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NUCLEAR
Dounreay rabbits get all-clear
Japan's ruling party defies taboo on changing pacifist constitution
Japan, Vanuatu to discuss transport of nuclear materials
N. Korean Parliament OKs Nuclear Force
U.S. Stand Could Stall Korea Talks, Chinese Say
N.Korean Parliament Vows Atomic Arms Measures
North Korea to Raise Nuclear Capabilities
U.S. Said Taking North Korean Threat Seriously
Taiwan eyes submarines and anti-missile system
Musharraf rules out freeze of Pakistan's nuclear programme
Warning that nuclear test ban is vital, Annan urges speedy ratification
Annan Urges U.S. to Ratify Nuke Treaty
ElBaradei Urges States to Ratify Nuke Test Ban Pact
Japan Urges U.S. to Ratify Nuke Treaty
Nuclear Plants Warned of Computer Threats
'America is building a world order'
MILITARY
Bitter Afghans help former rulers
Uganda seeks US military aid
Russia ready to sell air defense systems to Iran
BAE wins £1bn Hawk contract
bombs r us
'Japan to compensate Chinese gas victims'
Report Draws Concern of Ex - Intel Official
US's 'private army' grows
U.S. eyes role for donors in Iraq
Documents Show Extent of Lobbying by Boeing
British BAE Gets Indian Military Jet Deal
Pentagon to Probe Air Force Ex - Official
U.S. Seeks Chemical Weapons Timeline Delay
Beijing decides military size isn't everything
EU military to get a home base
'Chocolate makers'
Europeans Plan Own Military Command Post
British Embassy in Iran Closes After Gunfire
Thousands at Burial of Slain Cleric
Car Bomb Hits Central Offices of Iraqi Police
Report: Mossad team visited Iraq for anti-terror efforts
IDF: Battered Hamas turns to PA, Egypt in bid to renew truce
Israeli Defense Chief Renews Call for Expulsion of Arafat
Israeli Report Is Welcomed, Dismissed
Israel urges US to press Saudis to withdraw F-16s
Pakistan to send more troops to Saudi Arabia
Libya severs diplomatic ties with Lebanon over missing cleric
Lebanese Ayatollah Warns U.S. on Iraq
Israeli jets fire on Lebanon
Guantanamo Bay detainees seek ruling
Five Killed in Russian Train Bombing
Train Bombing Kills 5 and Hurts 30 Near Chechnya
'Rods from God'
Pollard attorneys seek access to secret report used in spy sentencing
Convicted Spy Goes to Court to Appeal Life Sentence
Spy Seeks to Appeal Life Sentence
Israel tries to stop critical UN resolutions
Bush Looks to U.N. to Share Burden on Troops in Iraq
Aid donors back plan for international trust fund for Iraq
Powell Begins Push for Increasing U.N. Role in Iraq
U.S. Wants Larger U.N. Role in Iraq
U.S. rushed post-Saddam planning
Army Lacks Forces for Iraq Mission, CBO Warns
Troops streaming to Iraq, Kuwait from Fort Bragg
Special Ops troops gain new leadership
The Pentagon's Bungled Psyops Strategy
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Court puts death sentences in doubt
Judges' Rulings Imposing Death Are Overturned
Death Row Inmates Get Legal Break
Ridge adds 5,000 air marshals to help get 'surge capacity'
SYRIA - Returning exile cites 1,000 political prisoners
MOROCCO - Polisario rebel group frees 243 prisoners
ENERGY AND OTHER
Alternative Fuel Bus Developed for Yellowstone Park
Laptop fuel cells - ready for takeoff?
Energy Politics Overshadow House Blackout Inquiry
Bush Does Not Know Blackout's Cause
E.P.A. Relaxes Restrictions on Sales of Contaminated Land
Superfund To Run Out Of Money, GAO Says
Africans Outdo Americans in Following AIDS Therapy
Census Shows Ranks of Poor Rose by 1.3 Million
ACTIVISTS
Vietnam vet chooses jail over fine
Leftists target Republicans' convention
They're back
Protesters line the streets
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- britain
Dounreay rabbits get all-clear
Rabbits had burrowed into radioactive waste pits
Wednesday, 3 September, 2003,
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3078094.stm
Dounreay's rabbit population has been ruled free from radioactivity following tests by the Food Standards Agency Scotland (FSAS).
A probe was carried out after the bunnies were found to have burrowed into low-level waste pits at the nuclear plant in Caithness.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) had served an enforcement notice on Dounreay managers ordering them to stop the rabbits gaining access.
There was concern that the rabbits could be contaminated with radioactivity and people who trapped and ate them locally would be in danger.
But after taking samples from 10 rabbits, FSAS experts have confirmed they do not contain nuclear waste from the pits.
Traces of plutonium, uranium and americium were found in the bunnies but they were said to be from permitted Dounreay discharges, nuclear weapon tests, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Russia.
Fences repaired
An FSAS spokesman said: "The survey showed no evidence that wild rabbits from close to Dounreay contain radioactive material from the solid low level waste pits at the nuclear establishment.
"The analysis shows that people who eat rabbits caught near Dounreay will receive very low doses of radioactivity which are within nationally and internationally recognised limits.
"There is no need for people to avoid eating rabbits from the area."
Plant operator UKAEA said it has complied with the order to prevent wildlife getting into its waste pits by repairing holes in fences and gates.
The UKAEA is also believed to have hired Rentokil to target the thriving population of rabbits which can often be seen scampering about open ground within the Caithness plant.
--
Timeline: Dounreay's troubles
The Caithness plant has been hit by safety concerns
Wednesday, 13 November, 2002,
BBC
Investigations are continuing to discover the source of radioactive contamination at the Dounreay nuclear reprocessing plant in Caithness.
20 workers received medical treatment after contaminated particles were discovered on their shoes, hands and, in the case of one worker, his face.
Here is a timeline of Dounreay's controversial recent past.
1998: 31 March - The government announces it will spend more than £200m cleaning a contaminated shaft at Dounreay. The pit was sealed more than 20 years ago but is still leaking radioactivity. Click here to read the full story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/72030.stm
Dounreay map The plant is a major employer in the area 22 April - It is announced that Dounreay is to receive a total of 5.1kg of uranium, including 800g of waste fuel flown in an American transport plane from the former Soviet state of Georgia.
16 May - The Health and Safety Executive announces a sweeping review of safety at Dounreay. It follows an incident when a mechanical digger accidentally cut through power cables paralysing the plant. Click here to read the full story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/94690.stm
2 June - It emerges that 170kg of weapons-grade enriched uranium from the nuclear plant cannot be accounted for.
5 June - The government announces that Dounreay is to be closed, although the necessary decontamination work will take many years. The plant employs 1,400 staff.
1999: 28 January - An investigation confirms weapons-grade uranium has gone missing at the nuclear plant. However the energy minister said the amount lost is tiny and "acceptable" by modern standards.
28 May - Five workers at Dounreay have to be monitored for possible radioactive contamination. They had been handling a package of uranium waste when it burst in to flames. Click here to read the full story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/354543.stm
1 August - The operators of Dounreay are accused of delaying the news that they have found another radioactive "hot-spot" near the site. A Dounreay spokesman said he was waiting for the results of tests before making the news public. Click here to read the full story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/409348.stm
2000: 7 March - A report praises the management at Dounreay for the progress made in improving safety. However the House of Commons trade and industry committee warns that much still needs to be done.
1 August - The operators of the Caithness plant accept "full responsibility" for breaches of safety which caused two major alerts. The UK Atomic Energy Authority is fined £101,000 after three workers are contaminated and a main power cable is cut.
Drums of nuclear waste 40-year-old waste in storage 28 May - Another radioactive particle is found on a beach close to the Dounreay plant. It is the 12th particle to be found there since 1983. Nine have been discovered in the last 12 months.
2001: 18 July - The government rules out any future role for the Dounreay plant as a nuclear reprocessing site. The energy minister said that he thinks a refurbishment of the plant's reprocessing systems is not merited. Click here to read the full story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1445635.stm
2002: 22 January - Dounreay is given a clean bill of health by inspectors following a safety review. However the Nuclear Installations Inspector said the ability to decommission the site fully will depend on the ability to recruit sufficient numbers of staff. Click here to read the full story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1774275.stm
--
Dounreay clean-up facility planned
Decommissioning will be phased in over 60 years
Tuesday, 29 April, 2003
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2985899.stm
An application to build a new plant to clean up radioactive effluent at the Dounreay nuclear site has been lodged.
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) said the plant would form part of decommissioning work at the site in Caithness.
The £2.4m project will remove radioactivity from the effluent before it is discharged into the sea.
It will deal with waste from the prototype fast reactor.
The reactor, one of three built and operated at Dounreay, was closed in 1994.
Liquid metal
The fuel has been removed and a £17m plant built to destroy the 1,500 tonnes of sodium liquid metal used as coolant.
The next stages in decommissioning include the steam cleaning of components and facilities coated with traces of sodium.
The cleaning will generate liquors containing radioactive material caesium-137 and cobalt-60, which will need to be cleaned up before being discharged to sea.
The UKAEA wants planning consent to build the new plant which will contain an ion exchange column to clean up the liquors.
It will have a special resin in the column which will trap radioactivity as the effluent flows through it.
Stored on-site
Experts at Prague University are to design the column and will make sure it reaches the standards of environmental protection.
Meanwhile, the radioactivity trapped in the resin will be stored on-site.
UKAEA project manager Mick Moore said: "Subject to planning and regulatory consent, the new plant will be good news for the environment because it means we will be able to clean up the effluent before it is discharged."
It is expected to create 15 jobs, and is one of around 20 new plants expected to be required as part of the decommissioning process.
--
Rabbits burrow into Dounreay
Rabbits have been burrowing into radioactive waste pits
Monday, 23 June, 2003
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3014562.stm
Managers at Dounreay have been ordered to stop rabbits from entering radioactive waste pits at the nuclear plant in Caithness.
Inspectors from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency spotted the bunnies hopping in and out of solid low level waste pits during a recent routine visit.
A subsequent investigation discovered rabbit faeces next to the pits and evidence of burrows through two pit caps.
The site's authorisation requires the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to use the "best practicable means" for preventing the movement of any radioactive waste contained in the pits.
An enforcement notice has now been served on Dounreay's operators.
The UKAEA has been told to cut off access to the rabbits, who are in danger of spreading radioactive waste around the site and beyond.
Rabbit surveillance
A Sepa spokesman said the enforcement notice requires the plant operators to take immediate and long-term measures to limit wildlife access to the pits and also to quantify and repair damage caused by wildlife.
It also requires Dounreay bosses to carry out surveillance on the rabbits to demonstrate that the measures they implement have been effective.
Dounreay warning sign The plant is consulting on culling the rabbits The Sepa spokesman added that it will be necessary for the UKAEA to provide evidence that it has complied with the notice.
The UK Atomic Energy Authority said despite routinely testing rabbits on the site there has been no evidence of contamination.
However, a spokesman said the perimeter fence had been improved and they were consulting with Scottish Natural Heritage on how to humanely reduce the resident rabbit population.
--
Tests on suspect atomic rabbits
Friday, 27 June, 2003,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3026370.stm
Dounreay's rabbit population will be tested for radioactivity amid fears contaminated meat could enter the food chain.
Experts from the Food Standards Agency Scotland (FSAS) confirmed they will take samples from rabbits near the nuclear plant away for analysis.
But the body said the action is merely a precautionary measure.
The move comes after the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) served an enforcement notice on Dounreay managers after it found rabbits had burrowed into the plant's low-level radioactive waste pits.
The FSAS has said there is no indication that contaminated rabbits are entering the food chain but added it is aware of at least one person who catches the animals, primarily for pet food, in the Dounreay area - not far from the nuclear licensed site.
The individual involved has already agreed to stop the activity in the vicinity of the licensed site until the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), operators of the nuclear plant, has complied with Sepa's enforcement notice.
Bunny samples
Because of the possibility of rabbits being caught for human consumption, the FSAS has also notified the local authority and arrangements are being made for samples to be collected.
A spokesman for the FSAS said it will continue to review the situation and consider any implications for public health.
UKAEA has said despite routinely testing rabbits on the site there has been no evidence of contamination.
Dounreay site director Peter Welsh said: "There is no evidence that rabbits are spreading radioactivity from the low-level waste and this is reinforced by the results of these tests.
"Nonetheless, we recognise that rabbits should not have been able to access this area in the first place and we have now secured the area against further intrusion."
He added: "We are also arranging a cull of rabbits on the site and reviewing what measures may need to be taken to curb other wildlife."
The UKAEA is believed to have hired Rentokil to target the thriving population of rabbits which can often be seen scampering about open ground within the Caithness plant.
-------- japan
Japan's ruling party defies taboo on changing pacifist constitution
TOKYO (AFP)
Sep 03, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/030903091052.e3uzw7g8.html
Japan's ruling party broke a taboo Wednesday, when a key policy maker made a fresh proposal to amend Japan's pacifist constitution aiming to clarify ambiguities over Japan's right to self-defence.
"As far as I know, there has been no developed country which did not amend its constitution," Taro Aso, policy chief of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), told a news conference.
"It is wrong to regard the Constitution as a code of law that will be in effect forever," Aso said.
"There is a mood that we are not allowed to protect ourselves, but in many ways, we have to count on ourselves," Aso said.
Article Nine of the 1947 constitution, drawn up under US-led occupation, renounces war and the use of force for settling international disputes, and states that "land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained."
Up to now, Japan has assumed it retains the right to self-defence and has skirted round the constitutional difficulty by euphemistically labelling its powerful military "Self-Defence Forces".
"It is a big problem that the Constitution implies ambiguity over defence and other points, and so it is better to amend it," Aso added.
Aso's remarks echoed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's plan to include an amendment to the constitution in his platform for the party's presidential election, which secures the nation's premiership.
Koizumi was seen likely to retain his post as LDP president in a party poll September 20 as no serious challenger to him has yet to emerge.
Koizumi agreed last week with another senior LDP official to draw up a proposal for an amendment to the constitution by November 2005 when the conservative party marks its 50th anniversary in 2005.
Koizumi, one of the most hawkish post-war premiers, has said the constitution should be changed to formally recognise the country's Self-Defence Forces as a full-fledged military.
A change in the constitution has long been regarded as taboo in Japanese politics amid strong opposition at home and abroad -- in particular in Asian countries still haunted by bitter memories of Japan's militarism.
----
Japan, Vanuatu to discuss transport of nuclear materials
03/09/2003
ABC Radio Australia News
http://www.goasiapacific.com/news/GoAsiaPacificBNP_937817.htm
Japan's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs has gone to Vanuatu for talks on the transport of nuclear materials through the South Pacific.
Britain, France and Japan ship plutonium MOX fuel, between Europe and Japan, through the South Pacific.
Vanuatu has recently said it may seek legal backing, to ensure those countries pay compensation if there is an accident.
Professor Jon Van Dyke, who acts as a consultant to Vanuatu's government on the issue, says the right of passage is not unlimited.
"There is an emerging principle of international law that allows countries to regulate shipping based on the type of ship and the cargo that's being transported," he said.
"So there is a right of navigation but it's not an unlimited right. You must exercise that right pursuant to the safety standards that have been established, and the law of the sea is very clear that there must be an environment assessment, there must be a contingency plan and there must be a full and proper liability regime."
-------- korea
N. Korean Parliament OKs Nuclear Force
North Korean Parliament Supports Government Decision to Build Up Nuclear Capabilities
The Associated Press
Sept. 3, 2003
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20030903_204.html
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea's parliament on Wednesday approved the communist government's decision to increase its "nuclear deterrent force" in angry reaction to what it calls a hostile U.S. policy.
The Supreme People's Assembly a rubber-stamp body for government policy also said it backed the Foreign Ministry's announcement last week that North Korea no longer had "interest or expectations" for future talks on its nuclear program, according to the North's official news agency KCNA.
The Best of ABC News
KCNA also reported that the parliament "decided to take relevant measures." The news agency did not elaborate.
North Korea's envoy to the six-nation talks in Beijing on the North's nuclear crisis last week warned that the reclusive state might test a nuclear device to prove itself a nuclear power, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
Representatives from the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, China and Russia met last week in Beijing to discuss ways to end the nuclear crisis. After the meeting, China, North Korea's only remaining major ally, released a statement saying all six countries agreed to continue to talk.
But a day after the three-day Beijing meeting ended on Friday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry angrily dismissed the need for more talks and threatened to keep and strengthen its "nuclear deterrent force," casting doubt on the prospects for future meetings.
China's chief delegate to the negotiations said Monday that Washington's policy toward North Korea was one of the main obstacles in the talks.
"American's policy toward DPRK; this is a main problem we are facing," Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in the Philippines. He did not elaborate.
DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The North's newly elected parliament, which convened Wednesday, adopted a "decision" to support the ministry's decision, KCNA said.
The parliament also, as expected, re-elected leader Kim Jong Il to his government's top post, chairman of the National Defense Commission, which oversees the country's 1.1 million armed forces the world's fifth largest military.
The nuclear issue "has reached a grave phase due to the Bush administration's extremely hostile policy toward the DPRK," KCNA said.
The Beijing talks "offered the DPRK an opportunity to confirm that the Bush administration still intends to disarm the DPRK and use the multilateral talks for laying an international siege to the DPRK to isolate and stifle the DPRK," the parliamentary decision said.
North Korea says the United States must sign a nonaggression treaty, open diplomatic ties and provide economic aid before it can feel safe enough to dismantle its nuclear program. The United States insists that North Korea first scrap its nuclear program before Washington can consider providing security guarantees and help for its moribund economy.
North Korea denounced the U.S. demands as "brigandish."
Despite the North's threat to boycott future meetings, other participants said the six parties reached a tentative agreement to meet again around October.
On Tuesday, North Korea repeated its threat to increase its nuclear capabilities but also said that it is willing to resolve the dispute over its nuclear program "through dialogue."
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have been high since October, when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted running a nuclear program in violation of international agreements.
Kim Jong Il, 61, has been chairman of the National Defense Commission since 1993, a year before his father, Kim Il Sung, died of heart failure in 1994. Five years later, he was re-elected to the post after the parliament made it the highest in government hierarchy.
Kim, who also holds titles of General Secretary of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea and supreme commander of the Korean People's Army, rules the impoverished country of 22 million people with a personality cult inherited from his late father.
----
U.S. Stand Could Stall Korea Talks, Chinese Say
September 3, 2003
New York Times
By JOSEPH KAHN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/international/asia/03KORE.html
BEIJING, Sept. 2 - As North Korea reversed itself and pledged to continue negotiating about its nuclear program, Chinese officials argued today that the bigger obstacle to a diplomatic solution is what it called the reluctance of the United States to bargain in earnest.
The official North Korean news agency, K.C.N.A., said today the North was still committed to negotiations about its nuclear program. It was the first confirmation that North Korea intends to take part in a new round of talks after it issued a stream of invective against the United States, called the just-completed talks in Beijing useless and said it was "no longer interested" in dialogue.
"The D.P.R.K.'s fixed will to peacefully settle the nuclear issue between the D.P.R.K. and the U.S. through dialogue remains unchanged," the news agency said in a dispatch released this afternoon, using the initials of the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
North Korea's position, if it remains the same, appears to confirm China's earlier statement that all parties that took part in the last round - the United States, North Korea, Japan, South Korea and Russia, as well as China - were ready to continue negotiations within two months.
The switch comes as China's top diplomats have grown increasingly concerned that the United States does not have a negotiating strategy beyond using multilateral talks to put pressure on North Korea, analysts who have spoken to Chinese officials about the issue said today.
In contrast, these analysts said, China is persuaded that North Korea is prepared to trade away its nuclear program for the right mix of security and economic incentives.
Wang Yi, China's vice foreign minister and the host of last week's talks, told reporters in Manila on Monday that he considered the United States the "main obstacle" to settling the nuclear issue peacefully. He did not elaborate, but in a regularly scheduled briefing today, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Kong Quan, backed up the point.
"How the U.S. is threatening the D.P.R.K. - this needs to be further discussed in the next round of talks," Mr. Kong said. He said new talks should focus on addressing what he called Washington's "negative policy" toward North Korea.
The statements are significant because China has played the principal role in bringing the parties together for talks. The administration would also need at least tacit backing from China, North Korea's largest aid donor and trading partner, to impose sanctions if the North began testing and deploying nuclear weapons.
People who have been briefed on China's position say that officials here believe that negotiations will ultimately collapse unless the Bush administration adopts a more nuanced bargaining strategy that provides a clear blueprint for dismantling North Korea's nuclear facilities while simultaneously addressing the country's security concerns.
"There is a widespread sense that the U.S. is the problem," said Chu Shulong, a foreign affairs expert at Qinghua University. "China wants everyone to be prepared to take steps at the same time, and doesn't understand why this is not reasonable."
At last week's negotiations, North Korea proposed a program in which it offered to dismantle its nuclear facilities and submit to inspections, but only after the United States signed a nonaggression treaty. The United States rejected that proposal, but offered little in return, maintaining that North Korea must completely and verifiably stop producing atomic weapons before discussions begin on any benefits it might receive for doing so.
American officials have said that they would not offer up-front benefits to North Korea because that would amount to succumbing to blackmail. North Korea acknowledged abrogating a 1994 pact with the United States and resumed nuclear weapons development last year, prompting the latest crisis.
Still, some outside experts argue that the Bush administration cannot maintain a no-bargaining position indefinitely if the negotiations are to progress beyond recitations of official positions.
"The first round just brought out the positions of both sides," said Susan Shirk, a former State Department official in the Clinton administration. "But if you want to solve the problem, there has to be a spirit of compromise on all sides."
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N.Korean Parliament Vows Atomic Arms Measures
September 3, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's parliament said on Wednesday it would take ``relevant measures'' to support the communist leadership's decision to reject further talks on the country's nuclear program and boost its atomic deterrent.
The unusual decision by the Supreme People's Assembly echoed a tough weekend Foreign Ministry statement on last week's six-way talks in Beijing. But it seemed to contradict comments by the official KCNA news agency this week that Pyongyang still wanted to resolve the dispute through dialogue.
The parliamentary decision said the Beijing talks -- which brought together China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the United States -- proved Washington did not want to co-exist peacefully with the North.
It noted that the North Korean Foreign Ministry, with government backing, had said it saw no further point in talks and Pyongyang had no choice but to keep and enhance its nuclear deterrent.
``(Parliament) considered as just all the measures taken by the Foreign Ministry upon the authorization of the DPRK government, supported and approved them and decided to take relevant measures,'' KCNA quoted parliament as saying. It did not elaborate on those measures.
South Korean media have said the North's parliament might map out economic reforms and policy for the next five years.
The North's economy is in tatters and piecemeal reforms, such as scrapping rationing and raising prices, have done little to improve things.
BIGGER PICTURE
Parliament did not refer to KCNA's softer line this week, but North Korea has a record of issuing confusing signals while negotiating. DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
``I think we should not be swayed by sporadic comments coming out but focus on the bigger picture,'' South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Jae-sup told reporters in Seoul after meeting China's pointman on North Korea, Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Wang said many problems remained.
``But with joint effort by all six countries, we can expect continued momentum to build peace,'' he said. He declined to answer reporters' questions on when more talks would be held.
But South Korea's top presidential security adviser said he expected follow-up talks to take place sooner rather than later in Beijing although he gave no specifics.
``We see it will go well. It is welcomed by all countries,'' Ra Jong-yil told reporters, referring to the prospect of more discussions. ``The end of this month is seen as too early but I expect it to take place at an early date,'' he said, according to a pool report distributed by the presidential office.
Earlier, the North Korean parliament re-elected leader Kim Jong-il as defense chief -- the country's top job -- and said the move underscored Pyongyang's desire to thwart outside attempts to change its communist system.
Kim has been chairman of the National Defense Commission for a decade and his re-election was hardly surprising. Earlier, North Korean television and radio had said there would be an important announcement at 0300 GMT.
The parliament also appointed Chemical Industry Minister Pak Pong-ju the Premier of the Cabinet.
North Korea's television showed in an hour-long news program Kim Jong-il attending throughout the day's session while nearly 700 deputies to the parliament applauding dozens of times. Kim was not seen making any speech.
Clearly big news for isolated North Korea, the election announcement was preceded on state television by rousing songs from a military band and choir before a woman announcer in traditional ``hanbok'' costume read a statement on Kim's re-election in a booming voice.
In a measure of the impact of North Korean events on the South's financial markets, the South Korean won fell against the U.S. dollar after word of the impending mystery announcement, and the stock market lost early gains. Both later recovered.
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North Korea to Raise Nuclear Capabilities
September 3, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-Nuclear.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament re-elected Kim Jong Il the communist country's leader Wednesday and endorsed Pyongyang's decision to ``increase its nuclear deterrent,'' spurring orchestrated celebrations by dancing housewives and loyal soldiers.
The bespectacled Kim, 61, nodded nonchalantly from a platform as 670 legislators stood in unison, wildly clapped their hands and shouted hurrays to voice unanimous support for his new five-year term as chairman of the North's highest governing body, the National Defense Commission.
Tens of thousands of olive-clad soldiers stood in neat lines at a Pyongyang rally as a speaker called for increased ``battle readiness against American imperialists.'' Women in colorful dress and children wearing red scarves sang songs and danced on streets decorated with flags and flowers.
The festivities, carefully choreographed by the Stalinist regime, came as Kim upped the stakes in negotiations with the United States and other countries over the North's nuclear weapons program.
North Korea says it will give up its program only if Washington guarantees the Pyongyang regime's security by signing a nonaggression treaty and providing badly needed economic aid.
The United States insists that North Korea first scrap its nuclear program.
As Kim watched, the Supreme People's Assembly adopted a statement backing a recent government announcement to ``keep and strengthen its nuclear deterrent force as a just self-defensive means to repel U.S. pre-emptive nuclear attacks,'' the North's official news agency KCNA said.
The parliament then ``decided to take relevant measures,'' KCNA said without elaborating.
Representatives from the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, China and Russia met in Beijing last week to discuss ways to end the nearly year-old nuclear crisis, which started when American officials said the North admitted having a nuclear program in violation of international agreements.
After the Beijing meeting, China, North Korea's only remaining major ally, said all six countries agreed to continue talking.
But the North later said it no longer had ``interest or expectations'' for future talks and would build up its nuclear capabilities.
It was unclear whether North Korea intended to boycott the talks or simply escalated its rhetoric to elicit U.S. concessions. The North also has been careful in describing its nuclear capabilities, saying it has a ``nuclear deterrent force'' but not elaborating.
Some U.S. officials believe North Korea may have one or two atomic bombs and could build several more in months.
North Korea's envoy to the Beijing talks warned that the reclusive state might test a nuclear device to prove its capabilities, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
When North Korea enters a crucial negotiation or engages in a confrontation with the outside world, its leaders orchestrate huge rallies and other public outpourings of loyalty for Kim.
On Wednesday, cars mounted with loudspeakers ran through the streets announcing that parliament re-elected Kim chairman of the defense commission overseeing the country's 1.1 million armed forces -- the world's fifth-largest military. By constitution, that is the highest post in the government.
Kim, who rules his impoverished 22 million people with a personality cult inherited from his late father, President Kim Il Sung, believes his regime's survival depends on how profitably he plays his nuclear card, experts say.
President Bush has labeled North Korea part of an ``axis of evil'' along with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Iran.
The parliament also appointed Pak Pong Ju, minister of chemical industries, to replace Hong Song Nam as premier. That indicates North Korea may boost efforts to produce goods for its impoverished people, South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said, according to the South Korean national news agency Yonhap.
Six economic-related ministers were replaced in the 37-member Cabinet, but Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun was retained.
-------
U.S. Said Taking North Korean Threat Seriously
September 3, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-reality.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite a public emphasis on future talks, the Bush administration is taking seriously a North Korean threat to possibly test soon a nuclear weapon or missile, moves that would send shock waves throughout Asia.
U.S. officials told Reuters on Wednesday there was so far no hard evidence of preparations for such a test.
But after North Korea told six-party talks in Beijing last week it may feel compelled to ``demonstrate'' its capabilities, Washington will intensify its vigilance with spy satellites over the top half of the Korean peninsula, the officials said.
``Everybody has been speculating about it,'' one senior official said of internal administration discussions.
``It's entirely in character that they would do something. ... Given the way the six-party talks went and the North Korean comments since then, they are certainly setting it up for the possibility of doing something like that,'' he said.
Pyongyang has signaled a test could occur next Tuesday, the 55th anniversary of the founding of the isolated communist state.
The context in which the North Korean delegation made those remarks in Beijing has led some analysts to conclude Washington, hewing to a hard line toward Pyongyang, missed an opportunity to engage in hard-nosed diplomacy.
But U.S. officials and other analysts said the threats fit a pattern of North Korean intimidation and may well be fulfilled. That would strengthen administration hard-liners who have long argued North Korea is irredeemable.
North Korea's parliament took the unusual step on Wednesday of announcing it would take ``relevant measures'' to support the communist leadership's decision to reject further talks and boost the country's nuclear deterrent.
CONCRETE PROOF
Since telling the United States last October it had a secret program to produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, Pyongyang has ousted U.N. monitors from the country, withdrawn from a key nuclear treaty and begun reprocessing spent fuel rods, also for use in nuclear weapons.
If Pyongyang tests a weapon, it would be the first concrete proof of long-standing claims of actual nuclear capability.
A successful test of a three-stage missile would demonstrate North Korea's ability to hit the United States.
Coming after the start of a diplomatic process with the six-party talks, such tests would be a ``significant development (and) reflect a fully considered decision of where (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-il and his regime are'' on the nuclear issue, the senior U.S. official said.
The administration, bitterly divided over North Korea policy in the past, has not decided how to proceed if there is a test or, as some officials theorize, another lesser but still provocative action, like intercepting a U.S. spy plane.
Although it has since made conflicting statements, North Korea agreed in Beijing with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia to more talks, probably in mid-October.
The U.S. official said it would be safe to assume that ``testing would close the door on negotiations'' with Pyongyang.
``At that point, it becomes clear there is nothing left to negotiate and they are committed to nuclear weapons. At that stage, you have to get serious about isolating them economically and considering regime change,'' he added.
'WHOLE NEW BALLGAME'
Richard Bush, an Asia expert who held senior positions in the Clinton administration, the CIA and Congress, doubted Pyongyang would test.
