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NUCLEAR
Owners want land back - on condition
Returning soldiers get a closer look
World Depleted/Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg
Uranium at Indian Island? It's all how you look at it
Environmental Groups Protest French Nuclear Secrecy Policy
U.S. Seeks to Ship Plutonium to France
Germany's Nuclear Phaseout Under Pressure
Iceland, Greenpeace, and whales, Part III
Defence research facility burgled
First Iranian nuclear site inspected
US mulling defensive missiles against Iran in Europe: report
U.S. Says Iran to Try to Avert a Showdown
Israel's preemptive strategy endangers global peace
China Says Six - Way Talks Over North Korea Still Key
US Warning to New Zealand Seen as 'Pique' Over Iraq
Pakistan Says Missile Tests Will Continue
Germany agrees to help Russia dispose of 120 nuclear submarines
Russia Soothes NATO Concerns Over Nuclear Posture
State Department Protests Televangelist's Remark
Rumsfeld, Ivanov meet
PSB orders sanctions against Entergy
Officials zip lips if nuclear reactor to pass this way
US lawmakers demand Pentagon release of critical Iraq report
White House Begins New Effort to Build Iraq Support
House Panel Approves $87 Billion for Iraq
Dean Says Bush is Setting the Stage for the 'Failure of America'
MILITARY
Dozens Killed as Afghan Factions Clash
New Army 'Stryker' combat vehicle nears Iraq test
Campaign Launched to Regulate Arms Trade
Visiting the Vassals
Ireland's unhappy troops pull back from protest action
Junkie Justice
Spending On Iraq Sets Off Gold Rush
Feeling Insecure About Uncle Sam
Panel Asked To Review Air Force Lease Plan
Bomb in Colombian Capital Kills 6, Wounds 19
Bombing in Bogota Market Kills at Least Six
Iraqi Leaders Condemn Plan for Troops From Turkey
Coalition says hundreds of surface-to-air missiles in Iraq
Israel Says Syrian Base Was Empty When Hit
Strike again and we will strike back, Syria vows
U.S. set to impose sanctions on Syria
Syria Criticizes Proposed U.S. Sanctions
Official says Iraq sent convoys to Syria
Panel Approves Sanctions on Syria With White House Support
NATO Conducts Rapid-Reaction War Game
NATO Officials Play Out Terrorism Scenario at Colorado Talks
NATO to Quiz Russia on Attitude to Former Foe
Pakistan Test-Fires Second 'Shaheen-I'
PAKISTAN - Second missile tested in a week
China Ready for Leap Into Orbit
India does not foresee Asian space race
NASA Is Speeding Work on Space Plane for Some Shuttle Tasks
U.N. Urges Against Wider Mideast Conflict
Adding Weight to Suspicion, Sonar Is Linked to Whale Deaths
Navy Sonar May Give Whales the 'Bends'
Defense Official Moves to Ease Strained Relations With Army
Israel Defends Itself
Amnesty for U.S. citizens boosted
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
EU, US clash over death penalty
Canadians Ask Probe of Deportation to Syria
9/11 and the LA 8
F.B.I.'s Counterterrorism Chief Is Leaving After Three Months
Top FBI Counterterror Official Announces Retirement
Philadelphia Mayor Finds Office Bugged
Science Panel Urges Review of Research Terrorists Could Use
Terror Risk Screening of Bioresearch Is Urged
ENERGY AND OTHER
Energy Bill May Be Delayed Until January
Myanmar's Ancient Forests Stripped by Military Government
ACTIVISTS
Israel jails Canadian `refusenik'
Shiites Again Protest Arrest at Mosque
Protesters' rights violated, ACLU says
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- australia
Owners want land back - on condition
By MARIA MOSCARITOLO
09 oct 03
The Advertiser
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,7503630%255E2682,00.html
THE traditional owners of Maralinga will refuse their "poisoned" land back until the Federal Government agrees to their hand-back conditions.
A small Aboriginal delegation will meet Science Minister Peter McGauran in Canberra this morning to negotiate the future of the former British nuclear test site.
They will ask for $7 million to convert the existing Maralinga village, 40km from testing hotspot Taranaki, into an educational resource centre and caravan park tourist site.
They also want the government to indemnify them against future law suits arising from undetected nuclear pollution and agree to further clean-ups if needed over the 240,000 years plutonium remains a hazard.
Traditional Maralinga Tjarutja owner Archie Barton said without the funding and legal protection, his people would be financially unable to take back the land.
Section 400 is the last piece of land to be handed back to the Maralinga people, who were moved out of the area in the 1950s to make way for testing.
"I have told the government for the past decade, `you cannot hand an empty shell back to the community'," Dr Barton said.
"If we're going to run a program we need dollars too. Whatever we get from the government, I tell my community, we have to prove to the Government we can look after it."
Dr Barton said the Government's response would be a testament to its commitment to reconciliation.
The Federal Government has spent $108 million to remove contaminated soil and rehabilitate the 6000sq km site. A spokesman for Mr McGauran said the Government would not comment before the meeting.
The British government carried out nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950s and 1960s and contributed clean-up funds.
-------- depleted uranium
Returning soldiers get a closer look
DoD takes soldiers' physical, mental screening seriously
By CHANTAL ESCOTO
The Leaf-Chronicle, Clarksville, Tennessee
Thursday, October 9, 2003
http://www.theleafchronicle.com/news/stories/20031009/localnews/417234.html
As Spc. Justin Laferty visited several processing stations at Dreyer Field House Wednesday following his recent return from Iraq, he tried to fill out the pages of medical paperwork on his own.
But since his right lower arm was broken in four places after a Humvee rolled over him twice in Tal'Afar, another soldier had to help him with the four-page questionnaire.
The screening program to check out soldiers physically and mentally ensures they're healthy after returning from serving overseas in a combat zone. It is a task the Department of Defense is taking seriously.
"They're doing a thorough job," said Laferty, 21, with 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment. "Yes, it's a hassle but I've gone through the stations in about 15 minutes. It's important because there are things in other countries that we may not be immune to and the chance of us contracting something is high."
Since Desert Storm in 1991, the military realized how soldiers from the first Gulf War were inadequately screened before and after deploying to the Middle East. The mysterious illness known as "Gulf War Syndrome" still baffles medical specialists and veterans as they continue to probe why some suffer chronic fatigue, unexplained rashes and aching joints.
The system at Fort Campbell known as Deployment Cycle Support is a step toward better screening since soldiers are checked at several points to ensure every piece of information is correct.
For example, troops will be asked everything about their job in Iraq and the environment they worked in, and they are encouraged to write down every pain or symptom they have. Other questions include how long soldiers took anti-malaria pills or if they were exposed to toxic chemicals or other dangerous materials.
Blanchfield Army Community Hospital commander Col. Steve Jones said the most common illness returning soldiers seem to have is sinus and respiratory infections. But symptoms usually dissipate after a week or two back in the U.S.
Other soldiers are concerned about noise from generators affecting their hearing, dust and sand, and possible exposure to depleted uranium from some U.S. weapons. Maj. Chad Hood, chief of Soldier Health Services, said the odds of radioactive exposure is pretty slim. But it's always something that is recognized.
"We're really treating the whole person," Hood said. "We want to document everything and not just sweep it under the rug."
After blood is drawn to hold in a special laboratory in Washington D.C., soldiers are also evaluated by mental health experts.
The main questions are about the soldier's home life and how the transition back to the states is going and if they need counseling.
Five-year-old Oriah Ruiz held on to her mother, Spc. Charlotte Ruiz, as she went through the lines while on her mid-tour two-week leave from Iraq. "It's going to be really hard to leave again," said Ruiz, who is assigned to 584th Maintenance Company and will return with the rest of the 101st Airborne Division in March. "This is a hassle but it's very good because you get to relax and you know you're healthy."
Chantal Escoto covers military affairs and can be reached at 245-0216 or by e-mail at chantalescoto@theleafchronicle.com.
----
World Depleted/Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg
HEINRICH BUECKER,
Marion Kuepker
Al-Jazeerah,
10/9/03
http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2003%20News%20archives/October/9%20n/World%20Depleted%20Uranium%20Weapons%20Conference%20in%20Hamburg.htm
We are preparing a World Uranium Weapons Conference to do work on a new and in some ways more prevalent and immediate nuclear threat: the issue of organizing an international campaign seeking the official ban of uranium weapons and their classification as weapons of mass destruction.
For some years activists have faced the problem that the U.S. and British government are producing and upgrading their weapon systems containing uranium. With these also-radioactive weapons the boundaries between conventional and nuclear weapons becomes completely obscured. Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General of the United States writes,
"DU weapons are not conventional weapons. They are highly toxic, radioactive weapons. All international law on warfare has attempted to limit violence to combatants and to prevent the use of cruel unfocussed weapons.. Consequently, DU weapons violate international law because of their inherent cruelty and unconfined death dealing effect. They threaten civilian populations now and for generations to come."
Under pressure from activist groups the military itself was reluctantly forced to admit that huge amounts of uranium weapons ( 320t DU) got used for the first time in southern Iraq in1991 , 3 t in Bosnia and 10 t in Serbia and Kosovo. Credible independent researchers believe that some 1000 t uranium was used in the bombing in Afghanistan, and at least that the same amount is expected in the recent war in Iraq. Experts from all allied NATO countries are observing an increase of the so-called Gulf and Balkan War Syndrome amongst veterans, which some link to the use of uranium ammunitions. Leading international independent researchers believe that exposure to DU during the 1991 Gulf War are responsible for the majority of the current, ongoing medical problems reported by over260 , 000 returning veterans (one-third of all the troops participating in that war!), a rate with dire implications for future wars and conflicts where these weapons were recently and further intended to be used.
The uranium isotope used in DU has a half-life of4 . 5 billion years. DU and other uranium weapons are weapons with indiscriminate effects, causing genetic damage and by this endangering over generations the human race as a whole. Articles 35 and 56 of the Geneva Convention clearly prohibit weapons which are this indiscriminate and catastrophic in their effects on civilian populations, suggesting that their use could legally constitute war crimes.
The governments using DU ammunition deny the link of these weapons with the illnesses and are lobbying hard to make a large, scientifically credible inquiry in Iraq impossible. They even try to hide the information of which kinds of weapons contain uranium today.
Cancer rates in Iraq have increased dramatically over the rates noted before the Gulf War of1991 . A planned study supposed to be done by the UN was turned down in December 2001 under the pressure of the U.S. government. Also scientific magazines infrequently publish the results of smaller independent studies (1). This whole situation brought quite some irritation inside the scientific circle and inside the peace activist movement. For example the results of two recent studies which have already calculated the cumulative dose effects to both Iraqi civilians and Allied and Iraqi troops during the Gulf War if 1991 are not well known among the larger international medical, health and scientific communities; while at the same time, reports by government bodies who use DU ammunitions are well publicised, distributed and give the impression that no or little effect exists.
