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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."
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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.
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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.
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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 ve