To do so would anger China, the North's chief ally and benefactor, and upset Japan and South Korea, the main future donors if there was a nuclear deal with North Korea, said Bush, now with the Brookings Institution.
Another U.S. official said a second round of talks would go forward ``assuming nothing (like a nuclear test) happens on September 9. If something does happen on September 9, or about that time, then it's a whole new ballgame.''
-------- missile defense
Taiwan eyes submarines and anti-missile system
By Tiffany Wu,
September 3, 2003
Pakistan Daily Times
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_31-8-2003_pg4_2
TAIPEI: Taiwan plans to buy or lease eight second-hand submarines and acquire Patriot anti-missile system to fend off China's growing military threat, Defence Minister Tang Yiau-ming said on Saturday.
Amid US reports of a military build-up in China aimed at bringing Taiwan to its knees, Tang said the submarines and Lockheed Martin Corp's Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) anti-missile system are essential to the island's defence.
"We are not entering an arms race with China," Tang told a news conference, noting Beijing's military budget was estimated at $65 billion next year against Taiwan's less than $8 billion. "This huge gap means our military is not trying to match theirs in terms of size, but to beat them in terms of quality."
Since China and Taiwan split at the end of a civil war in 1949, Beijing has threatened to attack if the democratic island of 23 million people declared independence.
The United States, Taiwan's biggest arms supplier, has repeatedly said the island was not spending enough on defence.
Tang said the military was studying its requirements for the PAC-3, which destroys incoming ballistic missiles by slamming into them, and aims to include the system in a special defence budget for 2005. He declined to put a value on the deal.
In 2001, US President George W Bush offered Taiwan its biggest arms deal in a decade that included eight diesel-powered subs, four Kidd-class destroyers and 12 P-3C Orion aircraft.
But the purchase had been delayed by budget constraints, objections by some Taiwan opposition and difficulties in finding manufacturers to build the submarines.
The United States has not built diesel submarines for 50 years and the Pentagon said in July it may urge Taiwan to buy surplus subs on the world market.
Tang confirmed the island was seeking second-hand submarines, but said the search was difficult due to pressure from China. -Reuters
-------- pakistan
Musharraf rules out freeze of Pakistan's nuclear programme
ISLAMABAD (AFP)
Sep 03, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/030903150733.8p99rfep.html
President Pervez Musharraf Wednesday rejected any freeze in Pakistan's nuclear programme and hinted at upgrading technology to strengthen national security.
Musharraf "dismissed any talk of freeze or roll-back as irrelevant, outdated and totally false," a statement issued by the Pakistan military here said.
The president who chaired a meeting of the National Command Authority, the high-level body overseeing Pakistan's nuclear programme said that "ensuring qualitative upgrades in the country's nuclear programme would fortify national security."
He however "reiterated Pakistan's resolve not to enter into an arms race with anyone while ensuring consolidation of Pakistan's minimum deterrence needs."
The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri and senior military officers including navy and air force chiefs, the statement said.
Musharraf said Pakistan's nuclear programme had "matured over the years and would continue to the receive top national priority."
He also castigated international media reports alleging Pakistan had assisted Iran with its nuclear programme.
Musharraf described the reports as an "inspired and malicious campaign."
Pakistan has a "strong non-proliferation record," Musharraf said reiterating the country's commitments to universal non-proliferation goals, the statement said.
The statement said the nuclear command authority reviewed the progress of Pakistan's strategic programme.
It expressed "complete satisfaction with the operational readiness of strategic forces and pace of development work."
Pakistan launched its nuclear programme after the first test by its arch-rival India in 1974.
It conducted five tests in a tit-for-tat response to similar detonations by India in May 1998.
Pakistan is estimated to possess between 25 and 50 nuclear warheads, according to Jane's Defence Weekly.
Pakistan is said to have an uranium enrichment plant and a plutonium reprocessing plant and at least four nuclear reactors across the country.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee presided over a similar meeting of his country's Nuclear Command Authority on Monday, which decided to "consolidate India's nuclear deterrence."
A government statement in New Delhi said the meeting "took a number of decisions on the further development and management of the programme."
"These decisions will consolidate India's nuclear deterrence," it added, without elaborating.
-------- treaties
Warning that nuclear test ban is vital, Annan urges speedy ratification
3 September, 2003
UN News Centre
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=8132&Cr=disarmament&Cr1=
Warning that a ban on nuclear testing is more vital than ever given the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called on 12 key nations whose ratification is essential for the treaty to enter into force to do so forthwith, specifically naming the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
"No nuclear testing must be tolerated under any circumstances," Mr. Annan said in an opening message to a conference in Vienna on facilitating the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), calling on all states to observe a moratorium until the treaty, first opened for signature seven years ago, finally becomes operational.
"I therefore call upon all States that have yet to sign or ratify the treaty to do so without delay," he told the three-day meeting in the message, delivered by Antonio Maria Costa, Director-General, UN Office at Vienna. "Given the latest developments, I particularly direct this call to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as well as to the other eleven States whose ratification is needed for the Treaty to enter into force.
"It is essential that this important norm against nuclear proliferation and the further development of nuclear weapons becomes operational. Until it does so, it is crucial that all relevant states maintain a moratorium on nuclear-weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosions," he added.
The DPRK withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at the beginning of the year and has since been reported to have said it would develop nuclear weapons and might carry out tests. Six-party talks, welcomed by Mr. Annan last Wednesday "an encouraging development," were held in Beijing last week in an effort to defuse the crisis among China, Japan, DPRK, Republic of Korea (ROK), Russian Federation and the United States.
To date, 168 states have signed the treaty and 104 have ratified it, but it will enter into force only when all 44 States, deemed to have nuclear potential, ratify it. Of these, 12 have still to do so - China, Colombia, DPRK, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, United States and Viet Nam.
"Our world can ill afford to fail, or even to be unduly delayed, in achieving a comprehensive nuclear test ban. Delay increases the risk that nuclear testing might resume. And it jeopardizes efforts to take further steps towards the goal of nuclear disarmament," Mr. Annan said, stressing the passage of time since the treaty was opened for signature.
"The entry into force of the CTBT would be a victory for the cause of peace. It cannot come too soon. The United Nations remains firmly committed to helping the world community to achieve that goal," he concluded.
Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog, also called for speedy ratification.
"With the early entry into force of the CTBT, it would indeed be a significant achievement if this new century were to remain free of any nuclear test explosions," he said. "In this context, I encourage all signatory states to ratify the CTBT, and all those states that have yet to sign to do so and to ratify the treaty, as soon as possible - so that another crucial pillar can be raised to support the edifice of global nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament norms."
Under the terms of CTBT, a global verification regime to monitor compliance with the treaty must be operational at the time of entry into force.
The 32 key states who have already ratified CTBT are: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
----
Annan Urges U.S. to Ratify Nuke Treaty
September 3, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Test-Ban.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other diplomats appealed to the United States and other holdout nations Wednesday to ratify an international treaty banning nuclear weapons tests, saying the agreement would help the world achieve peace.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is considered a critical element in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, since a testing ban makes developing such arms almost impossible.
``The entry into force of (the treaty) would be a victory for the cause of peace,'' Annan said in prepared remarks. ``It cannot come too soon.''
A dozen countries -- including the United States -- have declined to ratify the measure. U.S. senators who voted against the treaty in 1999 argued that ratifying it would have threatened national security by closing off U.S. options to test.
President Bush, who also opposed the treaty, has pledged to continue long-standing U.S. policy not to conduct nuclear tests. However, the administration is considering developing smaller-scale nuclear weapons.
The Clinton administration led negotiations to convert a testing moratorium into a permanent treaty in 1996, only to have the Senate reject it three years later.
The Bush administration did not send a representative to Wednesday's opening session of a conference on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
``I believe it's clear that from the direction of the Bush administration, they would be happy for the (test ban treaty) to go away,'' said Rose Gottemoeller, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
``The question is: Can they take the political heat for killing the treaty, with everything else they have on their platter?''
The U.S. position jeopardizes the treaty itself. As one of 44 countries with nuclear power or research facilities listed in an annex to the treaty, the Americans must ratify the document or it will not take effect.
The other holdouts are China, Colombia, Congo, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and Vietnam.
The meeting came at a time of worldwide concern over North Korea and Iran. North Korea says it plans to test a nuclear device as part of its weapons program, and the United States accuses Iran of wanting to develop nuclear arms.
``Our world can ill afford to fail, or even to be unduly delayed, in achieving a comprehensive nuclear test ban,'' Annan said. ``Delay increases the risk that nuclear testing might resume, and it jeopardizes efforts to take further steps toward the goal of nuclear disarmament.''
Japan issued a poignant appeal for action Wednesday.
``Since Japan is the only country in the world to have suffered the tragedy of atomic bombing, we Japanese people have a particularly strong desire for a ban on nuclear testing,'' Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said.
So far, 32 countries listed in the annex -- including nuclear powers Britain, France and Russia -- have accepted the treaty.
--------
ElBaradei Urges States to Ratify Nuke Test Ban Pact
September 3, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-tests-elbaradei.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - The head of the United Nations nuclear agency appealed on Wednesday to countries such as the United States and China to hurry up and ratify the global treaty banning all tests of nuclear explosives.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei made the appeal in written remarks submitted to a three-day conference in Vienna aimed at speeding up the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
``A verified, permanent, global ban on all types of nuclear explosive tests has been a key item on the international security agenda for nearly half a century,'' ElBaradei said.
``More than 2,000 nuclear explosive detonations have taken place since 1945, with the most recent ones in 1998,'' he said.
The CTBT was adopted in New York in September 1996. To date, 168 states have signed the treaty and 104 have ratified it, but it will only come into force once 44 states deemed capable of producing nuclear weapons who participated in the 1996 treaty conference ratify it.
Japan's Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi made an impassioned appeal to countries to end all tests of nuclear bombs.
``Since Japan is the only country in the world to have suffered the tragedy of atomic bombings, we Japanese people have a particularly strong desire for a ban on nuclear testing,'' she said in comments to be delivered at the conference.
Of the 44 key states, 32 have ratified the pact. The 12 who must still ratify it are the United States, China, Colombia, North Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and Vietnam.
``I encourage all signatory states to ratify the treaty, and all those states that have yet to sign to do so and to ratify the treaty, as soon as possible,'' ElBaradei said.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a message aired at the conference that any further delay in ratifying the treaty ``increases the risk that nuclear testing might resume and it jeopardizes efforts to take further steps toward the goal of nuclear disarmament.''
He also urged the world to continue the moratorium on all nuclear explosion tests.
MINI-NUKES
Non-proliferation experts have said attitude of the United States, one of the ``dirty dozen'' yet to ratify the treaty, is widely seen as key to bringing the treaty into force.
However, the United States is not participating in this conference.
Washington has indicated that it would be interested in developing so-called mini nukes, such as ``bunker-busters'' -- small-scale nuclear bombs aimed at destroying underground facilities. Testing such devices would be illegal under the CTBT.
ElBaradei said the CTBT was ``an essential element of the network of negotiated, global treaties that will strengthen international efforts to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons and to promote nuclear disarmament.''
The IAEA is the guardian of the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the global pact aimed at stopping the spread of atomic weapons. The agency polices compliance of its nearly 190 signatories with over a thousand annual inspections of members' nuclear facilities.
The body overseeing the CTBT is in the process of constructing a global network of 337 monitoring facilities aimed at detecting any possible nuclear explosions or ambiguous events anywhere on the planet.
--------
Japan Urges U.S. to Ratify Nuke Treaty
By DANICA KIRKA
Associated Press Writer
Sep 3, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NUCLEAR_TEST_BAN?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Japan's foreign minister on Wednesday urged the United States and other holdouts to ratify a treaty banning nuclear weapons tests, arguing that her country knows first hand the evil that such arms can produce.
Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi told delegates attending a conference on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that enacting it would help the world achieve peace.
But the conference, which drew hundreds of delegates to Vienna, was overshadowed by concern over North Korea's and Iran's nuclear programs. The Bush administration also underlined its opposition to the treaty by not formally attending the opening session.
Kawaguchi also met with Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, for talks that touched on North Korea's nuclear program and Japan's interest in quickly enacting the treaty.
"Since Japan is the only country in the world to have suffered the tragedy of atomic bombing, we Japanese people have a particularly strong desire for a ban on nuclear testing," she said. "At this conference, it will be important for us to send a strong message once again, urging states that have not signed or ratified (the treaty) to do so at the earliest possible date."
The United States led the negotiations to convert a moratorium on testing into a permanent treaty in 1996, but the U.S. Senate rejected the treaty two years later, thwarting arms control advocates and the administration of former President Clinton.
Bush, like Clinton, has imposed a voluntary moratorium. But some administration officials have suggested that tests may be necessary if there is a decision to develop new U.S. nuclear weapons.
The U.S. position jeopardizes the treaty itself. As one of 44 countries with nuclear power or research facilities listed in an annex to the treaty, the Americans must ratify the document or it won't go into effect.
North Korea also has raised concern by saying it plans to test a nuclear device as part of its weapons program, while the United States accuses Tehran of wanting to develop nuclear arms.
So far, 32 countries listed in the annex have accepted the treaty. The document is considered a critical element in efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, since a ban on testing would make developing such arms almost impossible.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan put his weight behind the conference and its aims.
"Our world can ill afford to fail, or even to be unduly delayed, in achieving a comprehensive nuclear test ban," he said. "Delay increases the risk that nuclear testing might resume, and it jeopardizes efforts to take further steps towards the goal of nuclear disarmament."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Nuclear Plants Warned of Computer Threats
September 3, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Plant-Warning.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government regulators are warning nuclear plant operators about computer outages caused by Internet infections, confirming disruptions of two important internal systems in January at a nuclear power plant already shut down.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said safety was not compromised at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant along Lake Erie in Ohio, partly because the plant was shut down in February 2002 after workers found a hole in the 6-inch-thick steel cap covering the plant's reactor vessel.
The two computer systems affected by the widespread ``Slammer'' Internet disruption in January are regularly used by plant operators for monitoring pressure and temperature during accidents, but they are not formally considered safety equipment, NRC spokesman Matthew Chiramal said. In an information notice disclosed Tuesday, the commission urged operators of the nation's 103 nuclear plants to take steps to prevent similar problems. The government did not make these steps mandatory although outside computer experts said the recommendations were common sense.
``They're supposed to take something like this pretty seriously,'' Chiramal said. ``If they have something like this, they should go ahead and fix it.''
The NRC also said it published its recommendations nearly nine months after the incident because the plant's operator, FirstEnergy Nuclear, only recently acknowledged the disruptive effects of the Slammer infection on its systems. A plant spokesman publicly confirmed the infection Aug. 20.
``We heard about it through the grapevine,'' Chiramal said.
The government said FirstEnergy Nuclear determined that a contractor had established an unprotected high-speed computer connection to its corporate network that allowed the ``Slammer'' infection to spread internally. The utility also had failed to install a corrective software patch from Microsoft Corp. that had been available since July 2002.
``Even with these failures the plant wasn't in violation of cybersecurity guidelines the NRC has in place. Those guidelines must be totally wrong,'' said Chris Wysopal of AtStake Inc., who will testify next week at a congressional hearing on defending computers against worms and viruses. ``This just showed a lack of best practices.''
The government last year ordered plant operators to monitor computer connections that bypass protective technology, such as firewalls. FirstEnergy told regulators that, although the order was sent to technology employees it was never forwarded to the plant's computer engineers.
FirstEnergy said last month it planned to significantly reduce its technology department, laying off 185 to 230 of its 1,000 technology workers. It said those employees were no longer needed because of new technology that made it more efficient and because of its $4.5 billion merger in 2001 with GPU Inc.
FirstEnergy Nuclear said that, in response to the infection, it was documenting all external connections to its computer network, installing additional protective software and instructing employees to be more diligent about patches.
The NRC said it requires all plant safety systems to be isolated from other parts of a company's computer network or be connected in limited ways that prevent disruptions from affecting them.
The attacking infection, alternately called ``Slammer'' or ``Sapphire,'' never was traced. It scanned for victim computers so randomly and aggressively that it saturated many of the Internet largest data pipelines, slowing e-mail and Web surfing globally.
Disruptions shook popular perceptions that vital national services, including banking operations and 911 centers, were largely immune to such attacks. It interfered with computers at the nation's largest residential mortgage firm and briefly prevented many customers of Bank of America Corp., one of the largest U.S. banks, and some large Canadian banks from withdrawing money from automatic teller machines.
A report this summer by the North American Electric Reliability Council also described the Slammer infection blocking commands that operated some power utilities, although it caused no outages.
-------- us politics
'America is building a world order'
US foreign policy Critics say it is time for a major rethink
Wednesday September 3, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1034443,00.html
David E Sanger
New York Times, August 31
"As President George Bush ended a month-long stay at his ranch ... to return to a world of foreign policy headaches, a question hung in the air: How will he define the word 'tolerate'? Last spring, Mr Bush declared that he would not tolerate a nuclear North Korea. As summer approached, he said he would not tolerate an Iran with nuclear capability. For the better part of the past eight months, he and his aides have said they would not tolerate outside interference in Iraq, nor challenges to the American objective of bringing democracy to the country.
"Mr Bush, who prided himself on the clarity of his warnings to Iraq last autumn ... now favours some strategic ambiguity in defining 'tolerate'. He says he reserves the right to execute Iraq-like pre-emptive military action, but thinks that a slow squeeze, including intercepting North Korean ships at sea, may well do the trick. Iran is a more complex calculation. Unlike North Korea, it has oil revenue and lots of friends. And it has chosen not to go the North Korean route of open defiance of the west ...
"In both cases, the administration seems increasingly inclined to go to the UN to obtain resolutions ... But as the Iraq case proved, rallying the world to make such declarations is very different from rallying the world to enforce them."
James Carroll
Boston Globe, September 2
"The Bush administration's hubristic foreign policy has been efficiently exposed as based on nothing more than hallucination. Hi-tech weaponry can kill unwilling human beings, but it cannot force them to embrace an unwanted idea. As rekindled North Korean and Iranian nuclear programmes prove, Washington's rhetoric of 'evil' is as self-defeating as it is self-delusional. No one could have predicted a year ago that the fall from the Bush high horse of American Empire would come so hard and so quickly ... The rise and fall of imperial Washington took not hundreds of years, but a few hundred days ...
"Sooner or later, the US must admit it has made a terrible mistake in Iraq, and it must move quickly to undo it. That means the US must yield not only command of the occupation force, but participation in it ... This might seem terribly unlikely today, but something like it is inevitable. The only question is whether it happens over the short term, as the result of responsible decision-making ... or over the long term, as the result of a bloody and unending horror."
Robert Kagan and William
Kristol Weekly Standard, US, September 1-8
"The future course of American foreign policy, American world leadership, and American security is at stake. Failure in Iraq would be a devastating blow to everything the US hopes to accomplish, and must accomplish, in the decades ahead ... The danger is that the resources the administration is devoting to Iraq right now are insufficient, and the speed with which they are being deployed is insufficiently urgent. These failings, if not corrected soon, could over time lead to disaster."
Alain Touraine
El Pais, Spain, September 2
"The US ... is building a world order, prepared by itself and justified only by being at the service of God, so that the US more and more resembles the regimes it threatens ... The Europeans [are] so indecisive, so apathetic - will they ever understand that they must oppose the American crusade, create a distinct relationship with the Islamic countries, and impose a return to multilateralism, after this warrior episode of US policy, which may end like Napoleon's expedition to Russia?"
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Bitter Afghans help former rulers
`People are tired of looters, killers'
Taliban, Al Qaeda align forces again
Sep. 3, 2003.
KATHY GANNON
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1062540609992&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan-The Taliban are no longer on the run and have teamed up with Al Qaeda once again, according to officials and former Taliban who say the militia has reorganized and strengthened since their defeat at the hands of the U.S.-led coalition nearly two years ago.
The militia, which ruled Afghanistan espousing a strict brand of Islam, are now getting help from some Pakistani authorities as well as a disgruntled Afghan population fed up with lawlessness under the U.S.-backed interim administration, according to a former Taliban corps commander.
"Now the situation is very good for us. It is improving every day. We can move everywhere," said Gul Rahman Faruqi, a commander of the Gardez No. 3 garrison during the Taliban's rule.
"Now if the Taliban go to any village, people give them shelter and food. Now the people are tired of the looters and killers," Faruqi said, referring to regional warlords aligned with Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government.
In most parts of Afghanistan regional powers operate with relative impunity, terrorizing residents, extorting money, dealing in drugs and running lucrative smuggling routes.
"Before, people didn't believe the Taliban were around. They thought we were finished so they were afraid. But now they see that we are active and they see there is no other alternative to the looters and killers," said Faruqi, who was interviewed Monday in Pakistan.
"We know they don't like the Taliban, but they hate the looters and killers even more."
In Kabul, a Western diplomat said the Taliban, working with Al Qaeda, has regrouped, changed tactics and operates in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.
Faruqi scoffed at suggestions that coalition forces have them on the run.
"We have new bases all over Afghanistan. We have just reached to Faryab province. There are 10,000 American soldiers. They can't be everywhere. We are not afraid ... we know we can move freely,'' Faruqi said.
The Taliban have appointed military councils in each Afghan province, re-established military bases in the country, developed a command structure and injected discipline into the ranks, he said.
On the newest battlefield in southeastern Zabul province - where U.S. special forces, the 10th Mountain Division and Afghan government soldiers are waging "Operation Mountain Viper" - Faruqi said the Taliban's military command structure is fixed: Abdul Jabbar, a former aide to the Taliban's Balkh governor, is in charge.
His field commanders are Amir Khan Haqqani and Ghulam Nabi. All three are from Zabul province.
The Zabul provincial chief of intelligence for Karzai's government, Khalil Hotak, agreed the Taliban have strengthened.
"The Taliban are regrouping, having meetings in districts. In Zabul province 80 per cent of the people in every district are loyal to the Taliban," Hotak said yesterday.
"They are uneducated people," he said. "They are close to the religious people. The Taliban are preaching in the districts and have convinced people that the U.S. people are infidels and that the Afghan government is supporting infidels against Islam."
In recent months the Taliban have targeted Afghan police, blowing up their vehicles, ambushing their patrols and attacking their stations.
Faruqi said they draw support from some conservative tribal people and from some in the Pakistani military and intelligence community.
"There are some in the army who are under the influence of the CIA and they will hand us over, but there are many who are Muslims and will not."
-------- africa
Uganda seeks US military aid
Uganda wants the US to provide more logistical and intelligence support
Wednesday, 3 September, 2003,
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3077810.stm
Uganda has asked the United States for military assistance in its fight against the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels.
An advisor to the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni told BBC News Online that the call was made in the spirit of the continuing global war against terrorism, as the LRA is on the US list of terror groups.
But John Nagenda is emphatic that Uganda was not asking the US to send in troops to northern and eastern Uganda where the fighting is concentrated.
The Ugandan army has been fighting the LRA in northern Uganda since 1988, since when hundreds of thousands of people have been either displaced, maimed or killed.
The LRA often mutilates civilians and abducts children to either become fighters or sex slaves.
Terror money
"What we are asking the US to do is to provide us with logistical support and intelligence information," Mr Nagenda said.
"We have enough of our own soldiers to do the job."
The US Government classified the LRA as a terror group shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US.
During his July 2003 tour of Africa, US President George W Bush warned that terrorists would not be permitted to operate out of the continent and pledged $150m to help African countries fight terror.
"Part of that money could be used to buy better armaments for the Uganda army," said Mr Nagenda.
Donor interference
The presidential advisor says that the call does not mean that the Ugandan army is unable to defeat the LRA rebels.
"Our greatest problem is that donors interfere with our budget by insisting that we should not spend more than 2% of our budget on defence," he said.
Joseph Kony (r) Uganda claims Joseph Kony (r) has crossed back into Sudan
He says that no country at war should be placed under such a condition.
Uganda recently accused neighbouring Sudan of supplying arms to the LRA rebels.
It also claimed that LRA leader Joseph Kony had finally crossed back into southern Sudan via the northern Ugandan town of Gulu to acquire more supplies. But the Sudanese Government denied the charges, saying that it had presented a comprehensive report to the Ugandan leader, showing Sudan was not providing weapons to the LRA rebels.
-------- arms
Russia ready to sell air defense systems to Iran
September 3, 2003
Ros Business Consulting
http://top.rbc.ru/english/index.shtml?/news/english/2003/09/03/03180659_bod.shtml
Russia could start supplying advanced air defense systems to Iran, Rajab Safarov, General Director of the Russian Center for Contemporary Iranian Studies, told the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun.
According to Mr. Safarov, the sensational proposal was voiced by late Lev Rokhlin, during a meeting with Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani, within the framework of the visit to Iran by the State Duma's official delegation in February 1997. Rajab Safarov was also a member of this delegation, as the Deputy Defense Minister.
According to the newspaper, General Rokhlin suggested that, having launched military satellites, Iran would be able not only to monitor all movements inside the country, on its borders and in the region, but also to ensure its security using various air and missile defense systems. "As Iran decided to build an atomic power station, it is necessary to protect it from multiple enemies. For its part, Russia is ready to provide the most advanced air defense system," General Rokhlin said.
According to Mr. Safarov, Iran's leadership showed great interest in this proposal and requested information about the price and technical specifications of the air defense system. According to the Russian side, the system would cost about $3-4bn, and it would take at least 3 years to build.
The Iranian delegation said it needed to discuss this issue with the country's leadership. However, there was no official request from Iran.
Meanwhile, the Russian delegation headed by professor Zhores Alferov, Nobel Prize winner and member of the State Duma, will head for Teheran on September 19, 2003. It is expected that the visit will last about five days. Perhaps, the issue of the air defense system will also be discussed at the talks.
At the same time, a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is scheduled for September 8, 2003 in Vienna. International experts will discuss Iran's nuclear programs. Having allowed a leak of information about its secret talks with Iran, Russia raises its stake in the talks with the United States. After the war in Iraq, anti-American sentiment is growing all around the world. In this situation, Russian air and missile defense systems are becoming more popular.
----
BAE wins £1bn Hawk contract
Mark Tran
Wednesday September 3, 2003
UK Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,12559,1034880,00.html
BAE Systems, Britain's biggest weapons maker, today clinched a contentious £1bn order to supply Hawk training aircraft to India, in a contract for which Tony Blair personally lobbied.
The decision to buy 66 Hawk jets was made at a meeting of the cabinet committee on security, an Indian defence spokesman said.
"It is the Hawk. We will buy 66 planes," a senior defence ministry official said.
He said that the details of the deal would be worked out over the next two months and Indian pilots would go to Britain to train on the jets until the planes were delivered to India.
India has been shopping for a trainer since 1985 and the Hawk was the frontrunner but the Indian defence ministry and BAE have been haggling over the price.
The deal, in negotiation for more than a decade, has sparked much political contention in Britain.
Critics have argued that the sale lays the British government open to charges of hypocrisy, as it was pushing for a big arms deal at the same time as playing peacemaker between India and Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
British lobbying for the deal reached a high point last October, when Mr Blair urged India's visiting prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to choose the Hawk.
MPs have criticised the sale on grounds of cost. About 70 MPs from all parties have signed a Commons motion expressing concern that the deal was "beyond [India's] legitimate military needs". The £1bn cost equalled 10 years of UK bilateral aid to India, it was pointed out.
The government last year rejected calls for an embargo on arms sales to India and Pakistan, despite political tension between the two regional rivals.
Ben Bradshaw, a Foreign Office minister, said at the time that there was no need for a "formal arms embargo" since the government was "not allowed to license for export any equipment where there is a clear risk that it could be used for external aggression or internal oppression."
Although an advanced trainer, the Hawk could be used as a ground attack aircraft. Some 126 Jaguar bombers, also made by BAE Systems, are being produced in India under licence. The aircraft are capable of being adapted to carry nuclear weapons, the Ministry of Defence admits.
India has been looking for an advanced trainer for its air force, which has been plagued by combat jet crashes. The crashes, mostly of Soviet-made MiG-21 jets, have been blamed in part on a lack of training jets that match the combat fleet of the Indian air force.
Indian pilots currently learn on slow-moving trainers, then suddenly have to adapt to faster and more complicated jets. At least 52 Indian air force pilots have died in more than 100 crashes in the past six years, with most of the crashes blamed on pilot error.
For BAE Systems, this represents another coup, following last month's decision from the Ministry of Defence to choose the latest generation of Hawk aircraft, the Hawk Mk 128, as its new advanced trainer in a deal worth up to £800m.
The Indian government has chosen the Hawk after intense competition against Czech-American jets made by aircraft maker Aero Vodochody. Washington lobbied the Indian government hard, arguing that the L159B was better and cheaper than the Hawk.
----
bombs r us
by Heather Wokusch
Sep 3, 2003,
AMMO CITY INDUSTRIES LTD
Illegal biological and nuclear weapons production is on the rise - in the united states.
Ignoring the internationally-recognized biological weapons convention, the us army has patented a new grenade capable of delivering biological and chemical agents. irony wasn't lost on the watchdog group sunshine project which observed, "Hans Blix might have an easier time finding illegal weapons if he were inspecting near Baltimore [site of the army's Edgewood arsenal facility, where two of the inventors work] instead of Baghdad."
The Pentagon's bid to resume biological weapons research hinges on misleading language: developing deadly biological weapons is illegal, so the grenade and other potential biowarfare devices are labeled "non-lethal."
Similarly misleading language is being used to beef up the nation's nuclear weapons program. the house and senate recently ditched the ban on researching low-yield nuclear devices, and ok'd funding for the bunker busting, robust nuclear earth penetrator, a weapon ten times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. the justification? nuclear weapons will only be researched, not tested or deployed.
Small coincidence that the house and senate simultaneously called for accelerated resumption of stateside underground nuclear testing. the message is clear; research nuclear weapons today, test and deploy them tomorrow.
The Bush administration's race to get back into the biological and nuclear weapons business is alarming in a world struggling with wmd overload. the secrecy and downright sloppiness of the us weapons program, however, raises red flags.
Case in point: a whopping $6 billion has been earmarked to expand the us biodefense program, and contenders have already begun to abuse public trust to get their hands on the cash. last February for example, the university of California at Davis (UCD) took a full ten days to inform nearby communities that a rhesus monkey had escaped from its primate-breeding facility. coincidentally, UCD has been vying for government funds to set up its own "hot zone" biodefense lab, which in the future could use primates for biological weapons testing. what if that monkey had been infected with Ebola, or some other virus? would the public have been informed?
