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NUCLEAR
Navy has been aware of problems associated with DU
Iran's Nuclear Program. Part III: The Emerging Crisis
IAEA begins key Iran inspections, Tehran shows signs of cooperation
Iran to Give IAEA Details of Imported Nuke Parts
Iraq paid N. Korea to deliver missiles
WMD questions linger
Kay: Iraq Weapons Hunters Pursuing Tips
The Last Nuclear Moment
'Japan, ROK, U.S. would pay for N. Korean disarmament'
US illusions about North Korea
Roller coaster ride with N. Korea
Tight Test Schedule Ahead For Missile Defense Shield
Report: Nuclear Labs Vulnerable to Attack
Tenn. Plant to Make Energy, Bomb Material
The Cost of Empire
Neophyte Gorge
U.S. Avoids Criticism of Israeli Raid in Syria
Bush Reaffirms That Israel Has Right to Defend 'Homeland'
U.S. Response To Attack by Israel Is Muted
Bush asserts Israel's right to defense
Prising open the Syrian file
Bush hopes probe will plug leaks
Wilson: Bush Not Party to Leak
MILITARY
No. 2 State Dept. Official Visits Afghan Region of New Attacks
Karzai Faces Revolt In Fragile Coalition
Bargain Basement
Kosovo Offers Police Officers as Peacekeepers, and Is Refused
GAO: Pentagon sold biolab gear
Minitank to spearhead lighter, mobile army
PM misled House on Iraq arms, says Cook
Blair Doubted Iraq Had Arms, Ex-Aide Says
Inside the Boeing deal scandal
Use of private security firms in Iraq draws concerns
Federal Contracts
Nerve agent cleanup critiqued
Hungary could close military base after US snub
Serbs to fight beside US troops in Afghanistan
Two Iraqis demanding army pay shot dead by US forces
Turkey to monitor US moves against Iraqi Kurds
Refugee plight report explosive
Putting an end to suicide bombings - [put Arafat on public trial]
ISRAEL IS THE PROBLEM, Our problem....
Israel Attacks What It Calls a Terrorist Camp in Syria
Arafat Names New Cabinet and Declares an Emergency
Turkey's Cabinet Approves Troops for Iraq
Jordan denies WMDs crossed its borders
Text: Syrian draft resolution
Wider Violence Will Follow Israeli Attack, Arabs Warn
Camp Is Said to Be Long Abandoned
Syria: U.S. Condones Attacks by Israel
Turkey's Cabinet Approves Troops for Iraq
NATO agrees to widen Afghan force
Kremlin wins in Chechnya
Kremlin-Backed Leader Wins Chechen Vote
Rigged Chechen poll 'will lead to new war'
Syria Offers a U.N. Resolution to Condemn Israeli Raid
Security Council adjourns without vote on Syria raid
Pentagon officials ignored reports on dire state of Iraq's oil industry
An overstretched army
White House to Overhaul Iraq and Afghan Missions
ENERGY AND OTHER
Energy Department Rolls Out Ultra Clean Fuels Facility
California Drives Forward With Energy Efficient Vehicle Laws
EPA Rule Revisions Roil U.S. Case Against Power Plant
ACTIVISTS
11 Peace activists arrested inside Lakenheath nuclear weapons base, UK
Peace Corps wants diversity
Israeli 'human shields' arrive in Ramallah to guard Arafat
Papal envoy to Bush says events proved Vatican right about Iraqi war
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
Navy has been aware of problems associated with DU since at least 14 May 1984, FOIA Document shows
From: Glen Milner info@zgcenter.org and Sunny Miller,
413 773-7427 at Traprock Peace Center
http://www.traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_milner.html
Seattle, WA & Deerfield, MA - The US Navy knew in 1984 that, "... should a DU penetrator oxidize resulting from a penetrator's involvement in an accident such as a fire, then the intake of DU aerosol, or ash via inhalation, ingestion, or absorption presents an internal radiation hazard."
Documents obtained by Glen Milner of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, Poulsbo, WA. through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) were shared with Sunny Miller, Executive Director of Traprock Peace Center in Deerfield as she prepared another speaking tour by Gulf War veteran Doug Rokke. Rokke visits Seattle, on Monday, October 6, Port Townsend, WA on October 7, Portland, OR on October 8, Arcata, CA on Oct. 9, then leaves for Illinois and Germany.
Milner, Miller, Rokke and many others are working to inform the public about the health hazards of uranium-waste munitions during an eight-state speaking tour that includes Texas, Missouri, South Dakota and Indiana, with inquiries from other states. Rokke and representatives of Traprock Peace Center will bring obscure public documents to public view through the World Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg, Germany, October 16-19. A child's rights attorney, Charles Jenks, President of Traprock Peace Center, has posted the relevant FOIA document at http://www.traprockpeace.org
The document is available for download in both reduced and full resolution formats. The Traprock site has extensive original resources and links regarding uranium waste munitions (Œdepleted¹ uranium).
A Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) was released from the Department of the Navy, Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana, on 22 May 03 in response to a 2 April 03 Freedom of Information Act request by Glen Milner. The MSDS, dated 14 May 1984, shows the Navy has been aware of many of the problems associated with depleted uranium since that time.
Glen Milner is an electrician who has devoted time to extensive research using the Freedom of Information Act, since 1987. A request for information on navigation hazards for Trident submarines revealed that the submarines were advised to stay out of an area where a surface ship was firing 20-mm bullets containing the heavy metal, radioactive waste, U238. Through this finding, Milner became a key figure in breaking the story in January 2003 that the Navy was firing radioactive-waste munitions into prime fishing areas off the Washington coast. Milner has worked on Trident nuclear submarine issues with the Ground Zero group in Poulsbo, WA since the early 1980's. Currently the Ground Zero Center has filed an environmental lawsuit against the Navy's Trident II
(D-5) missile upgrade at the Bangor submarine base. The lawsuit is based almost entirely upon information released through the Freedom of Information Act.
For more information contact ...
Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, Poulsbo, WA.
http://www.gzcenter.org
and Traprock Peace Center, Deerfield, MA.
http://www.traprockpeace.org
Both organizations celebrate their anniversaries in October.
Charles Jenks, attorney at law President of the Core Group
Traprock Peace Center
103A Keets Road Deerfield, MA 01342
413-773-1633; Fax 413-773-7507
charles@mtdata.com http://traprockpeace.org
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee,
4806 York Road, Baltimore, MD 21212
Ph: 410-323-7200; Fax: 410-323-7292; Email: mobuszewski@afsc.org
-------- iran / inspections
Iran's Nuclear Program. Part III: The Emerging Crisis
By Mohammad Sahimi,
10/6/03
Payvand's Iran News
http://www.payvand.com/news/03/oct/1039.html
This article is the last of a three-part series on Iran's nuclear program. In this Part, the dispute - many consider it a crisis - between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is described.
Recall that after the February announcement of President Mohammad Khatami regarding the construction of the facilities in Natanz for uranium enrichment, and other associated plants needed for this purpose, Dr. Mohammad El Baradei, the head of IAEA, accompanied by a team of inspectors, visited Iran. Since then, the IAEA's inspectors and experts have visited Iran several more times. A preliminary report was published in July, with a follow-up one on August 26.
Before the revelations about the Natanz facility, there had been reports for years that Iran had sought, albeit unsuccessfully, the uranium enrichment technology, both in the international market and from the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy. Although not definitively established yet, it now appears that the Natanz facility is similar to what Pakistan had built for its nuclear program in the 1980s. Various reports indicate, however, that the Natanz facility is in fact far more sophisticated than both Pakistan's and what was discovered in Iraq after its defeat in the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
The process of converting uranium ore to enriched uranium is actually long and very complex. It has been known for many years that Iran has natural uranium reserves, in the form of uranium ore. In 1985, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) located over 5,000 metric tons of uranium ore in the desert in eastern part of Yazd province. This represents one of the largest deposits of uranium ore in the Middle East. The ore must first undergo a semiprocess to be converted to a powder, usually called the yellowcake. Iran is building a facility in Ardakan for this purpose. The yellowcake is then further processed to produce uranium hexafluoride (UF_6) which is in gaseous state. The facility for doing this is being built in Esfahan (Isfahan). Uranium has two important isotopes (that is, two slightly different versions of it with slightly different atomic masses) which are uranium-235 and uranium-238 (the numbers represent the atomic masses). It is uranium-238 that may be used in making nuclear weapons, but also in nuclear reactors. The Esfahan facility will also produce uranium oxide and uranium metal, both of which have civilian as well as military applications.
The Natanz facility is equipped with the instruments for what is currently considered to be the standard uranium-enrichment technique, namely, a large number of centrifuges that spin uranium hexafluoride gas at very high speeds. Under such conditions, centrifugal forces help separate the lighter uranium-235 hexafluoride from the heavier uranium-238 hexafluoride. The facility has a pilot gas centrifuge plant that, by the end of 2003, is supposed to house 1000 centrifuges (at the time of the IAEA visit in February, there were 160 centrifuges in the facility), and a large-scale production plant which will house up to 50,000 centrifuges, the installation of which (which is supposed to begin in 2005) will take up to 10 years. Such a facility would then have the capability for producing enough uranium for annual consumption of a nuclear reactor of the Bushehr-type. Note that only 10 countries have access to the centrifuge technology.
Development of a uranium-enrichment facility is an important step (but not the only one) towards making nuclear weapons. For example, the Natanz facility, when complete and in full operation, could produce 500 kgr/year of weapon-grade uranium. As it typically takes about 20 kgr of enriched uranium to make a single nuclear bomb, the produced uranium would be enough to make about 25 bombs every year. We must, however, keep in mind that a uranium-enrichment facility is also utilized for peaceful purposes it can produce low-grade enriched uranium for use in nuclear reactors.
Since, typically, one first tests whether a single centrifuge with a small quantity of uranium hexafluoride works before installing hundreds (or even thousands) of them, one might suspect that Iran does have at least a small amount of enriched uranium, not declared to the IAEA, which, if true, would imply that Iran is in serious violation of the NPT that it signed in 1968. However, such tests can also be carried out by computer simulations and modelling. Recall that even nuclear explosions are simulated completely realistically, and therefore, in principle, one does not need a physical test to check whether the centrifuges work. Whether this is the case in the present situation is not clear.
It was reported on July 18 that the IAEA inspectors had detected the trace of enriched uranium in the samples taken at Natanz, but Iran said that the source of the trace is the equipments brought to Natanz from elsewhere and bought on the international market. Subsequently, it was announced on September 25 that a trace amount of enriched uranium has also been detected at Kaalaa-ye (Kalaye is usually used in the english press) Electric Company in the northwest suburb of Tehran, a non-nuclear site (the Company produces watches, as well as certain components for the centrifuges) that the IAEA suspects Iran is using for her nuclear enrichment activities. Since Iran had declared to the IAEA that the instruments at Natanz had been stored at the Kaalaa-ye Electric site before being transported to Natanz, and given that no trace of enriched uranium has been detected anywhere else in Iran, the Kaalaa-ye Electric discovery may actually confirm Iran's contention regarding the origin of the enriched uranium. But, once again, the situation is not clear, unless Iran provides the IAEA a list of suppliers that provided her with the instruments and equipments.
How are nuclear facilities monitored and violations of the NPT discovered? Inspections of nuclear facilities include the use of a powerful technique, called the isotopic detection, which, in essence, is a method for monitoring the environment and anything that might contaminate it. This technique is based on the facts that, (1) extremely small quantities of a material always escape a process or an industrial plant, and (2) that an equipped laboratory can readily identify the isotopic ratio of a sample that contains extremely small, albeit measureable, amounts of a material, even if it is as small as a billionth of a gram.
Nuclear physics predicts that the ratio of uranium-235 to uranium-238 is essentially the same everywhere. Therefore, when the isotopic detection technique is applied to samples containing uranium, those with ratios lower than the theoretically-predicted value would most probably indicate illegal (from the NPT stand) uranium-enrichment activity. The same technique can be used for detecting any amount of plutonium that is in excess of what is (theoretically) expected, which would then suggest the existence of a reprocessing program for nuclear wastes generated by nuclear reactors, from which plutonium is extracted. This technique is used, under the NPT, in the declared nuclear facilities of the NPT signatories.
As a reaction to the discovery of Iraq's program for developing nuclear weapons, that was discovered by the United Nations inspectors in 1991 after Iraq's defeat in the second Gulf war, the IAEA decided to develop and implement additional procedures for enhancing nuclear safeguards. At the time, the IAEA hoped to have these additional procedures or protocols in place two years later, hence the name "93+2" that is sometimes used to refer to this matter. The Additional Protocol was developed in 1996, and has since been signed by 78 countries (out of the 183 countries that have signed the NPT). Thirty three of these countries, mostly small nations, have also ratified the signing of the additional protocol by their national parliaments, and hence implementing it, although these countries cannot really afford to develop nuclear bomb! Most importantly, the Additional Protocol has not been adopted by the US, its most forceful advocate when it comes to OTHER countries!
The Additional Protocol also gives the IAEA the authority to inspect any facility of any nation that has signed the Protocol, even those that, seemingly, have nothing to do with a nuclear program, any time that the IAEA wishes. This is a problematic aspect of the Additional Protocol, as inspection of non-nuclear facilities may be interpreted as an infringement on the national sovereignty of a country under inspection. However, since Iran's facilities have been under inspections for years, this should be a minor issue.
On Friday September 12, 2003, the 35-member governing board of the IAEA gave Iran an ultimatum until October 31 to prove that her nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes, by providing all the deatils of her nuclear program. Iran's reaction was mixed: On one hand, she reacted with indignation, calling the ultimatum "premature" and "unfair," while stating, on the other hand, that she will continue working with the IAEA.
It should be pointed out that even Ms. Melissa Fleming, the spokeswoman for the IAEA, conceded that the ultimatum was "highly unusual" in that it was adopted WITHOUT A VOTE. At the same time, the IAEA itself had conceded that Iran had expanded her cooperation with the Agency, even allowing many sites that are not covered by the NPT, such as the Kaalaa-ye Electric Company, to be inspected. Therefore, the ultimatum has much to do with Iran's poor international standing and isolation, which are, of course, justified.
At the same time, the US is once again using an important international organization to advance her agenda, damaging in the process the credibility and effectiveness of the organization, only a few months after doing the same to the United Nations during the debate over invasion of Iraq (and now going back to it asking for help!). France and Germany, at odds with the US over invasion and occupation of Iraq, but eager to mend their relations with the US, also have joined her in calling on Iran to immediately sign the Additional Protocol, and to reveal all of the details of her nuclear program.
Before analyzing the present situation between Iran and the IAEA, we must keep in mind that,
(1) according to the original IAEA safeguard agreements, Iran was not obligated to declare the start of construction of the Natanz facility. These agreements stipulate that, only 180 days before introducing any nuclear material, does Iran have to declare the existence of the facility. Therefore, construction of the undeclared Natanz facility is NOT by itself a vilation of the NPT.
(2) The NPT does allow Iran to legally build any nuclear facility, including one for uranium enrichment, so long as it is declared to, and safeguarded by, the IAEA, and is intended for peaceful purposes.
Keeping these important points in mind, the problematic aspects of Iran's nuclear program, so far as the IAEA is concerned, are as follows.
(a) The origin of the trace amounts of highly-enriched uranium at Natanz and Kaalaa-ye Electric Company near Tehran is not yet clear. This was already described and discussed above.
(b) Iran declared to the IAEA that since approximately seven weeks ago, she has begun some uranium enrichment activities at Natanz using a single centrifuge. Since this was declared to the IAEA, and because the Natanz facility is now monitored by the IAEA, this activity does not represent a violation of the NPT (although, given the current international conditions, some may regard the timing of this as unfortunate). The important point of contention is: How can Iran be so sure that the centrifuges at Natanz work with high levels of reliability, if no prior (undeclared) tests have been carried out? Iran has countered that she has used modelling and simulation, mentioned above, which is plausible, but does not, of course, exclude the possibility of actual physical tests.
(c) The IAEA has demanded that Iran provide it with all the details of the work at Kaalaa-ye Electric Company. Iran has provided some (but presumably not all) of the details, and has allowed the facility to be visited by the IAEA inspectors, even though this inspection is not covered by the NPT, although, at first, Iran refused to grant the IAEA the permission to visit this site. If Iran does sign the Additional Protocol, then she would have to completely open the facility to the IAEA inspectors.
(d) As mentioned in Part I, in 1991, Iran received from China 1,000 kgr of natural uranium hexafluoride, 400 kgr of uranium tetrafluoride (UF_4), and 400 kgr of uranium dioxide (UO_2), without reporting them to the IAEA. The question then is: What happened to these uranium compounds? Iran has declared that some of the compounds have been converted to other uranium compounds, some of which have medical applications, while others may be of dual use. Given that Iranian medical scientists who work in Iran have published the results of their research involving such uranium compounds, Iran's explanation is plausible, but does not provide an explanation for the fate of all the undecalred uranium compounds.
In this author's opinion, none of these problems is intractable, and so far as their scientific and technological aspects are concerned, can be addressed to the satisfaction of the IAEA. The main problem, in this author's opinion, is that much of the dispute with the IAEA is political, rather than scientific or technological. To see this, consider the following indisputable facts:
(1) As recognized by the NPT, peaceful use of nuclear technology, and in particular nuclear energy, is Iran's fundamental right, so long as her nuclear program is completely transparent to the IAEA.
(2) Article 22 of the agreement between Iran and the IAEA allows for an "arbitral tribunal," if there is still any dispute after Iran provides sufficients details of her nuclear program to the IAEA. Therefore, October 31, 2003 is not necessarily a rigid deadline.
(3) The United States has a selective non-proliferation policy. She allows Pakistan, a country that created the Taliban and her population has provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and his terrorisat group; a country whose military is still controlled to a large extent by extremist elements, to develop nuclear weapons. The US has assisted Israel to develop an impressive arsenal of nuclear weapons; has exported nuclear technology to China, and has offered a deal to North Korea regarding her nuclear reactors. The US does not pressure Pakistan, India and Israel to sign the NPT and its Additional Protocol. A little-known fact is that, in early 1995, the German government proposed a plan whereby Kraftwerk Union (a subsidiary of Siemens) would complete construction of the Bushehr reactors (see Part I of this series), subject to Iran's agreeing to extra non-proliferation verification procedures similar to those that the United States negotiated with North Korea, and Iran agreed with the plan. But, once again, immense pressure by the United States scuttled the plan, after which Iran turned to Russia for completion of the Bushehr reactors.
A few other important points must be mentioned here:
(a) In this author's opinion, if acquiring nuclear reactors is in Iran's national interests (see Part II), so is signing the Additional Protocol. However, it is completely reasonable to expect that, in return for signing the Protocol and openning the nation to the IAEA inspections, Iran should obtain access to advanced nuclear technology, which should, however, be monitored and safeguarded by the IAEA. The fact remains that Russian nuclear reactors are inferior to those made in the West. Britain, France, and Germany have already promised to help Iran.
(b) However, in this author's opinion, signing the Additional Protocol, while necessary, may not be sufficient by itself to protect Iran's nuclear assets since this author believes that, unless the US invades and occupies Iran and installs a completely puppet regime in Tehran, she will continue pressuring Iran, using her nuclear program as a pretext, regardless of the future political developments in Iran. Thus, Iran's aim, in this author's opinion, must be addressing the demands of the IAEA with which the European Union also agrees, and to open up all of her facilities to inspections.
(c) The present Iranian leadership, both elected and unelected, must recognize that it has been given no mandate to deprive Iran's furure generations of the most advanced technology, namely, nuclear technology, by acting against Iran's national interests, including resisting stubbornly the legitimate demands by the IAEA. While giving Iran, a sovereign nation, an ultimatum is repugnant, there are many legitimate issues that must be addressed.
(d) It is highly important how Iran responds to the IAEA reasonable demands. She can react by dragging her feet, without having any active, efficient, and logical diplomacy, which will eventually result in agreeing to all the IAEA demands but under highly unfavorable circumstances, hence bringing about severe set backs to Iran's nuclear program, if nothing else (which could include economic sanctions and military threat). Alternatively, Iran can come forward with all the details of her nuclear program, while being firm in demanding assistance for acquiring advanced nuclear technology, in which case the EU, Russia, Japan and the non-aligned countries may help Iran.
(e) Unless Iran addresses the issues that the IAEA has raised, and signs the Additional Protocol on nuclear inspections, she will not only fail in her goal of building a network of nuclear reactors, but will also be under severe international pressure. Iran has already felt this pressure: Japan has slowed down negotiations for development of the Azaadegaan oil field (the largest field in the Middle East with estimated reserves of 26-30 billion barrels of oil), and the Shell Oil Company has withdrawn from negotiations for developing the same field. Under severe international pressure, the task of building a network of nuclear reactors will be set back for many years, if not decades.
With Israel's help, the apartheid regime of South Africa developed extensive nuclear facilities, and even made 16 nuclear bombs. The sixteen nuclear bombs could not, however, prevent the demise of the South African racist regime. While after establishment of a democratic system, the South Arfican government of President Nelson Mandela gave up volunteerly its nuclear bombs, the nuclear technology and know-how, developed during the apartheid regime, now belong to a democratic country and all South Africans.
Nothing protects Iran's national security and interests better than acceptance of her political system and government by Iranian people, which would happen only if a truly democratic system is established in Iran. At the same time, Iran's nuclear infrastructure is part of her national asset, belonging to all Iranians, regardless of their political inclinations. It is ultimately up to Iranian people, like their South African counterparts, to decide the fate of their country's nuclear technology, once such a democratic system is established.
----
IAEA begins key Iran inspections, Tehran shows signs of cooperation
TEHRAN (AFP)
Oct 06, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031006155933.ohcupyi4.html
An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team has begun a crucial round of inspections in Iran after reaching an accord with Iranian officials on a list of sites to visit, a top Iranian diplomat told AFP Monday.
And in a further sign that Iran was working to comply with an IAEA ultimatum over its suspect nuclear programme, Iran's representative to the IAEA Ali Akbar Salehi also said the Islamic republic had begun divulging details of its nuclear equipment imports.
"The experts from the IAEA presented us a list of sites, and we arrived at a bilateral agreement on the sites the inspectors wished to visit," Salehi, told AFP. "The inspections have now begun."
Salahi did not say whether or not Iran had agreed to open up for visits all of the sites demanded by the IAEA team, which arrived in Tehran last week for a mission the agency's chief Mohamed ElBaradei has described as "decisive".
In a resolution on September 12, the IAEA's board of governors gave Iran until October 31 to guarantee it was not developing and would not develop atomic weapons under the cover of its civil nuclear programme.
A failure by Iran to meet the deadline could see it being declared in violation of the NPT and the matter being passed to the UN Security Council.
But in a further sign that Iran was determined to meet the ultimatum, Salehi said Iran had also begun handing over lists of parts imported for its nuclear programme.
"We have already given a list of imported parts that were bought through intermediaries, and we are in the process of finishing this list," Salehi said.
He added that because some parts -- most for use in enrichment -- were purchased through middle-men, he "does not know of their origin".
The IAEA has asked Iran to come up with a detailed list of its nuclear-related equipment, notably parts used in centrifuges for uranium enrichment, in order to resolve what have been described as "outstanding issues."
On previous inspection visits, IAEA teams have found traces of highly enriched uranium at two sites, raising suspicions that despite its denials, Iran has a secret weapons programme. Tehran says the traces found their way into the country on imported equipment.
The IAEA resolution, passed after heavy US lobbying, also called on it to sign an additional protocol to the UN nuclear Non-Proliferation Treatyallowing for unscheduled inspections and implement it immediately and unconditionally.
Pending the signing of the protocol, the resolution demanded full access for inspectors.
The IAEA team currently in Iran, led by an IAEA deputy director general Pierre Goldschmidt, have yet to touch on the protocol and have instead focussed on resolving "outstanding issues", diplomats said.
In recent days, Iran has been showing mounting signs it intends to cooperate with the IAEA, despite its initial anger over what a string of officials here branded a US-Israeli-driven resolution.
After the resolution was passed, some hardliners even advocated following the path of North Korea and pulling out of the NPT altogether.
Salehi on Sunday summed up what appears to be the current policy by saying Iran intends to answer IAEA questions over its nuclear programme "as quickly as possible", even though it does not consider itself bound by the deadline.
But despite the efforts, Iranian anger over the pressure has not died down: supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted on Monday by state television as saying "the world oppressors know Iran does not have a nuclear bomb, but what worries them is that Iran can advance in science."
--------
Iran to Give IAEA Details of Imported Nuke Parts
October 6, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-nuclear.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday it would give the U.N. nuclear watchdog a list of components imported for enriching uranium, which Washington says is the heart of a secret atomic weapons program.
But Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Akbar Salehi said Tehran, which has been given until October 31 to dispel doubts about its atomic aims, could not say exactly where the parts came from.
``These are items which were not bought officially, they were bought through intermediaries and it is not possible to trace intermediaries,'' Salehi told Reuters by telephone.
``We will give them (the IAEA) a list of the items and we will show them where they were stored because they were stored in a number of places,'' he added.
An IAEA team arrived in Tehran late last week to conduct talks and inspections aimed at verifying Iran's position that its sophisticated nuclear program is solely geared to producing electricity and not bombs.
Should outstanding doubts remain at the time of the next IAEA Governors Board meeting in November, Iran's case may be sent to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
Salehi's comments were the first details to emerge of concrete steps Iran is taking to meet the IAEA's demands for full transparency about its nuclear program since the IAEA team arrived.
The IAEA has said getting to the bottom of Iran's uranium enrichment program -- which Tehran now acknowledges dates back to 1985 and not 1997 as it had originally told the agency -- is its top priority.
Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for nuclear energy reactors, or as bomb material if highly enriched.
SUSPICIOUS TRACES FOUND
IAEA inspectors have found traces of arms-grade enriched uranium at two sites in Iran this year. Tehran says the findings were caused by contamination from imported parts and not a sign that it is secretly producing fissile material.
A Vienna-based diplomat said it was theoretically conceivable that the intermediaries who sold Iran the components on the black market in the 1980s (during the Iran-Iraq war) were no longer contactable, as they probably did not run standard above-board businesses.
At the same time, the diplomat said it would be crucial for Iran to hand over a complete import list and all original documents pertaining to the imports. Anything less would not be considered complete.
Iran refuses to accept as binding the IAEA's September resolution which set the October 31 deadline and called on Iran to halt enrichment activities.
But Salehi said Iranian officials had agreed on an action plan with visiting IAEA officials to answer their outstanding concerns.
``So far things have been going very well. We hope it will continue as it has been. We have an initial understanding of what to do and I hope it speeds up,'' he said.
However, diplomats remain skeptical that Iran will do enough to satisfy the IAEA.
``We need a report from (IAEA chief Mohamed) ElBaradei,'' a Western diplomat told Reuters in Vienna. ``But I think it's likely that the board will find Iran in non-compliance in a number of areas in November.''
-------- iraq / inspections
Iraq paid N. Korea to deliver missiles
By Bill Gertz and Stephen Dinan
October 6, 2003
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20031004-123026-1690r.htm
Saddam Hussein's government paid North Korea $10 million for medium-range Nodong missile technology in the months before the Iraq war, but never received any goods because of U.S. pressure, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq said yesterday.
