Archive By Date | Today's Links to Search By
Activists' News | Nuclear | Depleted Uranium | Military | Police
Alternative Energy Etc. | From Subscribers
NUCLEAR
Vatican repeats call for elimination of nuclear weapons
Is Nuclear Power Reaching Its Sunset Years?
Hurricane aftermath shuts three PSEG reactors
20TH ANNIVERSARY: WORLDWIDE NUCLEAR WAR AVERTED
Russia Hardens Stance Toward Iran
EU Big Three Offered Iran Carrot for Nuclear Deal
Iran Shows Its Military Muscle in Parade
Iran Shows Off Missile Might Amid Nuclear Fears
Iran's Bomb
Iran hopes standoff with IAEA will not lead to UN sanctions
Anti-Islam axis goes nuclear
Russia Takes Back Uranium From Romania
Bush under pressure on Iraq
Bremer Urges Approval of $87 Billion for Iraq and Afghanistan
Bush under pressure on Iraq
MILITARY
U.S. Investigating Afghan Civilian Death Report
Taliban Leaders Reportedly Meet to Reorganize
US Air Force B-2 Bomber Drops 80 JDAMS in Historic Test
U.S. Navy Guided - Missile Ships Visit China
China rejects US sanctions
Blair 'backs plan' to give EU army more power
Occupation Watch Bulletin
U.S. Drive for Iraq Help Suffers Double Setback
ISRAEL VASTLY STRENGTHENED IN WAKE OF IRAQ WAR
Hispanic Soldiers Die in Greater Numbers in Iraq
Pakistan, Palestinians Hit Indian, Israeli 'Terror'
Last American Combat Troops Quit Saudi Arabia
Dutch Foreign Minister to Become NATO Leader
Little Chance of Pakistani Troops in Iraq
Bomb Explodes Outside U.N. Mission in Iraq, Killing Officer
Bush Plans Unyielding Stance on Iraq War in Address to U.N.
Bush Open To U.N. Oversight of Iraq Election
Gulf War vets risk paralyzing disease
National Guard families air frustrations over long hauls in Iraq
Soft Economy Aids Army Recruiting Effort
Wolfowitz Stands Fast Amid the Antiwarriors
Dangers Of War
Portents of terror reappear, as Bush has second thoughts about the war
Judges at War Crimes Trial Rein In Milosevic
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Ashcroft seeks new powers
Ashcroft Reducing Plea Bargain Discretion
9/11 Planner Tells of Plot's Origins
OTHER
Republicans Set to Spell Out Plan for Oil Drilling in Refuge
Cloned Cells Used to Treat Mice
ACTIVISTS
Activists Urge Ousting of N.H. Bishops
ALABAMA - Motorcyclists pay tribute to Cherokees
Medea Benjamin vs. Paul Bremer on PBS
-------- NUCLEAR
Vatican repeats call for elimination of nuclear weapons
22 September 2003
Independent Catholic News
http://www.indcatholicnews.com/nucel.html
VIENNA - The Vatican's delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) repeated the Church's call to stop the spread of nuclear weapons around the world.
Speaking at the 47th Session of the General Conference of the IAEA, which took place in Vienna from September 15-19, Mgr Leo Boccardi, said: "the present moment in history brings about new challenges and new opportunities for the IAEA which has been dedicated since its foundation to the realization and promotion of a vision of 'Atoms for Peace' with the aim to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, their eventual elimination, and to share safe and secure nuclear technology, in peaceful applications for the benefit of humankind."
"In this decisive moment of history, the spirit of legitimacy must be recuperated on the international scene. The return to the value of the law and to the institutions which should be in the position to secure its validity is the best way for preventing conflicts."
Mgr Boccardi said: "the past year has been very challenging for the Agency in the field of verification. ... It is important that verification is done through impartial, international inspections, because only such activities can generate credibility and bring about good results. However, to make the world more secure, verifying the actual situation in the nuclear weapons area is not enough: we need to reinvigorate the nuclear disarmament process including real progress in nuclear weapons dismantlement."
It has been a tradition since 1957 that, during the IAEA general conference, the permanent mission of the Holy See in Vienna invite ambassadors and accredited delegates to the international organizations with headquarters in the city, and top IAEA officials to a Mass. This year the ceremony was especially solemn as it commemorated the 25th anniversary of John Paul II's pontificate.
Source: VIS
Contact Independent Catholic News tel/fax: +44 (0)20 7267 3616 or email
----
Is Nuclear Power Reaching Its Sunset Years?
A recently released Massachusetts Institute of Technology report argues that nuclear energy could play a prominent role in future energy production aimed at reducing climate change and carbon dioxide emissions, but warns that high costs, unsolved radioactive waste dilemmas, conflicting fuel cycle philosophies and proliferation risks facing the nuclear industry could unplug it from the world's power grid for good.
Charles Digges <mailto:charles@bellona.no>,
Vladislav Nikiforov <mailto:vlad@bellona.no>
2003-09-22
Bellona Foundation (Russia)
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nuke_industry/31224.html
The demise of the nuclear industry as a whole could happen as soon as the end of the century, the report says, if these issues are not satisfactorily addressed within the next decade.
Chief among these issues are high costs and waste dilemmas, and the so-called closed nuclear fuel cycle-an environmentally dangerous practice whereby spent nuclear fuel, or SNF, is reprocessed for reactor grade plutonium and uranium for further use or enrichment. Russia has been an adherent of the closed fuel cycle since the inception of its nuclear programme, and continues to reprocess SNF, despite costs and environmental degradation. The United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and Japan also reprocess SNF-though Germany makes use of "once through" methodology as well.
The United States also reprocessed SNF until the practice was abandoned as too costly and environmentally unsound by the administration of President Jimmy Carter. Ever since, the US policy has been to support the open or "once through" cycle, which means SNF, once unloaded from the reactor, is stored for eventual permanent burial. Construction of the controversial Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada is one step in this direction.
There are, however, murmurs within the Bush administration, according to Washington officials, that the United States is considering dropping its aversion to reprocessing and plutonium-based power production methods.
The Report's Authors
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, report was prepared by an interdisciplinary group co-chaired by John Deutch, former director of the CIA and deputy of defence, and Ernest Moniz, former undersecretary of energy during the Clinton administration. John Holdren, principal investigator of Harvard University's Managing the Atom project, was also a part of the group that prepared the report.
The group studied the economics of the nuclear industry, evaluated its safety, addressed non-proliferation issues and examined the implications of possible large-scale growth of the nuclear industry in the near future. In its report, the group says that "over the next 50 years, the best choice to meet the challenges [to the nuclear industry] is the open, once-through fuel cycle." The study also makes a broad range of other recommendations, including alternative sources of energy.
Forecasts for Growth of Nuclear Power-Is It a Viable Solution? Despite the safety and economic hurdles to the nuclear industry-which the report describes at length-the document nonetheless recommends further use of nuclear power, if it can overcome its fundamental cost inefficiency and waste crisis, which otherwise would be left up to future generations to solve.
In 2002, according to the report, nuclear power supplied 20 percent of electricity consumed in the United States and 17 percent worldwide. But the industry forecasts a mere 5-percent increase of nuclear power generation by 2020, and even this estimate is questionable, says the report. Meanwhile, the report said, worldwide electricity consumption could grow by as much as 75 percent.
This jump in electricity use therefore casts a dim light on the future of nuclear energy, the report's authors contend, unless the four known problems haunting the nuclear industry can be solved.
- Costs: Nuclear power has higher overall lifetime costs, as compared to natural gas;
- Safety: After the near meltdown in 1979 at the US nuclear power plant Three Mile Island, and the explosion at the former Soviet Union's Chernobyl in 1986, the threats to the environment and the health of the population are well documented, while viable solutions are lacking;
- Proliferation: Nuclear power entails potential security risks, most notably, the misuse of commercial facilities with criminal intentions to obtain technology and materials applicable in nuclear weapons. Fuel cycles involving chemical reprocessing of spent fuel to separate weapons-usable plutonium and uranium are particularly troubling, especially as these technologies continue to spread to nations presenting a non-proliferation risk;
- Waste: Nuclear power has unresolved challenges in long-term management of radioactive waste. Viable solutions have not been found, nor is there any hope that they will be soon. Even if the Yucca Mountain repository proves useful in managing high-level radioactive waste and SNF, it will only ease-not solve-US problems in waste storage, especially if nuclear power use in the US and other countries grows significantly.
At current, the report asserts, nuclear power is not an economical choice against its fossil fuel and natural gas competitors-to say nothing of alternative energies. Another factor underpinning nuclear energy's economic foundation is that the industry requires-unlike other energies-heavy government oversight because of the safety, proliferation and waste concerns associated with it.
The Closed Nuclear Fuel Cycle
The authors of the MIT report assert that the open, or "once through" cycle, has major cost, proliferation and fuel cycle safety advantages over a closed cycle. According to the report, there is enough natural uranium ore worldwide to fuel the deployment of 1000 reactors over the next fifty years.
The once-through methodology remains relatively cheap and safe until these uranium ore deposits run dry and nuclear countries begin to reprocess their SNF for plutonium, an unnatural by-product of burning uranium. The authors say that the once-through fuel cycle best meets the need of keeping the nuclear process comparatively cheap and resistant to proliferation risks.
However, when uranium ore becomes scarce, the costs of the open cycle versus the closed cycle may go up. Nonetheless-because of the myriad risks associated with the closed cycle-the MIT report recommends that the nuclear industry and governments worldwide continue to use the open cycle rather than the closed cycle because of high costs involved in SNF processing and the development of new thermal, or fast neutron, reactors. The report urges that research and analysis should aim for technologies that do not produce weapons-usable materials during normal operations, which include uranium, fissile products like plutonium and minor actinides.
The closed fuel cycle currently practiced in Western Europe and Japan does not meet this criterion, the report stresses. Therefore, the report says, fuel cycle analysis, research, development, and demonstration efforts must include explicit analyses of proliferation risks and measures defined to minimise proliferation risks.
In a scenario where a worldwide growth of the nuclear industry based on the open fuel cycle occurs, the report says that international spent fuel storage agreements-which would significantly curtail proliferation risks-should be implemented within the next decade.
Prognosis for Nuclear Power
Nuclear power will succeed in the long run only if it has a lower cost than competing technologies, says the report. This is especially true as electricity markets become progressively less subject to economic regulation in many parts of the world.
Inevitably, there will be a high degree of governmental involvement in nuclear power-even in market economies-to regulate safety, waste, and proliferation risk, the authors say.
Too much government involvement is likely to make nuclear power expensive and non-competitive, the report states, and too little government oversight is a risk to safety, secure waste management, and non-proliferation. International cooperation is also critical for the effective management of these issues, especially proliferation, the authors write. Therefore, they assert, the industrial structure in each country with nuclear energy capabilities must be compatible with whatever international norms are adopted.
Safety: There's No Such Thing as Risk-Free Nuclear Power According to the report's authors, there isn't a nuclear power plant in the world-nor could there ever be-that is entirely free of risks. The reason for this is two-fold: technical possibilities and limitations and human fallibility. Safe operation of any nuclear power source, say the authors, requires effective regulation, a management committed to safety, and a skilled work force.
But the biggest risk in nuclear power, perhaps, is that there is still no successful method of disposing of high-level radioactive waste anywhere in the world. The SNF from nuclear power plants contains radioactive materials that remain dangerous to human health and the environment for thousands of years, and current methods of storage used worldwide cannot carry this nuclear baggage for that long.
American-Built Nuke Waste Repository in Russia? A plan to build a geologic repository in Russia is being developed by the Non-Proliferation Trust, Inc., an American corporation. In broad terms, the plan calls for the 40-year storage in Russia of 10,000 tonnes of fissile waste from a number of countries. At the end of these 40 years-or during this period-the waste would be resettled in a geologic repository, also in Russia, where it would remain permanently, never to be reprocessed. Russia would receive $11 billion in return. Geologic repositories-like the one being attempted in the United States at Yucca Mountain-would be capable of safely isolating the waste from the biosphere. However-as the Yucca project is proving-siting and building geologic repositories is a costly and highly demanding undertaking that places huge burdens on regulatory and political institutions, as well as on the authorities who would be responsible for running them.
Russia has on several occasions come up as a place in which to build an international repository. One such effort is being considered by a US-based group called the Non-Proliferation Trust, or NPT, a private company that would sell space for high-level radioactive waste in a repository the trust would build.
But several complications stemmed from that idea, most notably from Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy, or Minatom, which would be happy to take the spent fuel, but would like-contrary to NPT's wishes-to eventually reprocess it, thus making the plan unlikely.
Proliferation
In order that proliferation risks be taken out of the worldwide nuclear power equation, the report recommends that the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, be granted sweeping powers to focus on safeguards-which generally include surveillance devices in nuclear facilities-as well as the automatic right to carry out snap inspections not only of declared nuclear facilities but also of suspected nuclear sites. The latter is something the IAEA currently does not have the right to do without a given country's permission.
At current, 37 of the IAEA's member states, including Canada and the United Kingdom, have given the IAEA permission to conduct short-notice inspections in their nuclear facilities by signing the so-called Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. In the case of Iran, much of the imbroglio surrounding the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme concerns international pressure on Tehran to agree to sign the protocol.
The report further says that greater attention must be focused on proliferation risks at the beginning of the fuel cycle process, especially enrichment technologies. IAEA safeguards should base their control on continuous materials protection, says the report. This would mean throughout-the-process control and accounting of nuclear materials, from their manufacture to their disposal, using surveillance and containment systems, both in facilities and during transportation, the authors assert. The IAEA should also have surveillance and oversight of key points in the fuel cycle process, says the report.
Sunset on the Nuclear Industry?
If current policies regarding waste disposal, expensive research into closed fuel cycles, inconsistent regulatory practices, and wide-scale proliferation risks persist, however, nuclear power is likely to decline and disappear altogether from the world's collective electricity supply during this century, the report says.
In most developed countries, the use of nuclear power is not expected to expand and, in many of these countries, including the United States, nuclear power has been purposely excluded from policies aimed at the stabilisation and reduction of carbon emissions, the report notes.
Building and running new nuclear power plants appears to be more expensive than using alternate sources of base load power generation-most notably coal and natural gas-when both capital and operating costs are taken into account.
After 2020, if significant investments do not materialise, the report states, the nuclear power supply will decline as existing reactors are retired. South Korea, India, Iran and Russia are still constructing nuclear units, despite dim forecasts for the industry. With the exception of Finland, more developed countries, however, have stopped building new nuclear plants and seem to be seeking safer and cheaper energy sources. In the United States, the last nuclear plant order was contracted out in 1979. In Europe, where anti-nuclear sentiment is gradually growing, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden are officially committed to nuclear power phase-out.
-------- accidents and safety
Hurricane aftermath shuts three PSEG reactors
22Sep2003
Platts (Nuclear News Flashes)
http://www.platts.com/stories/nuclear5.html
Hope Creek and both Salem units were out of service Sept. 22 as a result of salt deposits in the reactors' switchyards. Chic Cannon, a spokesman for PSEG Nuclear, which operates the three adjacent units, said that Hurricane Isabel had created heavy waves and fog in the Delaware River, producing saline water vapor that caused the problem. In a statement, PSEG Nuclear said the deposits caused electrical faults and arcing in the switchyards of both plants. Cannon said Hope Creek automatically tripped late Sept. 19 and Salem was manually tripped early in the morning of Sept. 20. He declined to estimate when the units would return.
----
20TH ANNIVERSARY: WORLDWIDE NUCLEAR WAR AVERTED
Exactly 20 years ago this week Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet military officer, averted a worldwide nuclear war. But, ironically, instead of being honored and praised for his actions, he found his life nearly ruined.
by Glen Pedersen
Bright Star Sound
September 22, 2003
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2003/9/prweb81112.php
September 25, 1983, is a date that could have been burned into the history books forever. On that day, against overwhelming odds, a Soviet military officer averted a worldwide nuclear war. What almost happened would have dwarfed into near obscurity any wars or terrorist attacks or natural disasters in memory.
News of this incident first surfaced in 1998 in press interviews with Stanislav Petrov, a retired lieutenant colonel, who described the chain of events that nearly led to the massive devastation of much of the Northern Hemisphere.
In a military bunker near Moscow, in the former Soviet Union, Petrov was in charge of an early warning system that used computers and satellites to alert the Soviet Union if there were ever a nuclear missile attack by the United States. The Soviet Union's strategy at that time was to fire its arsenal as soon as possible after receiving indications of an attack, according to Bruce Blair, a Cold War nuclear strategies expert and nuclear disarmament advocate with the Center for Defense Information.
It was just after midnight Sept. 26, 1983, Moscow time - still Sept. 25, a Sunday, in the West - when something went wrong. Suddenly the computer alarms sounded, warning that an American missile was heading toward the Soviet Union. Petrov reasoned that a computer error had occurred, since the United States was not likely to launch just one missile if it were attacking the Soviet Union - it would launch many. So he dismissed the warning as a false alarm.
A short time later, however, the situation turned very serious. Now the early warning system was indicating a second missile had been launched by the United States and was approaching the Soviet Union. Then it showed a third missile being launched, and then a fourth and a fifth. The sound of the alarms in the bunker was deafening, Petrov said. In front of him the word "Start" was flashing in bright lettering, presumably the instruction indicating the Soviet Union must begin launching a massive counterstrike against the United States.
Even though Petrov had a gnawing feeling the computer system was wrong, he had no way of knowing for sure. He had nothing else to go by. The Soviet Union's land-based radar was of limited usefulness since it was not capable of detecting missiles beyond the horizon. And worse, he had only a few minutes to decide what to tell the Soviet leadership. He made his final decision: He would trust his intuition and declare it a false alarm. If he were wrong, he realized nuclear missiles from the United States would soon begin raining down on the Soviet Union.
He waited. The minutes and seconds passed. Everything remained quiet - no missiles and no destruction. His decision had been right. Those around him congratulated him for his superb judgment.
It had indeed been a false alarm, and a subsequent investigation determined that the early warning satellite system had mistakenly interpreted sunlight reflections off clouds as the presence of enemy missiles.
Petrov felt an enormous sense of relief, but now he faced another problem. He had disobeyed military procedure by defying the computer warnings, and as a result he underwent intense questioning by his superiors about his actions during this ordeal. Perhaps because he had ignored the warnings, he was no longer considered a reliable military officer. Presumably in the military it is understood that orders and procedures are to be carried out unfailingly, without question.
In the end, the Soviet military did not reward or honor Petrov for his actions. It did not punish him either. But his once promising military career had come to an end. He was reassigned to a less sensitive position and soon was retired from the military. He went on to live his life in Russia as a pensioner.
The false alarm involving Petrov occurred at a time of severely strained relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Only three weeks earlier, the Soviet military had shot down a Korean passenger jet that had wandered into Soviet airspace, killing all 269 people on board, including many Americans. The KGB sent a flash message to its operatives in the West, warning them to prepare for possible nuclear war, according to CNN.
Blair said the Russians "saw a U.S. government preparing for a first strike, headed by a president capable of ordering a first strike."
Reflecting the tensions of the time, the American leadership had referred to the Soviet Union as an "evil empire."
With conditions so volatile at the time of the false alarm, if Petrov had declared the nuclear attack warning valid, as his instruments indicated, the Soviet leadership likely would have taken his decision as fact. A mistaken massive nuclear attack by the Soviet Union would undoubtedly have been followed by a devastating response from the Pentagon. Because of Petrov's actions, however, the risk of nuclear war was stopped well before it reached this point.
Petrov has said he does not regard himself as a hero for what he did that day. But in terms of the incalculable number of lives saved, and the overall health of the planet, he appears to have emerged as one of the greatest heroes of all time.
There is something else unsettling about this incident. Petrov was not originally scheduled to be on duty that night. Had he not been there, it is possible a different commanding officer would not have questioned the computer alarms, tragically leading the world into a nuclear holocaust. As it turned out, this incident ended fortunately for America and for the world. But unfortunately for Stanislav Petrov, it ruined his career and his health, and it deprived him of his peace of mind. This is one debt the world will never be able to repay.
On the Web: www.brightstarsound.com
Sources:
http://www.brightstarsound.com
Burrelle's Information Services (Dateline NBC, Nov. 12, 2000)
Washington Post (Feb. 10, 1999)
BBC News (Oct. 21, 1998)
Daily Mail (Oct. 7, 1998)
NOTE TO EDITOR:
This incident was reported by several credible news organizations after it first became public in 1998.
BBC 10/21/98 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/198173.stm
Washington Post 2/10/99 - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/coldwar/shatter021099b.htm
PBS NOVA http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/missileers/falsealarms.html
Other links: http://www.brightstarsound.com/
-------- iran
Russia Hardens Stance Toward Iran
By Simon Saradzhyan and Caroline McGregor Staff Writers,
Moscow Times
Monday, Sep. 22, 2003
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2003/09/22/011.html
Prospects of Russian-Iranian nuclear cooperation dimmed over the weekend as President Vladimir Putin questioned Tehran's reluctance to agree to more comprehensive UN inspections and the nuclear power minister said a key nuclear agreement with Iran would not be signed any time soon.