We believe a World Uranium Weapons Conference is needed to bring together the scientific experts with their independent studies and the peace, veterans, and anti-nuclear movements to get updated and have the results of their studies and their work combined. The Conference will also include extra time for the conference members to combine existing information, and to discuss the need for creating, conducting and funding their own additional independent, peer-reviewed, international study on the health hazards caused by the use of uranium weapons worldwide. Specifically, attention must be given to Iraq before the data is lost or corrupted by the occupation. Because many governments have the stated agenda of perpetuating uranium weapons, their conclusions about uranium weapons effects are not reliable or acceptable. Therefore, the independent international non-governmental movements will have to be responsible for the huge costs of this kind of study, which cannot be done by a single country or organisation.
Ideally such a study should be conducted or co-ordinated by WHOWHO´s operations are potentially compromised by its constitutional obligations to the IAEA with its strong obligations tothe nuclear lobby. The WHO is not allowed to publish results without the consensus of the IAEA. The results of any study done by WHO on DU or other uranium weapons issues therefore should be highly suspect in its credibility. It therefore becomes the additional responsibility of our movements to constantly review and publicly critique all governmental claims on these issues.
Full-scale independent peer review of existing data, continued independent study, and a unified plan of action will lead to the evidence needed to get uranium weapons officially banned by the international community.
Thank you for your consideration of this project. We welcome your future interest and involvement.
For peace,
Marion Kuepker Co-Coordinator, GAAA
http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/summary.htm
----
Uranium at Indian Island? It's all how you look at it
2003-10-09
by LUKE BOGUES,
Peninsula Daily News
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/sited/story/html/145644
PORT HADLOCK -- Retired Army Maj. Doug Rokke believes the Navy is stockpiling radioactive munitions at Naval Magazine Indian Island and contaminating waters off the Olympic Peninsula.
He refuses to abide by the military term of ``depleted uranium'' to describe the hard metal some ammunition is made out of.
``There's nothing depleted about it,'' he says.
Navy officials downplay Indian Island as a significant source of depleted uranium munitions.
``There is depleted uranium that gets transported through Indian Island,'' Navy spokesman Lt. Bill Couch said from Seattle on Wednesday.
``But we're talking about 20 mm rounds that weigh 21/2 ounces and are about the size of a Bic pen.''
Rokke claims spent munitions made from the substance will stay radioactive for 4.5 billion years.
Following a Freedom of Information Act request earlier this year, a Jan. 9 Seattle Post-Intelligencer article revealed that the Navy tests its Close In Weapons System, or ``Phalanx,'' guns in the area 25 miles to 100 miles off the Olympic Peninsula southwest of Neah Bay.
The rest of the story appears in Thursday's Peninsula Daily News.
-------- europe
Environmental Groups Protest French Nuclear Secrecy Policy
Lisa Bryant,
Voice of America
09 Oct 2003
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=061E99D4-C97C-4878-AC7327306E8CEF42
Paris - Environmental and citizens' rights groups in France are appealing a government decision to classify all nuclear-related information in France as defense secrets.
The information ban, which was declared in August, not only covers nuclear defense matters, but also the country's nuclear power plants, which generate more than 75 percent of France's electricity and export power to other European countries.
Violators risk up to five years in prison and nearly $90,000 in fines.
The issue of secrecy has become a critical one for the French government since the September 11, 2001, terrorist strikes in the United States. It was shortly thereafter that France stepped up security around its nuclear reactors, for fear of other attacks.
But critics argue that the new ban violates citizens' rights to know, including information about nuclear waste and plutonium being transported across the roads of France.
The trucks and trains carrying the material have these cargoes encased in heavy protection. Nonetheless, Greenpeace spokesman Michel Luze says an accident could be disastrous if local authorities are unaware that the material involved was nuclear-related.
"For instance, there are hospitals near the roads they use, and they don't know there is such a transport," he said. "What would happen if an accident occurred ... if the hospital doesn't know what to do? If they don't even have an emergency plan to rescue people. The same for firemen."
Over the years, concerns about the hazards of transporting nuclear material have sparked major protests around the world. But there have also been incidents, such as a plutonium theft in Germany, that have fueled government concern.
Many European countries have been phasing out their nuclear reactors since the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine 17 years ago.
France, however, remains heavily dependent on nuclear energy. And on Wednesday, the French government announced it was considering constructing yet more nuclear reactors.
----
U.S. Seeks to Ship Plutonium to France
October 9, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Plutonium-Shipments.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an export license to ship 300 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium to France for processing into reactor fuel, prompting criticism from nuclear nonproliferation groups.
The plutonium shipments are part of a long-range plan to dispose of 34 tons of excess plutonium in the government's nuclear weapons program by turning it into a mixed oxide fuel for use in commercial U.S. reactors.
The plan calls for building a plant in South Carolina to process the plutonium. In the meantime, the 300 pounds of plutonium powder -- enough, critics say, for 50 or more nuclear weapons -- must be shipped to France for processing so it can be used in a commercial reactor test run in 2005, officials said.
The Energy Department, in its request to the NRC for an export license, said the plutonium will be shipped across the country from the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico to a Navy base at Charleston, S.C., and by a special armed and escorted ship to France.
The shipments are to occur sometime next year.
Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis rejected suggestions by critics of the program that the shipments pose a terrorist risk. ``We will have safe and secure transport for any plutonium that we ship,'' Davis said. ``Charleston and federal DOE officials are capable of making sure the shipments arrive safe and secure.''
Davis said the department is committed to the plutonium disposition program, which is being conducted in conjunction with a similar effort in Russia. He said the reactor test runs, expected to begin in 2005, are an essential part of the program.
But some nonproliferation groups have long opposed using converted plutonium in commercial power reactors, maintaining that it erases the separation of military and commercial nuclear programs and adds to the chance that some plutonium might be diverted improperly.
The shipments to Europe of some 300 pounds of plutonium in powder form as planned by the Energy Department ``presents an unacceptable proliferation and safety risk and should be canceled,'' said Tom Clements, a nuclear materials expert working for Greenpeace International.
While the department has openly discussed its plans to convert excess weapons-grade plutonium to so-called MOX fuel and burn it in commercial power reactors, the request for an export license was not publicized.
The application was placed quietly on the NRC's Web site this week and first disclosed Thursday by Greenpeace, the environmental advocacy group that has strongly protested nuclear waste reprocessing in Europe and opposes the U.S. government's plutonium disposal program.
The United States is sending ``a message ... that commerce in weapons plutonium is acceptable,'' said Clements.
Under a U.S. agreement with Russia, both countries planned to dispose of 34 tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium by turning it into MOX fuel. Several utilities in the United States have agreed to use the converted fuel, which once processed is no longer usable for weapons, in commercial reactors.
Duke Energy plans the first reactor test runs using MOX fuel assemblies at its Catawba reactor south of Charlotte, N.C., over a period of three years, beginning in 2005.
The fuel used for those tests is coming from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. It will be shipped across country to the Charleston Naval Weapons Station and then by ship to the port at Cherbourg, France. From there the plutonium will be taken to the Cadarache processing facility in southern France to be processed into MOX fuel assemblies and then returned to the United States, according to the Energy Department license applications.
On the Net:
Energy Department: http://www.energy.gov/
----
Germany's Nuclear Phaseout Under Pressure
BERLIN, Germany, (ENS)
October 9, 2003
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2003/2003-10-09-03.asp
Germany's pro-nuclear state of Baden-Württemberg has returned to the offensive over the federal government's policy of phasing out nuclear power by 2022 following an admission by chancellor Gerhard Schroeder that coal burning will have to increase.
In a statement issued on Tuesday after a Council of Ministers meeting, the center-right state government also cited recent power failures around Europe as a reason for maintaining the option of atomic energy.
The Baden-Württemberg ministers are insisting that all energy supply avenues must be kept open to ensure security of supply without raising greenhouse gas emissions.
The federal government's new suggestion that one-third of carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal fired power stations could be avoided still leaves the other two-thirds, said Prime Minister Erwin Teufel "and that remains too much."
Nuclear power delivers 58 percent of Baden-Württemberg's electricity, compared with 30 percent across Germany. Replacing the state's five nuclear power stations with coal fired generating capacity would boost CO2 emissions by 36 million metric tons, claims the local government.
The ministers said they are concerned about maintaining minimum generating capacities necessary for the operation of a stable electric grid, particularly in view of blackouts in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in Scandinavia and in Italy this year.
German nuclear power plants have contributed significantly to a guaranteed supply of electric power, most recently during the extraordinary heat wave this summer, they say.
Baden-Württemberg is to hold discussions with its fellow center-right governed states of Bavaria and Hesse, an official told reporters.
It might also make a complaint to Germany's constitutional court in Karlsruhe over the current requirement for all nuclear stations to be switched off by about 2022. A similar challenge by the state of Hesse failed last year.
In a related development, the German government has decided to exempt the new generation of combined-cycle gas and turbine power stations from its ecological tax for a period of five years. As a result of the decision, two key power station projects worth one billion euros are expected to go ahead, the government said.
"We're demonstrating once again that even in difficult economic times climate protection and the creation of jobs are not mutually exclusive," said Environment Minister Juergen Trittin, adding that the government wishes to promote both renewables and "modern technology for fossil fuels."
On June 11, 2001, the nuclear power companies and the German government signed the phase out agreement, the Consensus on Nuclear Power.
Trittin, who maneuvered the nuclear power phaseout through numerous obstacles, says that Germany's phase out of nuclear power is a signal for the whole world.
It provides that the aim of the Nuclear Power Act is no longer to promote nuclear power, but to bring it to a regulated end.
Operation of nuclear plants, which previously was not subject to time limits, is now restricted to 32 years from the date of startup. After this period, the right to operate expires. This gives nuclear power plants an average of 10 years left to run.
No construction or operation will be authorized for new nuclear power plants, Trittin says.
The 32 year old Stade nuclear power plant located in northern Germany on the Elbe River is being decommissioned at the end of this year. Commissioned in 1972, Stade was the first German nuclear power plant to produce heat as well as power.
{Published in cooperation with ENDS Environment Daily, Europe's choice for environmental news. Environmental Data Services Ltd, London. Email: envdaily@ends.co.uk}
----
Iceland, Greenpeace, and whales, Part III
By Rémi Parmentier
Thu 09 October 2003
Greenpeace International/Iceland
http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/features/details?item_id=326374
Iceland has begun whaling again after 14 years. Surely such a retrograde decision must mean Iceland is a rogue state when it comes to the environment, a home of barbaric rapers of the Earth? Not so, says Rémi Parmentier in the concluding chapter of a three-part journey back in time. From his voyage with Greenpeace in 1978 through his experience in the 90s of working with Iceland in international fora, Parmentier brings his unique perspective to bear on Iceland, the environment, and whales.