David Kay, who is leading the Iraq Survey Group, said there is "a lot of evidence" Iraq was rebuilding its banned missile program, which it actively hid from U.N. weapons inspectors.
Mr. Kay, in a telephone interview with reporters, also said the discovery that Iraq's intelligence service had built at least a dozen clandestine weapons laboratories was one of the surprises of the three-month search for weapons of mass destruction and missile programs that he led.
"The other surprise is the extent to which the Iraqis had moved ahead in the missile area," Mr. Kay said, noting that Iraq had three missile programs that violated U.N. sanctions against building missiles with ranges greater than 93 miles.
He said European countries were involved in Iraq's three covert missile programs, which included a copy of the 620-mile-range Nodong missile.
"I can't name them right now," he said.
Mr. Kay also admitted that he was surprised not to have found stocks of hidden chemical, biological and nuclear-related weapons of mass destruction.
"I think all of us who entered Iraq expected the job of actually discovering deployed weapons to be easier than it has turned out to be," he said.
On North Korea, Mr. Kay said the Iraqis launched negotiations for North Korean missile assistance in 1999 and the cooperation continued through 2002. It was the first time U.S. officials had disclosed a link between Iraq's missile program and North Korea.
Both Iraq under Saddam and North Korea, along with Iran, were labeled as an international "axis of evil" by President Bush.
Mr. Bush yesterday said the evidence in the interim report Mr. Kay delivered to Congress this week on the first three months of the search for weapons showed Saddam was "a threat, a serious danger."
"The report states that Saddam Hussein's regime had a clandestine network of biological laboratories, a live strain of deadly agent botulinum, sophisticated concealment efforts, and advanced design work on prohibited longer-range missiles," Mr. Bush said on the South Lawn of the White House.
Mr. Bush said the preliminary findings "already make clear that Saddam Hussein actively deceived the international community, that Saddam Hussein was in clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 and that Saddam Hussein was a danger to the world."
Critics, including Democrats on Capitol Hill who have heard the classified briefings Mr. Kay gave this week, said the fact no weapons of mass destruction have been found should cause the administration to change its rhetoric.
"I would hope that at a minimum, that the administration would hold off continuing to make the kind of statements that it is making, even recently, about Saddam Hussein's capabilities in this area," said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.
Mr. Kay gave a classified briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday.
"This isn't an issue about intentions or what the hopes were or what the plans were or what the programs were," Mr. Levin said. "What took us to war were statements about weapons of mass destruction in the possession of Saddam Hussein and the threat of their imminent use."
After meeting with senators yesterday, Mr. Kay, a CIA adviser to the Defense Department, told reporters that Iraq's extensive missile program was "all hidden."
"They were much more than paper studies; there was actual physical work taking place on several of these. [They were] not discovered by the inspectors because the Iraqis prevented them," Mr. Kay said.
As for the assistance Iraq was receiving from the unnamed countries, he said: "Our fear is that that same assistance may be made available to other countries, and we would like to close off that avenue of proliferation."
Under the terms of the North Korean deal, Iraq was to receive "missile technology for the Nodong, a 1,300-kilometer missile, as well as other nonmissile related but prohibited technologies."
"The Iraqis actually advanced the North Koreans $10 million," he said. "In late 2002, the North Koreans came to the Iraqis as a result of the Iraqis inquiring 'Where is the stuff we paid for?' and the North Koreans said, 'Sorry, there's so much U.S. attention on us that we cannot deliver it.' "
Baghdad then demanded that North Korea return the $10 million. "And when Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced, the North Koreans were still refusing to give the $10 million back," he said.
The information was disclosed in documents obtained by the U.S. survey group that showed "the Iraqis attempting more vigorously every time to recover that $10 million."
Mr. Kay said the bad deal was "a lesson in negotiating with the North Koreans that the Iraqis found out the hard way."
"Money in advance may not come your way if there is nondelivery on a contract," he said.
Iraq also was working to convert some of the 300 Chinese-made HY-2 Silkworm antiship missiles into land-attack cruise missiles, Mr. Kay said. The most ambitious program involved replacing the liquid-fueled rocket motor on the Silkworm with turbine engines taken from Russian-made Mi-8 and Mi-17 transport helicopters.
Mr. Kay said the conversion program was "intriguing and, I guess, frightening if it had been carried out."
"This was designed to be a 1,000-kilometer cruise missile that would have carried a warhead of about 500 kilograms, a significant warhead with a large range," Mr. Kay said.
Other Silkworms had been modified into 93-mile-range land-attack cruise missiles and about 12 had been built at the time the Iraqi war started March 19. "One of these was the one that slammed into the Kuwaiti shopping center during the war," Mr. Kay said.
Other covert missile programs involved two liquid-fueled rockets that were "in the design stage" and would have ranges of up to 620 miles, including the Nodong derivative.
These missiles "were far enough advanced for us to have the diagrams that we managed to recover, thanks to Iraqi scientists and engineering assistance," Mr. Kay said.
Mr. Kay said inspectors have theories about what may have happened to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, including that the arms were smuggled out of the country or hidden immediately before or during the outbreak of the war.
"Multiple reports" from Iraqis indicate that weapons of mass destruction or related goods were shipped out to Iran, Syria and Jordan, Mr. Kay said. "It's very difficult to confirm that from inside Iraq. We [are] trying to do that."
Mr. Kay said many scientists are still afraid to work with the Americans because of security concerns, noting that two scientists working with U.S. officials had been shot - one fatally - since the war. Officials don't know who attacked the scientists, but believe it is possible they were retribution attacks for working with the Americans.
"It's true, two who have collaborated with us, one has been assassinated, literally hours after meeting with one of the ISG [Iraq Survey Group] officers," Mr. Kay said. "Another took six bullet wounds and it's amazing to me that he is still alive."
Joseph Curl contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports
----
WMD questions linger
The interim report on Iraqi weapons has left critics fuming, but Kay finds surprises
By Faye Bowers
The Christian Science Monitor
October 06, 2003
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1006/p02s01-usfp.html
WASHINGTON - "No weapons of mass destruction have yet been found in Iraq."
That was the big headline. But David Kay, leader of the Iraqi Survey Group, says there is much more to the report he delivered to Congress last week on Saddam Hussein's weapons programs.
"We've only been at work for three months," Dr. Kay says, and "there is a remarkable record of what was concealed from UN inspectors and not declared."
After presenting a classified briefing to House and Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees on Thursday and Friday, Kay later spoke with reporters in a conference call set up by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Kay cited efforts by the Hussein regime in all three areas of WMD - biological, chemical, and nuclear. And he talked about what surprised him most during the initial stages of the search.
• Iraq paid North Korea $10 million in late 2002 for technology related to its No Dong missile program and other "nonmissile related activities."
• The missile program received the heaviest foreign assistance, he said, both in terms of private companies and countries. Some were European, but he wouldn't name them because of ongoing investigations.
• A weapons-lab network was embedded within the Iraqi Intelligence Service.
• Iraq continued to produce liquid fuel for Scud missiles even though the regime said it no longer possessed the missile that became infamous during the 1991 Gulf War.
• Iraq's nuclear program was rudimentary, at best. It would have taken five to seven years from start-up to production of a weapon.
• No evidence was found to indicate Niger provided uranium to Iraq, as President Bush stated in his State of the Union speech. Kay said that one other African country, which he would not name, did offer to supply Iraq with uranium, but did not follow through.
• No evidence was found that two Iraqi mobile labs found last summer were used to produce bio or chemical weapons.
Kay indicates that 1999 was a crucial date for Iraq. It was then that a "change of behavior" was seen in the Iraqi regime.
Kay says that the Iraqis interviewed by his weapons team thought that Saddam felt he could not wait any longer for sanctions to end.
Yet many senior members of Congress as well as outside experts say it is now apparent that Iraq did not have the WMD that the US and Britain estimated it had. However, it did have the intention of either acquiring or continuing to develop them.
"All the evidence points to a rudimentary capability, if that," says Joseph Cirincione, director of the nonproliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "And that Iraq was not an imminent threat to the US."
Kay's findings arrived in a highly charged atmosphere here. The Bush administration has tried to buttress its claim that the Hussein regime was an "imminent" threat, while requesting Congress to approve an additional $87 billion to help rebuild Iraq, including a $600-million increase for Kay's continuing WMD investigation.
Criticisms of the Kay report came from both sides of the congressional aisle. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R) of Kansas told reporters he was "not pleased" with Kay's interim report.
Sen. Carl Levin (D) of Michigan, the ranking member of the Senate's Armed Services Committee, says: "This isn't an issue about intentions or what the hopes were or what the plans were or what the programs were."
The senator continued: "What took us to war were statements about weapons of mass destruction in the possession of Saddam Hussein and the threat of their imminent use."
Still, the Bush administration contends it did the right thing in removing the Hussein regime. "We're more convinced by the Kay report that we did the right thing," Secretary of State Colin Powell said.
Kay said the biggest surprise to him was Hussein's effort to develop missiles. The HY-2 coastal- defense cruise missile's range was increased from 100 kilo- meters to 150 to 180 kilometers. There were also efforts to boost the HY-2 to reach a 1,000 kilometer range - enough to target many Middle East capitals.
In addition, Iraq tried to procure missile technology from North Korea, whose No Dong missile has a range of about 800 miles. Kay says they discovered that Iraq "concluded a contract" for the No Dong with North Korea in 2002. "The Iraqis advanced the North Koreans $10 million."
But Kay says when Iraqis demanded the technology transfer, "North Korea said, 'Sorry, but there's so much US attention on us that we cannot deliver it.'"
One working hypothesis on why WMD have not been found is that scientists working for Hussein deceived him. The classified report calls it "red-on-red" deception, Kay says.
Hampering the search are threats against Iraqi scientists. One Iraqi scientist was shot in the head. Another "took six bullets," but lived. Kay's group no longer meets so publicly with sources.
Kay's investigation could take another six to nine months.
----
Kay: Iraq Weapons Hunters Pursuing Tips
October 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Iraq-Weapons.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Weapons hunters in Iraq are pursuing tips that point to the possible presence of anthrax and Scud missiles still hidden in the country, the chief searcher said Sunday.
David Kay told Congress last week that his survey team had not found nuclear, biological or chemical weapons so far. But he argued against drawing conclusions, saying he expects to provide a full picture on Iraq's weapons programs in six months to nine months.
While lacking physical evidence for the presence anthrax or Scuds, Kay said tips from Iraqis are motivating the search for them.
Critics, including many in Congress, say Kay's findings do not support most of the Bush administration's prewar assertions that the United States faced an imminent, serious threat from Iraq's Saddam Hussein because of widespread and advanced Iraqi weapons programs.
President Bush has said the U.S.-led war on Iraq was justified despite the failure to find weapons.
Kay reported that searchers found a vial of live botulinum bacteria that had been stored since 1993 in an Iraqi scientist's refrigerator. The bacteria make botulinum toxin, which can be used as a biological weapon, but Kay has offered no evidence that the bacteria had been used in a weapons program.
The live bacteria was among a collection of ``reference strains'' of biological organisms that could not be used to produce biological warfare agents.
Kay said Sunday the same scientist told investigators that he was asked to hide another much larger cache of strains, but ``after a couple of days he turned them back because he said they were too dangerous. He has small children in the house.''
Kay said the cache ``contains anthrax and that's one reason we're actively interested in getting it.'' Kay, speaking on ``Fox News Sunday,'' did not say whether the anthrax was live or a strain used only for anthrax research.
Before the war, Iraqis said they had destroyed their supply of anthrax. Inspectors haven't found any and Iraqis haven't been able to provide evidence to satisfy investigators that they did destroy it. Experts note that old supplies of anthrax would have degraded by now.
While the Bush administration argued before taking the country to war that Iraq's arsenal posed an imminent threat, much of what Kay discovered is that Iraq had interest in such weapons and was researching some agents.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said Kay's report shows Saddam's clear intent to develop chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. He said, however, that the administration didn't tell the public the whole truth.
``There is some evidence that the Bush administration exaggerated unnecessarily,'' he told ``Fox News Sunday.'' Lieberman, a presidential candidate, said the exaggeration ``did discredit what was otherwise a very just cause of fighting tyranny and terrorism.''
Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have contended the vial of botulinum bacteria that Kay's team found is one strong piece of evidence of Saddam's weapons intent.
Searches have been unsuccessful for the kind of long-range Scud missiles the Iraqis fired at Saudi Arabia and Israel in 1991. Many were destroyed during and after the Persian Gulf War, but the Bush administration had accused Iraq of continuing to hide Scuds.
Kay said there are indications there may still be Scuds even though Iraq declared it got rid of them in the early 1990s.
``We have Iraqis now telling us that they continued until 2001, early 2002, to be capable of mixing and preparing Scud missile fuel. Scud missile fuel is only useful in Scud missiles,'' he said. ``Why would you continue to produce Scud missile fuel if you didn't have Scuds? We're looking for the Scuds.''
Kay's report to Congress said the information on fuel production came from Iraqi sources and has not been confirmed with documents or physical evidence.
Weapons hunters still are looking for chemical weapons at scores of large ammunition storage sites throughout Iraq. Because of the size of the depots, searchers have examined only 10 of 130 sites so far, Kay said.
``These are sites that contain -- the best estimate is between 600,000 and 650,000 tons of arms,'' he said. ``That's about one-third of the entire ammunition stockpile of the much larger U.S. military.''
The Iraqis stored chemical weapons, often unmarked, among conventional munitions, so ``you really have to examine each one,'' Kay said. He said 26 sites are on a critical list to be examined quickly.
On the Net:
David Kay's report to members of Congress: http://www.cia.gov
-------- israel
The Last Nuclear Moment
October 6, 2003
By AVNER COHEN OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/opinion/06COHE.html
TAKOMA PARK, Md. - Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the world has come to the nuclear brink only twice. The first, and better known, was the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The second, and much less discussed, occurred in the early days of the Yom Kippur war, which began 30 years ago today.
The shock Israelis felt at the Egyptian-Syrian surprise attack on Oct. 6, 1973, can best be compared to that felt by Americans after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Israel was caught totally unprepared: the government had assumed that its intelligence services would be able to alert it at least 48 hours before any invasion.
Yet, while Israeli intelligence had detailed knowledge of Egyptian and Syrian war plans, and Prime Minister Golda Meir had even been secretly warned of an imminent war by King Hussein of Jordan on Sept. 25, the information was not translated into military preparedness. This colossal failure - due to a combination of arrogance, self-deception and misperception - is part of Golda Meir's legacy.
Only in the early morning of Oct. 6 did the Israeli leadership finally understand that it was facing a full-scale attack by Egypt and Syria that very evening. (And even then they had the estimated time of the attack wrong; the war actually started at 2 p.m.) By the next morning, the Egyptian Army had crossed the Suez Canal and columns of Syrian tanks had penetrated deep into the Golan Heights. Hundreds of Israeli soldiers had died in a heroic but hopeless effort to save small, isolated strongholds along Israel's borders.
The hope was that with the arrival of Israel's reserve troops, the military situation would turn around. While this happened to some extent on the Syrian front, things were still a disaster at the Suez. Israel's first attempted counterattack on Oct. 8 was a miserable failure. At the end of that day, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was heard murmuring about "the end of the Third Kingdom." The commander of the air force, Gen. Benny Peled, warned that with the rate of losses his forces were enduring, within a week Israel might no longer have any effective air power. It was arguably the darkest day in the history of the Israeli Army.
It was in the early hours of Oct. 9 that senior Israeli military leaders brought up the idea of using Israel's doomsday weapons. By that time Israel had lost some 50 combat planes and more than 500 tanks - 400 on the Egyptian battlefield alone. According to a new book by the Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, when the prime minister's top military aide heard those ideas, he begged the army's deputy chief of staff, tears in his eyes, "You must save the people of Israel from these madmen."
Later that morning, at the end of a somber briefing before the war cabinet, Mr. Dayan raised the nuclear option with the prime minister. No detailed record has surfaced as to what exactly Mr. Dayan proposed, but we know he gave an overall assessment that Israel was fast approaching the point of "last resort." And certainly Mr. Dayan wanted the United States to take notice that things had reached such a point. That he meant using nuclear weapons (albeit in coded language, as at the time nobody dared call them by name) was confirmed in an interview last week by Naftali Lavie, who was Mr. Dayan's spokesman during the war.
This set the stage for a moment that defined Golda Meir's other legacy, her nuclear legacy. Supported by other members of her war cabinet - notably the ministers Israel Galili and Yigal Allon - she refused to concede to Mr. Dayan's gloom and doom rhetoric. Her idea, instead, was to fly secretly to Washington and, as Henry Kissinger later wrote, "for an hour plead with President Nixon."
Mr. Kissinger flatly rejected that idea, explaining such a rushed visit "could reflect only either hysteria or blackmail." By that time, American intelligence had signs that Israel had put its Jericho missiles, which could be fitted with nuclear warheads, on high alert (the Israelis had done so in an easily detectible way, probably to sway the Americans into preventive action).
Mr. Kissinger instead started to arrange air supply to Israel, and within three days a tremendous United States airlift to Israel was in action. The tide was turned. By Oct. 21 the Israelis were within 20 miles of Damascus and had crossed the Suez Canal, encircling the Egyptian Third Army. A permanent cease-fire was established within a few days.
Like John F. Kennedy a decade earlier, Golda Meir had stared into the nuclear abyss and found a path back to sanity. Mrs. Meir's decision not to accept Mr. Dayan's pessimism not only avoided a nuclear catastrophe, it demonstrated to the world that Israel was a responsible and trusted nuclear custodian.
Ultimately, Mrs. Meir's nuclear legacy goes far beyond those days in October 1973. Her prudence contributed significantly to the creation of the nuclear taboo - the recognition that nuclear weapons are not like any other weapons humanity has ever invented; that under virtually any circumstances they must never be used.
In this sense, her legacy is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago.
Avner Cohen is the author of "Israel and the Bomb" and the forthcoming "Israel's Last Taboo."
-------- korea
'Japan, ROK, U.S. would pay for N. Korean disarmament'
Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan),
October 6, 2003
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20031006wo41.htm
Japan, South Korea and the United States likely will shoulder the costs of dismantling North Korea's nuclear facilities and disposing of spent nuclear fuel if Pyongyang agreed to abandon its nuclear arms program, sources close to Tokyo and Pyongyang said Saturday.
The three countries would pitch in what is expected to be billions of dollars to pay the expenses associated with scrapping North Korea's nuclear arms program because, with its economy in dire straits, Pyongyang could not come up with the funds, the sources said.
They plan to urge North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms program during the next six-way talks by offering support to Pyongyang to replace the light-water reactors that were to be constructed by the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, which has already been discussed, and to cover expenses involved in scrapping North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the sources said.
The three countries are thought to have mapped out the financial plan for the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear facilities during a meeting of bureau chiefs from Tokyo, Seoul and Washington at the end of September in Tokyo.
Nuclear facilities that would be dismantled include the graphite-moderated reactors capable of extracting weapons-grade plutonium and reprocessing facilities in Yongbyong, as well as nuclear development facilities using enriched uranium, whose operations reportedly have been revealed to the United States by North Korea, the sources said.
The spent nuclear fuel rods, which North Korea claims to have reprocessed, eventually would be moved to other countries for storage, the sources said.
Recalling earlier assistance provided to help Russia scrap its nuclear weapons, the three countries also plan to seek cooperation and financial assistance from Russia and China.
----
US illusions about North Korea
Pyongyang could be bluffing about its intentions to develop a nuclear deterrent, but Washington appears unprepared for the worst
By Ted Galen Carpenter
Monday, Oct 06, 2003, Page 9
Taipei Times
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2003/10/06/2003070637
As if we didn't have enough problems in the world, North Korea has announced that it has completed processing spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon reactor and is now building a nuclear deterrent. That news should have put official Washington in crisis mode. Those rods could produce enough plutonium to build half dozen nuclear weapons.
Yet the George W. Bush administration's response was surprisingly low key. A spokesman indicated that the US was "concerned but skeptical" about Pyongyang's claims. That attitude continues the White House's record of underestimating North Korea's determination to become a nuclear power. US officials persist in believing that Pyongyang's nuclear program is a bargaining chip in North Korea's drive to wring political and economic concessions from the US and its allies.
But the bulk of the evidence suggests that North Korea is deadly serious about joining the global nuclear weapons club. Consider the events of just the past year.
October 2002: North Korean negotiators admit to Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly that their country has an enriched uranium program, a violation of several agreements to remain non-nuclear.
December 2002: North Korea removes International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seals and cameras from the mothballed Yongbyon reactor. Later that month, the North expels all IAEA inspectors.
January 2003: North Korea announces that it is withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
April 2003: North Korea makes good on its threat to withdraw from the NPT, becoming the first country to renounce the treaty.
April 2003: The North Koreans take 8,000 spent fuel rods out of storage -- a prerequisite for extracting plutonium.
May 2003: Pyongyang repudiates the 1991 joint declaration it signed with South Korea pledging to keep the Korean Peninsula non-nuclear.
August 2003: North Korean negotiators warn that their country is prepared to test a nuclear weapon if the US does not adopt a more conciliatory policy.
October 2003: Pyongyang announces that it has finished reprocessing the fuel rods and is now building nuclear weapons.
On each of those occasions, US leaders minimized the significance of North Korea's actions and expressed confidence that the building crisis would be solved through diplomacy. Indeed, President George W. Bush and his advisors have steadfastly refused to describe the situation as a crisis.
If this is not a crisis, it is a great imitation of one and it will certainly do until the real thing comes along. We now face the prospect of the world's most ruthless, bizarre and unpredictable regime possessing a significant number of nuclear weapons. Even worse, the nearly bankrupt North Korean regime might be tempted to sell one or more of those weapons to a cash-rich terrorist organization.
There's now an urgent need for the Bush administration to immediately change its mindset. We all hope that Pyongyang is bluffing, and that its nuclear program is nothing more than a bargaining chip. If that is the case, there is at least a reasonable chance that the crisis can be defused through negotiations.
But what if that assumption about Pyongyang's motives is wrong? North Korea's actions certainly suggest that Pyongyang is serious about joining the global nuclear weapons club. The Bush administration needs to be thinking now about what it intends to do if that nightmare scenario proves to be true. The one thing the US dares not do is use military force to end North Korea's nuclear program. Such a reckless step would almost certainly trigger a major war in East Asia.
Other options are available, including applying the same deterrence and containment policies to North Korea that we used against the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War. We could also foster a regional nuclear balance by allowing Japan and South Korea to build nuclear deterrents of their own to counter a North Korean arsenal.
There may be other alternatives. But the administration will never discover them if it persists in sticking its head in the sand about Pyongyang's nuclear intentions.
Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author or editor of 15 books on international affairs.
----
Roller coaster ride with N. Korea
By Seo Hyun-jin,
October 6, 2003
Korea Herald
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2003/10/07/200310070012.asp
North Korea has been faithful in implementing reconciliation projects with South Korea despite some difficult issues concerning the two sides, and experts say this is aimed to show the international community that things are changing.
The experts also said the recent roller coaster inter-Korean exchanges reflect how the bilateral cooperation has entered a rather systemic stage.
There has been growing concern recently over the potential negative impact on inter-Korean relations that may stem from the North's latest rhetoric to the United States about the nuclear standoff. Also, controversies surrounding South Korea's troop dispatch to Iraq and the probe into dissident Prof. Song Du-yul's connection with North Korea.
North Korea had often ignored inter-Korean cooperation citing international or South Korean political situations that the North deemed provocative to its regime.
"The North has put a lot of importance on South-North business because its portion has been increasing for its economy and this is demonstrating to the world that it is changing," said Kim Yeon-chul, professor at the Asiatic Research Center of Korea University.
Kim said Pyongyang also feels the needs to maintain an inter-Korean cooperative mood to manage the situation surrounding the nuclear tension.
As the latest in a series of South-North exchanges, 1,100 South Koreans yesterday attended an opening ceremony of a gymnasium built by South Korean capital and North Korean labor in Pyongyang.
The South Korean group crossed an inter-Korean overland route along the western coast that allowed South Koreans for the first time.
The 12,309-seat gymnasium sprawling over 8,261 square meters of land commemorates the late Hyundai Chairman Chung Ju-yung, who spearheaded inter-Korean business projects.
A host of governmental talks are also scheduled for this month during which the Seoul government is determined to persuade Pyongyang to agree on a peaceful settlement of its nuclear problem.
The two Koreas will open the 12th round of ministerial talks in Pyongyang Oct. 14-17. Unification Ministry officials said they will convey South Korea's concerns about North Korea's announcement Thursday that it was diverting plutonium to make nuclear bombs.
South and North Korea will also hold two sets of talks Oct. 11-12 in Munsan, Gyeonggi Province - one over providing institutional measures for bilateral economic projects and the other over bilateral maritime cooperation.
The 7th meeting of the Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Promotion Committee will take place in Pyongyang in late October.
Officials expect the two sides to proceed with inter-Korean projects as scheduled by riding on the reconciliatory mood.
"The inter-Korean relations have gained the momentum on which they can improve without being shaken by a political situation," a Unification Ministry official said.
Prof. Kim did say however that the bilateral ties might slow down according to progress in six-party talks over the North Korean nuclear issue.
"South Korea may have to consider public opinion that might go against cooperation with North Korea if and when the North escalates its nuclear tension," Kim said.
-------- missile defense
Tight Test Schedule Ahead For Missile Defense Shield
By: Randy Barrett
Space News Staff Writer
http://www.space.com/spacenews/spacenews_businessmonday_031006.html
WASHINGTON -- Details are sketchy, but plenty of testing remains to be done before the Pentagon christens its rudimentary missile defense shield - an event scheduled to occur in September 2004.
"There are six to nine planned Ballistic Missile Defense System flight tests, which includes Missile Defense Agency-conducted tests, as well as one PAC-3, conducted by the Army, and one Arrow conducted by Israeli Ministry of Defense," said a Missile Defense Agency official.
The official said that most of the flights would involve intercepts of a target warhead and will "test multiple sensor systems and battle, control, command and communications." As well, he added, "there are several additional system-wide command, control and communication tests and war games planned before September '04."
There have already been sizable delays in the test schedule -- particularly in the development of a new booster rocket to carry the kill vehicle into space.
Lockheed Martin of Bethesda, Md., and Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., are competing to produce the rockets and the Pentagon says it will use both contractors if tests go well.
Orbital has successfully tested its booster twice this year and Lockheed Martin is expected to try its rocket sometime this fall after some delays.
Philip Coyle, an analyst with the Center for Defense Information here, said he expects two booster tests this fall -- Integrated Flight Tests (IFT) 13A and 13B. IFT 13C will be a radar test that will likely occur in the winter. None of the flights will be intercept tests, Coyle said, but will test subsystems of the rocket and kill vehicle.
The Pentagon will start shooting at a target with IFT 14, which Coyle thinks will happen in the late winter.
"If other pieces slip [in the schedule] IFT 14 might not be until the spring," Coyle said.
The Pentagon canceled IFT 16 and replaced it with IFT 16A, which will be a radar-characterization test but that's running late, Coyle said, adding that the test now looks as if it will be conducted between September and October 2004.
"For now, all five tests are on the docket, but dates are subject to change," a U.S. defense official said.