Putin said he sees no good reason why Iran should not sign an additional protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that would allow the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct thorough inspections of suspected nuclear sites without notice.
"If Iran is not striving to develop nuclear weapons, it has nothing to hide. I see no grounds for refusing to sign these additional protocols," Putin said Saturday at a meeting with U.S. reporters ahead of a summit with U.S. President George W. Bush at Camp David.
Putin also said Russian intelligence has information that West European and U.S. companies "are cooperating with Iran directly in the atomic sphere."
IAEA's board of directors convened earlier this month to again urge Iran to sign the nuclear protocol and, more important, give Tehran until the end of October to prove that it is not pursing a covert nuclear weapons program. If Iran fails to do so, the IAEA may refer the issue to the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions on the country.
Moscow has repeatedly urged Tehran to sign the protocol and at the same time insisted that Russia will continue to build a nuclear reactor in Bushehr even if Iran does not sign the document. But Moscow also has made it clear that it will not complete the reactor unless Tehran signs an agreement to return spent reactor fuel.
Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev acknowledged Friday that the agreement was nowhere close to being signed, a development that could delay the scheduled 2005 completion of the Bushehr reactor.
"Our talks could last a long time," Rumyantsev told reporters after talks with visiting U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
Russian and Iranian officials had promised that the agreement would be signed by October. However, the Nuclear Power Ministry said earlier last week that the signing was being delayed by Iranian demands that Russia pay for the spent fuel, contrary to existing international practice.
Addressing a nonproliferation conference Friday, Rumyantsev said he believed the Iranians made the unusual demand because they have yet to "learn" the intricate standards of nuclear cooperation, rather than because they would like to keep spent fuel that could be used to make nuclear bombs. "The delay is of a learning nature rather than a bureaucratic one," Rumyantsev said.
He hinted that Tehran may have put the agreement on the backburner to focus instead on how to respond to the IAEA's October deadline.
An Iranian diplomat repeated Tehran's denials that the country was seeking to develop nuclear arms. "We say no to atomic bombs and weapons of mass destruction and yes to peaceful atomic technology and to peaceful atomic research and development," Akham Khoseini said at the conference.
Meanwhile, Rumyantsev and Abraham on Friday signed an agreement to continue projects under the Nuclear Cities Initiative, including a new $9 million partnership to provide the city of Snezhinsk with state-of-the-art cancer diagnosis imaging equipment.
Abraham told the nonproliferation conference that the U.S. Energy Department and the Nuclear Power Ministry would work together with the IAEA to return highly enriched uranium from a research reactor in Romania to Russia to burn off weapons-grade material.
The two-day nonproliferation conference, which ended Saturday, drew more than 300 experts from 36 countries.
----
EU Big Three Offered Iran Carrot for Nuclear Deal
Story by Paul Taylor and Louis Charbonneau
REUTERS AUSTRIA:
September 22, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/22304/newsDate/22-Sep-2003/story.htm
BRUSSELS/VIENNA - Britain, Germany and France defied the United States last month by offering Iran the prospect of sharing technology if it stops its disputed nuclear fuel enrichment program and accepts tougher U.N. inspections.
Western diplomats told Reuters a joint letter by the big three European foreign ministers, the content of which has not previously been disclosed, was delivered to Tehran in early August despite intense lobbying by Washington.
It highlighted a gulf between the administration of President Bush and even its closest European ally, Britain, on whether to engage or isolate the Islamic republic.
The Europeans urged Iran to sign, implement and ratify the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that provides for intrusive, short-notice inspections and to halt its uranium enrichment program, which the West fears could be at the heart of a clandestine nuclear arms program.
In return for compliance, the letter raised the prospect of cooperation on technology, without specifically pledging help with a civilian nuclear energy program, the sources said.
"Washington did not consider it very helpful at all. They were worried it ran the risk of splitting Europe and America on this issue, and they talked to their friends and colleagues in Europe about that and attempted to dissuade them from sending the letter," a diplomat familiar with the exchanges said.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Brenda Greenberg said there was no immediate comment on the reported offer to Iran, on a day the federal government remained closed to cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Isabel.
A French Foreign Ministry spokesman said he could confirm a letter had been sent to Iran, calling on it to sign the Additional Protocol. But he said it did not include any offer to cooperate on other issues. "There was no offer in return," he said. "There has been no quid pro quo."
European diplomats said they were disappointed there had not been a more specific reply from Tehran so far.
CLERIC SAYS IRAN MUST QUIT NPT
In Tehran, a leading cleric said Friday Iran should consider quitting the NPT after the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog - the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - set an October 31 deadline for Iran to prove it is not seeking atomic weapons.
"What is wrong with considering this treaty on nuclear energy and pulling out of it? North Korea pulled out of it and many countries have never entered it," Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told worshippers at Friday prayers at Tehran University.
Jannati, head of the powerful supervisory body the Guardian Council, also said the Additional Protocol "would impose an extraordinary humiliation on us and we should never accept it."
Conservatives regard international inspections of the nuclear program as tantamount to allowing spies into Iran - which says its nuclear program is purely to meet booming demand for electricity.
The reformist government of President Mohammad Khatami has however said it will continue to negotiate with the IAEA and will not pull out of the NPT.
On August 18, Khatami wrote a general letter to European leaders, including EU president Italy, pledging that Iran would never divert its civilian nuclear program for military purposes and had decided to enter immediate talks on the Additional Protocol.
But that message, seen by Reuters, did not commit Iran to sign or ratify the protocol, and European diplomats question whether Khatami, locked in a power struggle with hard-line clerics, has effective control over the nuclear program.
OFFER STILL STANDS
Since the Europeans' letter was sent, growing attention at the IAEA has focused on the need to know more about Iran's past nuclear activities as well as to enforce intrusive spot checks in future, diplomats said.
The IAEA gave Tehran an ultimatum last week to prove by October 31 it has no secret weapons program or be reported to the Security Council for possible sanctions.
But a diplomat from one of the European states stressed that the joint British, French and German initiative remained valid.
"The offer still stands," he said.
There was no immediate public reaction by Russia to the European offer to Iran, but earlier Friday Moscow said its nuclear cooperation talks with Iran that have angered Washington could take a long time to finalize.
The talks are about a bilateral deal that, once signed, will clear the way for shipments of Russian nuclear fuel to Iran to bring on stream its 1,000-megawatt Bushehr power plant.
Washington says the Bushehr project masks secret Iranian plans to develop an atomic bomb. Moscow says there is no proof of Washington's suspicions.
Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said there would be no quick deal with Iran, telling reporters: "Our talks could last a long time."
He denied that Russia was backpedaling on the deal to please the United States. But his comments, following months of U.S. pressure to abandon the $800 million Bushehr project, will help soothe a major irritant before Presidents Vladimir Putin and Bush meet at Camp David on September 26 and 27.
(Additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov in Moscow and Parinoosh Arami in Tehran)
----
Iran Shows Its Military Muscle in Parade
September 22, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Military-Parade.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran showed off its military capabilities Monday in a parade marking the 23rd anniversary of its war with Iraq, saying it would continue to strengthen its military but would not pursue nuclear weapons.
In a speech before the parade, President Mohammad Khatami said Iran pursues a peaceful foreign policy but that it had to arm itself in the volatile Persian Gulf region.
``We are opposed to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and atomic weapons ... but insist on our right to become powerful based on science, technology, and a strong economy,'' Khatami told the armed forces.
Earlier this month, the U.N. atomic agency requested Iran prove by Oct. 31 that its nuclear aims are peaceful. Iran criticized the deadline but pledged to continue cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Khatami did not mention the deadline in his speech.
He called for the withdrawal of U.S.-led occupation forces from Iraq.
``Transfer Iraq to the Iraqis before it's too late,'' the president said.
The head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said heightened regional tensions and increased international pressure on Tehran to allow unfettered inspections of its nuclear facilities compelled Iran's military to display its strengths.
The 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war left about a million soldiers dead or wounded on both sides. Iran annually marks the anniversary of the war's beginning with a military parade.
Uniformed soldiers and tribesmen in traditional dress paraded in front of a platform where Khatami and Iran's top military brass stood, near the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.
Veteran soldiers and the elite revolutionary guards marched past, followed by trucks bearing Iranian-made tanks and ballistic missiles. Some soldiers chanted, ``the United States is my enemy, Israel is my enemy.''
Prominently displayed was Iran's most modern missile, the Shahab-3, which was officially presented to the military in July after final testing. Its range is said to be about 810 miles, though the parade announcer said could travel about 1,000 miles.
Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Reza Imani told The Associated Press the announcement was wrong and that the range is 810 miles. ``Iran is not working to increase the missile's range,'' he said.
The Shahab-3 can reach Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey. It is widely believed that the missile is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
Western intelligence reports have suggested Iran was increasing the Shahab-3's range or developing a longer-range Shahab-4 missile. Iran has denied the reports.
Iran launched an arms development program during its war with Iraq to compensate for a U.S. weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and a fighter plane.
----
Iran Shows Off Missile Might Amid Nuclear Fears
Mon Sep 22, 2003
(Reuters)
By Christian Oliver
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&ncid=586&e=8&u=/nm/20030922/wl_nm/iran_missiles_dc
TEHRAN - Iran, under pressure to dispel fears it is developing nuclear arms, Monday paraded six of its newly deployed medium-range missiles, which military analysts say could reach Israel or U.S. bases in the Gulf.
It was the largest number of Shahab-3 ballistic missiles put on public display since Iran announced in July it had finished testing the weapon and deployed it to the Revolutionary Guards.
The sand-colored Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, towed along to the accompaniment of rousing military music, were the climax of a lengthy parade to commemorate the start of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Iran's reformist President Mohammad Khatami said the show of strength should not be read as saber-rattling.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran's policy is based on detente," he said at the parade led by disabled war veterans.
"We are opposed to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons but we insist on our absolute right to be powerful in the scientific and technological arena."
Uzi Rubin, former director of Israel's Arrow anti-ballistic missile system program, said Iran's Shahab-3 was a clear threat to the Jewish state.
"The (Shahab's) increased range covers the whole of Israel, north to south, from deployment areas deep within Iran, and thus increases concern as to what would happen if such missiles were armed with WMD warheads," he told Reuters.
Television pictures showed one of the missile carriers displayed a defiant message in bold letters on a giant yellow banner facing Khatami. "We will stamp on America," it read.
NO NUCLEAR ARMS PROGRAM
Iran insists its nuclear scientists are not working on a weapons program but trying to meet soaring electricity demand.
U.N. nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declined to comment on the missiles. The IAEA Governing Board has given Iran until the end of October to dispel doubts that its stated policy of developing nuclear energy was not a cover for building atomic arms.
Hard-liners in Iran say Tehran should follow North Korea's example and pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty rather than cave in to international pressure.
But Mohsen Aminzadeh, deputy foreign minister for Asia-Pacific affairs and seen as a close aide to the reform-minded Khatami, said Iran must regain international trust by signing the NPT Additional Protocol for snap inspections of nuclear sites.
"America accuses us of having a clandestine nuclear program. We deny it but that is not enough to neutralize America's plots against us," he said.
"If there is no other way to change the negative atmosphere created by America against Iran but accepting the Additional Protocol, then accepting the protocol is beneficial for us," he told the official IRNA news agency.
Based on the North Korean Nodong-1 and modified with Russian technology, the Shahab-3 is thought to have a range of 810 miles.
Iran says it is intended to serve purely as a deterrent and has not declared how many Shahab-3 it has been able to manufacture. Military analysts say questions remain about its reliability and accuracy.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-missiles.html
----
Iran's Bomb
Monday, September 22, 2003
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44921-2003Sep21.html
IRAN NOW FACES an Oct. 31 deadline from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to give inspectors full access to its nuclear facilities and programs. If it does not meet a series of conditions intended to ensure that it is not developing nuclear weapons, it will risk being declared in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. It's not clear how Tehran will respond. Its representatives angrily walked out of the IAEA meeting where the deadline was set, and some hard-liners have called for an open break with the treaty. On the other hand, Jordan's King Abdullah said last week that senior officials had told him that they are eager to reach an agreement.
What is clear is that the world faces its own Iranian deadline. If work at the extensive nuclear facilities uncovered around the country during the past year is not frozen, the fundamentalist Islamic regime will soon have the capacity to manufacture the key elements of nuclear weapons. Israeli officials say this "point of no return" could be reached by the middle of next year. U.S. analysts are more cautious but still project an Iranian bomb by the latter part of this decade. Time is running out for the Iranian program to be stopped by diplomatic or political means. The Iranians understand this: They have been stalling the IAEA and its inspectors for months and likely will continue to do so even if they formally agree to the agency's demands. Their strategy has a good chance of working unless the United States, Europe and Russia quickly start doing a better job of coordinating a common response.
The transatlantic differences over Iran are not as great as those on Iraq. The United States and the European Union have agreed that the Iranian nuclear program is a serious threat and that Tehran's acquisition of a bomb should not be allowed. Russian President Vladimir Putin, too, seems to have grudgingly accepted the idea that recently disclosed Iranian activities, such as the construction of a massive facility for enriching uranium, are problematic. Yet Russia's atomic energy agency has insisted on continuing work on a large nuclear power plant at Bushehr that would give Iran a potential source of plutonium. And European governments persist in a failed policy of "critical dialogue" with the Iranian regime; according to one report, the governments of Britain, France and Germany recently dangled an offer of technological cooperation before Tehran in exchange for its acceptance of stepped-up inspections, ignoring objections from the White House.
European governments make the point that the Bush administration's policy of shunning the Iranian government while encouraging a pro-democracy opposition movement also has failed to get results. Russia's atomic bureaucrats ludicrously claim there is no proof that Iran seeks nuclear weapons. Such arguments miss or dodge the main point: Unless Iran's rulers are confronted with a broad and coherent international coalition that is prepared to apply painful sanctions -- through the United Nations or, if necessary, independently -- they will not stop pursuing a bomb. An opportunity -- maybe the last one -- to begin forging such a common front will open with Mr. Putin's visit to Washington and Camp David this week. Mr. Bush should press Mr. Putin to state clearly that further Russian cooperation with Iran, including supply of fuel to the Bushehr plant, will depend on full and unambiguous Iranian cooperation with the IAEA. Mr. Putin and European leaders should also join the United States in planning a strong and immediate response in the event of noncompliance, on Oct. 31 or afterward -- one based on sanctions, not bribes. The time to address Iran by multilateral and nonmilitary means is now; those governments that want the Bush administration to embrace such an approach must step forward.
----
Iran hopes standoff with IAEA will not lead to UN sanctions
Monday September 22, 2003
News International, Pakistan
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/sep2003-daily/22-09-2003/world/w10.htm
TEHRAN: Iran does not believe a standoff with the United Nations nuclear watchdog over its nuclear programme will lead to sanctions, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
The governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), following intense US lobbying, passed a resolution earlier this month that could pave the way for sanctions if Tehran failed to prove by November that its nuclear ambitions were entirely peaceful.
"I do not believe Iran will reach a dead end which could lead to sanctions," Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters in Tehran, adding that Iran's nuclear activities were totally transparent and for peaceful ends. "We welcome any country that wants to cooperate with us," he said. The IAEA has accused Tehran of failing to provide full and accurate information about its nuclear programme and demanded that Tehran suspend all uranium enrichment activities.
If Tehran were declared in non-compliance with its IAEA obligations and reported to the Security Council, it could lose the right to any foreign nuclear assistance. Russia is helping Iran build its first nuclear power station in the southern port of Bushehr, a deal worth $800 million.
Asefi reiterated Iran's suggestion that arch-foe the United States would do well to get involved in Iran's nuclear programme. "Americans could participate in building nuclear power plants if they are worried about our activities," he said.
He said Iran had given its reply to a letter sent by Germany, France and Britain last month offering the prospect of sharing technology with the Islamic Republic if it opened its nuclear programme up to close scrutiny.
But Asefi declined to say what Iran's response had been. Diplomats have said they have found the lack of a clear response from Iran disappointing. Meanwhile, Iran's foreign ministry said Tehran reserves the right to respond to the ultimatum from the UN's nuclear watchdog before or after an October 31 deadline to come clean on its atomic programme
"We still have time before the 31st of October. We will respond when it will be necessary, before or after the 31st of October," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters here.
"The resolution is being examined by the concerned officials and this examination is not yet finished," he said. "When it is complete, we will say so and give our response to the agency, and we will give our clear and definitive position," he said, adding that formulating a response to the agency was complex and very delicate.
Despite a string of top officials in Iran already blasting the ultimatum and with little sign that increased IAEA inspections will be allowed, Asefi said it was too early to talk of Iran's increased isolation or the prospect of sanctions.
"But what I can say, generally, is that the Islamic Republic of Iran is sufficiently powerful to continue on its path by drawing on its own capacities," he said. But he also asserted his belief that the issue had not come to an impasse, and emphasised that the foreign ministry had yet to call for Iran to pull out of the NPT.
Iran kicks off 'Sacred Defence Week' on Monday (today), with a timely show of national unity and military might to mark the outbreak of its 1980-88 war against Iraq as the Islamic republic once again feels outside pressure.
Shrugging off an ultimatum concerning its suspect nuclear programme, the week will see a drive-by of ballistic missiles, tanks and troops on Monday (today), followed by a series of events including photo exhibitions, film screenings and recitations of poetry. The week is dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of Iranians killed after the forces of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein invaded in 1980.
-------- israel
Anti-Islam axis goes nuclear
by Timur Moon
Monday 22 September 2003
Al Jazeerah
http://english.aljazeera.net/Articles/News/GlobalNews/Features/India+and+Israel+clinch+submarine+deal.htm
Heightened technology sharing between Israel and India may soon see both countries transfer their nuclear capability to state-of-the-art attack submarines patrolling far offshore.
A clandestine programme to develop a new generation of potentially nuclear-capable hardware could see the first finished submarine models rolling off the production line within years, according to intelligence sources.
The programme to fast-track production of a new wave of submarines comes as the latest move to forge a new Indo-Israeli military and intelligence "axis" .
Officials on both sides have confirmed the multi-billion dollar deal will go ahead, in the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's controversial visit to India this month, the first ever by an Israeli leader.
"A suggestion was made by defence officials on the Israeli side during Prime Minister Sharon's visit," said senior Indian defence ministry official Amitabh Chakrabarti.
"The offer is for India to be a partner in future ventures to manufacture submarines. The shape of the deal, and the details of what they want from our side are still being thrashed out."
Israel's misgivings
Indian defence minister George Fernandes is understood to have clinched the deal after giving a firm commitment not to share the "hyper-sensitive" technology with any third party, with Israel's arch foe Iran, a close Indian ally, singled out as prime candidate.
Israel recently overtook Russia as the largest seller of weapons to India, with an annual trade of $2 billion
"The Israelis did express some misgivings, but we offered firm assurances, which they accepted," said Chakrabarti. "It is Indian policy to prevent leakage of technology on hyper-sensitive military hardware."
Chakrabarti refused to rule out the possibility that a nuclear capability would be fitted to the vessels, in spite of previous claims they would be "conventional" in nature.
"From an official position, I shouldn't talk about any nuclear aspect," he said.
India is understood to be the junior partner in what is principally an Israeli initiative to develop the new hardware.
The Indian navy's existing fleet of 16 ageing submarines are principally Russian-built, and New Delhi is also negotiating with Moscow to lease another two nuclear-capable Russian vessels.
But Israel recently overtook Russia as the largest seller of weapons to India, with an annual trade of $2 billion, while India superseded Turkey as Israel's biggest client, accounting for almost half of Israel's total $4.2 billion military sales.
Nuclear capable
Intelligence sources suspect that an advanced submarine model Israel recently acquired from Germany is being fitted with a nuclear capability.
"The Israelis have a remarkable new submarine, and for what they claim is a conventional model, it is being kept unusually classified," said Rear Admiral Raja Menon, of the New Delhi based Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis.
Israeli submarines could plug India's perceived security gap
"I wouldn't put it past them to be seeking to fit the vessel with a capacity to fire nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. That would enable them to move their nuclear sites off land and into the sea, removing potential targets from their soil. That's a big advantage."
India has been engaged in a long-standing programme to develop nuclear-powered submarines, but its efforts have so far met with little success. Known in defence circles as Project 75, the plan to build a total 24 submarines has repeatedly run aground in recent years.
"India currently has a land and airborne nuclear deterrence capability, but its sea deterrence is missing," said Rahul Bedi of Jane's Defence India.
"India is well down the road in its programme to develop submarine-launched ballistic missiles that will ultimately be nuclear-capable, but the project has repeatedly stalled. India, like Israel, doesn't yet have submarine launched missiles, and it badly needs them."