Long after my long-haired hippy voyage to Iceland as an anti-whaling crusader, I had the privilege of working with representatives of Iceland at a number of international fora, and often their contributions to environmental protection was remarkable.
In the 1990s for example, Greenpeace was campaigning for the elimination of persistent organic pollutants, a large group of toxic substances that concentrate in cold sea-water environments, contaminating fish, marine mammals and other species (including humans). A major international environmental treaty known as the POPs Convention, adopted in 2001 in Stockholm, finds its origin in a speech that was prepared by two Icelandic officials, Dr. David Egilsson and Magnus Johanneson, at a meeting of the Governing Council of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) that I attended in 1995 in Nairobi.
Likewise, it can be said that it was thanks to Iceland acting in coalition with Ireland, Denmark and Norway, that in June 2000 it was decided that the continued discharge and emission of radioactive wastes from the nuclear reprocessing plants at Sellafield (UK) and La Hague (France) were inconsistent with the international treaty that regulates marine pollution in the North East Atlantic, known as the OSPAR Convention. There is mounting evidence of high concentrations of radioactive Technitium-99 and other radionuclides discharged at Sellafield and La Hague in seaweeds, shrimps and other marine life, which corroborates Greenpeace concerns expressed since the 1970s. This pollution moved up along the coasts of Denmark, Norway and up towards Iceland; thanks to the determination of these three countries(and notwithstanding fierce opposition by France and the UK), the OSPAR Commission adopted a legally-binding Decision calling for dry-storage of radioactive fuel, the non-reprocessing option.
Of course, France and the UK, who did not vote in favour, have continued to discharge reprocessing radioactive wastes, but the OSPAR Decision sponsored by Iceland and others was nevertheless important. Thanks to that decision, France and the UK have lost their number one argument: they can no longer say that discharging these radioactive wastes is in line with international environmental law and policy, and countries such as Iceland who oppose these discharges have gained the moral high ground.
Iceland was also traditionally a strong voice at the UN's International Maritime Organisation (IMO) pushing for the total prohibition of radioactive and industrial waste dumping from ships at sea (a goal that was promoted by Greenpeace for many years and eventually adopted in 1993 by the Parties to the London Convention on ocean dumping.
The ban on ocean dumping is very effective; to the best of our knowledge, since 1993 no ship has been sent out to deliberately dump radioactive wastes at sea. Even the Russian Federation, which keeps moaning that it would rather start dumping at sea again, have had to abide.
Iceland also supported the Greenpeace view openly at meetings of the UN's International Maritime Organisation (IMO) when we demanded that the countries shipping high-level radioactive wastes, irradiated nuclear fuel and plutonium by sea be held liable and forced to inform neighbouring coastal states in advance. Last but not least, when in 1995 Greenpeace occupied the controversial Brent Spar decommissioned offshore installation to prevent it from being dumped in the Atlantic, Iceland was one of the countries which understood Greenpeace's message: if Shell and the UK were let off the hook with this first dump, perhaps hundreds more would follow (thereby raising safety problems for trawlers, potential sources of pollution and the broader issue of industrial responsibility). Iceland supported a call for a moratorium on the dumping of offshore installations, which led three years later to a unanimous Decision by coastal states to prohibit permanently the dumping of decommissioned offshore installations at sea.
Like all large fishing countries, Iceland is facing a crisis and many challenges of course. But when I used to represent Greenpeace as observer at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), I was also impressed to see the Icelanders actively campaigning for the elimination of government subsidies to fishing fleets. Current industrial fishing practices, particularly in the European Union, have little to do with free and sustainable trade, because the governments are using taxpayers' money to increase the efficiency of fishing fleets or maintain them afloat artificially, with devastating effects on the environment and the sustainability of developing countries whose resources are being ravaged by the big commercial fleets. Together with New Zealand, Iceland has led the charge at the WTO since at least 1999 for the elimination of fisheries subsidies, and this is a good thing, even if not everything is perfect with these two countries' own fisheries practices.
Towards an End to the Misunderstanding?
The history of Greenpeace includes a patchwork of missed opportunities and misunderstandings with different communities.
It was in the best interest of the industrial sectors we were taking on to promote the image of Greenpeace as an organisation that goes after a nation or a community rather than after a specific unsustainable practice. And - truly -- this perception was also sometimes exacerbated by our own mistakes and lack of diplomatic or pedagogic skills.
The case of Greenpeace's difficult relation with France from the 1970s to the mid 1990s when we were campaigning against nuclear testing is probably the most extreme example. Yet, once the nuclear testing campaign ended (i.e. when French nuclear testing ended and a nuclear test ban treaty was adopted in Geneva) Greenpeace's and France's mutual relations became more rational, to the extent that President Jacques Chirac at a recent meeting with French NGO representatives was heard saying, in relation to the issue of illegal logging in West African forests, that he was "closer to the position of Greenpeace than that of his own administration".
The first time I held a meeting in Reykjavik with an Icelandic Environment minister (it must have been in the spring of 1990, to discuss marine pollution policy issues), I was asked to come to his office in the evening after all the staff would be gone, so that no-one could see us. Fortunately, this meeting served to break the ice, because since then, I have never been asked to come at odd hours.
On a Saturday night in the winter of 1995, Clif Curtis - a former Greenpeace political officer - and I were drinking beer in a bar in downtown Reykjavik when a couple of young Icelandic women sat at our table and asked us what we were doing in the country. When I said that we were participating in a United Nations conference on marine pollution hosted by the Icelandic government, they thought it was great, but as soon as Clif told them that we represented Greenpeace at that conference, the two women yelled at us so much (It was not their first beer of the night)that we had to leave quickly and find another bar.
That evening I felt very sad when I realised what had happened to these young Icelandic women: in 1978 when we first came to Iceland with the Rainbow Warrior, they could not have been more than 5 years old at most. And I could imagine them being children and hearing many dinner conversations, many TV news shows, and many classroom lectures, where people were talking about a group of foreigners on a boat out there trying to deprive Iceland of their whale resources. When a country has no enemy its leaders like to create some to keep people together (ask George Bush). This was what had happened to these two young women, and to Iceland at large, with Greenpeace. For 25 years an entire generation has been brought up in the belief that Greenpeace was a fierce enemy of their nation. What a waste!
As I was writing this paper, I saw on the Internet that the Rainbow Warrior has been greeted in Iceland by a group of kids making a provocative whale meat barbecue alongside. There are powerful forces gearing up now in Iceland to resume commercial whaling. Some of those forces are interested in damaging the relationship of Greenpeace with Iceland for another entire generation. Watch out!
This is Part III of a three-part series by Rémi Parmentier, a crew member on the first voyage of the Rainbow Warrior, which took Greenpeace to Iceland to confront commercial whaling there for the first time in 1978. Rémi has worked for Greenpeace in different capacities for 27 years, specialising in international environmental policy and treaties. Recently he formed with Kelly Rigg, another Greenpeace veteran, The Varda Group for Environment and Sustainability. The views expressed in this article are Rémi's; they do not necessarily reflect all aspects of Greenpeace's current policy.
You can read Part I here. http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/features/details?item_id=319905
You can read Part II here. http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/features/details?item_id=323658
-------- india
Defence research facility burgled
Soni Sangwan, Vishal Thapar and Vibha Sharma New Delhi,
October 9, 2003
Hindustan Times
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_410767,0008.htm
Nineteen computers belonging to top-secret establishments of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) at Metcalfe House near ISBT have been stolen.
What's spooked the defence brass is that the computers - which were installed in the offices of the Scientific Analyses Group (SAG) and the Institute for System Studies and Analyses (ISSA) - contained strategic data vital to India's security.
The SAG is responsible for cryptography. In other words, all codes and cyphers to ensure communication security for the defence forces have an SAG stamp. The ISSA, on the other hand, analyses competing weapons systems for induction into the armed forces.
The matter was reported to the local police on Monday by Wing Commander Ratan Kumar Srivastava.
For the moment, the defence establishment has no answers - only red faces. "We don't even know the extent of loss of strategic data," said sources at the Ministry of Defence.
What's worrying the defence establishment is that the DRDO has provided the encryption back-up for protecting strategic communications in the context of India's nuclear arsenal
Officially, the DRDO has put up a brave face. "There is no sensitive information on current projects on the hard discs stolen," a senior DRDO official insisted.
Spooked
Target: Scientific Analyses Grp
Lost: Encryption data on codes used by strategic forces
Application: Securing communication channels of nuclear command chain
Target: Institute for Systems Studies and Analyses
Lost: Assessment of competing weapons systems of rival manufacturers and weapon effectiveness studies
Application: Such scientific inputs are critical in defence buys and analysis of military hardware
-------- iran
First Iranian nuclear site inspected
October 09, 2003
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20031009-102352-2150r.htm
TEHRAN, Iran, Oct. 9 -- The International Atomic Energy Agency has completed its first inspection of a secret nuclear facility in Iran, a report said Thursday.
Arab diplomatic sources in London said the IAEA conducted an inspection of the Kolahdouz military base Sunday, Middle East Newsline reported.
Located 10 miles southwest of Tehran, Kolahdouz has been under Defense Ministry administration and never opened to civilians or outsiders, the report said.
Kolahdouz was said to have been at the top of the IAEA list of targets, and diplomatic sources said the inspection marked a watershed in the agency's efforts to determine whether Teheran has been developing nuclear weapons.
The sources did not report the results of the inspection, but the London-based Al Hayat daily said Wednesday no traces of uranium enrichment or other nuclear activity were found.
----
US mulling defensive missiles against Iran in Europe: report
BERLIN (AFP)
Oct 09, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031009174219.uus9fvem.html
The US government is considering stationing defensive missiles in a number of European countries against a potential attack from Iran, Germany's Sueddeutsche newspaper reported in an article to appear in its Friday issue, citing State Department sources.
The daily quoted a high-ranking US diplomat as saying that the Americans would like to develop a defensive missile network with Europeans but doubted whether a deal could be reached quickly by NATO.
Because of these concerns, Washington may pursue bilateral agreements with individual European countries for deployment in 2006 anti-ballistic systems in exchange for economic aid, the Sueddeutsche said.
The diplomat acknowledged that such an approach could lead to new tensions with some European countries following the rift over the US-led Iraq war, according to the report.
US defense policy specialist Benjamin Schreer of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs told the newspaper that Romania and Bulgaria could be the "first choices" for such agreements with the United States.
The US military last month unveiled an upgraded Patriot anti-missile system in South Korea designed to thwart a missile blitz from North Korea, whom it has accused along with Iran of developing nuclear weapons.
Sources told the Sueddeutsche that Washington was concerned because Iran is developing a satellite program and argued that if Tehran can send satellites into space, it could probably fire intercontinental missiles.