Matt Martin, assistant director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation here concurred with Coyle's assessment of the overall test schedule. "It's looking awfully tight," he said.
Congressional critics of the missile defense program are growing more uneasy about the schedule. In an Oct. 1 statement, Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) expressed doubts about the test schedule and announced an effort to declassify a new General Accounting Office (GAO) report which spells out specific problems.
"We should be alarmed at the GAO's finding that 'a system-level demonstration of the initial defensive capability will not be conducted prior to the September 2004 fielding,'" Tierney said.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Report: Nuclear Labs Vulnerable to Attack
October 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Security.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- Security at the nation's nuclear weapons labs is so lax that the facilities have repeatedly failed drills in which mock terrorists captured radioactive material and escaped, according to an article in Vanity Fair magazine.
``Some of the facilities would fail year after year,'' said Rich Levernier, who spent six years running war games for the U.S. government. ``In more than 50 percent of our tests at the Los Alamos facility, we got in, captured the plutonium, got out again, and in some cases didn't fire a shot, because we didn't encounter any guards.''
These failures occurred despite security forces at the Los Alamos National Laboratories and other nuclear facilities knowing the dates of the drills months in advance, according to the story in next month's Vanity Fair.
Anson Franklin, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, an arm of the Department of Energy that oversees nuclear-weapons security, said Monday that the department has increased security funding by more than 50 percent to protect against terrorist attacks.
``Allegations of a 50 percent failure rate in security tests are simply untrue,'' Franklin said.
The report also says Levernier, a 22-year veteran of the U.S. Department of Energy, was stripped of his security clearance in 2001 after raising security concerns.
Levernier has filed a whistleblower lawsuit arguing that he was illegally removed from his duties. Franklin denied that allegation.
``We do not punish federal employees who are doing their jobs by pointing out potential weaknesses in safety and security,'' he said.
-------- tennessee
Tenn. Plant to Make Energy, Bomb Material
October 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-TVA-Tritium.html
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The Watts Bar Nuclear Plant is days away from becoming the only commercial nuclear station in the United States to produce both electricity for homes and isotopes for bombs.
The single-reactor station, owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority, will become the government's new source of tritium, a hydrogen isotope that enhances the explosive force of thermonuclear weapons.
Support for the station's new role, though, is far from unanimous. Opposition has come from both the private and public sectors.
Two federal officials, Democratic Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, tried to kill the proposal, arguing that a civilian reactor making a bomb ingredient destroys the nonproliferation principal of ``separation between atoms for peace and atoms for war.'' The United States has made the same case -- unsuccessfully -- to North Korea
We the People, a whistleblower support group, bases its objections on the tortured 22-year construction of Watts Bar, which opened in 1996.
``Once they start up a bad reactor with bad management with bad procedures and processes with a bad coolant system, does anybody really think they are ever going to stop until something really bad happens?'' asked Ann Harris, who heads We the People.
Since early September, TVA workers have been installing tritium-producing rods in the Watts Bar reactor during refueling. The plant is scheduled to go back on line this month.
The government decided to move ahead with its plan after concluding that the TVA, the nation's largest public utility, already is part of the military complex and that tritium, unlike plutonium or uranium, cannot by itself be made into a weapon.
Using Watts Bar, about 50 miles south of Knoxville and 50 miles north of Chattanooga along the Tennessee River, was also significantly cheaper than the alternative -- building a $9 billion production accelerator at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Until now, TVA's biggest role in the nation's defense was supplying electricity for the atomic bomb-building Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge a half century ago.
``TVA is committed to a safe, secure nation,'' said Chairman Glenn McCullough of his utility, which serves 8.3 million people in seven Southern states. ``And the production of tritium will enhance national security.''
TVA will receive about $10 million a year to make about 1.5 kilograms to 3 kilograms of tritium annually over the next four decades but won't profit from the deal, McCullough said.
The government hasn't made tritium since 1988 when its production reactors at Savannah River were shuttered for operational and safety problems. It's been recycling the short-lived material from older weapons.
The Energy Department will begin tapping into its five-year tritium reserve by 2005 without a new supply, although arms control needs could change that.
``There really isn't any change to the reactor. It will operate the same,'' said Jim Chardos, TVA's tritium project manager.
Despite the fears expressed by We the People, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, an industry accreditation organization, rated Watts Bar's overall performance as ``excellent'' in its just-completed biannual review.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which studied the possibility of accidental releases of radiation into the air or water, said tritium production ``will not have a significant effect on the quality of the human environment.''
Critics also fear that Watts Bar could become a terrorist target. TVA officials say the plant has the same heightened security as other nuclear plants.
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reported Sept. 25 that federal inspections and security exercises often overstate the level of security at these plants.
``I know what the security is at Watts Bar,'' Tennessee homeland security chief Jerry Humble told The Associated Press. ``I can't get classified with you, but we are secure.''
On the Net:
Tennessee Valley Authority: http://www.tva.gov
-------- us politics
The Cost of Empire
President Bush's war policy marks the beginning of the end of America's era of global dominance.
By Christopher Layne
October 6, 2003 issue
The American Conservative
http://amconmag.com/10_06_03/cover.html
The administration's U-turn decision to ask for United Nations help in Iraq, and President George W. Bush's request that Congress appropriate $87 billion to fund the occupation and reconstruction of that country send a very clear message: the administration's Iraq policy is a fiasco. And a foreseeable one at that.
U.S. intelligence agencies predicted that American troops occupying Iraq would not be welcomed as liberators but would be resisted. A pre-invasion State Department report warned that the administration had the proverbial snowball's chance of transforming Iraq into a Western-style democracy (a conclusion reinforced by a recent Zogby poll of Iraqis that found only 38 percent of Iraqis favor democracy, while 50 percent believe that "democracy is a western way of doing things and it will not work here"). Similarly, it was obvious that the administration's go-it-alone hubris, combined with its sledgehammer diplomacy, would chill Washington's relations with the other major powers and trigger a worldwide backlash of hostility toward the United States.
Those-here and abroad-who opposed Washington's reckless march to war can say we told you so. But that is not the point. More than that, it is necessary to step back from day-to-day events and place the Iraq war in the context of its longer-term significance for the United States. A good place to start is by asking why the administration embarked on war while ignoring widespread-and accurate-predictions that even a successful military campaign could lead to postwar disaster. In other words, what were the administration's war aims?
We know what they were not. Iraq was not an imminent threat to the security of the Middle East and Persian Gulf. (Did anyone say "weapons of mass destruction"?) And-the administration's manipulation of public opinion notwithstanding-Saddam Hussein was not involved in Sept. 11 and was not in bed with al-Qaeda. But, as both U.S. and British intelligence warned, by going to war with Iraq, the administration has created a terrorist threat where none existed previously, making the U.S. less, not more, secure than it would have been had we not invaded Iraq.
The real reason the administration went to war had nothing to do with terrorism. Indeed, many of the administration's architects of illusion-Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, and Richard Perle, among others-put Iraq squarely in their geopolitical crosshairs while they were out of power during the 1990s. The administration went to war in Iraq to consolidate America's global hegemony and to extend U.S. dominance to the Middle East by establishing a permanent military stronghold in Iraq for the purposes of controlling the Middle Eastern oil spigot (thereby giving Washington enormous leverage in its relations with Western Europe and China); allowing Washington to distance itself from an increasingly unreliable and unstable Saudi Arabia; and using the shadow of U.S. military power to bring about additional regime changes in Iran and Syria.
It is fashionable to say that 9/11-and the subsequent war with Iraq- "changed everything." But this is not true. Before Sept. 11 the biggest debate among students of international politics and analysts of U.S. foreign policy was about American hegemony. Re-christened as a debate about the wisdom of American empire, it still is. The big fault line in this debate is over which of two theories-yes, academic theories about international relations really do reflect and influence real-world policy-about how states can best attain security for themselves in the competitive arena of world politics is correct.
"Offensive realism" holds that the best way for a state to gain security is to amass overwhelming power-that is, by becoming a hegemon. In plain English, being a hegemon means being like Leroy Brown-badder than old King Kong and meaner than a junkyard dog. A hegemon can use its power to eliminate rivals-by conquering them, co-opting them, or intimidating them-and seek to create a congenial world order that reflects its own ideology, values, and preferences. Since World War II, offensive realism has undergirded American grand strategy, although the current administration's policy is offensive realism on steroids. If the Duchess of Windsor had been an administration strategist she would have said that the U.S. can never be too rich, too powerful-or too well-armed or too willing to employ force against its adversaries.
Hegemony is a superficially appealing grand strategy. After all, if power counts in international politics-and every realist knows it counts big time-then it seemingly makes sense for the U.S. to grab as much power as possible.
Traditional realists like Hans Morgenthau, George Kennan, and Walter Lippman reject the logic of offensive realism because they believe that when one state becomes too powerful all the others fear for their security. They respond by building up their own military capabilities or by forming alliances with others to act as a counterweight against a hegemon's power (or both). This is what students of international politics refer to as "balancing." And, indeed, the historical record pretty conclusively shows that hegemony is a self-defeating grand strategy, not a winning one. Every hegemonic aspirant in modern international history-the Hapsburg Empire under Charles V, Spain under Philip II, France under Louis XIV and Napoleon, and Germany under Hitler-has been defeated by counter-hegemonic balancing.
American policymakers have come up with a number of (far too) clever rationales to convince themselves that the U.S. will escape the fate that invariably befalls hegemons. For example, they claim that the United States is a different kind of hegemon-a "benign" or "benevolent" one that is non-threatening because it acts altruistically in international politics and because others are attracted to America's "soft power" (its political institutions and values, and its culture). There is no reason, they say, for others to balance against the United States. Other proponents of American hegemony take a different tack: they claim that the United States can throw its hegemonic weight around as it pleases because its power-economic, military, and technological-is so overwhelming that it will be a very long time before other states can even think about balancing against the U.S.
These are not compelling arguments. In international politics, benevolent hegemons are like unicorns-there are no such animals. Hegemons love themselves, but others mistrust and fear them. Others dread both the over-concentration of geopolitical weight in America's favor and the purposes for which it may be used. Washington's (purportedly) benevolent intentions are ephemeral, but the hard fist of American power is tangible-and others worry that if U.S. intentions change, they might get smacked. As for the argument that the U.S. is too mighty to be counter-balanced, history reminds us that things change fast in international politics. The British found out toward the end of the 19th century that a seemingly unassailable international power position can melt away with unexpected rapidity.
Perhaps the proponents of America's imperial ambitions are right and the U.S. will not suffer the same fate as previous hegemonic powers. Don't bet on it. The very fact of America's overwhelming power is bound to produce a geopolitical backlash-which is why it's only a short step from the celebration of imperial glory to the recessional of imperial power. Indeed, on its present course, the United States seems fated to succumb to the "hegemon's temptation." Hegemons have lots of power and because there is no countervailing force to stop them, they are tempted to use it repeatedly, and thereby overreach themselves. Over time, this hegemonic muscle-flexing has a price. The cumulative costs of fighting -or preparing to fight-guerilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asymmetric conflicts against terrorists (in the Philippines, possibly in a failed Pakistan, and elsewhere), regional powers (Iran, North Korea), and rising great powers like China could erode America's relative power-especially if the U.S. suffers setbacks in future conflicts, for example in a war with China over Taiwan.
At the end of the day, hegemonic decline results from a combination of external and internal factors: over-extension abroad (imperial overstretch) and domestic economic weakness (endless budget and balance-of- payments deficits). It comes as no surprise that the imperial overstretch debate of the late 1980s-about the costs of empire and America's ability to afford them-which was aborted by the Soviet Union's sudden collapse, has re-emerged with a vengeance. And there is ample reason to worry about whether the U.S. can sustain the burdens of hegemony. A recent report commissioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, but buried by the Bush administration, pointed out the magnitude of the fiscal crisis confronting the U.S. in funding health care and pension commitments to the rapidly aging "baby boom" generation. As Niall Ferguson and Laurence Kotlikoff suggest in an important article in the Fall 2003 issue of the National Interest, the looming imperative of achieving fiscal solvency through a combination of painful tax increases and spending cuts eventually will spur the realization that America's imperial ambitions are unaffordable. Over time, America's fiscal troubles will erode its economic power-which is the foundation of its military might-and, as the relative power gap between the U.S. and potential new great powers begins to shrink, the costs and risks of challenging the United States will decrease and the pay-off for doing so will increase.
American policymakers should want to avoid the fate of hegemons. In the late 1890s, Great Britain-widely regarded as at the zenith of its hegemonic power-had its own counterpart to American unilateralism: splendid isolation. But as speculation grew that the other European great powers would form a coalition to balance against Britain, London realized its isolation was far from splendid. As the British military analyst Spencer Wilkenson said the time, "We have no friends, and no nation loves us." A recent New York Times article on other nations' perceptions of the U.S. suggests that it is not much of a leap to conclude that, because of its hegemonic strategy, the U.S. risks facing the nightmare scenario depicted by Wilkenson.
The administration, however, is not worried because it believes that American hegemony is an unchallengeable fact of international life. But this does not hold up because the rest of the world draws the opposite conclusion: that the United States is too powerful, and its hegemony must be resisted. The administration has dug the U.S. into a deep hole in Iraq and, more worryingly, in terms of its relations with the rest of the world. So, what is to be done?
Realists have tried to do something. Nearly every major realist scholar of international politics in the U.S. opposed going to war with Iraq. No surprise here. During Vietnam, realists like Kennan, Morgenthau, and Kenneth Waltz were among the first-and most prescient-in warning that the war would become a quagmire that would undermine, rather than further, U.S. interests. While understanding the ineluctable role of power in international politics, realists also understand that military force is a blunt instrument and that its use often has unforeseeable consequences. While understanding that unilateralism is the default strategic option for great powers, realists also know that, when possible, it is best to work with others (especially in the real war on terrorism, which cannot be won by the U.S. without the co-operation of other states). Realists also know that it is foolish to antagonize other states needlessly or to destroy institutional frameworks of co-operation through which the U.S. can work with others to advance its own interests.
Now that the Iraqi debacle has underscored the risks of the administration's imperial ambitions, a new group called the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy is organizing to push for a more prudent U.S. strategy. Composed of leading realist scholars from academe, think-tank analysts, and mainstream members of the political establishment, the Coalition is a group that transcends partisan and ideological divides. It is united by the "desire to turn American national security policy toward realistic and sustainable measures for protecting U.S. vital interests in a manner that is consistent with American values." Perhaps as the 2004 presidential campaign unfolds, someone like a Howard Dean or a Wesley Clark will recognize the virtue of reaching across party lines to staff a foreign-policy team dedicated to reconstructing American foreign policy on a sounder, non-imperial basis.
One thing is certain: unless the call for the United States to exercise self-imposed grand-strategic restraint is heeded, the rest of the world will act to impose that constraint on Washington. If that happens, the Bush administration will not be remembered for conquering Baghdad but rather for a policy that shattered the pillars of the international security framework that the United States established after World War II, galvanized both hard and soft balancing against U.S. hegemony, and marked the beginning of the end of America's era of global preponderance. For this, it must be held accountable. . Christopher Layne writes frequently about U.S. foreign policy and is a member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy.
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Neophyte Gorge
by Karen Kwiatkowski
October 6, 2003
LewRockwell.com
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski43.html
"Sometimes the American people like the decisions I make, sometimes they don't. But they need to know I make tough decisions, based upon what I think is right, given the intelligence I know."
~ George W. Bush, 3 October 2003
It seems to me that Bush is standing at the edge of a great canyon. Pebbles under his feet are increasingly unstable, and a scramble instinct breaks out from his reptilian brain. Neophyte Gorge is deep, dangerous, and it hurts when you hit the bottom. It hurts on the way down, too. In a flash recognition of the desperation of his position, Bush experiments with truth-telling.
The president has for the first time in months violated the all too common coincidence in political speeches of "lips moving" and "lying through teeth." He speaks the truth. Some people like George's decisions, and some do not.
And George does make tough decisions. As Abraham Lincoln could have advised young Dubya, it's not easy to stoke a nation to war, using a few publicly popular and well-woven suggestions while keeping the investors and election donors happy and confident that the real reasons will be kept under wraps. It's a tough job, and while nobody has to do it, George, like Abe before him, did do it. And as we can see from the angry columns by frustrated and frightened neoconservative mouthpieces, hiding the real reasons for the occupation of Iraq is a job that keeps getting tougher.
Bush said on October 3, 2003, that "the Iraq war was justified" and one of the key reasons for it was a vial of botulinum bacteria, kept in a scientist's home refrigerator since 1993, cited in the David Kay report. Bush said this, among other things, proved we have ample signs that Saddam "was a danger to the world."
Now, I don't want John Ashcroft to come over for a visit, but I too tend to keep botulinum bacteria in the refrigerator. Now, I have to admit, I haven't kept any single item in my fridge since 1993, and instead of vials, my stuff is usually found in old mayonnaise jars and partially eaten tuna sandwiches.
If I follow George Bush's logic, that might make me a danger to the world, too. Of course, I don't have any delivery mechanisms for my botulinum, no banned mid-range missiles, and certainly no sophisticated concealment techniques. We also haven't built tank traps or fired up the anti-air batteries on the old farm, not yet anyway.
But back to Bush and telling the truth. Bush insists that he makes these tough decisions based on "what I think is right, given the intelligence I know." With these words, we have arrived at the line between truth and lies that politicians never fear to tread. Here, finally, we may discover what the real meaning of "is" is. Unfortunately, like the Knights of the Round Table seeking a chalice that once held holy blood, we find only the discarded shells of ideas littered around a middle-aged derelict, tottering and muttering in an intellectually and morally vacant White House.
Our President's opinion of right and wrong is, of itself, problematic. His previous business dealings, whether failed oil companies or miraculously profitable baseball teams, his drunken decades, his avoidance of inconvenient National Guard duty, his reported personal callousness towards executions in Texas and his institutionalized callousness towards both American dead and maimed and Iraqi dead and maimed, and his apparent confusion between his (and our) own justifiable anger over 9-11, and God's judgment over all of us - any and all of these ought to give us pause when George W. Bush says "he does what he thinks is right."
Beyond this, George admits that his thinking and tough decisions are qualified by "the intelligence [he] know[s]." The intelligence Dubya knows must indeed be the greatest mystery of the early 21st century. He told us last fall many things "he knew" and now he tells us many other things "he knows" contrary to last fall. Mushroom clouds and biological weapons delivered to America courtesy of Saddam's UAVs, links between Saddam and 9-11, and Al Qaeda - all that was so last season. The new style is bleak and plaintive. It is singularly unattractive, more appropriate for today's consumer spending attitudes instead of last fall's swagger and strut.
The fascinating thing is that the United States intelligence community has not changed its assessment of Iraq's capability to threaten the United States. Last year, this year, same story. If George Tenet is to be criticized, it should be for failing to publicly step down last winter as he observed the executive level repeatedly throw the trillion dollar intelligence community over for some easy sweet words whispered into the open ears of the administration by neoconservative imperialists and their Iraqi ruler wannabes. Saddam's war-making capabilities had been degraded or destroyed, Ba-ath Party and Iraq societal vigor reduced by a decade of war followed by a decade of sanctions, and Saddam had already gone mellow with both the United Nations and his trading partners. This was the real story, then as now.
The lesson about the actual military or terror-related threat Iraq posed to the United States has been consistent, clear and strong. But still the student stumbles. Granted, Bush may understand the economically threatening ramifications of Iraq's November 2000 switch to the Euro for its oil trade, compounded with Venezuela's switch, Norway's potential switch, and OPEC's consideration of a shift better than I know. Certainly the petro-euro could be life-threatening for debt-financed AmeriBush, Inc. However, in presenting that argument to the American people, the student has again failed miserably.
This student is George W. Bush. He has shown us that he has unusual difficulty listening, comprehending and mastering the required material, even when this hearing, comprehension and mastery is all "we the people" have ever required of him in his current role.
To be fair, neophyte George is today facing the biggest challenge of his presidency. He got extra credit for 9-11, and after it was safe to return to Washington, he worked on leading the nation into satisfyingly vicious retributions. That was easy. Now, with the lies and fables all used up, Bush is left with ground truth. Too bad for all of us that it is only to be found at the bottom of an unsympathetic and unforgiving ravine.
Karen Kwiatkowski [send her mail] is a recently retired USAF lieutenant colonel, who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon. She now lives with her freedom-loving family in the Shenandoah Valley.
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U.S. Avoids Criticism of Israeli Raid in Syria
October 6, 2003
New York Times
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/international/middleeast/06DIPL.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 - The Bush administration sought Sunday to distance itself from Israel's airstrike inside Syria, with senior officials saying the United States had no advance warning of the attack and no solid evidence that the target was in fact a terrorist training camp.
The White House said President Bush had called the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, after the predawn airstrike and urged him to avoid further heightening tensions in the region. A senior administration official said the United States was seeking "full details" about the raid.
But the administration seemed to be avoiding any criticism of the attack, which Israel described as retaliation for the suicide bombing that killed 19 people in Haifa, in northern Israel, on Saturday. A White House spokesman, Ken Lisaius, said Mr. Bush and Mr. Sharon had agreed "on the need to continue fighting terrorism in the region."
In its reluctance to criticize the Israeli raid, the American stance was at odds with that of most of Europe and the Arab world, whose leaders roundly condemned what they called a dangerous increase in tensions in the Middle East by Israel.
Bush administration officials reiterated their criticism of what the United States has long called Syria's role as a state sponsor of terrorism. "We've consistently told Syria that it must cease harboring terrorists, and make a clean break from those responsible for planning and directing terrorist attacks from Syrian soil," said Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman.
With its potential to inflame tensions even further in the Middle East, the Israeli raid comes at a sensitive time for the administration, which is already coping with the unexpectedly violent aftermath to the American-led invasion of Iraq, as well as the flare-up in hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel has cast its strike against Syria as justifiable in a war against terrorism.
Some administration officials critical of Syria's ties to terrorism have pointed a finger at what they have said are training camps in Syria, as well as in neighboring Lebanon, where Syria remains the dominant power. But the State Department's most recent report on international terrorism, issued in April, makes no mention of any such facilities, and American officials say there is disagreement within the intelligence community about how significant a role such camps may play.
Israel said the airstrike was on a training site used by Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian group that claimed responsibility for the attack in Haifa on Saturday. Still, a senior Bush administration official said the evidence that the target was in fact such a base remained "very amorphous."
President Bush's own aggressive stance against terrorism leaves little room for the administration to criticize actions taken by others. Having laid out an American doctrine claiming the right to carry out pre-emptive attacks against terrorist targets, the administration has consistently said that it recognized Israel's own right to retaliate for terrorist attacks.
But the administration has also consistently urged that any Israeli retaliation remain measured. That has been the standard American response to armed Israeli strikes in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, and it appeared Sunday that the administration was following a similar pattern in response to the strike inside Syria.
"You can't say `don't do anything,' " a senior Bush administration official said, "but you can say `don't make matters worse.' "
At the United Nations Security Council on Sunday, the American representative withheld any criticism of Israel for the attack, declaring that "the United States believes that Syria is on the wrong side of the war on terrorism."
All 14 of the other Council envoys condemned the action as an illegal, or at best unnecessary and counterproductive, step likely to lead to an escalation of violence in the region.
As recently as Saturday, the administration had appeared to be on the verge of taking a tough new line against Israel for its building of barricades around settlements in the West Bank. In an interview with The Washington Post published Saturday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell described such construction as counterproductive, and he said the administration was debating how best to respond.
But those concerns have now been overshadowed by the suicide bombing in Haifa and by Israel's attack in Syria.
An administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Israel had not informed the United States about the raid, which took place at about 4:30 a.m. in the Middle East, until "several hours" later. But the United States military and intelligence agencies have always kept a close watch on the airspace in the region, particularly because of the American military occupation of Iraq, and military officials said it was likely that the United States had known of the raid soon after it took place.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the Bush administration has repeatedly called on Syria to break its ties with groups that the administration has classified as terrorist organizations, particularly those like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to which Syria has long provided a haven. Syria has denied supporting terrorism, but says it supports resistance efforts by those groups and others against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
The administration has amplified its criticism of Syria since the war in Iraq. After a visit to Syria by Mr. Powell in April, the Syrian government agreed to persuade some of those groups to close their offices in Damascus. But administration officials have described Syria's overall response as unsatisfactory, and they say Syria continues to permit militant groups to use Syria and Lebanon as bases of operation.
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Bush Reaffirms That Israel Has Right to Defend 'Homeland'
October 6, 2003
New York Times
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/politics/06CND-PREXY.html?hp
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 - President Bush said again today that he recognized Israel's right to defend itself, and he pointedly declined to criticize it for the retaliatory strikes into Syria after a deadly suicide bombing.
Mr. Bush said he told Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel on Sunday, "like I have consistently done, that Israel's got a right to defend herself; that Israel must not feel constrained in terms of defending the homeland."
"However," the president said, "I said that it's very important that any action that Israel take should avoid escalation and creating higher tensions."
Mr. Bush has said repeatedly that he knows Israel has a right to defend itself, and he has urged it repeatedly to not over-react and set off new spates of bloodletting in the Middle East. But his remarks today may have been significant, both for what he said and for what he did not say.
Mr. Bush, speaking to reporters at the White House in an appearance with President Miwi Kibaki of Kenya, did not answer directly when he was asked if he thought Israel had gone too far with its surprise airstrike deep into Syria.
And Mr. Bush's use of the word "homeland" recalled the many times he has used it when he has talked of protecting the United States from terrorism.
Finally, Mr. Bush said today that a speech he gave on June 24, 2002, "should explain to the world and to the American people the policy of this government."
"We have not changed," he said.
In that Rose Garden speech, President Bush told the Palestinian people that they had to replace Yasir Arafat as their leader before the United States would support an independent Palestinian state. He also called for an end to Palestinian terrorism, and for free elections and economic reforms to end corruption.
At the time, the speech was well-received by Israel, since it was tougher on the Palestinians than any of his previous statements. That speech, like today's far less-detailed remarks, came after Israel had retaliated to a series of attacks by Palestinian suicide bombers.
Today, while saying that "all parties must assume responsibility" for ending bloodshed in the region, Mr. Bush aimed his remarks at Palestinians. He declined to answer directly when he was asked if he could "work with a Palestinian prime minister who says he would not use force under any circumstances against Palestinian militants."
That was a reference to the stance taken by the new Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, who said he wanted to negotiate a truce with Israel but without using force. Mr. Bush said today that the Palestinian Authority "must defeat the terrorists who are trying to stop the establishment of a Palestinian state, a peaceful state, in order for there to be peace."
Since Mr. Bush's Middle East policy speech of June 24, 2002, Mr. Arafat has been pushed somewhat to the sidelines, although not rendered completely irrelevant, as Mr. Bush would like. And Mr. Bush has said he still embraced the "road map" for a Mideast peace in which Israel and a Palestinian state would co-exist in stability and prosperity.
Mr. Bush has said repeatedly that terrorism in the Middle East cannot be allowed to stymie efforts to achieve peace. But this weekend's suicide bombing, in which a score of people died, was one of the more serious incidents in recent months. Israel responded with an airstrike deep inside Syria, the first Israeli raid on that country in 30 years, since the 1973 Yom Kipur war, whose anniversary is today.