Bedi added, "It makes sense for India to seek Israeli help in this area. Israel is into everything - aircraft, missiles, satellites, radars, submarines - and has sophisticated expertise that Russia cannot match. As Israel's largest client, India's military needs are catered for across the board. In terms of a timeframe on submarines, we are looking at two to three years."
Israeli confirmation
Stringent Israeli government policy forbids any discussion of its secretive nuclear weapons programme. But Indian deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani, who chose Israel for his first official visit in the summer of 2002 has openly advocated nuclear co-operation with Israel.
"I am aware of the deal to co-operate on production of new submarines, but I cannot give further details at this stage," said Yaron Mayer, spokesman for the Israeli embassy in New Delhi.
"The delegation that accompanied Prime Minister Sharon included a number of defence officials and arms manufacturing executives. Israel's navy is highly advanced, and includes submarines. There is great scope for co-operation between the two sides in a number of areas of defence."
News of the submarine deal was not made public during last week's round of confidential defence and intelligence talks.
How to build an apartheid wall
The wall is cutting through swathes of the West Bank
Meanwhile, Tel Aviv also offered to share its expertise on the construction of electronic border fencing to seal India off from nuclear rival Pakistan, despite international condemnation of the apartheid wall - Israel calls it a security fence - it is building through the occupied West Bank.
"The issue of building a fence with Israeli help is on the table, Chakrabarti confirmed."
Bilateral negotiations also resulted in confirmation of a further deal for at least three billion dollar Phalcon early warning radar systems, bringing large parts of Pakistani airspace under Indian surveillance. Israel is also seeking Indian investment in its $2.5 billion anti-ballistic missiles programme, pending approval from Washington.
Sharon's visit provoked a storm of protest among Muslim groups in India, who fear the emergence of a new and potentially anti-Islamic alliance between Israel's hardline Likud and India's ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which would spell the end of India's historic support for the Palestinian cause.
India's 140-strong Muslim population - the second largest in the world - has been living in a climate of fear ever since last year's communal riots in the western state of Gujarat, in which 2000 died.
Axis of abstraction
Israeli deputy prime minister Yosef Lapid rounded off his trip by claiming his country had forged an "unwritten and abstract axis" with India and the United States, in a bid to counter terrorism and bolster international security.
"India and Israel both feel vulnerable, with Israel fearing non-state actors and hostile neighbours, and India concerned over Pakistan"
Uday Bhaskar, Deputy Director of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis
India was profoundly grateful for Israel's willingness to step up arms sales when the US, UK and others imposed sanctions after India's May 1998 nuclear tests. Since then, India has sought to modernise its army - the world's fourth largest -with the kind of high-tech weaponry that Israel is developing.
"The nature of the weapons inventory sought by India makes Israel a key ally," said former Indian naval commodore Uday Bhaskar, deputy director of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis.
"With the technological advances we've seen in recent years, India needs the hardware to upgrade its capabilities. As specialists in electronic warfare and surveillance equipment, Israel could offer India the niche weapons it wants.
The strategic axis would also offer a counterbalance to the perceived threat of a China-Pakistan alliance, highlighted by the recent test flight of new Sino-Pak CF-1 fighter jets, said to rival US F16s.
"India and Israel both feel vulnerable, with Israel fearing non-state actors and hostile neighbours, and India concerned over Pakistan," said Bhaskar.
"Pakistan's refusal to sign up to a no first use nuclear policy means India will seek further safeguards. There is clearly a great deal of intelligence sharing on terrorism-related issues, including suspected infiltration from Pakistan. Militants have singled out Israel and India as number one targets. We are seeing a convergence of anxieties."
-------- russia
Russia Takes Back Uranium From Romania
U.S. Paid for Move to Avert Threat
By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 22, 2003; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43901-2003Sep21.html
MOSCOW, Sept. 21 -- Russia took back control of 30 pounds of weapons-grade uranium from an insecure Soviet-era nuclear reactor facility in Romania today, carrying out a long-planned secret operation that was paid for by the United States in a preemptive strike against the threat of nuclear terrorism.
The uranium -- potentially enough to make a nuclear bomb -- was taken from its storage site at the Pitesti Institute for Nuclear Research, west of Bucharest, Romania's capital, and flown tonight to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, where it will be converted into a form of uranium that cannot be used to make weapons, according to U.S. officials.
U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, whose department provided the $400,000 necessary for the operation, called it "a major accomplishment" for eliminating a terrorist threat posed by "one of the top sites that needs securing." During an interview on a visit to Moscow, he also welcomed the mission as an indicator of newly cooperative relations with Russia, which built dozens of research reactors in allied countries during the Cold War but had been reluctant to accept responsibility for such Soviet-era nuclear material.
Several outside experts said that today's move, while welcome, also underscored how slowly international authorities have moved to deal with an obvious terrorist threat. Little more than a year ago, the United States and Russia participated in the first such joint operation when 100 pounds of weapons-grade uranium was removed from an aging Soviet-built research reactor in Yugoslavia.
"I give them two cheers," said former Democratic senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, who with billionaire Ted Turner co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative group that put up $5 million last August to remove the weapons-grade uranium from the site near Belgrade. "But we just need to realize that the pace at which we're moving is not nearly rapid enough."
Following the Yugoslav operation last summer, State Department officials compiled a list of 24 other overseas reactors that use weapons-grade nuclear fuel and are considered vulnerable. Despite assurances of quick action, efforts to persuade host governments to surrender the uranium have progressed slowly, according to experts.
Also complicating matters has been a U.S. proposal that would spell out terms under which Russia would agree to receive fuel from Soviet-era research reactors built in other countries. Russia has not yet approved the agreement, according to Energy Department officials, and until it is signed, each operation like the one in Romania today will have to be negotiated separately.
"Even if we succeed at the current rate of once a year, it would take a quarter-century to get this done. Since 9/11 we don't have that kind of time," said Matthew Bunn, a Harvard University nuclear nonproliferation expert. He said there are more than 130 research reactors in 40 countries that use highly enriched uranium fuel like the kind in Romania -- a serious threat because of the vulnerability to theft. "Highly enriched uranium is the easiest type to make a bomb for terrorists," he said.
Several bills pending in Congress would establish a more comprehensive program to secure weapons-grade uranium at such vulnerable facilities. "If we spend about $50 million a year for five years, we could eliminate some of the most urgent nuclear terrorism threats we've faced," Bunn said.
In the interview, Abraham said he recognized that some critics would not be satisfied with the pace of cooperation with Russia on nonproliferation. "Naturally, there are going to be people who say, 'It's still not fast enough, you're not moving fast enough.' Sometimes it seems no matter how fast you move, someone will move the goal post."
In the operation today, eight canisters containing the 80 percent enriched uranium were transported to the Bucharest airport and loaded on a Russian IL-76 cargo plane as U.S. technical experts looked on. The Romanian weapons-grade uranium was targeted because there was a significant amount of it and because of the ease with which it could have been transported by a terrorist, U.S. officials said. Spokesmen for the Romanian and Russian governments could not be reached for comment tonight.
"You could throw it in the back of a truck and drive away with it," said Paul Longsworth, the Energy Department's deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation. Because it is "fresh fuel" that has not been irradiated in a reactor, the uranium could be carried off with relatively low risk to handlers, he said.
Longsworth said the operation had been planned for the last several months with the Romanians, the Russians and the International Atomic Energy Agency. To seal the deal with the Romanians, the United States agreed to help pay to convert the Romanian research reactor at Pitesti to handle non-weapons-grade uranium fuel. The Russians, meanwhile, won the transport contract and will be able to sell the recycled uranium once it is blended down to non-weapons grade at the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant, part of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy.
"It's win-win," said another senior U.S. energy official. "The Russians wanted the [highly enriched] uranium, the Romanians wanted a new [low-enriched uranium] core for their reactor and to be seen as helpful in the nonproliferation world, and we've wanted to get this done for a long time and remove this threat."
But Longsworth said Russia's delay in approving a broader agreement on take-backs poses an obstacle to future successes.
"We're really encouraging Russia to approve that agreement. Then we can start doing many, many more operations," he said. Added the other official, "We've been told by the Russians that they're finally at the last hurdle they need to jump over, but each last hurdle is followed by another one."
Staff writer Joby Warrick in Washington contributed to this report.
-------- us politics
Bush under pressure on Iraq
By RON HUTCHESON
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Mon, Sep. 22, 2003
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/6821495.htm
WASHINGTON - President Bush goes to the United Nations on Tuesday to seek help in Iraq on his terms, but his no-compromise stance could soften in the face of growing domestic and international pressure for U.N. involvement.
In a television interview that aired on the eve of his 10:30 a.m. EDT U.N. speech, Bush said he would offer no concessions to countries that wanted him to share power in Iraq in return for international assistance. He also said he "made the right decision" by ordering Iraq's invasion without U.N. backing.
But Bush's political standing has eroded considerably since his trip last year to the United Nations, when he challenged the organization to endorse the U.S.-led war. At that time, 70 percent of Americans said they approved of the president's performance in office.
A Gallup poll released Monday showed that Bush's approval rating has tumbled to 50 percent, the lowest since he took office and far below his peak 90 percent rating shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The new poll, conducted for CNN and USA Today, also indicated that support for Bush's handling of Iraq continues to evaporate. Only 50 percent of the respondents said they thought Iraq was worth going to war for, down from 63 percent in August.
"Iraq clearly was a factor behind the fall in Bush's job approval ratings," said Frank Newport, Gallup's editor in chief. "The economy was another factor."
Although the latest Gallup poll didn't ask about Bush's two-day U.N. visit, Newport said there was little doubt that most Americans favored a U.N. role in rebuilding the country.
"Before everything started in March, the public clearly wanted the U.N. involved. Now they're telling us the same thing," he said. "They wanted the U.N. involved all along."
White House officials downplayed the poll results.
"Americans are solidly behind this war, and they're solidly behind their president on this war," said Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser. "The images that are coming from Iraq are hard images to see. ... The large picture, though, is that we have a job to do in Iraq, we have a job to finish in Iraq, and this president is resolute, and we're going to finish it."
Congress also is pushing for U.N. involvement as the best hope for sharing the financial burden of Iraq's reconstruction. Lawmakers in both parties have expressed misgivings about the president's recent request for another $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan at a time when the country is headed for a record $475 billion budget deficit.
"With an $87 billion request, that's a thousand dollars for each Iraqi, man, woman, boy and girl. That's a lot of money," Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., complained at a Senate committee hearing Monday.
Internationally, Bush faces some of the same resistance he encountered when he launched the war. Although some critics of the war admittedly were awed by the swift U.S. military victory in Iraq, the nearly daily attacks on American troops and the continued chaos since then have given many foreign leaders the satisfaction of being able to say, "I told you so."
"The situation that is developing in Iraq is the best confirmation that Russia was right," Russian President Vladimir Putin told Western journalists in a weekend question-and-answer session. Russia opposed the war.
France and Germany, the leading opponents of war last winter, are taking the lead in seeking concessions from Bush as the price for their postwar involvement. Both want the president to surrender control over Iraq's reconstruction to the United Nations, followed by a quick turnover of political control to Iraqis.
Like Bush, French President Jacques Chirac staked out a hard-line position before the U.N. negotiations. He insisted that the United Nations endorse the "immediate" transfer of sovereignty from U.S. hands to the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, which would be largely symbolic, followed by the gradual transfer of power to Iraqis over six to nine months.
U.S. officials say a successful transition from dictatorship to democracy would take much longer.
"The French plan, which would somehow transfer sovereignty to an unelected group of people, just isn't workable," Rice said Monday at a White House briefing.
Rice said Bush would issue a "call to action" for international involvement in Iraq without spelling out a specific role for the United Nations. She said those details would be worked out in negotiations with other countries.
Some signs point toward compromise.
At a weekend meeting in Berlin with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a staunch U.S. ally in Iraq, Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said they wanted to move beyond past disagreements over Iraq. Blair signaled his willingness to reprise his role as an intermediary between Bush and his European critics.
In an interview last week with The Wall Street Journal, Schroeder said Germany would help train Iraqi police and military personnel even without a U.N. resolution. In an interview Monday with The New York Times, Chirac said France would help train Iraqi soldiers and police if an acceptable U.N. resolution passed, and while he said he couldn't imagine sending French troops to Iraq, he added that "everything could change."
Putin told Western journalists he would consider sending Russian troops to Iraq, saying he's willing to cut a deal with Bush when they huddle this weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat. Putin called Iraq a "can-do situation" but didn't name the price he might seek from the president for his cooperation.
"There are strong incentives to find a compromise," said Joseph Siegle, an expert on postwar reconstruction at the Council on Foreign Relations. "All of the sides recognize the cost of screwing this up."
----
Bremer Urges Approval of $87 Billion for Iraq and Afghanistan
September 22, 2003
New York Times
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/politics/22CND-COST.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 - The Bush administration told key senators today that the $87 billion in extra money that it wants for military and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan would provide humane and generous aid like the Marshall Plan, yet be a shrewd investment in the security of the United States as well.
The $87 billion would be "an important element in the global war on terrorism," L. Paul Bremer III, the civilian administrator of Iraq, told the Senate Appropriations Committee. But his comments immediately drew heavy criticism as well as strong support.
Mr. Bremer reached back into history in trying to persuade committee members that approving the $87 billion supplemental appropriation would be wise as well as kind. Recalling the ruin of Germany that gave rise to Nazism after World War I, he said that approving the extra funds quickly would help create "an Iraq that terrorists will flee rather than flock to."
Of the $87 billion, military operations in Iraq would account for $50.5 billion. Military operations in Afghanistan would take up $11 billion, Iraqi reconstruction $20.3 billion, and Afghanistan reconstruction $800 million.
The committee's chairman, Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, quickly signaled his support. "I believe this supplemental is necessary to protect the lives of our people who are there now in Iraq," he said. "That includes our troops, as well as Americans who will be working there. We need to help rebuild their infrastructure, as you have said, and get the Iraqi people back to work."
The committee's senior Democrat, Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, just as quickly voiced his deep dissatisfaction with the administration's approach.
"The president's request for an additional $87 billion for the military and for the reconstruction of Iraq is eye-popping - E-Y-E - eye-popping,"Mr. Byrd said. "This request comes at a time when the American people are expressing serious reservations about the president's go-it-alone occupation of Iraq. The American people are asking questions about the reconstruction plan. They are questioning the wisdom of a policy that has our soldiers serving as sitting ducks in an Iraqi shooting gallery."
Mr. Byrd said he recognized the need for quick action on the money. "But this does not shield us from the responsibility to ask questions," he said. "This administration, I have to say, has not been - has not wanted to ask questions, not wanted to answer questions."
Mr. Byrd has been the most vocal Democratic critic of the Iraqi campaign. Just as important, he is an acknowledged master of Senate procedures, so he is in a position to be a stumbling block for the White House if he chooses.
Several other Democratic lawmakers have said that while they expect to vote for the $87 billion appropriation when the debate is done, they believe that the Bush administration has been guilty of bad planning and a lack of candor - or worse - in its policy on Iraq.
Democrats have also said they will watch closely to see what is done with the money. Mr. Bremer took the opportunity to address that issue in advance.
"This money will be spent with prudent transparency," he said in his opening statement. That may have been an attempt to deflate assertions that businesses close to the Bush administration - like the Halliburton Company, which was headed by Dick Cheney before he became vice president - are getting preferential treatment on contracts to rebuild Iraq.
----
Bush under pressure on Iraq
By RON HUTCHESON
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Mon, Sep. 22, 2003
WASHINGTON - President Bush goes to the United Nations on Tuesday to seek help in Iraq on his terms, but his no-compromise stance could soften in the face of growing domestic and international pressure for U.N. involvement.
In a television interview that aired on the eve of his 10:30 a.m. EDT U.N. speech, Bush said he would offer no concessions to countries that wanted him to share power in Iraq in return for international assistance. He also said he "made the right decision" by ordering Iraq's invasion without U.N. backing.
But Bush's political standing has eroded considerably since his trip last year to the United Nations, when he challenged the organization to endorse the U.S.-led war. At that time, 70 percent of Americans said they approved of the president's performance in office.
A Gallup poll released Monday showed that Bush's approval rating has tumbled to 50 percent, the lowest since he took office and far below his peak 90 percent rating shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The new poll, conducted for CNN and USA Today, also indicated that support for Bush's handling of Iraq continues to evaporate. Only 50 percent of the respondents said they thought Iraq was worth going to war for, down from 63 percent in August.
"Iraq clearly was a factor behind the fall in Bush's job approval ratings," said Frank Newport, Gallup's editor in chief. "The economy was another factor."
Although the latest Gallup poll didn't ask about Bush's two-day U.N. visit, Newport said there was little doubt that most Americans favored a U.N. role in rebuilding the country.
"Before everything started in March, the public clearly wanted the U.N. involved. Now they're telling us the same thing," he said. "They wanted the U.N. involved all along."
White House officials downplayed the poll results.
"Americans are solidly behind this war, and they're solidly behind their president on this war," said Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser. "The images that are coming from Iraq are hard images to see. ... The large picture, though, is that we have a job to do in Iraq, we have a job to finish in Iraq, and this president is resolute, and we're going to finish it."
Congress also is pushing for U.N. involvement as the best hope for sharing the financial burden of Iraq's reconstruction. Lawmakers in both parties have expressed misgivings about the president's recent request for another $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan at a time when the country is headed for a record $475 billion budget deficit.
"With an $87 billion request, that's a thousand dollars for each Iraqi, man, woman, boy and girl. That's a lot of money," Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., complained at a Senate committee hearing Monday.
Internationally, Bush faces some of the same resistance he encountered when he launched the war. Although some critics of the war admittedly were awed by the swift U.S. military victory in Iraq, the nearly daily attacks on American troops and the continued chaos since then have given many foreign leaders the satisfaction of being able to say, "I told you so."
"The situation that is developing in Iraq is the best confirmation that Russia was right," Russian President Vladimir Putin told Western journalists in a weekend question-and-answer session. Russia opposed the war.
France and Germany, the leading opponents of war last winter, are taking the lead in seeking concessions from Bush as the price for their postwar involvement. Both want the president to surrender control over Iraq's reconstruction to the United Nations, followed by a quick turnover of political control to Iraqis.
Like Bush, French President Jacques Chirac staked out a hard-line position before the U.N. negotiations. He insisted that the United Nations endorse the "immediate" transfer of sovereignty from U.S. hands to the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, which would be largely symbolic, followed by the gradual transfer of power to Iraqis over six to nine months.
U.S. officials say a successful transition from dictatorship to democracy would take much longer.
"The French plan, which would somehow transfer sovereignty to an unelected group of people, just isn't workable," Rice said Monday at a White House briefing.
Rice said Bush would issue a "call to action" for international involvement in Iraq without spelling out a specific role for the United Nations. She said those details would be worked out in negotiations with other countries.
Some signs point toward compromise.
At a weekend meeting in Berlin with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a staunch U.S. ally in Iraq, Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said they wanted to move beyond past disagreements over Iraq. Blair signaled his willingness to reprise his role as an intermediary between Bush and his European critics.
In an interview last week with The Wall Street Journal, Schroeder said Germany would help train Iraqi police and military personnel even without a U.N. resolution. In an interview Monday with The New York Times, Chirac said France would help train Iraqi soldiers and police if an acceptable U.N. resolution passed, and while he said he couldn't imagine sending French troops to Iraq, he added that "everything could change."
Putin told Western journalists he would consider sending Russian troops to Iraq, saying he's willing to cut a deal with Bush when they huddle this weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat. Putin called Iraq a "can-do situation" but didn't name the price he might seek from the president for his cooperation.
"There are strong incentives to find a compromise," said Joseph Siegle, an expert on postwar reconstruction at the Council on Foreign Relations. "All of the sides recognize the cost of screwing this up."
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
U.S. Investigating Afghan Civilian Death Report
Mon September 22, 2003
(Reuters)
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=NHQZYTJCMFUN0CRBAEZSFEY?type=topNews&storyID=3485452
KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S. military said Monday it was investigating charges that U.S.-led forces killed civilians while attacking Taliban guerrillas in southern Afghanistan last week.
Afghan officials have said that at least eight Afghan nomads, including women and children, were killed in a U.S. air strike that killed two Taliban guerrillas, including commander Mohammad Gul Neyazi, in Zabul province last Wednesday.
"The allegation that coalition forces caused noncombatant casualties in Zabul province last week is under investigation," said a statement from the U.S. headquarters at Bagram, north of Kabul.
"The coalition takes every precaution to prevent noncombatant casualties and collateral damage and takes these reports of potential casualties seriously," it said. "We investigate all incidents of possible noncombatant casualties."
The statement said no further information was available pending the results of the investigation.