The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has given Iran until the end of October to produce a detailed list of its nuclear-related equipment, cease uranium enrichment and sign an additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) allowing tougher inspections.
A failure by Iran to meet the IAEA deadline could see it declared in violation of the NPT, leading to possible sanctions from the UN Security Council.
----
U.S. Says Iran to Try to Avert a Showdown
October 9, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-iran-bolton.html
LONDON (Reuters) - A top U.S. official predicted on Thursday that Iran will show some cooperation to prevent a showdown over an Oct. 31 deadline but not enough to dispel international suspicion of its nuclear ambitions.
In a tough resolution last month, the U.N. nuclear watchdog gave Iran until the end of October to answer doubts about its atomic ambitions, demanding rigorous inspections of suspect sites. Washington is urging strong U.N. measures against Tehran, which it suspects of secretly developing nuclear weapons.
``I think what will happen prior to October 31st is the Iranians will cooperate a little bit and the issue will be, 'Did they cooperate enough?''' U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton told reporters in London.
``They will try and throw sand in our eyes and use a modest level of cooperation to hide some level of obfuscation and lack of cooperation, to conceal as much as they can, to delay, to fight for time, and to avoid having the issue referred to the (U.N.) Security Council,'' he added.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami insisted Wednesday Tehran would provide whatever cooperation was needed by the deadline set by the International Atomic Energy Agencyto prove its nuclear program is solely geared for peaceful purposes.
Bolton, considered a hawk within the administration of President Bush, said that if unchecked, Iran may have nuclear arms ``toward the end of the decade'' though he noted ``some people have theories that put the Iranians much closer.''
``The risk of outward Iranian proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to other countries in the region is also a risk we take very seriously,'' he added.
Bolton, who was recently called ``human scum'' by North Korea for describing its leader Kim Jong-il as a dictator, suggested that President Bush's so-called ``axis of evil'' -- Iraq under Saddam, Iran and North Korea -- should be widened to include other ``rogue, loser states.''
``I think there are other candidate members for the axis of evil...Libya, Syria and Cuba and a variety of places.''
NOT PLATONIC GUARDIANS
Asked why Washington did not take a similar line on Israel's nuclear program, Bolton said: ``The issue for the U.S. is what poses a threat to us and to our allies...We are not Platonic guardians, we are representing American interests.''
Quizzed in a similar vein on media reports that Pakistan may have supplied materials for North Korea's nuclear program, Bolton noted that Islamabad had roundly denied that.
``We take them at their word -- at this point,'' he said.
Bolton was in London for talks on a U.S. plan to intercept ships and planes that may be trafficking weapons of mass destruction. The Proliferation Security Initiative has won support from 10 other nations, helping ease diplomatic tensions over the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq and the subsequent failure to find weapons of mass destruction there.
Bolton said deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein may well have got rid of his weapons. ``They may have been moved out of Iraq years ago -- it's possible,'' he said.
Saddam may also have ordered them destroyed, he added, ``in which case it was a bad mistake not to keep records.''
But he said that Iraq had about 1,000 nuclear scientists, whom he said Saddam had dubbed as his ``nuclear Mujahideen'' (holy warriors), which demonstrated Baghdad's dangerous intentions.
-------- israel
Israel's preemptive strategy endangers global peace
M. Shahidul Islam
Thu. October 09, 2003
Editorial
http://www.thedailystar.net/2003/10/09/d31009020327.htm
The unprovoked Israeli attack against Syria added a new dimension to the ongoing Arab-Israel conflict. It has pushed the conflict one rung up in the escalation ladder. The rationale behind this escalation is that the Jewish state has the means and ability to hit anyone with impunity due to its possession of a nuclear stockpile which no other Arab nation has acquired as yet.
Having shown its thumbs for decades to the UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338 that demanded unconditional Israeli withdrawal from all territories occupied in the 1967 war, Israel chose a strategy to spread the conflict beyond its borders.
The attack on Syria also comes on the heel of Israel's failure in stemming the tide of the Palestinian Intifada and the US-UK stagnation in Iraq. The US-UK-Israel act in concert in the Middle East and the attack could not have taken place without US' nod, as was seen from the US' stand following Syria's request to condemn the attack in the UNSC.
The strategy behind this escalation is simple; Iraq decapitated, Syria and Iran remain the two other nations to stand by the Palestinians. While the IAEA has begun to tighten nooses against Iran, Israel sought to draw Syria into the fray to spark a major conflagration in the Mid-East to prolong US-UK presence in Iraq.
Before the First and Second World Wars, high stake escalation games of this nature were played to sort out major geopolitical ambitions of militarily superior nations by turning small irritations into major conflicts. The Mid-East seems to be heading inexorably toward the end of such a dreadful precipice.
Evolution of a 'blackmail strategy'
Israel had used its fusion prowess to intimidate and blackmail neighbours since the late 1970s. Simon Peres, former Israeli Prime Minister, confessed that, "In 1979, during the peace talks with Egypt, one of Anwar Sadat's assistants admitted to the Israeli deputy prime minister, Yoga Yaldin, and to then defence minister (later president), Ezer Weizman, that Egypt's decision to talk peace had definitely been influenced by the Dimona Project." The Dimona project contains Israel's nuclear research hub.
A favourite notion in the evolution of nuclear strategy is that the best way to dissuade an enemy from using an obnoxious weapon is to preserve an option of reprisal in kind. The fear of reprisals encouraged restraint over the use of gas during Second World War.
Israel knows that monopoly in a particular type of terror weapon dower an added advantage against an adversary not equipped with such firepower. The West used this stratagem over the last half-a century while dealing with weaker nations.
This strategic advantage propelled Israel in 1967 to wipe out the airforces of neighbouring states in a series of preemptive attacks. In 1982, another preemptive Israeli strike destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor. And, by invading Lebanon in the same year, Israel managed to get the US involved in the Lebanese conflict. The US withdrew from Lebanon the same year only after 261 marines died from a single suicide bomb attack.
Consequently, despite the importance of nuclear deterrence having waned considerably at the end of the Cold War, many weaker nations developed worrisome sensibilities against the US and the Israeli excesses in a global system devoid of any credible balance of power.
During the Cold War, militarily weaker nations were shielded by a stable balance of power, which the so-called unipolarity had eluded them. The weaker nations' threat perception heightened further since the early 1990s.
In 1991, Iran declared in the OIC meeting that, ' Since Israel continues to possess nuclear weapons, we the Muslims must cooperate to produce an atom bomb.' The theory had a familiar ring with the Pakistani rationale that sought an 'Islamic bomb' to counter the twin threats emanating from the Jewish and the Hindu bombs possessed by Israel and India respectively.
Syria endorsed the Iranian scheme, only to be listed by the US as a 'rouge state' along with Iran. However, the fallout of this expressed Iranian intent echoed with a bang in the Western capitals. Some Western scholars even went to the extent to say, "Islam would end up playing nuclear Russian roulette with Hinduism in South Asia, and with Zionism in the Middle East."
Credible deterrence
A popular perception in the developing world is that the US backtracked from attacking North Korea due to the latter's possession of nuclear deterrence while Iraq was attacked due to it's inability to hit back the US.
The same rationale is said to have prevented a major conflagration between India and Pakistan since 1971 despite Pakistan being much weaker in conventional military power. While such an assertion remains to be probed, the nuclear strategy has evolved within a 'balance of terror' paradigm, that, ' any first strike by an adversary will be reprised in kind, making the anticipated gains from such attacks costlier and meaningless.'
An understanding of Arab political dynamic can be misplaced unless the Palestinian conflict is used as a yardstick to gauge the convoluted proclivities of Arab nation-states governed by regimes ranging from the ultra left Arab Baathist to the fanatical Islamic fringes.
The post-Shah Iran became so attached to the Palestinian cause that the very first foreign guest to visit Tehran after the 1979 Iranian revolution was Yaser Arafat. Iran also aids the Hizbollah guerrillas to prevent Israeli occupation of Lebanon, as does Syria. Israeli excesses compelled these two diverse ideological trends to act in unison.
Syria is not known for harbouring a nuclear ambition. But, Iran's quest for such a deterrence dates back to the 1980s; after Egypt's Arab leadership was crushed by the Camp David treaty of 1978, leaving a void to be filled by some one else.
The post-Camp David Middle East was thus left in the lurch for decades to mourn over its strategic imbalance with Israel. And, following Iraq's defeat in the 1980-88 war with Iran, and Iraq's 1991 invasion of Kuwait having ended in further disaster, Iran took the lead to emerge as a regional power. The Iranian revolution being anti-US in its intent and manifestation, presence of US troops in the Mid East posed a major threat to the Iranian political leadership from the outset.
Israel's nuclear stockpile
Viewed from the trends of Israeli militarisation, the Iranian ambition to go nuclear seems a reactive one. Soon after the 1973 Arab-Israel war, Israel armed its MGM-55C Lance missiles with nuclear warheads. And, by the early 1980s, Israel had 12 Lance-transporter-erector launchers and at least 36 missiles armed with nuclear warhead. The technology came from the US army's W-70 nuclear variety.
Israel also armed a number of battlefield weapons, including 175 and 203 mm cannons, with nuclear artillery. Israel's nuclear artillery capability includes enhanced radiation variants, which are forbidden for use by the laws of war. In the early 1980s, Israel equipped its Jericho surface- to- surface missiles with 1,000-1,500 pound nuclear warheads. While the IAEA and the US now squeeze Iran to stay away from the nuclear course, the US is yet to say a word about the Israeli stockpile of about 200 plutonium weapons.
Over the decades, Israel had perfected its nuclear research to boost the yield of its fission weapons in excess of 100 kilotons and achieved a capability to build a fusion weapon of its own. The IAEA is aware of Israel's clandestine WMD programme, but feels handicapped to confront the Jewish state due to the US' unqualified backing for it.
Since the early 1990s, Israel's Jericho-2 missiles became capable of hitting targets 1500 km away, with a 1500 kiloton payload. The Jericho-3 was tested in 2000. It traveled 2,500 km with 100 kg payload. Even the Mediterranean city of Tripoli is under its effective range.
It's only natural amid such a strategic imbalance that someone would strive to catch up with Israel in bringing about some sort of symmetry in the regional balance of power. And, unless that expected balance is restored, peace in the Middle East will remain ever elusive.
The nuclear frenzy also has a lot to do with the US' physical intervention in the Mid East, and, having scoured Iraq unsuccessfully to locate the WMD, the US is buying the Sharon theory that 'Iraq's WMD is hidden in Syria.' This seems to offer a plausible reason as to why Israel chose to attack Syria 30 years after the conclusion of the 1973 war.
Does Iran too have a bomb?
A commonly observed tactic in the West is to splash intelligence reports in the media to test waters and mallow-up public opinion. Although most of the reports later get discarded as being hyped- up, fabricated and concocted, they do help create demons out of some one the US and Israel loathe.
