of people in the refugee camps who are claiming to have come from Bhutan," and to arrive at a "mutually acceptable agreement on each category to provide a basis for the resolution of the problem."
Bhutan, however, stalled until the end of 2000, when a Joint Verification Committee (JVC) was formed to identify the genuine Bhutanese. Nepal agreed to a Bhutanese proposal that the two sides talk about four categories of refugees: those forcibly evicted from Bhutan, those who migrated "voluntarily," non-Bhutanese refugees, and "criminals" who fled Bhutan.
Analysts say Nepal's acceptance of the the Bhutanese proposal was a diplomatic blunder that led to protracted negotiations. They argue that the Bhutanese refugee problem is a trilateral issue involving Bhutan, India, and Nepal, as Bhutan's foreign policy is officially guided by India under a treaty signed between Thimphu and New Delhi in 1949. Since 1993, the representatives of the governments of Nepal and Bhutan have held 14 rounds of meetings.
This week's talks would have been the 15th if Thimphu had not postponed them on grounds that government ministers are busy with the ongoing National Assembly session.
Nepal has maintained that the refugees in the camps are Bhutanese citizens and should be allowed to return home. Bhutan maintains that not all the refugees in the camps are genuine. New Delhi maintains that the refugee problem is a bilateral issue between Bhutan and Nepal and, therefore, declined to be involved in the process.
Analysts argue that New Delhi's neutrality has given an incentive to the minority Drukpa rulers in Thimphu to engage in dilatory tactics in the process of refugee-repatriation negotiations.
In June, the Joint Verification Committee of both countries released the results of the verification process in one of the seven refugee camps dividing the 12,183 residents into the four categories:
•Category I: Only 21/2 percent of the refugees (only 293 persons) were found eligible for repatriation to Bhutan.
•Category II: 70 percent of the refugees were billed as those who "voluntarily emigrated" from Bhutan and would be required to reapply for Bhutanese citizenship.
•Category III: 24 percent of the refugees were billed as non-Bhutanese people whose claims to citizenship were rejected and would be returned to their respective countries.
•Category IV: 3 percent of the refugees were billed as so-called "criminals" who would be liable to be tried in the Bhutanese courts.
Reports on roughly 90,000 refugees living in the other six camps in southeastern Nepal are yet to be completed.
The release of the verification report came as a shock to the refugees while it stirred that part of the international community engaged in refugee affairs. Refugee activists and Nepal's opposition parties were quick to denounce the Nepal government for a report regarded as a sellout of the displaced Bhutanese.
Bhutanese refugee leaders in Nepal blasted the official report that found only a fraction of them as eligible refugees to return home.
"By issuing prejudiced, vague results, the Bhutan-Nepal Joint Verification Committee has shattered the hope of Bhutanese refugees who have been patiently waiting over the last 12 years to return to their homeland," the Association of Human Rights Activists/Bhutan said in a statement.
"Bhutan has thrown to the wind the international norms and fundamental rights of citizens," said the group, which appealed for intervention by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in India and other international donor countries.
In a joint statement, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Lutheran World Federation, Refugees International, the U.S. Committee for Refugees, and the Bhutanese Refugee Support Group called on international donor agencies and governments to increase pressure on the governments of Bhutan and Nepal to find a solution.
Rachael Reilly, a refugee-policy adviser of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch described the verification committee's recommendation as a "wholesale violation of their rights rather than a solution."
Ingrid Massage, interim director of the Asia and Pacific program at Amnesty International said, "This decision sends a message to other governments that it is legally acceptable to arbitrarily deprive a whole ethnic group of their nationality, expel them from their country, and then refuse to accept them back."
Cautioning the international community, she said, "Bhutan's donors should not rubber-stamp a process that could render tens of thousands stateless."
Peter Prove, assistant to the general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation said, "The world has neglected the Bhutanese refugees for far too long," adding "The governments of Bhutan and Nepal have failed to deliver a workable solution. The international community must now intervene and demand that the rights of the refugees are upheld."
The international community appears to have awakened from slumber to show concern over the problem as U.S. and German ambassadors criticized the report. The U.S. ambassador to Nepal, Michael Malinowski, in a statement noted inconsistencies in the verification report and suggested that Nepal and Bhutan re-examine the report.
He also expressed his dissatisfaction over the delayed progress in the repatriation of the refugees and suggested the need for the inclusion of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in the process.