Back in Maryland, home of the biowarfare grenade, the pentagon recently unearthed over 2,000 tons of hazardous biological waste, much of it undocumented leftovers of an abandoned germ warfare program. nearby, the FBI is draining a pond for clues into 2001's anthrax attacks which killed five people.
None of this does much to inspire trust in the us biological weapons program; unfortunately, the situation is equally grim with the nation's nukes.
America's most reputable nuclear weapons facility recently announced it had "lost" two vials of plutonium; officials at new Mexico's Los Alamos national laboratory have said the plutonium was probably mislabeled then accidentally discarded.
The missing plutonium doesn't bode well. according to peter Stockton, senior investigator with the project on government oversight (pogo), "we have virtually hundreds of tons of plutonium and enriched uranium in the system. this raises questions about the reliability of that system."
Meanwhile, thousands of radioactive materials have been lost or stolen worldwide and the international atomic energy agency estimates over 100 countries have inadequate controls over their radioactive devices. The bottom line: in such a dubious environment, do we really need to invest in more homegrown wmd?
Apart from the ethical implications of using biological and nuclear weapons on civilian populations abroad, we should consider the stateside risks these weapons programs create. taxpayer dollars would be better spent cleaning up past bioweapon excesses and tracking loose nukes.
-------- asia
'Japan to compensate Chinese gas victims'
Wednesday September 03, 2003
News International, Pakistan
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/sep2003-daily/03-09-2003/world/w5.htm
"TOKYO: Japan plans to pay about 100 million yen (857,000 dollars) to the relatives of a Chinese man who died and others who were injured by mustard gas left by retreating Japanese troops in World War II, a report said on Tuesday.
The government is considering offering financial support to a Chinese medical team and "sympathy money" to the bereaved family of a man who died, the Yomiuri newspaper said, quoting cabinet office and foreign ministry sources.
A Chinese man who came in contact with the lethal gas died from massive burns last month. Some 32 victims remain in hospital.
The Yomiuri said Japan was also considering paying hospital bills and the cost of sealing the gas containers to prevent further leaks.
The money is not considered formal compensation by Tokyo but as part of Japan's project to dispose of left-over weapons by 2007, the daily said.
The Japanese government maintains China does not have the right to claim war-related compensation as it forfeited that right when the 1972 Sino-Japan joint declaration was signed to normalise diplomatic ties.
A Japanese government official said the government had not decided on the payment of any money but added: "We will deal with the matter sincerely in close cooperation with China."
-------- britain
Report Draws Concern of Ex - Intel Official
September 3, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Weapons-Adviser.html
LONDON (AP) -- A retired British intelligence official testified Wednesday that he had ``some concerns'' about a British government dossier that claimed Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction on 45 minutes' notice.
At the time, Brian Jones headed a section of the Defense Intelligence Staff charged with analyzing intelligence about nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Jones said his concerns ``were that Iraq's chemical weapons and biological weapons capabilities were not being accurately represented.'' But Jones said his staff never requested removal of the 45-minute claim.
``We at no stage argued that this intelligence should not be in the dossier. We thought it was important intelligence,'' Jones told an inquiry into the death of David Kelly.
Kelly apparently committed suicide after he was named as the likely source of a British Broadcasting Corp. claim that the government had ``sexed up'' the dossier to strengthen its case for war with Iraq.
BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan reported his source as saying that the 45-minute claim had been inserted into the dossier by government officials against the wishes of intelligence agents. The government and intelligence chiefs deny the accusation.
Jones said some of his staff felt that the dossier, prepared by the Joint Intelligence Committee with editorial consultation from Prime Minister Tony Blair's office, was ``over-egging certain assessments.''
``I think it is the difference between saying, for example, making a judgment that the production of chemical weapons agent had taken place, as opposed to the judgment being that it had probably taken place or even possibly taken place,'' he said.
Jones said Kelly was aware of concerns about the 45-minute claim but had not expressed doubts about the dossier in the weeks before its publication in September 2002.
``I asked him, What do you think of the dossier, David?''' Jones said. ``He said he thought it was good.''
Senior judge Lord Hutton is investigating events leading up to the death of Kelly, whose body was found July 18 in woods near his rural home.
Earlier Wednesday, a toxicologist testified that Kelly had ingested a potentially fatal dose of painkillers besides apparently slashing his left wrist.
Kelly, 59, took about 30 tablets of coproxamol, about 10 times the recommended therapeutic dose, forensic toxicologist Richard Allan said.
Assistant Chief Constable Michael Page of Thames Valley Police told the inquiry he was ``as confident as I can be'' that Kelly killed himself and that no one else was involved.
On Tuesday a psychiatrist testified that it was ``well nigh certain'' Kelly committed suicide because he thought others had lost trust in him and was anguished about being identified as the source.
The Defense Ministry identified Kelly before his death as the possible source of the story. The BBC confirmed that only after Kelly died.
The inquiry is, in part, examining whether the resulting media attention and his treatment by government officials contributed to his death.
On the Net:
Hutton Inquiry: http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/
-------- business
US's 'private army' grows
In Colombia and around the world, civilians are doing work formerly done by the military.
By Rachel Van Dongen
The Christian Science Monitor,
September 03, 2003
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0903/p06s01-woam.html
BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA - Flying over the vast jungle here, a joint Colombian-American crew trolls for suspicious aircraft that could be smuggling tons of cocaine onto American soil.
When their radar locks onto a suspect plane, the crew attempts to make radio contact. If there is no response, they may fire warning shots in an attempt to get the suspect plane to land. Only as a last resort may the multinational crew seek permission from the ground to shoot the plane down. monitortalk Weigh in on issues of the day in our forums. E-mail this story E-mail this story Write a letter to the Editor Printer-friendly version Permission to reprint/republish
Called the Air Bridge Denial Program, this dangerous work was abruptly terminated in April 2001 after a missionary from the United States and her baby daughter were mistakenly shot down during a similar operation in Peru. But two weeks ago, with new safeguards in place, the program was resurrected as a tool to staunch the flow of illegal drugs from the world's largest cocaine provider. The US and Peru are in the early stages of restarting interdiction over Peruvian airspace as well.
Although US officials insist that this is a Colombian-run program, two Americans will actively participate in each operation. One will be stationed at the Colombian Defense Ministry helping to monitor planes, while the other will ride along in tracker aircraft.
Yet the Americans involved are not active military men. Instead, they are part of the unofficial army of private US contractors working in Colombia, doing everything from spraying coca fields to training a Colombian antikidnapping squad. It's a formula the US has repeated from here to Afghanistan to Iraq: employing civilians to do jobs historically carried out by the armed forces.
A 10-fold increase
Contractors are performing "the entire spectrum of military services," says Peter Singer, an analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington and author of the new book, "Corporate Warriors," about the growth of the privatized military. He says US civilians in conflicts around the world do everything from handling mail services and feeding troops to training foreign troops and devising war games. Most are retired military personnel or former special forces.
In theory, US law mandates that no more than 400 civilian contractors can be on the ground in Colombia at any one time. But since US law also caps the number of US troops at 400, contractors are in even higher demand. Experts say that the US often hires nationals from places like Brazil and Central America who don't count toward the cap.
But this Andean nation is hardly the largest theater of operations for these soldiers of fortune.
Mr. Singer says nearly 10,000 private military contractors are currently working in Iraq, training a new Iraqi military, protecting the Baghdad and Basra airports, and feeding and housing US troops.
Several hundred contractors remain on the ground in Afghanistan as well, providing such services as security for President Hamid Karzai. In Liberia, the US recently hired Pacific Architects and Engineers to provide logistics for the Nigerian security force charged with keeping peace after the departure of President Charles Taylor.
Singer says the exponential growth in contractors during the 1990s - there have been nearly 10 times as many contractors used in the 2003 Iraq invasion as in the 1991 Persian Gulf War - is the result of several factors: the downsizing of the military, the fact that US troops are stretched thin because of their several global commitments, and a lack of planning by the Pentagon.
In places like Liberia and Colombia as well, the US is worried about "mission creep." Subjecting contractors instead of US military personnel to danger is far more politically viable as they often fly under the radar, with their costs and duties less known.
According to a report released by the US State Department earlier this year, there are 17 primary contracting companies working in Colombia, initially receiving some $3.5 billion.
The largest contracts have gone to companies like Lockheed Martin, DynCorp, and Northrop Grumman, but lesser-known firms like the Rendon Group (providing public relations support for the Ministry of Defense) and Science Applications International Corp. (assisting in imagery analysis) are also here.
Big companies such as DynCorp, in charge of piloting planes that spray coca crops, and Northrop Grumman's California Microwave Systems (CMS), which operates counternarcotics missions, did not release the number of employees involved in their operations. But the report counts at least 190 contractors employed by "Plan Colombia," a US-backed antinarcotics and antiterrorism program, and estimates the risk to most of their lives as "low."
At risk
But there is still risk. In February, a single-engine Cessna carrying four Defense Department contractors working for CMS, crashed in the jungle. Former US Air Force officer Thomas John Janis and a Colombian air force sergeant were instantly executed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Three other Americans, Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Tom Howes were abducted and have spent six months in captivity. The US government, according to the State Department report, has added "jungle survival training" to the requirements for these contractors.
Contractors may be involved in rescuing their comrades, as well as former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who has been held for 18 months by the FARC. A dramatic videotape was played Sunday on Colombian television where Ms. Betancourt called on the Colombian Army to rescue her and other hostages, and to reject FARC demands to exchange hostages for jailed rebels.
Another high-risk activity being performed by US contractors here is fumigating coca crops. Since they are often forced to pilot low-flying missions over heavy guerrilla territory, the planes are frequent targets of FARC rebels who earn substantial money from the drug trade. Over the past year, US officials have said that spray planes, required to be trailed by search-and-rescue helicopters, have been fired at by rebels 70 times.
In March, a DynCorp plane piloted by an American contractor flew into a mountainside in the southern province of Narino, apparently due to mechanical failure rather than rebel gunfire, bringing the death toll of Americans in Colombia to five in 2003.
And just last week, another spray plane crashed, this time as a result of gunfire from unidentified assailants. But the American contractor pilot was promptly rescued by the search-and-rescue contingent.
----
U.S. eyes role for donors in Iraq
September 03, 2003
(AP)
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20030902-095159-4089r.htm
BRUSSELS - European officials say the United States is showing a willingness to share control over Iraq's reconstruction in its push for foreign help in footing the bill, which is expected to run into the tens of billions of dollars.
U.S. officials today will meet their counterparts from the European Union, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, the World Bank and the United Nations in Brussels to prepare for a donors conference next month in the Spanish capital, Madrid.
Central to the talks are proposals for a fund, run by the United Nations and the World Bank, to channel aid toward restoring key services - from paying teachers' salaries and equipping looted hospitals to re-establishing the banking system and rebuilding roads.
The World Bank is drawing up an assessment of Iraq's needs expected to be matched by pledges at the Oct. 23-24 Madrid conference. The event is scheduled to draw more than 50 nations and international organizations.
L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq, told The Washington Post last week that Iraq would need "several tens of billions" of dollars to function again.
With its military expenses in Iraq running at $3.9 billion a month, and a federal deficit heading for a record $480 billion next year, Washington faces a pressing need to find partners to cover the costs. Democrats and Republicans alike have been telling President Bush that he must get international help.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday that the administration was seeking more funds for Iraq. "We are working closely with Congress to make sure we are providing all the necessary resources," he said.
"We're working to determine the exact needs and the precise costs going forward," he told reporters.
Compounding the problem is continued violence in Iraq that has stymied efforts to get oil exports flowing again and scared off potential investors.
The turmoil has wrecked hopes that Iraq can pay quickly for its own recovery using oil profits under the U.S.-led administration and even become a lucrative hunting ground for American companies seeking contracts after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
"We're watching the Americans verge on a change of heart," said Rosemary Hollis, an Iraq specialist at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs.
"Astonishingly, they thought before this that not only would Iraqi oil pay for the reconstruction, but also that U.S. companies ... would make considerable money out of it."
Many potential donors insist on international control over any recovery program and open access to reconstruction contracts.
EU officials say Washington has reacted positively to a proposal for a World Bank- and U.N.-controlled fund that would be coordinated with the program run by the U.S.-led administration in Iraq and funded by Iraqi oil revenue.
Diplomats say placing reconstruction under U.N. auspices would make it easier to garner contributions from nations that opposed the war, notably France and Germany.
"As soon as there are proposals for rebuilding, we will be glad to assess what we could do within our limited capabilities," German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told the Handelsblatt newspaper last week.
His Belgian counterpart, Louis Michel, another outspoken critic of the Iraq war, said last week that Belgium might be willing to donate money if the United Nations was "playing a central role" in reconstruction.
--------
Documents Show Extent of Lobbying by Boeing
September 3, 2003
The New York Times
By LESLIE WAYNE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/business/03BOEI.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - In a last-ditch effort to block a controversial $20 billion proposal by the Air Force to lease a fleet of Boeing 767 aerial tankers, Senator John McCain's office has released documents showing a high-level lobbying campaign by the Air Force and Boeing to fend off critics as well as potential competitors.
The documents, made public over the holiday weekend and first reported in The Washington Post and elsewhere, come as two Senate committees are planning to hold hearings this week on the $20 billion leasing plan, which Senator McCain, an Arizona Republican, has long criticized as corporate welfare.
In releasing the documents, which include Boeing and Air Force e-mail messages and internal memos culled from some 8,000 documents, he is trying to show that the Air Force and Boeing assisted each other in structuring the program, promoting it in Washington and setting requirements so that no other competitors could qualify.
Much of this new information will be examined on Wednesday at a Senate Commerce committee hearing to be led by Senator McCain. On Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee, whose members generally have a more positive view of the proposed lease, will also hold hearings on the plan, which is intended to replace aging aerial refueling tankers with a fleet of 100 specially outfitted 767's.
The documents, Congressional staff members said, raise questions about whether the Air Force overreached in assisting Boeing. They show that one top Air Force official, who now works for Boeing, gave the company important financial data about a competing bid from Airbus. In addition, the documents show how the Air Force relied on Boeing to provide it with arguments that could play well with influential members of Congress as well as in the White House and with the news media.
Boeing's relationship with the Pentagon is coming under increasing fire. In July, Boeing was sanctioned by the Air Force for having obtained 25,000 proprietary Lockheed Martin documents and using them to win Pentagon satellite contracts. Boeing was denied government business estimated to be worth $1 billion.
One of the more revealing memos among the newly released documents showed that Darleen Druyun, then the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition and management, told Boeing to "keep in mind" that an Airbus bid was $5 million to $17 million cheaper per airplane than a basic Boeing 767. The information was disclosed in an April 1 meeting of Air Force and Boeing officials after Boeing had been selected over Airbus.
Ms. Druyun is now deputy general manager of Boeing's missile defense systems. If the information given by Ms. Druyun was proprietary, she could possibly be in violation of the Trade Secrets Act as well as other federal regulations.
In a statement today, Boeing defended Ms. Druyun as a "truly tough negotiator." The company declined to comment specifically on the memo, but said Ms. Druyun was using the April 1 meeting as "an opportunity to send us a clear message that we needed to sharpen our pencil."
A member of the Commerce Committee staff, who spoke on condition he not be identified, said Senator McCain, its chairman, and some other committee members saw it otherwise. "Generally, the documents tell a story of the extent to which the Air Force overreached to assist Boeing," the staff member said. "The program was signed off by the Air Force when the outcome was determined from the start with help from Boeing."
One of the internal Boeing e-mail messages described a meeting between Boeing lobbyists and members of the staff of the Air Force secretary, James Roche. It shows the head of Air Force acquisitions, Marvin Sambur, turning to Boeing for help: "He indicated that the USAF is desperately looking for the rationale for why the USAF should pursue the 767 tanker NOW . . . It was clear he was looking to find a path forward."
Other memos provided a bird's-eye view of a powerful lobbying effort by the Air Force and Boeing. A Boeing lobbyist, after meeting with top Air Force officials, said the Air Force "urged us to have our friends on Hill, think tanks, etc. get more visible/vocal" with pro-tanker arguments. It contended that Mr. Roche was particularly keen on anything Boeing could do "especially if it helps drown out McCain."
Another memo delineated other elements of this lobbying campaign, including enlisting the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, a Republican from Illinois and a strong supporter of the plan, to talk to President Bush and other White House officials. It also described an effort to line up unions in a plan that Boeing said was "aimed at executive branch as well as Congress."
"We are in touch with Andy Card and White House political operation," a Boeing lobbyist wrote in a memo to James Albaugh, president of a Boeing division; Mr. Card is the White House chief of staff. "They see increased pressure and realize a political downside to not moving forward with tankers," the memo continued.
After an April 1 meeting between Mr. Albaugh and Mr. Roche, a Boeing lobbyist wrote about the increasing help from Paul D. Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary, and Donald H. Rumsfeld, the defense secretary. Mr. Roche told Boeing that more involvement from Mr. Rumsfeld provided "necessary `top cover' for Air Force," adding that it "works better in White House and will help on Capitol Hill."
--------
British BAE Gets Indian Military Jet Deal
September 3, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-India-Jet-Deal.html
NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Britain's BAE Systems PLC on Wednesday won a $1.3 billion deal to sell advanced jet trainers to the Indian Air Force, beating out rival Czech-American aircraft maker Aero Vodochody.
The Indian Cabinet on Wednesday decided to buy 66 Hawk-115 jets because of their wide acceptance among air forces from around the world, a top defense official said.
``One of the major factors in its favor is its reliability and the experience of so many countries that are using these trainers,'' Defense Secretary Ajai Prasad told reporters.
Each Hawk jet will cost India $18.5 million. A comparable figure for Aero Vodochody's plane was not immediately available.
The deal for advanced trainers has been in negotiation for more than a decade. The air force's plan had been dogged by bureaucratic delays and hectic lobbying by potential suppliers.
The deal was also delayed by sanctions imposed by Western nations after India conducted nuclear tests in May 1998.
When U.S. sanctions were lifted in September 2001, Czech-American aircraft maker Aero Vodochody joined the race showcasing its L159B training jets.
Washington has since been encouraging New Delhi to consider the L159B, which its manufacturer claims is newer, better and cheaper than the Hawk.
Indian officials said only that they had evaluated that jet.
Out of the 66 Hawk jets, BAE Systems will supply 24 while the rest it will manufacture in India under a technology transfer agreement with a domestic aircraft maker.
The first batch of jets will be delivered in about three years.
--------
Pentagon to Probe Air Force Ex - Official
September 3, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Air-Force-Tanker-Deal.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon will investigate whether a former Air Force official acted improperly in giving Boeing Co. financial information about a competing bid on a multibillion dollar aircraft lease deal, Air Force Secretary James Roche said Wednesday.
Roche said in an interview with The Associated Press that the Defense Department's inspector general would investigate, but that he did not know whether it would be a criminal matter.
``In other words there is an allegation and they will investigate as to whether or not it is substantiated,'' Roche said.
Documents released over the weekend by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee included an April 2002 exchange between two Boeing officials about the lease deal. The exchange said Darleen Druyun, then principal deputy assistant Air Force secretary for acquisition and management, had told Boeing that Airbus had submitted a bid that was $5 million to $17 million less per plane than the Boeing offer.
Nine months later, Druyun joined Boeing. She now is deputy general manager of the company's missile defense systems.
Boeing spokesman Doug Kennett said Druyun had no comment on the issue. Kennett said Boeing is confident it received no improper information and that the data from Druyun came in a standard Air Force briefing to Boeing three days after Boeing was selected for the lease deal.
``Boeing believes that we received no proprietary information from any official at any time on any subject throughout the entire tanker process,'' Kennett said.
Roche, in an appearance Wednesday before the Senate Commerce Committee, was asked whether it was appropriate for Boeing to have received the Airbus information.
``The use of specific numbers well may not have been appropriate,'' he replied. ``And if it is proprietary information, it was absolutely inappropriate and that's being looked into.''
One committee member, Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., said he was troubled to learn that a senior Air Force official could so quickly switch to working for one of the service's biggest contractors.
``How do you prevent employees from, in essence, being rewarded by helping a private contractor by being given a job at that company?'' he asked.
Roche said Druyun had ``stayed far away'' from the tanker lease negotiations since going to Boeing.
Kennett said it was clear that Druyun's reference to Airbus' lower prices was not meant to give Boeing inside information or provide a competitive advantage. ``The Air Force is clearly telling us in no uncertain terms to sharpen our pencils and lower our price,'' he said.
The Air Force wants to lease 100 modified Boeing 767 aircraft to modernize its aging fleet of aerial tankers. Some in Congress have criticized it as a sweetheart deal for Boeing and more expensive than buying the planes outright. Nonetheless, three congressional committees have approved the arrangement.
The final committee that must approve the deal is the Senate Armed Services Committee, which scheduled a hearing on the matter for Thursday.
Roche testified about the lease Wednesday before the Senate Commerce Committee, which has no jurisdiction on the question of whether the deal can go forward. The chairman, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is a leading opponent of the lease arrangement.
McCain criticized the committees that had approved the leasing plan, which he said would cost taxpayers billions more than a straightforward purchase.
``The lack of scrutiny this deal has received until now is extraordinary, particularly at a time when our budget deficit is burgeoning and the extent of our financial obligations in Iraq is just now being understood,'' he said.
But Sen. Ted Stevens, who said the leasing deal was his idea, said the arrangement was needed because it would take 30 years to replace aging KC-135 tankers by purchasing them outright. Stevens, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which has approved the lease, said the age and poor condition of the KC-135s put the Air Force's refueling capability at risk and endangers the planes' crews.
``I just do not understand why we should put people to fly planes in combat that were made before their grandfathers were in the military,'' said Stevens, R-Alaska.
Stevens rejected claims by critics who contends he was swayed by campaign contributions from Boeing. ``I challenge anyone about any backroom dealing, or anything else,'' he said.
In the AP interview in his Pentagon office, Roche defended the lease deal, which is intended to provide 100 new tankers earlier and with less upfront investment than a purchase. In the long run, however, leasing would cost millions -- possibly billions -- more, depending on how the estimate is calculated.
``It's basically a wash,'' Roche said, because the Air Force would save in other areas that would offset the higher lease cost.
-------- chemical weapons
U.S. Seeks Chemical Weapons Timeline Delay
September 3, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Chemical-Weapons.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States said Wednesday it will not meet an April 2004 deadline for destroying 45 percent of its chemical weapons stockpile. The Pentagon said it has asked the world body that governs the destruction requirement for a delay until December 2007.
The United States has destroyed about 23 percent of its declared stockpile of 31,280 tons of mustard gas, sarin and other chemical weapons. Environmental, safety and other problems at high-temperature incinerators have made it impossible to meet the 2004 deadline, the Pentagon said. Advertisement
In line with provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, the United States submitted its request for more time to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The Chemical Weapons Convention was the first treaty in history requiring elimination of an entire class of weapons under a timetable and under oversight of international inspectors. The vast majority of nations -- 153 -- are treaty members, but significant gaps exist, especially in the Middle East, where Israel, Egypt and other Arab states have failed to ratify it.
The treaty set a deadline of 2007 for the United States, Russia, India and South Korea -- declared possessors -- to destroy their chemical weapons. The 45 percent milestone was to be reached by 2004.
Since the United States is asking for three extra years to reach the 45 percent milestone, it is almost certain it will later seek a delay in the 2007 deadline for 100 percent destruction. Under terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention it could be granted a delay to 2012.
The U.S. Army expects to spend $24 billion destroying its weapons, which were produced to be used in rockets, shells and land mines during the Cold War.
The pilot plant for incineration was at Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. About 6 percent of the U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons was destroyed there between 1990 and 2000.
The destruction program has encountered many delays since then. Several thousand tons of chemicals have been destroyed at incinerators near Tooele, Utah, and another incinerator at Anniston, Ala., began operating last month after lengthy delays. Other incinerators are being tested at Pine Bluff Arsenal near Pine Bluff, Ark., and at the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility near Hermiston, Ore.
While the United States has been forced to seek an extension of the 45 percent destruction mark, the Russian government has encountered worse problems. It has eliminated only 1 percent of its stockpile and has requested a five-year extension to 2012 to reach 100 percent destruction.
On the Net:
Chemical Stockpile Disposal Project:
http://www-pmcd.apgea.army.mil/default.asp
-------- china
Beijing decides military size isn't everything
September 3, 2003
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/02/1062403518422.html
China plans to demobilise 200,000 troops within two years as it struggles to modernise its armed forces, the world's largest.
The reduction, announced on Monday, is the second big cut since the mid-1990s, when China said it planned to get rid of 500,000 troops. At the same time Beijing is increasing military spending, with extra money being used to buy new weapons, improve communications and raise the pay of its personnel.
Shaken by the ease with which US troops dismantled Saddam Hussein's army in the 1991 Gulf War and in Iraq this year, Chinese leaders have argued that they need a smaller, more mobile and better equipped army, controlled by a powerful central command.
China's military chief, Jiang Zemin, and his successor as president, Hu Jintao, have been quoted as calling for a "revolution in military affairs".
The Pentagon uses that term to describe its own program to streamline the United States armed forces and integrate troops with the most up-to-date technology.
The information office of the People's Liberation Army reported that the cuts would reduce China's total armed forces from 2.5 million to 2.3 million, which would still leave it as the world's largestarmy.
However, the true size of China's military, like its budget, is a perennial mystery, with some Western analysts estimating that the actual number of troops is already smaller than the official figure.
Mr Jiang, the former president who retains the powerful post of chairman of the Central Military Commission despite having retired from his other government and party posts in the past 10 months, announced the cuts in a speech to top officers.
"The state of war is being transformed from mechanised warfare to information warfare," he was quoted as saying. "Reducing the scale of our military is beneficial to the concentration of our limited strategic resources and will quicken the pace of constructing our military's information technology."
But the scope of the reductions appears to be much less ambitious than was foreseen by some observers, who had predicted cuts of 500,000.
Chinese and Western military analysts had said earlier this year that Mr Jiang had planned to eliminate most or all of China's seven military regions, which operate independently from one another and with only broad oversight from Beijing.
Mr Jiang did not mention any such changes in Monday's address, and some Western experts said they believed the proposal had been shelved because of internal opposition.
-------- europe
EU military to get a home base
Craig S. Smith/NYT
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
International Herald Tribune
The New York Times
http://www.iht.com/articles/108592.html
PARIS Belgium said Tuesday that it would go ahead with plans to build a European military command headquarters near Brussels next year despite opposition from the United States and Britain.
Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt told a meeting of ambassadors to his country that the new headquarters was necessary for Europe to be able to "plan and execute European operations autonomously" - in other words, without interference from the United States.
The command center was first proposed following a mini-summit in April by Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg, the four European states that most vehemently opposed an American-led invasion of Iraq and that had for a time had blocked involvement by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The European Union has long planned for a common European military capacity that would allow it to formulate and pursue a defense policy separate from that of NATO's, which is dominated by the United States.
In December 1999, the EU heads of state agreed that by the end of 2003 member states would be prepared to deploy up to 60,000 troops in EU-led military operations and that the union would eventually build the infrastructure necessary to direct such operations.
Many European officials believe an autonomous European military capacity is necessary for the union to have a meaningful foreign policy and give it a voice in world affairs. Otherwise, they argue, Europe's individual states are too weak to play a role independent of the United States.
The United States has opposed such a policy as an unnecessary duplication of NATO, which already pools European military capacities under a single command and plans to build a headquarters complex near Brussels in the next few years. NATO and the EU agreed in March that NATO would provide planning support and command facilities for EU-led "crisis response" operations.
Secretary of Defense Colin Powell of the United States said earlier this year that what Europe needs are more military capabilities, not more headquarters. The United States is sharply critical of its European NATO partners for lagging on military spending and letting their militaries slip far behind U.S. capabilities.
But the controversy ahead of the Iraq war convinced many Europeans, France and Germany in particular, of the need for a separate capacity and separate facilities that would allow them to pursue their own policies without the approval of Washington.
The headquarters proposal has yet to win full EU support, however. Britain, for one, opposes the move and has proposed the creation of a dedicated EU military "planning cell" to be based in NATO's military headquarters.
But Verhofstadt said Tuesday that his country would press ahead with the plan to build a separate headquarters at Tervuren, just outside of Brussels, by the middle of next year.
The plan will be discussed at an informal meeting of EU defense ministers in early October, before the European Union's powerful Intergovernmental Conference.
----
'Chocolate makers'
September 03, 2003
Washington Times
Embassy Row
By James Morrison
http://www.washtimes.com/world/embassy.htm
A State Department official yesterday laughingly dismissed the attempts by four European nations to form a defense force outside the realm of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
He called them "chocolate makers" and then quickly apologized, our correspondent Sharon Behn reported.
Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Germany met in April and agreed to a proposal to set up a European military planning and command staff independent of NATO.
Asked about the proposed defense force, spokesman Richard Boucher feigned ignorance.
"I'm not quite sure what proposal that is," he said. "You mean the one from the four countries that got together and had a little bitty summit ... the chocolate makers?"
Mr. Boucher quickly apologized for the reference, saying he had heard the group being described that way in the press.
He said the United States is a strong supporter of the European Union, but believes that EU moves to create its own military and security capabilities should be done in cooperation with NATO.
"We've worked very closely with European governments, particularly in this administration, to work out the arrangements to do that, and we think that's quite sufficient," he said. "We don't understand why they need more military headquarters or training colleges."
EU countries also are divided over the proposal.
•Call Embassy Row at 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail jmorrison@washingtontimes.com.
--------
Europeans Plan Own Military Command Post
September 3, 2003
The New York Times
By CRAIG S. SMITH
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/international/europe/03BRUS.html
PARIS, Sept. 2 - Belgium said today that it would go ahead with plans to build a new European military command headquarters near Brussels next year despite opposition from the United States and Britain.
The Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, told a meeting of Belgian ambassadors in Brussels that the new headquarters was necessary for Europe to be able to "plan and execute European operations autonomously" - in other words, without interference from the United States.
The command center was first proposed in April by Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg, the four European states that most vehemently opposed the American-led invasion of Iraq.
The European Union has long planned a common European force that would allow it to formulate a defense policy separate from that of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is dominated by the United States.