Of the victims of such media onslaught, Colonel Nasser (in the 1960s), Gaddafi (in the 1970s), Arafat (in the 1980s), Khomeini (in the 1990s) and Saddam (in recent years) top the list. A non-state actor, Osama Bin Laden, is the latest 'malefactor' to have earned the US' wrath.
The Iraqi WMD case proved how sinisterly the Western media behave under the influence of their intelligence services. Iran, Libya and Syria have been on the receiving end of such Western propaganda for decades. And, ever since President Rafsanjani signed a nuclear collaboration pact with China during his Beijing visit in September 1992, the US and the UK launched an unsavoury media and diplomatic offensive to prove Iran's nuclear capability.
Reports claimed that China supplied nuclear technology and information to Iran, trained Iranian scientists and engineers and provided Iran with a calutron- enriching- device to produce bombs.
North Korea then agreed, claimed such reports, to supply Iran with 600-mile range Nodong-1 missile in 1993. In 1995, after sustained US pressures, China suspended the sale of two 300-MW reactors, but the North Koreans shipped Scud missiles and aided Iran in building its own capability to produce the same.
Indigenous Iranian missiles are now capable of hitting Tel Aviv, say the reports. If the reports were true, why did Iran sign a protocol in 1995 with the Russian federation to conduct peaceful nuclear researches? Heaven perhaps knows better.
Subsequent revelations also had it that Iran possessed a small 27 kilowatt Chinese supplied neutron source research reactor and subcritical assemblies with 900 grams of highly enriched uranium at its Esfahan Nuclear center. The center also contains a heavy water zero-power reactor, a high water subcritical reactor and a graphite subcritical reactor. Besides, the University of Tehran is reported to house a 5 megawatt, high water reactor that Iran purchased from Argentina.
Rumours also abound, as they did with respect to Iraq, that Iran might have a bomb or two in the basement. Hence the hurry-scurry by the IAEA to find excuses to launch preemptive attacks against Iran too.
Impact on Asia
The Israeli strain of preemptive attack is dangerous for world peace due to the precedent it creates to endanger many weaker nations having disputes with the nuclear armed ones. Precisely due to that, China took a principled stand not to allow nuclear monopoly to the West until its signing of the NPT in 1992. The North Korean bomb was allowed to sprout under such a liberalised Chinese attitude.
India too sought to deprive the West of a nuclear monopoly. The 'meeting of minds' on this particular issue between China and India prompted China to help India (with which it fought a war in 1962) with 130-150 metric tons of heavy water (D20) between 1982-87 and Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) and uranium enrichment services for Tarapur nuclear project in 1995.
The latter deals were concluded under the IAEA safeguard while the D20 was not. India possesses an impressive array of nuclear stockpile; consisting Agni-1, Agni-2 and the Surya missiles, each capable of hitting targets as far away as 1500, 2000, 3250 km, respectively. Each of these missiles can carry a payload of, respectively, 1000, 1000 and 1500 kg.
Pakistan's missile technology is even superior to India and there is a reason for it. The Pakistani deterrence is designed to shield the Arabs in the instance Israel threaten its Arab neighbours with nuclear strike. The first $36 million contribution for the Pakistani bomb came from Libya.
Today, Islamabad holds in its armoury the Shaheen-2 and Gauri-3 missiles, each with an effective ranges of 2500 and 3500 km respectively. Pakistan is working to replicate the Nodong- 3 variety of North Korea that can hit targets 4,000 km away. As it is, the Pakistani missiles can hit Tel Aviv and Haifa.
The above scenarios highlight the magnitude of dangers involved should the Mid East conflict spin out of control to degenerate into a major war. Hence, the UNSC should strive to compel Israel to comply with all the resolutions it had flouted over the decades to ensure a semblance of fair play in the precarious global order.
Author and columnist M. Shahidul Islam is a Senior Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.
-------- korea
China Says Six - Way Talks Over North Korea Still Key
October 9, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-china.html
BEIJING (Reuters) - China Thursday rejected North Korea's call for Japan to be dropped from talks on the North's nuclear standoff with the United States and said six-party talks were the key to a resolution of the year-old crisis.
China, one of North Korea's few allies and the source of the bulk of its fuel and food aid, has been active in trying to seek a peaceful solution to the crisis this year, exerting subtle pressure on its communist neighbor to come to the table.
``We think that the best way to solve these disputes and these different opinions is within the six-party mechanism,'' Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue told a news conference.
``We think the process of six-party talks should continue.''
The crisis erupted when the United States said North Korea had admitted to a nuclear weapons program. Japan joined China, Russia, the two Koreas and the United States in an inconclusive first round of talks with North Korea in Beijing in August.
The North has since said it has no interest in more talks. It said last week it had redirected plutonium extracted from thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods to help enhance its deterrent force.
Tuesday, North Korea said Japan would not be welcome at future negotiations, further complicating efforts to arrange a second round.
Zhang sidestepped a question on whether China's number two Communist Party official, parliament chief Wu Bangguo, would visit Pyongyang to discuss the nuclear issue soon.
``I don't know the source of such news. China and North Korea have a tradition of exchanges between leaders,'' she said.
A diplomatic source in Japan said Wednesday that North Korea had given the green light for a visit by Wu, a move some analysts viewed as a sign Pyongyang could be willing to resolve the nuclear crisis.
Zhang expressed concern at South Korea's shutting of its Beijing consulate after scores of North Korean asylum seekers took refuge on its premises, rendering normal operations impossible.
``We don't think this action is conducive to developing consulate relations between China and South Korea,'' she said.
-------- pacific
US Warning to New Zealand Seen as 'Pique' Over Iraq
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com
Pacific Rim Bureau Chief
October 09, 2003
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=%5CForeignBureaus%5Carchive%5C200310%5CFOR20031009b.html
Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - The most candid U.S. message in years about the state of its relations with New Zealand was a "fit of pique," according to the former politician most closely linked to the policy at the heart of the dispute.
Former prime minister David Lange, whose Labor government in the mid-1980s banned nuclear-powered and armed vessels from docking at New Zealand ports, said in an interview Thursday he remained "proud" of the nuclear ban, and pleased that no government since then has rescinded the legislation.
Of the fact Washington was still unhappy about it two decades later, Lange said the U.S. appeared to be annoyed by New Zealand's opposition to the war on Iraq, and was reacting in a "somewhat browbeating fashion."
"The United States seem to be aggrieved that we didn't rush off to Iraq at the first opportunity."
Lange suggested that it was easy for the U.S. to vent "a fit of pique" at New Zealand, but it was interesting that it hadn't taken the same approach towards European governments that also opposed the war.
"[The Americans] haven't said their NATO allies are not worthy of being allies because they stood in their way," the 61-year-old former premier said.
The nuclear ban severely strained Wellington's relationship with Washington, effectively removing New Zealand from the ANZUS (Australia-New Zealand-U.S.) defense alliance and downgrading its status from "ally" to "friend."
U.S. Ambassador Charles Swindells prepared a speech this week giving the clearest public signal in years that, for the U.S., the issue would not simply go away.
Although anti-U.S. protestors prevented him from delivering the speech on a Wellington university campus, Swindells made it public and sent copies to leaders in the left-leaning government.
The envoy said that, while the nuclear issue did not define the bilateral relationship, it did come with a price and impeded cooperation in some areas.
Swindells urged a re-examination of the issue, and warned that the U.S. was not simply going to "get over it."
Many New Zealanders have been hopeful a free-trade agreement with the world's largest economy, and they were distressed when the U.S. opened FTA negotiations with neighboring Australia late last year.
Although he said many factors were considered when it came to FTA negotiations, Swindells put to rest any hopes that talks with New Zealand would begin soon.
"Trade between us is a strong point in the relationship but ... it is not helpful to unduly raise expectations about an FTA."
No change
The speech has caused a stir in New Zealand, but Prime Minister Helen Clark ruled out reviewing the nuclear policy. Almost 20 years ago, Clark played a key role in the Lange government's decision to ban nuclear ships.
Her foreign minister, Phil Goff, accentuated what he saw as positive elements of the speech, saying it was noteworthy that Swindells had not completely ruled out free trade talks.
The small, conservative ACT Party said the government's failure to "move on" was disturbing.
It also urged the official opposition, center-right National Party to "get off the fence" and make its position clear on the nuclear issue.
Although National has decried the state of New Zealand-U.S. relations, it continues to support a "nuclear-free" status.
But National spokesman Jason Ede said Thursday the party was in the midst of a "comprehensive review" of issues relating to bilateral ties, including the nuclear issue. The outcome was expected by early next year.
The nuclear ban is widely seen as having initiated the deterioration of ties, but New Zealand and the U.S. have drifted further apart in the years since over foreign policy.
The differences have been accentuated by the ever-closer relationship between the U.S. and Australia, especially under conservative Prime Minister John Howard.
Howard backed President Bush on Iraq, supported the U.S. at the United Nations, and became only the second leader - after Prime Minister Tony Blair - to send troops to participate in the war.
By contrast, Clark opposed the war and sided against Washington at the U.N.
In his speech, Swindells made reference to New Zealand's failure to back its traditional allies, the U.S., Britain and Australia, on Iraq.
"I tell you frankly that we were saddened by New Zealand's decision not to participate in the liberation of the Iraqi people," he said.
'Safe'
Goff, the foreign minister, said the government's stance was "in line with what ordinary New Zealanders feel about nuclear-armed and powered ships."
When the public was canvassed on the issue late last year, 43 percent of respondents thought the government should review its policy, while 55 percent disagreed.
In 1992, an expert inquiry found that risks from modern nuclear-powered ships entering New Zealand ports would be minimal.
Scientists found that more radiation was released into the atmosphere every day by hyper-thyroidism treatment at an Auckland hospital than was released by the entire U.S. nuclear-powered fleet around the world in a year.
A member of the inquiry, now-retired Auckland University nuclear physics professor Alan Poletti, said Thursday there had been no evidence in the 11 years since the report was released challenging its findings that it would be safe to allow the ships to visit.
Poletti said it was his personal view that the clause in the legislation which bans visits by nuclear-powered ships - as opposed to ships carrying nuclear weapons - should be repealed.
"It would remove an impediment between the two countries," he said. "There's no logical reason for leaving it there."
The latest monthly opinion poll on voter preferences in New Zealand gives Labor 45 percent and National 29 percent. Of the smaller parties, the Greens stands at seven percent and ACT at five.
-------- pakistan
Pakistan Says Missile Tests Will Continue
October 9, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Missile-Tests.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan said Thursday that two missile tests in the last week are not meant to inflame tensions with nuclear rival India, and the launches will continue.
The comment from Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief military spokesman, came a day after the country successfully tested the nuclear-capable Hatf-4 missile, also known as the Shaheen 1. It has a range of 435 miles and can hit India's capital, New Delhi.