Although the UNHCR has been involved in the administration of the Bhutanese refugee camps since the beginning of the flow of refugees in 1990, it has been systematically excluded by both Bhutan and Nepal from playing any role in the process of status determination and repatriation. In late July, two senior U.S. officials visited the refugee camps and expressed solidarity with the refugees.
While the Nepal government, after receiving a slap from the international community, says it has no objection on the involvement of the UNHCR in the problem, Bhutan has not responded and is perhaps waiting for India's clearance because New Delhi is Thimphu's foreign-policy patron. Without India's cooperation, the crisis is unlikely to be solved in the near future.
Observers of the refugee crisis are quick to point out that India's role cannot be isolated from the Bhutanese refugee problem, as New Delhi quietly allowed the refugees to use Indian territory while entering Nepal.
However, New Delhi refused to allow use of its territory when the refugees sought to return to Bhutan for a protest march and the delivery of a petition to Bhutanese King Jigme Singhe Wangchuk.
If India really wants to see the problem solved, analysts argue, New Delhi must use its treaty obligations with Bhutan and help avoid the humanitarian disaster in South Asia.
The entry of the international community, including the United States and the European Union, into the Bhutanese refugee crisis cannot be a welcome development for New Delhi, say the observers of India's security and foreign policies.
New Delhi considers all territories south from the Himalayas to Sri Lanka within its security sphere.
The U.S. concern over the deteriorating crisis is understandable in view of the emergence of a Maoist party inside refugee camps and also inside Bhutan. As is well known, the United States has vowed that it will not allow the Maoists to prevail in Nepal. Hence, the United States does not want to see the expansion of Nepal's Maoists into Bhutan and also in India's northeast region.
Critics argue that New Delhi's indifference with an emphasis on bilateralism in the Bhutanese refugee issue was intended to put pressure on Nepal, which resists India's coercive attitude, with a view to seek Katmandu's unquestioned loyalty toward India. New Delhi, however, appears to be in a dilemma as the refugee crisis has emerged as an unintended consequence with the appearance of foreign players in a sensitive part of South Asia.
Chitra Tiwari, a Washington based free-lance analyst of international affairs, was previously a lecturer in political science in Nepal's Tribhuvan University. He can be reached by e-mail at cktiwari@erols.com.
-------- justice
Momentum growing against Patriot Act, government tries to shore up support
JESSE J. HOLLAND,
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, August 16, 2003
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/08/16/national1313EDT0530.DTL
The Sept. 11 attacks convinced Congress that the federal government needed enhanced legal and investigative powers to pursue terrorists.
Yet in the two years since passing the Patriot Act, lawmakers have grown uneasy over Attorney General John Ashcroft's use of the expanded surveillance and detention powers. Not only are they leery of his requests for even greater authority, they are moving to curtail some of the tools they granted in the law.
The House voted last month to prohibit the use of federal funds on "sneak and peek" searches that the law says the government can conduct in criminal investigations without the property owner's or resident's knowledge and with warrants delivered afterward.
"This is the first of a whole group of assaults that we're going to make on the Patriot Act," said Rep. Butch Otter of Idaho, one of the few Republicans who voted against -it two years ago. "It was built in one day, but we're going to have to tear it down piece by piece."
Ashcroft defends the law as "a long overdue measure to close gaping holes in the government's ability, responsibly and lawfully, to collect vital intelligence information on criminal terrorists." He plans a public defense, starting with a speech Tuesday in Washington.
He also is visiting Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit and more than a dozen other cities to promote the law's successes. Also on his agenda is trying to dispel "misconceptions," according to the Justice Department, about what the law allows law enforcement officials to do.
Justice Department officials are predicting dire consequences if Congress takes back the post-Sept. 11 powers.
For example, Otter's measure, if the Senate agrees, "could result in the intimidation of witnesses, destruction of evidence, flight from prosecution, physical injury, and even death," Assistant Attorney General William Moschella wrote lawmakers.
The law is officially named the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. It granted the government broad powers for searches, wiretaps, electronic and computer eavesdropping, and wide access to financial and other information held by individuals and businesses.
Concerned about possible abuses, lawmakers put a 2005 expiration date on many of the wiretapping and surveillance measures, including a provision that gives authorities access to records of what people check out from libraries or buy from bookstores.