In December 1999 the European Union's heads of state agreed that, by the end of 2003, member states would be prepared to deploy up to 60,000 troops in American-led military operations, and that the union would eventually build the infrastructure necessary to direct such operations on its own.
Many European officials believe an autonomous European force is necessary so that the union would have a meaningful foreign policy and a stronger voice in world affairs. Otherwise, they argue, Europe's individual states would remain too weak to play a role independent of the United States.
The United States has opposed such a policy as an unnecessary duplication of NATO, which already pools European military resources under a single command and plans to build a new headquarters complex near Brussels in the next few years. NATO and the European Union agreed in March that NATO would provide planning support and command facilities for union-led "crisis response" operations.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said earlier this year that what Europe needs is an improved military ability, not more headquarters.
The United States has been sharply critical of its European NATO partners for lagging on military spending and letting their forces slip behind the capabilities of the United States.
The controversy over the Iraq war convinced many European countries - France and Germany, in particular - of the need for a separate force and separate facilities that would allow Europe to pursue its own agenda without Washington's approval.
The headquarters proposal has yet to win full support within the European Union. Britain, for one, opposes the move and has instead proposed the creation of a European military "planning cell" based in NATO's military headquarters.
-------- iran
British Embassy in Iran Closes After Gunfire
September 3, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-britain-embassy.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's ambassador in London has returned home amid simmering tensions over Britain's arrest of a former Iranian diplomat, made worse Wednesday by a drive-by shooting at the British embassy building in Tehran.
British and Iranian officials said diplomatic ties had not been downgraded, though the Tehran government's envoy had gone back to Iran.
Relations have been strained by the case of Hadi Soleimanpour, a former Iranian ambassador arrested in Britain at Argentina's request in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires.
Iran says the arrest is politically motivated and has threatened ``strong action.'' Britain denies the charge and says its courts are independent of politics.
Adding to the charged atmosphere, gunshots fired from a passing motorbike hit the British embassy in Tehran, causing no injuries but prompting the mission to shut temporarily.
Analysts say Iran may be wary of downgrading ties with Britain in case that prompted a response from other European Union members as Iran faces mounting international pressure for tougher inspections of its nuclear program.
European Union diplomats in Tehran said they were trying to defuse tensions in their contacts with Iranian officials.
Iran said it was investigating the embassy shooting, which it called an ``irresponsible act.''
``This was a serious incident. Six shots were fired at the embassy building. Several of them entered offices on the second floor,'' Britain's ambassador in Tehran, Richard Dalton, told Reuters Television.
Other reports said five shots were fired at the building.
A Reuters witness said least one bullet entered the building, which is close to a busy Tehran street. An official earlier said toughened glass had stopped the bullets.
``We just heard five shots. People there said they came from two people on a motorbike -- one rider and one with a pistol,'' a shopkeeper near the scene said. Others agreed with his account.
RETURNING HOME
In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said Iran's ambassador to Britain, Morteza Sarmadi, had returned to Tehran but that ties had not been downgraded. An Iranian official was quoted as saying he had returned home for consultations.
Speaking after a weekly cabinet meeting, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi said: ``No decision was taken for downgrading the relations between the two countries and I don't see it in that framework.''
Relations have been strained between the two countries following the August 21 arrest of Soleimanpour, who was Iran's ambassador to Argentina at the time of the 1994 bombing that killed 85. The former envoy has protested his innocence.
Hard-line Iranian newspapers have called for Britain's ambassador to be expelled. Iran has already cut economic and cultural ties with Argentina. But EU diplomats in Iran said they were trying to prevent the issue escalating.
``We are trying to work with the Iranians to make them see that no one can have any interest in a crisis,'' one said.
In the past, EU states have often acted in concert. In 1997, EU envoys withdrew from Tehran for several months when a German court found Iranian leaders had ordered the killing of three Kurdish dissidents in Berlin in 1992.
The EU has recently toughened its stance over Iran's nuclear program, saying Iran should sign up to more intrusive inspections if it wants to keep good ties with the bloc.
The United States, which wants the nuclear issue referred to the U.N. Security Council, accuses Iran of seeking to make nuclear weapons. Iran says its atomic research program is civilian.
-------- iraq
AYATOLLAH'S FUNERAL
Thousands at Burial of Slain Cleric
September 3, 2003
The New York Times
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/international/middleeast/03FUNE.html
NAJAF, Iraq, Sept. 2 - The central streets of this holy city convulsed with a final spasm of mourning today as Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, the assassinated cleric who had promised to deliver Iraq's Shiites from their repression, was buried in a large empty field that is expected to be transformed into a shrine.
The frenzy of the thousands of mourners encircling the 18-wheel flatbed truck serving as the hearse was such that the massive wooden doors leading into the shrine of Imam Ali, the city's most famous mosque, remained closed because it proved impossible to maneuver the coffin through the distraught crowd.
So the traditional final ceremony - calling on Imam Ali, whose death more than 1,300 years ago helped lead to the founding of the Shiite sect of Islam, to intercede to speed the deceased's acceptance into heaven - was played out over the mosque's loudspeakers while the truck idled at the curb.
It then inched its way through the tens of thousands of mourners in the city to the empty dirt field in front of the central police station, where by early evening workmen toiled under the headlights of a water truck to erect a green metal cage over the crypt to discourage relic seekers.
"It's an irreparable loss," said Fadil Jassem, 40, who had followed the ayatollah - also known as a sayyid, or descendant of the Prophet Muhammad - into exile in Iran 23 years ago. "The sayyid was the future of Iraq. He wanted to build a country where all Iraqis would be treated equally."
Mr. Jassem was a member of the Badr Brigade, the militia Ayatollah Hakim founded in hopes of speeding Saddam Hussein's overthrow. It was ostensibly disarmed at the behest of the American forces, but members were very much in evidence today toting machine guns along with the regular police.
Despite the presence of so many illegally armed men on the streets, the United States forces did not intercede in a town extremely jittery after the huge car bomb explosion last Friday. The Teaching Hospital revised its casualty figures again today, bringing them into line with the very first announcement: up to 95 dead, with as many as 20 unidentified, and 142 wounded.
Mourners chanted condemnations of the United States military for failing to provide security, with one participant pointing out that the looting the American forces failed to stop in April allowed all sorts of munitions to flow out of military stockpiles. The police say they believe that the explosives used in the attack were old army mortars and other similar hardware.
Cars were searched two and three times at the city's entrances and were barred from the center altogether. Even the police conducting body searches passed along dark, unfounded rumors from other cities, like one about mourners being poisoned by charitable sandwiches passed out as the cortege passed.
The three-day funeral across central Iraq started in Baghdad on Sunday, much of it spent walking, and ended here without incident. Many of the mourners who reached the shrine today lined up 12 deep to kiss the still darkened wall where the bomb had gone off.
The force of the car bomb was such that it completely mangled all those in Ayatollah Hakim's car, including three of his bodyguards.
The family said at first that they all might be buried together because of the difficulty of distinguishing body parts, but ultimately aides recognized the ayatollah's hand, from a mark on the thumbnail, and also a foot, said Jamalaldin al-Sagheer, a senior aide who was supervising the nighttime construction of a temporary crypt for the religious leader.
Those parts were entombed in the dirt field. A vault containing another 15 or so tombs was constructed some 10 yards away, with anyone who died in the bombing allowed to be buried there.
One of the first visitors to the tomb was Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the slain ayatollah's younger brother and his representative on the Iraqi Governing Council, the interim government established under American tutelage. In a eulogy earlier in the day, he lambasted the United States for his brother's death.
"The occupation force bears primary responsible for the pure blood spilled in holy Najaf, the blood of al-Hakim and the group of the faithful present near the mosque," he said, adding that the United States was also responsible for "the blood shed all over Iraq every day."
He echoed his slain brother in saying the occupation must end.
At the grave site he consoled the weeping gravediggers, including a few of the ayatollah's nephews, their black robes covered in yellow mud.
The crowd, kept away from the grave by a phalanx of moving vans, erupted in shouts of "Long Live the Hakims!" as he emerged.
The brother is expected to take over the political movement the ayatollah founded, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. But he does not have the religious stature to assume his brother's spiritual role, which could prove problematic among Shiite Muslims who look to their religious leaders for guidance in all matters.
Still, the party was evidently trying to make the link, with pictures of Abdel Aziz pinned up next to those of his late brother on the yards of black cloth spun around the soaring walls of Imam Ali's shrine.
Gen. Hussein Yassin, the Najaf police chief, said there had been no major new developments in the investigation since the weekend, when four Iraqis were arrested.
Iraqi and American officials have said the focus of the investigation remains former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, although the idea of foreign extremists has not been discarded.
Nor, apparently, has Najaf completely abandoned the idea that the blast stemmed from vicious clerical rivalries. One of the black funeral banners strung over the roadway where the cortege passed read, "Disgrace to the murderers hiding behind their clerical robes."
----
Car Bomb Hits Central Offices of Iraqi Police
September 3, 2003
The New York Times
By JOHN TIERNEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/international/middleeast/03IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 2 - A truck bomb smuggled into a police compound exploded this morning near the office of Baghdad's police chief, missing him but killing one officer and wounding 26 others, the police said.
The police chief, Hassan Ali Hassan al-Obeidi, was not in his office when the bomb went off, in a parking lot about 20 feet from his window, said Col. Ismael Hussein of the Baghdad police, who was investigating the explosion. Wounded officers said the chief would have have been killed if he had been at his desk.
The detonation of the fourth car bomb in a month reinforced a common perception that American troops and the Iraqi police cannot protect either themselves or the public against the insurgents disrupting the country's reconstruction.
The bombing today, like those at the Jordanian Embassy, the United Nations offices and the Holy Shrine of Ali in Najaf, seemed to involve careful planning and the choice of a high-profile target.
Police officials said the attack apparently required inside knowledge - and possibly inside help - that could have been available to Saddam Hussein loyalists, who are suspected in connection with attacks against American troops and civilians working with the occupying forces.
Colonel Hussein, the investigator, said the bomb was in a Chevrolet pickup truck that had been towed to the compound by the traffic police, a separate force that uses the parking lot to store impounded vehicles. The police guard at the entrance to the compound failed to perform the requisite search, he said.
"The guard said he thought the traffic police had already searched it," the colonel said. The police intend to investigate who in the traffic police was responsible for delivering the car, and how it came to be parked near the chief's office, he added.
"Anyone entering the compound would have had to show a police badge," he said. "We have many questions to ask."
Until last month, American soldiers had maintained a separate checkpoint outside the compound, and some Iraqi officers said the bomb would not have slipped through American security.
Some also complained that the police lacked the equipment and expertise to do the job, but Colonel Hussein said there was no excuse for the lapse. "Iraqi police should be able to secure our own headquarters," he said. "We know we have many enemies trying to kill us."
The Americans have been trying to transfer responsibility for security to Iraqis as quickly as possible.
The explosion, which rattled windows nearly two miles away, sent huge clouds of black smoke into the air. It killed an officer in the parking lot, Saad Muhummad Ali, and left other officers inside the building with cuts and broken bones.
One of the wounded officers, Sgt. Ali Fakhri, asked why he thought the police department had been picked as a target, replied, "Because we cooperate with the Americans."
American occupation officials had been heralding their efforts to improve the police department, whose image was poor long before this security breach. Under Saddam Hussein, the poorly paid officers were widely accused of doing little and demanding bribes from citizens who wanted to report a crime.
During the postwar chaos, they not only failed to stop looting, but also saw many of their own stations ransacked and stripped of weapons and patrol cars.
The Americans have doubled the pay of the officers, provided new equipment and uniforms, trained new officers and offered management seminars to police executives. They plan to add some 28,000 officers in Iraq over the next 18 months, which would bring the total to 65,000.
The leader of this effort, Bernard B. Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner, finished his three-and-a-half-month tour here this week. Although he was at times critical of Iraqi police policies - "They don't understand the concept of patrol," he said in June - he praised the force's progress. He did not respond to requests for comment on today's bombing.
In an unrelated accident southwest of Baghdad, one American soldier was killed and another injured early this morning when their helicopter rolled over after a hard landing, the military reported.
The military also announced today that two soldiers had been killed and a third wounded on Monday afternoon when their vehicle hit a mine south of Baghdad.
-------- israel / palestine
Report: Mossad team visited Iraq for anti-terror efforts
03/09/2003
By Haaretz Service
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/336472.html
A Mossad delegation visited Baghdad last month in order to coordinate its anti-terrorism efforts with U.S. forces in Iraq, according to a report in the Arab-language Al-Hayat newspaper.
Basing its report on comments made by an anonymous Kurdish official, the newspaper claimed that the delegation held carried out a field tour in the Iraqi capital and aerial tours in a U.S. military helicopter above Mosul, Tikrit and Ramadi.
The official claimed that U.S.-Israeli security coordination in Iraq has been stepped up, in light of reports of the growing influence of Al Qaeda and Ansar Al Islam in the country. Washington and Jerusalem are also mindful of possible security cooperation between Iran and Syria.
While there have been reports that Israeli companies have been invited by the U.S. to do business in Iraq, this is the first report of Israeli security officials visiting the country. Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu annulled several months ago long-standing regulations prohibiting Israeli companies from trading with Iraq, which is still classified an enemy country.
Iran's spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei mentioned last week that an Israeli delegation visited Baghdad, without identifying the nature of its mission.
----
IDF: Battered Hamas turns to PA, Egypt in bid to renew truce
By Amos Harel,
September 3, 2003
Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=336058&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
The Israel Defense Forces believe that if Hamas could live the last two weeks over again, it would skip the deadly suicide bombing in Jerusalem that sparked the current wave of assassinations.
Over the last few days, Hamas leaders have sent messages to both the Palestinian Authority and Egypt in an effort to revive the cease-fire. The answers they have received sound almost like Israel's demands: First they must agree to disarm, and then it will be time to talk about a cease-fire.
IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon, who toured Gaza yesterday, is relatively optimistic about recent developments in the territories. He believes that the steps Israel is taking, including its assassination campaign against Hamas, and Hamas mistakes have combined to put the Palestinians into a humiliating situation.
Each of the three centers of power in the territories - PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas leadership - is now fighting for political survival (and, in the case of Hamas leaders, for physical survival as well).
Journalists have been having trouble finding senior Hamas officials over the last few days. Abdel Aziz Rantisi and his colleagues are not only reluctant to come to television studios in Gaza, they are even cutting down sharply on their use of the telephone. But beyond the real fear for their lives that Hamas members at every level are feeling (a fear that Israel is encouraging through repeated declarations by Ya'alon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz about their intention to continue the assassination policy), the organization is facing a serious dilemma. The problem with the Jerusalem attack, from Hamas's viewpoint, is that it was too successful. The large number of people killed, and the large number of children among them, aroused American and European anger at the organization (Europe is even considering declaring its "political" wing a terrorist organization) and provided a rare moment of international legitimacy for Israel's forceful response. The question is, what will happen if Hamas's retaliation is similarly "successful" - and if, once again, the gain proves to be not worth the cost?
Therefore, it seems, Hamas is still hesitating to carry out another attack inside the Green Line. Instead, it is focusing on less "problematic" targets - soldiers and settlers in the territories. The IDF believes that Hamas has not yet figured out how to escape from this trap, since it knows that a mass-casualty attack, even in the territories, would supply Israel with an excuse for a major ground operation in the Gaza Strip, as well as enabling it to further escalate its assassination campaign. This does not mean that Hamas will refrain from attacks, but it will have to think twice - especially since Israel has recently proven its willingness to "act like a lunatic" when it considers itself justified.
Arafat is facing a no less crucial dilemma: He has reached the point where he has to consider giving up a major asset - control over most PA security services - in light of the tremendous pressure from America. The messages Arafat has recently received from the Egyptians have expressed real fear for his life. The "gun" that Abbas is holding, his threat to resign, is pointed more at Arafat than at himself. Without Abbas, it is not clear that Arafat's insurance policy remains valid.
But Abbas also has his own dilemma: Even if he succeeds in besting Arafat, has the time come for a frontal collision with Hamas? The IDF continues to insist that is feasible, and that Hamas would collapse under a direct assault from the PA.
--------
Israeli Defense Chief Renews Call for Expulsion of Arafat
September 3, 2003
New York Times
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/international/middleeast/03MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, Sept. 2 - Regretting that Israel had not already done so, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said today that it might move to expel the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, by the end of the year.
"Arafat never wanted to reach an agreement with us, and all he wants is to continue the conflict and bleed the citizens of Israel," Mr. Mofaz told Israel's Army Radio this morning. "I believe that he has to disappear from the stage of history."
"The state of Israel made a historic mistake by not expelling him some two years ago, and we had more than a few opportunities to do this," Mr. Mofaz said, adding, "We will need to address this matter in a relatively short space of time, very possibly the end of this year."
Saeb Erekat, a member of the Palestinian parliament and head of the negotiations office of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said Mr. Mofaz's comments served only to ratchet up tensions and cripple peace efforts based on an American-backed plan called the road map.
"These statements will lead only in one direction: the undermining of the peace process, the undermining of the road map and a move, in an expeditious fashion, toward resuming the full occupation of the West Bank and Gaza," Mr. Erekat said. "That is their endgame."
Mr. Mofaz has called for Mr. Arafat's expulsion before, though other security officials have argued that Mr. Arafat would then cause more trouble than he does confined to his headquarters in Ramallah. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said an attempt to expel Mr. Arafat, which would almost surely involve force, could risk violating a promise he made to President Bush not to harm the Palestinian leader.
But with the peace plan in trouble, the Israeli leadership has moved to focus blame on Mr. Arafat.
Mr. Mofaz's sharp words come as hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians have accelerated since the Hamas suicide bombing of a bus in Jerusalem on Aug. 19, which killed 21 people and wounded many others.
Since then Israel has directed six airstrikes against members of Hamas, an Islamic militant group, killing at least 11, along with four civilians. Among them was an 11-year-old Palestinian girl who died today from injuries sustained in a missile strike last week. After the first missile strike, Hamas and other militant groups officially ended their declared cease-fire, vowing revenge, and began firing short-range rockets into Israel. The renewed violence has crippled the peace effort.
Today brought one more casualty to the conflict. Abed al-Qadar Dahani, an Islamic Jihad member who was wanted by Israel for dispatching a suicide bomber in July, was shot and killed by the Israeli Army at a West Bank checkpoint near Jenin.
The army said that after soldiers stopped a taxi they considered suspicious, Mr. Dahani stepped out and pointed a gun at them. The soldiers then opened fire, the army said. Islamic Jihad denied that the man had been carrying a gun.
Mr. Arafat faces turmoil among the Palestinians as well. Trapped in his crumbling compound, he is locked in a bitter power struggle with the man he reluctantly appointed prime minister in April, Mahmoud Abbas, widely known as Abu Mazen. Israel and the United States have been refusing to negotiate with Mr. Arafat, choosing instead to deal directly with Mr. Abbas.
Mr. Abbas is expected to appear before the Palestinian parliament on Thursday to defend his government's first 100 days in office and possibly to seek a vote of confidence from legislators. Failure to win that vote could lead to his removal.
Mr. Abbas, whose limited credibility among Palestinians has faltered, in part because of Israel's willingness to embrace him, wants greater control of Palestinian security forces, which Mr. Arafat does not wish to relinquish. The two men, who have known each other for decades, are no longer on speaking terms.
Distressed by their struggle, more than 200 Palestinian politicians, academics and other public figures have signed a letter that appeared in newspaper ads today calling on Mr. Arafat and Mr. Abbas to set aside their differences and zero in on confronting the Israeli occupation.
On Monday, Israeli officials threatened a broad invasion of the Gaza Strip unless Palestinians stopped firing rockets from there into Israeli territory.
In his radio interview today, Mr. Mofaz reiterated that Israel would not relent until the Palestinian Authority began to tackle terrorism. "Hamas is in distress because of our activity," he said, "but we will not stop the pressure until the terrorist infrastructure is dismantled either by the Palestinian Authority or by us."
--------
Israeli Report Is Welcomed, Dismissed
Some See Impetus for Addressing Long-Standing Bias Against Arab Citizens
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 3, 2003; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16923-2003Sep2.html
JERUSALEM, Sept. 2 -- For Elie Rekhess, an academic who has spent much of his career condemning Israeli discrimination against the country's Arab citizens, the first government-commissioned report documenting this unfair treatment is a landmark in the nation's history.
"Will this be a starting point for a more serious soul-searching process?" asked Rekhess, who is launching a new center for Israeli-Arab cooperation at Tel Aviv University. "It has to be, otherwise we're going to face another catastrophe."
For 80-year-old Yaacov Shvili, sitting in a cramped kiosk selling snacks on a busy Jerusalem street, the report's conclusions are irrelevant: "I do not think there is discrimination between Jews and Arabs."
After 34 months of investigation and 377 interviews, an inquiry panel Monday issued the most searing government-sponsored assessment ever of the country's relations with its Arab minority. While advocates viewed the blunt findings as a historic call for change, other Israelis seemed unwilling to recognize or confront the issue.
The report not only criticized Israeli police for using excessive force against Israeli Arab demonstrators in October 2000. Twelve Arabs, one Jew and one Palestinian resident of the Gaza Strip were killed in the riots. It accused generations of Israeli leaders of "neglectful and discriminatory" treatment of the Arabs who make up nearly one-fifth of the country's population.
The candid self-examination of one of the country's most sensitive political issues comes as Israelis and Palestinians are about to enter the third year of a lethal conflict that has frayed relations between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel as severely as at any time since the creation of the Jewish state 55 years ago.
Palestinians have killed more than 850 Israelis in attacks, many of them suicide bombings in cafes and buses, creating suspicion among many Israeli Jews of all Arabs, including their fellow citizens. More than 2,400 Palestinians have died in the violence.
The 781-page report was completed as international human rights organizations and many Israeli and Palestinian advocacy groups have become increasingly vocal over what they allege is the erosion of many Israeli democratic principles in the state's effort to quash the Palestinian uprising and provide security for its citizens.
The Or Commission, named for Supreme Court Justice Theodore Or, who chaired the three-member panel, said discriminatory practices and attitudes against Israel's Arab minority pervade nearly every aspect of Israeli government and society, undermining the country's democratic foundations.
"Israel's Arab citizens have the right to equality because of the essence of the state of Israel as a democracy," the report said, "and because it is the basic right of every citizen. The state must work to wipe out the stain of discrimination against its Arab citizens."
The inquiry noted, however, that addressing equal treatment for the Arab minority is not only a function of the government, but of Israeli society. A recent poll of Israeli Jews by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 53 percent of those surveyed said they opposed granting full rights to Arabs and 57 percent said they believed the government should encourage Arab citizens to leave Israel.
"The Jewish majority must remember that the state isn't only Jewish, but also democratic," the commission said, adding, "Prohibition of discrimination is incumbent on every citizen of the state."
Some Israelis took heart in the report. "The report is a very, very important opportunity for Israeli society as a whole," said Ruth Bar Shalev, who organizes joint Arab-Jewish projects, including a recent trip in which Israeli Jews and Arabs visited the Auschwitz concentration camp, where Jews were killed during the Holocaust. "It invites us to acknowledge things we haven't recognized until now."
Some Arabs welcomed it as well. "For the first time in history, the report is not only pointing in vague terms at the situation of Arabs in Israel," said Nazir M'jalli, a political commentator on Israeli affairs for the Arab media in the Palestinian territories. "It is blaming all of the governments of Israel since the establishment of the state."
Many Arabs living in Israel say the daily snubbing and suspicions of Jewish citizens trouble them as much as the state's discriminatory practices.
"The Palestinian people who have stayed in Israel number a million people," said Sadeq Dalayshe, a 50-year-old Arab accountant who is an Israeli citizen. "But when there is one Arab who goes against the security of the state, then all the population is targeted.
"I hope this will be a turning point," said Dalayshe, who lives in the village of Bueina in northern Israel, "that the Israeli government will read the report and implement its recommendations, and that will bring about a change. But the past shows that the different governments of Israel do not implement recommendations of committees . . . when it comes to the Arab population."
The report concentrated on the role of Israeli officials, but it also accused Israeli Arab leaders of inciting violence in the Arab community.
Although details of the report filled the front pages of every Israeli newspaper and continued across multiple inside pages, the Israeli government remained largely silent on its recommendations concerning discrimination. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said he would discuss the recommendations at a cabinet meeting, but offered no timetable.
The report proposed that the Israeli government "close the gaps" of disparity in its budgets for education, housing, industrial development, employment and basic services for its Arab citizens, echoing complaints voiced for decades by Arab leaders and citizens.
"I do not expect the government to adopt these conclusions and implement them immediately," said Shuli Dichter, who testified before the commission as co-director of Sikkuy, an advocacy group that promotes civic equality in Israel. "I do expect the Jewish civil society to say we have to change," he said, referring to private advocacy groups.
Today, the Israeli officials most vocal in their response to the report were senior police officials, who defended their actions in the October 2000 demonstrations.
The report said police contributed to the escalation of violence when they attacked stone-throwers and other demonstrators with sniper fire and sprayed rubber-coated steel bullets into the Arab crowds. The Justice Ministry announced today it will open investigations into the actions of police officers and security personnel, as recommended by the report.
Many of the victims' families and some Arab leaders were angered by the report, which issued harsh judgments against police officials at all levels, but failed to recommend criminal action against any of the individuals it named.
Tel Aviv University's Rekhess called the report a "wake-up call," adding, "We have real problems here and unless we begin to seriously handle them, the story is going to repeat itself. That's a very serious message."
-------- mideast
Israel urges US to press Saudis to withdraw F-16s
Wednesday, 03-Sep-2003
by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/cv/Qmideast-israel-saudi-us.RJWP_DS3.html
JERUSALEM, Sept 3 (AFP) - Israel has asked the United States to put pressure on Saudi Arabia to withdraw F-16 fighters deployed in a base near the southern city of Eilat, military radio said Wednesday.
Under the terms of the sale of the US-made jets, Riyadh was committed to not deploy the planes at Tabuk air base in the north-west of the kingdom.
During the recent war in Iraq, the Saudis transferred the F-16s to Tabuk as a precautionary measure in case of an attack by ousted leader Saddam Hussein's regime, the radio added.
The Saudis have refused to move the planes away from the base since the end of major combat operations in Iraq.
----
Pakistan to send more troops to Saudi Arabia
By Zia Iqbal Shahid
Wednesday September 03, 2003
News International, Pakistan
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/sep2003-daily/03-09-2003/main/main4.htm
BRUSSELS: Civil and military authorities in Pakistan have decided to provide additional military and security personnel to Saudi Arabia to fill the gap created by the withdrawal of the US and other Western troops from the Kingdom, reliable defence sources told The News.
Saudi Arabia has already given a pledge to Pakistani authorities it would welcome additional Pakistani military and security advisers and troops primarily to replace the Western military personnel who have left the kingdom over the last year.
Pakistani military personnel in Saudi Arabia would play an effective role in several projects designed to bolster the defence and security of the kingdom. "Pakistani military and security personnel sent to Saudi Arabia would play two-pronged security related role: first, to replace some of the westerners who have left or leaving the kingdom and secondly, to help in the expansion of the security related projects already being executed by Pakistani personnel in Saudi Arabia," the defence source underlined.
The defence sources indicated that the need of Pakistan military and security personnel in Saudi Arabia would increase enormously in the days to come as the acceptability of the American troops in the Kingdom is affected by the recent cleavage in the US-Saudi relations created by a 28 pages of the joint congressional report on the events leading up to the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, which American refuse to declassify despite repeated requests by Saudi Arabia.
The changed circumstances have provided yet another opportunity to further bolster the defence and security relations in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has already conveyed to the government of Pakistan its decision to get more Pakistani military and security advisers and personnel, the defence source indicated.
The report on new enthusiasm in Pak-Saudi defence and security relations has perplexed none in the West as Western governments are aware of the fact that Pakistan is a leading ally of Saudi Arabia. Pakistani armed forces are regarded as the most reliable source always available to bolster the defence and security of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.
Citing the role played by the Pakistani armed forces in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, the defence source said, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Libya, Jordan and other countries had been inviting Pakistani military missions to reorganize and train their defence forces. In the Gulf War of 1991, Pakistani ground forces played their role in Saudi Arabia's defence, and thereafter in prolonged mine clearing operations in Kuwait. Pakistani fighter pilots took part in aerial combat over Syria against Israeli pilots, the defence source recalled.
"The initiative to further strengthen Pakistan-Saudi military relations by sending more Pakistani military and security personnel is suited to both the countries as Pakistan helps in operating aircraft and navel vessels in Saudi Arabia, besides training military and security personnel in the Kingdom", a defence report opined.
Additional Pak forces in Saudi Arabia, besides other operations, would put in action the expansion plan of the existing light weapons and ammunition production venture in the Kingdom by including the project to produce mortar and heavy munitions, the defence source said.
----
Libya severs diplomatic ties with Lebanon over missing cleric
9/3/2003
(AP)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-09-03-libya-lebanon_x.htm
BEIRUT - Libya has decided to sever diplomatic ties with Lebanon after coming under pressure to reveal the fate of a missing Lebanese Shiite cleric, a Libyan Embassy official said Wednesday.
Hussein al-Sharif, the charge d'affaires at the Office of Arab Fraternity, as the Libyan Embassy is called, said the decision was made after recent statements by Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Berri and Nasrallah, both Shiite Muslims, urged Libya to reveal the whereabouts of Imam Mousa Sadr, the spiritual leader of Lebanon's Shiite Muslim community who disappeared during a visit to Libya in 1978.
"Our decision was taken as a result of recent speeches made by Lebanese officials and some editorials that appeared in the (local) newspapers that contained improper words and style," al-Sharif told The Associated Press.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Jean Obeid refused to comment Wednesday on the reported closure of the Libyan Embassy.
While Lebanese Shiites have long blamed Libya for Sadr's disappearance, such calls intensified after Libya accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Scotland that killed 270 people and agreed to pay compensation.
"You (the Libyan regime) have admitted the 1988 aggression. Why do you ignore the 1978 aggression?" Berri said at a rally Sunday that was attended by thousands of people in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek. The rally commemorated Sadr's disappearance.
Berri accused Libya of favoring Western states and not caring about Lebanon.
"Why did you succumb to the foreigners and forget those who are close to you?" he asked.
On Monday, Nasrallah, whose militant Hezbollah group is overwhelmingly Shiite, called on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to "admit responsibility" for Sadr's disappearance.