Pakistan's leading Urdu-language Jang newspaper reported that a Shaheen 2 missile would be tested in coming days, and Sultan said more tests would be conducted when necessary.
On Friday, Pakistan test-fired the short-range Hatf-2 Ghaznavi.
The Shaheen 2, which has a range of some 1,200 miles, has never been test-fired, the paper said Thursday. Sultan declined to comment on the report.
``Whenever there is a requirement for technical data to be validated, the tests will be held,'' Sultan said, adding that the tests ``should not create any sort of tension in the region,''
Pakistan and India have used weapons tests in the past as diplomatic muscle-flexing.
The countries shocked the world in 1998 by conducting tit-for-tat nuclear tests. They nearly went to war in 2002 after an attack on India's parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-backed Islamic militants.
-------- russia
Germany agrees to help Russia dispose of 120 nuclear submarines
BERLIN (AFP)
Oct 09, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031009123738.gtny7paf.html
Germany agreed Thursday to invest 300 million euros (354 million dollars) in a project to help Russia safely dispose of 120 of its Soviet-era nuclear submarines, the economy ministry said.
The deal, set initially for six years, was signed by German state secretary for the economy Alfred Tacke and the Russian deputy minister of atomic energy Sergei Antipov during a German-Russian summit in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
"With the submarine project, we are making an important contribution to the fight against the spread of weapons-grade nuclear material. At the same time, we are giving a strong impetus for German-Russian economic cooperation," Tacke said in a statement.
The project will take place under the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction signed by the Group of Eight richest nations at their 2002 summit in Kananaskis, Canada.
According to the statement, Moscow has already dismantled 40 nuclear submarines apart from their reactors, which are "swimming highly dangerously in the Saida Bay near Murmansk" in the northwest of the country.
The German-Russian project would establish a temporary storage site near the Saida Bay in a region were a large number of decommissioned nuclear submarines have accumulated.
"If the leaders of the G8 member countries give financial assistance to Russia as they promised, we can go five times as fast in dismantling decommissioned nuclear submarines," said Murmansk regional governor Yuri Evdokimov, quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency.
According to the Russian atomic energy ministry, quoted by ITAR-TASS, 192 Soviet-era and Russian submarines have been decommissioned since the 1980s, of which 89 have been dismantled.
Of the 103 nuclear submarines awaiting dismantlement, 76 still contain a nuclear reactor.
The sinking of the Kursk in August 2000 with the loss of 118 lives raised international concerns about the dangers posed by Russia's nuclear submarines.
The Kursk sank in 108 metres (360 feet) of water in the Barents Sea after an explosion in a torpedo compartment. After outcry over the initial lack of reaction by Russian authorities, the wreck was raised to the surface in October 2001 and taken to the Nerpa military base at Murmansk for dismantling.
--------
Russia Soothes NATO Concerns Over Nuclear Posture
October 9, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nato-defence.html
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Reuters) - Russia sought on Thursday to soothe concerns at NATO over its nuclear posture, saying it saw its former Cold War foe as a partner.
Underlining Moscow's willingness to reach out to NATO, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov held talks at Colorado Springs with both the alliance's secretary-general and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on closer military cooperation.
``Minister Sergei Ivanov said ... Russia does not have or does not seek to have a pre-emptive strategy in relation to its nuclear weapons,'' NATO Secretary-General George Robertson told a news conference.
``They don't regard NATO as being an offensive organization, they regard NATO as being a partner to Russia.''
Improving relations with Moscow is a key element of NATO's drive to reinvent itself to tackle terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction, threats highlighted on Tuesday by a war-gaming exercise laid on for alliance defense ministers.
Diplomats said the ministers, meeting for a second day on the edge of the Rocky Mountains, would quiz Ivanov on a comment broadcast to Russians last week that Moscow stuck by its doctrine of making a pre-emptive military strike beyond its borders if its interests and those of its allies required it.
A recent Russian defense report on the tasks facing its armed forces also said that if NATO remained a ``military alliance with its existing offensive military doctrine,'' Russia would have to overhaul its military posture and nuclear strategy.
RELATIONS STRENGTHENING
That jarred with a reference in the same report to the value of military cooperation with Washington, which commentators said reflected competing views inside Russia's defense establishment where many remain suspicious of NATO.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns said he would be ``awfully surprised'' if there was any reassessment by Russia of its nuclear stance in relation to NATO.
``There may be some kind of miscommunication here because we've never received any kind of demarche from the Russian government to NATO on this issue,'' he told reporters.
``So we'll have to see what the minister says but it's our impression...NATO-Russia relations are actually strengthening.''
Russian President Vladimir Putin, pursuing a broad pro-Western policy, has softened criticism of NATO's decision to expand its borders behind the old Iron Curtain. He agreed last year to set up a new NATO-Russia Council for closer cooperation on security issues.
There are still misgivings in Moscow, though, about NATO's embrace of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which broke free from the Soviet Union in 1991. The Baltic states are among seven Eastern European countries due to join NATO next year.
Burns said NATO and Russia were working together to beat terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction and were exploring cooperation on theater missile defense .
A senior U.S. official said the question of joint exercises for missile defense and cooperation on early warning radars figured in the 30-minute meeting between Rumsfeld and Ivanov.
-------- terrorism
State Department Protests Televangelist's Remark
October 9, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-people-robertson.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department has protested to televangelist Pat Robertson about his ``despicable'' suggestion that someone blow up the department with a nuclear bomb, an official said on Thursday.
Robertson, a former presidential candidate, made the remark in an interview with Joel Mowbray, author of a new book entitled ``Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Endangers America's Security.''
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, asked to comment, said on Thursday: ``I lack sufficient capabilities to express my disdain. ... I think the very idea is despicable.''
The department has made its views clear to Robertson, added a State Department official, who asked not to be named.
Introducing Mowbray on his Christian Broadcasting Network, Robertson said that a person who read Mowbray's book would reach the conclusion that a nuclear explosion at the State Department was the best solution.
``I read your book. When you get through, you say (to yourself): 'If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom (the State Department's main building), I think that's the answer' and you say: 'We've got to blow that thing up.' I mean, is it as bad as you say?'' he said.
``It is,'' Mowbray replied. Mowbray himself did not make the suggestion, either in his book or in the interview.
According to the network's Web site, Mowbray's book ``exposes the mixed allegiances, hidden agendas, and outright anti-Americanism found in the State Department.''
A group of conservatives, including former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, accuses the State Department of undermining U.S. interests by protecting dictatorial governments abroad.
Mowbray was prominent in a media campaign against the way the State Department handled visas for Saudi citizens after the attacks of September 2001. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudi citizens.
Robertson ran unsuccessfully to be the Republican candidate in the presidential elections of 1988.
-------- treaties / diplomacy
Rumsfeld, Ivanov meet
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (AFP)
Oct 09, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031009171303.ay3esptg.html
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov met here Thursday and discussed missile defense and nuclear reduction issues, a senior US official said.
The senior defense official would not say whether they discussed Ivanov's recent statements that Russia reserves the right to stage pre-emptive strikes against other countries under certain circumstances.
"The discussions going on with the Russians right now are as good as they've ever been," said the officials. "It's clear Russian wants to be oriented toward NATO and the US."
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the talks focused on on the desire to set up "transparency regime" that would give each side visibility on progress toward reducing their nuclear arsenals.
Describing the meeting as "workmanlike," the official said Rumsfeld and Ivanov went through a work list of items arising from the US-Russian summit at Camp David at the end of September.
Besides the nuclear issues, those included US cooperation on missile defense for Europe and military-to-military cooperation, the official said.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- vermont
PSB orders sanctions against Entergy
October 9, 2003
By SUSAN SMALLHEER
Rutland Herald Staff
http://rutlandherald.nybor.com/News/Story/72854.html
Saying that Entergy Nuclear was guilty of "corrosive and bullying" behavior that undermined the state review process of utilities, the Public Service Board levied sanctions worth $51,000 against the owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
The board ruled Wednesday that Entergy Nuclear had withheld documents about its proposal to increase power production at the Vernon reactor by 20 percent, and had ignored the board's repeated orders to share information.
The board also said it was on the verge of asking for professional sanctions against Entergy Nuclear's attorneys, Gary Franklin and Victoria Brown of Eggleston & Cramer of Burlington, for "frivolous" filings with the board last month.
In fact, in a separate but companion opinion, board member John Burke of Castleton said he was ready to request professional sanctions against the lawyers for misconduct and ask them to show cause why they shouldn't be sanctioned.
"Although Entergy's Sept. 29 filing deeply concerns us, we will defer any decision as to whether to institute specific action. Entergy and its counsel should be aware, however, that continuation of the types of representations described above will not be accepted," wrote board chairman Michael Dworkin.
But Burke, a Castleton lawyer, went even further. He said Entergy should pay for an expert for the New England Coalition to review its proposals to determine the various claims of business confidentiality. He also said he would have prohibited Entergy's lawyers from using any documents found not to warrant the confidentiality claims.
Burke said he also wanted to force Entergy to provide 100 hours of free legal work to a nonprofit organization, in addition to the sanctions.
The $51,000 will go to the New England Coalition, an anti-nuclear group that has been fighting Entergy's plan to increase power at the 31-year-old reactor.
"This is not Entergy versus New England Coalition. This is about Entergy versus the state of Vermont and the institutions of Vermont. They don't have to respect us. They don't have to like us. But when the board says, give them the information, they are supposed to give us the information," Ray Shadis, staff pro-se counsel of the coalition, said Wednesday evening.
"Entergy disrespected the board and they misread the board entirely. They thought they could play with them," Shadis said of Entergy's three-month refusal to provide the requested documents.
The ruling pushes back the schedule three months. Hearings will be held next week in Montpelier, but the New England Coalition, the Windham Regional Commission and the Connecticut River Watershed Council, which are all involved in the case with Entergy, have until early January to evaluate the new documents and Entergy's latest filing.
The money will reimburse the nonprofit organization for legal bills and experts' time and expenses this summer, when the coalition was waiting for documents that Entergy wouldn't provide. Arnold Gundersen of Burlington, one of those experts, said he took some comfort in the ruling.
"I think we managed to stop the steamroller for three months. They really have been trying to steamroll it," he said of Entergy.
But Gundersen, a former nuclear industry executive turned whistleblower, who had testified that the plan put too much stress on an already aging reactor, said the board's ruling was a "Pyrrhic victory."
"We won the battle, but it took so long, we've lost the time to do a competent review. It's such a big company. They're going to make $20 million a year. This is chump change," Gundersen said.
Robert Williams, Entergy Nuclear spokesman, would only say that the company had received the board's order.
"We're still reviewing it," he said.
"It's always been our intent to be responsive in this process. We now look forward to getting on with the merits of the case," he said.