But that date is not soon enough for some lawmakers and others.
"When the Patriot Act was passed, smoke was still coming out of the rubble of the Pentagon and the twin towers" of New York's World Trade Center, Otter said. "We rushed in order to provide some comfort to the people of the United States. It was a big mistake."
A diverse group of lawmakers has filed bills to roll back portions of the law. The members of Congress include Sens. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., the only senator to vote against the measure, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Reps. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Joseph Hoeffel, D-Pa.
And others are talking about doing the same. Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, normally a staunch supporter of the Bush administration and its policies, said on Wednesday Congress must monitor how the Patriot Act is being used, "and there may come a time, and it may be next year, that we need to pull it back."
Alaska, Vermont and Hawaii, and 142 local governments have passed measures opposing the act. The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights have separately sued in federal court to challenge different parts of the law.
The Justice Department insists that much of the opposition stems from confusion about what it does and does not allow federal law enforcement officers to do.
Ashcroft has defended the libraries provision, saying subpoenas of business or library records are subject to greater scrutiny by judges under the anti-terrorism law than those issued under regular criminal investigations.
"There is misinformation, misunderstanding about the Patriot Act," Ashcroft said in a recent television interview. "The American people get it pretty well."
Ashcroft has even used some of the Democratic presidential contenders' own words to shore up support for the law, which broke down the traditional wall between FBI and intelligence agents.
Referring to Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., Ashcroft said, "As Edwards explained, 'We simply cannot prevail in the battle against terrorism if the right hand of our government has no idea what the left hand is doing,' Ashcroft told a domestic preparedness conference last month. EDITOR'S NOTE -- Jesse J. Holland covers legal affairs in Congress for The Associated Press.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Tips, Traced Call Led to Capture of Al Qaeda Suspect
Hambali Tracked Through 4 Countries
By Ellen Nakashima and Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 16, 2003; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A646-2003Aug15.html
BANGKOK, Aug. 15 -- Hambali, the top strategist for al Qaeda in Southeast Asia and the region's most wanted fugitive, was done in by suspicious neighbors and a telephone trace, regional security officials said today.
Around 11 p.m. Monday, about a dozen undercover Thai agents burst into Apartment 601 at a building in a city north of Bangkok, surprising the slumbering Indonesian cleric and his wife, security officials said. Hambali had a handgun, but did not have time to shoot, they said.
Aided by the CIA, authorities found him in Ayutthaya, a city about 45 miles north of the Thai capital, by tracking one of his phone calls while he was there. They were also tipped off by Muslim Thais in the community, who were wary of the foreigner who attended the local mosque and Internet cafe, but did not speak Thai.
Hambali, a key leader of the Southeast Asian terrorist network Jemaah Islamiah, was the focus of a massive region-wide manhunt and is believed by officials to have played an important role in the bombings on the island of Bali last year that killed 202 people. In the past year he crossed the borders of Malaysia, Cambodia, Burma and Thailand, once eluding authorities by less than a day, officials said.
Despite the intelligence community's coup, fighting terrorism in Southeast Asia is a task complicated by geography and the uneven degrees of authority and competence among the region's governments, analysts say. Borders -- formed by mountains, jungles, rivers and seas -- are porous, and people have crossed them for centuries with little regard for official controls. Some states are stricter than others. Thailand, which has struggled to control rampant trafficking in weapons and drugs, has been attractive to fugitives.
"In most other cases in the region, countries have raised their security awareness and made it tougher to transit," said Paul Quaglia, director of PSA Asia Ltd., a security consulting firm in Bangkok. "Thailand has a relaxed approach and the security posture is not as high . . . There's a reputation among the bad guys that it's pretty easy to get in and pretty easy to lie low."
Hambali, whose real name is Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin, had been on the run since at least December 2001, when Singapore cracked down on Islamic militants and arrested 15 suspects. In January 2002, Hambali entered Thailand from the southern border with Malaysia, intelligence officials said.
"He moved around, from place to place, never staying in any one place for too long," said one Thai security official. Over the months, he was spotted in four or five places in Bangkok, the official said.
From September through March, he lived in a Muslim community in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, staying in a guesthouse popular with budget travelers, according to an adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen. Authorities learned that Hambali had been there after they arrested three suspected Jemaah Islamiah members in May.