Libya insists Sadr and his two aides left its territory on a flight to Rome at the end of their August 1978 visit, but Italian authorities have denied he arrived.
Lebanese officials believe Sadr disappeared after having an argument with Gadhafi.
Relations between Lebanon and Libya have often been strained by the Sadr issue. Last year, Libya asked for a change of venue for the Arab summit in Beirut after leading Lebanese Shiites urged the government to bar Gadhafi. The government said he could attend, but he sent an envoy instead.
----
Lebanese Ayatollah Warns U.S. on Iraq
HUSSEIN DAKROUB
Associated Press
Wed, Sep. 03, 2003
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/6682607.htm
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanon's top Shiite Muslim cleric warned that Iraqi Shiites would join the armed resistance against U.S. and British forces if the occupation of Iraq persisted for too long.
Grand Ayatollah Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said Iraqi Shiite political leaders and clerics have been united in their rejection of the occupation and in their public calls for U.S. and British forces to leave the country.
"So far, the (anti-U.S.) resistance does not have clear objectives. When we examine the message of (Iraqi) Shiite leaders and clerics, we find that there is a single voice in rejecting the occupation and in calling on the occupation to leave Iraq to the Iraqis," Fadlallah said in a live interview with the Lebanese Future television station late Tuesday.
"(Joining the resistance) is not very far if the occupation continues to afflict the Iraqis, becoming a tool to restrict the Iraqis' freedom," he said.
Fadlallah, 67, strongly opposed both the regime of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the U.S.-led war against Iraq.
Fadlallah spent more than 30 years studying and teaching Islamic jurisprudence in the Shiite holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq and is a cousin of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, a senior Iraqi Shiite cleric who was killed in a car bombing in a mosque in Najaf last week.
Fadlallah said he wanted to return to Najaf but would not do so under the U.S. occupation.
"I don't like to go to an occupied country," he said.
----
Israeli jets fire on Lebanon
Wednesday, 3 September, 2003
(BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3079072.stm
Air-launched missiles slammed into the hills of south Lebanon on Wednesday as Israeli warplanes swooped on a suspected Hezbollah gun position.
Lebanese security forces said three missiles hit the Bayyarda hills near the city of Tyre at 2000 local time (1700 GMT).
Confirming an attack had been carried out, Israeli sources said a gun position had been destroyed after shells were fired at its northern border earlier in the day.
Hezbollah said one of its anti-aircraft artillery pieces had opened fire earlier at Israeli jets flying over the area.
An air defence unit had fired at "Israeli enemy planes which violated Lebanese sovereignty", said a statement released by the group in Beirut.
There have been no reports of casualties but an Israeli military official in Jerusalem, Major Sharon Feingold, said a Hezbollah cannon had been destroyed.
The cannon had fired the shells from a position about four kilometres (2.5 miles) north of the Israeli border, the major said.
Israeli military sources added that about five shells had landed in open spaces near the border town of Zarit.
It was the first Israeli air raid on Lebanon since 10 August when shells fired by Hezbollah killed a 16-year-old Israeli and wounded five others after a long lull along the border.
-------- prisoners of war
Guantanamo Bay detainees seek ruling
By Edward Alden in Washington
September 3 2003
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059479533454&p=1012571727172
Lawyers for the British, Australian and Kuwaiti citizens imprisoned by the US in the war on terror are asking the Supreme Court to rule that they cannot be held indefinitely at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Advertisement
The case, if taken up by the court, would raise fundamental questions about whether the US has the legal authority to hold foreigners without the protection of either the US courts or the Geneva convention governing war prisoners.
In strongly worded briefs to the court filed on Monday, lawyers for the detainees argued that if the court refuses to hear the case, it would sanction the creation of "penal colonies" in which foreign prisoners of the US have no legal rights.
Two US lower courts have ruled that they have no jurisdiction to intervene because the detainees are foreign nationals being held outside US territory.
Those decisions have angered the UK government, which is pressing the US in bilateral negotiations to ensure that the two British citizens held at Guantanamo Bay are given fair trials, including the possibility of an appeal to US civilian courts. The US has said it plans to bring the two before military tribunals under special rules that would allow no outside appeal.
Since the September 11 2001 attacks, the US has imprisoned hundreds of suspected terrorists - most captured during the war in Afghanistan. A handful have been released but nearly 700 remain imprisoned at a US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Thomas Wilner, who represents the families of 12 Kuwaitis held at the base, told the Supreme Court that if the lower court decision stands, it "enables the government to establish penal colonies for foreigners outside the United States that are totally outside US law".
Joseph Margulies, representing the two UK and two Australian detainees, argued that while US courts have accepted that the government can try war prisoners abroad, no administration has been authorised to imprison foreigners indefinitely without legal recourse.
"The government's disdain for the principles of justice and the rule of law is unprecedented in our history," he wrote.
The government has 30 days to respond to the petition, after which the court must decide whether it will hear the case.
The court might be reluctant for fear of infringing on the administration's ability to prosecute the war on terrorism. The government has promised to bring the prisoners before military trials soon or to release them.
"The war on terrorism can be expected to last a very long time," said Mr Wilner. "The standards we set now will prescribe the nation's behaviour for years to come," he wrote.
-------- russia / chechnya
Five Killed in Russian Train Bombing
By SERGEI VENYAVSKY
Associated Press Writer
Sep 3, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RUSSIA_EXPLOSION?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (AP) -- Two bombs exploded under a commuter train in southern Russia on Wednesday, killing at least five people and wounding 30 others, officials said.
The bombs were planted on the track of the railway line linking Kislovodsk to Mineralnye Vody in the Caucasus region. There were about 50 people in the third car of the six-car train which was directly hit by the blast, Railway Ministry's spokesman Konstantin Pashkov said.
Each bomb contained about 150 grams of explosives and the two blasts killed five people, Russian officials said.
Nikolai Lityuk, a deputy chief of the Emergency Situations Ministry in southern Russia, said up to 30 people were wounded in the explosion which occurred as the train was approaching a station in the town of Podkumok.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blasts.
Viktor Kazantsev, President Vladimir Putin's envoy to southern Russia, told state television that police had arrested a man suspected of detonating the bombs.
Russia has been rocked recently by numerous bombings and other attacks, which the government usually blames on the Chechen rebels.
An officer at the headquarters of the Caucasus Military District, which oversees Chechnya, said on condition he not be identified that the military had received intelligence information that the rebels were preparing a series of attacks in southern Russia.
The explosion occurred just as Putin was scheduled to chair a meeting of regional governors in Rostov-on-Don, some 280 miles northwest of the explosion site.
--------
Train Bombing Kills 5 and Hurts 30 Near Chechnya
September 3, 2003
The New York Times
By SETH MYDANS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/international/03CND-RUSSIA.html
MOSCOW, Sept. 3 - At least five people were killed and more than 30 were injured today when two bombs exploded under a passing commuter train near the wartorn southern republic of Chechnya, officials said.
Although officials did not immediately blame Chechen rebels, the bombing followed a recent series of terror attacks attributed to the rebels that have taken 150 lives and set Russia on edge.
The local deputy prosecutor general, Sergei Fridinsky, said the investigation would focus on the likelihood of terrorism.
The government has scheduled a presidential election for Chechnya for Oct. 5 in hope of finding a political solution to the four-year conflict. But Chechen rebels have said they will not take part in the vote.
The ITAR-TASS news agency said two homemade explosive devices had been planted under the rails near a small station on the outskirts of Kislovodsk, about 870 miles south of Moscow.
It said the police had detained a badly injured man who tried to flee the scene of the attack, but officials declined to give details about the suspect.
Many of the victims, who suffered burns and shrapnel wounds, were first-year students traveling to university classes in the town of Pyatigorsk, according to a local television report.
"Everything shook from side to side," a man identified as Ilya Kamyshanov said from his hospital bed in an interview with Rossia state television. "All that I can remember is, lots of dust all over the place and everything shaking."
One of the carriages was derailed and several caught fire in the aftermath of the explosion, according to reports.
One of the largest recent attacks occurred in July, when 14 people were killed at a rock concert in Moscow by two female suicide bombers identified by officials as ethnic Chechens.
On Aug. 1, a suicide bus attack killed 50 people at a military hospital in Mozdok, Russia's military headquarters for the North Caucasus, which neighbors Chechnya.
The official Russian death toll from the war is estimated at around 5,000 people, although independent estimates are as much as three times higher. The government says it has killed an additional 15,000 rebels. No numbers for civilian casualties have been released.
-------- space
'Rods from God'
'Space capabilities are integrated with and affect every link in the kill chain.'
By Joel Bleifuss
9.3.03
In These Times
http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=336_0_3_0_C
With no fanfare, the Bush Administration is taking military control of what it terms "near space," thereby laying claim to the area of the Solar System that lies between the Earth and the Moon's orbit. "A key objective ... is not only to ensure U.S. ability to exploit space for military purposes, but also as required to deny an adversary's ability to do so," is how the Pentagon's 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review explained U.S. strategy.
Indeed, the success of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq depended on the use of more than 50 military satellites to direct U.S. missiles and bombers to their intended targets. "I'd call this the first real space war," says Brig. Gen. Larry Jones, commander of the 50th Space Wing at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado.
Air Force Secretary James G. Roche, a self-described "space warrior," is the soldier in charge of U.S. Space Command, the space-based branch of the armed services. In an October 2002 speech at the Conference on the Law and Policy Relating to National Security Activities in Outer Space, Roche explained:
Space capabilities in today's world are no longer nice-to-have: they've become indispensable at the strategic, operational, as well as the tactical levels of war. ... Space capabilities are integrated with and affect every link in the kill chain. ... Given the absolute interdependence of air and space power, we cannot risk loss of space superiority.
According to the Space Command's Strategic Master Plan, by 2025, the United States will have developed the capability to strike any target on Earth within minutes. To that end, the Pentagon is developing a space-based arsenal. These Star Wars weapons include laser-armed satellites-in military lingo, SBLs (Space-Based Lasers)-that will shoot down an enemy's earth-launched missiles, destroy hostile satellites, and attack Earth-based enemy installations. Also on the drawing board are un-manned satellite gunships that would smash earthly targets with non-explosive tungsten rods. Such projectiles, known as "Rods from God," would be so hard and traveling so fast that they could penetrate and destroy a four-story underground bunker.
One of the key systems in U.S. plans to rule the heavens are the "X" series of "military space planes," the prototype of which is being developed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin at a cost of $4.8 billion. The Air Force's "X" series, designed to attack and destroy enemy satellites, is slated to replace NASA's Space Shuttle-in the same way that the Pentagon is now slated to replace NASA's civilian administration. Sean O'Keefe, the former navy secretary and current chief of NASA, has said that every NASA mission from now on will be "dual use" (have both military and civilian purposes at the same time).
The legal impediment to the U.S. conquest of space was overcome in 2001 when President George W. Bush canceled the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia, which prohibited the testing of space-based anti-ballistic missiles.
Today, the obstacles standing in the way of U.S. space dominance are China's budding space program and the European Space Agency's plans to deploy the Galileo satellite system. Not surprisingly, the Bush administration is trying its best to persuade the European Union to put its space program under NATO control. And, this spring at the Space Warfare Center at Schriever Air Force Base, a space-based war game set in the year 2017 pitted the U.S. Blue Team against the Chinese Red Team. Participants at this year's games were told not to get "bogged down in discussions about space law and policies, which disrupted the game's military operations" in 2001.
Peter Teets, a one-time president of Lockheed Martin, is the director of the agency that controls military satellites, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). He worries about a situation where "an adversary chooses to leverage the Global Positioning System or perhaps the Galileo constellation to attack American forces with precision." To prevent such an occurrence, according to Teets, beginning in 2004, the NRO will draw up policies to deny other nations, allies included, the use of "near-Earth space"-a policy that goes by the term "negation."
In the '80s, Reagan's Star Wars program prompted public world-wide protest. The lack of concern over Bush's new-and-improved Star Wars demonstrates just how anesthetized we have become. Let's hope we wake up by November 2, 2004.
Joel Bleifuss is the editor of In These Times, where he has worked as a investigative reporter, columnist and editor since 1986. Bleifuss has had more stories on Project Censored's annual list of the "10 Most Censored Stories" than any other journalist.
-------- spies
Pollard attorneys seek access to secret report used in spy sentencing
September 03, 2003
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030902-112051-9995r.htm
Jonathan Jay Pollard, convicted of spying for Israel, appeared in federal court yesterday for the first time in 16 years as his attorneys sought access to a secret report used in a judge's decision to give him a life prison term.
Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered Pollard to appear at the hearing on whether to give his lawyers access to the sentencing report produced by then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in 1985.
Eliot Lauer, one of Pollard's attorneys, said during the hearing that the government denied 20 pages of the Weinberger memorandum to Pollard because, it claimed, unauthorized disclosure of the secrets there might cause grave damage to U.S. national security.
"I urge you grant us access in the interest of justice," Mr. Lauer said. "This file is part of the case. ... We just want access. Two security-cleared lawyers should be given access to this material at the Department of Justice."
Judge Hogan said access to the memo was denied on earlier requests in 1990, 2000 and 2001.
Steven Pelak, an assistant U.S. attorney, said at the hearing that earlier rulings denying Pollard access to the memo should stand. "At this time the defense has simply not shown the need to know."
Pollard, 49, entered the courtroom wearing a dark-green prison suit from the Arlington County jail. Looking grayer and heavier than when he last appeared in court at his 1987 sentencing, the convicted spy sat with his hands folded during about 90 minutes of oral arguments.
Attorneys for Pollard said after the procedural hearing they did not know why Judge Hogan ordered Pollard to appear. He was brought from a federal prison in North Carolina.
Several members of Pollard's family were in the courtroom, including his father, Morris Pollard. A group of rabbis, including Israel's former chief rabbi, HaRav Eliayhu, also were present. Judge Hogan said he will rule later on the two motions. The first motion would grant Pollard's lawyers access to the secret sentencing memorandum. The second would allow another hearing to reconsider Pollard's sentence.
Pollard, a civilian Navy intelligence analyst, pleaded guilty to espionage after he was arrested while trying to flee to the Israeli Embassy in Northwest Washington on Nov. 21, 1985.
He was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 as part of a plea agreement.
Rep. Anthony Weiner, New York Democrat, said he has written to President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft asking that Pollard's prison term be commuted to time served.
"Jonathan Pollard committed a very serious crime," Mr. Weiner told reporters after the hearing. "He is also a victim of bad faith on the part of the government. ... He should never have served a sentence this long."
Joseph DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney who prosecuted Pollard, said in an interview that Pollard "got the sentence he deserved."
"If Pollard wants to be released from prison, he should do what he was entitled to do in 1996, which is apply for parole. That he has never done," Mr. DiGenova said.
"Mr. Pollard has purposely never applied for parole because he wants this to remain a political matter."
In 1998, President Clinton offered to pardon Pollard as part of the Wye River Middle East peace negotiations. But the pardon plans were shelved after CIA Director George Tenet threatened to resign in protest if the pardon were granted, U.S. officials have said.
U.S. intelligence officials said Pollard gave thousands of highly classified intelligence documents to two Israeli intelligence officers, who remain unindicted co-conspirators in the case. Both Israelis fled the United States at the time of Pollard's arrest.
Pollard has said he spied for Israel out of loyalty to the Jewish state. However, he also was paid by Israeli intelligence for the documents. His wife, Anne Henderson Pollard, also was arrested in the case and was sentenced to five years in prison. She served part of that sentence and was released.
U.S. officials have said Israel, despite appeals from the United States, has failed to return all the documents that were sent to Israel by Pollard.
Pollard agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the case in exchange for what he hoped would be less than a life sentence. Instead, the judge then sitting where Judge Hogan does now, Chief Judge Aubrey Robinson, sentenced him to life.
The case has been a major issue in Israel, with many Israelis lobbying for Pollard's release and deportation to Israel.
--------
Convicted Spy Goes to Court to Appeal Life Sentence
September 3, 2003
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/national/03POLL.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - Lawyers for Jonathan Jay Pollard, an American convicted of spying for Israel who made his first public appearance in more than 15 years today, asked a federal judge today to allow them to continue appealing his life sentence.
The judge, Thomas F. Hogan of United States District Court here, did not explain why he had ordered Mr. Pollard to be in the courtroom, and he did not issue a ruling.
One of Mr. Pollard's lawyers, Jacques Semmelman, said the judge had not indicated why Mr. Pollard had been summoned, "but it is apparent that today was a very significant and important proceeding."
Mr. Pollard, who sat with his lawyers, wore a dark green prison uniform and white skullcap and occasionally nodded toward his family and others who filled the packed court benches.
His lawyers argued that he had received ineffective counsel and that the government broke an agreement to seek a more lenient sentence. They also say that the government has kept them from reviewing classified documents related to Mr. Pollard's clemency request.
"Today's court argument is about law and due process, it is not about foreign policy or politics," said Eliot Lauer, another of Mr. Pollard's lawyers.
Two Justice Department lawyers, Steven Pelak and Robert Okun, said federal officials had acted properly.
Mr. Pollard was arrested in 1985 after spying for Israel for at least 18 months. In 1987, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. He is serving his sentence at a federal prison in North Carolina.
Mr. Pollard, who worked at the Navy's Anti-Terrorism Alert Center in Suitland, Md., says he obtained information that the United States should have been supplying to Israel. American officials have said he betrayed vital secrets.
American Jewish leaders have long lobbied on Mr. Pollard's behalf, and his efforts have been championed by Labor and Likud Party governments in Israel.
Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, attended the hearing. He said afterward that he had seen the full record of the case, and had asked President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft to commute Mr. Pollard's sentence to time served.
"Jonathan Pollard committed a very serious crime," Mr. Weiner said. "But he has now served 18 years for a single plea of conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of an ally. There is no case in American history that has been judged so harshly."
--------
Spy Seeks to Appeal Life Sentence
Pollard Lawyers Also Want Access to Secret Government Documents
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 3, 2003; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16683-2003Sep2.html
Attorneys for Jonathan Jay Pollard, the U.S. Navy intelligence analyst convicted of spying for Israel 16 years ago, argued in federal court yesterday that he has been punished too harshly because of mistakes by previous lawyers and the government's reliance on dubious claims about the damage he caused.
Pollard's lawyers asked U.S. Chief District Judge Thomas F. Hogan to let them appeal the life sentence Pollard received in 1987 when he was convicted of selling secret information to Tel Aviv. They also asked for access to sealed government documents that they said describe the impact of Pollard's crimes. The lawyers said they have doubts about those claims and believe the information will help them persuade President Bush to commute Pollard's sentence.
"The Jonathan Pollard case is a stain on the American legal process," his attorney Eliot Lauer said. "The government agreed they would not seek a life sentence, and that's exactly what they did . . . and Jonathan Pollard has repeatedly been denied justice."
Pollard, 47, was brought from a federal prison in Butner, N.C., to the Washington courtroom for yesterday's 90-minute hearing. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles, an embroidered yarmulke and a green prison overshirt. Pollard, who stopped cutting his hair in protest over his sentence in the late 1990s, now has a gray-brown beard and shoulder-length curly brown hair. It was his first appearance in federal court since his conviction.
About 40 relatives and Pollard supporters packed the court hearing. They included several rabbis; his father; his wife, Esther; Rep. Anthony D. Weiner (D-N.Y.); and Mordechai Eliahu, Israel's former chief rabbi and a venerated figure there.
Prosecutors opposed letting Pollard's attorneys review the government documents or allowing Pollard an appeal. They said the defense team had brought forward no new information or central flaw in Pollard's conviction or sentencing.
Some of Pollard's lawyers made similar arguments for access to sealed government documents in 1990 and twice in 2001, and were turned down all three times. Pollard's lawyers also have sought to win a presidential pardon for Pollard but have been rejected by former presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
But Lauer said new information has greatly strengthened Pollard's bid to see the sealed documents. A letter from a Justice Department official shows that 25 people, most of them Justice employees, were granted access between 1993 and 2000 to the same records that the government says Pollard's attorneys, who have security clearances, cannot see.
"At the same time the government is arguing that the file is not relevant, government attorneys are looking at the same file," Lauer said. "This case is based on . . . government misrepresentation."
Pollard, the son of a Jewish academic, was a civilian analyst for the Navy when he offered his services to Israeli intelligence officers in the belief that the United States should have been sharing the information with Tel Aviv. He was caught in November 1985 and arrested after unsuccessfully seeking refuge at the Israeli Embassy. The Israeli government granted Pollard citizenship and has repeatedly sought his release.
Though prosecutors said in a plea agreement that they would not seek a life sentence, Chief Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr. meted out that sentence. Pollard and his then-wife, Anne -- who served three years in prison for aiding him -- acknowledged that they had violated terms of their plea agreements by granting interviews to reporters before sentencing.
Lauer contended that Pollard's first attorney, Richard Heiby, did not file a notice to appeal Pollard's life sentence. Pollard's next attorney, Hamilton P. Fox, praised Heiby's work rather than criticizing it and protecting Pollard's ability to appeal, Lauer said.
Pollard's attorneys said they want to see a 1987 letter from former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger to the court that details the damage Pollard caused. According to news reports, Weinberger said that Pollard sold diagrams of the Palestine Liberation Organization's headquarters in Tunis, which had helped Israel in a 1985 bomb attack on the PLO; details of Soviet arms shipments to Syria; information on the Pakistani nuclear weapons program; Iraqi and Syrian chemical warfare production capacity; and the capability of Libyan air defenses.
Most significant, Weinberger wrote, was Pollard's sale of raw intelligence material that disclosed the all-important "sources and methods" of U.S. intelligence-gathering.
But Lauer said the sealed documents may show that Weinberger and the government forecast harm from Pollard's spying that never occurred. And, Lauer said, some of the espionage attributed to Pollard may have been committed by other spies.
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Israel tries to stop critical UN resolutions
By Shlomo Shamir,
Haaretz Correspondent,
03/09/2003
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/336100.html
NEW YORK - Israel has launched a campaign to get the United Nations to declare a moratorium on all resolutions that denounce Israel or demand that it change its policies without parallel denunciations or demands regarding Palestinian terrorism.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Gillerman presented the idea Tuesday at a special meeting with the UN ambassadors of 25 European states who either are, or are slated to become, members of the European Union. Gillerman was accompanied by David Granit, the Foreign Ministry's deputy director-general for international organizations, who flew in from Jerusalem for the meeting.
Israel is arguing that a moratorium on one-sided anti-Israel resolutions is required by the road map peace plan, of which the EU and the UN are cosponsors, along with the United States and Russia. The road map calls for an end to anti-Israel incitement.
A UN source told Haaretz on Tuesday that the European diplomats were surprised by the proposal and declined to respond immediately, and Israeli officials refused to speculate on the likelihood that they will ultimately accede. However, Gillerman plans to continue pushing the issue via individual talks with key UN players in the two weeks remaining until the start of the UN's next session. He and Granit met yesterday with the UN ambassadors from Denmark and India.
Israel also plans to raise the idea in meetings with senior State Department officials in Washington this weekend.
"We presented the Europeans with a challenge," Granit said yesterday. "The success of our meeting with the European ambassadors was that it took place at all."
The initiative refers specifically to 21 resolutions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are discussed by various UN committees every year and then forwarded to the General Assembly, where they enjoy an automatic majority. Israel is proposing that the committees not discuss these resolutions this year and that the General Assembly postpone a vote on them until next year.
Until now, Israel has largely ignored these resolutions, on the theory that it is incapable of changing the UN's behavior. However, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom decided recently that Israel should make a concerted push to detach the European states from the UN's anti-Israel majority. He also sent a letter to all his colleagues in the EU urging them to correct the "distorted situation" created by this automatic anti-Israel majority.
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Bush Looks to U.N. to Share Burden on Troops in Iraq
September 3, 2003
New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID FIRESTONE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/international/middleeast/03PREX.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - President Bush agreed today to begin negotiations in the United Nations Security Council to authorize a multinational force for Iraq but insisted that the troops be placed under American command, according to senior administration officials.
Mr. Bush's decision came in a meeting this afternoon with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. While not unexpected, it was a tacit admission that the current American-dominated force is stretched too thin. It also amounts to one of the most significant changes in strategy since the end of major combat in Iraq.
The White House acted just as a new Congressional study showed that the Army lacked the active-duty troops to keep the current occupation force in Iraq past March, without getting extra help from either other services and reserves or from other nations, or without spending tens of billions to vastly expand its size.
One senior official said that Mr. Bush's national security team envisions withdrawing the majority of American forces now in Iraq within 18 months to two years, and "making this peacekeeping operation look like the kind that are familiar to us," in Kosovo, Bosnia and other places where the United Nations has taken the major role.
But it is far from clear that France and Germany, which led the opposition to a Security Council resolution authorizing the war, will agree to the terms or the language that Mr. Powell plans to circulate, perhaps as early as late this week. India, Turkey and Pakistan have indicated they might contribute troops to a multi-national force, but only if it is authorized by a new United Nations resolution.
Another senior administration official said tonight that Mr. Bush and Mr. Powell discussed ways to persuade the Security Council members to create such a force, and added that Mr. Powell "is going to be working with our colleagues and allies to talk about language that can bring maximum, effective resources to bear" in Iraq.
The study, released today by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, was requested by Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, a critic of the Iraq war and the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, who was frustrated by the Bush administration's reluctance to discuss its personnel options in Iraq or the long-term cost of a sustained occupation force. The report said that if the Pentagon stuck to its plan of rotating active-duty Army troops out of Iraq after a year, it would be able to sustain a force of only 67,000 to 106,000 active duty and reserve Army and Marine forces. A larger force would put at risk the military's operations elsewhere around the globe, the study said.
With Mr. Bush concerned about the ramifications of continued daily casualties in Iraq and the possibility that he may need forces elsewhere, perhaps including the Korean Peninsula if the nuclear crisis there worsens, the need to draw more international forces became "very clear in the past few weeks," a senior State Department official said today.
Last week, floating what appeared to be a trial balloon, the deputy secretary of state, Richard L. Armitage, said the United States was considering a multinational force that would be under the United Nations flag but, he added, an "American would be the U.N. commander." That was essentially the model for American forces stationed in South Korea after the end of the Korean War, 50 years ago, and it has been repeated elsewhere in the world. Currently, there are about 180,000 American troops in Iraq and Kuwait and 21,000 non-American troops, about half of them from Britain.
Military planners have long said the United States will require substantial assistance from other countries and from Iraqis to remain in the country over the long term, and today's study underscored that need. It is also the first time a government agency has placed a date on the point when the American military may buckle under the strain of the Iraqi deployment unless it gets significantly more help from other countries.
"When you connect the dots, this report shows we cannot possibly sustain the mission in Iraq at current U.S. active-duty troop strength, even if we do get modestly more allied help," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution. "The only hope otherwise is to turn the security mission entirely back to the Iraqis within one to two years, which is unlikely."
The limiting factor for the Pentagon is not necessarily money. Rather, the problem is the Army's need to keep occupying troops fresh using a unit rotation system, where a unit serves in Iraq for 6 to 12 months and then comes home for rest and training, replaced by another unit. The report says the Pentagon does not have enough personnel to keep the troops fresh and still conduct operations in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia and Korea.
"The need to maintain levels of training and readiness, limit family separation and involuntary mobilization and retain high-quality personnel would most likely constrain the U.S. occupation force to be smaller than its current size," the report said.
There was one bit of good news for the administration in the report: The budget office said the Pentagon's recent estimate that it was spending about $3.9 billion a month in Iraq might be overstated. That figure may include some one-time costs that would not be necessary in a longer occupation, the report said.
The report's authors acknowledged that they did not evaluate the potential for allies to contribute to the occupation force. The report also did not comment on the impact of Iraqi security forces on the calculation.
The American military could field a force of up to 106,000 if it breaks with the past and uses Marine Corps units, Army Special Forces groups and National Guard combat units in Iraq, the report says. Such units have generally not been used for peacekeeping, and the budget office said using them would bring the cost of the occupation to $19 billion a year.
Alternatively, the Pentagon could increase the size of the Army to meet its new demands. Recruiting, training and equipping two new Army divisions would require an up-front cost of up to $19 billion and take five years, the report said, and it would cost an extra $9 billion to $10 billion a year to put in place in Iraq. That would bring the total cost of the occupation force up to 129,000 troops and cost up to $29 billion a year, the report said.
Senator Byrd said the report proved the Bush administration failed to inform the nation of the true costs of invading Iraq, and said the United States must now get support from NATO and the United Nations to sustain the occupation.
Col. Jay DeFrank, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the Defense Department had not had a chance to review and analyze today's report, but that it would make sure that commanders get the force they need.
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Aid donors back plan for international trust fund for Iraq
9/3/2003
(AP)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-09-03-iraq-aid_x.htm
BRUSSELS - International donors agreed on the need for an international trust fund to funnel billions of dollars in reconstruction to Iraq - independently of the U.S.-led administration in Baghdad, officials said Wednesday.
Setting up the fund, which is expected to be administered by the World Bank and United Nations, will increase chances of raising aid money from nations such as France and Germany, who opposed the Iraq war and were reluctant to channel aid through the U.S.-led authorities.
Speaking to the EU's parliament in Strasbourg, France, Chris Patten, the European Union's external affairs commissioner, said the fund should be "separate but coordinated" with the work of the U.S.-led coalition authorities in Iraq.
"We are prepared to help ... provided there is an adequate multilateral umbrella for our contribution," Patten said.
With costs of the occupation mounting and Iraqi oil exports slow to bring in large revenues, Washington is trying to get other nations to help with the billions of dollars needed in rebuilding Iraq. But in turn, the United States has come under pressure to cede some of its control over running Iraq.
Experts from the United States, EU, United Arab Emirates, Japan, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the United Nations discussed details of the fund and assessed Iraq's most pressing aid needs at a meeting Wednesday in Brussels.
In a joint statement after the talks, all participants "confirmed their commitment to supporting reconstruction in Iraq."
Although final details are only expected to be agreed at a conference with more than 50 donor nations and international organizations in Madrid next month, officials said there was an agreement in principle to set up the fund.
"There is consensus in the donor community that there should be such a fund," said EU spokeswoman Emma Udwin.
European nations also want to see a progressively greater involvement of the fledgling Iraqi authorities alongside the United Nations in the reconstruction plans, officials said.