Shadis said he felt encouraged by the ruling.
He said he had received thousands of new documents from Entergy in the past several days, but he said the Entergy documents again appear to be close to impossible to use.
Shadis said he had recently received three CD-ROMs from Entergy, each of which contained thousands of documents.
Shadis said he took comfort in the fact that the board was looking at more than just economics with the proposal.
In the ruling, the board said it would ask the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "for a thorough and independent evaluation of the safety of Vermont Yankee."
Shadis and other activists have been pushing hard for an "independent safety assessment."
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com
-------- us nuc waste
Officials zip lips if nuclear reactor to pass this way
Thursday, October 9, 2003
Toledo Blade
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031009/NEWS17/110090121
A whopper of a radioactive steel can - an old nuclear reactor that's 25 feet long and weighs 580,000 pounds - could be passing through the region via rail in the coming days.
At the moment, mum's the word on when - and even if - it'll be coming through the Toledo area.
That's because Consumers Energy, the Michigan utility that owns the decommissioned Big Rock Point nuclear plant that had the reactor for 35 years, claims that it's leery about divulging too much in advance.
Tim Petrosky, utility spokesman, said the company is afraid that anti-nuclear activists could make it even more cumbersome for Consumers to get the big piece to Barnwell, S.C., for disposal in one of the nation's only dumps licensed to take low-level radioactive waste. The shipment is so big it'll top out at a speed of only 25 mph, he said.
Although the canister held highly radioactive nuclear fuel for 35 years, it is being sent to Barnwell because it is considered low-level radioactive waste. Spent fuel that was in it is the only type of nonmilitary material that has been classified by the government as high-level radioactive waste.
President Bush last year signed a bill that opens the way for Nevada's Yucca Mountain to become eventually the dump site for old fuel from reactors across the country.
But reactors and other components of a nuclear plant should not be confused with the fuel, because they are considered low-level radioactive waste, Mr. Petrosky said.
Big Rock Point is four miles northwest of Charlevoix, Mich. It was shut down in 1997. Consumers is in the process of dismantling the plant and restoring the site, an effort which it hopes to complete in 2006, Mr. Petrosky said.
The hunk of steel, painted white, began its trek on Tuesday. Last night, it was expected to arrive in Gaylord, Mich., where it was to be transferred from truck to rail, he said.
Several anti-nuclear activists have issued a joint statement, saying they believe the public, including emergency responders and highway officials, deserved more advance notice.
They said they believe the radiation risk has been downplayed, and that they expect utilities to be more forthcoming when spent fuel is eventually transported.
Yucca Mountain is not expected to begin accepting waste before 2010, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates.
-------- us politics
US lawmakers demand Pentagon release of critical Iraq report
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Oct 09, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031009174507.jvv91xqw.html
Some 30 Democratic lawmakers Thursday demanded the immediate release of a confidential Pentagon report said to be highly critical of the United States' postwar administration of Iraq.
In a letter sent to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers, lawmakers called for the release of the report, entitled "Operation Iraqi Freedom Strategic Lessons Learned," which outlines deficiencies in the administration's post-war planning for Iraq.
The document, which includes several interviews with top US military officials, "concludes that the post-war agenda for Iraq was flawed, rushed and inadequately planned," according to US Representative Robert Wexler of Florida.
"The American people are demanding answers to the problems we are facing in Iraq as Congress debates the president's 87-billion-dollar funding request," said Wexler, who was one of the signers of the letter.
The supplemental funding package was being considered by the House of Representatives' appropriations subcommittee on Thursday.
Lawmakers said they are still waiting for the Pentagon to make good on its promise to deliver copies of the report to them before the upcoming vote on the White House funding request for Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The American public is deeply concerned about the president's post-war efforts in Iraq, as well as the continued loss of American lives and exponentially growing cost of operations on the ground," according to the letter to Myers.
"As Congress prepares to debate this funding, it is imperative that we fully understand the perspective of our military officials on the ground," the letter said.
----
White House Begins New Effort to Build Iraq Support
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A211-2003Oct8.html
The White House, working to quell internal discord and external criticism of its Iraq policy, launched a new public relations effort yesterday to justify the invasion and occupation.
Previewing speeches to be made today by President Bush and Friday by Vice President Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice vigorously defended the U.S. actions in Iraq, though using a scaled-back bill of particulars from the one she used before the war began in March. Rice avoided the part of a CIA report last week that said inspectors have so far not found weapons of mass destruction, instead focusing on the report's finding that Iraq violated U.N. resolutions in its ambitions to acquire weaponry.
While Rice spoke in Chicago, White House press secretary Scott McClellan declared five times during his daily briefing that Iraq is the "central front" in the war on terrorism. A quartet of administration figures testified on Capitol Hill about progress in Iraq. And the Republican National Committee sent out a briefing about last week's report by chief inspector David Kay. "What did David Kay find?" it asked. "Hidden labs, documents and equipment, biological and chemical weapon catalysts, UAV and missile programs, and more."
The fresh efforts by the Bush administration to increase support for its Iraq policy come at a time of slipping public enthusiasm for the operation and a controversy over the administration's leaking of an undercover CIA agent's name after her husband criticized Bush's Iraq policy. The FBI was preparing to conduct interviews at the White House today and may have even begun them late yesterday, a government source said. FBI officials declined to comment.
The White House also sought yesterday to explain remarks to European news organizations Tuesday by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld saying he was not told in advance about a reorganization of the Iraq reconstruction and did not know why the changes were necessary. Rumsfeld expressed pique when pressed about the reason for the changes. "I said I don't know. Isn't that clear? You don't understand English? I was not there for the backgrounding."
Asked about the sharpness of Rumsfeld's remarks, McClellan said, "I didn't take it that way. I don't think anyone here took it that way." McClellan said Bush continues to support Rumsfeld and pointed to other remarks by Rumsfeld saying he was not surprised by the reorganization.
Rumsfeld, at a news conference with NATO Secretary General George Robertson, said that he was not upset with Rice and that the memo explaining the change "was apparently at a lower level."
When asked whether the reorganization had diminished his authority, he told reporters, "Not at all."
Last week's Kay report said there had been no findings to date of actual nuclear, biological or chemical weapons in Iraq. Kay said inspectors "have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material." He also cited evidence that "Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce and fill new CW munitions was reduced -- if not entirely destroyed -- during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of U.N. sanctions and U.N. inspections."
Rice, speaking to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, pointed to other evidence from Kay's report, including what she called a "massive deception campaign to conceal its weapons program, and its maintenance of prohibited delivery systems.
"We now have hard evidence of facts that no one should ever have doubted," Rice said. "Right up until the end, Saddam Hussein lied to the Security Council. And, let there be no mistake, right up until the end, Saddam Hussein continued to harbor ambitions to threaten the world with weapons of mass destruction and to hide his illegal weapons program."
Rice cited examples from Kay's report, including "information that appears to corroborate reports that Iraq tested chemical and biological substances on human beings." The report said that inspectors were "beginning to corroborate" such reports but that "progress in this area is slow." She also noted findings of "new research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever," although it has not been determined that those agents were for actual biological weapons.
Rice also cited other reasons for the Iraq war, including Hussein's human rights abuses, earlier aggression against neighbors and the possibility that victory in Iraq will help resolve Middle East conflicts.
McClellan said the promotion of Bush's Iraq policy presented by Rice will become part of an extended effort. "As our efforts are accelerating on all these different fronts, it's important to keep the American people informed about what we are doing," he said. "So, there will be a sustained effort to keep the American people informed about these actions that we are taking and how those actions are benefiting the American people, in addition to the rest of the international community."
Staff writers Walter Pincus and Susan Schmidt contributed to this report.
----
House Panel Approves $87 Billion for Iraq
Thu October 9, 2003
By Vicki Allen
(Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=HTOP3NE5CPB24CRBAEKSFFA?type=topNews&storyID=3588870
WASHINGTON - Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday rebuffed attempts to make Iraq repay funds for its reconstruction as they pushed President Bush's $87 billion spending request for Iraq through a key committee.
The House Appropriations Committee approved the bill 47-14 after defeating a sweeping Democratic amendment that would have reduced funding for Iraqi rebuilding, made Iraq repay some of the money, and trimmed tax rates on the highest U.S. incomes to pay for military operations and reconstruction in Iraq.
The full House and Senate are expected next week to consider the emergency spending bill, which has been a lightning rod for Democratic criticism of Bush's handling of post-war Iraq.
Bush gained an important win as the committee approved the spending bill largely as he wanted it, despite a push led by conservative Republicans and embraced by many Democrats to make Iraq use its future oil revenue to repay some or all of the money to overhaul its infrastructure.
The House committee's bill trimmed $1.7 billion from the $20.3 billion Bush wanted for Iraq's reconstruction to try to ease qualms of many lawmakers over the cost.
The White House argued that seeking Iraqi repayment of the money would undermine U.S. efforts to get donations from other countries at a conference in Spain scheduled for this month.
Rep. Zach Wamp, a Tennessee Republican who wrote an amendment for loans, was summoned to the White House on Wednesday to meet with Bush.
"The president is very passionate about this," Wamp said afterward.
Wamp said he felt it was important to raise the issue, but then withdrew his amendment, acknowledging he did not have votes to approve it after heavy White House lobbying.
Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the committee's top Democrat, said he has been told not to expect more than $3.5 billion in donations for Iraq from allies at the donors conference.
INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT
He said seeking matching funds for loans might be a way to leverage more international support.
The loan issue may come up again on the House floor, but Republicans leaders could prevent a direct vote on it.
The measure has a better chance in the Senate where several Republicans joined by most Democrats are pushing for at least partial repayment. Loans then could become an issue when the House and Senate reconcile differences in their bills before sending the final measure to Bush.
Responding to Bush's reorganization of his Iraq stabilization effort, lawmakers also added language specifying that Iraq money must be coordinated by an official who is confirmed by the Senate and so must testify to Congress.
Earlier in the week, Bush put national security adviser Condoleezza Rice in charge of the effort that has been headed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In her position, Rice does not have to testify to Congress.
Committee Chairman Bill Young, a Florida Republican, said he expected Rumsfeld would answer to Congress on money issues.
The House committee rejected 36-25 an amendment that touched on many Democrats' complaints of Bush's Iraq policies.
It would have shifted money from Iraq's reconstruction to the Pentagon to better equip U.S. troops, called for stricter accounting of the funds, converted half of the reconstruction money to loans, and paid the bill's $87 billion cost by canceling tax cuts for the top 1 percent incomes.
With many Democrats charging that Iraq's rebuilding was becoming a boon to contractors with ties to the White House, the committee accepted an amendment requiring reviews of contracts awarded without bids seven days before they are awarded and more accounting of how reconstruction money was being spent.