A statement from the military at the weekend said it was "highly confident" that only combatants died in Wednesday's raid that killed Neyazi.
But Afghan officials said a bomb had landed on the nomads' tent and that Taliban guerrillas were known to have taken refuge with nomad families in the area in the past.
The military said last week that air strikes by U.S.-led forces had killed 11 Taliban fighters over the previous three days in Zabul and neighboring Kandahar province.
Violence has plagued southern Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001 and has worsened markedly in recent weeks.
Since the start of August, more than 280 people have been killed and scores wounded across the country, among them civilians, Afghan aid workers, police and militiamen, three U.S. soldiers and many Taliban guerrillas.
----
Taliban Leaders Reportedly Meet to Reorganize
Associated Press
Monday, September 22, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44333-2003Sep21.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 21 -- Taliban leader Mohammad Omar has met with other leaders of the ousted militia group to reorganize their resurgent campaign against U.S. forces and the Afghan government, a purported spokesman for the group said today.
"Over the last few days we established a shura [council] under the leadership of Mullah Omar," the spokesman, Sayed Hamid Agha, said in a statement read during a telephone call to the Associated Press.
"The shura appointed four committees -- military, political, cultural and economic -- to regulate all relevant matters," he said.
-------- arms
US Air Force B-2 Bomber Drops 80 JDAMS in Historic Test
St. Louis -
Sep 22, 2003
GPS News, Space Daily
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/gps-03y.html
Boeing and the U.S. Air Force successfully completed their first 80 guided weapon flight test demonstration of the MK-82 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). The drop took place from a B-2A bomber on September 10 at the Utah Test & Training Range, Hill Air Force Base, Utah.
The B-2A aircraft, based at Edwards AFB, Calif., flew to the test site and released the 80 weapons in a single 22-second pass. The weapons were released from four Boeing-designed and built "smart" bomb racks, flew their planned flight paths and attacked all 80 targets.
"Placing maximum steel on the target is what we get paid to do as Air Force bomber pilots and that happened today in a big way," said Major William Power, 419th Flight Test Squadron B-2A project pilot. "Dropping 80 JDAM MK-82s in less than 30 seconds, with each attacking their own individual targets, is truly revolutionary."
JDAM is a low-cost guidance kit that converts existing unguided free-fall bombs into accurately guided "smart" weapons. Boeing produces kits for 2,000 and 1,000-pound warheads and recently completed development for the 500-pound JDAM. The U.S. Air Force has awarded Boeing a production contract to produce the first 5,800 MK-82 JDAMs which will be available in 2004.
"This historic drop clearly demonstrates the incredible capability of the MK-82 JDAM," said Mike Marks, vice president and general manager of Air Force fighter, bomber and weapons programs, for Boeing. "This smaller warhead allows the warfighter to increase the number of weapons and subsequent targets while reducing collateral damage."
The B-2 flight test program began in February 2003 as part of a separate contract to integrate the MK-82 JDAM and concluded with the 80-weapon demonstration.s
-------- china
U.S. Navy Guided - Missile Ships Visit China
September 22, 2003
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-china-usa-navy.html
BEIJING (Reuters) - Two U.S. guided-missile ships docked on Monday in the port of Zhanjiang, home of China's southern fleet, as part of growing Sino-U.S. military exchanges.
The visit, by cruiser USS Cowpens and frigate USS Vandegrift, was the first to the southern port by U.S. Navy vessels, a U.S. spokesman said.
U.S. ships have made port calls in other mainland Chinese ports this year.
``These exchanges are helping to prevent misunderstandings in the future. We operate in close proximity to each other, our two navies,'' Lieutenant Commander Mike Brown said.
The ships, with a total of more than 600 crew on board, are part of the USS Kitty Hawk's carrier group based in Yokosuka, Japan.
``We are strengthening the bonds of friendship between the two countries and I think we are fostering an environment that is encouraging greater cooperation between the two countries,'' Brown, spokesman for Japan-based Carrier Group Five, said.
In April 2001, a Chinese fighter and a U.S. navy spy plane collided off the coast of the southern Chinese island of Hainan, souring relations just after President Bush took office.
Sino-U.S. military-to-military relations were also strained two years earlier when a U.S. plane on a NATO mission accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
Brown said Chinese port calls by U.S. ships were increasing and that was a sign the relationship was improving.
``The fact that we're able to come to this port is a good indication that I think those days are behind us and I think this is very positive for both of our navies,'' he said.
``The more they learn about us, the more we learn about them, the less we are going to have opportunities to be misunderstood or have any incidents at sea,'' he added.
The two ships will be docked in Zhanjiang, 350 km (220 miles) west of Hong Kong, until September 26.
----
China rejects US sanctions
Monday September 22, 2003
News International, Pakistan
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/sep2003-daily/22-09-2003/world/w8.htm
BEIJING: China on Sunday voiced strong opposition to the US move to impose sanctions on the Chinese government and a state-run military firm for allegedly selling advanced missile technology to an unnamed country.
"We express our strong opposition to the US manner of constantly implementing sanctions on others based on their own (US) domestic law," foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan said in a statement.
"China strongly opposes the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the tools to transport them. Chinese law does not permit any Chinese entity or person to engage in activities of proliferation," he said.
Washington slapped the sanctions on Friday. The purchasing country was not named but the company, China North Industries Incorporated, has been penalised by the United States in the past and, as recently as in July, for such sales to Iran. Some of Friday's sanctions imposed under the US Arms Control Export Act also apply to the Chinese government, the State Department said in a notice published in the Federal Register.
-------- europe
Blair 'backs plan' to give EU army more power
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and Kate Connolly
22/09/2003
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$RKE4E4LX3GRDJQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2003/09/22/weur22.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/09/22/ixnewstop.html
Tony Blair has agreed to a major shift in British defence policy, backing Franco-German plans to give the Euro army the means to plan and carry out missions outside the Nato command structure.
At a mini-summit with President Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Gerhard Schroder over the weekend, the Prime Minister agreed to a joint paper sketching out proposals for an autonomous military force.
The document, obtained by the German magazine Der Spiegel, states: "We are together convinced that the EU must be able to plan and conduct operations without the backing of Nato assets and Nato capability."
The new operational headquarters would have a staff of 40 or 50 officers.
The agreement would appear to mark a watershed in European defence. When Mr Blair first launched the Euro-army plan with the French at St Malo in 1998, he intended it to be subordinate to the Atlantic alliance.
The maiden mission of the EU's Rapid Reaction Force, in Macedonia, currently reports through the Nato chain of command, anchored at Nato's operational headquarters in Mons.
The EU has its own military staff in Brussels but it cannot yet conduct day-to-day operations.
Last April, at the height of the Iraq war, France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg held a joint summit proposing the creation of an autonomous operational headquarters in Brussels. The idea was dismissed by Downing Street at the time.
At a press conference in Berlin on Saturday, Mr Blair played down the long-term threat to Nato but said: "I think we can see now that European defence is actually taking place, is engaged in real activity on the ground in different parts of the world."
But the Government has not released a copy of the joint trilateral paper.
Brig Geoffrey Van Orden, MEP, the Tory defence spokesman and a former top Nato official, said Mr Blair had hoped to win support from France and Germany in tackling the immediate crisis in Iraq by making concessions over the basic structure of EU defence.
"Blair always claimed EU defence had to be grounded in Nato," he said. "It was his red-line because Nato's operational capability goes to the heart of the alliance. Clearly he has now backed down on this whole issue."
A statement by the German government appeared to present the deal as a major concession by Britain. But Downing Street flatly denied that Britain had abandoned its core policy of linkage to Nato.
In Berlin, a British official said: "This is spin from the chancellery which has not been agreed with us. We're all for a European defence policy but it has to be compatible with Nato."
-------- iraq
Occupation Watch Bulletin
September 22, 2003
From: lists@occupationwatch.org
Thanks to his Sunday afternoon interview on Meet the Press last week, we now know where Dick Cheney's undisclosed location is: the twilight zone. Nothing else can account for his bizarre exposition of discredited "facts" about Iraq. Flogging dead horse after dead horse in a vain attempt to stir one into some zombie-like semblance of life, his assertions took on an almost surreal quality. The press debunkings followed quickly; read one here. http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=953
Daniel Williams chronicles Baghdad's descent into anarchy as he recounts the fate of one of the many kidnapping victims in the lawless Iraqi capital. http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=912
Lest we be misled by the carefully-crafted media images of gung-ho American troops worshipping Bush on his latest military base excursion, Tim Predmore's article "We are facing death in Iraq for no reason‚" provides a healthy corrective. It shows that more and more US soldiers are waking up to the reality of who AWOL Bush is and the premise of lies on which the administration's "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was built. http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=967
Almost every day brings another tale of US troops opening fire whenever they feel threatened. This behavior is exacting a heavy toll on Iraqi civilians and the resultant bitterness is intensifying the resistance movement in a way that may ultimately prove a greater threat to the occupation than anything cooked up by Osama or Saddam. This Associated Press article discusses some of the more recent incidents. http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=1012
Smell that? Do you smell that? Quagmire,folks. Nothing else in the world smells like that. Vietnam comparisons hang thick in the air this week as the occupation unfolds. http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=964
As people start to shake themselves awake and ask "where are we going and how did we get here?" David Phillips' insider account of Ahmad Chalabi's influence on events provides one part of the answer. http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=1019
----
U.S. Drive for Iraq Help Suffers Double Setback
Mon September 22, 2003
By Paul Taylor
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=3488909
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. efforts to enlist more countries to share the burden of occupying Iraq suffered a double blow on Monday when a suicide bomber attacked the U.N. compound in Baghdad and two potential troop contributors set conditions.
The bomber killed an Iraqi guard and wounded 19 people on the eve of the annual U.N. General Assembly session, at which President Bush will urge skeptical world leaders to provide money and troops to help pacify and rebuild Iraq.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan voiced dismay at the deteriorating security situation after the second attack in just over a month on the compound and said U.N. officials were reassessing the world body's posture in Baghdad.
"We need a secure environment to be able to operate," Annan told reporters. "We will go forward, but of course if it continues to deteriorate, then our operations will be handicapped considerably."
The U.N. Staff Union urged him to withdraw all staff until Iraq was safer and aid workers better protected. On Aug 19, a truck bomb devastated the same complex, killing U.N. special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others.
Muslim U.S. allies Pakistan and Turkey both spelled out conditions for sending forces to Iraq, while France repeated its call for an early transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, to whom Washington is looking for a major contingent of peacekeepers, told The New York Times there was strong public opposition in his country.
That would only change if "the United Nations, Muslim countries, Arab counties and Iraqis themselves are asking for Muslim troops," he said.
The United States is working on a new U.N. resolution aimed at attracting wider support for postwar reconstruction, but critics of its invasion are pressing for more concessions.
Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters Washington was in no hurry. "There's no sense of urgency here because we have a pretty good idea of what such a resolution would say and there's pretty good support for a resolution."
TURKEY WANTS ASSURANCES
The United State agreed to give Turkey an $8.5 billion loan to bolster its economy and offset costs incurred due to the war, even though Ankara refused to let American troops invade Iraq from Turkish soil.
The aid was conditional on "cooperating with the United States in Iraq" but not explicitly on a troop contribution.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told Reuters the Turks were not yet satisfied with U.S. responses to Kurdish PKK guerrillas in northern Iraq and wanted assurances of action before they decide whether to send peacekeepers.
French President Jacques Chirac, who spearheaded opposition to the war, told The New York Times ahead of a meeting with Bush on Tuesday that France would not send peacekeepers and wanted sovereignty handed over fast to an Iraqi authority.
"There will be no concrete solution unless sovereignty is transferred to Iraq as quickly as possible," Chirac said. He suggested that actual power could be handed over gradually over a period of six to nine months.
Powell has dismissed the French position as "totally unrealistic."
Chirac said France was not thinking of vetoing the new U.S. resolution. His closest anti-war European ally, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, will meet Bush for ice-breaker talks on Wednesday. He is expected to offer limited help to train Iraqi soldiers and police, but no peacekeepers.
Members of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council were in New York and Washington lobbying for international recognition. The council's current president, Ahmed Chalabi, is due to address the U.N. session next week.
World leaders debated ways to fight two other global scourges -- AIDS and terrorism -- but the unresolved problems in Iraq and the Middle East formed a gloomy backdrop.
-------- israel / palestine
ISRAEL VASTLY STRENGTHENED IN WAKE OF IRAQ WAR
Mon, 22 Sep 2003
Middle East Newsline
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2003/september/09_23_1.html
TEL AVIV [MENL] -- Israel's conventional military capability has increased sharply in wake of the U.S. defeat of Iraq and can afford to reduce the armored force of the Jewish state.
Leading Israeli strategists said the U.S. victory over the regime of President Saddam Hussein pointed to the superiority of Western platforms and doctrine over that employed by Iraq and many of its Arab neighbors. The strategists said Israel -- with powerful capabilities in command, control, communications, computers and intelligence -- could achieve a similar victory over neighboring Syria, regarded as the chief adversary of the Jewish state.
"In the next few years, Iraq will not be able to build a military that will pose a threat to Israel," Shlomo Brom, a senior researcher for the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, said. "This [U.S. war against Iraq] campaign has stressed Israel's conventional superiority."
Brom and other strategists made this determination on Sunday during the release of two studies by the Jaffee Center on the war in Iraq and the Middle East military balance. The strategists recommended that Israel reduce its military, particularly the armored corps.
-------- latin america
Hispanic Soldiers Die in Greater Numbers in Iraq
by Miriam Kagan
Monday, September 22, 2003
by the Inter Press Service
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0922-02.htm
WASHINGTON - One of the first U.S. soldiers to die in Iraq, Jose Gutierrez, was an orphaned Guatemalan who at the time of his death was not even an American citizen.
What can we say of the young Latino men who sacrificed their lives in Iraq? That they fought without knowing their enemy, played their role as pawns in a geopolitical chess game devised by arrogant bureaucrats, and died simply trying to get an education; trying to have a fair shot at the American Dream that has eluded the vast majority of Latinos for over a century and a half.
Jorge Mariscal, a professor at the University of California, San Diego As U.S. casualties in Iraq continue to mount, so does the worry in the country's Latino community that its children are dying in unusually high numbers and are being lured into dangerous service with targeted recruiting by the Armed Forces.
Many in the community worry that Hispanic men and women are being disproportionately exposed to risk and sent to the front lines.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, while Latinos make up 9.5 percent of the actively enlisted forces, they are over-represented in the categories that get the most dangerous assignments -- infantry, gun crews and seamanship -- and make up over 17.5 percent of the front lines.
These worries have been exacerbated during the recent conflict in Iraq. As of Aug. 28, Department of Defense (DOD) statistics show a casualty rate of more than 13 percent for people of Hispanic background serving in Iraq.
The casualty rate for Hispanics during the Iraqi engagement has been ''unfortunate and tragic'', says Teresa Gutierrez, of Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER).
''The people who are fighting the war are youths who cannot find jobs or afford university fees because there is an economic draft in the army that is particularly relevant to Latinos,'' she told IPS.
Recent census numbers reveal why the U.S. government might be interested in specifically targeting Latinos.
According to the 2000 Census, Latinos have surpassed African Americans as the largest minority group in the country. Hispanics now comprise 12.5 percent of the U.S. population, and are the fastest growing minority.
In 2000, one in seven 18-year-olds was of Hispanic origin, a number that is expected to climb to more than one in five during the next 15 years, found the census.
Also, more than 50 percent of the Hispanic population (almost 18 million people) lived in Texas and California, states that are historically large recruitment centers for the Armed Forces.
While DOD officials denied knowledge of any program specifically targeted at Latinos, past actions by the U.S. government paint a different story.
According to 'The Army Times' newspaper, in 2001 Army Brigadier General Bernardo C. Negrete told a DOD audience, ''we've made significant improvement by going after Hispanics in a manner we've never done before''.
''We're giving our recruiters goals to meet in order to bring the Hispanic population in the Army on par with the general population in the country.''
Negrete's plans called for achieving that parity by 2006.
Another tactic suspected of targeting Hispanics is an executive order signed by U.S. President George W. Bush in July 2002, expediting naturalization for aliens and non-citizen nationals who serve in active-duty status during the administration's ''war on terrorism''.
The order, effective for all military personnel who enlisted after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, allows non-citizens to apply for citizenship immediately upon arrival at their first military base, rather than having to wait the usual three to four years.
According to Bush, persons ''serving honorably in active-duty status in the Armed Forces'', do a service to their new country so they should be granted citizenship more quickly than via regular channels.
DOD numbers reveal 35,000 non-citizens currently in the active Armed Forces, 15,000 of whom became eligible for expedited naturalization under the executive order.
Department officials strenuously denied that the order was targeted at the Hispanic population.
While two army recruiters in the Washington area denied using the expedited citizenship order as a selling point during recruitment pitches, both told IPS that they mention the ''benefit'' as one part of the recruitment package.
But both recruiters insisted that no potential recruits had asked for expedited citizenship and that Latinos who express interest in joining the military do so for ''patriotic reasons''.
One recruiter did say that since the executive order was passed his office had seen a sharp increase in applications from people of Hispanic background. But both recruiters denied targeting Latinos, and said they were unaware of any policies specifically targeted at that group.
A Defense official told IPS that while he was not ''aware of any particular effort to recruit any particular ethnic group, there are programs that appeal to certain groups''.
Gutierez said that any DOD official who denies the existence of targeted ethnic recruiting needs only to ''check their own website and promotional materials''.
While only 12 percent of Latinos in the United States ever qualify for a university education, she lamented, many are recruited into the Armed Forces with promises of financial help and job security.
According to Gutierrez, once recruited, many qualified applicants stay in the military, foregoing college.
''What can we say of the young Latino men who sacrificed their lives in Iraq?" asked Jorge Mariscal, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, in the Apr. 18, 2003 issue of 'Counterpunch'.
"That they fought without knowing their enemy, played their role as pawns in a geopolitical chess game devised by arrogant bureaucrats, and died simply trying to get an education; trying to have a fair shot at the American Dream that has eluded the vast majority of Latinos for over a century and a half.''
-------- mideast
Pakistan, Palestinians Hit Indian, Israeli 'Terror'
Mon Sep 22, 2003
(Reuters)
By Irwin Arieff
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&ncid=586&e=3&u=/nm/20030922/wl_nm/security_summit_dc
UNITED NATIONS - Pakistan and the Palestinians upset an anti-terrorism summit on Monday, accusing India and Israel of "state terrorism" that could justify Muslims engaging in guerrilla warfare against them.
"State terrorism targets people seeking freedom from foreign occupation -- as in Palestine and Kashmir," Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said.
"There should be no selective application of the international norms and standards against terrorism," he told a day-long conference of world leaders at a New York hotel.
So long as India "persists in its violent suppression of the Kashmiri people, they have a legitimate right to resist Indian occupation," Musharraf said. "Equating their freedom struggle with terrorism is a travesty."
"We are ready for dialogue. Now it is India's call. It should respond positively," he said.
Musharraf's remarks were echoed by Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, who told the conference that armed struggle against Israel was justified by its use of "state terrorism" against Palestinians.
India did not attend the summit and had no immediate reaction, but Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom lamented that Shaath had chosen to blame Israel "rather than fight our common enemy, terrorism."
More than 20 world leaders gathered at the conference only hours after a second attack in weeks on U.N. headquarters in Baghdad killed a security guard and wounded 19 people.
The first attack on Aug. 19 killed 22 people including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N. mission head in Iraq.
The summit, convened two years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, opened on the eve of a two-week 191-nation U.N. General Assembly, expected to focus on terrorism and post-war Iraq.
President Bush has made the war on terrorism his top international priority but did not send a senior administration official to the summit. The United States was represented by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar.
U.S. officials said Bush would not be in New York until Tuesday while Powell was busy with a U.N. special session on AIDS.
Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, said the top priority in the war against terrorism must be to keep nuclear, biological and chemical arms out of the hands of militants who could use them in suicide attacks.
Musharraf dismissed the idea that a "militant Islam" was at the root of terrorism. "There are only some 'militant Muslims' -- as there are militant Hindus, Christians and Jews," he said.
"Most of the political disputes of our times afflict Islamic peoples and nations," he said. "Religious extremism and militancy have risen because these conflicts have been allowed to fester. There is a feeling in the Muslim world that Islam is being targeted."
Most of the world leaders addressing the conference called on the international community to seek out the root causes of terrorism and warned that torture, assassination and accidental civilian deaths could strengthen the militants. "Terrorism will only be defeated if we act to solve the political disputes and long-standing conflicts which generate support for it. If we do not, we shall find ourselves acting as a recruiting sergeant for the very terrorists we seek to suppress," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.
----
Last American Combat Troops Quit Saudi Arabia
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.