Also speaking at the EU assembly, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini called for the United Nations to play a central role, adding that "it is in everybody's interests that reconstruction in Iraq succeeds."
Once wary of accepting international control over the reconstruction plans, the United States is now actively seeking help to cover the costs which are expected to far exceed receipts from an Iraq oil industry bedeviled by attacks on pipelines.
Coalition authorities are using receipts from Iraqi oil exports to finance rebuilding. Officials in Baghdad estimate oil revenues could reach $12 billion next year.
Democrats and Republicans alike have been telling President Bush he must get international help as U.S. military expenses in Iraq run at $3.9 billion a month, and the federal deficit heading for a record $480 billion next year.
The Oct. 23-24 conference in the Spanish capital is expected to draw concrete pledges from donors.
However, while many nations see the urgency of investment to stabilize the country, they are cautious about committing cash given the political uncertainty in Iraq and almost daily attacks against foreign targets there leaves.
Officials acknowledged that reconstruction would be hindered while international aid efforts remained subject to attacks - like the Aug. 19 suicide bombing that killed 23 people at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.
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Powell Begins Push for Increasing U.N. Role in Iraq
September 3, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-UN-Iraq.html?hp
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is circulating a proposed resolution to assign a larger role to the United Nations in peacemaking in Iraq and to outline a ``political horizon'' for the country's transition to a constitutional democracy, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday.
At a hastily arranged news conference, Powell said peacekeeping troops, most of which are supplied by the United States, would be placed under a unified command with U.S. commanders in charge.
``Certainly the United States will continue to play a dominant role,'' Powell said. ``But a dominant role does not mean the only role.''
Nonetheless, in turning to the United Nations, as demanded by many other governments and members of Congress, the Bush administration is modifying its strategy in Iraq.
Powell said the United Nations ``has brought great skill to nation-building.''
In response to a question, he said the move was not motivated by the continuing loss of U.S. troops in Iraq.
Powell said U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte was circulating a draft resolution on Wednesday and Thursday to other U.N. ambassadors and that he planned to rally support with telephone calls to foreign ministers.
He said he had already been in touch with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and foreign ministers Igor Ivanov of Russia, Joschka Fischer of Germany and Dominique de Villepin of France.
``The initial reaction so far is positive,'' he said.
The postwar operation is costing the United States at least $3.9 billion a month and has strained the American military, which has some 140,000 troops stationed there. The administration has struggled to attract broader international participation, and sees the new U.N. resolution as the way to make other nations more comfortable with contributing militarily and financially.
Some nations, including India, ``felt like they needed additional authority from the U.N. to able to participate,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
``So we said, 'We want to listen to your concerns, we want to work with you and we want to look at ways to encourage broader international participation,''' McClellan said.
But he made plain that the United States intends to retain political and military control in Iraq.
``This is and continues to be something that is under the command of the United States military, working with our coalition,'' he said.
U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority are ``overseeing our efforts in Iraq and they will continue to oversee our efforts in Iraq,'' McClellan said. ``We want to encourage more countries to participate.''
But Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., warned that there must ``be meaningful responsibility for each of these other countries.''
``They're not going to assign combat troops to this effort under the command of an American general and not have any further role in Iraq,'' said Hagel, a member of Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees and one of the leading advocates for greater international role in Iraq. Hagel said he spoke with Powell Wednesday morning.
Hagel said the new resolution ``would obviously indicate what additional responsibilities other nations would have, as well as the U.N. and Iraq.''
It ``would take away this perception, unfortunately, that is in the Middle East and around the world that this is an American mission in Iraq.''
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California called the effort toward a new resolution ``a welcome admission that the current policy is not realistic and not sustainable.''
After Powell and Negroponte complete their soundings, the administration will make a final decision on the text of a resolution, hoping to submit it to the Security Council before Bush speaks in three weeks to the U.N. General Assembly.
Bush authorized Powell to begin the negotiations during a meeting Tuesday at the White House.
In Brussels, Belgium, meanwhile, the United States, the European Union, Japan, the World Bank and the United Nations are making plans for a donors conference in Spain next month to induce countries to contribute to the rebuilding effort.
Last week, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said the administration was open to the creation of a U.N.-endorsed multinational force -- but with an American commander -- in an attempt to persuade reluctant nations to send troops to boost security in Iraq.
Five months after the United States was forced by lack of support to drop a U.N. resolution seeking authority to attack Iraq, administration officials say they do not want a repeat of that battle. They say they expect the United States to engage in quiet, behind-the-scenes negotiations on the text of the resolution, to ensure it would be agreeable to the veto-wielding permanent members and the rest of the Security Council, and to project a unanimous, internationally backed stand on what happens next in Iraq.
The effort to secure international assistance is ``a tacit admission that we don't have the forces there to get the job done,'' Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Wednesday on ABC's ``Good Morning America.'' ``If we don't turn things around in the next few months we are facing a very serious long-term, problem.''
Associated Press writers Barry Schweid in Washington and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
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U.S. Wants Larger U.N. Role in Iraq
More Peacekeeping Forces to Be Sought
By Mike Allen and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17097-2003Sep2.html
In an effort to win broader international support for U.S. policies in Iraq, President Bush decided yesterday to seek U.N. Security Council approval of a resolution granting the world body greater control over multinational peacekeeping forces and a role in forming a new Iraqi government, administration officials said.
The decision marks a major shift for Bush after months in which the administration had strongly resisted granting any significant military or political authority to the United Nations. It reflects a recognition within the administration that a stronger U.N. mandate is essential to winning greater foreign military and economic help in stabilizing Iraq.
Central to that effort is winning more pledges from other governments to send troops to Iraq to ease the burden on U.S. forces, who have come under daily attacks for weeks and are struggling to contain a recent outbreak of bombings against institutions supporting the U.S. effort. "We need the forces," a senior administration official said.
Turkey, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are among the countries that could supply substantial peacekeeping forces, but have held back because of the absence of a resolution conferring greater U.N. legitimacy on the U.S.-led occupation.
It remains unclear how much authority the administration is willing to cede to the United Nations. The Pentagon insists that U.S. generals remain in command of the nearly 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and the administration has been reluctant to grant much control to the world body over the shaping of Iraq's political system and economy.
The president's decision came in the face of mounting congressional calls for allowing the United Nations to play a greater role, and marked an opening gambit in what should prove to be prolonged and difficult negotiations with Security Council members in the run-up to an address by Bush to the opening of the U.N. General Assembly later this month. The speech will come one year after the president went to the world body to outline his case for war against Iraq.
Several council members, led by France, have refused to back any measure that would endorse a U.S.-dominated occupation. The differences have largely mirrored the disputes within the Security Council before the war, which Bush decided to launch without specific backing from the 15-nation chamber.
Aides said that a draft resolution is circulating within the administration, and that Bush authorized Secretary of State Colin L. Powell during a meeting yesterday to begin negotiations with Security Council members to see what they would support. One official said that the resolution is still "in the consultative phase" and that the response of Security Council members would determine what the United States does next.
The idea of seeking a U.N. mandate was first broached publicly last week by Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, who told reporters the United States would consider supporting a multinational military force under U.N. mandate, but still subordinate to U.S. commanders. One official said the idea was "a multinational force under a unified command," with a role for the United Nations in Iraq's political, economic and security operations.
"What remains key is that the U.S. remain in charge of the operation," a senior defense official said.
Security Council members reacted coolly to Armitage's proposal last week, saying it did not grant the United Nations a big enough say.
The officials would not spell out what role the United Nations might play in forming an Iraqi government. But they said they will continue to keep the process in the hands of Iraqi citizens, first through a constitutional convention and later through elections.
State Department officials have long favored a resolution that would give some U.N. legitimacy to the occupation. But it appeared yesterday that the Pentagon is also coming around to this position. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other Pentagon civilian leaders have adamantly opposed granting the United Nations a greater role in Iraq.
A senior administration official said that Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had recently begun lobbying key members of the administration to support a U.N. resolution. The official added that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have become "much more interested in this than before," because they know a new resolution is necessary for them to attract new peacekeeping forces to Iraq.
The defense official said Gen. John Abizaid, the new head of the U.S. Central Command and the top commander in Iraq, and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been "strongly engaged in the internationalization effort, to include a new U.N. resolution."
"The military is focused on finding a way to internationalize the effort, and if a new U.N. Security Council resolution would help, then the military is all for it," the official said.
The officials said several means for "internationalizing" postwar peacekeeping operations are being discussed, "all of which really are focused on just that -- keeping the U.S. in charge of the operation."
A senior administration official said recent assurances given by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and others played a major role in the shift in the administration's thinking. Annan told the envoy that "there would have to be a unified command of any international participation, and that that command would be the United States," the official said.
Administration officials compared the idea to a U.N.-mandated force, under Australian leadership, that quelled a violent uprising in East Timor in the late 1990s. After peace was achieved and East Timor moved toward independence and elections, that force was replaced by a traditional U.N. peacekeeping force.
Staff writers Glenn Kessler and Peter Slevin contributed to this report.
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U.S. rushed post-Saddam planning
September 03, 2003
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030903-120317-9393r.htm
A secret report for the Joint Chiefs of Staff lays the blame for setbacks in Iraq on a flawed and rushed war-planning process that "limited the focus" for preparing for post-Saddam Hussein operations.
The report, prepared last month, said the search for weapons of mass destruction was planned so late in the game that it was impossible for U.S. Central Command to carry out the mission effectively. "Insufficient U.S. government assets existed to accomplish the mission," the classified briefing said.
The report is titled "Operation Iraqi Freedom Strategic Lessons Learned" and is stamped "secret." A copy was obtained by The Washington Times.
The report also shows that President Bush approved the overall war strategy for Iraq in August last year. That was eight months before the first bomb was dropped and six months before he asked the U.N. Security Council for a war mandate that he never received.
Senior U.S. officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, conceded in recent weeks that the Bush administration failed to predict the guerrilla war against American troops in Iraq. Saddam loyalists and foreign fighters have killed more than 60 soldiers since May 1, mostly with roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades.
The Congressional Budget Office projected yesterday that the demands of troop rotations globally will leave the Pentagon without any fresh Army units for Iraq in 2004 unless tours are extended beyond one year.
The Joint Chiefs report reveals deficiencies in the planning process. It says planners were not given enough time to put together the best blueprint for what is called Phase IV - the ongoing reconstruction of Iraq.
The report does not name any individual. Most war planning was conducted by Gen. Tommy Franks at U.S. Central Command; the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under the direction of Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman; and the Pentagon policy-writing shop led by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith.
"Late formation of DoD [Phase IV] organizations limited time available for the development of detailed plans and pre-deployment coordination," the report says. "Command relationships (and communication requirements) and responsibilities were not clearly defined for DoD organizations until shortly before [Operation Iraqi Freedom] commenced."
In fact, the Pentagon was forced to scrap its original plan for rebuilding as violence increased against U.S. forces and basic services were slow to resume. L. Paul Bremer, a former ambassador, was tapped in mid-May to take over as Iraq's American administrator.
On the weapons search - the prime reason Mr. Bush cited for going to war - the Joint Chiefs report states: "Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) elimination and exploitation planning efforts did not occur early enough in the process to allow CentCom to effectively execute the mission. The extent of the planning required was underestimated. Insufficient U.S. government assets existed to accomplish the mission."
The initial search by military teams found no weapons at sites identified by the CIA and other intelligence agencies before the war. The Pentagon then replaced those teams with an overarching "Iraq Survey Group," which received additional expert personnel and new intelligence assets. Former U.N. weapons inspector David Kay is leading the search for weapons of mass destruction.
The report said the planning was poor because "WMD elimination/exploitation on a large scale was a new mission area. Division of responsibility for planning and execution was not clear. As a result planning occurred on an ad hoc basis and late in the process. Additionally, there were insufficient assets available to accomplish the mission. Existing assets were tasked to perform multiple, competing missions."
A Pentagon spokesman declined yesterday to comment specifically on the findings.
"We always look closely at everything we do to find ways to improve and do better," the spokesman said, "and Operation Iraqi Freedom is no exception. As to specifics of the lessons learned, it's still a draft document and classified, so it would be inappropriate to comment on that."
The report, labeled "final draft," suggests that combat commanders, such as Central Command, establish permanent cadres of specialists on weapons of mass destruction. It also recommends that each operational plan contain a section for dealing with such weapons.
On planning for the post-Saddam period, the interagency process, such as between the Pentagon and State Department, "was not fully integrated prior to hostilities." Before the war, "Phase IV objectives were identified but the scope of the effort required to continually refine operational plans for defeat of Iraqi military limited the focus on Phase IV."
The report also provides a classified timeline of events from September 11 leading to war. It says that on Aug. 29, 2002, Mr. Bush "approves Iraq goals, objectives and strategy."
Three months earlier, the Pentagon began a series of war exercises called "Prominent Hammer" to judge whether the force could win in Iraq and still maintain a deterrent in other theaters, such as South Korea. On Nov. 24, Gen. Franks, the Central Command chief, presented Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld with "six major tasks for success." Central Command held a major war game Oct. 4 and 5 to test Gen. Franks' plan.
The timeline also showed that the Bush administration stayed in close contact with Israel about its plans. In mid-February, "key Israeli leaders" received a briefing on the war plan. Shortly thereafter, CentCom began sharing information in Tel Aviv via U.S. European Command, whose area of responsibility includes the Jewish state.
The report states that the study looks at "the big issues - strategic perspective," as opposed to lessons-learned reports that examine many tactical issues.
The report awarded three grades. The worst was "capabilities that fell short of expectations or needs, and need to be redressed through new initiatives." Getting this low grade were the postwar planning and the search for weapons of mass destruction, as well as the mix of active and reserve forces, and the troop deployment to the region.
The next grade was "capabilities that demonstrated effectiveness, but need enhancement." Public affairs, special-operations forces, finding bombing targets and tracking the whereabouts of friendly troops received the grade.
The highest marks came under the category of "capabilities that reached new levels of performance and need to be sustained and improved." Joint service warfare, a key war-fighting requirement of Mr. Rumsfeld, got this high grade, as did global war-gaming.
The report also gave high marks to bombing "time-sensitive" targets. In the 2001 Afghanistan war, the report says, Gen. Franks and Mr. Rumsfeld had to approve the target list. But in Iraq, the command improved guidance and procedures so that commanders could launch strikes when targets emerged.
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Army Lacks Forces for Iraq Mission, CBO Warns
By Thomas E. Ricks and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 3, 2003; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16689-2003Sep2.html
The Congressional Budget Office warned yesterday that the Army lacks sufficient active-duty forces to maintain its current level of nearly 150,000 troops in Iraq beyond next spring.
In a report that underscores the stress being placed on the military by the occupation of Iraq, the CBO said the Army's goals of keeping the same number of troops in Iraq and limiting tours of duty there to a year while maintaining its current presence elsewhere in the world were impossible to sustain without activating more National Guard or Reserve units.
"The Army does not have enough active-duty component forces to simultaneously maintain the occupation at its current size, limit deployments to one year, and sustain all of its other commitments," the CBO said in the first detailed analysis of the likely future cost of the Iraqi occupation.
Guard and Reserve units are playing a major role in the occupation, and additional Guard and Reserve units are being activated to take over more of the Iraq mission early next year, the report noted. But it added that unless even more Guard and Reserve units are mobilized, "an occupation force of the present size could not be maintained past March 2004."
Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), a frequent critic of the administration's Iraq policy who requested the CBO study, called the report "quantified evidence that the long-term occupation is straining our forces close to the breaking point." The CBO is an investigative arm of Congress.
The study said that if circumstances permit the size of the U.S. occupation force to be radically reduced, the active-duty Army could indefinitely maintain a presence of roughly 40,000 to 65,000 troops at an annual cost of $8 billion to $12 billion.
If the Bush administration calls up more Guard and Reserve units, the military could indefinitely support the even larger presence of a force of about 100,000 troops at a cost of as much as $19 billion a year, the study said.
The study undermines the idea of boosting the size of the Army as a fix for the manpower problems in Iraq. While some lawmakers have cited the situation in Iraq in calling for an increase in the size of the Army beyond its current 10 active-duty divisions, or about 480,000 troops, the study estimates that it would take five years to create and staff two new divisions that would permit the deployment of an additional 20,000 troops. It also would cost nearly $20 billion to start up those divisions and outfit them with new equipment, and about another $10 billion annually to keep them running.
Given the U.S. government's plan to train Iraqis to take over security functions, the study said, "efforts to create new Army divisions might not provide a timely response."
The cost to the Treasury may be the silver lining in the CBO's otherwise bleak assessment. Even at the high end of the CBO's cost estimate, $19 billion a year, a constrained military force would cost taxpayers considerably less than the $3.9 billion a month being spent for the current force in and around Iraq.
"It drops down to something reasonable, at least," said Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. (S.C.), the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee and a defense policy expert.
Still, Spratt noted, even that limited cost would be coming on top of the steep climb in defense spending President Bush had planned before invading Iraq. The CBO concluded in a report last year that the administration's long-term defense plan would push military spending from about $349 billion last year to $408 billion in 2007.
Then, in inflation-adjusted dollars, defense costs would average $428 billion a year between 2008 and 2020.
"Future resource demands would be higher than defense spending has been at any time in the past 22 years -- exceeding the peak of $421 billion in 1985," the CBO analysis found, even before factoring in ongoing military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Spratt said he and Rep. Ike Skelton (Mo.), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, requested a meeting last month with the White House budget office to obtain a more detailed breakdown of the costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. So far, he said, they have not received a response.
The Pentagon has declined to send an official to House hearings next week on war costs. A Pentagon spokesman said the Defense Department "has not had an opportunity to review and analyze the CBO report."
Separately, the administration's Iraq policy came under fire from another source -- former Army secretary Thomas E. White.
In a book on Iraq reconstruction to be released Thursday, White and three co-authors write that the administration's "plan for winning the peace is totally inadequate" and warn that the situation "threatens to turn what was a major military victory into a potential humanitarian, political and economic disaster."
In a cover letter accompanying copies of the book sent to journalists, White, who was ousted as Army secretary last spring by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, added that "we should not continue rebuilding the country in a haphazard manner."
----
Troops streaming to Iraq, Kuwait from Fort Bragg
Associated Press
Wed, Sep. 03, 2003
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/6681799.htm
FORT BRAGG, N.C. - Troops and equipment from the 82nd Airborne Division have streamed out of North Carolina for weeks as the division gets some 5,000 soldiers in place for its second deployment to Iraq.
The division held a media availability Wednesday for the departure of about 200 soldiers who were to leave from Pope Air Force Base. About 1,000 soldiers were leaving during the day, said division spokesman Capt. Jimmy Cummings.
"We've had troops and equipment flowing the past two to three weeks," Cummings said.
About 5,000 soldiers, including a combat brigade and a headquarters unit for the division commander, are being sent to Iraq for a six-month deployment.
Some equipment has been sent to Kuwait on ships, while most personnel are being flown.
The paratroopers will be heavily armed and better trained to recognize and handle roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades, which have been used in attacks on American soldiers in Iraq, the commander said in July.
Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr. said he hoped to have all the troops back from Iraq by March. He also said when the troops leave for Iraq, other 82nd troops stationed in Afghanistan will return to North Carolina.
The division's 2nd brigade Combat Team of about 2,800 soldiers is in Iraq and will be joined by the 3rd brigade Combat Team of about 2,500 soldiers. The 1st Brigade Combat Team now in Afghanistan will eventually have all its 2,500 soldiers back at Fort Bragg.
In addition to the combat teams, the division is supported by hundreds of soldiers in aviation, artillery, supply and other units in the field with them.
----
Special Ops troops gain new leadership
Gen. Bryan "Doug" Brown takes control of SoCom at MacDill
By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN,
St. Petersburg Times
September 3, 2003
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/09/03/Tampabay/Special_Ops_troops_ga.shtml`
TAMPA - An Army general who began his military career as a private assumed the helm of the nation's military commandos Tuesday, thrusting himself into a lead role in a global war that seemingly has no end.
Gen. Bryan "Doug" Brown took over the reins of the Special Operations Command during a Change of Command ceremony at MacDill Air Force Base.
More than 1,200 people, including U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and U.S. Rep. Jim Saxton of New Jersey, gathered in Hangar No. 3 in the sweltering heat to witness the ceremonial flag transfer.
But before recognizing the change in power, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld addressed the crowd from the stage. The gunship Wicked Wanda served as the backdrop.
The top military men lauded the tenure of outgoing Commander Charles Holland.
Holland, who is retiring, is credited with increasing Special Ops' personnel and budget and overseeing the revamping of the SoCom program. He was known as a cool and quiet leader.
"He somehow made four stars without being a golfer," Myers said, drawing chuckles. "That tells you how truly good he is."
Myers pinned a Defense Distinguished Service Medal on Holland, who retires after a military career that spans more than 35 years.
"Fifty-eight years ago today World War II officially came to a close," he said. "With the global war on terrorism, we will probably never get a formal surrender."
Rumsfeld took the Special Ops flag from Holland and passed it on to Brown. It was a quick but significant exchange.
The tradition dates back to medieval times, when kings with banners led knights into battle. When the banner fell, the knights knew their leader had fallen. The second in command stepped up.
Holland said his successor was the person to lead the fight in the current conflict.
"He is truly the right man at the right moment in history," Holland said.
Brown takes command over 46,000 Army, Navy and Air Force personnel trained to fight in the shadows.
They have climbed treacherous mountains in Afghanistan and ridden on horseback lugging modern fighting tools.
Rumsfeld called Special Ops troops "the best and possibly least known" fighters.
"The war on terror is not a war that we asked for," Rumsfeld said. "It is a war we must fight and must win ... or we have to deal with them here at home."
Brown, 54, was the deputy commander of SoCom. He started from the bottom of the military ladder, entering the Army in 1967 as a private. He completed Airborne School and the Special Forces Qualifications Course and served on a Special Forces "A Team."
He served in Vietnam, Grenada and Operation Desert Shield/Storm, among others.
His awards include the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star and the Armed Forced Expeditionary Medal.
Last year, Brown received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in New York City. He is married with two daughters.
"Today I'm certain they're working hard to plan the next event," Brown said, referring to the terrorists. "Our job is to work harder."
-------- propaganda wars
The Pentagon's Bungled Psyops Strategy
Iraq Isn't the Wild West, It's the Wild Middle East: the Cultues are Wildly Different
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
September 3, 2003
Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/cloughley09032003.html
The Pentagon defines Psychological Operations as intended ". . . to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign government [sic], organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator's objectives."
Further, "Psychological warfare [is] directed toward populations in friendly rear areas or in territory occupied by friendly military forces with the objective of facilitating military operations and promoting maximum cooperation among the civil populace."
That is perfectly clear. The aim of psyops/psywar is to influence foreigners to alter their usual way of thinking, be that independently reasoned or imposed or encouraged by their own authorities. The most important aspect is credibility, and a major factor in establishing this is to avoid direct denigration of the target and its associates while, with great subtlety, making it (a person, an organisation, a country) look incompetent, ignorant or, preferably, silly. (Nobody can stand up to justified and well-directed ridicule. It is the one weapon against which there is no defence atall.) But psychological operations have to be cleverly conceived and carried out by playing on characteristics of local culture while displaying deference to them. This demands awareness and appreciation of national traditions, religions, venerated historical figures, superstitions, language subtleties, customs, hopes and fears.
In his memoirs, 'Orientations' (London 1937), Sir Ronald Storrs, a man of illustrious parts, wrote that "The science of war propaganda dates, I suppose, from no earlier than 1914. [His diary note was in early 1916.] We therefore had no textbook upon which to base our methods. All we knew was that careful and progressive handling of public opinion was no less difficult than necessary among peoples of alien race, language and religion. [Storrs spoke fluent Arabic, classic and colloquial, and his knowledge of the region was immense.] Articles, diagrams and caricatures effective in Europe often produce a negative, sometimes even a contrary, result in the East." His statement could well be used in the introduction to any psyops manual, and I bore it in mind when I commanded the Australian psyops unit in Vietnam.
So let's see what gives in present-day Iraq. Here is part of a Reuters' report of August 18 that gives an indication of how sophisticated US psywar has become.
"US forces plan to put up posters around Saddam's hometown of Tikrit showing his face superimposed on Hollywood heroines and other stars in an attempt to enrage his followers and draw them out. As well as Saddam dolled up as a slinky Zsa Zsa Gabor, there is a busty Rita Hayworth Saddam, a grooving Elvis Saddam and even Saddam in the guise of . . . rocker Billy Idol. "We're going to do something devious with these," said a chuckling Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Russell [a battalion commander] . . . One of the posters shows Saddam's head on Elvis's dancing body, a gold crucifix hanging around his hairy chest. Given fears in the Arab world that the invasion of Iraq was akin to a Christian crusade, some Iraqis say US forces would do well to think twice about leaving the cross hanging around Saddam Elvis's neck. "Maybe it is funny for the soldiers, but I think most locals will find it very insulting," said Uday, a 22-year-old translator at the US army base in Tikrit."
The chuckling colonel imagines that locals "will be laughing" at his absurd attempts to influence "the bad guys". But the translator, Uday, had the correct interpretation of the way the project will be regarded when he said "most locals will find it very insulting". He is so right. And what is ludicrous is that people like Uday are the very ones who should be asked for advice about psyops initiatives. This has nothing to do with Islam (apart from depiction of the Elvis crucifix, which is breathtakingly crass. In fact that image, alone, should be worth a few dozen recruits to resistance groups). It has everything to do with lack of awareness about how foreigners think and react.
Occupation forces may be working hard at some levels to try to isolate Iraqi resistance fighters from the population, but given the enormous setbacks to trust and tranquillity that have taken place so far, caused mainly by the "We are the conquerors" approach, and a boastful arrogance that is as truculent as it is provocative, this objective is unlikely to be achieved.
It is fatal in psychological operations, just as in ordinary public relations, to indulge in insult, contempt or scorn. A boorish put-down might give the boor a feeling of satisfaction, but it is the ultimate No-No in psyops because no matter who you are, or what circumstances you are in, a direct insult is an adrenalin booster that makes you hate the person who insulted you. And not only the person, but what he or she stands for. This increases enormously the inclination of the individual or group that has been vilified to indulge in violence as well as providing a moral-superiority feeling of self-justification for committing atrocities. If this is what US occupation forces want to achieve, then fine. (The biggest psyops disaster so far has been Bush's brain-dead challenge to "Bring 'em On.") But if it is the intention of the occupying power to draw the Iraqi (and especially Tikriti) population closer to cooperation by persuading them that US occupation troops are friendly, then insulting Iraqis - any Iraqis of whatever religion, ethnicity or political persuasion - is the worst possible way to try to go about it. In the words of Bob Herbert of the NYT, perhaps a little bit of adult supervision would not go amiss.
In Tikrit, one of the most sensitive areas in Iraq, Lt-Col Russell (who declares that "God is watching over [my] battalion, believe me"), told Associated Press on 26 August that "The enemy is a coward. He continues to hide behind women, children and his own population." When such statements are put alongside television cover of Iraqi men being forced to lie face-down in the dirt, hands tied behind their backs, while their terrified families look aghast at the spectacle of humiliation - and are themselves menaced by rifles pointed directly at them - one can see why, and how completely, the US has lost the battle for hearts and minds in Iraq.
Lt-Col Russell's superior, Colonel James Hickey, told AP that "enemy tactics are 'miss and run'. They're almost running when they pull the trigger. I have yet to see any degree of military competence. They are not experienced fighters. They fire a mortar, then pick up and run . . . " Colonel Hickey has described, obviously without realising it, the classic tactics of the guerrilla. The sequence of identifying a target, siting a weapon, firing it, then getting out quickly is precisely what guerrilla warfare is all about. Of course the enemy are not "experienced fighters". And they don't have "any degree of military competence". Most are amateurs, ordinary citizens, who hate Hickey and Russell and all they stand for because their soldiers show no respect for their families and especially women in their irreligious, ferocious and intimidating door-crashing house raids in the middle of the night.
This Reuters' piece by Andrew Cawthorne on September 1 sums up the bungled and clumsy tactics: "Iraqi sheep farmer Thani Mushlah was asleep on his roof when American soldiers arrived before dawn. "They banged open my door, came for me and made me lie face down on the floor in front of my wife and children" Two hours later . . . Mushlah, 33, was sitting handcuffed on the desert floor inside a ring of barbed wire used as a temporary prison . . . [he said] "The Americans said they came to free us, so why do they humiliate and insult us?"." There is now talk of "cordon and knock", but it's far too late for this sort of amendment. In any event, occupation troops are simply not trained for this sort of operation and will continue to use ultra-violent house-fighting techniques against terrified civilians. Don't get me wrong : when shock tactics are needed in all-out urban warfare I'm the first to support them. But one of the things you don't do is rush through a door - always blast a hole in the wall with a shaped charge. That, however, is when you're fighting against big boys, not terrorising women and children.
A report by Paul McGeough of Australia's 'Age' newspaper on 16 August illustrates the appalling lack of sensitivity on the part of the occupying power. "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!' "
This may be a huge joke for someone whose global horizon ends at his extended fingertips, but such vulgar and contemptuous performances announce to the Iraqi people "The hell with you and your culture. We own your country and we'll do what we damn well please. And if you're praying as we blast by in our Humvee, then tooooo bad."
The latest wheeze conceived by occupation troops is to put up posters "that carry the faces of Saddam and his sons . . The sons' faces are covered with an 'X', reminding Iraqis that they were killed by American forces . . ."
However much Iraqis loathed Saddam Hussein and his horrible regime, they will regard this ill-judged, inefficient and malevolent campaign as evidence of alien gloating at the humiliation of their country. This sort of clumsy stuff certainly won't have the effect of "promoting maximum cooperation among the civil populace" and, as Sir Reginald Storrs observed almost a century ago, will "produce a negative, sometimes even a contrary, result". Iraq isn't the Wild West, it's the Wild Middle East, where cultures are different. Occupation troops appear incapable of understanding foreign culture, and the psyops battle for Iraq has been a disaster.
Brian Cloughley writes about defense issues for CounterPunch, the Nation (Pakistan), the Daily Times of Pakistan and other international publications. His writings are collected on his website: www.briancloughley.com.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- death penalty
Court puts death sentences in doubt
September 03, 2003
By Frank J. Murray
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030902-112058-3534r.htm
A federal appeals court yesterday overturned one death sentence and gave a new lease on life to 167 other condemned murderers in five states by declaring that a Supreme Court-ordered change in sentencing procedure is retroactive.