Thai police believe Hambali entered Thailand again about two weeks ago, according to a security analyst in the region familiar with the investigation. He had left Malaysia, possibly traveling by boat to Burma and then heading overland to the Thai border, the analyst said.
Using a false passport, he crossed into Mae Sai, Thailand, from a spot near the Laos-Burma border, where a short footbridge spans a narrow stream between the two countries, the analyst said. This border is less scrutinized than Thailand's southern border with Malaysia, where Thailand intensified security measures over the past year to prevent militants from entering.
Hambali sought refuge in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, which has a sizable Muslim population, the analyst said. He spent a few days in Nakhon Sawan, a city on the highway to Bangkok. Two hours south of that lay Ayutthaya, the ancient Thai capital famed for its Buddhist temples, sacked and burned by the Burmese in 1767.
In Ayutthaya, Hambali and his Malaysian wife, Noralwizah Lee, moved into a modest studio in the new seven-story, rose-hued Boonyarak Apartments, according to security officials. The rent was about $75 a month.
He told the landlady he intended to stay only a few months, a security official said.
He apparently was waiting for a fake European passport, the official said.
Hambali, 39, dressed casually in shorts and a T-shirt, eschewing the white robe and Muslim cap of his police photos, neighbors said. He was stocky, on the short side, with a chubby face, recalled a laundry owner on the ground floor. He told some people that he was working in a nearby factory. He told others he was a salesman.
"We saw him walking by and wondered what exactly is he doing for a living?" said the laundry owner. "He can't be a salesman, as we've never seen him carrying anything."
About two hours before capturing Hambali, Thai agents picked up two accomplices, said to be either Indonesian or Malaysian, in the apartment next door.
Hambali was quickly turned over to the CIA, which flew him out of the country Wednesday, U.S. officials said.
Until the final stage, the CIA briefed very few Thai authorities about the investigation. "They were kept in the dark until the zero hour for fear of a leak and blowing the whole thing," said a regional security analyst.
An Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman said his government is interested in seeing Hambali eventually brought to Indonesia for prosecution in connection with a series of terrorist attacks dating back to 2000. He added that he recognized that several other countries were seeking to prosecute Hambali.
Singapore and Malaysia have severe internal security laws that allow for indefinite detention of suspects without trial. Now, in the wake of last week's bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, which killed 12 people, both Indonesia and Thailand are rushing to upgrade security measures. Indonesia is planning to strengthen the anti-terrorism law it passed after the Bali attack. In Thailand, a decree took effect Monday that makes it easier for police to arrest suspects and allows for the death penalty in some prosecutions.
Over the past two years, Southeast Asian police forces have made strides in capturing militants, with more than 190 arrests throughout the region. Hambali is the third important Jemaah Islamiah figure caught in Thailand in recent months. In May, police arrested Arifin bin Ali, a Singaporean accused of providing military training to other Muslim radicals in the region. In June, they arrested Zubair, an al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah member who is suspected of laundering al Qaeda money through front companies and nonprofit organizations, including orphanages.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said tonight that with Hambali's arrest, Thailand was rid of all foreign terror cells. But a security official here warned that Hambali's arrest does not mean Jemaah Islamiah is vanquished. "They are still out there," he said.
In Pamokolan, the west Java village in Indonesia where Hambali grew up, some people were relieved he had been captured, if only to end the intense media scrutiny. According to Hambali's former Islamic school teacher, Muhammad Ridwan, Hambali had long ago ceased to be part of the community. "Life must go on," he said.
Staff writer Dana Priest in Washington and special correspondents Somporn Panyastianpong in Bangkok and Noor Huda Ismail in Jakarta contributed to this report. Sipress reported from Jakarta.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- energy
Incident Shines Light on Stalled Energy Upgrade
By Edward Walsh
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 16, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A891-2003Aug15.html
The massive power failure that struck the Northeast and parts of the Midwest this week also delivered a jolt to Congress, where energy legislation has been stalled amid deep regional differences over how best to upgrade the nation's aging electric power transmission system.
Administration officials and Republican lobbyists said yesterday they believed the power outage, experienced in a large part of the country and watched on television in the rest of the country, make it more likely that the energy bill logjam will be broken when Congress returns after Labor Day.
"Nothing shines light on an issue like a blackout," said Ron Eidshaug, a lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Congress who has worked on the energy legislation.