September 22, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/international/middleeast/22SAUD.html?ei=1&en=e6a6c4fcc65c604b&ex=1065204114&pagewanted=print&position=
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 18 - The last few American combat troops pulled out of the Prince Sultan Air Base here earlier this month, officially closing the Persian Gulf headquarters used by the Air Force during both Iraq wars and concluding a nearly 13-year run of extensive United States military operations in Saudi Arabia.
The withdrawal signaled the end of a long strategic arrangement, mutually beneficial until it fell victim to tensions resulting from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, in which 15 of 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. Since then, the countries' fragile diplomatic relations have undergone considerable strain - only worsened in recent months by the American military presence in the kingdom, American and Saudi officials said here this week.
As one American diplomatic official based in the region put it, "on both sides, actually, the alliance had become a little bit of poison, and both sides were glad to see it end."
Nearly 500 advisers now constitute the only American military presence left in a country that during the 1991 Persian Gulf war had as many as 550,000 American troops at several sites. The advisers are helping to train the Saudi National Guard.
The Prince Sultan base, which at the height of the war this spring housed 10,000 American troops and 200 planes, has now been supplanted as the Middle East's main American military air operations center by Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
This last phase of the American departure from the base occurred with almost no fanfare, attracting only minor mention in the Saudi press. "It was as if they were never here," a senior Saudi official said. "They left very quietly."
The drastically reduced American profile could simplify the government's position among Saudis who espouse Osama bin Laden's contention that the American military foothold was an affront to the kingdom's sovereignty. For years, the American presence not far from Islam's two holiest sites, at Mecca and Medina, has provided Al Qaeda with an important rallying cry.
Partly for this reason, members of Saudi Arabia's royal family had rarely acknowledged the large number of American troops who used the base as a launching pad for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. About 50 miles southeast of here, the sprawling high-security installation does not appear on most Saudi maps and is marked on a barren desert road by an unassuming Arabic sign.
For the Americans, particularly the pilots who flew thousands of missions from the base, assignment to the 363rd Air Expeditionary Wing was difficult. Late last month, the expeditionary wing was deactivated. "They came out of here hating the place," the American diplomatic official said. "The missions were often dangerous, and the Saudis set a lot of restrictions on the flights."
In part, Pentagon officials say, the shift is a logical outgrowth of the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq. Thirteen years after it began, the officials say, the American base's original Iraqi mission had been accomplished.
In 1990, after Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saudi leaders asked the United States to deploy troops here. At the end of the 1991 war, thousands stayed on, many stationed at the base to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 - the no-flight zone over Iraq. But in 2001, the Saudi government prohibited the United States from originating airstrikes against Afghanistan from the base. This rankled American military commanders.
Similarly, earlier this year, Saudi Arabia declined to join the allied forces for the war on Iraq. In the weeks leading to the war, the Saudis banned American airstrikes from the base and said they did not want American aircraft to use Saudi airspace to attack Iraq. The Saudi government also tried to curtail news reports that American Special Operations forces were using other remote Saudi desert bases for attacks against Iraq, including one in Arar not far from the Iraqi border.
By the beginning of the war in March, approximately 286,000 flight missions enforcing the no-flight zone had been completed from Prince Sultan Air Base, Pentagon officials said.
On April 30, one day before President Bush announced the successful conclusion of the military operation in Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and his Saudi Arabian counterpart, Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, announced that the American military mission in the kingdom would end late this summer. "It is now a safer region because of the change of regime in Iraq," Mr. Rumsfeld said that day.
Two weeks later, on May 12, three truck bombs exploded, nearly simultaneously, at Western compounds here, killing 35 people, including 8 Americans. The bombings were eventually linked to Al Qaeda.
Since the bombings here in May, the Saudis say they have worked hard to combat terrorism inside the kingdom, detaining more than 200 people, killing nearly two dozen suspects in shootouts with police officials and breaking up at least six Qaeda cells. The Saudi authorities also say they have seized more than 25 tons of explosives and weapons.
Meanwhile, the American authorities say, the Saudis have embarked on a new era of cooperation on counterterrorism investigations and inquiries into the financing of terrorism through Islamic charitable organizations.
At the base on Aug. 26, about 100 American engineers and other military personnel attended a brief ceremony to mark the end of the American mission here.
"The mission thrived and prospered here, and I believe our legacy will live on," said Col. James Moschgat, the commander of the 363rd Air Expeditionary Wing, according to the Pentagon. "It's bittersweet, but it's time to go."
-------- nato
Dutch Foreign Minister to Become NATO Leader
September 22, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-NATO-Leadership.html
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- NATO selected Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer as the alliance's new secretary general Monday, picking a diplomat-turned-politician to help ease tensions between the United States and key European allies over the Iraq war.
After a nine-month search, ambassadors from the 19 NATO nations agreed on De Hoop Scheffer to replace Britain's Lord Robertson, whose four-year term ends on Jan. 1.
De Hoop Scheffer, 55, showed his diplomatic skills earlier this year during the debate over Iraq as his government supported the U.S.-led war but avoided antagonizing France, Germany and other European opponents of the effort to oust Saddam Hussein.
``He has an excellent perception of the different sensibilities on both sides of the Atlantic, that's why he is particularly well placed to promote the European and trans-Atlantic dimensions of NATO,'' said Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel.
The Dutchman's main rival for the position was Canadian Finance Minister John Manley, who failed to muster support from European nations reluctant to relinquish their traditional hold on the secretary-general's post.
De Hoop Scheffer supports his country's traditional role as a supporter of both European unity and a strong Atlantic alliance -- a position that also helped his candidacy.
``He is convinced of the importance of strong relations between the United States and Europe,'' said Fred van Staden, head of the Clingendael Institute for Strategic Studies in The Hague.
``He is the perfect figure to iron out creases in the Atlantic alliance.''
De Hoop Scheffer as a diplomat to the Dutch mission to NATO from 1978-1980 and served as personal secretary to four Dutch foreign ministers after his election to parliament in 1986.
He became leader of the center-right Christian Democratic party, but a perceived dull image failed to ignite public support and he stepped down before 2002 elections.
His understated manner will mark a contrast with Robertson, a Scottish former minister in the Labor government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair who calls his approach to dealing with allied governments ``diplomatic thuggery.''
``In terms of where NATO goes in the future, there's not going to be any significant chance,'' said Stephen Blackwell, European security expert at London's Royal United Services Institute.
In particular, De Hoop Scheffer is a strong supporter of NATO's drive to reinvent itself for the global war against terrorism, ditching its Cold War focus on territorial defense in Europe.
At a June meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Madrid, he surprised colleagues by suggesting the alliance could take on Middle East peacekeeping if Israel and the Palestinians reach a truce.
``He's the ideal person to continue NATO's transformation ... into an alliance militarily capable and deployable and politically prepared to confront the new threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction,'' said Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to NATO.
De Hoop Scheffer met with President Bush during a visit to Washington this month, an event Dutch media billed as an American examination of the Dutchman.
Diplomats said the meeting went well and the United States backed his candidacy.
Since NATO's founding in 1949, the alliance's top civilian post has been held by a European, while a U.S. general serves as the supreme allied commander.
Several European figures were mentioned as possible replacements for Robertson, including Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino and Norway's Defense Minister Kristin Krohn Devold, who would have been the first woman to hold the post.
Associated Press reporter Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam contributed to this story
-------- pakistan / india
Little Chance of Pakistani Troops in Iraq
September 22, 2003
The New York Times
By FELICITY BARRINGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/international/middleeast/22MUSH.html
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 21 - The president of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said in an interview today that his government needs more military and intelligence help from the United States to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and more political support from Iraqis and the Islamic world before it can send troops to help stabilize Iraq.
The idea of contributing forces to a multinational contingent authorized by the United Nations in Iraq, General Musharraf said, is extremely unpopular among Pakistanis. "You need to change the domestic viewpoint," he said, adding that this would happen only when "the United Nations, Muslim countries, Arab countries and Iraqis themselves are asking for Muslim troops."
The Bush administration returned to the United Nations seeking Security Council authorization for such a force earlier this month in part to make it easier for countries like Pakistan, India and Turkey to offer troops. General Musharraf's request today set the bar higher, calling on groups like the Organization of Islamic Countries and the Iraqi Governing Council, as well as the United Nations, to endorse the idea.
General Musharraf spoke in a one-hour interview with The New York Times after his arrival in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meeting here this week. He reacted testily to criticism that his government had not done enough in the two-year-old campaign against Al Qaeda and the remnants of the former Taliban government of Afghanistan, which had many contacts with elements of the Pakistani government in Islamabad.
He also argued that progress had been made toward controlling the mountainous tribal regions on Pakistan's northwestern border with Afghanistan but said his government needed more resources - specifically helicopters - to tighten its control and act on reports of terrorist movements.
"You know, you get the information and you have to react," he said. "How do you react? Can you go on foot? They'll know that you're coming two days before you reach the place. Can you go on vehicles? There are no roads and tracks.
"So therefore obviously you have to have aerial mobility, which means helicopters. Helicopters for transport of troops. Helicopter gunships for attack. O.K.? Pakistan is deficient of both. O.K.? We are trying to get both. And again, U.S. assistance is required. And if there is a delay, let me assure you it is not from our side."
But General Musharraf said there was good coordination with his American partners. Speaking of the vast, mountainous border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said: "You cannot sweep the area with a military operation. Nobody can do that. The U.S. forces are not doing that on the Afghanistan side also, may I say. They select areas where they launch operations, and these operations are launched with our coordination on this side."
And, he said, coordination between the Pakistani and American intelligence agencies is continuing.
The Pakistani president punctuated the wide-ranging interview with frequent pleas for patience and understanding on many fronts, from Islamabad's struggle with India over the disputed region of Kashmir to the transformation of Pakistan - where General Musharraf took power in a coup four years ago, into a fully democratic state.
Several times, he argued that his critics had failed to understand the "ground realities" of both the war on terror as it is being waged on Pakistan's northwestern border and the volatile politics of his nation of more than 150 million people.
He also reiterated his position that Pakistan had full control of its nuclear abilities and was not, to his knowledge, transferring its nuclear technology to Iran or North Korea.
Of the weapons - or "strategic assets," as he described them - General Musharraf said: "They are in total custodial control. They are totally safe and secure. And there is no danger of them falling into anybody's hands. And there is a guarantee from our side that there will be no proliferation. In this we don't need assistance."
For the future, he said, "We are very sure that all possible security measures are in place to ensure that no transfer of technology can take place, and no proliferation can take place, and the assets cannot fall into anybody's hands. There are total security arrangements, let me assure you."
When he spoke of the past, General Musharraf hedged this position slightly, saying, "I have absolutely no information that technology or any contact has taken place between Pakistan and North Korea or Pakistan and Iran."
While he said that his government had purchased surface-to-air missiles from North Korea, he added, "there is no proof or evidence of any strategic weapons deals" between Islamabad and North Korea.
Over the past year, General Musharraf's cooperation with the American pursuit of Qaeda and Taliban forces has won him warm words from President Bush and broad international economic support, including the rescheduling of $12.5 billion of its international debts by a group of Western governments known as the Paris Club, the write-off of $1 billion that Pakistan owed to the United States and an increase in American aid, to $3 billion over the next five years. Mr. Bush also welcomed General Musharraf to Camp David this summer.
But the continuing violence against Indians by Muslim separatists in Kashmir remains a sore point in Pakistan's international relations. While condemning the attacks on Indian civilians as "terrorism," General Musharraf said today that any violence against civilians was terrorism, and "every day, civilians are being killed on our side of the border, through Indian shelling."
His government, he said, "did far more than our capacity to defuse tension on the line of control, to take actions which will build confidence with India. But, unfortunately, there is zero return, I repeat, zero return from the Indian side."
He continued: "When the other side does not deliver, what happens? It is the extremists who get strengthened and moderates who get weakened."
Despite the support from Washington, General Musharraf's decision to help Mr. Bush has cost him dearly domestically, as evidenced by the strong showing of Islamic political parties in last fall's parliamentary elections.
-------- un
Bomb Explodes Outside U.N. Mission in Iraq, Killing Officer
September 22, 2003
The New York Times
By IAN FISHER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/international/middleeast/22CND-IRAQ.html?hp
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 22 - The bomber seemed ready to die in several ways today: In the trunk of his car was one bomb. Around his waist, in the form of an explosive belt, was another.
In all, one Iraqi investigator said, the man was wired to 50 or more pounds of pure explosive - no match for the unarmed Iraqi police officer getting ready to search his car.
Around 8 a.m. local time, the bomber detonated himself - in a powerful blast that killed him and the police officer - in the parking lot of the United Nations compound. Today's bombing came a month after a first suicide bomber killed 23 people, including the United Nations' chief envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Nineteen people, most of them Iraqi police officers, were injured today, the United Nations said, in an explosion that rattled around the capital.
While there is no evidence the bomber today actually tried, officials here say it seems likely he had planned to slip into the heavily fortified compound to deliver the message with either bomb that the United Nations remains a target in the continuing war here.
"That makes sense, given the circumstances," said Lt. Col. George Krivo, an American military spokesman, who called today's attack "heinous" and "an act of pure brutality with no possible aim except to cause destruction and death."
In the last week, there has been no break from attacks on American forces here or on the Iraqi politicians and police who have taken the place of Saddam Hussein's government in the five months since American-led forces toppled the Iraqi leader. In the northern city of Mosul today, attackers reportedly fired rocket propelled grenades into a police station, injuring several people. On Sunday night in the southern city of Basra, six policemen were reported injured when their station was attacked by men shooting AK-47 rifles.
In the bombing at the United Nations compound today, as in the other attacks, Colonel Krivo said there was no firm evidence who was behind it - Saddam loyalists, Al Qaeda terrorists or someone else.
But he suggested that as American forces crack down on militants around the country, the military may be beginning to encounter "the worst of the worst."
"Maybe that's where were headed here," Colonel Krivo said. "We're getting down to the most hardened, most difficult former regime loyalists and others who will stop at nothing to try to prevent the progress that is being made in the vast majority of the country."
As a result of the bombing today, Antonia Paradela, an agency spokeswoman, said the United Nations would again review its operations in Iraq for the safety of its workers, as it did with the last bombing, which resulted in most of the foreign staff being sent from Iraq. While there are still some 5,000 United Nations employees here - most of them working for the World Food Program - only several hundred are from outside Iraq.
Ms. Paradela said it was "too early" to tell whether this explosion would delay return of United Nations workers or put off a larger build-up of people to help reconstruct Iraq. But she said that the improved security since the first bombing - rows of barbed wire and big barriers of dirt and concrete that have gone up at the United Nations compound and others like it around the capital - appeared to be working.
"It's outrageous that an Iraqi policeman died and many were injured," she said. "But it's true security has improved massively."
In fact, military officials said that with all the new security barriers encircling the United Nations workers who remain, it did not appear that the bomber got within 200 or 300 yards of the compound, a former hotel on a major highway here that was the home for several years for United Nations inspectors looking for weapons of mass destruction.
This morning, about 10 Iraqi policemen - in a lightly trained and unarmed unit that protects public buildings here - were searching cars entering a parking lot used mostly by Iraqis who work at the compound or visit it for business.
One of the officers said there was a line of three cars waiting, including an old white Mercedes. Another officer, Mahmoud Mousa, 30, said a co-worker, who he knew only as Ahmed, asked, "Should I check this one?"
Ahmed asked the Mercedes driver to open the hood and the trunk and step out of the car. As the driver reached down, the first guard, said, there was an enormous explosion and Ahmed was torn to pieces.
"This is my friend's flesh and his blood," Mr. Mousa said, holding up his red-spattered and shredded uniform shirt, as he lay wounded at Al Kindi hospital in Baghdad.
Izmat Hamza, 43, a driver who was waiting in the parking lot, said that at one moment he saw several officers milling around the lot, then a huge blast blew all the windows on one side of his minivan. A severed hand lay in the dirt perhaps 40 feet away, and pieces of the car, a crust of a tire and a rim, sat 100 or so yards further. The lower half of the bomber, the police said later, lay in flames next to the car, reduced to blackened heap.
"It was very powerful," he said.
The guards said they believed it was the Mercedes that exploded, but a white Mercedes sat intact at the site of the blast. An investigator with the Iraqi police, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the car that exploded was actually a Toyota Corolla that belonged to the Iraqi army. He said that fact suggested it may have been carried out by former soldiers still loyal to Mr. Saddam. But he added that he was "not 100 percent" certain, given how many government cars have been looted.
While some officials said they believed the bomber had planned to get into the compound, the wounded officers said that they believed they themselves, as Iraqi police, were the target, as has been the case in several past attacks. They said these attacks were aimed at sending a message to Iraqis not to work under American occupation forces here.
"He just wanted to kill the Iraqi guards," said Haider Mansour, 22, another wounded guard who was laying next to Mr. Mousa in the hospital. He spoke with some anger that he and his fellow guards, for the salary of $120 a month, have become what he said was a vulnerable and unarmed first line of defense.
"The Americans have something like four layers of walls they hiding behind and we are just out on the street," he said.
Asked about whether the police who guard public facilities will be armed soon, Colonel Krivo said: "We're doing the best we can. Of course we can do better. We'd like to do it faster and we will endeavor to do it faster. That's all we can say.
--------
Bush Plans Unyielding Stance on Iraq War in Address to U.N.
September 22, 2003
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/international/22PREX.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 - President Bush will tell the United Nations on Tuesday that he was right to order the invasion of Iraq even without the organization's explicit approval, and he will urge a new focus on countering nuclear proliferation, arguing that it is the only way to avoid similar confrontations.
Mr. Bush's unyielding presentation, described over the weekend by officials involved in drafting it, will come in a 22-minute speech to the United Nations General Assembly. Mr. Bush will then spend the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday meeting with the leaders of France, Germany, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.
According to the officials involved in drafting the speech, for an audience they know will range from the skeptical to the angry, Mr. Bush will acknowledge no mistakes in planning for postwar security and reconstruction in Iraq. Privately, however, many officials are acknowledging that the Pentagon was unprepared for the scope and duration of the continuing guerrilla-style attacks against the American-led alliance and the newly appointed Iraqi Governing Council. Since Mr. Bush declared an end to active military operations on May 1, more than 70 American troops in Iraq have been killed by hostile fire.
In the speech, Mr. Bush will repeat his call for nations - including those that opposed the Iraq action - to contribute to rebuilding the country, but he will offer no concessions to French demands that the major authority for running the country be turned over immediately to Iraqis.
"We'll stay on the same schedule" of drafting a constitution and holding national elections, one senior official said in an interview today. Mr. Bush will not discuss a timetable in the speech, but his aides said in interviews over the weekend that completing the process by spring or summer would be, in the words of one, "very ambitious." That assessment is bound to anger European nations that have demanded a far more accelerated transfer of power.
Mr. Bush made clear in a Fox News interview taped today, to be broadcast Monday, that he would define a larger role for the United Nations very narrowly. Asked if he was willing to give the United Nations more authority in order to obtain a new resolution, he said, "I'm not so sure we have to, for starters," according to excerpts released by Fox tonight.
Mr. Bush added that the United Nations could help write a constitution because "they're good at that." He also said that when it came time for elections, the United Nations might oversee the process. "That would be deemed a larger role," he said, but he made clear that he would not allow any resolution "to get in the way of an orderly transfer of sovereignty based on a logical series of steps. And that's constitution, elections and then the transfer of authority."
In final drafts of the speech circulating in the White House, Mr. Bush never mentions North Korea and Iran by name, though those two nations - the other members of the "axis of evil" he first described 20 months ago - are racing to obtain nuclear weapons. Mr. Bush will describe new steps to halt nuclear proliferation as one of the "next big challenges facing the United Nations," a senior official said today.
In recent weeks, some senior government officials had expected Mr. Bush to use his speech to describe a new agenda for strengthening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, changing provisions that Iran and North Korea exploited to build up their nuclear capacity. But those proposals are not ready - they have not yet reached the desk of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, officials say - and have been discussed only in general terms in the White House.
"Nobody thinks they are ready for prime time," said one official today, explaining why Mr. Bush will be far less specific about building new rules for disarming other nations than he was a year ago about disarming Iraq. Among the issues that the administration is still grappling with, midlevel officials say, is how to deal with nations, including Israel, that have never signed the nonproliferation treaty and whether it would be possible to prevent signers that have built major nuclear infrastructures from leaving the treaty. North Korea renounced it early this year, after ejecting international inspectors.
Instead of dealing with the broader legal problems, Mr. Bush is expected to focus on his Proliferation Security Initiative. That is an effort to recruit nations willing to interdict internationally transported nuclear supplies, using existing national laws. Several nations just completed the first of 10 scheduled exercises simulating the interdiction of nuclear shipments, in waters near Australia.
By declining to make specific demands about the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, Mr. Bush is signaling a very different approach than the one he took last year, concerning Iraq. He has said repeatedly that he wants a diplomatic solution to the North Korean and Iranian problems.