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U.S. Response To Attack by Israel Is Muted
Syria Is 'on the Wrong Side' In War on Terror, Officials Say
By Glenn Kessler and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 6, 2003; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48447-2003Oct5.html
The Israeli attack on an alleged terrorist camp inside Syria yesterday helped punctuate a message the Bush administration has been sending to Syria for months -- stop supporting terrorist organizations. But analysts said it could also lead to a widening of the Arab-Israeli conflict, thus threatening the administration's efforts to stabilize Iraq and foster peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Administration officials have openly criticized Syrian actions during and after the war with Iraq, with some officials suggesting Syria would soon qualify for the spot vacated by Iraq in the administration's "axis of evil" that also included Iran and North Korea. Administration officials have fumed that Syria lets foreign fighters slip across the border with Iraq to torment U.S. troops, while doing little to rein in anti-Israeli militant groups operating within its borders. Syria denies the charges.
The frustration with Syria led the administration to offer a muted response to Israel's attack, even though it was deep inside Syria and was instantly condemned by the Arab world.
"We have repeatedly told the government of Syria that it is on the wrong side in the war on terror and that it must stop harboring terrorists," a senior administration official said. "That is still our view."
The official added, "We urge both Israel and Syria to avoid actions that could heighten tensions or could lead to hostilities." Israel launched the attack on the alleged Islamic Jihad training camp in response to a suicide bombing Saturday in Haifa that killed 19 Israelis. Islamic Jihad had claimed responsibility for the attack.
U.S. and Israeli officials said Israel did not warn the Bush administration it was planning the attack. "You don't ask for a green light and you don't get a green light," an Israeli official said.
President Bush called Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday after the attack on Syria, mainly to express his condolences for the Haifa attack.
"They agreed on the need to continue fighting terrorism," the administration official said. "They did discuss the attack on the terrorist camp in Syria and agreed on the need to avoid heightening tensions in the region at this time."
Sources said Bush did not tell Sharon the attack was a mistake, and publicly the administration offered no criticism of the attack.
Murhaf Jouejati, a native Syrian and a scholar at the Middle East Institute, said: "It does not sound like the administration is terribly displeased. The perception in Israel is that Israel has a green light from the administration, even if it is unwritten or unspoken, to employ violence against Syria."
He said that with the U.S.-backed peace plan, or road map, "in a coma," the attack could easily widen conflict through the region.
"This is an escalation on Israel's part, and it is a function of the statements the administration is putting out," he said. "If Israel is going to bomb inside Syria and there are no consequences from the administration, Lebanon could be vulnerable to Israeli attack."
Edward P. Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria who has led back-channel talks with the Syrians on behalf of the U.S. government, agreed. "This raises the disturbing possibility of enlargement of the conflict," he said.
He said that militants in Hezbollah, or the Party of God, could respond by launching attacks into northern Israel; Hezbollah is based largely in Lebanon but is backed by Syria and Iran. Conflict on Israel's northern border has been minimal in recent months.
Djerejian, director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, said the administration faces "a challenge not to let the situation escalate further."
Richard Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board, a Pentagon advisory committee, who is close to leading conservatives in the administration, applauded Israel's attack.
"It will help the peace process," he said, because terrorism has been hindering peace efforts and Syria is a leading sponsor of terrorism. He said he hadn't understood why the Israelis were reluctant to attack the Syrian camps, because "to go after terrorists and not after their bases makes no sense."
The State Department has listed Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism since the list's inception three decades ago.
State Department officials, in particular Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, have repeatedly pressed the Syrians to rein in the militant groups. Powell, when he visited Damascus in May, appeared to have won a commitment from Syrian President Bashar Assad to close Damascus-based offices of several militant groups. But Syria backtracked, leading Powell to declare in June that the Syrians "took some limited steps, [but] those limited steps are totally inadequate."
Last month, Powell reiterated the administration's demands on the Syrians: ending support of terrorist activities, ejecting from Damascus people connected to terrorist organizations, halting the use of Syrian land and airspace to transfer weapons to Hezbollah, access to Iraqi bank records in Syria and sealing off the border with Iraq. "The Syrian leadership has not responded as forcefully, as thoroughly, as I would've liked," Powell said.
Perle said this is the wrong approach. "The Syrians do not respond to jawboning," he said. "They have been wildly irresponsible, encouraging troublemaking in the region."
Djerejian said that in the last month Syria has taken steps in response to the pressure, such as relocating the militant group offices out of Damascus. He said the Syrians have asserted that these offices represent the interests of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria and are not operational centers for terrorism.
Daniel Benjamin, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called the attack "a pretty shrewd move from the Israeli perspective, vis-à-vis the United States." The Bush administration has criticized the building of the fence separating Israelis and Palestinians because the planned route cuts deep into Palestinian territory.
"They're reminding everyone that they are victims of international terrorism. It's not just about the fence," he said.
He added that the attack "could redound to the administration's benefit because the Syrians will know that the only one who can restrain the Israelis at all is the Americans, and therefore the Syrians may actually do something to restrain Palestinians. But even that is being very hopeful."
----
Bush asserts Israel's right to defense
10/6/2003
(AP)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-10-06-us-mideast_x.htm
WASHINGTON - President Bush declined to criticize Israel Monday for its air strike deep inside Syria, saying Israel "has got a right to defend herself." But Bush also said he had cautioned Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to try to avoid escalating tensions in the region. President Bush cautions both sides "must assume responsibility" but stopped short critcizing Israel. By Charles Dharapak, AP
Bush decried the "needless murder" of 19 people in a suicide attack by a Palestinian militant group in Israel on Saturday that led to the Israeli attack on a suspected terrorist camp in Syria.
Bush said that the Palestinian Authority must do more to fight terror and "must use whatever means is necessary .... All parties must assume responsibility."
Bush commented after the new Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, said he hopes to negotiate a quick truce with Israel, but won't use force against Palestinian militants under any circumstances - despite U.S. demands for a clampdown on armed groups.
The president was asked if he could work with a prime minister who would not use force against militants.
"We have not changed. Parties need to assume responsibility for their actions. In order for there to be a Palestinian state, the Palestinian Authority must fight terror and must use whatever means is necessary to fight terror," he replied.
During a White House news conference with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, Bush said that he had spoken with Sharon on Sunday.
"I made it very clear to the prime minister that...Israel's got a right to defend herself, that Israel must not feel constrained in terms of defending the homeland."
However, Bush added, "I said that it's very important that any action Israel takes should avoid escalation and creating higher tensions."
Israeli warplanes on Sunday bombed a suspected terrorist camp northwest of Damascus in retaliation for the suicide bombing the day before at a seaside restaurant in Haifa.
The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing but denied having training bases in Syria.
Earlier, White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the suicide bombing "despicable" but declined to weigh in on whether the suspected training camp was an appropriate targets for retaliation.
He would not say whether the United States agreed with Israel's contention that the site was a training camp for terrorists, nor would he say whether the Bush administration would veto a U.N. resolution condemning Israel's airstrike.
"We've always stated that Israel has the right to defend herself," McClellan said, while cautioning the Israeli government to consider the "consequences" of its actions on the peace process.
The U.S.-backed "road map" to Mideast peace has suffered a series of setbacks in recent months, with Israel building homes in new West Bank settlements in defiance of the plan and steady bombings by Palestinians.
"We always pointed out that there would be difficulties along the way," McClellan said.
At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said the Syrian Foreign Ministry hosted a meeting in Damascus of representatives of the permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council.
The Syrians expressed their views, Boucher said, adding that the American representative at the meeting, Gene Cretz, "expressed our views right back."
Boucher said the United States has seen Syria "as a state sponsor of terrorism for a long time.
"We've repeatedly made known our grave concerns about Syrian support for terrorist groups, including Palestinian groups, that are engaged in planning and directing terrorist action against Israel from Syrian territory. That remains our position," he said.
"We have urged all parties to avoid actions that would heighten tensions in the region and to carefully consider the consequences of their actions," he said.
As for the Syrian resolution at the U.N. Security Council condemning the Israeli attack, Boucher said the administration "doesn't think a resolution that deals with only part of the situation and that doesn't make any reference to the terrible and horrible attacks that occurred in Haifa on Saturday is appropriate at this time."
Administration officials said Israel had not informed Washington in advance of its retaliatory strike nor indicated whether it intended any move against Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to remove him from his West Bank headquarters.
"They don't ask for it and we don't give those," McClellan said.
----
Prising open the Syrian file
Monday, 6 October, 2003,
By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3167742.stm
By extending their arm to attack a Palestinian camp near Damascus, the Israelis might also be hoping to prise open the file on US President George W Bush's desk marked "Syria".
Syria has for long been a rhetorical target of hawks in Washington, but it has been lying low recently. President Bashar al-Assad has hinted that economic and other reforms are on the way. Syria says it has closed offices used by Palestinian groups.
Israel wants to keep Syria top of the US agenda But Israel wants to keep the Syrian issue alive in US minds.
"Israel has successfully put Syria on the agenda of the neo-conservatives in Washington and wants to keep it there. Vice-President [Dick] Cheney and Defence Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld are gunning for Syria. It is a huge move in this conflict," Hania Farhan, Middle East director of the Economist Intelligence Unit in London, told BBC News Online.
Israel will already have been pleased by the statement by the US Ambassador to the UN John Negroponte that "Syria is on the wrong side of the war on terrorism".
I'm still in a war mode and the war is terrorism President Bush
The attack means that Israel has all but given up on the so-called roadmap to Middle East peace, which now lies trampled on the floor.
The roadmap has gone the way of the Oslo agreement, which also withered under the impact of suicide bombs.
The prospect now is the long haul of a "low intensity" war, but which could from time to time take on the features of major conflict.
In such a campaign, it is important for Israel to have the United States by its side.
By attacking a target in Syria, Israel might be in tune with Mr Bush's continuing militant mood.
The president is reported by the Washington Post to have told King Abdullah of Jordan recently: "I'm still in a war mode and the war is terrorism."
Mr Sharon's instincts
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's own instincts are to take the fight to his enemies.
He did this in 1953 when, as commander of special operations Unit 101, he went into Jordan to attack Palestinian guerrillas.
In the 1973 war, he unexpectedly crossed the Suez Canal and threatened the Egyptians with encirclement.
In 1982, he took Israeli troops to Beirut.
It may be that Syria can avoid being drawn in too deeply.
Over the past 30 years, since the Yom Kippur War exactly 30 years this day, it has kept its border with Israel on the Golan Heights relatively quiet and has acted through its allies in Lebanon instead.
The prospect now is the long haul of a 'low intensity' war, but which could from time to time take on the features of major conflict
Certainly, its room for military manoeuvre is limited.
"Syria has no way of retaliating given its military weakness against Israel. That's why Israel knew it would get away with this," Ms Farhan said.
"I don't think that Syria thought it would come to this, that it would be attacked directly."
The Syrian connection
The stated Israeli reason for the attack, that it targeted a "training camp used by terrorist organisations, where operatives of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad train while enjoying the backing of Syria" must also be taken seriously.
The Israelis have often accused Syria of harbouring a number of militant Palestinian groups. These traditionally included the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine which is less active these days.
More recently, Israel has said that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have used Syria as a base for planning and organisation.
The Israelis released a video of what they said was the camp they attacked at Ein Saheb. This showed a large amount of military equipment in a cave. The video seems to have been obtained off Iranian TV though its origin remains unexplained.
Syria has maintained that these groups are engaged in resistance not terrorism and that it has not helped them to any significant degree.
The Arafat factor
Another reason for the raid could well have been the need to reduce the pressure on the government to carry out its threat to "remove" Yasser Arafat.
Many in Mr Sharon's own cabinet are calling for Mr Arafat's expulsion. Some voices in Israel (the Jerusalem Post for one) have even called for his assassination.
By attacking a target inside Syria for the first time in decades, Mr Sharon might feel that he has satisfied a desire among political and public opinion for action. For now.
Iran in spotlight
And Syria is not the only country mentioned in the statement from the Israeli military. Iran was named twice.
"The Islamic Jihad," the statement said, "enjoys the support and backing of countries in the region, foremost among them Iran and Syria."
It accused Iran of providing "funding and direction".
It is perhaps no coincidence that Iran is currently the Middle Eastern country getting most critical American attention with the arguments over its development of a nuclear capability.
----
Bush hopes probe will plug leaks
Mon Oct 6
(AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=1521&u=/afp/20031006/pl_afp/us_cia_iraq_bush_031006181645&printer=1
WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush said he hoped that the FBI-led criminal probe into who leaked a CIA agent's identity would help plug other unauthorized disclosures to reporters.
"This is a serious charge, by the way. We're talking about a criminal action. But also hopefully we'll help send a clear signal we expect other leaks to stop as well," he said.
At issue is a US Department of Justice investigation into whether Bush aides leaked Valerie Plame's name to journalists in July to punish her husband, Joseph Wilson, for publicly challenging the case for war in Iraq.
White House officials and the president himself have rejected calls from opposition Democrats to name an independent investigator into the mushrooming controversy.
"I've got all the confidence in the world the Justice Department will be do a good, thorough job," Bush said during a joint press conference with visiting Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki. "I'd like to know who leaked."
The president has come under fire in some quarters for not launching an internal probe when the information came to light in July and for rejecting opposition Democrats' calls for an independent investigator.
"I take those leaks very seriously. And therefore, we will cooperate fully with the Justice Department," he told reporters Monday. "I want there to be full participation, because I am most interested in finding out the truth."
Bush sidestepped a question about whether the leak was retaliation against Wilson, saying: "I don't know who leaked the information, for starters, so it's hard for me to answer that question until I find out the truth."
"I mean, you hear all kinds of rumors, and the best way to clarify the issue is for full participation with the Justice Department," he said.
----
Wilson: Bush Not Party to Leak
Ex-Diplomat Says He and Wife Are Taking Security Precautions
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 6, 2003; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47562-2003Oct5?language=printer
Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV said yesterday that the leak of his wife's name as a covert CIA official by Bush administration officials last July could have been for revenge or to undercut his criticisms of the Iraq war or to intimidate other government insiders from talking to journalists.
"I do believe, however, that the president would never have condoned or been party to anything like this," he said yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The Justice Department has begun an investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of the name of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, who served in the CIA's operations division and acted clandestinely under what is called non-official cover. That means she worked in a position not associated with the U.S. government and when overseas on a spy mission was not protected by diplomatic immunity.
Asked whether he thought the leak had endangered his wife, Wilson said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that since the publicity of the Justice Department investigation, "other people" have suggested "perhaps this does make her a target." As a result, he said he and his wife were taking unspecified security precautions.
He also said on "Meet the Press" that he had been contacted by a publisher about writing a book and will attend a book fair in Germany next week to test the market. He said he first turned down the suggestion that he go, but changed his mind after publication of the fact he was considering it.
Columnist Robert Novak, also on the NBC program, said the identification of Wilson's wife came during an interview with one senior Bush administration official when he told the official "it was very strange that the mission to Niger could be done by a diplomat with no experience in counterproliferation who was regarded as a critic of the war and really had no experience at the agency."
The Sunday before Novak's interview with the official, Wilson's view that the Bush administration had distorted the allegation about Iraq's effort to buy uranium from Niger had been given wide circulation through an op-ed piece he had written that was published in the New York Times and a story in The Washington Post that contained the first on-the-record interview with him. In addition, Wilson appeared that Sunday on "Meet the Press."
One day later, under pressure created by Wilson's disclosure, the White House publicly acknowledged it had been a mistake to include the 16 words about uranium and Africa in the president's State of the Union message in January.
Novak said yesterday that when he asked why a man with Wilson's views had been chosen, the Bush official told him, "Well, his wife works in the counterproliferation section at the CIA, and that she suggested it, his mission."
Wilson was an opponent of Bush's Iraq policy in July this year, at the time Novak asked his question, but he was selected by the CIA for the Niger mission in February 2002. When Wilson was sent to Africa, just weeks after Bush included Iraq in the "axis of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address, he was not opposed to Bush's policy toward Baghdad. He was the last U.S. diplomat to deal directly with Saddam Hussein and supported ousting the Iraqi president.
Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," U.S. chief weapons inspector David Kay said he is searching for a cache of reference strains of biological agents that is supposed to include anthrax bacteria. Reference strains are not weapons agents but in effect sample amounts to be used to determine whether that agent exists.
Kay's discovery of one vial of a reference strain of botulinum toxin that an Iraqi scientist had stored in his refrigerator in 1993 at his government's request was described by Bush on Friday as a piece of evidence that Iraq was prepared to have prohibited biological weapons.
Before the war, the administration, using 1998 data from U.N. inspectors, said that Iraq had not accounted for 25,000 liters of anthrax bacteria and 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin.
Kay also said that Iraqi generals had told investigators that they had chemical weapons but, "unfortunately, they're not able to tell us where they are now."
On ABC's "This Week," Kay said part of the new money being sought for his 1,200-person Iraq Survey Group, said to total $600 million, would be used "as reward money, if, in fact, people step forward." He also confirmed that some of the high-quality aluminum tubes that CIA and Pentagon analysts said most likely were to be used for centrifuges were used to make rockets, as State and Energy Department analysts said. He cautioned, however, that he could not say what the largest tube shipment was for because it was intercepted by the United States before the war began.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
No. 2 State Dept. Official Visits Afghan Region of New Attacks
October 6, 2003
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/international/asia/06AFGH.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 5 - Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage flew into the troubled southern province of Kandahar on Sunday to meet with regional officials on the first leg of a visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan that centered on the continuing war against a resurgent Taliban and members of Al Qaeda.
Nearly two years after their defeat in Afghanistan, suspected Taliban and Qaeda forces are threatening the stability of the government of President Hamid Karzai and stalling reconstruction efforts.
Mr. Armitage brought a message of continued American support. He came here to the capital after his stop in Kandahar and told journalists after meeting with Mr. Karzai and his foreign minister that the United States would spend $2 billion this year on Afghanistan if, as he expects, Congress approved a supplementary aid package of $1.2 billion.
Mr. Karzai, speaking Sunday in a taped interview with the BBC, said, "It is very frustrating to see our country is still being attacked, people attacking girls' schools, killing people on the highways."
In the Kandahar area alone, there have been three serious attacks and 14 people killed by suspected Taliban insurgents in the last four days. Two Afghan soldiers were killed and three were wounded in an attack in neighboring Helmand Province on Saturday night. In addition, six Afghan mine removers were rounded up by fighters whose commanders ordered their execution, though they escaped with one wounded. Ten Afghan soldiers and two children were killed in an ambush by suspected Taliban forces in northern Kandahar Province last Wednesday night.
Mr. Armitage, suffering from a sore throat that had delayed his visit, said, "Militarily, economically, politically, culturally and socially - assuming the agreement of the government of Afghanistan and of the people of Afghanistan - the United States is going to remain involved."
A large part of the new money will be spent on training members of the new Afghan Army and on a new program to train 19,000 police officers in the region.
--------
Karzai Faces Revolt In Fragile Coalition
Northern Alliance May Back Another for President
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 6, 2003; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47787-2003Oct5.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 5 -- Hamid Karzai, the interim Afghan leader who announced his candidacy for president Wednesday during a high-profile speaking tour of the United States and Britain, has returned home to confront an open political revolt by powerful rivals in his fragile coalition government.
Leaders of the Northern Alliance, the predominantly ethnic Tajik Islamic militia movement that includes the defense minister and a half-dozen regional militia bosses, held an unusual meeting here last week during Karzai's absence. Over the past three days, several spokesmen said the group has decided not to support Karzai's run for the presidency and to field its own candidate instead.
The threatened internal defection from Karzai comes at a critical time for Afghanistan's troubled transition to democracy, already a source of concern to the Bush administration, which strongly backs Karzai.
"There was discussion of cutting political ties with Karzai, finding another candidate and creating a new political party," Hafiz Mansour, publisher of a weekly magazine that represents Northern Alliance views, said of last week's meeting. "It is too early to say the results, but what is clear is that from now on, Karzai will be isolated."
Siddiq Chakari, a spokesman for former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, said the group would nominate Rabbani, an elderly Islamic scholar and ethnic Tajik who headed the Northern Alliance government of the early 1990s. But other sources said the movement was seeking an alternative candidate from Karzai's Pashtun ethnic group, the country's largest.
Karzai reacted angrily to the reports, saying he was fed up with coalition government and that the Islamic militias had "destroyed the results" of their struggle against Soviet occupation in the 1980s. Speaking on BBC Afghan-language radio today, he said he had no objection to anyone running against him, but that if the Northern Alliance leaders sought to disrupt order, he would act against them.
"Anyone can be a candidate against me, but no party can have military force, no military men can form a party, and no one can write on a tank or an artillery piece that it belongs to this or that party," he warned. The country's new political parties law expressly prohibits military or armed parties.
Afghanistan's turn toward democracy began when the United Nations established a transitional postwar government in December 2001. The U.N. plan, which placed key former militia leaders in prominent posts, laid out a two-year process leading to presidential and parliamentary elections in 2004.
Many aspects of the plan have been slipping lately. A draft constitution was completed recently, but a national assembly to debate and approve the charter has been postponed from this month to December. The most controversial issue to be debated is whether Afghanistan should have a strong presidential system, which would presumably favor Karzai, or a strong parliament with some veto powers over the executive.
Karzai said last week that national elections, scheduled for June, might have to be postponed by several months because of delays in beginning voter registration. This week, reports are circulating that U.N. officials might also consider limiting the election to a presidential contest because provincial parliamentary voting might be too difficult to arrange and too dangerous to protect.
Meanwhile, a long-stalled program to disarm and demobilize regional militias is due to begin in three weeks, but Northern Alliance militia leaders are now objecting on the grounds that Afghans need to defend themselves from resurgent forces of the former Taliban rulers and that their own fighters need more assurances of official support before turning over their weapons.
The Bush administration is concerned about the slow pace of progress in Afghanistan and its poor reflection on U.S. efforts to help. As a result, it has recently committed an extra $1.2 billion in aid and announced plans to help "accelerate" political and economic reforms by sending an assertive new ambassador and placing advisers in key ministries.
Mansour and others associated with the Northern Alliance said the group has no intention of threatening violence against Karzai or of disrupting national elections, whenever they are held. But they said several recent moves by Karzai to weaken their power had made them "rethink" their support for his government.
Before leaving for the West two weeks ago, Karzai suddenly announced a flurry of reforms that challenged the power of his internal opponents. First, he made official the long-planned shuffle of 22 senior posts in the Defense Ministry, aimed at creating more ethnic balance and professionalism in an institution dominated by the minister and his ethnic militia coterie.
Second, in the wake of an embarrassing land-grab scandal that implicated numerous senior officials, Karzai unexpectedly announced that no government vice presidents or deputies could take official actions in his absence. Over the past several months, he had moved to rein in individual provincial militia bosses.
"Karzai did these things to show he was powerful to the international community and to weaken" the Northern Alliance, Mansour said, suggesting that the moves had provoked the group's leaders to respond. "It is certain there will be no military action against him," he added, "but the lack of cooperation by government leaders and military officials could inflict fatal damage on him."
Some Afghan and foreign observers, however, said the Northern Alliance threat would have little political impact because its leaders are widely discredited and enjoy little public support. They noted that Karzai's previous concessions to the militia leaders had alienated many of his supporters and that his recent efforts to limit their power have won wide public approval.
-------- arms
Bargain Basement
Congressional Report: Terrorists Could Buy Special Equipment From Pentagon
ABC NEWS
October 11, 2003
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/US/wnt_gaoreport031006.html
Oct. 6 - The Pentagon could inadvertently be providing terrorists with special equipment that would enable them to make biological weapons, according to a draft report from the General Accounting Office obtained by ABCNEWS.
According to the report, which is due to be released Tuesday, Congress ordered the GAO - its investigative arm - to set up a phony company to see how easy it would be to buy surplus lab equipment from the Pentagon.
Using fake names, GAO investigators went to a Web site that sells Pentagon surplus and ordered items needed to produce bacteriological weapons, including evaporators, centrifuges, bacteriological incubators amd protective clothing.
In its report, the GAO found that the "Department of Defense has not attempted to determine who is buying excess biological equipment or how these items were being used."
"This is a real danger, and it is something we've got to close, a loophole that we've got to close right now," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a nonprofit organization that advocates effective arms control policies.
A Terrorist's Bargain
The GAO also found that some buyers who had recently purchased used equipment from the Pentagon then resold it to countries where terrorists have operated, such as Malaysia, the Philippines and Egypt.
"The Department of Defense has not been paying attention to this back door, with a domestic market that can allow it to be sold abroad," Kimball said.
And the Pentagon has been selling the equipment at bargain prices. Some equipment that the Pentagon paid $46,000 for was sold to investigators for $4,100. That could be a real bargain for potential terrorists.
-------- balkans
Kosovo Offers Police Officers as Peacekeepers, and Is Refused
October 6, 2003
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/international/europe/06KOSO.html
PRISTINA, Kosovo, Oct. 5 - At a time when the Bush administration is having little success persuading its major allies to send troops and police officers to postwar Iraq, offers of help are coming from some very unusual - and very small - places.
On Sunday, Ibrahim Rugova, the president of the semiautonomous province of Kosovo, said he was eager to send several hundred police officers to help - anywhere they were needed.
"I don't have soldiers; however, I have offered police officers - to Iraq, to Afghanistan" or other places, Mr. Rugova told Richard C. Holbrooke, a former American ambassador to the United Nations and former assistant secretary of state, and journalists traveling with him. "We have very good police forces."
Mr. Rugova's announcement follows the news that the United States has recently accepted an unusual offer by Serbia and Montenegro to send up to 1,000 combat troops and police officers to Afghanistan to work with American forces.
Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations and protected by NATO troops since 1999, when NATO waged war against the Serbs after Serbia's wave of atrocities against the largely ethnic Albanian population there. When it came to winning points with the Bush administration, Mr. Rugova was not to be outdone by the Serbs.
Mr. Rugova said he made the offer to the State Department during a visit to Washington in February. He followed up with a letter to President Bush before the United States went to war against Iraq in March, saying, "As your country prepares for possible action in Iraq, you have our full political support." He also wrote, "We would be pleased and honored to provide tangible assistance in the form of any practicable sphere that you require." He said he never got an answer.
Reached on Sunday, a State Department official said the administration had said thank you very much, but no thanks. Mr. Rugova received a reply from the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, Elizabeth Jones, that said the best thing he could do to contribute to the campaign against terrorism was to build a stable democratic Kosovo, this official said.
Mr. Rugova's gesture is rooted more in symbolism than in reality. Enforcing law and order, which includes the police, is a power reserved by the United Nations administration in Kosovo.
But Mr. Rugova, who favors Kosovo's independence from Serbia and Montenegro, is big on symbols. As is his habit with important visitors, he gave Mr. Holbrooke a large mineral rock flecked with gold.
He proudly showed the visitors the three large flags hanging in his home: the flag of Albania, the flag of the United Nations and in the middle, the flag of Dardania, or Land of Pears, the ancient name for Kosovo. "That," he said, "is the flag of the president of Kosovo."
Nexhat Daci, the speaker of Kosovo's legislative assembly, repeated the offer last week in Washington during a visit with lawmakers including Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Democrat, and Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican of Iowa.
"When we were first starting our police force, we didn't understand why they had to go to school until they learned lessons in respecting the human rights of the citizens and how to avoid taking revenge," Mr. Daci said in an interview. "We could teach the Iraqi police the lessons we learned."