Before members of Congress left for the August recess, both the House and the Senate passed separate energy bills that must be reconciled by a conference committee. Both measures contain provisions meant to strengthen the transmission system, including stronger reliability standards.
But there are sharp differences on another key issue involving a proposal by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that would put control of transmission lines in the hands of several regional transmission organizations, nudging the country toward a national transmission system. Lawmakers from the South and the Pacific Northwest, which generally enjoy cheaper electricity than other parts of the country, oppose the FERC plan and are maneuvering to block or delay its implementation.
The blackout of 2003 underscored the urgency of the task, administration officials said. "This particular incident has made it abundantly clear to the American people that we've got an antiquated system, and now we've got to figure out what went wrong and how to address it," President Bush said in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Bush had made comprehensive energy legislation a key priority at the beginning of his administration. But attempts to pass a package of energy measures -- including tax incentives for oil and gas drilling, support for nuclear power and provisions for the electricity grid -- have been stymied by partisan divisions in Congress.
Members of Congress reacted swiftly to the blackout, the most extensive in U.S. history. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman W. J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.) said his committee will hold a hearing on the power outage in September. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) said his panel will use the blackout as a vehicle to explore the vulnerability of the nation's power supply and distribution systems.
But while the blackout may provide momentum for energy legislation, deep differences remain among key participants in the debate. FERC Chairman Patrick H. Wood III, pushing his agency's proposal to put the transmission lines under the control of regional transmission organizations, said, "The cascading nature of this blackout offers an object lesson of how the electricity grid requires regional coordination and planning, a challenge the nation is still striving to meet."
But Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), a leading opponent of the FERC plan, drew an opposite lesson from the blackout.
"It appears that the cascading power outages throughout the Northeast only reinforce our need to focus on reliability and transmission infrastructure development rather than creation of a new national market system," he said.
"The power grid system was built to provide electricity to local customers, and a national market system is not feasible without significant infrastructure additions."
The only way that the Senate was able to pass any energy bill before the August recess was an unusual agreement to accept a measure that was crafted last year by Senate Democrats to get the legislation to a conference committee with the House. But Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) said the conference committee will produce "a completely different bill" than the one that passed the Senate.
Shelby has said he has been given assurances by Domenici that a final bill will include a provision to delay implementation of any FERC plan on regional transmission organizations until 2005; House leaders have not agreed to this, aides said.
The regional differences over the legislation are rooted in the evolution of electric utilities as the industry began to deregulate in the 1990s.
Utilities in the Northeast and Midwest underwent extensive deregulation that separated power generation from its transmission over the power grid. But that was not the case in much of the South and the Pacific Northwest, with its abundant sources of hydroelectric power.
"In the South in particular, where you still have large, multistate utilities, there is a huge incentive to operate the transmission system in a way that favors their own generation," one energy expert said. "The regional transmission agencies would operate the transmission lines independently, and the utilities would no longer control access to the marketplace. They see that as a threat to low-cost power."
Christine Tezak, an electricity-energy analyst with Charles Schwab & Co., said that a lack of a political consensus on how to upgrade the transmission system has dampened the willingness of investors to put up the tens of millions of dollars necessary to improve the system.
"The problem is a lack of projects," she said. "No utility is clear. If they want to do something that is an economic enhancement over several service areas, they don't know where to go.
"If Congress wants to see regional transmission organizations developed, if Congress says that's what we want, that's the first step" toward consensus.
In April, FERC backed down from its original proposal, made last year, and said it would allow different regions of the country to move toward regional transmission organizations at their own pace. Tezak said that was the approach that she expected to emerge from Congress in a final version of the bill.
"Clearly the Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest and the Northeast must go forward sooner rather than later," she said. "If the South and the West want to go slower, that's up to them."
Staff writer Mike Allen contributed to this report.
-------- environment
Bush Says National Parks Need Repairs
President Renews His Financial Commitment
By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 16, 2003; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A561-2003Aug15.html
RANCHO SIERRA VISTA, Calif., Aug. 15 -- President Bush today hiked a dusty trail, lifted a few shovels full of dirt into an irrigation ditch, and sought to bolster his faltering environmental credentials by promoting his administration's plan to complete neglected maintenance work in the country's national parks.
Speaking here in a section of the Santa Monica Mountains, Bush laced his conservation message with his religious faith, saying: "God designed this park's beauty, but men and women make sure it remains beautiful."