White House officials have claimed some modest progress, including a deadline of Oct. 31 set by the International Atomic Energy Agency for Iran to allow full inspections of sites where it may be enriching uranium. Around the same time, North Korea is expected to meet again with the United States and four other countries - South Korea, Russia, China and Japan - which the Bush administration is trying to organize into a united front to force North Korea to abandon its major nuclear projects.
Both Iran and North Korea appear much closer to producing a nuclear bomb than Iraq was a year ago, when Mr. Bush used the annual speech at the United Nations to issue a series of demands, and to make clear that defiance would mean war. Even so, an aide said this year's speech at the United Nations was intended to ensure that "we never have to do another Iraq again."
About a third of the speech will discuss initiatives to combat AIDS and human trafficking, particularly for prostitution. "We need to make that globally illegal, like trans-Atlantic trafficking in slaves," said one senior official, adding that Mr. Bush would press for prosecutions of those caught selling people, particularly women and children, into servitude.
Mr. Bush's descriptions of Iraq's future will receive the most scrutiny, and he is expected to give little ground and admit no errors of judgment about the reconstruction of the country. While he will call for international financial contributions and more troops from around the world, he has so far gained little of either since his speech to the nation two weeks ago when he said it was the responsibility of other nations, including opponents of the Iraq action, to contribute to both security and reconstruction.
Turkey, India and South Korea have expressed deep reluctance about sending troops, saying Mr. Bush's failure to obtain international approval for the invasion makes it politically difficult to help now.
--------
Bush Open To U.N. Oversight of Iraq Election
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 22, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44759-2003Sep21.html
President Bush said yesterday that he is prepared to allow the United Nations to oversee the first postwar election in Iraq, a limited concession to demands that he give the world body a more vigorous role in rebuilding the country.
Bush made the offer as he prepared to address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, when he plans to challenge reluctant allies to show the relevance of the world body by increasing international financial and military support for Iraq.
"I do think it would be helpful to get the United Nations in to help write a constitution. I mean, they're good at that," Bush told Fox News in an Oval Office interview to be aired tonight. "Or, perhaps when an election starts, they'll oversee the election. That would be deemed a larger role."
Bush plans to follow his address with two days of lobbying for a Security Council resolution, proposed by the administration, that would give a U.N. mandate to a multinational force in Iraq under U.S. command. The first draft gave little, if any, new power to the United Nations.
Bush's tone was reluctant. Asked whether he would grant the United Nations a bigger role in the Iraqi political process to make way for a resolution, he said, "I'm not so sure we have to, for starters."
Administration officials do not envision elections before summer, meaning the White House still wants to hold off the United Nations for months. Bush made it clear he has no intention of complying with French and German calls for a speedy transfer of power to Iraqis, saying that a resolution must not "get in the way of an orderly transfer of sovereignty based upon a logical series of steps -- and that's constitution, elections and then the transfer of authority."
France and Germany insisted anew over the weekend that the United Nations should replace the United States as manager of Iraq's political transition until Iraqis take over. In negotiations over the resolution, administration officials have been looking for a way to give the United Nations more say in Iraq's political process while retaining U.S. control of the occupation.
The interview with Brit Hume, taped yesterday after Bush returned from Camp David, will be shown as part of an hour-long special at 8 tonight on Fox broadcast stations. Fox released brief excerpts last night.
Bush said his message at the United Nations will be: "Although some of you didn't agree with the actions we took, now let's work together to rebuild Iraq, rebuild Afghanistan, fight AIDS and hunger, deal with slavery, like sex slavery, and deal with proliferation. Let's work together on big issues."
Bush's address is to strike a defiant note about his decision to attack Iraq even though the Security Council refused to back the war.
"I will make it clear that I made the right decision and the others that joined us made the right decision," he said. "The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein." Bush said he would remind member nations of the "serious consequences" promised in Resolution 1441, passed by the Security Council in November, if Iraq did not disarm. "At least somebody stood up and said this is a definition of serious consequences," he said.
Bush's Democratic critics have repeatedly called for a larger international role. Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), a Democratic presidential candidate, said on CBS's "Face the Nation" yesterday that he wants to bring an international effort into Iraq "to reduce some of the hostility toward America and improve our chances of success over the long term.
"What I'd be willing to do is give other folks a seat at the table," Edwards said.
Administration officials have resisted saying they plan to give the United Nations a larger role. They have contended that they see the resolution as continuing the "vital role" that Bush promised after talks in April with British Prime Minister Tony Blair as Hussein's government was disintegrating.
Bush told Fox: "Of course we would like a larger role for member states of the United Nations to participate in Iraq."
L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, has refused to give a timetable for elections or the drafting of a constitution, beyond saying that it must follow a seven-step process he outlined this month. Under the next step, expected in late September or early October, the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council will receive -- from a preparatory committee the council appointed -- recommendations on writing a constitution.
"Iraqis can determine how quickly it goes," a senior administration official said.
Bush's military and budget officials will face near-daily hearings this week as congressional committees dig into the president's request of $87 billion for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year.
Bremer returned to Washington on Saturday for the hearings, including an appearance today before the Senate Appropriations Committee. He spent 90 minutes yesterday updating four congressional leaders on his plans for Iraq.
Bush is likely to win congressional approval of most of his budget request, but lawmakers in both parties plan to use the vote as leverage to demand an exit strategy.
Bush's appearance on Fox is part of a White House public relations effort that began after his prime-time address on Sept. 7 did not stem the decline of public support for his handling of Iraq, which has fallen in polls to the lowest readings since before the war.
Bush gave Fox a 30-minute interview and a 20-minute on-camera tour. Last week, he held a roundtable with reporters from key states in the 2004 election. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice made a rare appearance on ABC's "Nightline" and gave interviews to Hume and Sean Hannity's syndicated radio program.
In brief excerpts released by Fox, Bush accused Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) of uncivil discourse for telling the Associated Press on Thursday that as part of administration war spending, "money is being shuffled all around to these political leaders in all parts of the world, bribing them to send in troops."
Bush said: "Senator Kennedy, who I respect, and with whom I have worked, should not have said we were trying to bribe foreign nations. . . . I don't think we're serving our nation well by allowing the discourse to become so uncivil that people, say, use words that they shouldn't be using."
Staff writer Peter Slevin contributed to this report.
-------- us
Gulf War vets risk paralyzing disease
Studies find unusually high incidence of incurable ALS
Sept. 22, 2003,
NBC's Robert Bazell reports.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/970122.asp?0cv=CB10
WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 - Veterans of the 1991 Gulf War may have an unusually high risk of a deadly and incurable nerve disease called ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, according to two U.S. studies published on Monday.
While ALS is far from common among the veterans, it has appeared more than expected and at younger-than-usual ages, the separate studies found.
One of the studies was done by Dr. Robert Haley, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas -who has found much if not most of the published medical evidence supporting the idea of Gulf War Syndrome.
A second study by the U.S Department of Veterans Affairs and National Institutes of Health reaches similar conclusions. Both were published in the journal Neurology.
The VA released its preliminary findings in December 2001.
"VA has contacted the Gulf War veterans identified in the study to help them file new claims or to expedite existing claims. We have granted disability to 37 Gulf conflict veterans for ALS," A VA spokesman said.
Haley said the finding was significant because it was "only the third real cluster of ALS cases that's ever been documented."
Amytrophic lateral sclerosis, also called ALS or motor neuron disease, attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, leading to muscle weakness, difficulty speaking, swallowing and breathing, and eventually total paralysis. It affects about 30,000 Americans, and is named after baseball Hall of Fame member Lou Gehrig, who died of ALS.
About 5 percent of cases are inherited but most are unexplained. But because ALS occurs at about the same rate globally, experts believe there must be a genetic weakness that underlies the disease.
Haley identified 17 Gulf War veterans under 45 who were diagnosed with ALS between 1991 and 1998, 11 of whom have died. None had a family history of ALS or similar diseases.
HIGHER RATE
Haley calculated the expected rate of ALS among this age group and found 1.38 cases of ALS per year would be expected in the Gulf War veteran population in 1998. He found five cases that year.
The VA study found that troops deployed to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and the Red Sea area had almost twice the risk of ALS as troops who stayed home.
They verified 107 cases of ALS. Of these 40 were from the 696,000 deployed troops and 67 from the nearly 1.8 million not sent overseas.
"This study addressed the question, 'Is there a problem with excessive occurrence of ALS among Gulf War veterans?"' said Ronnie Horner of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, who led the second study. "We found the answer to be yes."
Haley noted the studies involved very small numbers of people and did not mean that most or even many Gulf War veterans need to be worried.
"The best thinking in the ALS research world is that ALS only occurs in people with a rare genetic susceptibility," Haley said in a telephone interview. "If you have that genetic makeup and you are exposed to many years of environmental toxins of one kind or another -and no one knows what they are - then you get the ALS. That is why usually only older people get it."
Haley said Sarin gas "appears to be central cause in Gulf War Syndrome," affecting about one of seven Gulf War veterans.
This may shed light on why ALS occurs.
"One of the prime suspects in civilian ALS is organophosphate pesticides. Guess what Sarin is? It is an organophosphate pesticide for humans," he said.
Earlier this year the Institute of Medicine reported that not enough studies have been done to link pesticides or any other chemicals to Gulf War Syndrome, a poorly defined group of illnesses seen in many veterans of the 1991 conflict. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's disease," is a progressive disease that attacks certain nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord responsible for voluntary muscle movement. As these motor neurons degenerate, they can no longer send the impulses that normally result in muscle movement. Once all voluntary muscle action is affected, patients become totally paralyzed. Since ALS attacks only motor neurons, sight, touch, hearing, taste and smell are not affected and for the vast majority of people, their minds, too, remain unaffected.
----
National Guard families air frustrations over long hauls in Iraq
Sharon Schmickle,
Minneapolis Star Tribune
September 22, 2003
http://startribune.com/stories/1762/4110694.html
CAMP RIPLEY, MINN. -- In an emotional clash over the fundamental purpose of a reserve military force, Minnesota National Guard officials listened to relatives of soldiers in Iraq complain on Sunday about low troop morale and stress at home, where families don't know when loved ones will return or why they are in the Middle East.
Five-month-old Elijah Thell of Brainerd was among the 200 people at the meeting at Camp Ripley, near Little Falls. He has never seen his father, Spec. David Thell, who was activated in January.
The same was true for three other babies who snoozed while their mothers begged officials to explain why a deployment expected to end in a year now seems likely to last 16 months and could stretch as long as two years.
"You are not alone," Brig. Gen. Harry Sieben Jr., the acting Guard leader, told families of the 142nd Engineer Combat Battalion's Charlie Company. "We've got people spread out all over the world."
More than 3,000 Minnesota Guard members, about one-fourth of the state's total force, are currently activated or will be soon, he said. That count does not include several hundred Minnesota reservists with the Army, Marine Corps and other military branches.
"Many of them are in dangerous places," Sieben said.
While stressing that the federal government has authority over activated Guard members, Sieben vowed to help the families find answers to their questions and support for their needs.
U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., told the families that she would demand answers to questions about an exit strategy in Iraq and support for the troops before she would vote for $87 billion that President Bush has requested to finance the administration's efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I will not sign a blank check until I get my questions answered," McCollum said.
Other House members are digging in too, she said.
Endurance tested
On Saturday, families of Army reservists from Kansas met with U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, a Democrat, to air complaints similar to those raised in Minnesota.
Moore's office is coordinating an effort to enlist members of Congress from Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Arkansas in bringing the families' concerns into the debate over future funding and authorizations for the war, said Amanda Bellow of Topeka, an organizer for the group.
At the heart of the families' complaints is an expectation that Guard and reserve members should be pulled from their jobs, homes and children only for emergencies, and even then only for as long as they are urgently needed.
Now some of them are serving longer in Iraq than many members of full-time forces.
"Why are citizen soldiers serving in place of active Army personnel?" asked Tami Kruzel of Sartell, whose husband, Sgt. Randy Kruzel, is stationed north of Baghdad.
Sieben explained that the structure of the armed forces has changed since the end of the Cold War. In the Vietnam War, reserve forces were not major players because the full-time Army was much larger and the draft replenished it. Now the Army relies on Guard and reserve members to fill key roles alongside full-time soldiers during major mobilizations.
Guard members should know, he said, that federal law allows a president to call them to active duty for two years.
Even so, he said, activation orders the Charlie Company received last January suggested that the members should have been coming home in a year. Now, under tour extensions the Army has announced, they aren't likely to return from Iraq before April, he said.
"We didn't have any input in that decision," he said. "We didn't have any notice of it coming."
Work strains, too
The unpredictability of the return date is a strain, he said, not only on families but also on employers who are required by law to hold jobs open.
The requirement effectively protects the jobs of Guard members who work for the government or large companies, he said. But it isn't as effective when the soldier works for a small company that might be sold, consolidated or even go bankrupt before the tour of duty ends.
But the reality is that "wars aren't nice and neat," he said.
Sieben and other officers said the Charlie Company is reconstructing an abandoned airfield in Balad, Iraq.
But in sometimes angry responses, several women said they hear far different stories from their husbands in Iraq. They said the private military contractor, Kellogg Brown & Root, is in the same area under a government contract to do the work the soldiers were sent to do.
"Our replacements are there," said Robyn Potter of the Brainerd, whose husband and father-in-law are in Iraq. "With a huge construction company, Kellogg Brown & Root, in the same area, there is no reason for our soldiers to be over there."
Dr. Sherry Billups of Blackduck said that soldiers who publicly complain are being threatened with lengthy reassignments and that higher-level military officials aren't telling the truth about the situation. Her husband, Steven Baazard, is a Charlie Company member.
Billups challenged Sieben to go to Iraq and listen to soldiers.
"I'll give you a plane ticket," she said.
Several families said Guard and reserve members aren't getting the same equipment and access to e-mail and satellite phones as full-time forces. They also operate under rules that suspend their options to leave the Army, while some full-time soldiers can retire or go to college, the relatives said.
Guard members' families have been branded unpatriotic for complaining about the problems, said Michael Weinberg of Stillwater, whose future son-in-law is in Iraq.
"I don't think anybody here is complaining about the fact that our sons and daughters are in Iraq," he said.
Worst of all, fear
The upshot of the conflicting views over use of reserve forces was confusion. Many family members said that they were caught unprepared for this first major deployment in more than a decade.
Mary Backes of Kimball said that her son's household income has dropped more than $10,000 a year because of his deployment and that she has assumed much of the care for his 4-year-old son.
"I wasn't planning on co-parenting my grandson," she said. "Yet, I take him almost every weekend. I take him several mornings a week to day care. This was not something I signed up for."
Worst of all, she said, is the fear for loved ones' safety. She added that she believes the Army should do a better job of creating connections for families to check on their relatives.
"You are driving in the morning, and you hear another eight soldiers have died," she said. "You are a basket case by the time you get to work."
Sharon Schmickle is at sschmickle@startribune.com.
----
Soft Economy Aids Army Recruiting Effort
September 22, 2003
New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/national/22RECR.html
FORT KNOX, Ky., Sept. 16 - The slumping American economy has proved to be a boon to the Army's efforts to recruit the 100,000 enlisted soldiers it says it needs this year to fill its active-duty and reserve ranks, senior Army officials say, so far relieving concerns that the turmoil in Iraq could crimp new enlistments.
All the armed services say they will meet or exceed their recruiting goals for the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30.
But many military personnel experts say the Army's efforts are most vulnerable over time because the Army recruits more active-duty and Reserve troops than all the other services combined - 73,800 active-duty and 26,400 Reserve soldiers this year - and it is now fielding about 90 percent of the 180,000 troops in Iraq and Kuwait.
"That's the driver, the economy," said Maj. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle, the head of the Army Recruiting Command here, adding that the chaotic conditions in Iraq have yet to hurt recruiting.
Army recruiters have always offered educational benefits, job security and training skills to prospective soldiers. But recently they have been armed with more logistical support and a growing arsenal of financial incentives that look even more enticing in a down market.
The Army has raised signing bonuses to as much as $20,000 for badly needed positions like intelligence analysts. It has also increased college aid. And it has nearly doubled its advertising budget, to $227 million, in the last four years, shelving its 20-year-old "Be All You Can Be" slogan in favor of the "Army of One" campaign, aimed at Generation Y youths. It has ramped up a cyberrecruiting operation, with daily online chat rooms in English and Spanish. Next month it is rolling out a 15-month enlistment option (the current minimum length for a tour is two years) aimed at college students, an increasingly important target group.
The sagging economy mostly affects the recruiting of active-duty soldiers. About two-thirds of all enlisted troops resign by the end of their first tour, so the Army needs more than 70,000 new recruits a year to replenish its ranks.
The demographics of the newest Army recruits are shifting slightly. Women make up about 20 percent of this year's recruits; that figure is roughly unchanged over the last three years. But since the 2001 fiscal year, the share of Hispanics signing up has increased to about 13 percent from 11 percent, while the proportion of non-Hispanic whites has increased to about 65 percent from 62 percent. At the same time, the ratio of blacks signing up has declined to 16 percent from nearly 23 percent.
The drop in black recruits may be tied to the Army's increased focus on the college market, military officials say. Nearly one in four recruits now has some college experience, almost double the rate five years ago, General Rochelle said.
Recruiting part-time Army National Guard and Army Reserve troops, who are typically older and have civilian jobs, presents mounting challenges. Military experts warn that recruiting and retaining these citizen soldiers will get more difficult as they are repeatedly called up to serve extended tours in Iraq or Afghanistan as military police, civil affairs specialists, water-purification experts and other jobs.
"How long people will continue to be deployed will ultimately have some effect on retention," said Frank Shaffery, deputy director of Army recruiting operations here. "We're concerned about it."
Those concerns grew this month when the Army announced that 20,000 Reserve and National Guard soldiers would stay in Iraq or Kuwait for as long as 12 months, extending their tours on the ground by several months.
Army National Guard officials said this week that the Guard would probably fall short of its goal of recruiting 62,000 soldiers this year. But because fewer Guard forces will leave this year than had been anticipated, the Guard still expects to maintain its overall troop level at 350,000.
Lt. Col. Michael L. Jones, the Army National Guard's chief of marketing and advertising for recruiting and retention, said the Pentagon must give these troops more certainty. "We need to build in predictability so their families, employers or universities can be told, `Here's the mobilization date and here's the demobilization date,' " he said.
The Army Recruiting Command is responsible for enlisting new regular Army and Army Reserve soldiers. The Army National Guard in each state recruits its own members, who belong to state militias unless called to active duty.
For active-duty Army and Reserve forces, recruiters are increasingly looking for older recruits with some college experience. These young people are weighing the risks of serving in places like Iraq or Afghanistan against the reality of college costs, and following their pocketbooks as well as their patriotic instincts, General Rochelle said.
"They are seeing the facts and the world situation, as well as the domestic implications of the economy, job opportunities and prospects, and the opportunity for higher education, which are impacted by rising tuition costs," he said.
Recruiting is a volatile business even in the best of times. Success depends on elusive perceptions about the vitality of the armed forces as well as their missions, a fact Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld recently underscored.
"We're still meeting all of the targets and goals for recruiting and retention," Mr. Rumsfeld told a conference in Washington commemorating the 30th anniversary of the all-volunteer military. "We have to watch that because we have to manage that force and recognize that there's a good deal of stress on the force at the present time."
As the presidential campaign heats up and Iraq policy comes under greater scrutiny, Army officials say it will be more critical than ever to reinforce their message with recruits and the people who influence them: parents, coaches and guidance counselors.
For these and other reasons, the Army has moved aggressively to stave off a return to the lean recruiting years of the late 1990's.
In addition to the increased recruiting dollars, the Army spent $321 million this fiscal year on travel, cellphones, laptop computers and other support for recruiters, up from $146 million a decade ago.
Sign-up bonuses for jobs in high demand, like intelligence analysts and helicopter mechanics, are now as high as $20,000, up from $15,000 a few years ago. (Bonuses for most Reserve troops range up to $5,000.) The Army will now pay up to $50,000 in education expenses and repay up to $65,000 in student loans, both sharp increases over past years.
Here at the command's three-story brick headquarters, three dozen cyberrecruiters field 750 e-mail messages daily and run online chat rooms in English and Spanish for 1,200 people a day. Recruiters say the anonymity of the chat rooms has drawn in many recruits who would never set foot in a recruiting station.
"They don't feel pressured into a commitment," said Naomi Gray, 37, a Spanish-speaking recruiter who spent seven years in the Army as a crane operator.
Ms. Gray said most of the questions that she got were about the economic and educational benefits of joining the Army. The uncertainty in Iraq, she said, has proved to be an attraction, not a turnoff, to many recruits who have contacted her.
One row up in the cyberrecruiting office, Dima Almoamin, 27, a Baghdad-born American military recruiter, is enlisting Arabic speakers by e-mail to be reservist translators for the United States military in Iraq.