Kosovo's fledgling police force has been trained here in a European and North American training operation under American control.
While most of the force of 5,600 locally recruited police officers is ethnic Albanian, 16 percent is non-Albanian, including Serbs. A potential peacekeeping force would be multiethnic, which in the view of politicians here, would prove that Albanians and Serbs can live and work in peace.
There is so much willingness to please Washington that Gen. Agim Ceku, the commander of Kosovo's emergency disaster relief corps, has also offered his forces in the American-led campaign against terrorism. Although the force of 3,000 is seen by ethnic Albanians as a fledgling army, fewer than 100 bear arms. "We run refugee camps, deliver humanitarian aid, do search and rescue missions, guard key sites," General Ceku said in an interview. As Muslims, he added, his forces would have credibility in Iraq and Afghanistan.
-------- biological weapons
GAO: Pentagon sold biolab gear
From Chris Plante
CNN Washington Bureau
Monday, October 6, 2003
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/10/06/gao.pentagon/index.html
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Defense Department sold equipment to the public that can be used for making biological warfare agents, according to a draft report by the General Accounting Office.
The Defense Department agency responsible for the sale of excess property to the public, the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service, halted the sale of such items September 19 while the practice is reviewed.
"Many items needed to establish a laboratory for making biological warfare agents were being sold on the Internet to the public from DoD's excess property inventory for pennies on the dollar, making them both easy and economical to obtain," the GAO draft report said.
"As requested, GAO established a fictitious company and purchased over the Internet key excess DoD biological equipment items and related protective clothing necessary to produce and disseminate biological warfare agents."
The GAO is the investigative arm of Congress.
A congressional source said the GAO front corporation was able to buy evaporator, incubator and centrifuge equipment that can be used to produce biological warfare agents.
It also bought 300 to 400 protective suits required for the production of biological agents, the source said.
The fictitious GAO company spent "a little over $4,000" for equipment that the Defense Department originally bought for some $46,000, according to the source and the report.
"That's less than 10 cents on the dollar," the source said.
Much if not all of the equipment sold to GAO investigators is available to the public at full price on the open market, the source said, but "we certainly don't need DoD to be a discount shop for potential bioterrorists."
He conceded that "only nominal controls" are now in place to prevent the sale of such items to the public, but at least those sales are "not with the U.S. government seal of approval [and] for pennies on the dollar."
The GAO investigation was requested by the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, which is a unit of the Government Reform Committee.
"According to the GAO, due to poor controls, there is little assurance excess [chemical-biological] equipment has not already fallen into the wrong hands," a subcommittee statement said.
The statement said some of the protective suits "had previously been identified by DoD as defective," but they "were still circulating in the surplus supply chain."
An unknown number of defective suits were issued to state and local law enforcement agencies before being returned to the Defense Department to be disposed of, according to the statement.
The congressional source said those suits should not have been resold under any circumstances.
The subcommittee will hold a hearing on the matter Tuesday with testimony from Pentagon officials, GAO investigators and a chemical-biological weapons expert.
-------- britain
Minitank to spearhead lighter, mobile army
October 06, 2003
Washington Times
London Sunday Telegraph
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20031005-111133-2245r.htm
LONDON - A new $10 billion minitank small enough to be flown to conflict zones around the world is to become the spearhead of the British army.
The tank will have the same caliber gun as the current Challenger 2 tank and equally strong armor, but it will have the advantage of being more maneuverable and much more easily transportable.
The development of the new tank, which is intended to transform the army into a lighter, more mobile force, will be one of the central announcements in a forthcoming policy statement on the future of the armed forces.
A senior Ministry of Defense adviser, who is working on the program, said: "It is, in simple terms, a vehicle that can punch above its weight.
"The aim of this project is to be able to provide the British army with a fleet of modern armored vehicles with the maneuverability of light vehicles but the firepower of heavier ones.
"If we had had this new tank in the Gulf, we could have attacked Saddam's forces in days rather than weeks. Our enemies will know that the British can deliver a large, armored force onto their doorstep ready to fight within days of an emergency - that amounts to a very potent threat to any future aggressor."
The policy statement, which was due to be published this month but has been delayed because of the Hutton Inquiry into the death of David Kelly, the Iraq weapons expert who committed suicide, will result in about $3 billion of spending cuts.
Among the projects affected will be the construction of two new aircraft carriers, the Joint Strike Fighter, and Type 45 Destroyers for the Royal Navy. The extra $3 billion could be found by reducing the number of Type 45 ships from six to five, cutting the Joint Strike Fighter force by 10 aircraft and reducing the size of the carriers from 60,000 to 50,000 tons.
However, the minitank will be one of the few schemes not to suffer as ministers press ahead with plans to provide the army with a fleet of rapidly deployable armored vehicles.
The new program will mean that some of the army's most famous tank regiments will lose their heavy armored role. It is estimated that the equivalent of an entire armored brigade of Challenger 2 tanks, about 130, will have to be mothballed.
----
PM misled House on Iraq arms, says Cook
By Peter Fray,
Sydney Morning Herald Correspondent in London
October 6, 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/05/1065292475354.html
Tony Blair privately conceded that Saddam Hussein did not have ready-to-use weapons of mass destruction two weeks before the invasion of Iraq, the former British foreign secretary Robin Cook says.
Mr Cook, who resigned on the war's eve, accuses the Prime Minister of misleading Parliament and committing troops to the US invasion knowing the Iraqi leader's weapons were difficult to assemble quickly after years of concealment from United Nations inspectors.
In diary extracts published in The Sunday Times, Mr Cook says Mr Blair's admission contradicted his public statements that Saddam represented a real and present danger to the world and had to be deposed.
His allegations further undermine Mr Blair's case for war and make it more likely that MPs will push for a full judicial inquiry into the decision to go to Iraq. Downing Street has dismissed Mr Cook's claims as absurd.
Mr Cook, who at the time of his resignation was government leader in the House of Commons, says that after a briefing by Britain's intelligence chief, John Scarlett, a month before the war he realised that Saddam's weapons were very limited in range and capacity.
"The presentation was impressive in its integrity and shorn of the political slant with which No. 10 encumbers any intelligence assessment," he wrote.
"My conclusion at the end of an hour is that Saddam probably does not have weapons of mass destruction in the sense of weapons that could be used against large-scale civilian targets."
Mr Cook says Mr Scarlett, the author of last September's controversial Iraq intelligence dossier, assented to the suggestion the Iraqi leader did not have such weapons.
When Mr Cook raised concerns with Mr Blair on March 5, two weeks later, that Saddam might use chemical weapons against British troops, he had replied: "Yes, but all the effort he has had to put into concealment makes it difficult for him to assemble them quickly for use."
Mr Cook wrote: "Tony did not try to argue me out of the view that Saddam did not have real weapons of mass destruction that were designed for strategic use against city populations and capable of being delivered with reliability over long distances."
Mr Cook wrote in his diary that he believed Mr Blair had changed his mind between the September 2002 dossier and last March about Saddam having weapons of mass destruction capable of being deployed within 45 minutes. He alleges that the Government asked MPs to vote for war on a false prospectus.
Mr Cook has been a noted critic of Mr Blair on Iraq, but according to his diaries many ministers spoke up against the war. They were led by the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, who triggered a near mutiny in cabinet.
Downing Street said Mr Cook's opposition to the war was well known and had been expressed several times. The idea that Mr Blair had ever said Saddam did not possess weapons of mass destruction was absurd.
Mr Cook's claims are contained in a forthcoming book, Point of Departure.
----
Blair Doubted Iraq Had Arms, Ex-Aide Says
October 6, 2003
By WARREN HOGE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/international/europe/06BRIT.html
LONDON, Oct. 5 - Prime Minister Tony Blair conceded privately that Iraq did not have quickly deployable weapons of mass destruction as the British government was claiming as justification for war, says Robin Cook, a former foreign secretary.
Mr. Cook, who quit his post as leader of the House of Commons in March because of Britain's decision to join in the American-led war in Iraq, says Mr. Blair also made it clear to him in a conversation two weeks before combat began that he did not believe Saddam Hussein's weapons posed a "real and present danger" to Britain.
Mr. Cook's account was made public in extracts published in The Sunday Times of London from "Point of Departure," a book based on his diary entries from the period.
An intelligence dossier published in September 2002 argued that Iraq had unconventional weapons that could be used within 45 minutes of an order being given. Mr. Cook said that he had no reason to doubt that Mr. Blair believed the claim at the time it was made but that in their conversation on March 5, Mr. Blair told him the weapons were only battlefield munitions and could not be assembled by Mr. Hussein for quick use because of "all the effort he has put into concealment."
Mr. Cook wrote, "If No. 10 accepted that Saddam had no real W.M.D. which he could credibly use against city targets and if they themselves believed that he could not reassemble his chemical weapons in a credible time scale for use on the battlefield, just how much of a threat did they really think Saddam represented?"
In response, a 10 Downing Street spokesman said: "The idea that the prime minister ever said that Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction is absurd. His views have been consistent throughout, both publicly and privately, as his cabinet colleagues know. Robin Cook's views are well known and have been expressed many times before."
The failure to find unconventional weapons and the public suspicions, aired during six weeks of hearings this summer, that the government doctored intelligence to win support for an unpopular war have caused Mr. Blair's popularity to slump to its lowest point since he came to power in 1997.
Mr. Cook said he and other cabinet members worried that Mr. Blair's decision was motivated more by his desire to maintain Britain's influence in Washington than to protect British interests against a possible terror attack.
"I am certain," Mr. Cook wrote, "the real reason he went to war was that he found it easier to resist the public opinion of Britain than the request of the president of the United States."
A year before, Mr. Cook wrote, Mr. Blair had instructed the cabinet: "We must steer close to America. If we don't, we will lose our influence to shape what they do."
Mr. Cook served as foreign secretary during Mr. Blair's first term in office. Unlike the other cabinet member to quit over the war, Clare Short, the international development secretary, he declared himself a Blair loyalist in his resignation speech to the Commons and said he hoped to see him remain in office.
-------- business
Inside the Boeing deal scandal
October 6, 2003
BY ROBERT NOVAK,
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak06.html
Shame is unknown to the Boeing Co. team intent on sticking U.S. taxpayers with a $16 billion sweetheart deal for leasing 100 KC-767 planes as Air Force tankers. Although a massive document drop revealed the tawdry details of the Chicago-based company's incestuous relationship with the Air Force, Boeing last week covertly tried to stick the deal in the $87 billion appropriations bill for Iraq. Only Sen. John McCain's intervention stopped it.
A reference to tankers in the supplemental bill appeared benign, but would have been the seed for authorizing the deal in the Senate-House conference. Boeing tried to hinge corporate profit to U.S. troops in Iraq. When McCain warned he would hold up the bill, all mention of tankers was removed.
That was a victorious skirmish in what may be a losing war. The 7,500 pages of internal documents McCain forced Boeing to release provide extraordinary insight into the military-industrial complex. Boeing operatives, on a first-name basis with high Pentagon officials, openly display their conniving.
Mitch Daniels, then budget director, was Horatio at the bridge trying to stop the deal. Boeing's tentacles spread into the White House Oval Office and the offices of the speaker of the House and president pro-tem of the Senate.
''I never have seen anything that unsavory,'' McCain told me last week in describing the Boeing papers.
Last Dec. 19, both Daniels and I misinterpreted failure to act by the Defense Department's Leasing Panel as a sign the deal was dead. It was not, but Boeing was worried.
''We have re-engaged with Speaker,'' said a Boeing internal memo of Dec. 19. ''Novak piece is a direct attack.'' The memo reported that Speaker J. Dennis Hastert met with President Bush earlier that week ''and reportedly got a positive response (undefined, at least to us) out of president.'' It talked about working with ''senior consultants who have relationship'' with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld through membership on his Defense Policy Board.
Also on Dec. 19, executive vice president Jim Albaugh (Boeing's No. 2 official) wrote that ''our contacts with the Speaker indicate that he is ballistic'' over my column reporting Daniels' opposition ''and that he takes it as a personal affront.''
Albaugh concluded: ''I plan on remaining in D.C. until [chief Boeing lobbyist] Rudy [de Leon] and I are satisfied we have all the actions in place to get this deal done and the Novak article defused.''
Boeing had more than my column to worry about. A Feb. 10 report by the Pentagon's Program Analysis and Evaluation concluded that ''leasing will cost more than purchasing (several billion dollars more).'' After the Pentagon quietly approved the lease in May, PA&E director Ken Krieg on June 20 issued a report that leasing ''is more expensive in the long run'' than direct purchases.
On June 23, an internal memo shows then Secretary of the Air Force James Roche (now Army secretary-designate) in on the deal.
''We have a big problem'' with Krieg's report, Roche is quoted as saying. Roche urged Boeing to pressure Krieg ''to write a new letter essentially undoing the first letter.'' Boeing wanted it made clear to Krieg that his report was ''going to embarrass'' Rumsfeld.
Roche's lieutenant, Deputy Assistant Secretary Darleen Druyun, is reported in an April 1, 2002, Boeing memo as having ''told us several times to keep in mind'' that the Airbus price was $5 million to $17 million cheaper per plane than Boeing's 767.
''Darleen is fearful/concerned with Sen. McCain,'' the memo adds. She left the Pentagon in January to become a Boeing executive and is under investigation by the Defense Department's inspector general.
The Boeing document dump would supply a dozen docudramas, but perhaps the most shocking admission is found in a company memo of May 22, 2002: ''The [Boeing] team is still working the art of the possible in terms of obfuscating construction financing, transactions costs and lease administration.''
That deal is now wending its way to congressional approval.
----
Use of private security firms in Iraq draws concerns
October 06, 2003
By Borzou Daragahi
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031006-122420-5426r.htm
KIRKUSH, Iraq - The use by the Pentagon of more than a dozen private security companies to guard key installations and train a new Iraqi army has helped extend U.S. military resources but raised concern among some active-duty soldiers and civilian U.S. officials.
That trend was on display recently here in northeastern Iraq, where the U.S. authority proudly displayed a battalion-size set of recruits it hopes will form the core of a new pro-American Iraqi army.
The camouflage-clad recruits - young and middle-aged, Kurdish, Arab and Turkoman - marched in formation, launched ambushes and fired their weapons for a group of visiting reporters.
But their training was being handled not by U.S. forces but a group of gray-suited specialists under contract from the Vinnell Corp., a subsidiary of American defense giant Northrop Grumman. Vinnell, in turn, has subcontracted most of the Kirkush training to MPRI, an Alexandria firm that helped train the new Croatian and Bosnian armies.
"The Iraqi army is such an essential component for the future of Iraq in terms of avoiding civil war," said Rex Wempen, a Baghdad-based security consultant and former Special Forces member. "It shows how embedded the [private military contractors, or PMCs] are in the thinking of the Department of Defense that they would use them to train that army."
At a time when the overstretched U.S. military is struggling to persuade other nations to send troops to help secure Iraq, PMCs can relieve some of the pressure on American forces.
"If you're going to keep the number of troops down, this is the way to do it," said Mr. Wempen. "The expense is the same or more. But politically it's much less expensive."
Staffed by ex-military personnel, the private firms are playing an increasingly visible role in Iraq:
•Armed employees of Custer Battles, a Fairfax firm, guard Baghdad airport, manning the type of checkpoints often operated by American soldiers.
•Erinys, a British company with offices in the Middle East and South Africa, guards the oil fields.
•Global Risk, a British firm offering "risk management" advice, has the contract to provide armed protection for the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led power.
•DynCorp of Reston has been hired to help train Iraq's police.
Much of the work is conducted by former soldiers who retain high security clearances, said an Iraq-based former U.S. military official who requested anonymity.
Western security officials in Iraq say the companies generally do not engage in combat operations as they do in Colombia and other countries, but occasionally they are used for a specific task, such as quietly snatching a suspected Saddam Hussein loyalist.
Coalition and U.S. military officials say the contractors have the flexibility to do some things quickly that the armed forces simply can't.
"They could be got here quickly," said British Brig. Jonathon Riley. "The U.S. or Britain didn't have to deploy another combat brigade to take this task."
Contractors also can cast a wider net in hiring, helping to internationalize the forces in Iraq even as U.S. attempts to attract more foreign troops stall.
"We're trying to get more international participation here and the contractors can hire internationally," said U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Johnny Monds, one of the coalition soldiers in Kirkush.
But many coalition soldiers are squeamish about the private contractors and say they hope their role will be temporary.
"This is a very touchy issue," said a high-level coalition military official who opposes expanded use of private soldiers in Iraq. "There's a lot of pressure to use these contractors. Some oppose it. Some support it."
Some soldiers said privately that the soldiers-for-hire walk around with their weapons in full view as if they belong to a coalition army. They worry that the private-sector soldiers might not be constrained by the same rules of engagement and that any rogues among them who kill or hurt Iraqis could bring reprisals on all foreign forces.
"What are the rules of engagement [for the PMCs]?" asked one coalition military official in Baghdad. "Are they civilians or are they military? I don't know who they are, and I don't want to go anywhere near them."
The Coalition Provisional Authority did not respond to several formal requests for information about private military activities in Iraq. The coalition military commander in Iraq, U.S. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, responding to a question at a press conference several weeks ago, said he did not know of any plans to use contractors to perform security functions for the military.
On the ground, however, the private soldiers are occasionally finding themselves in firefights with Iraqis.
Richard Galustian of Pilgrims, a contractor that provides security for many Western media outlets, described one incident in which his firm's security officials opened fire on a group of suspected bandits along the road from Baghdad to the Jordanian border. "Certainly at least one or two people were hit," he said.
A former Special Forces member now in Baghdad said military contractors guarding ministries on behalf of coalition authorities have killed Iraqis who were trying to loot or attack the buildings.
"It's Iraq," he said. "You're accountable to nobody. But I guess ultimately you're accountable to the U.S. military for what happens."
--------
Federal Contracts
States News Service
Monday, October 6, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49425-2003Oct5?language=printer
Northrop Grumman Information Technology Inc. of McLean won a $281.65 million contract option from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command for Phase II development and implementation of the Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System for Personnel and Pay Program.
Johns Hopkins University of Laurel won a contract valued at up to $49.4 million from the Air Force Materiel Command for research and development services.
Northrop Grumman's Information Technology's Defense Mission Systems Division of Reston won a contract valued at up to $49 million contract form the Air Force Materiel Command for research and development services in intelligence community engineering.
Jorge Scientific Corp. of Arlington won a share of a $44 million contract from the Air Force Materiel Command to perform architect and engineering services.
Beach Panel and Controls Inc. of Chesapeake won a contract valued at up to $27.93 million from the Navy for the design and delivery of shipboard security module systems for use on Military Sealift Command vessels.
Ashbury International Group Inc. of Sterling won a contract valued at up to $27.51 million from the Naval Surface Warfare Center for 10 hand-held, self-contained Laser Ranging and Observation Systems. Work will be performed in Switzerland.
Eastern Virginia Medical School of Norfolk won a contract valued at up to $15.18 million from the Naval Air Systems Command for a research to include conducting validation and training transfer studies.
Barclay White/Coakley Williams Construction of Gaithersburg won a task order valued at up to $14.98 million from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command's Engineering Field Activity for the design and construction of bachelor enlisted quarters and an academic instruction building.
Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore won a contract valued at up to $13.65 million contract from the Air Force Space Command to provide information technology services.
AverStar Inc. of Vienna won a contract valued at up to $13.63 million from the Naval Air Systems Command's Aircraft Division for engineering services for acoustic and non-acoustic sensor system research and development, test and evaluation to support both fleet aircraft and special projects.
RBC Inc. of Alexandria won a contract modification valued at up to $12.63 million from the Naval Air Systems Command's Aircraft Division for engineering services for acoustic and non-acoustic sensor system research, development, test and evaluation to support both fleet aircraft and special projects.
Barclay White/Coakley Williams Construction of Gaithersburg won a task order valued at up to $11.87 million from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command's Engineering Field Activity for the design and construction of a national maritime technology information center.
SFA Inc. of Frederick won an $11 million contract from the Army for six Force Provider Modules, six Cold Weather Modification Systems and six Power Generation Modification Systems.
Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. of Baltimore won a $10.5 million task order from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command for design and construction of a consolidated fire, police and security facility.
Jorge Scientific Corp. of Arlington won an $8.4 million contract from the Air Force for electrical, mechanical, aeronautics, and avionics systems engineering support services.
Mid Eastern Builders Inc. of Chesapeake won a $7.84 million contract from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command's Atlantic Division for airfield perimeter security and Post 1 main gate improvements.
Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. of Baltimore won a task order valued at up to $6.42 million from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command's Engineering Field Activity for design and construction of a child-development center.
These contracts were awarded by the federal government to companies in Maryland, Virginia and the District. For more information, contact States News Service at 202-628-3100, extension 266.
-------- chemical weapons
Nerve agent cleanup critiqued
Consultant says company should correct problems before winning contract
Associated Press
Mon, Oct. 06, 2003
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/local/6943635.htm
DAYTON - A company shouldn't dispose of a byproduct created by the destruction of a deadly nerve agent until it corrects air pollution problems and redoes a trial run for the process, said a consultant hired by the county.
Bruce Rittmann, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University, was hired by the Montgomery County commissioners to evaluate the safety of Perma-Fix Environmental Services Inc.'s plan to dispose of 300,000 gallons of hydrolysate, a byproduct created in the destruction of VX nerve agent.
The Army has proposed awarding the suburban Jefferson Township company a $9 million contract to get rid of hydrolysate from its Newport Chemical Depot 200 miles away in western Indiana. The project would start next year.
Rittmann examined documentation of lab trials of the disposal process in which Perma- Fix used small quantities of hydrolysate.
``The real test is how they respond to this input and whether they can take a constructive approach,'' he told the Dayton Daily News for a story on Sunday. ``If they think they can't improve on it, maybe they need (to take) another path.''
Rittmann said Perma-Fix inadequately monitored its lab trials, failing to document that the process went as planned each step of the way. He said the lab tests should be redone.
The company also hasn't adequately addressed concerns over air pollution and emissions of foul odors, Rittmann said.
``They're either not paying enough attention to (the problem) or their equipment is not functioning properly,'' he said. ``Either way, they have to figure this out and fix it.''
Residents have complained in the past about pungent emissions from the plant, and the Dayton-based Regional Air Pollution Control Agency detected strong odors from it as recently as June.
However, agency spokesman Bruno Maier said such odors haven't been detected in the past several weeks.
Perma-Fix cleaned its reactors last October and installed a thermal oxidizer to burn off odors, said Perma-Fix spokesman Tom Trebonik.
Perma-Fix officials declined to comment further until they could read Rittmann's report, which was to be released Monday. County officials also declined to comment.
Jeffrey Brubaker, the Army's site manager at the Newport facility, said Friday that the Army would consider Rittmann's findings as it decides whether to proceed with the project.
Attorney Ellis Jacobs, representing local residents, has threatened to sue Perma-Fix under the Clean Air Act to force the company to acquire a stricter operating permit.
``It seems that Dr. Rittmann is joining the chorus of voices raising concerns about the plan,'' he said. ``It's time for the Army to reconsider.''
-------- europe
Hungary could close military base after US snub
BUDAPEST (AFP)
Oct 06, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031006165730.295wj40u.html
Hungary has threatened to close down its military base at Taszar after the United States decided not to use it to train Iraqi policemen, a sign that Budapest feels slighted by its ally.
"If the US decides it has no further use of the base, then Hungary will close it down within the next few months because we don't need it," foreign minister Laszlo Kovacs told AFP late Sunday.
Washington has mulled using Taszar, 200 kilometers (125 miles) southwest of Budapest, as a base to train up to 28,000 Iraqi police, but last week picked Jordan as a cheaper alternative.
In January and February Hungary allowed the US army to use it to train hundreds of Iraqi dissidents to help US forces liaise with the Iraqi population after the war.
The United States has leased Taszar as a logistical base since 1995. In 1999, NATO fighter jets took off from the base in the military campaign against former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
The potential closure of the base -- which would cost hundreds of jobs and hurt the economy of Taszar and the surroundig region -- is fueling concern here that Hungary is not getting much in return for its support of Washington so-called war on terror.
Last week, Kovacs met with US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington and requested contracts for Hungarian firms in the reconstruction of Iraq.
But Powell made no public promises, only lauding Hungary's "tangible support" in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hungary, a NATO member since 1999, has sent 300 troops to Iraq and has a 50-member contingency in Afghanistan.
"Hungary is right to feel disappointed," Bela Gallo, a foreign policy expert at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, told AFP.
"If the US made a sort of gentleman's agreement with its allies to cut them a piece of the Iraqi reconstruction pie, then I think Hungary has a right to complain," Gallo said.
But Gallo added that Hungary has not always lived up to being a "predictable ally" of the United States, as Kovacs has told Powell last week.
"Hungary's participation in the war on terror has not been so straightforward either," Gallo said citing the more than month-long debate in parliament that preceded the approval the contigency to Iraq.
Currently, parliament is bogged down in an embarrassing debate on whether to authorise the transfer from Portugal to Afghanistan of two Hungarian soldiers serving under NATO command.
The sending of troops abroad requires the support of two thirds of parliament, where the Socialist-led coalition government only has a slim majority.
The conservative opposition Fidesz party has so far blocked efforts to get a speedy parliamentary approval, which would have the two military transferred along with their multi-national NATO contingency.
Fidesz MP Istvan Simicsko told the media last week that his party's decision on the transfer in part depended on whether Hungarian firms would get contracts in the reconstruction of Iraq.
The future of Taszar was also discussed in Budapest last month when Richard B. Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said the US was looking for places to train more Iraqi police in Europe to improve security.
But last week Jordan's King Abdullah II announced that Amman would train some 30,000 Iraqi police and troops as the United States continued its international appeal for such assistance and cash contributions for Iraq.
----
Serbs to fight beside US troops in Afghanistan
By David Rennie
06/10/2003
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$LLKWTRSYG1LRDQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2003/10/06/wafgh06.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/10/06/ixworld.html
Serbian troops are set to join American forces in Afghanistan in a deployment certain to spark fury across the Muslim world.
The prospect of 1,000 veterans of ferocious combat against Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo fighting in a Muslim country came after American military commanders were reported yesterday to have accepted an unexpected offer from Belgrade to assist in combat missions against al-Qa'eda and the Taliban.
Disputes have already emerged over reports that a powerful Serbian police chief, Gen Goran Radosavljevic, insists that he should lead the Afghan deployment.
Although he has never been indicted of a war crime, human rights groups say units under his command committed atrocities against Albanian civilians during the Kosovo war.
His leadership is likely to be viewed unfavourably by the Pentagon, but defence officials are desperate to ease the burden on overstretched American forces.
Serbian officials described the mission, which would see up to 1,000 battle hardened Serbian and Montenegrin troops and paramilitary gendarmes deployed near Kandahar, as a done deal.
But America would confirm only that Serbian and Montenegrin officials visited Washington and Central Command headquarters in Florida last week to discuss the mechanics of a deployment.
Military chiefs at Central Command swiftly approved the offer of Serbian troops when it was made "out of the blue", US officials told The New York Times.
Any political doubts were outweighed by the urgent need for more combat forces and the likelihood that Serbian troops would be on their "best behaviour".