That June 2002 Supreme Court decision required that juries - not judges - decide in the sentencing phase beyond a reasonable doubt all facts that affect a death sentence.
"By deciding that judges are not constitutionally permitted to decide whether defendants are eligible for the death penalty, the Supreme Court altered the fundamental bedrock principles applicable to capital murder trials," said yesterday's 8-3 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, written by Circuit Judge Sidney R. Thomas.
Both the majority and dissenting opinions were written by appointees of President Clinton.
Besides overturning Warren Summerlin's death sentence in Arizona, the 9th Circuit ruling cast doubt on 89 other Arizona death sentences, plus 78 others in Idaho, Montana, Nebraska and Colorado, where there are similar sentencing laws.
The decision will quickly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Kent Cattani, chief counsel of Arizona's capital litigation section, said last night.
He said the eventual outcome of the Summerlin appeal would govern the fate of the state's entire death row on this issue.
"I think the United States Supreme Court will have to resolve this before there will be any resentencings in any of these states," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
"It's rare that you get a decision that potentially gives such a large group of people a second chance to avoid the death penalty," Mr. Dieter said. "A lot else has to happen ... a lot of lives and work and money is needed to redo these cases with juries, with uncertain results and then you start the appeal process all over again if they are resentenced to death."
Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, said he hoped "this error" will be overturned by the Supreme Court.
"Regrettably, a court with a clear agenda to block the enforcement of capital punishment has issued yet another clearly wrong decision," Mr. Scheidegger said.
Juries now effectively issue death sentences in 29 of the 38 states with capital punishment, and the Supreme Court's 7-2 Ring v. Arizona ruling pointedly did not specify whether that procedure would be retroactively required in those that do not. Besides the four other Western states that use Arizona-style systems, four states with almost 700 people on their death rows could also have their systems challenged.
Retroactivity is not automatic for all new constitutional rules. The so-called Teague rule makes retroactive only "watershed" rulings that the justices said "alter our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements" that remove all chance that a conviction was fair.
The word "bedrock" appeared 14 times in yesterday's decision with the eight majority judges saying Ring met that test of importance, and the three dissenters saying it did not.
"The majority opinion wanders afield in the first instance by holding that Ring contains a new substantive rule," the dissenters said in an opinion written by Circuit Judge Johnnie Rawlinson.
Although the broad impact of yesterday's decision virtually assured a high-court test, the 9th Circuit interpretation directly involved only Summerlin, upholding his conviction but not the sentence for the ax murder of bill collector Brenna Bailey in 1981 when she came to his house to collect a debt.
Just five weeks before yesterday's 9th Circuit ruling that the Ring decision is retroactive, the 11th Circuit ruled it is not and, and without considering the merits of his appeal, rejected murderer William T. Turner's attempt to challenge Florida's sentencing system.
Law professor and visiting Judge Charles F. Baird of the Constitution Project death-penalty initiative, who wrote opinions that upheld a number of death sentences on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, predicted yesterday the high court will adopt the 9th Circuit reasoning and reject the 11th.
"If we're going to have capital punishment, this Supreme Court is going to provide very strict judicial scrutiny of how that punishment is imposed and that it should be done by a jury and not by judges," Judge Baird said.
--------
Judges' Rulings Imposing Death Are Overturned
September 3, 2003
The New York Times
By ADAM LIPTAK
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/national/03DEAT.html
The federal appeals court in San Francisco yesterday overturned the death sentences of more than 100 prisoners in three states because judges rather than juries had made the crucial factual determinations in sentencing them to death.
The court ruled that a Supreme Court decision last year striking down the capital sentencing laws in the three states and two others because they allowed judges to make those factual findings must be applied retroactively even to those inmates who had exhausted all of their appeals.
The affected prisoners will be entitled, at a minimum, to a new sentencing proceeding, unless the United States Supreme Court reverses the appeals court's decision.
The decision of the appeals court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, affects death row inmates in Arizona, Idaho and Montana. The other two states that had had unconstitutional sentencing laws, Colorado and Nebraska, are not directly affected by the decision because they are not in the Ninth Circuit, which covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, along with Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Two other federal appeals courts have decided that last year's Supreme Court decision, known as Ring, does not apply retroactively. That split, coupled with the significance of the yesterday's decision, makes Supreme Court review fairly likely.
"It's rare that you get so many sentences affected by one decision," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "It forces the issue to be decided."
Legal experts say that juries in capital cases tend to be more lenient. Only one of 12 jurors needs to be convinced to impose a life sentence; jurors typically confront such issues once in a lifetime and are more likely to appreciate their gravity; and elected judges are occasionally swayed by political considerations, experts say.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 124 people are on death row in Arizona, 16 are in Idaho and 6 in Montana. Some of them still have appeals pending and so did not need yesterday's decision to have the benefit of Ring. According to the Federal Public Defender's Office in Arizona, 94 inmates in Arizona and 16 in Idaho had exhausted their direct appeals and had their sentences overturned by yesterday's decision. A breakdown for Montana was not immediately available.
Yesterday's decision turned on the application of complicated and technical doctrines about when newly announced constitutional principles must be applied retroactively. But the majority decision often paused to make the point that procedures for imposing the death penalty must always be considered extraordinary.
New substantive rules announced by the Supreme Court generally apply retroactively. But new procedural principles are retroactive only if they are, as the Supreme Court put it, "watershed rules" that both "alter our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements" and "without which the likelihood of an accurate conviction is seriously diminished." That standard is difficult to satisfy.
Judge Sidney R. Thomas, writing for the majority in the 8-to-3 ruling yesterday, said the Ring decision was substantive because it effectively created a new crime in Arizona in the way it distinguished between ordinary murder and capital murder, by requiring the jury to decide whether certain so-called aggravating factors were present.
Judge Thomas added, in the alternative, that the Ring decision satisfied the exceptions to the ordinary rule that procedural changes do not apply retroactively.
"Depriving a capital defendant of his constitutional right to have a jury decide whether he is eligible for the death penalty is an error that necessarily affects the framework within which the trial proceeds," he wrote, adding that giving jurors a larger role aided in fairness of sentencing.
"Fact-finding by a jury, rather than by a judge, is more likely to heighten the accuracy of capital sentencing proceedings," he wrote.
Yesterday's decision involved Warren Summerlin, who is on death row in Arizona for killing a bill collector and who challenged his death sentence on a number of grounds.
While the penalty phases in most death penalty trials involve extended presentations by expert witnesses, family members and others of aggravating and mitigating evidence for juries to consider, in Arizona, at least, sentencing proceedings before judges were brisk affairs that relied more on legal memorandums than testimony. On the day Mr. Summerlin was sentenced to die, for instance, the judge in the case, Philip Marquardt, imposed a second death sentence as well.
"A reasonable inference from the habituation brought about by imposing capital punishment under near rote conditions," Judge Thomas wrote, "is that a judge may be less likely to reflect the current conscience of the community and more likely to consider imposing a death penalty as just another criminal sentence."
The appeals court noted that Judge Marquardt had admitted to heavy marijuana use around the time he sentenced Mr. Summerlin to death. "If the allegations concerning Judge Marquardt are true, Summerlin's fate was determined by a drug-impaired judge, habituated to treating penalty-phase trials the same as noncapital sentencing," Judge Thomas wrote.
Judge Thomas added that elected judges like Judge Marquardt might be more likely to impose the death penalty for political reasons.
Judge Stephen Reinhardt joined in the decision and wrote separately to say that the technical doctrines it discussed obscured how straightforward he found the case.
"Executing people because their cases came too early - because their appeals ended before the Supreme Court belatedly came to the realization that it had made a grievous constitutional error in its interpretation of death penalty law, that it had erred when it failed to recognize that the United States Constitution prohibits judges, rather than jurors, from making critical factual decisions regarding life and death in capital cases - is surely arbitrariness that surpasses all bounds," Judge Reinhardt wrote.
The three dissenting judges said that the Ring decision should not apply retroactively because it announced neither a new substantive rule nor a fundamental alteration of a procedural one.
A lawyer with the Arizona attorney general's office, John Pressley Todd, said the office would ask the Supreme Court to review the case.
--------
Death Row Inmates Get Legal Break
Federal Appeals Court Overturns Sentences In More Than 100 Cases
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 3, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16323-2003Sep2.html
A federal appeals court overturned the sentences of more than a hundred death row inmates in three western states yesterday, ruling that the prisoners' constitutional rights were violated when they were sentenced under state laws that permitted judges, rather than juries, to decide between execution and life imprisonment.
By an 8 to 3 vote, an expanded panel of the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that a 2002 Supreme Court decision requiring jury sentencing in all future capital cases should also apply retroactively.
"By deciding that judges are not constitutionally permitted to decide whether defendants are eligible for the death penalty, the Supreme Court altered the fundamental bedrock principles applicable to capital murder trials," Judge Sidney R. Thomas wrote for the court majority. Inmates awaiting execution are thus entitled to the benefit of the new constitutional rules, Thomas wrote.
The decision directly affects Arizona, Montana and Idaho, the three states within the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction that have used judge-only sentencing in capital cases. Defense lawyers who handle capital cases said it would invalidate the sentences of about 90 of the 127 murderers on death row in Arizona, along with 17 of 21 death row inmates in Idaho and five of six in Montana.
If upheld by the Supreme Court, the ruling would lead to the largest single reduction in the country's 3,500-inmate death row population since January, when then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan (R), citing the "demon of error" in his state's capital punishment system, commuted the sentences of 167 convicted murderers to life imprisonment.
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said his state will ask the Supreme Court to review the decision. Even if the ruling is upheld, he said Arizona could conduct new "mini-trials" for the convicts with juries deciding whether to impose life or death sentences in individual cases. Montana would join the appeal to the high court, but Attorney General Mike McGrath said the ruling should have no effect on Montana inmates because their circumstances insulate them from the appellate decision.
The large number of death sentences involved, and the fact that other federal appeals courts have reached contrary rulings, mean that the Supreme Court probably will agree to intervene, legal analysts said.
Yesterday's ruling was the latest aftershock of the Supreme Court's landmark 2000 ruling in a case known as Apprendi. In Apprendi, the court held that the constitutional guarantee of a jury trial meant that every fact that might result in an increased penalty for the defendant must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt -- not, as practices in some states under certain circumstances, by a judge, according to a more relaxed standard of proof, in a separate sentencing proceeding.
Last year, in a case known as Ring v. Arizona, the court ruled that Apprendi requires juries to determine the factual basis for death sentences, thus invalidating sentencing systems in Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Colorado and Nebraska under which that job was left to a judge or panel of judges.
But at that time, the court did not address the highly technical question of whether its decision should apply only prospectively, or whether people already under sentence of death could use it to revive their appeals.
The case decided yesterday was brought by Warren Summerlin, whom an Arizona jury convicted in 1982 of raping and murdering Brenna Bailey, 36. Summerlin was sentenced to death by Phoenix Superior Court Judge Philip Marquardt under an Arizona law that called for a judge, not a jury, to determine whether the heinousness of the crime outweighed various mitigating factors, such as the defendant's troubled upbringing.
Marquardt later left the bench and was disbarred, in part because of his confessed addiction to marijuana.
The 9th Circuit Court described this as an extreme illustration of the principle that a 12-member jury is a better safeguard against sentencing error than a single judge, noting that Marquardt had not only been "drug-impaired" at the time of Summerlin's sentencing, but also had relied upon inadmissible evidence in determining the sentence.
"[A] requirement of capital findings by a jury will improve the accuracy of Arizona capital murder trials," Thomas wrote.
In its ruling yesterday, the 9th Circuit Court essentially said that the Ring ruling had so transformed the constitutional framework governing the imposition of death sentences that it would be unconstitutional to execute someone who had been sentenced under a pre-Ring system.
The three dissenting judges on the 9th Circuit panel argued, however, that Ring had changed only the procedures governing capital cases, not the substantive constitutional rights of death row inmates. As such, they said, the case could not be applied retroactively because of past Supreme Court decisions that limit constitutional appeals in capital cases.
If the 9th Circuit ruling is upheld, its reach could extend to Nebraska and Colorado, which had similar laws to Arizona, Idaho and Montana and where nine more death row inmates might benefit, said Deborah Fins, who tracks the death row population for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, an anti-capital punishment organization.
Four other states, Florida, Alabama, Delaware and Indiana, with a total death row population of 632, have used hybrid systems in which juries advise judges, but judges make the final call.
Those systems are not directly at issue in this case. In Maryland and Virginia, juries determine death sentences.
-------- homeland security
Ridge adds 5,000 air marshals to help get 'surge capacity'
September 03, 2003
By Guy Taylor and Tom Ramstack
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030902-112059-4875r.htm
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge yesterday announced the department will add 5,000 armed agents to the federal air marshals program for monitoring commercial flights.
The increase will be accomplished by maximizing existing Homeland Security resources to allow for what Mr. Ridge called a "surge capacity" to effectively respond to specific threats or a terrorist attack. The precise number of the marshals is classified.
In an address to the American Enterprise Institute in the District, Mr. Ridge said it "will be achieved by realigning the Transportation Security Administration's Air Marshal Service with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement [bureau]."
The air marshals program employed about 30 agents before September 11, 2001, but expanded dramatically after the terrorist attacks.
The announcement to reshuffle Homeland Security's assets to further expand the program came on the first anniversary of the creation within the department of the Transportation Security Administration.
The Bush administration faced criticism earlier this year when TSA wanted to cut funding for the program by 20 percent to plug other budget holes. Congressional Democrats criticized any cutbacks, the possibility of which became known about the same time Homeland Security was warning airlines of potential terrorist hijackings.
Jim Berard, spokesman for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, yesterday said he was uncertain whether the move to increase the number of air marshals was prompted by the criticism.
TSA spokesman Brian Turmail denied the notion that Mr. Ridge's announcement to expand the program was a response to criticism from Democrats.
"This is something that Secretary Ridge has been looking at for many months now," he said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau officials said merging their efforts with the TSA's air marshals would benefit both agencies. "It certainly enhances our communications, our intelligence sharing," said Dean Boyd, the bureau's spokesman. "If anything, we believe it will enhance security."
Mr. Ridge said the reorganization will include the consolidation of existing customs and immigration security techniques at airports by cross training select officers to create "one face at the border."
Officers will be trained to conduct primary inspections "as well as how to determine who needs to go through secondary inspections," he said, adding the first group of officers "will be trained throughout this fall."
Mr. Ridge touted other plans at Homeland Security, such as one to simplify the process by which states get federal grants for antiterrorism and security initiatives. He said Congress will be asked to centralize under a single agency the grant-application process.
Mr. Ridge also celebrated advances in the Homeland Security Department.
"We've made significant progress toward shoring the necessary layers of homeland security that have helped make America safer," he said. "In the 20th century, America wielded a strength best used in the service of peace."
He cited the establishment of the capability to communicate via secure phones and videoconferencing equipment within all 50 states, two territories and the District of Columbia since September 11.
But he noted the threat of terrorism is "not a problem unique to the United States" and the international community must unite in confronting it.
-------- prisons / prisoners
SYRIA - Returning exile cites 1,000 political prisoners
September 03, 2003
Washington Times
Briefly
http://www.washtimes.com/world/briefly.htm
DAMASCUS - The kingdom is holding more than 1,000 political prisoners, some of whom are seriously ill, leading opposition figure Haytham Mannaa told Agence France-Presse after returning last week from 25 years of exile in Paris.
"We have a file on more than 1,000 Syrians and Arabs in Syrian prisons, among them some pressing humanitarian cases," said Mr. Manaa, president of the Paris-based Arab Committee for Human Rights. He cited Fares Murad and Imad Chiha, who have been in prison since 1975 for belonging to the Arab Communist Organization, which no longer exists.
"They are in a poor state of health and it makes no sense to keep them in prison any longer," he said. He also spoke of six members of the Islamic Brotherhood, who remain in prison after completing their 20-year jail terms.
----
MOROCCO - Polisario rebel group frees 243 prisoners
September 03, 2003
Washington Times
Briefly
http://www.washtimes.com/world/briefly.htm
RABAT, Morocco - A rebel group trying to win independence for the Western Sahara has released 243 Moroccan prisoners, some of whom had been held for nearly three decades, Red Cross officials said yesterday.
The prisoners were flown from Polisario Front camps in southwest Algeria on Monday to a military base near the Moroccan coastal beach resort of Agadir, said Florian Westphal, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross. It was the first prisoner release since the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously in July to urge Morocco and the Polisario to accept a new plan to settle the long-running dispute.
The Polisario, which seeks independence, dropped its opposition to the U.N. plan drafted by former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Alternative Fuel Bus Developed for Yellowstone Park
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho,
September 3, 2003
(ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2003/2003-09-03-09.asp#anchor5
A modernized version of the traditional Yellowstone National Park tour bus has been developed as a low emission, cost effective community and transit shuttle bus of the future. The vehicle will be manufactured using several optional engines to allow use of alternative fuels such as natural gas, propane, ethanol and biodiesel.
The U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) worked with the automotive industry, the Federal Transit Administration, and the National Park Service to develop the new yellow bus. The new vehicle was unveiled in Yellowstone National Park on August 25 as part of the park's centennial celebration of the Roosevelt Arch.
One purpose of the collaborative effort is protection of the park's pristine environment, combined with a drive to increase national security by reducing dependence on foreign sources of energy.
While this version of the traditional bus retains the conventional feel of the older model park vehicles, the new bus is an 18 to 32 passenger vehicle that uses alternative fuel, features a low floor and complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The passenger area of the bus is built low to the ground so steps are not required for entry and its entry ramp can be extended to accommodate passengers in wheelchairs. The bus has a retractable roof to allow passengers greater visibility to the outdoors. An optional feature is tracks for traveling over snow in winter.
This first bus is a model for Yellowstone National Park, says Kerry Klingler, INEEL project manager.
"While the development of the prototype is the result of a need by the National Park Service for a year-round transit vehicle that could be used for park operations, market analysis indicates the vehicle will have broad application in municipal transit and private sector transportation as well," says Klingler.
After its Yellowstone unveiling, the bus began traveling across the country to allow assessment of its suitability for other transportation needs. It will be on display in Washington, DC during the week of September 15.
Partners in the project with INEEL include Heart International, Ruby Mountain, Yellowstone National Park/National Park Service, Greater Yellowstone/Teton Clean Cities Coalition, ASG Renaissance and Hadley Products.
----
Laptop fuel cells - ready for takeoff?
Elinor Mills Abreu
REUTERS USA:
September 3, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/22097/story.htm
SAN FRANCISCO - Fuel cells that can run laptops for 10 hours or more without plug power have captured the imagination of computer junkies. But first, backers must prove that they are as safe to fly with as a cigarette lighter or a duty-free bottle of vodka.
Japanese companies are pushing ahead with prototypes of miniaturized fuel cell technology that use methanol to create power, even though experts say limited-life batteries are here to stay for several more years.
Methanol, a type of alcohol, is flammable, but fuel cells typically use less than 24 percent methanol in water, said John Goodman, president of the fuel cell division at Entegris, which makes fuel cell components.
"The issue isn't 'Are flammable liquids safe on an aircraft?' They already are allowed with liquor and perfume," said Goodman.
Fuel cell-powered laptop prototypes have been developed by Toshiba 6502.T and NEC 6701.T , who plan to start selling them as full-fledged products next year. Casio 6952.T , Sony 6758.T and Hitachi 6501.T and Samsung 00830.KS of Korea are also working on micro fuel cell technology.
Goodman predicts that, in a matter of years, fuel cell batteries no bigger than a cigarette lighter will run for 10 hours or more before being replaced.
"After about 10 hours of operation, you will pop out a fuel cell cartridge about the size of a Bic lighter or inkjet cartridge" and put in a fresh one, he said.
"Now I travel to Europe and I can't even watch a movie before my battery runs out on my laptop," Goodman said.
Fuel cells work by converting hydrogen found in methanol into electricity through an electro-chemical reaction. No recharging is needed, just a refill of fuel.
Chipmaker Intel Corp. INTC.O in February demonstrated a laptop operated by a prototype of a fuel cell made by PolyFuel, a company in which it has invested.
"With the advent of wireless, we need to get people off the grid as far as the power, so you don't have to plug in," said Mike Rocke, a director at Intel Capital, the chipmaker's capital investment arm.
Typical laptop batteries last from three hours to five hours, while fuel cells are aiming for between six to eight hours, and eventually 12 hours, said Atakan Ozbek, director of energy research at research firm Allied Business Intelligence.
Prices are expected to run about $200 initially for a fuel-cell battery, compared with anywhere from $120 to $180 for traditional laptop batteries used in the most powerful notebooks, he said. Micro fuel cells will initially serve as back-up power for batteries, before replacing them entirely later, he added.
REGULATORY HURDLE
Experts believe that laptops will likely be the first mass market for fuel cell technology. Shrinking the power packs enough to fit into cell phones will take longer to develop. For cars and power stations, there are huge infrastructure issues to resolve before fuel cells are widely used there.
"Laptops are moving to fuel cells because, currently, it is frustrating for someone to have to wait eight hours to recharge a battery or carry around heavy replacement batteries," said Bernadette Geyer, marketing director at the U.S. Fuel Cell Council in Washington, D.C.
Add to this the growth of computational intensive applications on laptops and handheld computers that can run down current batteries quickly.
"Notebook manufacturers want to add features to their notebooks that will require more power and they don't want to shorten battery life," said Barbara Heydorn, senior consultant of SRI Consulting Business Intelligence.
Companies are working to make fuel cells small enough to fit into a notebook computer and capable of performing well in extreme climates. While they are surmounting the technological hurdles, the regulatory obstacle remains, experts said.
"There need to be regulations that allow a methanol cartridge to be transported in the same way that a lighter with butane fuel is transported onto airplanes," said Jim Balcom, president and chief executive of PolyFuel, which makes membranes, or core components, for portable fuel cells.
The standards and regulatory process could take as long as two years, according to Ozbek of Allied Business Intelligence.
Allied Business predicts there will be only a paltry 2,000 laptops with "micro" fuel cells shipped worldwide in 2004.
Four years later, that could spiral upward to 1 million fuel cell laptops and $150 million in revenue, growing to 120 million laptops and $1.2 billion by 2011, the firm predicts.
Big U.S. laptop makers are taking a wait-and-see approach.
"It is still several years off for fuel cells being a practical solution for standard notebooks," Dell DELL.O spokesman Jess Blackburn said, a view echoed by IBM as well. EDD
-------- energy
Energy Politics Overshadow House Blackout Inquiry
By J.R. Pegg
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
September 3, 2003
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2003/2003-09-03-11.asp
In the wake of last month's historic power outage there appears to be bipartisan consensus within Congress for passage of federally mandated transmission reliability rules, which many believe would address some of the problems that contributed to the blackout that affected some 50 million Americans and Canadians. But agreement on how to enact such provisions is the source of considerable debate that underscores the bitter partisan divide over the direction of the nation's energy policy.
The Bush administration and many Congressional Republicans are keen to use the August 14 blackout as fuel to push through a massive energy bill that includes large subsidies for energy production as well as the transmission reliability rules.
Democrats say the energy bill is a controversial proposition with no guarantee of passage and argue that the reliability provisions should be pulled out and considered as a separate piece of legislation.
It makes sense to "kill the closest snake first," said Michigan Representative John Dingell, a Democrat.
Dingell said he will introduce a separate reliability bill this week that focus on three concerns - the reliability of the transmission system, the reliability of the generating supply and the capability of controls on the system.
In announcing his intent to push for the standalone bill, the Michigan Democrat reminded his colleagues on the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the Congress has a long record of inaction on energy policy.
"The making of energy policy tends to defy the best of intentions and timetables," Dingell said.
But House Republicans say the problems that resulted in the massive blackout are only part of a faltering national energy policy that needs more supply from existing sources, such as oil, natural gas and nuclear. They acknowledge the difficulty in passing energy legislation but contend now is an unprecedented opportunity to forge consensus.
"If we can not move a national energy plan now, then we ought to give up," said Illinois Representative John Shimkus, a Republican.
The Bush administration is urging Congress to pass the reliability provisions - along with incentives for transmission infrastructure investment - within the full energy bill, although officials say they are not sure what caused the August 14 blackout.
U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told the committee that a joint U.S.-Canadian task force is investigating why the power outage occurred but it has not yet reached any conclusions.
"Determining the exact causes of this blackout is far too complex a task for anyone to know all the answers at this stage," Abraham said.
As many as 50 million people in eight U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario lost power during the blackout.
Abraham said the task force will work with governors of affected states and Ontario as well as all major entities involved with the operation of the electrical transmission infrastructure.
"We hope to have conclusions and recommendations in a matter of weeks - not months," Abraham testified. "But we will not compromise quality for speed. We want answers quickly, but we want to make sure they are the right answers."
Theories that have circulated in the aftermath of the blackout are "only speculation at this point," Abraham said.
"Our goal is to follow the facts where they lead," Abraham said.
Some believe the facts already show the cause of the power outage. The leading theory is that a failure at an First Energy utility in Ohio began the cascade that rolled through power lines running from Ohio through Michigan, into Canada and down through New York state.
And there is little doubt that a key factor in the cascade was a lack of communication.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm told the committee that her state's main utility was not made aware of events in Ohio until less than two minutes before the cascade, even though problems in Ohio emerged some ninety minutes earlier.
The partial deregulation and lack of clear oversight authority over electricity transmission in much of the Midwest and Northeast has created a situation in which "no one knows who is ultimately responsible for ensuring reliability," Granholm said.
"It would surprise many Americans to learn that there is no governmental oversight over the reliability of this country's electrical transmission system," added Peter Lark, chairman of the Michigan Public Service Commission.
There are reliability rules on the books of the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), a not for profit corporation comprised of all segments of the electric industry, but these are voluntary.
That situation, says Lark, "is a prescription for disaster."
Proposals in Congress to remedy this would make the rules mandatory and would expand the oversight of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to ensure they are enforced.
"The power industry needs an air traffic controller," said FERC Chairman Pat Wood.
But that would only solve part of concerns that have emerged as the nation asks its aging transmission infrastructure to do a job it was not designed to carry out.
Much of the nation's transmission system was build to move electricity from massive utilities to local customers, but the grid now handles massive power transmissions that zip across the nation.
This is a lucrative business for utilities, but some argue it is putting undue pressure on the transmission infrastructure. And deregulation at the state level - prompted by a 1992 federal energy bill - means utilities are no longer required to reinvest ratepayer money into the transmission system.
According to NERC, utilities spent some $300 million less on upgrades and maintenance to the nation's transmission system in 2000 than they did in 1990 and now have less people to carry out such projects.
Relatively few new transmission lines have been built in the past 15 years, testified Brantley Eldridge, executive manager of the East Central Area Reliability Council, even though demand for electricity continues to increase.
Experts believe the nation's grid could do with some $50 billion to $100 billion in upgrades and maintenance but there is little sign the utilities are keen to foot the bill.
There is good reason for that, says Missouri Representative Roy Blunt, a Republican.
Blunt says bureaucratic and environmental delays for grid upgrades and transmission lines make investors reluctant to fund such projects, even though utilities are guaranteed profits of some 10 to 12 percent by federal and state regulations.
"We can not expect to see the investment and commitment we need to have in power generation and power transmission unless we create some sense of certainty about what the system is going to look like," Blunt said, calling for passage of the full energy bill.
"Having an [energy] policy is more important at this point than what the policy says," Blunt said.
Abraham acknowledged that "the condition of the grid, its age and the demand being put on it creates a lot of concern," and said the administration favors incentives for investment.
Details about the administration's specific recommendations will be forthcoming as early as next week, Abraham said.
"The nation faces a broad set of energy challenges," he told the committee. "It is not just a problem with electricity transmission."
Some Democrats are wary of providing financial incentives for utilities and others to modernize the nation's power grid as they believe the costs will ultimately fall on ratepayers. Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey says the administration should not be promoting the massive energy bill as the cure for the nation's power grid while it "remains in the dark about the causes of the blackout."
Markey, who supports the standalone reliability legislation, says the administration is using the blackout to push for the immediate adoption of an energy bill that would make "sweeping deregulatory changes in electricity law and launch a wide ranging assault on our environment in the name of increasing oil and gas production."
Even supporters of the energy bill questioned the ability of lawmakers to prevent another power outage.
"I do not know why any of us think we can write legislation to solve a problem when we do not know what caused it," said Georgia Representative Charles Norwood, a Republican.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will conduct a second day of hearings into the blackout on Thursday.
----
Bush Does Not Know Blackout's Cause
September 3, 2003
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-utilities-blackout.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration told Congress on Wednesday it still doesn't know the cause of the blackout that left up to 50 million people in the dark, and cannot say when the investigation will end.
The Aug. 14 power outage closed airports, trapped thousands of New Yorkers underground in subway cars, forced Detroit auto plants to shut, and halted after-hours trading on Wall Street.
Democrats accused the administration of being ``in the dark'' over what was behind the biggest blackout in North American history. They also called on Congress to separate electricity reliability measures from a broad energy bill that contains a controversial plan to drill in an Alaska wildlife refuge.
Republicans, however, prefer to keep a plan for mandatory reliability rules within the wide-ranging energy bill.
``Our economy and way of life demand affordable, reliable electricity,'' said Louisiana Rep. Billy Tauzin, who heads the House Energy and Commerce panel. ``I talked to people in the New York airport who said it was bad enough sleeping in the airport in 130 degree temperatures, but the commodes wouldn't flush because they are electrically operated.''
NO DEADLINE FOR INVESTIGATION
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told the committee that it was ``premature'' to identify the reason for the outage.
The joint U.S.-Canada taskforce investigating the blackout will ``follow the facts wherever they lead us,'' he said. Abraham refused to commit the task force to finish its probe by the end of September, when Republicans aim to complete an energy bill for the President's signature.
The Bush administration will outline its policy views on electricity next week, he said, marking the first time the White House has detailed its views since Vice President Dick Cheney authored a comprehensive energy proposal in 2001. Abraham gave few details, saying only that it would include federal incentives for utilities to build new transmission lines.
``The problem America faces is a broad set of energy issues,'' Abraham said. ``It's not just a problem with electricity transmission.''
Some Democrats criticized the White House for pressing Congress to immediately adopt an energy bill that would make sweeping changes in electricity laws and boost oil and natural gas drilling without knowing the cause of the blackout.