Under a program started two months ago, the Army has raised its age limit for new recruits to 40 years old from 34, with a goal to attract 250 qualified Arabic translators a year for the next few years. "Eighty percent are Iraqis," Ms. Almoamin said of her recruits. "They want to help."
-------- propaganda wars
GREENWICH VILLAGE
Wolfowitz Stands Fast Amid the Antiwarriors
September 22, 2003
New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/international/22WOLF.html
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz plunged into a bastion of antiwar liberalism - Greenwich Village - yesterday to voice a vigorous defense of the Bush administration's Iraq policy.
In an often raucous 90-minute forum at the New School University, Mr. Wolfowitz alternately chided the audience for not giving the administration enough credit for toppling Saddam Hussein's brutal government, and took pains to explain the rationale for the war and the costly, difficult future in rebuilding Iraq.
"No one that I know of would ever say that this war is cheap or easy," he said. "The stakes here are enormous."
But Mr. Wolfowitz, considered by many to be the main intellectual architect of the Iraq war, was facing a tough crowd of 500 people, dominated by students, faculty and others who were clearly skeptical, if not outright hostile, to the American-led war in Iraq and its messy aftermath.
"I think I'm glad to be here," said Mr. Wolfowitz, a native New Yorker, after a cacophony of boos, hisses and applause greeted his introduction by Jeffrey Goldberg, a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine, the event's sponsor.
Mr. Wolfowitz has had a lot of practice in the last two years as the administration's lightning rod for Iraq policy. He barely flinched when a burly, bearded protester rushed the stage, yelling, "Nazi war criminal!" Security guards tackled and removed the man, the first of six people ejected.
Mr. Wolfowitz used the occasion to remind all that Iraqis were also now enjoying the right of free speech.
At many times during the 45-minute conversation he and Mr. Goldberg held onstage, and then in fielding questions, Mr. Wolfowitz seemed, in effect, to be pleading with the audience to give the administration a break on Iraq. "How much worse can it be than in the last 20 years?" he asked.
For Mr. Wolfowitz, a former political science professor, the forum was an opportunity to explain his thinking on the war and its impact on stability in the Middle East and on security in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks, aides said.
Much of discussion had the feel of a Wolfowitz 101 seminar for people who perhaps up to now had heard or read only snippets of his comments.
The United States waged war for three reasons, he said: the concern over Iraq's drive to obtain chemical, biological and nuclear weapons; Iraq's connections to terrorism; and Mr. Hussein's reign of terror that Mr. Wolfowitz said was responsible for perhaps a million Iraqi deaths.
"It was a human rights nightmare," he said, emphasizing a reason that was not a principal one the administration articulated before the war, but has become so since.
When pressed by Mr. Goldberg and audience members, some of these justifications seemed less certain. "Iraq did have contacts with Al Qaeda," Mr. Wolfowitz insisted, momentarily silencing the audience with an accusation even President Bush now says is unsubstantiated. He added, "We don't know how clear they were."
On the issue of illicit Iraqi weapons, he did not have a ready response for why they have not been found.
"Did the C.I.A. simply mess up?" Mr. Goldberg asked.
"First of all, being wrong in this business does not mean messing up," Mr. Wolfowitz said, adding that Iraq, like North Korea, was among "hard targets" for intelligence analysts to penetrate. He said some Iraqis who had helped in the hunt had been assassinated by foes of the occupation, but he offered no details.
He also defended postwar accomplishments like establishing municipal councils and reopening universities.
As Congress prepares for hearings this week on Mr. Bush's $87 billion request for the military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Wolfowitz said it was crucial to stay the course and not "turn Iraq back to the Baathists who operate torture chambers."
He insisted the administration has "a strategy with an end game" that hinges on speeding up training of Iraqi security forces and a new army.
"They speak the language, and they know the cities they're policing," he said. "We want to get out of the occupation role."
At the end, the applause sounded a little louder as Mr. Wolfowitz took a side door out to his limousine to avoid a noisy protest outside.
----
Dangers Of War
Monday, September 22, 2003
by Charley Reese,
King Features
http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20030922/index.php
Here is a quotation from Reich Marshal Hermann Goering. It's a statement he made during the Nuremberg trials:
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
Eric Margolis, an excellent journalist, quoted this in a recent column. While I can't verify the quote, I have no reason to doubt it. After all, it is one of those truths that are immediately recognized as an accurate statement about the human condition. Different people have expressed the thought through the centuries.
We have just seen the ploy used by the Bush administration, and no, I'm not suggesting any moral equivalency between the Bushies and the Nazis. But they did use the same tactic. The Bushies told us we were in imminent danger of an attack by Saddam Hussein. People who questioned that were attacked as unpatriotic and accused of risking the safety of the country. Thus we were led to wage an unprovoked war. The question all of us should ponder is how we, a free people blessed with self-government, can avoid being manipulated by political leaders. The obvious answer is education. I saw a reference to a study recently that showed 69 percent of the Americans polled couldn't find Iraq on a map that was unmarked. That shows gross ignorance of geography. Add to that ignorance of world history, other people, other cultures and other religions, and you have a recipe for sheep that can easily be led by the nose.
Thomas Jefferson said it best when he observed that those who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was nor ever will be. We, the American people, are not really free if we can't control our own government and its policies. And we will never do that if we remain ignorant.
The news media are partly to blame. I've often said that future historians charting the decline and fall of the United States will damn American journalism for abusing its freedom.
Public education is also to blame. Let's face it - it's a failure. The American taxpayers spend more on education than anybody else in the world and get less for it. It's not the fault of teachers. God knows most of them are frustrated beyond belief. The entrenched and politicized bureaucracy gives teachers and students the least of its attention.
Teachers teach, but only students can learn, and if the students have no desire to learn, there is nothing the best teachers in the world can do about it. Becoming educated is something individuals must do by themselves. And it's hard work.
The worst thing politicians do is mandate that teachers must produce uniform results on standardized tests. The problem with that crazy idea is that students are not uniform. The elephant at the education tea party everybody ignores is IQ. Students with high IQs will do better on standardized tests than students with low IQs. No amount of teaching will erase that gap.
But there are other ways in which students are not uniform, too. Some are healthy. Some are not. Some come from homes with supportive parents. Some come from dysfunctional homes. There is no point in expecting political demagogues who are willing to abuse both teachers and students to understand the complexity of education. Hence, the solution is to abolish public education altogether and start over.
In the meantime, it's never too late to educate oneself. The public library offers the equivalent of a free graduate education to anybody interested in pursuing it. And always be wary of demagogues quick to brand dissenters as unpatriotic.
----
ANOTHER 9/11?
Portents of terror reappear, as Bush has second thoughts about the war
September 22, 2003
by Justin Raimondo,
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j092203.html
A desperate Saddam-on-the-run is reportedly in secret negotiations with the Americans - he's having second thoughts about his formerly expressed belief that "that no honorable hand has stretched out to greet" the "miscreant, murderous and cowardly occupier," as he put it in his message of late April, "only those of traitors and valets." It must be a trend, because, as I pointed out in a recent column, the Bush administration-on-the-run is reportedly having second thoughts about its commitment to the neocon program of perpetual war in the Middle East. Check it out:
"Faced with rising costs, sinking polls, unsympathetic allies, an increasingly skeptical Congress and potential splits in his political party, President Bush has begun to question the hard-line Iraq policies long championed by Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The Bushies are desperate to make some kind of a deal - with the UN, with the Iraqis, and, most of all, with the American people, who are waking up to the unfolding disaster in Iraq. John Walcott, of Knight-Ridder, continues:
"Foreign-policy concerns and domestic politics are prompting the administration to rethink its approach to Iraq, said a number of administration foreign and domestic-policy officials, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity because, as one of them put it, 'the president hates seeing internal debates in the paper.'"
If the Prez hates seeing his administration's faction fights reported in the papers, then it must have been a tough year all around for George W. Bush. And the blood hasn't yet begun to flow: calls for the resignations of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, the disgraced Richard Perle, and a rising chorus of demands that the whole neocon gang be turned out on its ear are being heard from the right side of the aisle as well as the left.
The neocons, in full retreat, have taken to fighting among themselves. As Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service put it:
"But rather than rally together to fight off these attacks, the hawks appear to be squawking at one another. After Cheney revived a 2-year-old story on a nationally broadcast television news program last Sunday about an alleged meeting between one of the hijackers and an Iraqi spy in Prague in April 2001, Rumsfeld told reporters three days later he had seen nothing to connect Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks, an assessment backed up by Rice and then by Bush himself."
The President himself took to the field, denying the alleged link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 terrorist attacks - even as a majority of the American people no doubt continue to believe they were somehow connected. That statistic is a monument to the success of this administration's effort to channel American anger away from Osama bin Forgotten and focus it on Iraq, a feat of creative conflation that surely qualifies as a lie of mythic proportions.
Jay Bookman, writing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, makes the trenchant point that the myth-making capabilities of this administration are key to understanding how we got in this mess to begin with::
"Cheney's remarks on 'Meet the Press' deserve further scrutiny, however, particularly his attempt to link Saddam to the first attack on the World Trade Center, which killed six people. Once that claim is placed in context, it helps to illuminate the internal process by which the Bush administration decided to take this nation to war."
Bookman points to the source of the Cheney conspiracy theory, one Laurie Mylroie, a prolific author whose thesis is that Saddam Hussein is the Machiavellian enigma behind most of the terrorist events of the past decade, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in which 10 people were killed, the 1998 assaults on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, 9/11, and even the anthrax attacks. I don't know if she has yet exposed Saddam's responsibility for whipping up Hurricane Isabel, but the evidence is no doubt forthcoming.
The FBI, the CIA, independent analysts including everyone from Vince Cannistrano to Daniel Pipes have pointed out that Mylroie's meticulous accumulation of evidence doesn't even come close to proving her contentions. That hasn't stopped the American Enterprise Institute from publishing (and then reissuing) her book, Study in Revenge, and adorning it with endorsements from top officials, including Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Perle.
Some conspiracy theories, as I pointed out in a recent column, get respectful attention no matter how implausible. But other conspiracy theories, being politically incorrect, are relegated to the Memory Hole, even as evidence of their validity begins to break through the wall of silence.
Yes, folks, those Israeli "art students" - you know, the ones who attempted to penetrate U.S. government facilities in the months leading up to 9/11, showed up at the homes of federal employees, and were said to be watching the 9/11 hijackers 24/7 - have popped up yet again, this time in Canada:
"Nine Israeli nationals - who CSIS suspects are possible foreign agents - were arrested by Immigration and Ottawa police tactical officers last Friday, blocks from Parliament Hill. The nine have all been charged by Immigration for working in Canada illegally. All are in their 20s and were apparently selling art in Ottawa. The arrests follow similar takedowns of Israelis in Toronto and Calgary over the past few weeks. An Ottawa police source said police were told members of the group were possible agents from Mossad, Israel's spy agency, but given no further information by CSIS.
"CSIS declined to comment yesterday."
Headlined "Nine Israelis face deportation: Spy agency suspects they may be foreign agents," this story appeared in the Ottawa Sun, on Friday, September 19 - and disappeared from the paper's website completely in less than a day, unlike the Sun's other articles, which are archived and available. Here is the Google cache. Check it out before it disappears, just like Carl Cameron's December 2001 series on the same subject.
In Cameron's case, this disappearing act was the result of outside pressure and a campaign of calumniation against Fox's crack investigative reporter: Israel's amen corner hissed that Cameron was disqualified as an objective reporter because he spent his youth in a Muslim country.
In the case of the Ottawa Sun, it's a case of Izzy Asper strikes again. The owner of Canada's largest newspaper chain is famous for his directive that no criticism of Israel be printed in his newspapers, leading to resignations and increasing resentment of media monopolism via mega-mergers.
As the President tries to undo the great harm done by the Iraq war, and designs an exit strategy that will take him off the hook politically, the U.S.-Israel relationship - already strained by the failure of the "road map" and other issues - is bound to deteriorate even further. How much access the U.S. will have, under these circumstances, to Israel's worldwide surveillance of Islamist groups, is a matter of pure speculation, but I'm willing to bet it falls far short of total.
It is more than merely frightening to imagine what the reappearance of these enigmatic "art students" portends. Two years ago, their mysterious invasion of American shores augured the worst terrorist attack in American history. Does their sudden emergence in Canada signal a similar disaster in the near future?
God help us all.
-------- war crimes
Judges at War Crimes Trial Rein In Milosevic
September 22, 2003
The New York Times
By MARLISE SIMONS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/international/europe/22MILO.html
THE HAGUE, Sept. 18 - Slobodan Milosevic, a man accustomed to being obeyed, has received another abrupt reminder that he is not the person in charge of his war crimes trial.
The former Serbian president, serving as his own counsel, has often tried to bend the rules, sometimes successfully. With his trial resuming after a summer break, he has been complaining once again, this time about conditions for preparing his case in a new trial schedule drawn up by judges.
"I categorically protest against this ruling of yours," he loudly told the three judges facing him at the United Nations war crimes tribunal here this week. "Every decision can be reviewed and abolished. And that's what I request and demand."
Judge Richard May of Britain, the chief judge presiding over the trial, reacted promptly. "This is not a matter for debate or argument," he said icily. "This is a ruling. We've just given it. We're not going to abolish it, as you call it."
Mr. Milosevic, 61, accused of grave war crimes and genocide for the 1990's wars in the former Yugoslavia, leaned back, his face crumpled in anger.
He had sought a two-year recess to prepare his defense, which will begin after prosecutors end their case, by the end of this year. Instead, the judges granted him three months - defendants are usually offered only one month. He also wanted to be let out of jail while he prepared his defense. The judges refused.
The ruling means that the trial will probably be suspended from January to April, one more delay in this first trial of a former head of state before an international court. Already certain to become the longest war crimes trial on record, it may now last until late 2005 or early 2006.
"Two more years would really be optimistic, and not allowing for appeals," a court official said.
The trial of Mr. Milosevic deals with three Balkan wars in which more than 200,000 people died. It began in February 2002, but delays have been numerous, in part because of Mr. Milosevic's failing health and stalling tactics.
When he was sent to The Hague in June 2001, the prosecution was not ready for trial. But, since the trial began, Mr. Milosevic has carried out a filibustering strategy. He insists on equal time with prosecutors and keeps talking, even when he evidently has no relevant questions left for a witness. He has cross-examined most of the prosecution's witnesses - more than 240 thus far.
Mr. Milosevic's health, and particularly his heart problems, have already caused what one court lawyer called a "scheduling ordeal." This was clear again when two sessions were canceled as the court once again sought to get under way this month. Nearly 60 court days have been lost this way. When Mr. Milosevic becomes stressed, his blood pressure rises or he complains of fatigue, the prison doctor asks for him to be excused.
Geoffrey Nice, the lead prosecutor, told the court recently that there was a pattern in Mr. Milosevic's illnesses, given that they generally followed difficult evidence or the appearance of assertive witnesses.
The court is now weighing several important issues, including whether Mr. Milosevic is physically and mentally fit to continue to act as his own lawyer. The judges recently requested a new physical and psychological report. The confidential medical report is ready, but Mr. Milosevic reportedly refused, as before, to cooperate with any mental health specialist.
The judges are considering several options so that the defense phase of the trial will run smoothly. One would be to appoint a case manager to handle paperwork and coordinate the appearance of witnesses.
Judge May pointed out that Mr. Milosevic is assisted by two Serbian lawyers and their team in Belgrade. The two lawyers, working only backstage, sit in the public gallery, keep Mr. Milosevic's documents and prepare the questions for him to use when cross-examining witnesses. Mr. Milosevic has fought suggestions that the court impose a counsel, so that trial work can continue, even when he is uncooperative or sick. Prosecutors recently suggested that a standby counsel be named to avoid interruptions.
The judges have not decided on this point, but they handed down the rules that Mr. Milosevic will have to follow as he prepares his defense. A warning was implicit that he could not use his defense case as a political forum or to hold the court captive.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- justice
Ashcroft seeks new powers
September 22, 2003
By Nat Hentoff
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20030921-112835-2978r.htm
As resistance rises to the Patriot Act and its progeny - in Congress, among some judges, and in citizens in 159 towns and cities across the country - Attorney General John Ashcroft has been the focus of this disquiet. But on September 10, at the FBI Training Academy in Quantico, Virginia, President Bush himself, going beyond the Patriot Act, urged that federal agencies be allowed to issue "administrative subpoenas" in terrorism investigations - without approval from judges or grand juries.
For more than two years, the attorney general and other government officials have assured us that all measures taken to investigate possible links to terrorist activity would have to be approved by a judge - and that includes the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which issues subpoenas and warrants using lower standards than in the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights.
Administrative subpoenas have been issued before, but only under narrow, specific grounds in cases - as the president noted - such as health-care frauds. But under the bill introduced in the House by Florida Republican Rep. Tom Feeney (HR 3037, the "Antiterrorism Tools Enhancement Act of 2003"), these nonjudicial subpoenas would be unprecedentedly wide-ranging, regarding, as the bill states, "information or purported information concerning a federal crime of terrorism."
Until now, with some judicial supervision, this authority has included the FBI's comparing the titles of library books with the names of people, including citizens, who have borrowed them, as well as to those people who have been giving "material support" - loosely defined - to organizations on a government terrorist list.
But these proposed nonjudicial administrative subpoenas can demand all sorts of personal records - including medical and travel records, DNA, e-mails, and data on your computer. The records can be obtained from a third party (an office or institution), or you have to appear before a government agency in order to defend them. If they come from a third party, you may never know how much the government knows about you.
Moreover, the proposed law contains a gag rule. With narrow exceptions, the law states that if the attorney general "certifies that otherwise there may result a danger to the national security, no person shall disclose to any other person that a subpoena was received or records were provided pursuant to this section." Obviously, this radical invasion of what's left of individual privacy is being done in the name of national security, so the gag rule kicks in.
Should the subpoena later be challenged in court, that judicial review would also be conducted in secret. And while a judge might decide to permit a person who has been subpoenaed to disclose that unnerving fact, the ability for the person to say he or she has been subpoenaed may also be prevented, says the bill, if "there may result a danger to national security."
Having covered criminal investigations as a reporter, I know that if a subpoena is needed immediately, a judge can be reached quickly, especially in this technological age. Judges have home telephones, e-mail addresses, faxes, pagers, cell phones and some even have palm computers to further access information.
Revealingly, when answering criticism that (despite such access to judges) the government still wants to bypass judges, Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo presented a hypothetical drama to The New York Times' first-rate legal reporter Eric Lichtblau. The FBI gets a tip in the middle of the night that an unidentified terrorist has gone to Boston. Under the new Bush-supported bill, as Lichtblau reported on Sept. 14:
"The FBI, rather than waiting for a judicial order, could subpoena all the Boston hotels to get registries for each of their guests, then run those names against a terrorist database for a match."
But under this dragnet search, a name can be matched against an inaccurate entry - and there have been more than a few - and put in a government terrorist database. And that person, who could easily be an innocent American citizen, may find that, instead of boarding the next plane, they are being interrogated by the FBI.
With members of Congress hearing more and more from their constituents that the government has gone too far in revising individual liberties in the Constitution, I tend to believe that federal lawmakers are going to look very hard at these administrative subpoenas. Even Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, who supports the president's call to expand federal death penalties for suspects with links, however indirect, to terrorism deaths, says that these omnivorous subpoenas "may be too sweeping." Mr. Specter wants to hold hearings.
And, Mr. President, he won't be alone.
----
Ashcroft Reducing Plea Bargain Discretion
September 22, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Ashcroft-Plea-Bargains.html?hp
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General John Ashcroft is directing federal prosecutors to seek maximum charges and penalties in more criminal cases and to limit use of plea bargains to get convictions.
``Federal prosecutors must charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offenses that are supported by the facts,'' Ashcroft said in a memo to U.S. attorneys released Monday. ``Charges should not be filed simply to exert leverage to get a plea.''
Plea bargains still would be permitted, but would be more closely tied to actions by defendants, in particular a guarantee of cooperation in an ongoing investigation, the memo said. The current guidelines give federal prosecutors far more flexibility in determining which charges to bring based on the facts of individual cases.
Other cases in which plea bargains should be used include those in which the possible maximum sentence is unaffected by the agreement, when the chances of conviction on original charges seem less likely as the case progresses and on a case-by-case basis with approval in writing from a supervisor.
Ashcroft, asked about the policy after a speech Monday in Milwaukee, said the goal is to ensure equal justice is pursued nationwide by U.S. attorneys.
``It's important that when the law is broken in Milwaukee, it's attended by the same consequences as when it's broken in Denver,'' he said.
The move follows efforts by Ashcroft earlier this year to apply the federal death penalty more broadly across the country and require prosecutors to more frequently appeal cases when judges hand down sentences lighter than those included in federal sentencing guidelines.
Gerald Lefcourt, past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said the new directive would make the federal criminal system ``inflexible and problematic'' because fewer defendants will plead guilty to harsher offenses.