-------- iraq
Two Iraqis demanding army pay shot dead by US forces
AFP
Monday October 6, 8:02 PM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/031006/1/3eqml.html
Two Iraqi army veterans, awaiting a back salary payment, were shot dead and eight others wounded late Sunday by US forces who thought the men were about to riot, a police officer told AFP.
"Ahmed Abdel al-Sattar, 21, and Raed Kamel Mahdi, 25, were waiting for a taxi to pick them up after waiting fruitlessly all day to receive their salary when US soldiers opened fire in the air and toward the people," police Major Etman Awad Mohammed told AFP Monday.
"Eight others were wounded mostly in the legs and feet and they were taken to Kirkuk hospital."
The US military had no immediate comment about the incident in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk 255 kilometres (158 miles) north of Baghdad.
Since Saturday, disturbances have also erupted in Baghdad and the southern port of Basra as 440,000 conscripts from Saddam Hussein's dissolved army have headed to coalition compounds to receive a one-off payment of 40 dollars.
Two Iraqis were killed in Baghdad and one in Basra when riots erupted on the paylines Saturday.
----
Turkey to monitor US moves against Iraqi Kurds
Monday October 06, 2003
News International, Pakistan
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2003-daily/06-10-2003/world/w8.htm
ANKARA: Turkey will be monitoring US action against rebel Kurdish groups in Iraq and judge Washington by what it does, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday.
"We have seen positive signals from them (the US). We shall see in the days and weeks to come the application on the ground of our understanding," he told Turkish television.
Last week the two countries agreed an "action plan" to purge northern Iraq of some 5,000 armed members of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), regarded by both as a terrorist organisation.
"It is unthinkable that the US should call for action against terrorism when this scourge strikes its territory and stand by as a simple spectator when it targets Turkey," he said, calling on Washington to be fair and sincere.
Erdogan did not go into detail about the way that US forces in Iraq, and particularly in the north of the country, controlled by Kurdish allies of the United States in the war against deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, would act.
Turkish diplomats have said that the use of military force is one option under review by Ankara and Washington.
Erdogan said that Ankara would not negotiate a deal involving the sending of Turkish troops to Iraq to bolster the US-led coalition in return for the elimination of the PKK (Kadek) in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan.
-------- israel / palestine
Refugee plight report explosive
October 06, 2003
By Charles Laurence
LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20031005-111122-7581r.htm
NEW YORK - A U.N. report that blames Israel for causing starvation in Gaza and the West Bank has infuriated the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and frustrated U.N. efforts to improve relations with Israel.
The leaked report by Jean Ziegler, a Swiss sociologist and U.N. special envoy, blames Israel's security policies for "collective punishment" of the Palestinians. Mr. Ziegler spent 10 days in the occupied territories in July and was due to present his report to the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Nov. 18.
Angry Israeli officials, however, have denounced the report as "highly political" and said Mr. Ziegler had gone beyond his mandate.
With support from American diplomats at the United Nations, Israel has called for the report to be rejected before it reaches the floor of the General Assembly and asked the U.N. Human Rights Commission - for whom Mr. Ziegler was working as a food rights specialist - to discipline him. According to newspaper reports in France, Mr. Ziegler's report now will not be published until the spring.
Tuvia Israeli, Israel's deputy representative to the United Nations, said: "Mr. Ziegler's behavior has been a bitter blow to our relations with the U.N., which were already extremely strained." He also said Mr. Ziegler's silence about the rampant corruption at the heart of the Palestinian Authority was unacceptable.
Privately, U.N. officials in Geneva, where the Human Rights Commission is based, also expressed frustration at having "wasted a golden opportunity" to improve cooperation with the Israeli government. They regretted that Mr. Ziegler had been "carried away by his indignation."
But Mr. Ziegler is unrepentant. "It is a very explosive report about the silent tragedy behind the visible tragedy of the Palestinian territories," he said over the weekend. "The High Commission hoped that I would soften it. I will not. I will defend it."
In the 25-page report, a copy of which was seen by the Sunday Telegraph, Mr. Ziegler says 22 percent of Palestinian children younger than 5 suffer severe malnutrition, and most families have only one meal a day. He describes that as "absurd" in a historically fertile land, blaming the "apartheid" security fence, the seizing and destruction of Palestinian farmland, and roadblocks for preventing food from reaching Palestinian communities
"The Occupied Palestinian Territories is on the verge of humanitarian catastrophe as a result of the extremely harsh military measures imposed by the occupying Israeli military forces since the outbreak of the second Intifada in September 2000," his report warns.
Mr. Ziegler was one of the first U.N. envoys to be allowed to report on conditions in the occupied territories with cooperation and assistance from Israel. "We invited him ourselves even after we had refused to invite the High Commissioner Sergio Vieira de Mello himself in April," Mr. Israeli said.
"We arranged meetings for him with our political and military authorities at the highest level. We did everything we could to help him in his work, and all he has found to do is to abuse all this."
Israel wants the report to be dismissed on technical grounds, claiming that Mr. Ziegler breached protocol because the report was leaked to the French newspaper Liberation before their government had a chance to lodge a reaction.
Mr. Ziegler said his report was passed to Liberation by an Israeli humanitarian organization after it was sent to Israeli agencies that had helped his research.
----
Putting an end to suicide bombings - [put Arafat on public trial]
October 06, 2003
Washington Times
By Nat Hentoff
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20031005-111125-4963r.htm
The Israeli government may be realizing that talk of removing or killing Yasser Arafat gives him the martyrdom he desires. Instead, put him on trial in Jerusalem for direct complicity in serial terrorism against civilians.
This trial should be entirely public - unlike state trials in Cuba and China. Facilities should be provided for the world press, including neutral, professional translators that are not fromIsrael,the Palestinian Authority or Arab countries.
Intense worldwide attention will certainly be paid to these proceedings, considering the identity of the defendant and the issues to be raised in the trial - historical and contemporary - that will concern a number of nations, as well as Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Mr. Arafat's defense will surely include extensive charges against the state of Israel, including that state's alleged acts of terrorism against the Palestinian people. Both sides, then, before a world audience will finally, in direct confrontation in an open courtroom, be able to present their quintessential argumentsforself-preservation - as nations and as peoples. Mr. Arafat would be provided with the most qualified defense attorneys,fromany country, willing to take the case and whom he approved. Though I suspect Mr. Arafat can afford legal fees, if contributions were necessary for the defense fund, I believe that there would be more than ample financial resources for the lawyers and legal experts, as well as for the travel expenses of witnesses.
An international panel of legal authorities (jurists, law professors and defense lawyers) should review the rules of evidence before the trial to ensure that the defendant gets his full due process (fundamental fairness in all legal procedures before, during and after the trial), including access to forensic experts. For one example, Israel claims to have evidence of written payments, signed by Mr. Arafat, directly to terrorist groups for the specific purposes of terrorist acts. Can those be proven to be his signatures?
The legal definitions of terrorism will have to be clearly spelled out in the charges - based on international law and the precedents of previous trials and proceedings against defendants charged with crimes of terrorism. These definitions will be set forth not only by the prosecution - the government of Israel - but will also be reviewed and critiqued by the assembled international panel of legal authorities. All these documents - including the reply briefs and other motions and objections by Mr. Arafat's defense team - must be publicly and continually available to all media. It is vital that all news formats - print, radio, television and Internet - be accommodated for the trial.
Whatever the verdict, there will be many around the world who will fervently maintain the views they held before the trial. But there are many others who may well find facts - in a fair, open trial - causing them to at least doubt their preconceptions. And the evidence on both sides, tested through the strictest of scrutiny, not only by the participants, but by observers in many lands, could become part of the basis for actual, concrete negotiations for an end to the killings and tormented memories for both parties.
I cannot pretend to be neutral about Mr. Arafat. For years, I wrote strongly in favor of an independent Palestinian state, and even received recognition from an Arab American organization for fairness in my reporting. But the horror of suicide bombings - vigorously approved by Mr. Arafat in speeches in Arabic to Palestinians - has deeply changed the moral equation of this conflict.
Avraham Burg, former speaker of Israel's Knesset (its unicameral parliament) and a persistent critic of Ariel Sharon's policies, said in a recent "Letter to my Palestinian friends" about suicide bombings:"It is a weapon of monsters, not freedom fighters. And until you spit it and its facilitators from your midst, you will have no partner on my side." If Mr. Arafat does go to trial, I hope with all my heart that suicide bombings everywhere will be, at last, definitively condemned as indeed a monstrous violation of human rights - and will then be glaringly defined as such in international law.
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ISRAEL IS THE PROBLEM, Our problem....
by Justin Raimondo
October 6, 2003
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j100603.html
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, and it looks like we may be in for a possible replay of that horrific disaster in which tens of thousands lost their lives. Yesterday, Israel bombed alleged "terrorist camps" in Syria. The excuse: yet another suicide bombing in Israel, this time taking 19 innocent lives, immediately claimed by Islamic Jihad (which denied having military bases in Syria). This was one of the deadliest suicide bombings since the beginning of the Intifada, but in principle no different from the dozens of other vicious acts of terror that are now a feature of daily life in Israel. What is different, however, is that Israel's strategic orientation has radically changed.
Whereas 30 years ago, Israel was on the defensive, and to a large degree dependent on the U.S., today they are clearly prepared to act on their own - without waiting for Washington's okay.
That is the chief result of the Iraq war - the unleashing of Israel. We are seeing the first fruits of our Pyrrhic "victory" in this latest foray by an emboldened Ariel Sharon, who clearly hopes that the stalemated outcome of the first Yom Kippur war can now be overturned.
Taken by surprise, in 1973, Israeli forces reeled from the combined Egyptian-Syrian sneak attack. Aided by "Operation Nickel Grass," an airlift of vital military supplies from the U.S., the Israelis held their positions and then started to push back - coming within 43 miles of Cairo and taking the Golan Heights before the UN called a halt. Today, it is the Syrians who have been taken by surprise, and, this time, the Israelis may not stop until they roll through the streets of Damascus. That, at least, is the threat implicit in their actions.
The Iraq war, as we are beginning to discover, had nothing to do with "weapons of mass destruction," zero to do with Al Qaeda, and zilch to do with implanting "democracy" in the inhospitable soil of Iraq. The first phase of the second Yom Kippur War is revealing, in action, the strategic doctrine at the heart of U.S. Middle Eastern policy: the installation of Israel as regional hegemon.
This doctrine was prefigured in a 1996 paper prepared for then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a working group consisting of several individuals who are now in top spots in the Bush administration. "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" recommended that Israel set itself free from its embarrassing and debilitating dependence on U.S. military and diplomatic support: no matter how unconditional, this support constrained Israel and prevented it from pursuing its true interests. The paper, co-authored by Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser, portrayed Syria as the main enemy of Israel, but maintained the road to Damascus had to first pass through Baghdad:
"Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq - an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right - as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions. Jordan has challenged Syria's regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq."
Today, three of Netanyahu's advisors - Perle, Feith, and David Wurmser - occupy top spots in the foreign policy councils of the Bush administration, where their fulsome support for the Iraq war helped implement the first part of the plan. David Wurmser is chief aide to Undersecretary of Defense John Bolton, who, before a single shot was fired against Iraq, was already promising Sharon that Syria would be next. As Ha'aretz reported at the time (scroll down):
"U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials on Monday that he has no doubt America will attack Iraq, and that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea afterwards."
In February, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was already demanding action against Syria. At a meeting with a delegation of U.S. congressmen, Sharon handed the Americans their marching orders:
"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday that Iran, Libya and Syria should be stripped of weapons of mass destruction after Iraq. 'These are irresponsible states, which must be disarmed of weapons mass destruction, and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will make that easier to achieve,' Sharon said to a visiting delegation of American congressmen. Sharon told the congressmen that Israel was not involved in the war with Iraq 'but the American action is of vital importance.'"
But instead of being converted on the road to Damascus, the Americans were deterred from launching future wars by the unpleasant political and military blowback emanating from that deepening quagmire. Karl Rove's "no wars in '04" dictum threw a roadblock in the path of the pro-Israeli neoconservatives in the U.S. government, who are now under siege as a result of the Plame affair. The Israelis, enraged by this turn of events, are now playing their trump card.
The Israeli attack on Syria is a replication of the U.S. attack on Iraq: the claim of terrorist "links" is followed by unilateral military action - this time, however, in defiance of the whole world, including the U.S. rather than just the UN. The actors are different, but the principle is the same, a similarity Israel's American amen corner will no doubt raise in order to justify Sharon's reckless provocation. Israel, we are endlessly told, has the right to "defend" itself - even if it means conquering and occupying all of Palestine and driving the original inhabitants into Jordan. As "A Clean Break" projected the plan:
"Since Iraq's future could affect the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly, it would be understandable that Israel has an interest in supporting the Hashemites in their efforts to redefine Iraq."
Let's hand our Palestinian problem over to the Hashemites, say radical Likud hard-liners and their American supporters. There is no such people as the Palestinians, anyway, as Joan Peters and Alan Dershowitz aver: they are really just Jordanians. A Hashemite restoration in Iraq would pave the way for the creation of a Greater Israel, fulfilling God's promise to Abraham in the Bible:
"To your descendants I give this land from the River of Egypt to the Great River, the river Euphrates."
Israel, with its overweening military might, would dominate the Middle East. This is the goal of the Christian dispensationalist ministers, such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who believe Israeli hegemony in the Middle East represents the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. But a prophecy, in their view, can be self-fulfilling: it is their Christian duty, they believe, to hurry it along.
The Christian apocalyptic vision of Armageddon in the Middle East - its inevitability and desirability as a portent of the Second Coming of Christ - is the key to understanding conservative Republican support for our war policy in Iraq. The fundies are perfectly aligned with neoconservative efforts to spread the conflict to Syria, Iran, and beyond, a development that would fulfill not only Biblical prophecy but also the direst predictions of anti-war advocates.
The recent report on Israel's growing military superiority out of Tel Aviv University's prestigious Jaffee Center led to widespread worries of Israeli "complacency," and, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports:
"The Jaffee researchers acknowledge that some of Israel´s new strategic gains depend on whether the United States manages to stabilize the regime in Iraq or whether it gets bogged down. If the latter happens, some of Israel´s gains could be wiped out, they say."
The political and military bog in which George W. Bush is caught has him and his advisors, notably Rumslfeld, scrambling for an exit strategy. Before this can happen, Israel is seizing the moment to consolidate its gains. The attack on Syria comes just when Colin Powell has been raising more voluble objections to the odious "Wall of Separation" subsidized by U.S. tax dollars, and the threat to kill or exile Arafat is being taken seriously enough to raise serious concerns even among Israel's staunchest friends. Worse, from the Israeli perspective, is the news of secret peace talks between Washington and Tehran. Sharon, feeling betrayed, is saying: Expand the war, or I will.
Dependent on the Republican activist base of millions of dispensationalist Christians, who put Israeli interests first, the President of the United States is powerless to stop Sharon's rampage. With his "road map" derailed, and the neocons already turning on him (or threatening to), George W. Bush must be content to watch helplessly as Sharon, the main benefactor of the Iraq war, moves to harvest the fruits of the American victory - while the White House is stuck with an $87 billion bill, rising casualties, and a simmering political scandal that threatens to unravel Bush's presidency.
This is the thanks Bush gets for going to war for Israel's sake. Let that be a lesson to him. Too bad it comes far too late in the day to save either his presidency or his place in history. But better late than never.
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Israel Attacks What It Calls a Terrorist Camp in Syria
October 6, 2003
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/international/middleeast/06MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, Oct. 5 - Israel launched a surprise airstrike deep in Syrian territory on Sunday, bombing what it called a Palestinian terrorist training camp to retaliate for a suicide bombing in northern Israel the day before.
The airstrike, a predawn raid at a site outside Damascus, was an abrupt change of military tactics for Israel and was the first Israeli attack inside Syria in 30 years. While Israeli officials described the attack as a measured response, it raised the possibility that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could widen to neighboring Arab states.
Syria immediately protested the attack. It denied that the bombed site was a terrorist camp and said several people had been wounded. Other Arab nations including Jordan and Egypt condemned the attack, but there was no immediate indication that Arab countries were prepared to do anything more than issue strongly worded protests.
At the United Nations, Syria introduced a resolution at the Security Council to condemn Israel. The Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, declared an emergency from his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, and installed a new government by decree.
Israel's government has threatened to expel Mr. Arafat from the region, and the suicide bombing on Saturday brought renewed calls for his ouster from Israeli officials. But international opposition to such a move is strong, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government has not indicated what action it may take. Israeli officials hinted that the military might impose more restrictions on Mr. Arafat at his compound, but said that it would go no further yet.
During the past three years of Middle East bloodshed, Israel has battled Palestinians only in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel had not attacked targets in Syrian territory since the 1973 Middle East war. The 30th anniversary of the beginning of that war is on Monday.
"Israel had to send the message it cannot be repeatedly struck with impunity," said Dore Gold, an adviser to Mr. Sharon.
The air raid came about 14 hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber from Islamic Jihad blew herself up Saturday at a crowded restaurant in the northern port city of Haifa, killing 19 people, both Jews and Arabs.
Israel said the airstrike target, which it identified as the Ain Saheb camp, is about 10 miles northwest of Damascus, and had served as a training ground for several Palestinian factions, including Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the groups behind most of the suicide bombings in Israel.
Syria dismissed the Israeli claim, calling it a civilian facility for Palestinians. Also, Islamic Jihad said it had no "military presence" in Syria.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a radical group that has been largely dormant in recent years, said the base belonged to its organization, but had been deserted for years, according to The Associated Press.
Israeli officials described the air raid as a limited operation and acknowledged it would not diminish Islamic Jihad's overall ability to carry out attacks.
But the officials said Israel wanted to emphasize what they called Syria's role in supporting radical groups. The Palestinians who lead Islamic Jihad and Hamas live in Damascus, though their bombers and gunmen operate from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Hanadi Jaradat, the woman who carried out the bombing, was a 27-year-old lawyer from Jenin, a town in the northern West Bank that is a stronghold for Islamic Jihad.
The Israeli military demolished her family home on Sunday, a practice that Israel calls a deterrent to other would-be attackers.
A senior Israeli security official said Islamic Jihad leaders in Syria played a detailed role in orchestrating Saturday's bombing, and that their involvement contributed to Israel's decision to strike at the target in Syria.
The Israeli military released video footage of the camp in Syria, saying it had appeared on an Iranian television broadcast several months ago. The video showed a man in a military uniform giving a tour of a base with underground rooms and tunnels heavily stocked with weaponry.
Israel was ready to carry out more strikes against Palestinian factions, a senior security officer said, but the officer declined to say whether Syria would again be a target. "You can expect to see more and more Israeli actions in the next few days," he said.
The United States and Israel have long accused Syria of sponsoring terrorism. Syria has been the host to radical Palestinian factions for decades, but says that the groups have only had information offices in Damascus, and that those offices were closed recently in response to demands by the United States. The United States says many Islamic militants fighting American troops in Iraq have come via Syria.
"As a United Nations Security Council member, Syria is supposedly charged with protecting peace and security," said Mr. Gold, the Israeli official. "But it has become the crossroads for terror from Iraq to the Gaza Strip."
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, and Syria sought to take it back when it joined Egypt for a surprise attack on Israel in the 1973 war.
The two Arab countries struck on Oct. 6, which was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, when Israel completely shuts down. After being caught off guard, Israel regained the initiative and controls the Golan Heights to this day.
Israel and Syria also waged air battles in the 1980's, with Israeli fighter planes delivering decisive blows against Syria's air force.
Syria and Iran back the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, which fought Israeli troops throughout the 1980's and 1990's. Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000, but Hezbollah and Israel still periodically trade fire across the border.
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Arafat Names New Cabinet and Declares an Emergency
October 6, 2003
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/international/middleeast/06ARAF.html
JERUSALEM, Oct. 5 - Facing renewed threats from Israel, the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat declared a state of emergency in Palestinian areas on Sunday and installed a new government by decree.
Ahmed Qurei, who has been attempting to form the government for nearly a month, was appointed prime minister and head of the eight-member emergency cabinet.
The move by Mr. Arafat came a day after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 19 people in northern Israel. Although Israel responded Sunday with an airstrike on what it called a Palestinian terrorist training camp in Syria, the suicide bombing rekindled a debate among Israeli officials about whether to oust Mr. Arafat as well.
"Taking into consideration the difficult situation of the Palestinian people and the necessities imposed by the situation, President Arafat issued a presidential decree by which he declared a state of emergency," Mr. Qurei told The Associated Press.
After a pair of suicide bombings on Sept. 9, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government decided in principle to remove Mr. Arafat. However, such a move is certain to face a storm of international criticism, and Israel has not indicated what action, if any, it may take against the Palestinian leader.
Still, the latest violence has again created a crisis atmosphere, and Mr. Arafat may have felt he could no longer afford the internal wrangling over the new Palestinian government. The discussions have dragged on inconclusively since the previous prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, resigned on Sept. 6.
Mr. Arafat's decree on Sunday puts Mr. Qurei in office without the need for parliamentary approval.
However, it was not clear whether the emergency declaration would have any practical effect beyond the establishment of the new Palestinian cabinet.
Mr. Qurei, the speaker of the Palestinian parliament for the past seven years, negotiated the first Israel-Palestinian peace accord in 1993 and has maintained contacts with many senior Israeli politicians.
Israel says the test for any Palestinian prime minister will be whether he is committed to breaking up violent Palestinian factions. Mr. Qurei has not indicated he will do that.
The new cabinet will keep many of the same figures in key posts. In the most important change, Nasser Yousef, a longtime associate of Mr. Arafat, will become interior minister and will be responsible for the security forces.
However, Mr. Arafat has always kept ultimate control of the security forces for himself, and it was not clear how much authority Mr. Yousef would have.
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Turkey's Cabinet Approves Troops for Iraq
(AP)
Oct 6,
By SUZAN FRASER
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031006/D7U0NCH00.html
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul are seen in... Full Image
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkey's Cabinet agreed Monday to send troops to Iraq to help stabilize the country - a decision that could relieve U.S. operations in Iraq and help Turkey mend frayed relations with the United States.
But the decision must be approved by Parliament, where many oppose any deployment. Lawmakers are likely to vote this week.
If the deployment is approved, Turkey would become the first predominantly Muslim nation to contribute troops to Iraq.
There was no information on how many soldiers the government plans to send. However, government officials have said the United States requested some 10,000 troops.
Government spokesman Cemil Cicek said troops would be deployed for one year, adding: "We hope that they stay for less than one year."
The United States has been seeking soldiers from Turkey as well as India, Pakistan and South Korea to bolster 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell says he has given up hope of getting Indian soldiers to help coalition forces secure Iraq, while Pakistan has said it will send its troops only under a U.N. mandate.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been in favor of contributing troops to help improve ties with the United States that have been strained since March when the Turkish parliament narrowly turned down a U.S. request to station 60,000 U.S. troops in Turkey for the Iraq war. The latest move would also allow Turkey a say in the future of neighboring Iraq.
The Turkish public was overwhelmingly opposed to the war in Iraq, and with the number of U.S. casualties mounting, it is also strongly opposed to sending soldiers now. On Monday, anti-war demonstrators staged a protest outside the prime minister's office where the Cabinet met, splashing red paint on the street.
Erdogan has said that once approved by Cabinet, a motion seeking permission to dispatch soldiers would rapidly be brought to parliament. On Monday, Salih Kapusuz, a top official from Erdogan's party, said parliament could vote on the issue as early as Tuesday.
The Cabinet decision came after Turkey received assurances from the U.S. State Department's counterterrorism chief, Cofer Black, last week that the United States would remove the threat posed to Turkey by Turkish Kurdish rebels of the autonomy-seeking Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, based in northern Iraq.
U.S. officials did not rule out the use of military force. The United States has designated the PKK, which now goes by the name of KADEK, as a terrorist organization.
Turkey has sought a U.S. commitment to fight the militants, hoping this would help the government win domestic support for the deployment.
There was no information on when the troops would be dispatched. Private CNN-Turk television said the military had ordered troops to prepare for deployment. Reports have suggested that the troops could be stationed in the Sunni Arab areas, west and north of Baghdad.
Iraqi Kurdish groups and members of the Iraqi interim government have spoken out against the deployment of troops from Turkey and other neighboring nations.
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Jordan denies WMDs crossed its borders
Monday October 06, 2003
News International, Pakistan
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2003-daily/06-10-2003/world/w12.htm
AMMAN: Jordan denied on Sunday that weapons of mass destruction from Iraq have been moved across its border, as suggested by a US expert leading the hunt for the chemical and biological arms.
"Everyone knows Jordan's borders are very tightly sealed and it is surprising that this question is even raised," said Information Minister Nabil Sharif.
When asked about the WMD movements before the US-led invasion of Iraq on Friday, the expert, Iraq Survey Group (ISG) head David Kay, said: "We have multiple reports from Iraqis of substances being moved across borders."
"We've got information indicating movement to Iran, Syria, Jordan, essentially all states that border the north with Iraq, that's not surprising those routes have been long used," he said.
"At least with regard to Syria and Jordan, certainly senior Iraqi officials, both military and scientific, moved to both countries pre-conflict and during the conflict, and some immediately after the conflict."
In an interview with al-Dustour newspaper, Sharif said, "This question has never been raised with us despite our constant contact with the interested American parties."
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Text: Syrian draft resolution
Monday, 6 October, 2003
(BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3168566.stm
The following is the provisional text of Syria's draft resolution condemning Israel's air strike on Syria at the weekend. (Source: Syrian mission to the UN)
The Security Council,
Recalling all its previous relevant resolutions on the situation in the Middle East, including 242 (1967), 338 (1973) and 350 (1974),
Expressing its grave concern with the escalating situation in the Middle East,
Having considered the contents of the letter dated 5 October 2003 from the minister of foreign affairs of the Syrian Arab Republic (S/2003/939, annex),
1. Strongly condemns the military aggression carried out by Israel against the sovereignty and territory of the Syrian Arab Republic on 5 October 2003, in violation of the Charter of the United Nations, the rules and principles of international law, and relevant Security Council resolutions;
2. Considers that these acts constitute a clear violation of the agreement on disengagement between Israeli and Syrian forces of 31 May 1974;
3. Demands that Israel desist from any such acts or threats which might lead to a dangerous deterioration that threatens regional and international peace and security, and exposes the already deteriorating situation in the region to dire consequences;
4. Requests the secretary general to report to the Security Council on Israel's compliance with this resolution within one month of the date of its adoption;
5. Decides to remain seized of the matter.
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Wider Violence Will Follow Israeli Attack, Arabs Warn
October 6, 2003
New York Times
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/international/middleeast/06REAX.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 5 - Arab leaders on Sunday condemned Israel's airstrike on a suspected terrorist training camp in Syria and warned that it could lead to an increase in violence in the region.
There was an added measure of disquiet in the Middle East as Israel's strike deep into Syrian territory crossed new boundaries. It underscored how little progress the Bush administration has made in developing or enforcing a strategy to reduce violence and provocation by Palestinians and Israelis.
Some experts said Israel was striking farther afield in a broader warning to Arab leaders inclined to support Palestinian suicide attacks. Others viewed the Israeli action as a signal to President Bush that pressure on the Palestinian Authority to rein in militants has failed and that stronger measures are required to force a crackdown.