``If we don't know what caused the blackout in the first place, how can we know whether the proposed cure is worse than the disease?'' said Democrat Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
Tauzin and other Republicans insisted that electricity rules should be part of a wide-ranging energy bill that also includes oil drilling, incentives for nuclear power and subsidies for the coal industry.
Democrat John Dingell of Michigan said he preferred a stand-alone bill for electricity reliability in case the broad energy legislation gets bogged down in debate again this year.
ROLE OF FIRSTENERGY
The House panel's two-day hearing will focus on sharply differing explanations about the causes of the blackout from key utilities in Ohio and Michigan including FirstEnergy and International Transmission Co., an independent company that operates the power grid in the part of Michigan that was affected by the blackout.
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, told the panel in prepared testimony that the outage could have been curtailed if FirstEnergy had picked up a telephone and alerted other transmission operators when it first detected line problems.
``The fact that no calls were made or warnings extended or even the proper reporting of the subsequently reported line failures in FirstEnergy and American Electric Power and PJM (Interconnection) illustrates the number one cause of the blackout in my opinion,'' Joseph Welch, ITC chief executive, said in testimony.
FirstEnergy, the fifth-largest U.S. utility, has denied any wrongdoing and said others were jumping to conclusions. A ``search for the straw that broke the camel's back is the wrong approach,'' FirstEnergy said.
A detailed FirstEnergy timeline obtained by Reuters pointed to other events that may have contributed to grid instability. Thousands of megawatts of power plant capacity were shut by American Electric Power, Detroit Edison and three of its own plants, FirstEnergy said.
-------- environment
E.P.A. Relaxes Restrictions on Sales of Contaminated Land
September 3, 2003
The New York Times
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/politics/03ENVI.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - The Environmental Protection Agency has relaxed restrictions on selling some land contaminated with PCB's for redevelopment, reversing a 25-year-old policy.
According to an internal memorandum issued in mid-August, the agency will no longer prohibit the sale of PCB-contaminated land unless the property is severely poisoned. The memorandum was first reported in today's USA Today. Advertisement
Robert E. Fabricant, whose resignation as general counsel of the environmental agency is effective on Wednesday, wrote that the old policy was "an unnecessary barrier to economic redevelopment" and that it might "actually delay the cleanup of contaminated properties as well."
Lisa Harrison, an agency spokeswoman, said: "Right now, PCB sites may be sitting unused and undeveloped because this prohibition on the sale or transfer of PCB's was a disincentive to property transfers."
Ms. Harrison added, "By reducing the obstacle, we can increase the number of properties cleaned up and reused."
But environmental groups and some agency employees say smaller abandoned sites contaminated by PCB's could fall through the cracks more easily under the new policy.
"There is a pattern developing where E.P.A. is making it easier to redevelop contaminated sites at the expense of public health," said Julie Wolk, an environmental health advocate from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
PCB's, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are toxic substances that take a long time to break down in the environment. They are known to cause neurological and immunodeficiency development disorders in children.
Environmental agency employees say that the 500 or so most severely PCB-contaminated sites, like land along the Hudson River that was contaminated by the General Electric Company, fall under the federal Superfund law and will not be affected by the change in agency policy.
But the agency does not know how many other contaminated sites there are, in part because there is no uniform requirement for property owners to notify the agency of the PCB contamination.
Ms. Wolk said the agency's online database listed only eight PCB-contaminated sites in New York that are not Superfund sites.
Environmental groups and some environmental agency employees estimate, however, that several thousand contaminated sites around the country are not under the purview of the Superfund law.
Some agency employees say the longstanding restriction on the sale of PCB-contaminated land served as an incentive for owners to notify the agency of the contamination and clean up their property. Notifying the agency before the sale of contaminated property and getting the agency's approval of a cleanup plan helped protect sellers from liability after the sale. About 100 sites a year came up for agency approval, employees say.
"You take away the incentive to make it happen now, there is a big difference in what gets cleaned up and how quickly," Ms. Wolk said. "You use an extra layer of protection which says that unless E.P.A. approves a good cleanup plan for it, it doesn't get sold."
Some employees say that the only way for the agency to force the cleanup of these smaller contaminated sites now will be through more cumbersome enforcement actions and settlement negotiations.
The production of PCB's was banned in 1977, and their distribution was banned the following year.
--------
Superfund To Run Out Of Money, GAO Says
By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17103-2003Sep2.html
An industry-financed trust fund that for years helped offset the cost of Superfund cleanup projects will run out of money next month, placing added demands on the federal budget to meet the cost of cleaning up some of the worst hazardous waste sites in the country, according to a new General Accounting Office study.
While the trust fund has declined from as much as $2 billion in 1995 to a few hundred million dollars this year, the Environmental Protection Agency has continued to add sites to the National Priorities List (NPL) of the most contaminated sites.
"The Superfund program's need for federal cleanup funds to address sites that lack alternative sources of cleanup funds may grow in the future, while the program's funding from sources other than general fund appropriations dwindles," the GAO said. The report noted that because the Superfund lacks indicators to fully measure the cleanup efforts, the EPA has asked an advisory council to develop criteria by which to measure the program's progress.
Superfund spending has remained relatively constant over the past six years -- between $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion annually. In the past, revenue from a special tax on the chemical and oil industries and an environmental tax on corporations was used to pay for the cleanup of abandoned "orphan sites," of which the responsible party could not be identified or is unable to pay.
Those taxes expired in 1995, and President Bill Clinton and President Bush did not asked Congress to reauthorize them. Democrats have criticized Bush for failing to put the cleanup program on a sound financial footing.
A spokesman for Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), who requested the report, said it included some positive news, including that "sites are being cleaned up and taken off the NPL list."
-------- health
Africans Outdo Americans in Following AIDS Therapy
September 3, 2003
The New York Times
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/health/03IMMU.html?hp
Contradicting long-held prejudices that have clouded the campaign to bring AIDS drugs to millions of people in Africa, evidence is emerging that AIDS patients there are better at following their pill regimens than Americans are.
Some doctors, politicians and pharmaceutical executives have argued that it is unsafe to send millions of doses of antiretroviral drugs to Africa, for fear that incomplete pill-taking will speed the mutation of drug-resistant strains that could spread around the world.
The danger already exists: nearly 10 percent of all new H.I.V. infections in Europe are resistant to at least one drug.
For Africa, the issue is particularly touchy because it is tinged with racism. In 2001, for example there was an outcry when the director of the United States Agency for International Development said that AIDS drugs "wouldn't work" in Africa because many Africans don't use clocks and "don't know what Western time is."
Now surveys done in Botswana, Uganda, Senegal and South Africa have found that on average, AIDS patients take about 90 percent of their medicine. The average figure in the United States is 70 percent, and it is worse among subgroups like the homeless and drug abusers.
Compliance has become easier because drugmakers from India and elsewhere are beginning to make triple-therapy cocktails that come in as few as two pills a day. (These are not available in the United States yet because of patent problems - no Western company makes all three drugs for an ideal cocktail.)
After nearly a decade of watching Africans die because AIDS drugs cost $10,000 or more a year per patient, rich nations began pledging aid after generic competition in 2001 drove prices down to about $300 a year. Last week the World Trade Organization agreed to alter its rules to give poor nations more access to life saving medicines.
But as with any epidemic moving through a poor and ill-educated populace, the threat of disaster clings like a shroud. Patients in badly supervised programs have been caught selling pills or sharing with desperate relatives - acts of greed or mercy that could lead to doomsday strains of the virus.
Anti-retroviral therapy "is the No. 1 priority for the developing world," said Robert C. Gallo, director of the Institute for Human Virology and a pioneer in researching H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. "But it will be a tragic mistake if it's not done right. You'll have `Eureka!' and `Thank you, America!' for two or three years - but then you'll get multi-drug resistance, and whoops. . . ."
Drug-resistant strains are inevitable, doctors say, and turn up in every illness from malaria in Africa to children's ear infections in Manhattan. Hard-to-cure variants evolve spontaneously in response to drugs. But they are more likely to grow and be passed on if patients skip doses, because triple therapy often suppresses even mutant strains. To avoid an epidemic of incurable AIDS, new drugs must be discovered faster than old ones become useless.
Africa can still do better than the West, they say, by avoiding old mistakes. Today's drugs are more potent and no one will spend years on one drug, thereby breeding resistance, as many Westerners did on AZT before triple therapy emerged in 1996.
Moreover, doctors say, most African patients are zealous about their regimens. They are also more truthful when estimating their adherence, said Dr. David Bangsberg, a professor of medicine at the University of California in San Francisco who has studied compliance patterns here and abroad.
On average, he said, American patients tell their doctors that they are doing 20 percentage points better than they really are - that is, a patient who says he takes 90 percent of his pills will, when tested with unannounced home pill counts or electronic pill-bottle caps, turn out to be taking 70 percent.
A study of 29 Ugandan patients found that, on average, they estimated that they were taking 93 percent of pills and proved to be taking 91 percent.
Though poor, more than 80 percent of the Ugandans had jobs, though most earned less than $50 a month. Most were women in their 30's, and paying $27 a month for their twice-a-day, three-drugs-in-one pill called Triomune, made by Cipla Ltd. of Bombay.
In many such cases, explained Dr. Merle A. Sande, a University of Utah medical school professor who also works in Uganda, the whole extended family, possibly with several infected members, will chip in so that one member will be saved to care for the children.
"If the whole family is pooling its resources to pay for you," he said, "you damn well better take your drugs.
"That's a whole different scenario from the U.S., where patients get free medicine, and if they change therapy, will let a month's worth go to waste."
Several doctors in Africa said their patients were highly motivated because they had seen friends or family die. Most come in only when deathly ill, so the drugs seem to perform a miracle, making them well enough to go back to work. And even $1 a day is a lot, so they treat it as "an investment," said Dr. Elly Katabira of Makerere University Medical School in Uganda.
In Botswana, with the world's highest infection rate, pill counts on 400 of the 10,000 patients on therapy showed that 85 percent were taking their pills flawlessly, said Dr. Ernest Darkoh, the national program manager. "If you loosen the criteria a little - missing a dose by two hours, for example - you get about 90 percent," he added.
There are a few exceptions, he admitted: "Some people bring back their pill containers saying, `Thank you, but my traditional healer told me not to take these.' "
However, some programs are not as good as others.
In Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, an ambitious, widely praised plan to get generic drugs to 15,000 citizens has been hampered by bureaucracy, corruption and a scarcity of laboratories.
Dr. Ernest Ekong, an AIDS specialist at the Military Reference Hospital in Lagos who has made Nigeria's case at international conferences, at first said adherence so far has been "no problem." Then he began to qualify that.
Some patients, he said, have felt so well that they shared pills with friends who could afford the $10 monthly charge.
Some who developed "nevirapine rash," or nerve tingling, cut back.
"And," he admitted, "a very small percentage are selling their drugs."
Non-adherence, he said, is worst among patients with co-infections that require more pills - tuberculosis patients, for example, must also take four antibiotics.
No formal resistance study has been done, but Nigerian doctors are worried about a few patients who are taking all their pills but not getting better - a sign that they might have resistant strains.
The best adherence seems to come under tight supervision.
A recent study in Cape Town found that older patients, patients who took pills twice a day instead of three times, and patients who spoke the same language as clinic staff members tended to do best.
In May 2001, Africa's best-known pilot project was opened by Doctors Without Borders in a crowded, dirt-poor black township near Cape Town called Khayelitsha.
Because the drugs were then scarce, the charity set high hurdles for patients, so high that only 550 of the clinic's 5,000 visitors are taking medication now. It reports extraordinarily high levels of compliance.
Pill counts by social workers show that, after six months on treatment, 96 percent of the patients are still taking 95 percent of their pills.
As a surer but more expensive backup, blood tests see how many have minuscule levels of virus, an indication that they have faithfully taken their pills.
After six months, 91 percent do; at 18 months, 83 percent do.
"That's pretty good," said Dr. Eric Goemaere, the program's director. "Certainly better than what you see in most North American studies."
To qualify for treatment, patients must give up all alcohol and drugs; complete three months of taking a simple antibiotic; be on time for four clinic appointments in a row; reveal to their families that they are H.I.V. positive; and choose a friend who must come to counseling, make sure all pills are taken and report problems to a nurse.
Dr. Bangsberg expressed surprise at how demanding the clinic was.
"Imagine trying to impose the no-drinking rule in San Francisco," he said.
Such standards are tough but necessary, Dr. Goemaere said. Binge drinking is the norm in South African townships, he said, and studies show that patients with histories of alcohol abuse or depression are the worst at taking their pills.
"There are certainly parts of Africa where you wouldn't want to try this - in Congo, for example," he said. "But 65 percent of South Africa is urbanized. People know how to take a taxi and get to an appointment - and how to take their pills."
-------- homeless / poverty
Census Shows Ranks of Poor Rose by 1.3 Million
September 3, 2003
The New York Times
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/national/03CENS.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - The number of Americans living below the poverty line increased by more than 1.3 million last year, even though the economy technically edged out of recession during the same period, a Census Bureau report shows.
The spike in economic hardship hit individuals and families alike. The report indicated that the total percentage of people in poverty increased to 12.4 percent from 12.1 percent in 2001 and totaled 34.8 million. At the same time, the number of families living in poverty went up by more than 300,000 in 2002 to 7 million from 6.6 million in 2001.
The number of children in poverty rose by more than 600,000 during the same period to 12.2 million. The rate of increase in children under age 5 jumped a full percentage point to 19.8 percent living below the poverty line from 18.8 percent a year earlier.
"These numbers provide a moving picture of population changes," said Stephen Buckner, a spokesman for the Census Bureau. "It's more timely data that should allow decision makers to make more informed judgments."
The new data, some analysts say, may raise the level of scrutiny on a variety of federal programs like welfare reform and the recently enacted increases in child tax credits, which excluded about 6.5 million low-income working families with children.
Stuart Butler, an economist with the Heritage Foundation, a Washington policy institute, called the data "a fairly predictable product of the slowing economy."
"The issue is, what do you do to continue to strengthen the economy?" Mr. Butler said. "You take the necessary steps to encourage people to move back into the work force, plus making sure we don't do anything to weaken the welfare reforms put in place some years ago."
Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said, "Some people had drawn a Pollyanna-ish conclusion that somehow changes in the welfare system would insulate children from increases in poverty during economic slumps."
"These new data show that that assumption is flatly incorrect." Mr. Greenstein said. "It also underscores the mistake in federal tax policies that exclude the very families who are hurting the most."
The data, released today, is found in the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, a rolling month-to-month sample of the social and economic makeup of 742,000 households in 1,239 counties across the country.
The bureau's Current Population Survey, to be released at the end of September, still functions as the official barometer for measuring national income and poverty estimates. It is also used by the Labor Department to calculate the monthly unemployment rate. But the American Community Survey, which the Census Bureau began testing nationally in 2000, is eventually intended to replace the census long form in representing the most detailed sample of American households.
Assessed annually, rather than every 10 years like the current long form, the Community Survey, census officials said, should enable policy makers to better determine needs in allocating federal, state and local financing for a variety of services. The American Community Survey also calculates for much smaller geographic areas than the Current Population Survey, allowing more focused analysis.
The adjusted poverty line figures for 2002 have yet to be released. But in 2001, a family of two adults and two children would have to have made less than $17,960 a year to be ranked as living below the poverty level. For a single person under the age of 65 the poverty line in 2001 was roughly $9,200 a year.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Vietnam vet chooses jail over fine
By Elizabeth Kenny ekenny@seacoastonline.com
Portsmouth, NH Herald,
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/09032003/news/48126.htm
PORTSMOUTH - Boisterous shouts of "Shame! Shame! Shame!" were aimed at a Portsmouth District Court judge on Tuesday when she ruled Paul Pat Morse guilty of disorderly conduct.
Morse's appearance in court stemmed from an incident in April in which he lay in the street blocking traffic in Market Square as a protest to the war in Iraq.
After the verdict was announced, Morse was given until noon to pay a $240 fine, which he told the judge was feasible, but which he refused to pay because of his frustration with the court.
Morse, a Vietnam veteran, was instead transported to jail, where he will be held in contempt of court for 12 days for what he called his nonviolent campaign to educate others "of the illegal and unjust policies of our government," he said.
On April 11, Morse, along with a half dozen other peace activists, barricaded and blocked traffic during commuting hours on a Friday night until Portsmouth Police Patrolman Peter Sheldon asked the protesters to clear the street.
According to Sheldon, all the protesters except for Morse followed his request. After a second appeal from Sheldon failed to bring Morse to his feet, the officer placed him under arrest on a charge of disorderly conduct for not obeying an officer.
"I acted with lawful authority to prevent a greater harm," Morse said, explaining that he felt international law was being violated by the U.S. government and it was his responsibility to bring the issue to light.
Part of what Morse considered illegal was the use of depleted uranium munitions by the U.S. military in Iraq, which Morse called a war crime.
Judge Sharon DeVries asked Morse to show the connection between his lying in the street and his concerns about the uranium.
"That doesn't apply in this process," DeVries said. "This is as irrelevant as bringing in a history lesson on Australia."
Rows of supporters for Morse grew angry and spoke out against the judge's comments, until DeVries asked more than a dozen individuals to clear the courtroom or be charged with contempt.
Morse's mother, Macy Morse, one of five peace protesters known as the Newington Five, had an experience similar to her son's. She was fined for criminal trespassing during a protest in October 2002; she also refused to pay and spent 18 days in jail.
Supporting her son's efforts on Tuesday, Macy shouted "Shame!" at DeVries until the judge threatened to put her in contempt of court along with her son.
"Is this what you call peaceful citizenship?" DeVries asked the defendant. "You ask the court to respect your views, and you have people screaming and slamming doors."
Morse shook his head and later said his goal was to touch at least one person.
"If only one soldier stopped killing, my action would have been worth it," he said.
His refusal in April to leave the street hasn't been Morse's only act of protest.
Before the war started, Morse wrote numerous letters to the government pleading for peace, which he said fell on deaf ears.The fact that Morse had spent time in Vietnam made his pleas a little more pressing.
"My own philosophy has changed from that young sergeant in Vietnam, a solider ready and, indeed, eager to kill," he said. "I have come to believe that we live in a small world and that we are all interconnected. As a pebble thrown into a pond will send ripples, however small, to the farthest corners of that pond, so do our individual actions affect every living person on this planet."
----
Leftists target Republicans' convention
September 03, 2003
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030902-112057-8542r.htm
A grateful mayor is delighted that the Republican Party picked New York as the site of the 2004 presidential convention next September, and no wonder. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg expects the event to draw 50,000 visitors and generate $150 million for the city.
But the motley Manhattan population of liberals, feminists, performance artists, environmentalists and self-styled anarchists who oppose the Bush administration for one reason or another are already in full cry.
Plans to disrupt the convention are in motion a year in advance.
"We know what the Democratic candidates and people who dislike the Bush administration stand for, and their messages sound very similar," said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson yesterday.
"When there's no positive leader and no positive agenda for the country, people resort to pessimism," she continued. "The messages from Howard Dean, John Kerry and others sometimes sound like messages from these groups. This is just par for the course."
Two grass-roots organizations are at the center of the protest.
RNC Not Welcome says the convention is funded by "a host of corporations, millionaires and billionaires" and hopes to prove that the city of New York does not support the event.
"Why host a convention in September? Why New York?" asks Counter Convention, another group. "By exploiting our grief and trauma from September 11th, the right wing intends to further their regressive political agenda."
Both are among the motley activists who staged a bike and roller-blading protest Saturday through the streets of Manhattan, intent on "disinviting" the Republicans.
"How about not welcoming the DNC too, wherever they're going to be?" asked one eager participant in a discussion of the event yesterday at the New York Indymedia Center Web site (www.nyc.indymedia.org).
The groups will also stage a mask- and costume-making session for dramatically inclined activists in Manhattan this weekend, along with a workshop for "street medics" who anticipate violence.
The festivities will culminate in a public party on Union Square to declare it a "Patriot Act Free Zone."
In addition, United for Peace and Justice - a New York-based group that has also organized protests against the World Trade Organization, the war in Iraq, nuclear weapons and revised Federal Communications Commission media-ownership rules - has declared Aug. 29, 2004, as "The World Says No to Bush" day.
The protest event will coincide with the Republican convention, scheduled for Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 in Madison Square Garden.
But convention planners are already ahead of the game. In early July, the gathering was classified a "national special security event" by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, making it eligible for protection by the FBI and Secret Service, along with state and local law enforcement.
Meanwhile, the variety of protest groups keeps growing, at least according to the Counter Convention Web site (www.counterconvention.org), which has tallied a roster of those who oppose the Republican convention.
They include, among others, the Female Species Collective, the Socialist Party USA, North Brooklyn Greens, Not in Our Name, Electronic Disturbance Theater, ACT UP, Food Not Bombs, Mad Anarchist Baker's League, and something called Time to Clean Up This Directory (TTCUTD).
In its public message, the TTCUTD noted, "It would be useful to moderate this directory so people organizing against the RNC can do that without stupid spam listings."
--------
They're back
September 03, 2003
By Jeffrey Sparshott
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20030902-095159-8854r.htm
Protesters plan to descend on Cancun, Mexico, by the thousands next week in an attempt to derail World Trade Organization talks aimed at setting new rules for the global economy.
So far, most public calls are for peaceful protests, "teach-ins," and other demonstrations against international trade rules, not a repeat of the violence that marked 1999's "Battle in Seattle." But protest organizers are not discounting some run-ins with authorities.
"We are expecting here some problems, but we don't want this to happen," said Arturo Mosso, a member of the Comite de Bienvenida Cancun [Cancun Welcoming Committee], a Mexico-based anti-globalization group that is coordinating with other protest groups.
Demonstrators took credit for the collapse of global trade talks in 1999, though the link is tenuous, according to some observers.
"The meeting in Seattle had failed before it began, but people got the impression [that protesters] had succeeded in preventing a new round from being launched," said Hugh Corbet, president of the Cordell Hull Institute, a Washington-based policy group that supports liberalized trade.
The groups affected news coverage and drew attention to their views. "It will be much the same in Cancun. They will be holding discussions and seminars, but they will not have any effect," Mr. Corbet said.
That will not stop them from trying.
"We want ... to provide some alternatives and show that this [WTO-based] economic model is not working," Mr. Mosso said. The committee, with staff in the Caribbean resort town since February, is working with a number of national and international anti-globalization groups to organize space and accommodations for protesters, he said.
Anti-WTO groups, only loosely affiliated, are hesitant to predict the number of protesters. Mr. Mosso estimated that at least 10,000 and as many as 25,000 could show up for the Sept. 10-14 meetings. Because Cancun is easy to reach and tourist-friendly, others expect significantly more.
Protesters want to show how it believes WTO rules erode workers' rights, environmental protections and democracy while handing control to multinational corporations, according to a letter circulating on the Internet and signed by groups like the committee.
The United States and the WTO's 145 other members see the organization as a way to create a rules-based trading system, to lower barriers to trade and to boost economic growth. The ongoing round of talks, dubbed the Doha Development Agenda, specifically call for measures to help poor countries access world markets, though progress in that direction has been limited.
The Cancun meeting is the most important gathering of the world's trade ministers since November 2001, when officials met in Doha, Qatar, to start a new round of global trade negotiations. Cancun is an important milestone along the way to a January 2005 deadline to establish new rules for agriculture and intellectual property and numerous other aspects of global commerce.
Mexico's government does not want any disruptions for the official delegates and businessmen who will attend. It is wary of groups that have tried to shut down WTO, the European Union, the Group of Eight industrialized nations, and other multinational meetings in the past few years.
"The Mexican authorities are doing as much as possible to suppress [protesters] ... even to point of scrutinizing hotel reservations," said John Thorn, North American regional manager for Annapolis-based IJET Travel Risk Management.
Mexican authorities have had hotels cancel reservations of some potential protesters, added visa requirements for conference participants, placed security forces at the airport since Aug. 20 to check documents, and have prepared security checkpoints, he said.
The measures should limit threats to personal safety and confine protests, he said.
"But the antiglobalization folks are quite tenacious. If there's a way to protest, they are going to do it," Mr. Thorn said.
The Mexican Embassy did not return calls seeking further comment on security measures.
The Mexican press has reported a "watch list" of 80 persons drawn up by Mexican authorities. Jose Bove, the French farmer who gained notoriety by wrecking a McDonald's in southern France, is on the list, as are more legalistically inclined anti-WTO activists like Ralph Nader.
"I was disappointed they could only find 80 people who are opposed to the WTO," said Tom Hansen, director of the Mexico Solidarity Network, a Chicago-based group that plans to protest in Cancun. Mr. Hansen reportedly is on the list.
Mexico also is a base for homegrown activists who are attuned to international trade issues.
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), a peasant-based movement out of the poor southern state of Chiapas, led an armed uprising Jan. 1, 1994, to coincide with NAFTA's start, though the group's agenda is much broader than trade.
A teachers union, joined by farmers and ranchers, late last year stormed Mexico's Congress - on horseback - in part to protest NAFTA.
But logistics may prove difficult in Cancun.
The resort is easy to reach, but WTO meetings are on a narrow stretch of land with a single road lined by hotels on both sides. Protest organizers said the geography should make control easy for authorities.
"I don't think [another Seattle] is going to be possible in Cancun. The meetings are held on that little strip separated by a lagoon and the ocean. There isn't going to be access to that strip for anybody," Mr. Hansen said.
In February 2001, a World Economic Forum meeting in Cancun attracted protesters, and police kicked and beat the ones they could catch, the Associated Press reported. A standoff blocked the main highway and brought much of the resort's traffic to a halt until police charged through a barricade and surprised protesters, the AP reported.
"Given the track record of the last few years, violence is always a concern, but I see no reason to forecast trouble," said Phil Twyford, advocacy director for Oxfam America, an antipoverty group.
"When violence happens, it tends to hog the headlines, but it is a tiny percentage of the people," Mr. Twyford said, noting that Oxfam opposes property destruction and plans to protest peacefully.
The U.S. government is warning participating organizations to allow sufficient time for travel.
"Security will be extremely tight, especially in areas around the convention center," the U.S. Trade Representative's Office said in an information circular.
--------
Protesters line the streets
Bush's motorcade brings out critics, supporters alike, though message of presidential critics louder
By Jewell Cardwell
Ohio Beacon Journal
Tue, Sep. 02, 2003
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/local/6671314.htm
Labor Day traffic flowed smoothly at the intersection of state routes 303 and 176 -- until 10 a.m.
That's when Richfield police and those from neighboring environs shut it down to vehicular traffic and cordoned off the sidewalks and grassy area with yellow caution tape like you see at a crime scene.
It was their way of corralling the clamorous and rain-soaked 400 or so foot soldiers who had come not to welcome but to protest President Bush's visit. He was en route to address the International Union of Operating Engineers at their training center in Richfield Township.
About a half-mile away from where Bush was speaking was yet another faction of folks with convictions more in step with his -- mostly Republicans who welcomed the president with open arms and signs that invited him to stay ``Four More Years.''
Some had come on their own volition. Others were urged to do so in an invitation from Summit County Republican Party Chairman Alex R. Arshinkoff.
It read: ``Anti-Bush protesters will be out in full force to demonstrate against the President. Although we cannot guarantee that you will see the President or his motorcade, it is crucial that we show the rest of the nation that Summit County fully supports the President.''
With them were members of Akron's Firestone High School band, who voluntarily showed up to perform for the presidential motorcade.
Still, it was the anti-Bush protesters -- mostly Democrats who were visibly angry with the nation's boss -- whose message was the loudest. They had more than a few choice words for him.
Their concerns ran the gamut: the president's economic policies, the war in Iraq, lack of health care, the job hemorrhage from the United States to Third World countries, and Bush's plans to privatize parts of the park system.
They carried signs -- ``My Job Has Been Bushwhacked,'' ``Bush Leaves No Millionaires Behind,'' and ``Hail to the Thief'' -- that underscored their angst.
William Burga, president of the Ohio AFL-CIO, fumed: ``Union members and workers in general are upset that this country is losing jobs every day. We're here because we're worried about the future.
``This administration is the worst as far as job creation since that of Herbert Hoover,'' Burga said. ``Right now (Bush) is promoting in Congress a rollback on overtime compensation for workers. He's trying to B.S. the people into thinking they're going to have more time for family.
``At the same time, he's talking about providing health care for the people of Iraq. Yet he's done absolutely nothing for the people here who are without health care -- people who have to choose between buying prescriptions or food,'' Burga said.
U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown, the Lorain Democrat who serves the 13th District that includes Richfield, said ``Bush's response to every economic problem in this country is more tax cuts for the rich and to ship more jobs overseas. One out of 10 jobs in this country has vanished since he has been in office. That's 3 1/2 million jobs nationally and almost 200,000 in Ohio.
``I think people understand that in four more years under Bush that the recession will only get worse,'' he said.
Brown also blasted Bush's plan to rebuild postwar Iraq.
``More than one-third of that budget is going to Halliburton,'' an inflamed Brown said, referring to the country's largest oil field service company.
Halliburton recently was awarded a major contract with an impossible-to-calculate dollar figure to rebuild Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney was the company's CEO from 1995 to 2000.
``When our soldiers do come back from Iraq, Bush plans to cut their veterans benefits,'' Brown said, his message amplified by a bullhorn.
``So, your role today,'' he said, ``is to register your friends to vote. We need you involved like you've never been involved before.
``Remember,'' Brown said, augmenting an old saying, ``if your neighbor is out of work, it's a recession. If you're out of work, it's a depression. When George Bush is out of work, it's a recovery.''
A spirited Jeff Seeman, a representative from the Stark County Peace Coalition who announced plans to challenge U.S. Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Navarre, in the next election, delivered taunts such as ``It's the Bill of Rights, not Suggestions.''
As passionate as the protesters were, cool heads prevailed.
Case in point was when 16-year-old Michael Devine -- visiting relatives while in Richfield from Elgin, Ill. -- inserted himself into the protest crowd, trying his best to neutralize their responses.
For the most part, his in- your-face, loud rhetoric was ignored by the masses and attributed to his youth.
Michael said he became political during the last election ``when I was in the eighth grade. Now I speak my mind.''
That was everybody's intention Monday. Content was what they couldn't agree on. Jewell Cardwell can be reached at 330-996-3567 or jcardwell@thebeaconjournal.com
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