Lefcourt also predicted it would further burden a corrections system already strained by a record number of prisoners.
``If all you want is to have everyone who is ever charged with something warehoused, this is a good thing,'' Lefcourt said. ``It's not just about warehousing people. It's about a fair and sure system.''
Associated Press writer Juliet Williams in Milwaukee, Wis., contributed to this story.
-------- terrorism
9/11 Planner Tells of Plot's Origins
Mohammed Says He and Bin Laden Discussed Hijacking Five Planes on Each Coast
By John Solomon
Associated Press
Monday, September 22, 2003; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44376-2003Sep21.html
Khalid Sheik Mohammed, mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has told U.S. interrogators that he first discussed the plot with Osama bin Laden in 1996 and that the original plan called for hijacking five commercial jets on each U.S. coast before it was modified several times, according to interrogation reports reviewed by the Associated Press.
Mohammed also divulged that, in its final stages, the hijacking plan called for as many as 22 terrorists and four planes in a first wave, followed by a second wave of suicide hijackings that were to be aided possibly by al Qaeda allies in southeast Asia, according to the reports.
Over time, bin Laden scrapped parts of the Sept. 11 plan, including attacks on both coasts and hijacking or bombing some planes in East Asia, Mohammed is quoted as saying in reports that shed new light on the origins and evolution of the plot.
Addressing one of the questions raised by congressional investigators in their Sept. 11 review, Mohammed said he never heard of Omar Bayoumi, a Saudi who provided rent money and assistance to two hijackers when they arrived in California.
Congressional investigators have suggested Bayoumi could have aided the hijackers or been a Saudi intelligence agent, charges the Saudi government vehemently denies. The FBI has also cast doubt on the congressional theory after extensive investigation and several interviews with Bayoumi.
In fact, Mohammed says he did not arrange for anyone on U.S. soil to assist hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi when they arrived in California. Mohammed said there "were no al-Qaida operatives or facilitators in the United States to help al-Mihdhar or al-Hazmi settle in the United States," one of the reports states.
Almihdhar and Alhazmi were on the plane that was flown into the Pentagon.
Mohammed portrays those two hijackers as central to the plot and even more important than Mohamed Atta, initially identified by Americans as the likely hijacking ringleader.
Mohammed said he communicated with Alhazmi and Almihdhar while they were in the United States by using Internet chat software, the reports states.
Mohammed said Alhazmi and Almihdhar were among the four original operatives bin Laden assigned to him for the plot, a significant revelation because they were the only two hijackers whom U.S. authorities were frantically seeking for terrorist ties in the final days before Sept. 11, 2001.
U.S. authorities continue to investigate the many statements that Mohammed has made in interrogations, seeking to eliminate deliberate misinformation. But they have been able to corroborate with other captives and evidence much of his account of the Sept. 11 planning.
Mohammed told his interrogators that the hijacking teams were originally made up of members from different countries where al Qaeda had recruited but that in the final stages bin Laden chose instead to use a large group of young Saudi men to populate the hijacking teams.
As the plot came closer to fruition, Mohammed learned that "there was a large group of Saudi operatives that would be available to participate as the muscle in the plot to hijack planes in the United States," one report says Mohammed told his captors.
Saudi Arabia was bin Laden's home, though it revoked his citizenship in the 1990s, and he reviled its alliance with the United States during the Gulf War and beyond. Saudis have suggested for months that bin Laden has been trying to drive a wedge between the United States and their kingdom, hoping to fracture the alliance.
U.S. intelligence has suggested that Saudis were chosen because there were large numbers willing to follow bin Laden and they could more easily get into the United States because of the countries' friendly relations.
Mohammed's interrogation report says he told Americans that some of the original operatives assigned to the plot did not make it because they had trouble getting into the United States.
Mohammed was captured in a March 1 raid by Pakistani forces and CIA operatives in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He is being interrogated by the CIA at an undisclosed location.
He told interrogators about other terror plots that were in various stages of planning or had been temporarily disrupted when he was captured, including one planned for Singapore.
The sources who allowed AP to review the reports insisted that specific details not be divulged about those operations because U.S. intelligence continues to investigate some of the methods and search for some of the operatives.
The interrogation reports make clear that Mohammed and al Qaeda were still actively looking to strike U.S., Western and Israeli targets across the world as of this year.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
Republicans Set to Spell Out Plan for Oil Drilling in Refuge
September 22, 2003
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/politics/22ENER.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 - Republican authors of the emerging energy bill will formally propose opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling as they begin to reveal the more contentious elements of the legislation this week, Congressional officials say.
A draft of the measure, to be made public as early as Monday, will incorporate a House-passed plan to let oil and gas companies begin exploration while confining production plants to 2,000 acres on the coastal plain of the 19 million-acre refuge, officials said.
The proposal is part of a new set of agreements between Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico and Representative Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, the two Republicans who are leading the energy negotiations. It is being released for review by others involved in the energy talks and for eventual consideration by the conference committee.
The two lawmakers have made clear they support drilling in the refuge, but their decision to try to add it to the legislation at this stage of the negotiations is certain to reignite strong resistance to the drilling plan from Senate opponents and conservation groups.
Drilling proponents said they hoped to entice a few Democrats and moderate Republicans who oppose the Alaskan exploration by emphasizing other pet projects and programs that will be included in the overall measure. For instance, projects that benefit the coal industry and a plan to increase the use of corn-based ethanol have significant Democratic backing.
"Some Democratic senators say if some things are in there, they will vote for this bill no matter what," one Senate aide said. "What we are going to do is really put it to the test."
A senior Democratic aide, however, pointed to past Senate votes against the drilling plan.
"They have tried to link it to lots of different things," said Robert M. Simon, the top staff member for Democrats on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Mr. Domenici has said repeatedly that he will not include the drilling in the final version of the measure if he does not have the 60 votes to overcome a Senate filibuster.
"We're going to have to determine whether the inclusion of ANWR will kill this or not," he said last week after a meeting with President Bush. "If it's going to kill it, it's not going to be in. But if we can pass it with it on there, it's going to be on there. And everybody understands that."
Even if Republicans eventually have to drop the drilling plan to pass the final bill, some acknowledge potential benefits in that result: they can then point to the concession on drilling to quiet Democrats unhappy that the bill is being written mainly by Republicans and environmental groups critical of the measure's benefits for the energy industry.
Last week's energy negotiations were devoted to less divisive subjects, like energy efficiency and hydrogen fuels. But with Congressional leaders now hoping to deliver a bill to Mr. Bush by mid-October, the talks will enter a more intense phase in the days ahead.
Besides the language on the Alaska drilling, the authors of the measure intend to unveil proposals on ethanol, automobile mileage and hydropower - all issues that have been contentious in the past.
Those disputes have helped stall the energy measure in Congress for the last two years. But the August blackout provided new momentum for energy policy and made complex legislation governing the nation's electric power industry a central focus of the energy bill debate. Aides said the proposed electricity provisions, which are being heavily lobbied by the utility industry, could be released this week.
In anticipation of a new push for arctic drilling, Senate Democrats have been making their sentiments known. Last week, they announced that 43 senators had signed letters urging the negotiators to keep drilling out of the final measure, more than enough to block it if they all supported a filibuster.
"If the energy bill contains drilling in ANWR, it's in for a rough ride," said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois. In votes on the issue this year and in 2002, drilling opponents prevailed both times with more than 50 votes.
The position that the energy bill sponsors will advocate was adopted by the House in April after Democrats fell short in their push to kill it. It requires the Department of Interior to create an "environmentally sound" oil and gas leasing program within the refuge. To ease criticism, the area open to production and the accompanying support facilities would be limited to 2,000 acres.
Opponents of the proposal said any exploration could spoil the wilderness and harm wildlife there and complained that the 2,000 acres could be scattered along the refuge's 1.5 million-acre coastal plain.
Mr. Tauzin said lawmakers should wait until they saw the final proposal on the arctic drilling before making up their minds.
"There are 30 different versions of what you might do in ANWR," he said, "from full-blown exploration to all sorts of different iterations, some involving protecting other lands, some involving swapping lands, some involving putting millions of acres of land into special protection."
-------- genetics
Cloned Cells Used to Treat Mice
Reuters
Monday, September 22, 2003; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45560-2003Sep22.html
U.S. researchers said yesterday that they had used cloned cells to treat a Parkinson's-like disease in mice and that it provided a good experimental basis for testing whether "therapeutic cloning" will work.
Although they did not clone each individual mouse, the cells they used were from cloned embryos and relieved the symptoms of artificially induced Parkinson's, they reported in this week's issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology.
Cloning is highly controversial, but many scientists believe therapeutic cloning can revolutionize medicine. The idea is for a patient to provide a single cell that could be manipulated and grown into new tissue or even organs.
Theoretically, it could cure juvenile diabetes, severe injuries and diseases such as Parkinson's, which is caused when the body mistakenly destroys healthy brain cells.
Lorenz Studer of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and colleagues were working with embryonic stem cells -- the body's master cells, which have the potential to become any kind of cell in the body.
The cells were directed to become several different types of brain cell -- including the dopamine-producing cells that are destroyed in Parkinson's.
The researchers created symptoms of Parkinson's in six mice using chemicals to damage their brains, then transplanted the dopamine-producing cells into their brains.
The symptoms of the mice got better, the researchers reported. Usually mice with this brain damage walk in constant circles.
When killed and examined, the mice had healthy colonies of the transplanted cells in their brains.
"There has been great interest in developing renewable cell sources for the generation of dopamine neurons in the experimental treatment of Parkinson disease," they wrote.
The eventual goal, the researchers said, would be to try this in humans. But President Bush, who strongly opposes cloning and research involving human embryos, has greatly restricted federal funding for such experiments.
Bills are pending in Congress that would ban them outright.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Activists Urge Ousting of N.H. Bishops
Associated Press
Monday, September 22, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45561-2003Sep22.html
MANCHESTER, N.H., Sept. 21 -- More than 100 protesters outside St. Joseph's Cathedral today called on fellow Roman Catholics to oust two New Hampshire bishops for their roles in the priest sex scandal.
Victims of pedophile priests and groups seeking change within the church rallied outside Bishop John McCormack's parish for two hours before and during a morning Mass.
Jim Sacco, 48, of Amherst, who received a cash settlement from the church for his abuse claims against convicted former priest John Geoghan, called clergy sexual abuse "domestic terrorism against children." Geoghan was killed by another inmate in a Massachusetts prison last month.
McCormack has been accused in lawsuits of helping move abusive priests from parish to parish while serving as a top aide to Cardinal Bernard Law in the Archdiocese of Boston. Law stepped down last December amid similar accusations.
Auxiliary Bishop Francis Christian has been accused of lying about previous sexual misconduct by the Rev. Roger Fortier to corrections officials conducting a pre-sentencing investigation after Fortier was convicted.
Although the groups have held protests outside St. Joseph's before, this was the largest to date, drawing victims from as far away as Kentucky and Colorado.
The protesters have said they will continue their efforts until McCormack and Christian resign. Both bishops have said they have no intention of resigning.
McCormack was out of the state today, but a spokesman for the Diocese of Manchester watched the protest from the church garden.
--------
ALABAMA - Motorcyclists pay tribute to Cherokees
September 22, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030922-124057-5826r.htm
WATERLOO - Tens of thousands of motorcyclists offered a rumbling, 200-mile tribute Saturday to Cherokee families who were forced from their homes to present-day Oklahoma in the brutal trek that became known as the Trail of Tears.
The annual ride from Chattanooga, Tenn., to northwest Alabama, began in 1994. Eight motorcycles started the drive that year, but their number swelled to about 100 by the time they reached their destination. On Saturday, the caravan stretched as long as 40 miles as it entered Waterloo, said Debbie Wilson, director of tourism in nearby Florence.
--------
THE COST OF WAR
Medea Benjamin vs. Paul Bremer on PBS
September 22, 2003
PBS News Hour
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec03/funding_9-22.html
RAY SUAREZ: For more on the funding request and how to spend the money, we get two perspectives. Richard Perle serves on the Defense Policy Board, which advises the secretary of defense, and was assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan. Medea Benjamin is founding director of Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based human rights organization. She recently visited Iraq with human rights organizations tracking the reconstruction.
Medea Benjamin, we all just heard Paul Bremer lay out the spending plan and the priorities for the Iraq reconstruction. Is it the right plan, and is it the right amount of money? Bremer's focus and spending priorities
MEDEA BENJAMIN: No, it's not the right plan. Bremer doesn't have an idea what he's doing. I just came back from Iraq, it's a disaster, people don't have electricity, water, garbage collection, sewage collection, jobs. They're angry, they're bitter. They say the United States money is not getting down to the people, it's going to Halliburton, it's going to Bechtel. We should not approve this $87 billion, instead there should be immediate transition over to the United Nations and as soon as possible to Iraqi self rule.
RAY SUAREZ: Richard Perle, did Paul Bremer's plan sound right to you both in its focus and its spending priorities?
RICHARD PERLE: Yes, it did, and I find it a bit ironic to listen to someone say there's no electricity, there's no water, therefore we must not spend money on electricity and water. What we are attempting to do in Iraq is precisely restore essential services, as Ambassador Bremer indicated, provide security, and open the way to a decent Iraqi government and a private Iraqi economy.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: But we haven't been able to do it in six months.
RICHARD PERLE: Of course it can't be done in six months, no one is proposing that it could be done in six months--
MEDEA BENJAMIN: It certainly can and should have been done in six months. The electricity should be up and running, if the Iraqis were in charge they would have done it themselves. The water supply should be running, the telephone system should be up and running. There is no reason to have this chaos that's in Iraq right now. And it's because the U.S. Administration doesn't have a clue about what it's doing. That's why it needs to be an immediate transition the U. N., and then to the Iraqis who know how to rebuild their own economy much better than Paul Bremer.
RAY SUAREZ: Richard Perle.
RICHARD PERLE: Well, I certainly believe that the Iraqis should be involved in the rebuilding their economy, and they will be. Much of the work that will be done under this program will be carried out by Iraqi workers. I can't for the life of me see how adding the United Nations bureaucracy to this is going to expedite getting Iraqis to work, rebuilding their country. The contested effectiveness of reconstruction
RAY SUAREZ: Let's return to the -- Ms. Benjamin, let me continue here. By many accounts inside the Senate there is no appetite for turning down this package. Can we look at the money that's been spent in Iraq already and see that it's been spent well so that there's some confidence that the next $87 billion might be spent well also?
MEDEA BENJAMIN: No, we can't at all. We've already spent $78 billion.
RAY SUAREZ: Let Richard Perle answer that question, then I'll give you a chance.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Sure.
RICHARD PERLE: The amounts that have been spent on reconstruction up until now have been spent under extremely difficult circumstances. And I have no reason to believe that that money under those circumstances has not been spent reasonably or spent well. This is not a situation in which you can go out and offer contracts where contractors are free to employ work forces without security concerns. It's a very difficult situation. And so if one were to go back and do an audit, I suppose you'll find that some of the standards of peacetime stable societies didn't apply. But on the whole, given the circumstances, I think we've done rather well.
RAY SUAREZ: Medea Benjamin?
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, we've done miserably, Ray. Just think -- Halliburton is making $2 billion, Bechtel is making $1 billion. And they haven't been able to turn on the electricity or turn back the water supply. They can't do the job, plus they're wasting massive amounts of money. Even the governing council that was hand-appointed by the U.S. is saying that the money being spent is being wasted because it's U.S. companies in charge instead of Iraqis.
RAY SUAREZ: So you would suggest immediate turning over of authority to the U. N. Does the U. N. have a track record in these matters that's more encouraging than America's thus far?
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, it certainly has a track record that's more encouraging than the Americans. It's been six months since this occupation, and even the Iraqis who welcomed the U.S. with open arms and were so happy to get rid of Saddam Hussein are now extremely bitter and angry. The resentment will only grow unless the U.S. turns this over to a legitimate authority, which is the United Nations, which will have a quick time line for Iraqi self rule and that the money that is pledged by the U.S. and the international community -- and let's remember the international community will not pledge money unless it is in the hands of the United Nations -- and that money should go directly to Iraqis and not to companies like Halliburton and Bechtel that are profiteering from this war.
RICHARD PERLE: What you just heard is a tirade against American companies in the left-wing tradition that she represents. Her characterization of the situation in Iraq is not at all borne out by many conversations I've had with Iraqis, including members of the governing council she's been referring to.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, I challenge to you go there with me, Mr. Perle, because I was there in July, I was there in August, I don't stay in the presidential palace, I don't go around with bodyguards and helicopters and sniffing dogs like Paul Bremer and Colin Powell. I challenge to you go with me, without any bodyguards and let's walk around the streets of the cities of Iraq and see what it looks like six months after the U.S. occupation.
RICHARD PERLE: With all due respect, your sojourns in the cities of Iraq are hardly the appropriate measure of how well we have done in restoring electricity and getting water back on track. I don't think --
MEDEA BENJAMIN: You know better sitting in Washington, D.C.?
RAY SUAREZ: Let him finish, please.
RICHARD PERLE: Let's be clear. This is a massive undertaking and very significant progress has been made, and it makes no sense for to you sit there and say nothing has been accomplished when a great deal has been accomplished.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: It's an absolute disaster, Mr. Perle, and I think you know it, but go with me and you'll see with your own eyes. An eventual political price?
RAY SUAREZ: If we are in a situation where even by Paul Bremer's own admission, things are not where they wanted them to be by this point in the occupation, is there also a political price that's eventually paid -- as far as working with a civilian population that is becoming impatient, regardless of what happened before the invasion, but becoming impatient with American administration right there at the moment?
RICHARD PERLE: People are impatient when they can't get electricity. I was without it until earlier today. For four days. And I was awfully impatient, after the storm we had here. So it's perfectly understandable that people are impatient. It is also very clear that no one wants Saddam Hussein back. That was a regime of terror and we're well rid of it and the Iraqi people are well rid of it and they are a good deal more tolerant than some Americans, as we've just seen. They're prepared to work with us, they're eager to work with us and they are working with us, and the bitterness that I just heard described is not the prevailing sentiment in Iraq.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Because you haven't been there - go on any street corner.
RAY SUAREZ: Did you see no electricity in evidence, no public utilities in evidence? I mean all the reporting that's coming out of Iraq shows that these things are sporadic, perhaps not as reliable as they should be, but in some evidence.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: The electricity is sporadic, it's less available than it was under Saddam Hussein. The streets are full of green bubbling sewage, there is no decent garbage collection. There is no decent access to water. There is an unemployment crisis because so many people have been thrown out of their jobs, and perhaps worst of all, there is no law and order. Women, particularly, are afraid to go out of their homes, afraid to go out on the streets.
There will be no law and order until the U.S. troops leave Iraq, it's turned over to the United Nations, and then becomes in the hands of the Iraqis themselves, that's the only way this situation is going to improve for the Iraqis themselves, and let's remember that many Americans feel there's a much better use of $87 billion to put into our schools, our health care system, our public transportation system, instead of spending it to put our boys and girls in harm's way in Iraq, a country where they don't want to be and a country where the Iraqis don't want us.
RICHARD PERLE: Now we've gone full circle. We've come from deploring the situation in Iraq, to saying that things have to be done to fix it, to saying we shouldn't spend any money to fix it. I think it's very clear that she's just not the least bit interested in the people of Iraq.
RAY SUAREZ: But can American policymakers expect the kind of help that they're looking for from the U.N. without ceding some oversight of the reconstruction?
RICHARD PERLE: I don't know what help we're looking for from the United Nations. You asked earlier about the track record of the United Nations. I had a conversation with a very senior Afghan official, a cabinet minister, just recently, who said to me everything the U. N. does in Afghanistan costs three times as much as what we are able to do for ourselves. We do it --
MEDEA BENJAMIN: The governing council in Iraq is saying that it's costing ten times...
RICHARD PERLE: Could I --
RAY SUAREZ: Let him finish, please.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: ... to give to the U.S. what would be used in Iraq.
RICHARD PERLE: We -- we do agree on one point, which is that the sooner the people of Iraq are in control of their own destiny, the better. And the way to facilitate that is by providing a jump start, by providing some money that will start the reconstruction. This is a country in which there was virtually no investment for three decades, there was nothing but tyranny and murder. And so it is at the beginning in every respect, with respect to electricity, with respect to water, with respect to --
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, there's less electricity, there's less water, there's less jobs available. People are miserable, Mr. Perle. This is not working, it is a quagmire, we need the world community to invest funds into Iraq because we can't do it alone and the only way we're going to get that help from the international community is if we turn the situation over to the United Nations, the only legitimate authority to oversee the transition to Iraqi self rule.
RAY SUAREZ: We have to end it there. Medea Benjamin, Richard Perle, thank you both.
-------
------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)
------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!
-----------
Posted
without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only,
in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.