In addition to raising money for his reelection campaign, which Bush continued to do today, one of his main reasons for leaving the Crawford, Tex., ranch where he is based for the month has been to try to counteract a political vulnerability -- low public esteem for his conservation policies.
Today's visit to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area was his second event of the week with an environmental theme, after an appearance in Arizona on Monday to promote his disputed idea of reducing the risk of wildfires by allowing more thinning of national forests. He has scheduled two more appearances focused on environmental issues for late next week, in Oregon and Washington state.
This morning, with a backdrop of a dramatic peak called Boney Mountain towering above him in this Ventura County spot, the president sought to project an outdoorsman's image. He was jacket-less, his shirt was open at the neck, and his face was shiny with sweat when he reached an outdoor lectern after his hike along the crest of a hill.
Before turning to his central message, Bush sought to reassure Americans unsettled by Thursday's massive blackout, calling the disruption "a wake-up call for a need [to] modernize our electricity delivery systems. . . . We will figure out what went wrong. We will address it."
The core of his remarks essentially restated the first major environmental speech of his presidency, delivered in May 2001, at Sequoia National Park in northern California. He pledged that day to combine the careful public stewardship of national parkland with the interests of private owners -- a stance popular among Western conservatives. In particular, he promised two years ago to ask Congress for $4.9 billion over five years to eliminate a backlog of overdue maintenance projects in the national parks, involving problems ranging from overgrown trails to leaky roofs.
He renewed that financial commitment today. And with Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton at his side, he said: "[S]lowly but surely, we are dealing with the backlog," in part by attempting a complete inventory of the work that the parks require.
The president's assertion of progress is challenged by Democrats and conservation groups. Thomas C. Kiernan, president of the National Parks Conservation Association, disputed the White House's claim -- made again by Bush today -- that the administration has devoted $2.9 billion to reducing the backlog since taking office. According to an analysis by the nonpartisan group that advocates for the national park system, just $370 million of that sum represents new spending, while the remainder is a continuation of ongoing appropriations.
In addition, Kiernan said, the administration's claim to have undertaken 900 pieces of maintenance work in the park creates a false impression of headway, because those projects cover a small -- but unknown -- part of the work left to be done in the 388-park system. And while emphasizing the neglected maintenance, the administration's overall budget increases for the operation of the national parks have been far less than those during the Clinton administration.
The General Accounting Office concluded in a study issued last month that the Interior Department "appears to have made progress" in cataloging deferred maintenance. But also last month, Barry T. Hill, director of the GAO's national resources section, told a congressional committee, "although the park service has spent almost two decades and about $11 million addressing this problem, it still does not have a reliable estimate" of the parks' condition or the full cost of the needed repairs.
Democrats were swiftly critical. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said that Theodore Roosevelt, the president who founded the park system, "would be thoroughly disappointed in President Bush's record on the environment so far."
Schiff said that the parks are "being starved of critical day-to-day operating funding" and are "in worse shape" than at the start of Bush's presidency.
After his appearance here, the president traded the open vistas of the nation's largest urban national park for a hotel ballroom in Irvine, where he held his second political fundraiser in less than 24 hours. The event, his fourth fundraiser in California since June, was expected to generate more than $1 million, according to campaign officials. Bush was to return to Crawford in time for dinner.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Tax Protester Faces Justice Dept.
August 16, 2003
The New York Times
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/16/national/16TAX.html
LAS VEGAS, Aug. 15 - Can a man be held in contempt of court and jailed for selling copies of public records?
Irwin Schiff, the nation's best-known proponent of the idea that people are not required to pay income taxes, has put that provocative question to Lloyd D. George, a federal district judge who held a hearing here on Thursday on a Justice Department request that Mr. Schiff be put behind bars for civil contempt.
On June 16, Judge George issued an injunction ordering the 75-year-old Mr. Schiff, who has twice gone to prison for tax offenses, to stop promoting his "zero tax return," which he says allows anyone to legally list no income and so pay no taxes. At least 5,100 such returns have been filed in recent years, the Internal Revenue Service says, costing the government $51 million in taxes and tying up law enforcement resources needed to pursue the filers.
Judge George also ordered Mr. Schiff to stop selling his $38 book, "The Federal Mafia: How the Federal Government Illegally Imposes and Unlawfully Collects Federal Income Taxes." Judge George found the book to be false commercial speech that incites people to evade taxes, although, contrary to Mr. Schiff's assertion that the book had now been banned, the court did not prohibit its sale by people unconnected to him.