One Saudi adviser to the royal court said he viewed the Israeli action as a step that would have military credibility in the region, but that at the same time avoided the risk of civilian casualties that could result from striking hard in the densely populated Palestinian territories.
In Cairo, the Arab League secretary general, Amr Moussa, termed the raid "state terrorism." He called an emergency meeting of the 22-member body and supported Syria's request for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
The raid, he said, "betrays Israel's aggressive intentions toward the Arabs, broadening the conflict in the region, and distances us from the path of peace."
In some Arab capitals, however, there was recognition that Israel's attack was a proximate result of the suicide attack on Saturday in Haifa, which killed 19 people, and there were calls for restraint on both sides. The militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing. Israeli officials said the airstrike was an effort to destroy one of he group's training camps in Syria.
In Iran, whose intelligence services have played an active role in supporting militant groups operating in Syria and Lebanon, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi called the raid as a "gross violation of Syrian territorial integrity and national sovereignty," the Iranian News Agency said.
"The Israeli attack against Syria is an attempt to divert the public opinion from the sufferings of Palestinian people arising from occupation of their country and the subsequent legitimate defense of the Palestinian nation against the occupying force," he said.
Jordan's foreign minister, Marwan al-Muasher, deplored the violence on both sides. Referring to the suicide bombing, he said, "The time has come to radically reconsider such military operations and operations carried out by certain organizations such as yesterday's."
"We cannot stay in this spiral of violence, which threatens the peace process, and Israel has to realize that its current policies are not leading to regional stability," he said in a statement carried by the official Petra news agency. He urged both parties to return to the "road map" toward peace laid out by the Bush administration because it "guarantees reciprocal commitments and puts an end to Israeli occupation."
Saudi Arabia did not immediately issue a statement on the raid as Crown Prince Abdullah, the kingdom's ruler, was receiving a visit from Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany in Riyadh. But before arriving in the Saudi capital, Mr. Schröder addressed a joint news conference in Cairo with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who said, "We condemn what happened today concerning the aggression against a brotherly state under the pretext that some organizations exist there."
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry emphasized the danger of broadening the conflict. "Israel is pursuing its policy of escalation," the ministry said in a statement, adding that the raid "worsens the situation and threatens to broaden the scope of the violence."
For his part, Mr. Schröder said regional peace efforts "become more complicated" when "the sovereignty of a country is violated."
France issued a Foreign Ministry statement saying the raid "constituted an unacceptable violation of international law and sovereignty rules."
Britain struck a more neutral tone, urging restraint and saying Israel was entitled to defend itself.
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Camp Is Said to Be Long Abandoned
October 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/international/middleeast/06SCEN.html
IN SAHEB, Syria, Oct. 5 (AP) - Palestinian militants long ago abandoned the camp here that Israeli warplanes struck Sunday, residents of the area said.
After the strike, Syrian security forces swiftly cordoned off the area and barred reporters from nearing the site, about 10 outside Damascus, the capital.
The camp contained two buildings that were two stories tall and a big field surrounded by a fence, residents of a nearby village, Ain Mneen, said. They said Palestinian militants had used the area, especially during the 1970's.
"It is a camp that was closed decades ago," said Kamal, who like other villagers would not give his full name. "Before today's incident, any person could go into the camp area. We used to take the kids to play in the valley." Residents say groves in the camp are popular for picnics.
"After the explosion, I saw lots of ambulances and fire engines heading to the area," said another villager, Talal.
A journalist who entered a valley surrounding the camp reached its red metal gate, where two security guards refused to speak about the attack and barred the taking of photographs.
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Syria: U.S. Condones Attacks by Israel
October 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Syria-Israel.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Syria accused the United States on Monday of condoning Israeli attacks as Damascus pressed the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israel's airstrike against a purported terrorist training camp near Damascus.
President Bush insisted Israel had the right to defend itself after a suicide bombing on Saturday that killed 19 people in the northern Israeli city of Haifa. The United States has made clear it opposes Syria's attempt to win U.N. condemnation.
At an emergency meeting called at Syria's request Sunday, most council diplomats spoke out against both the airstrike earlier that day against a camp 14 miles outside Damascus and the suicide bombing that prompted the retaliation.
U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, however, only condemned the Haifa attack, while blaming Syria for harboring terrorists.
``The United States believes that Syria is on the wrong side of the war on terrorism,'' he said. ``We believe it is in Syria's interest, and in the broader interest of Middle East peace, for Syria to stop harboring and supporting the groups that perpetrate acts such as the one that occurred yesterday.''
Negroponte's stance reflected that of the White House. President Bush said Monday he had spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
``I made it very clear to the prime minister ... ``Israel's got a right to defend herself, that Israel must not feel constrained in terms of defending the homeland,'' Bush told a news conference in Washington, though he urged Israel not to take any action that might escalate tensions.
Syria has proposed a resolution condemning Israel. But Negroponte, the 15-member council's president for October, has not scheduled another meeting to discuss the Syrian draft, saying diplomats needed time to consult with their governments.
Negroponte indicated that the United States broadly opposes the Syrian document and would not support any resolution that does not also criticize attacks against Israel. Negroponte questioned why Syria's version made no mention of the Haifa attack, though he did not say whether Washington would use its veto power against it.
Russia appeared to give some support to the U.S. position on Monday, saying the proposed U.N. resolution condemning Israel should be reworked.
``We believe it would benefit from a more balanced form,'' Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. ``In particular, we think it should include a clause on the need to stop terrorist attacks in the region.''
Syria on Monday accused the United States of opening the war for more Israeli attacks with its refusal to criticize Sunday's airstrike.
``The American bias to this (Israeli) aggression, which represents the worst kind of state terrorism practiced, makes Israel regard the American stance as a ... green light (for it) to continue the policy of violating international law,'' said a commentary on the state-run SANA news agency.
A commentary on official Damascus Radio said the Security Council's decision on Syria's draft resolution would have ``repercussions on peace and stability in the region and on the international community.''
The attack on Sunday was the first Israeli strike deep within Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. It was a dramatic new tactic for Israel in its attempts to stop Palestinian militants. Closures, assassinations and military strikes into Palestinian areas have failed to stop suicide attacks, and Washington strongly opposes expelling Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as Israel has threatened.
The Arab League said the bombing ``exposes the deteriorating situation in the region to uncontrollable consequences, which could drag the whole region into violent whirlpool.''
The Islamic militant group Hamas said it fired 16 mortar shells at Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip overnight in retaliation for the Israeli airstrike. The Israeli army said it was checking the claim. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Hamas also said it would also carry out more attacks in Israel. ``We call on our fighters ... to respond quickly, and in the heart of the Zionist entity, to this serious escalation,'' it said.
It seemed unlikely Syria would retaliate. It has 380,000 active duty soldiers, but Israel holds a technological edge. Israel is more worried about Syria's growing missile program and its ability to launch chemical and poison weapons into Israel's cities.
Leaders of Islamic Jihad and other militant groups are based in Syria, but Jihad on Sunday denied having any training bases there. Syrian villagers near the targeted site in Ein Saheb, 14 miles northwest of Damascus, said the camp had been used by Palestinian gunmen in the 1970s but was later abandoned.
Plainclothes security officials banned journalists from approaching the camp. Dense trees blocked the site from view.
In the West Bank, Arafat declared a state of emergency and installed an emergency Cabinet with Ahmed Qureia as prime minister.
Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad of Syria, the council's only Arab member, urged his colleagues to adopt the resolution condemning the ``military aggression carried by Israel against the sovereignty and territory'' of Syria. The document also demands that Israel stop acts ``which might lead to a dangerous deterioration that threatens regional and international peace and security.''
--------
Turkey's Cabinet Approves Troops for Iraq
October 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Turkey-US-Iraq.html
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey's government on Monday voted to ask Parliament to send soldiers to Iraq, a move that could ease the burden of U.S. operations there and help mend frayed relations with Washington.
If Parliament agrees, Turkey would become the first predominantly Muslim nation to contribute troops to U.S.-led coalition. But many lawmakers reject the idea of sending troops to aid reconstruction after the ouster of Saddam Hussein -- particularly when they opposed the war that ousted him.
Hoping to win over critics, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was to address members of his party Tuesday ahead of a Parliament vote that could come as soon as later that day.
Government spokesman Cemil Cicek would not disclose how many soldiers the government hoped to send, but officials have said the United States requested about 10,000. The number ``will be assessed according to needs,'' Cicek said.
The United States also has been seeking soldiers from India, Pakistan and South Korea to bolster 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Turkey is NATO's only Muslim member, and Washington is keen to see troops from Muslim countries in an Iraq peacekeeping mission.
Cicek said troops would be deployed for one year, adding: ``We hope that they stay for less than one year.''
He said the government wanted lawmakers to debate the issue Tuesday. Asked whether parliament could reject the deployment, Cicek said, ``We have no such concerns.''
Erdogan has been in favor of contributing troops to help improve ties with the United States, strained since March when the Turkish parliament narrowly turned down a U.S. request to station 60,000 U.S. troops.
The move would also give Turkey a say in the future of Iraq and a part in the reconstruction of its potentially rich southern neighbor.
``We cannot remain aloof to events'' in Iraq, Cicek said.
But Turks, who overwhelmingly opposed the war, doubt whether their soldiers -- consisting mainly of conscripts -- should risk dying for a mission they don't support.
A recent opinion poll indicated that 64.4 percent of Turks oppose sending troops. On Monday, anti-war demonstrators staged protests outside the prime minister's office and parliament, with one splashing red paint on the street.
The Cabinet decision came days after Turkey received assurances from the U.S. State Department's counterterrorism chief, Cofer Black, that the United States would remove the threat posed to Turkey by Turkish Kurdish rebels of the autonomy-seeking Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, based in northern Iraq.
U.S. officials did not rule out the use of military force against the group, designated by Washington as a terrorist organization.
The rebels fought a 15-year war for autonomy that left some 37,000 people dead. Turkey has been seeking the assurances hoping this would help the government win support for the deployment.
It was not clear when the troops might be dispatched. ``Authorization doesn't mean that troops will leave immediately,'' Cicek said.
Private CNN-Turk television reported however that the military had ordered troops to prepare for deployment.
Issues that still have to be negotiated include where troops would be stationed. Reports have suggested that they could be deployed in the Sunni Arab areas, west and north of Baghdad.
Iraqi Kurdish groups and members of Iraq's U.S.-backed Governing Council are reluctant to see troops from Turkey and other neighboring countries in Iraq, worrying that they may have territorial designs and may destabilize the country.
Turkey is especially problematic. Turkish officials have in the past spoken in favor of sending troops to northern Iraq, over concerns Iraqi Kurds may be trying to carve out a separate homeland in the region which could inspire Turkey's own Kurds.
Sadi Ahmed Pire, a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan official in Mosul, said his party had informed coalition forces of its reservations about the introduction of Turkish troops.
``We told them how we're concerned about the participation of neighboring countries because they have their own agenda,'' he said. ``We're afraid that they're not in a position to follow the same instructions given by the allied forces.''
-------- nato
NATO agrees to widen Afghan force
BRUSSELS (AFP)
Oct 06, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031006154836.k69s3xar.html
NATO agreed Monday to extend an Alliance-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan beyond the capital Kabul to help clamp down on a recent rise in violence blamed on a resurgent Taliban.
The decision, which has to be approved by the UN, would see German forces taking the lead in extending the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which NATO has commanded since August.
NATO chief George Robertson will contact UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to confirm the Alliance's willingness to broaden the mandate of the 5,300-strong peacekeeping force, which is currently confined to Kabul. Beyond the Afghan capital, lawlessness reins in large parts of the Central Asian country.
"We will be informing the UN shortly after this decision so that the UN can work on - of course if the security council agrees - an expanded role for ISAF in the country," said a NATO official.
The NATO decision was taken by so-called silence procedure, under which NATO states had been given until 9:00 am (0700 GMT) to lodge any objections to the agreement. The silence was not broken, and therefore agreement was confirmed.
The agreement was twofold: accord for Germany to lead a "Provincial Reconstruction Team" (PRT) in the northern town of Kunduz, and a decision "in principle to the expansion of the ISAF mission beyond Kabul," said an official.
"This is just a first step. This is just the political guideline that can then be used by military planners for more detailed planning on what this expansion could look like," said the official.
ISAF has been deployed in Kabul since December 2001. It was set up weeks after the defeat of the hardline Taliban regime to safeguard the capital.
Twenty months on, Afghanistan's provinces are troubled by in-fighting between rival warlords and an intensified insurgency by fighters loyal to the Taliban and al-Qaeda movements.
One of the scenarios under consideration at NATO is to send between 2,000 and 10,000 troops to other Afghan cities and to multiply the number of "Provincial Reconstruction Teams" (PRTs) already active in several regions.
The PRTs were set up under the leadership of the United States, whose troops are engaged in a separate hunt for al-Qaeda and Taliban diehards, as a means of extending the Western security blanket to zones outside Kabul.
The issue is taking on greater urgency as the Afghan authorities prepare to begin the potentially fraught task of disarming 100,000 militiamen across the country.
In a report last week, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think-tank said the disarmament programme would only succeed with the involvement of neutral peacekeepers.
The ICG said that Afghanistan's embryonic army and police force were not ready to take charge of security across the country to support the disarmament drive, which is due to be launched on October 25.
"The UN Security Council should, therefore, authorise NATO... to move out to the main provincial centres and assist (disarmament) implementation," it said.
Securing the backing of the United Nations to extend ISAF's mandate is not the only challenge confronting NATO.
Getting the tools to do the job is probably a bigger headache for the military alliance.
NATO member states are already stretched by peacekeeping commitments in the Balkans, not to mention the heavy involvement of US, British and Polish troops in Iraq.
-------- russia / chechnya
Kremlin wins in Chechnya
October 7, 2003
Agence France-Presse
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/06/1065292528062.html
Grozny: The Kremlin's candidate in Chechnya's presidential election, Akhmad Kadyrov, was assured of a landslide victory amid cries of foul in a poll that few expect to bring peace to Russia's troubled southern republic.
Electoral officials in the capital, Grozny, said Mr Kadyrov had won more than 82 per cent of votes cast in Sunday's poll, with more than half the votes counted.
Turnout was set at more than 81 per cent, a figure that appeared barely plausible to journalists who had visited several polling stations where the number of voters had seemed extremely low.
The head of the electoral commission, Abdul-Karim Arsakhanov, said Mr Kadyrov, head of Chechnya's pro-Russian administration since June 2000, had secured 82.5 per cent of the vote. About 52.85 per cent of the ballots had been counted, he said.
Of the six other candidates, none of whom presented a serious threat to Mr Kadyrov's election, only Abdul Bugayev, with a provisional score of 5.4 per cent, made any impact.
Russian authorities have presented the election of a new Chechen president as evidence that the situation in the republic is back to normal.
However, critics have warned that the poll, widely seen as skewed in favour of Mr Kadyrov, would do little or nothing to bring an end to the fighting.
Mr Kadyrov yesterday reaffirmed his refusal to hold talks with the rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, the last legally elected Chechen president, and predicted that rebel supporters would "switch sides in two or three weeks or a month".
In an initial post-election comment quoted by Itar-Tass news agency, Mr Kadyrov said his first priority would be "ensuring the safety of Chechnya's citizens and eliminating the terrorists".
----
Kremlin-Backed Leader Wins Chechen Vote
October 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Chechnya-Election.html
GROZNY, Russia (AP) -- Chechnya's Kremlin-appointed leader was officially declared the winner Monday in a presidential election, a widely expected outcome after his main challengers withdrew or were removed from balloting condemned by critics as a sham but promoted by Moscow as a step toward peace.
With more than 77 percent of the votes counted, acting President Akhmad Kadyrov had 81.1 percent, regional election commission chairman Abdul-Kerim Arsakhanov told reporters in Grozny, the regional capital. He said 85 percent of the 561,000 eligible voters cast ballots.
President Vladimir Putin praised the election in Chechnya, a region of about 1 million people in southern Russia that has been ravaged by two separatist wars since 1994. Russian troops and rebels are now locked in a bloody stalemate.
``The very fact of such a high turnout shows that people have hope -- hope for a better life, for positive changes in the life of the republic,'' Putin said at a Cabinet meeting.
In Grozny, where ruined hulks of buildings rise like broken teeth, market vendor Anya Soslambekova said she had not voted because she did not like any of the candidates.
``I hope things get better,'' she said. ``They have to.''
Others called the proceedings a farce.
``In my view all of Russia is far from democracy, and not just Chechnya,'' Liza Vishayeva said Sunday as she passed a polling station, the only building on her Grozny block without holes chewed into it by artillery. She said she hadn't voted and doubted the election would bring significant improvements.
Speaking to Rossiya state television Monday outside his home in the village of Tsentoroi, Kadyrov said he felt ``an enormous burden of responsibility for the republic and for the people who trusted me.''
The election was held amid high security. Chechnya's deputy interior minister, Akhmed Dakayev, said a man tried to enter a polling station in the village of Assinovskaya with an automatic rifle and a grenade launcher. The man ignored orders to stop, and guards opened fire, wounding him, Interfax quoted Dakayev as saying.
Russian officials have pledged Chechnya will have a high degree of autonomy, but the specifics have yet to be determined. Stanislav Ilyasov, Russia's minister for Chechen affairs, said Monday that Russian and Chechen officials would sign a treaty outlining the regional authorities' sphere of control by the end of the year, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Chechnya ``will engage in the rehabilitation of its facilities on its own and manage its own resources,'' Ilyasov was quoted as saying.
Kadyrov said he would ask Russia's parliament to renew an amnesty that was offered to rebels during the summer and expired in September. He said 171 fighters had surrendered under the amnesty and that many of them were now serving in his security service, headed by his son Ramzan, according to ITAR-Tass.
Kadyrov's security service is widely feared and accused of kidnappings and killings.
Chechnya must now elect a parliament, but Kadyrov said there was no hurry, according to Interfax.
Putin warned against delaying the vote for too long. Russian elections chief Alexander Veshnyakov suggested combining the parliamentary election with the national presidential vote March 14, according to Interfax.
No Western observers were present for the low-tech voting. At some polling places, paper ballots were dropped into taped-up cardboard cartons. Some 30,000 Russian servicemen permanently stationed in Chechnya had the right to vote.
Human rights advocates questioned the fairness of a vote held during a war and said the election was heavily tilted in favor of Kadyrov. Major Western governments, including the United States, have been cautious about criticism, expressing hope that the vote can help foster a political solution of the conflict.
The election was widely criticized after two candidates who rated higher than Kadyrov in early opinion polls disappeared from the ballot -- one withdrawing to become an adviser to Putin and the other barred from running by the Chechen Supreme Court. Six virtually unknown candidates ran against Kadyrov, who was once allied with the rebels.
The current war began in September 1999 with a massive air and ground assault but has devolved into a standoff in which the Russians pound rebels with heavy weaponry and insurgents stage daily ambushes.
The war followed a 1994-96 conflict that ended with Russian forces withdrawing after rebels fought them to a standstill.
Chechen rebels also have mounted attacks outside the region, including the hostage-taking raid on a Moscow theater last October and suicide bombings at a Moscow rock concert this summer.
A pro-rebel Web site, kavkazcenter.com, quoted Aslan Maskhadov, the separatist leader elected president of Chechnya in 1997 who is now denounced by Russian authorities as a terrorist, as calling the vote ``a criminal action by the occupation forces'' that was ``doomed to failure.''
Kadyrov told ITAR-Tass that Maskhadov had no future in Chechnya.
Kadyrov also said there would be no major personnel changes in his government and that he would continue working with Chechen Prime Minister Anatoly Popov.
-------
Rigged Chechen poll 'will lead to new war'
06/10/2003
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$LLKWTRSYG1LRDQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2003/10/06/wchech06.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/10/06/ixnewstop.html
Russian officers fear a return to bloodshed following yesterday's rigged presidential elections in Chechnya, reports Julius Strauss in Grozny
The Kremlin's support for the certain victor in Chechnya's presidential elections held yesterday has brought the blood-stained republic to the brink of a new civil war, according to Russian intelligence officers.
The poll, which has been widely described as a sham, was showcased by President Vladimir Putin as evidence to the outside world that life in the war-torn republic is returning to normal under Moscow's stewardship.
However, intelligence officers have privately told The Telegraph that, far from helping to pacify the republic, the Kremlin's policies have set the stage for a vicious new conflict. Akhmad Kadyrov leaves a polling station with his two grandsons after casting his vote
Akhmad Kadyrov, Moscow's chosen proxy who has run the province for three years, looked set to win easily last night, although the official result will not be announced until today. "There will be no second round," he predicted yesterday after casting his vote in his home village, Tsentoroi.
His confidence as Moscow's proxy is overshadowed by the warnings of agents of the FSB, formerly the KGB. They say they are now preparing for an imminent civil war pitting Mr Kadyrov, who has a private army of 4,000 henchmen and controls many of the republic's police units, against leaders of rival clans who have been sidelined by Moscow.
"The election will result in a new war," said an FSB officer who deals with intelligence on Chechnya. "This time it won't be between us and the Chechens but among themselves. This is the result of Moscow's supporting Kadyrov." It is rare for FSB officers to criticise the Kremlin's policies, especially to a western journalist.
But feelings in the Russian intelligence community are running high after orders were passed down from Moscow to support Mr Kadyrov, come what may.
Mr Putin has escaped vocal censure from America and its allies in the war on terror for his repression of the republic, as insurgents include Islamists with links to al-Qa'eda. But the election campaign bore the hallmarks of the corruption and gerrymandering that has come to characterise Mr Kadyrov's tenure.
His press adviser was sacked after he said that, if the vote was fair, Mr Kadyrov could expect between three and five per cent. His two leading rivals were forced out of the race. Aslanbek Aslakhanov, a deputy in the Russian parliament, said he pulled out to take a job in the Kremlin.
Malik Saidullayev, a millionaire businessman, was disqualified by the electoral commission. He said the Kremlin had resorted to cancelling his candidature after efforts to cajole him into stepping aside voluntarily failed. It is these men who are expected to form the vanguard of the armed opposition to Mr Kadyrov in a post-election battle for control of Chechnya.
Another FSB officer said: "Our information is that once the elections are over, there will be a fierce war between Saidullayev's men and Kadyrov's."
Seen from the outside, Chechnya is often perceived as the struggle of a small, valiant nation against a brutal Russian occupation. But, after a decade of war, the shifting allegiances of Chechen commanders and the bad blood between various clans make for a more complex understanding.
Mr Kadyrov is a former rebel commander and Muslim mufti who fought against the Russians during the 1994-1996 war, only to change sides. Unease among Russian intelligence officials over Mr Kadyrov is mirrored among army officers stationed in the breakaway republic.
One Russian commander said: "He's using us as his pocket army to settle scores with rivals. I don't want to be a mercenary for that thug."
If the Russians are unhappy with the man expected to be the new president, most Chechen civilians are doubly so. Human rights groups have documented cases of his men carrying out murder, torture and kidnapping.
The capital, Grozny, is still mostly in ruins, despite huge grants from Moscow to repair buildings. Russian soldiers have to patrol on armoured personnel carriers, or wearing heavy-duty flak jackets.
"It may look like all the rebels have gone," said one Russian army officer. "In reality they have simply hidden their guns and taken up jobs in the administration. When an order comes they dig out their Kalashnikovs and change into combat fatigues - job done, back to bed, and nobody any the wiser."
Of the thousands of posters plastered on to bridges, lampposts and buildings, almost all are of Mr Kadyrov. His slogan is: "Clean intentions, strong power."
At the railway market, business was brisk last week and Chechens chatted easily with Russian soldiers. Merchants were selling Chinese plimsolls, cheap batteries, Russian army uniforms, toys, soft drinks, beer and a host of other low-end commodities.
But the mention of Mr Kadyrov's name was enough to halt conversation. "We don't have time for politics here," one lady said guardedly.
Yunus, a Chechen policeman, was on duty yesterday in Khambi-Irzi, a village south-west of the capital. said: "Let's see what happens once the election is over. But there will definitely be a third stage. Yes, a war."
-------- un
Syria Offers a U.N. Resolution to Condemn Israeli Raid
October 6, 2003
By FELICITY BARRINGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/international/middleeast/06NATI.html
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 5 - The envoys of Israel and Syria traded threatening remarks in the Security Council chamber Sunday as the Council was presented with a draft resolution by Syria condemning Israel's airstrike on a site in Syria as a violation of international law.
After the four-hour meeting, the United States envoy, John D. Negroponte, signaled that he would probably veto the resolution unless it included explicit condemnation of groups that have claimed credit for terrorist attacks and it called for dismantling the "infrastructure" supporting terrorism.
The mounting of tensions over the past 24 hours was vividly apparent in the unusual weekend meeting of the Council, during which every member warned against intensifying the conflict while the two protagonists squared off with mutual excoriations, laden with references to the region's history of bloodshed and dispossession.
The Israeli ambassador, Dan Gillerman, issued a blistering denunciation of Syria, saying, "There are few better exhibits of state sponsorship for terrorism than the one provided by the Syrian regime." He called the Sunday attack a "measured, defensive operation," and compared Syria's appeal to the Council to the Taliban's making such an appeal after the Sept. 11 attacks.
He added, "Syria would do well to take a hard look in the mirror and count itself fortunate that it has not yet, for unfortunate reasons, been the subject of concerted international action as part of the global campaign against terrorism." After a brief pause, Mr. Gillerman said, slowly, "Not yet."
For his part, the Syrian envoy, Fayssal Mekdad, made it clear that his country's willingness to come to the Security Council for assistance indicated "maximum self-restraint," but added his government's warning that "Syria is not incapable of creating a resisting and deterring balance that would force Israel to reconsider its calculations."
Mr. Mekdad called the raid a "true and direct embodiment of the terrorism which Israel falsely claims it is fighting."
Fourteen of the 15 Council members criticized or condemned the Israeli action as a needless mounting of violence. Most of these also condemned the suicide bombing Saturday at a Haifa restaurant that left 19 people, including three children, dead.
The remarks of Chile's ambassador, Heraldo Muñoz, were typical. "We condemn the bombing perpetrated by the Israeli airstrike against Syrian territory which flouts international law and the objectives and principles of the United Nations' charter," he said. "This conduct is unacceptable and indeed is dangerous as it will expand the scope of the conflict." He then condemned the Haifa bombing.
Mr. Negroponte avoided any criticism of Israel but called on "all sides to avoid heightening tension in the Middle East and to think carefully about the consequences of their actions."
The flare-up of violence and the draft resolution that Syria presented on behalf of the Arab League provided a distraction - clearly unwelcome, from Washington's point of view - to the deliberations over the American draft resolution on Iraq's near-term future.
That draft resolution's chances were thrown into doubt late last week when Secretary General Kofi Annan raised basic questions about whether the political role envisioned for the United Nations was realistic and whether he could send United Nations personnel into that dangerous environment under those circumstances.
"I don't know what the impact will be, but it certainly doesn't help," one State Department official said Sunday evening, speaking on the condition that he not be identified. "It complicates things."
The decision to call the session in the final hours before Yom Kippur - which Mr. Gillerman angrily noted was "the holiest day in the Jewish calendar" - simply added to the tensions in the Council chambers, where representatives of Muslim nations or organizations denounced the Israeli action.