Five days later Mr. Schiff certified to the court that he was obeying the injunction, which also required him to post it prominently on his Web site.
But the Justice Department says he has flouted the order, noting that he continues to assert on that site that zero income tax returns are legal. In addition, he provides only a link there to the injunction.
Among the Justice Department's other evidence is a $150 "Commemorative Injunction Packet," which went on sale at his Web site after the order was issued.
The packet includes a copy of Mr. Schiff's 2002 tax return, showing zero income, and his statement to the I.R.S. explaining his theory that no individual has income under federal law, which, he says, defines income as corporate profit.
The packet consists of the chief documents from the case before Judge George. For those not inclined to wade through Mr. Schiff's book, with its miasma of theorizing and digressions, it offers a crisp zero-tax-return distillation, written for the court by Evan Davis, a lawyer in the Justice Department's tax division. Since Mr. Schiff already owes millions of dollars in taxes, the government says fining him would be insignificant and has asked that he be jailed instead and that two associates of his, Cindy Neun and Larry Cohen, each be fined $5,000 a day until they, too, comply with the injunction.
Though the government cites a variety of evidence, Mr. Schiff has tried to place the focus of the case on the fact that his packet is made up of public records.
"The government wants to jail me for selling documents you can walk into the courthouse and buy copies of for 50 cents a page," he said after the hearing on Thursday, surrounded by three dozen supporters he had pulled together on a day's notice.
Told of Mr. Schiff's tactic, Prof. Eugene Volokh, who teaches First Amendment courses at U.C.L.A. Law School, said the public-document argument would not shield the defendant if he was inciting people to commit crimes.
"If indeed what Schiff is doing is illegal commercial advertising - fraudulent commercial advertising - it doesn't matter if he fraudulently advertises using the public record," Professor Volokh said. "If the issue is incitement to commit a crime, it doesn't matter if he quotes from the public record. The real question is whether the content of the speech is protected, not so much the source."
Mr. Schiff routinely applies the word "criminal" to federal judges, including Judge George. His lawyer, Michael Stein, a First Amendment specialist, said jailing someone for selling public documents - or for expressing views about federal judges, whatever the merits of those views - would set a dangerous precedent.
"The most clearly protected speech is the public debate about what is happening in our court system," said Mr. Stein, who also plans to appeal the court order. "This injunction is very broad, so broad that it basically prohibits Mr. Schiff from saying what he believes."
Mr. Stein said the Justice Department was not acting simply on the ground that Mr. Schiff's zero tax idea is unprotected false commercial speech. Rather, he said, Mr. Schiff "is being prohibited from saying anything about the tax laws that is contrary to what the Justice Department says those laws say."
A notice of appeal from the order prohibiting Mr. Schiff and those acting in concert with him from selling "The Federal Mafia" has been filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, said Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union's Nevada chapter. That chapter, as well as the American Booksellers Association, the American Publishers Association, the American Library Association and the writers' group PEN, will join in asking the appeals court to vacate the order, Mr. Lichtenstein said.
On Thursday, some of the dozens of people who had turned out in support of Mr. Schiff chuckled at how he had used public records to continue his assault on the legitimacy of the tax system.
"He's a real troublemaker, isn't he?" said one of them, who declined to identify himself.
In interviews, many of those supporters described the federal government as a criminal organization systematically destroying economic opportunity for all but the elite and using the tax code to undermine what they called a right to not have their labor taxed.
Mr. Schiff's appearance at the hearing, held in a dark-paneled courtroom, brought seven bailiffs and two plainclothesmen, although the supporters were all polite and orderly.
Judge George began the proceeding with an unusual address lasting nearly 20 minutes. He indicated that he had received letters from many people denouncing him for the injunction and that some, in crude language, characterized him as lawless.
He explained that as a trial court judge, he was bound by the decisions of the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court, and that in finding that Mr. Schiff's zero tax return amounted to tax evasion, he had been following the precedents of those higher courts.
The hearing on Thursday had not been scheduled until Tuesday, and so, because Mr. Stein said he had been hired only Wednesday night and needed time to develop a defense, Judge George set a new hearing for Sept. 4.
Mr. Stein said he expected that his client would be jailed after that hearing, a view that Mr. Schiff said he unhappily shared.
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