"The atmosphere is pretty nasty," the State Department official said.
The draft resolution offered by Syria demands that Israel "desist from any such acts or threats which might lead to a dangerous deterioration that threatens regional and international peace and security."
Mr. Negroponte, who is presiding over the Council for the month of October, said after the meeting that further consultations would take place "as soon as possible" but left it unclear how quickly the resolution might come to a vote.
--------
Security Council adjourns without vote on Syria raid
06/10/2003
Australian Broadcasting
http://www.abc.net.au/ra/newstories/RANewsStories_960628.htm
Syria has demanded the United Nations Security Council condemn Israel for attacking a purported Palestinian training camp near its capital, Damascus.
The 15-nation council has held an emergency session to consider a Syrian-drafted resolution accusing Israel of violating international law.
However, the council adjourned without taking a vote.
The council president, US ambassador John Negroponte, says consultations will take place as soon as possible, but no date for the resumption of the meeting had been set.
Israel, which has defended the strike as a legitimate act of self-defense, has accused Syria of supporting the group Islamic Jihad, which took credit for a weekend suicide bombing in Haifa.
Israel launched its deepest air raid into Syria in 30 years overnight, attacking what it says was a training camp for Palestinian militants, a day after a suicide bomber killed 19 people in Haifa.
During the public council meeting, dozens of ambassadors from Middle East nations denounced Israel.
All council members who spoke except the US denounced both the Haifa attack and the raid on Syria.
Washington has warned Syria and Israel not to let tensions escalate.
The US currently holds the presidency of the Security Council and has the power to veto any resolution.
-------- us
Pentagon officials ignored reports on dire state of Iraq's oil industry
By Rupert Cornwell, in Washington
06 October 2003
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=450364
Senior Pentagon officials ignored bleak in-house assessments of the state of Iraq's oil industry when they gave optimistic predictions to Congress during the war that oil revenue would quickly get the country back on its feet.
The disclosure, in The New York Times yesterday, seems bound to fuel charges that the Bush administration distorted financial and intelligence facts in its determination to make the case for war.
As the problems in Iraq continue, it is becoming clearer that the White House grossly underestimated the dilapidation of Iraq's infrastructure. Nowhere, however, was the gap between assertion and reality wider than over the country's oil sector.
Addressing Congress in April, the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, insisted that "we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon". Shortly afterwards, he estimated that Iraq's oil revenues could quickly climb to more than $30bn (£18bn) a year, despite warnings from United Nations and international oil industry specialists who visited Iraq that its oil installations had been damaged by a decade of sanctions and neglect.
It now emerges that a secret task force, based in the Pentagon, had also produced findings that flatly contradicted Mr Wolfowitz's assertions. In an exhaustive report, the Energy Infrastructure Planning Group concluded that output would be at least 25 per cent less than the 3 million barrels a day estimated by Mr Wolfowitz and others. Paul Bremer, the US administrator of post-war Iraq, estimates that revenues will run at only $14bn (£8.4bn) annually.
The disclosure comes at an awkward moment for President George Bush, who stunned Republicans and Democrats alike on Capitol Hill last month with his supplementary $87bn (£52bn) funding request for Iraq for 2004(with every prospect of more to come in future years).
On top of $65bn for military operations, the sum includes $20bn for rebuilding Iraq - at a time when the federal budget deficit is at a record high and state governments are forced to impose spending cuts.
----
An overstretched army
Monday, October 6, 2003
NYT, International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/112469.html
Now that it is clear the United States faces a lengthy military occupation of Iraq, requiring perhaps 100,000 troops for the foreseeable future, it is possible to begin calculating how the war may damage the U.S. armed forces. Since the United States cannot expect much additional help from other countries or from the fledgling Iraqi security forces, the burdens of occupation will start to strain severely the army's capacity to deploy trained and rested combat forces worldwide in a matter of months. In the longer term, the lives of thousands of military families will be disrupted, the army reserve system so carefully built up when America moved to a smaller, volunteer army three decades ago will be put at severe risk and the global reach of U.S. foreign policy will be diminished.
This distressing equation is yet another regrettable consequence of the unilateral way America went to war in Iraq. Like the mournful daily roll call of additional dead and wounded soldiers, the reluctance of other countries to help pay for U.S.-run reconstruction efforts and the blows to America's reputation for responsible leadership, it is a cost President George W. Bush never acknowledged when he sold the public last winter on the wisdom of going to war without UN authority.
The early weeks of combat seemed to vindicate the Pentagon's faith that victory could be achieved with far fewer ground troops than many military analysts predicted. Yet the very speed of that campaign led to severe military problems later on. Vanguard U.S. forces arrived in urban areas, including parts of Baghdad, in insufficient numbers to prevent looting of weapons sites, hospitals, schools and power grids. In the Sunni Arab heartland, forces loyal to Saddam Hussein melted away and may now be attacking U.S. troops.
Now nobody realistically expects that the size of the U.S. occupation force in Iraq can be significantly reduced anytime soon. On Thursday, the commander of U.S. ground forces there predicted it would take years before Iraqis could maintain security, allowing U.S. forces to withdraw. At least 100,000 U.S. troops are likely to be needed for quite some time.
Yet, unless rotation patterns are altered or troops are reassigned from other postings, the army will soon begin to have trouble assembling that many troops for Iraq, as combat-weary divisions come due for relief. Nearly half the army's 33 combat brigades are now in the Gulf region. Replacing all of them with fresh units would leave the army hard pressed to meet its obligations elsewhere, including Afghanistan and the Korean peninsula. A congressional study last month found that unless major adjustments are made, the army will be forced to shrink its occupation force to less than half its present size within 18 months. None of those adjustments look attractive. They include rushing units back into the field after shorter rest periods; making greater use of overtaxed reserves; reassigning rapid reaction, Special Forces and Marine units to occupation duties; and cutting other international commitments.
Army reserve and National Guard units are already being used excessively, in part because critical specialties like military policing and intelligence analysis are concentrated in those units. Reservists are usually older, part-time soldiers with jobs and family responsibilities. Tens of thousands of them are now serving 12-month tours in Iraq. Some have been mobilized for most of the past two years. The Pentagon's long-term goal is for reservists to be called to active duty for no more than one year out of every six.
The Pentagon would like to expand its deployable forces by hiring civilians to fill tens of thousands of clerical jobs now held by active duty troops. That will help in the future but will not produce significant results soon enough to make a difference in Iraq. Eventually, the army will also very likely have to add about two new divisions. These must be staffed, trained and equipped - a process the Congressional Budget Office estimates would take five years and cost nearly $20 billion.
America now spends some $400 billion a year on defense, more than all other major military powers combined. The best answer to the strains being felt by the army is not to extend combat tours, cannibalize forces from other missions or undertake vast new spending.
A wiser course would be to return to the sound practice of a half-century and treat war only as a last resort, to be undertaken with as wide a coalition of allies as possible. Doing it Bush's way unnecessarily risks undermining the fighting strength of even the world's strongest military power.
----
White House to Overhaul Iraq and Afghan Missions
October 6, 2003
By DAVID E. SANGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/international/06PREX.html?hp
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 - The White House has ordered a major reorganization of American efforts to quell violence in Iraq and Afghanistan and to speed the reconstruction of both countries, according to senior administration officials.
The new effort includes the creation of an "Iraq Stabilization Group," which will be run by the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. The decision to create the new group, five months after Mr. Bush declared the end of active combat in Iraq, appears part of an effort to assert more direct White House control over how Washington coordinates its efforts to fight terrorism, develop political structures and encourage economic development in the two countries.
It comes at a time when surveys show Americans are less confident of Mr. Bush's foreign policy skills than at any time since the terrorist attacks two years ago. At the same time, Congress is using President Bush's request for $87 billion to question the administration's failure to anticipate the violence in Iraq and the obstacles to reconstruction.
"This puts accountability right into the White House," a senior administration official said.
The reorganization was described in a confidential memorandum that Ms. Rice sent Thursday to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet.
Asked about the memorandum on Sunday, Ms. Rice called it "a recognition by everyone that we are in a different phase now" that Congress is considering Mr. Bush's request for $20 billion for reconstruction and $67 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. She said it was devised by herself, Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Powell and Mr. Rumsfeld in response to discussions she held with Mr. Bush at his ranch in late August.
The creation of the group, according to several administration officials, grew out of Mr. Bush's frustration at the setbacks in Iraq and the absence of more visible progress in Afghanistan, at a moment when remnants of the Taliban appear to be newly active. It is the closest the White House has come to an admission that its plans for reconstruction in those countries have proved insufficient, and that it was unprepared for the guerrilla-style attacks that have become more frequent in Iraq. There have been more American deaths in Iraq since the end of active combat than during the six weeks it took to take control of the country.
"The president knows his legacy, and maybe his re-election, depends on getting this right," another administration official said. "This is as close as anyone will come to acknowledging that it's not working."
Inside the State Department and in some offices in the White House, the decision to create the stabilization group has been interpreted as a direct effort to diminish the authority of the Pentagon and Mr. Rumsfeld in the next phase of the occupation. Senior White House officials denied that was the case, and said in interviews on Sunday that the idea had been created by members of the National Security Council and embraced by Mr. Rumsfeld, who has been a lightning rod for criticism about poor postwar planning.
"Don recognizes this is not what the Pentagon does best, and he is, in some ways, relieved to give up some of the authority here," a senior official insisted, noting that L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the allied provisional authority in Iraq, will still report to the Defense Department. But one of Mr. Bremer's key deputies will sit on the new stabilization group, giving him a direct line outside the Pentagon.
Mr. Rumsfeld's spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, said Sunday that the defense secretary was "aware of the new approach" and noted that Mr. Bremer's "relationship with Rumsfeld remains unchanged."
If Mr. Rumsfeld is giving up some authority, officials say, so is Mr. Powell. The State Department has been in charge of the Afghan reconstruction effort, but now the White House will assert new control over the interagency effort there.
"While the problems in Afghanistan are less complex," a senior official said, "the president wanted to know how come it took so long to get the highway under construction." That project has become symbolic of the slow pace of reconstruction, especially outside the capital.
The creation of the stabilization group appears to give more direct control to Ms. Rice, one of the president's closest confidantes, who signed the memorandum announcing it. For the first two and a half years of Mr. Bush's presidency, Ms. Rice often seemed hesitant to take a more active role, eschewing the kind of hands-on approach for which Henry A. Kissinger and other national security advisers were known, and viewing her job chiefly as providing quiet advice to Mr. Bush.
Now, four of her deputies will run coordinating committees - on counterterrorism efforts, economic development, political affairs in Iraq and the creation of clearer messages to the media here and in Baghdad.
Each working group will include under secretaries from the State, Defense and Treasury Departments, and senior representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency.
State Department officials have complained bitterly that they have been shut out of decision-making about Iraq, even as attacks on American troops increased, lights failed and oil production remained stuck far below even prewar levels.
Mr. Bush, a senior administration official said, made it clear that he wanted "all the powers of the government" turned toward making the reconstruction work in both Iraq and Afghanistan. "The president is impatient with bureaucracy," the official said.
In the interview, Ms. Rice described the new organization as one intended to support the Pentagon, not supplant it.
"The N.S.C. staff is first and foremost the president's staff," she said, "but it is of course the staff to the National Security Council." That group will in effect be taking more direct responsibility.
The council is made up of top advisers to the president who meet three times a week in the Situation Room. They have often seemed unable to coordinate efforts on the main issues relating to the occupation of Iraq. "The Pentagon remains the lead agency, and the structure has been set up explicitly to provide assistance to the Defense Department and coalition provisional authority," Ms. Rice said.
Other officials said the effect of Ms. Rice's memorandum would be to move day-to-day issues of administering Iraq to the White House.
The counterterrorism group, for example, will be run by Frances F. Townsend, Ms. Rice's deputy for that field. Economic issues - from oil to electricity to the distribution of a new currency - will be coordinated by Gary Edson. He has been the liaison between the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.
Robert D. Blackwill, a former ambassador to India, will run the group overseeing the creation of political institutions in Iraq, as well as directing stabilization for Afghanistan.
Anna Perez, Ms. Rice's communications director, will focus on a coordinated media message - a response to concerns about the daily reports of attacks on American troops and lawlessness in the streets.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- energy
Energy Department Rolls Out Ultra Clean Fuels Facility
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
October 6, 2003
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2003/2003-10-06-09.asp#anchor5
The Energy Department dedicated a new facility last week that officials say will pioneer a new generation of ultra clean transportation fuels to significantly reduce tailpipe emissions from cars, trucks and buses. The natural gas to liquids demonstration facility, located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was designed and constructed by the Energy Department's Ultra Clean Fuels Program.
The $40 million facility is scheduled to begin production in early November and is expected to produce some 4,000 gallons of high performance, sulfur free, environmentally friendly transportation fuel per day from one million cubic feet of natural gas.
Fuel from the facility will be tested in bus fleets operated by the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and the National Park Service in Denali, Alaska.
"This is a perfect illustration of how government and industry can work together to develop new technologies to meet the nation's environmental objectives," said Energy Department Secretary Spencer Abraham. "As the nation's automakers and fuel suppliers face tighter diesel emission standards in the next few years, the Energy Department is putting federal research dollars to work towards the goal of cleaner air."
The plant was built under a cooperative agreement by the Energy Department, Syntroleum Corporation, Marathon Oil Company and Integrated Concepts Research Corp (ICRC).
The Energy Department provided $16 million for the facility, which will utilize a proprietary process to convert natural gas to synthetic diesel.
Officials touted the timeliness of the facility - diesel engine manufacturers and fuel supplies are soon to be challenged with meeting a new set of tighter emissions standards.
Upon full implementation in 2010, the new stricter standards for diesel fuel and engines is expected to reduce harmful diesel emissions by up to 95 percent.
----
California Drives Forward With Energy Efficient Vehicle Laws
SACRAMENTO, California, (ENS)
October 6, 2003
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2003/2003-10-06-09.asp#anchor6
California has enacted a pair of laws designed to push forward its efforts to put cleaner, more fuel efficient cars on the road.
Signed last week by California Governor Gray Davis, the bills promote the use of energy efficient tires and require state agencies to purchase fuel-efficient vehicles.
Environmentalists hailed passage of the measures, which they believe will help clean the air and reduce the state's oil dependence.
"California is pushing the pedal to the metal," said Roland Hwang, a senior policy analyst and vehicle technology specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We are winning the race to put advanced vehicle technologies on the road."
California is the first state to adopt a law requiring energy efficient tires. The law mandates labeling and fuel efficiency standards for all replacement
Supporters say carmakers are mandated to install low rolling resistance tires on new vehicles to meet fuel economy standards, but it is difficult for consumer to know if replacement tires meet the same standards. Manufacturers are not required to label or market the energy efficiency of tires.
The deadline for the state to adopt labeling and standards requirements is July 1, 2007, to take effect a year later. The law does not require labeling of individual tires, but rather retail stores will have to display placards with the tire efficiency label.
According to a study commissioned by the California Energy Commission, efficient tires could save Californians about 300 million gallons of gasoline per year, and the average driver would recoup the additional expense of tires in fuel savings over the course of one year.
The second law improves the fuel efficiency of the state's vehicle fleet by restricting the purchase or lease of SUVs by state agencies. Vehicles needed for law enforcement, emergency services or homeland security would be exempted.
The Davis administration also announced that it is seeking approval for hybrid vehicles to use the High Occupancy Vehicle lanes on freeways. Environmentalists say this measure could provide a powerful incentive for consumers to buy gasoline electric hybrids.
-------- environment
EPA Rule Revisions Roil U.S. Case Against Power Plant
By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 6, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49051-2003Oct5.html
The Bush administration's decision last month to weaken rules governing aging coal-fired power plants has complicated government lawyers' pursuit of a case against an Illinois utility accused of violating the Clean Air Act.
The rules in question, part of the act, now say that plants and refineries built before 1970 generally do not have to install modern "scrubbers" during routine maintenance, but must do so if they undertake extensive improvements that extend the facilities' lives and boost their emissions. The new rules, likely to begin to take effect later this year, greatly expand the definition of routine maintenance.
During the past two years, while the Environmental Protection Agency was revising the rules, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and EPA officials repeatedly pledged to "vigorously" prosecute power plants and refineries that were sued during the Clinton administration under the current rules.
The revisions, announced during the Illinois trial, put the government's lawyers in the awkward position of notifying the court of the change while asserting that the current, tougher standards should still apply.
Toward the conclusion of a four-week federal trial involving a Dynegy Midwest Generation Inc. power plant in Baldwin, Ill., Justice Department lawyers filed a brief Sept. 5 that essentially disavowed their previous definition of "routine maintenance" and abandoned their claim that the Clean Air Act requires the agency to hew to that definition.
At the same time, the government insisted that Dynegy should be held accountable for violating the Clean Air Act under the current standards.
Some legal experts and environmental activists said the department's brief greatly strengthened Dynegy's case that it should not be punished for spending millions of dollars to replace boiler parts in the 1980s and early 1990s that boosted emissions of health-threatening sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and fine particles.
"In light of EPA's change of position as to its interpretation of the Clean Air Act," the Justice Department said in its brief, "the United States does not rely on any prior statements it has made to this Court that a very narrow construction of the 'routine maintenance' exemption is required by the Clean Air Act itself."
The concession stunned environmentalists and emboldened lawyers for Dynegy, who flashed the government's statement on a screen in the courtroom early last week during post-trial arguments before U.S. District Judge Michael J. Reagan in East St. Louis.
"I think it did help our case significantly," said Paul E. Gutermann, a Washington lawyer who argued Dynegy's case. "What the government did in that filing was withdraw the argument they've been making that the Clean Air Act held the [narrow] interpretation they were pursuing."
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, a Democrat, has petitioned to intervene in the case, which may not be decided until late this year.
"Illinois is seeking to join this case to ensure that public health and the environment in the Metro East area [of southwestern Illinois] are protected and not harmed by the Bush administration's latest concession to polluters," she said.
A Justice Department spokesman said last week that agency lawyers "continue their vigorous enforcement" against the Dynegy plant, noting that the department has argued that the company "is liable for past violations of the Clean Air Act because they made significant modifications to their Baldwin plant without obtaining a permit."
Bruce Buckheit, EPA's director of air enforcement, said that though there are now two different interpretations of the clean air rules, "we are able to say that the [current] narrow interpretation is the one that applies in this case."
Scott Segal, a utility industry advocate, said the Justice Department had no choice but to explain the EPA's new rules and interpretation of the Clean Air Act to the court while making it clear they should have no bearing on the current case.
"The proof is in the rest of the brief, which can only be characterized as aggressive and a zealous prosecution of the case," said Segal, of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council.
But some lawyers and environmental leaders who have followed cases brought against power plants under the New Source Review regulations say the Justice Department brief has seriously undercut future prosecutions or prospects for settlements.
"This is the first time the administration, as far as we know, appears to be backing off from applying the Clean Air Act standards that were in place at the time the alleged violations occurred," said Howard A. Learner of the Environmental Law & Policy Center in Chicago. "The Justice Department is going back on its previous position."
The Justice Department's approach in the case contrasts sharply with the unqualified position it took in a case it won Aug. 7, when a federal judge in Ohio ruled that FirstEnergy's Ohio Edison Co. violated the law by upgrading seven aging coal-fired power plants without installing anti-pollution equipment. That was the first time the Justice Department prevailed in court in a New Source Review case brought during the Clinton administration.
The New Source Review program generated dozens of state and federal lawsuits against 51 power plant operators during the late 1990s and forced some -- including Dominion Virginia Power -- to agree to install costly pollution controls. The Justice Department and the EPA brought a suit against the Dynegy plant, formerly the Illinois Power Co., in 1999.
Under the rules approved last month, older plants do not have to install pollution controls when they replace items such as a turbine or boiler with a "functional equivalent," provided the cost does not exceed 20 percent of the replacement value of the entire unit.
-------- ACTIVISTS
11 Peace activists arrested inside Lakenheath nuclear weapons base, UK
From: "David Heller" <david@motherearth.org>
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003
6th October, Norwich- This morning, groups of international and local peace activists cut through the perimeter fence of USAF Lakenheath, Suffolk, to draw attention to the illegal nuclear weapons that are deployed there.
An international group of 6 people were arrested for criminal damage after entering the base, where they had intended to carry out a citizens weapons inspection. They are from Malta, Austria, France, Belgium and England.
A second group of 4 local activists, whose ages range from 32 to 64, entered the base at 08.30 am and began symbolically reclaiming the base for peaceful purposes by planting a peace flag on base soil and sowing wild flower and tree seeds. They were arrested for criminal damage to the perimeter fence.
Davida Higgin, from Norfolk, of the Lakenheath Action Group has also been arrested.
Mell Harrison, one of the locals who entered the base, a youth worker from Bungay, said: "We feel that it is not us breaking the law, but the US at Lakenheath, for holding these illegal weapons of mass destruction with a stated first strike policy against non-nuclear states. Nuclear weapons and their aftermath are indiscriminate and illegal under international law. This base should be reclaimed for peaceful purposes."
Anu Korhonen, from Finland, legal support for the international citizens weapons inspection team said: "We have travelled to USAF Lakenheath to search for evidence of weapons of mass destruction. We are appalled at the hypocrisy of the United States, who are willing to go to war over unconfirmed reports of WMD in Iraq, whilst they maintain their own illegal nuclear weapons at Lakenheath and threaten to use them."
These nonviolent actions come after a day of protest at USAF Lakenheath yesterday, at which over 100 people gathered to state their opposition to the presence of US controlled nuclear weapons at this base.
Photographs of the actions are available on http://www.lakenheathaction.org
Press contacts:
Zina, Kathryn and David on +44 7803 161 723.
Lakenheath Action Group
http://www.lakenheathaction.org
----
Peace Corps wants diversity
October 06, 2003
By Donna De Marco
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20031005-111124-9294r.htm
The Peace Corps is calling for volunteers from all walks of life. The global volunteer agency, based in Washington, has kicked off a recruitment campaign to attract more Americans of all ages and backgrounds.
"We are definitely emphasizing greater diversity from retirees to ethnic [groups]," said Peace Corps Director Gaddi H. Vasquez. "We want the volunteers to represent a cross section of America."
The public service campaign, created by BBDO Atlanta, uses the tag line "Life is calling. How far will you go?" and includes print, radio and television ads. Actors Matthew McConaughey and Eduardo Verastegui donated their time to record the voice-overs for the ads.
One print ad targets those over 50 years old.
"Do people tell you you're over the hill?" the ad asks. "What if you were? Over the hill, over a stream and over an ocean. To another continent. Thousands of miles from your own. Where elders are looked to as leaders ..."
"We want to break the stereotype that [the] only people who serve in the Peace Corps are younger," Mr. Vasquez said.
The campaign is also supported by a new 15-minute recruitment video, a catalog, a booklet showcasing volunteers and a newly designed Web site.
The Peace Corps has more than 7,000 volunteers.
--------
Israeli 'human shields' arrive in Ramallah to guard Arafat
Jerusalem Post
Oct. 5, 2003
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1065252423683
About 30 members of the Israeli ultra-Left Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc) movement arrived Saturday night at Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound to act as human shields should Israeli troops enter the compound to 'remove' Arafat.
Gush Shalom leader Uri Avnery told reporters his group was there "first and foremost to protect Israel from the catastrophe that would occur if Arafat were to be exiled, or killed."
In September, Avnery told reporters that he plans to serve as a human shield to protect Arafat against an IDF attempt to expel him. "If [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon decides to kill Arafat, this would be an unprecedented historic catastrophe for the people of Israel," Avnery said.
----
Papal envoy to Bush says events proved Vatican right about Iraqi war
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
Oct-6-2003
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/20031006.htm
CAMALDOLI, Italy (CNS) -- Seven months after he tried to convince President George W. Bush not to invade Iraq, Cardinal Pio Laghi, papal envoy, said events have proved the Vatican right about the consequences of war and the difficulties of consolidating peace.
Cardinal Laghi recounted in detail his meeting last March with Bush and other White House officials in a talk Oct. 4 at a conference on "God and the Meeting of Civilizations" at the central Italian monastic center of Camaldoli.
In March, three weeks before the United States launched its offensive against Iraq, Pope John Paul II sent Cardinal Laghi, a former ambassador to the United States, to plead the case against war with Bush and his aides, but the cardinal said he did not feel his arguments were given much weight.
"I had the impression they had already made their decision," Cardinal Laghi said.
Today, as U.S. and allied forces try to resolve vast problems in Iraq, "Events have shown that the worries of the Holy See were well-founded," he added.
Cardinal Laghi said that when he sat down to talk with Bush on March 5 the president began expounding the reasons for war at length, until the cardinal interrupted to say: "I did not come here only to listen, but also to ask you to listen."
Bush listened to the cardinal, but raised objections to the Vatican's moral arguments against use of force, its rejection of "preventive war" and its warnings about the practical consequences for Iraqis and others.
When Bush said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was training members of the terrorist organization al-Qaida, Cardinal Laghi said he asked him: "Are you sure? Where is the evidence?"
Cardinal Laghi also questioned the administration's conviction that Iraq possessed and was ready to use weapons of mass destruction.
But Bush had no doubt that he was right, the cardinal said. The president acted almost as if he were divinely inspired and "seemed to truly believe in a war of good against evil," Cardinal Laghi said.
"We spoke a long time about the consequences of a war. I asked: 'Do you realize what you'll unleash inside Iraq by occupying it?' The disorder, the conflicts between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds -- everything that has in fact happened," the cardinal said.
Bush insisted that democracy would be the main result.
At the end of the encounter, Cardinal Laghi recounted, Bush said that although they disagreed about many points at least they held common positions on the defense of human life and opposition to human cloning. The cardinal replied that those issues were not the purpose of his mission.
On his way out of the White House, Cardinal Laghi said his sense that Bush and his aides had already made up their minds to attack Iraq was confirmed when a Marine general came up to him, shook his hand and said: "Your eminence, don't worry. What we're going to do, we will do quickly and well."
Three weeks later, air strikes and the ground campaign against Iraq began.
The cardinal said that, in the end, the pope and the church did not appear to have much influence on the decision to go to war or even in prompting a deeper reflection on the issues.
But to a wider global audience, he said, the church made the point that it was committed to peace.
According to a number of other speakers at the conference, the continuing lack of basic services and order in Iraq, along with continuing violence against U.S. occupation forces, demonstrated that the war was a practical mistake as well as a moral failure.
Cardinal Laghi said that in making his case to Bush he was guided by the pope's statements on Iraq and those of the U.S. bishops' conference.
In a written paper submitted to the conference, Bishop Donald W. Wuerl of Pittsburgh detailed the response of U.S. bishops to the terrorist attacks and to the military response that followed.
Bishop Wuerl said, however, that the bishops' moral voice had been weakened by the clerical sex abuse scandal in the United States and the scandal's "spectacular" exploitation by the media.
"As a faith community the church in the United States had never experienced such a scandal or been the object of such intense media coverage and in too many instances manipulation of the story," he said.
"In spite of the scandal the bishops have continued to speak out as a voice of moral authority. However it is only fair to say that that moral authority has been diminished by the scandal," he said.
The conference was sponsored by Il Regno, an Italian Catholic magazine published by the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, also known as the Dehonians.
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