----
Dean Says Bush is Setting the Stage for the 'Failure of America'
October 9, 2003
By JODI WILGOREN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/politics/campaigns/09DEAN.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 - Howard Dean, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, on Wednesday offered perhaps his most overarching critique yet of the Republican incumbent, saying, "I think what the president is doing is setting the stage for the failure of America."
"If you look at what's happened to other great countries," Dr. Dean said over lunch with reporters and editors of The New York Times, "they get in trouble when they can't manage their money - and this president's certainly proven himself adept at that - and they get in trouble when they overstretch their military capabilities."
"This country's a great country, and the reason it's an important country is not just because I'm an American and proud to be an American," he continued. "America is the beacon of hope for the rest of the world. We are the last country on earth where cynicism doesn't pervade government. Americans really hope that things are going to get better in the world and they can make things better, and Americans believe more than any other people that we can make things better by sheer will and money and hard work."
Dr. Dean said he expects jobs to be the primary issue in next year's general election, and he expects Ohio to be the critical swing state. But he spent most of the interview answering questions about foreign policy, attacking President Bush on Iraq and North Korea and promising to send former President Bill Clinton to the Middle East as a peace broker.
President Bush, Dr. Dean said, is "particularly poorly suited" for foreign policy "because he has a black and white view of the world, and foreign policy depends on enormous understandings of nuances and trade-offs."
As the former governor of Vermont who got a medical deferment to avoid service in Vietnam, Dr. Dean said he would combat criticism of his national security bona fides by surrounding himself with people who could inspire confidence in such issues.
Though he declined to speculate on cabinet appointments or potential running mates, Dr. Dean, who has lately spent much time attacking his Democratic rivals as Washington insiders who have, collectively, spent more than a century on Capitol Hill, said he would also pick people who could navigate the Beltway.
"The most important criteria for whether you're going to be any good at foreign policy or not is judgment and patience, both of which are in short supply in this presidency." Dr. Dean said. "The major mistake that governors make when they come into Washington is they think subconsciously that the relationship between the Congress and the president is somehow like the relationship between the legislature and the governor," he added, predicting that "getting someone who understands the levers of power in Washington is going to be important as well."
Regarding Iraq, Dr. Dean, who opposed the American invasion this spring, promised to bring National Guard and Army reserve troops home, leaving 70,000 American troops, and to add about 110,000 international troops, mostly from Muslim and Arab nations. Some experts say that is probably unrealistic, considering the military capabilities of American allies in the Middle East.
Other than urging repeal of recent tax cuts to pay for reconstruction, Dr. Dean refused to say how he would vote, were he in Congress, on the $87 billion financing proposal.
"I'm not running for Congress, I'm running for president," he said.
On North Korea, Dr. Dean said Mr. Bush had bungled the situation by announcing at a news conference with Kim Dae Jung, the former president of South Korea, that he planned to pursue a policy of isolation toward North Korea. While the news conference was not as explicit as Dr. Dean described, Mr. Bush and the South Korean leader split sharply on Korea policy at that meeting early in Mr. Bush's presidency, and their relationship never recovered.
Dr. Dean said he would conduct bilateral negotiations on the principle of constructive engagement - "that in return for a verifiable ending of their nuclear program," he explained, "they would be back in the community of nations."
"You will improve the behavior of rogue nations and have more leverage to do so if they're inside the tent than if they're outside the tent," he said. "The president and his neocon advisers decided they were going to teach the North Koreans a lesson, and unfortunately, North Korea has the power to inflict a fairly painful lesson on us."
Dr. Dean declined to discuss the other Democratic rivals except to say "they all come from Washington, which I think, this year, is going to be a problem for them." Though he said it was too early to draw broad lessons from the California recall, he said the message is change which he painted as positive for his campaign.
"My strategy is, we're better than this, we can do better than this," he added. "America's always been the country of hope and of high moral principles and ideals. Let's hope again."
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Dozens Killed as Afghan Factions Clash
October 9, 2003
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/international/asia/09AFGH.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 8 - Heavy fighting left dozens dead in the north on Wednesday as factional militias battled for control of a local district, officials there said.
The ethnic Tajik faction, Jamiat-i-Islami, reported 50 men killed or wounded, according to Wasiqullah, a spokesman for the group. The fighting broke out when an opposing ethnic Uzbek faction, Jumbeish-i-Milli, attacked the Tajik positions, he said.
The fighting, which occurred in Faizabad, west of Mazar-i-Sharif, served as another reminder of the general insecurity across Afghanistan, which is hampering reconstruction efforts and political progress. Largely free of Taliban attacks, northern Afghanistan has nevertheless been plagued by factional fighting as four different ethnic groups are vying for power.
The fighting stems from the rivalry of two factional leaders, the Uzbek general, Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is the representative of President Hamid Karzai in the north, and his Tajik rival, Gen. Atta Muhammad. They have been at loggerheads for more than a decade and have uneasily shared power since 2001.
-------- arms
New Army 'Stryker' combat vehicle nears Iraq test
It's fast. It's lethal. And now it's going to Iraq. But is this new US weapon ready for combat?
By Ann Scott Tyson
The Christian Science Monitor
October 09, 2003
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1009/p02s02-usmi.html
FORT LEWIS, WASH. - "Food!" "Water!" A crowd of irate young men in T-shirts and baseball caps shouts at American soldiers patrolling a dusty street in one of the Army's new, eight-wheeled Strykers.
The protesters aren't Iraqis. They are GIs impersonating Iraqi civilians in a training exercise. They stage a violent confrontation between a shopkeeper and a looter trying to draw a reaction - but the US troops drive on by. Watching this training unfold at Fort Lewis, Wash., Maj. Chuck Hodges takes note of a potentially serious mistake.
"They just drive in with no infantry on the ground [to protect the Stryker's flank] - it concerns me," he says. Moreover, the Stryker is alone, something that should never happen, he advises a lieutenant in charge.
For more than a year, Army officers such as Major Hodges have been writing the book on how to leverage the unprecedented concentration of infantrymen, firepower, speed, and information combined in the Army's first 3,600-strong Stryker Brigade Combat Team. Their goal: to push the envelope on ground warfare.
Just ahead: trial by fire
Soon, this new medium-armored force will face a trial by fire - a year-long deployment in the restive towns and hinterlands of Iraq. The brigade begins rolling out this week, with 1,000 vehicles now ready for loading onto Kuwait-bound ships at Tacoma.
Brigade officials say the details of their Iraq mission are not final. But in July, the acting Army chief of Staff, Gen. John Keane, said the brigade would overlap with and replace the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Anbar province.
Anbar, Iraq's biggest province, stretches from the Jordanian, Syrian, and Saudi Arabian borders east to Baghdad. It includes the cities of Ramadi and Falluja, where outbursts of anti-coalition violence have frequently flared.
"The brigade is designed to operate over extended distances and in urban areas. It can move tactically very rapidly," says Brig. Gen. John Gardner, who is overseeing the development at Fort Lewis of the first two of six planned Stryker brigades.
Still, rarely has a major armored combat system gone from the production line into a war zone so quickly. The first of the 19-ton, eight-wheeled Stryker vehicles arrived at Fort Lewis just 16 months ago in June 2002. On Sept. 17, the Pentagon sent a formal operational evaluation of the system to Congress, starting the clock on a 30-day waiting period before first Stryker brigade can deploy overseas.
Stryker's harshest critics have charged that the vehicles are dangerously flawed, with vulnerable wheels and inadequate armor that will make them deadly for troops riding inside.
The Army flatly rejects such assertions, though it continues to fix last-minute problems, such as repairing defective armor tiles. To block rocket-propelled grenades, the Army has added cage-like steel slats.
"They [Strykers] are not death traps," says Lt. Gen. Edward Soriano, commanding general at Fort Lewis. "Anyone who says that doesn't understand the organization," he says. "[The Strykers] will have good survivability."
Not like a tank
Understanding the Stryker, Army officials stress, means first of all knowing what it is not: "It is not a fighting vehicle like a tank or a Bradley," says General Soriano.
Instead of rumbling into enemy territory like the army tank units that charged to Baghdad in April, the strategy of the more lightly armored Stryker brigades is to scope out opponents and sneak up on them at speeds of up to 60-miles per hour.
"The enemy will see the uniqueness of the Stryker brigade in the speed and stealth [by which] it gets to the fight," says Lt. Col. Rob Choppa. "It's not a Bradley or M1 [tank]...riding through the streets with the sound of road wheels and iron tracks. It's very quiet."
The nine-man infantry squad quickly dismounts, protecting the Stryker, while a two-man crew uses the Stryker's .50-cal iber machine gun or MK19 grenade launcher to support the foot soldiers.
One key to the Stryker's success is good intelligence, which top Pentagon and military officials admit is lacking in Iraq. Nevertheless, the Stryker brigade's intelligence assets are substantial. They include an array of sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles, and a military intelligence company - as well as a new satellite system that links every vehicle into a digital network.
In Iraq, the brigade could be attached to an Army division or operate more independently as a corps-level asset, says Colonel Choppa. Missions could range from raids and convoy escorts to providing security for key military or government nodes, says Choppa, deputy commander of the first Stryker brigade, the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division.
At Fort Lewis, the Stryker brigade has undergone intensive training in recent months, using "lessons learned" from Iraq to model the ambushes, roadside bombs, and civilian unrest its soldiers will probably face.
"A year's a long time, but if we're gonna go, we want to stop prolonging it," says Staff Sgt. Michael Robinson of the brigade's 1-23 battalion, after rehearsing an ambush.
Adding to the strain on troops is pressure to make the politically controversial Stryker a success. "We'll see when the actual live bullets start to fly - but I think it will exceed all expectations," says Choppa.
----
Campaign Launched to Regulate Arms Trade
October 9, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Global-Arms-Trade.html
LONDON (AP) -- For farmers in Uganda, AK-47 assault rifles are used instead of spears. In Somalia, weapons are so common that some children are named ``Uzi'' or ``AK.'' In countries such as Iraq, there is more than one gun per person.
These findings were included in a report released Thursday by Amnesty International, Oxfam and another group as they launched a campaign in more than 50 countries aimed at controlling what they call a dangerously unregulated global arms trade that routinely allows weapons to reach repressive governments, human rights abusers and criminals.
The report said the possession of increasingly lethal weapons is becoming an integral part of daily life in many parts of the world. It also said that the U.S.-led war on terror, launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, has ``fueled weapons proliferation rather than focusing political will on controlling arms.''
Increasing numbers of arms are being exported, especially by the United States and Britain, to newfound allies such as Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines, regardless of concerns about human rights abuses and widespread poverty there, the report said.
``Governments preoccupied with a search for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in their fight against terrorism have essentially ignored the real weapons of mass destruction: small arms,'' said Rebecca Peters, director of the International Action Network on Small Arms group, which joined Amnesty and Oxfam in the initiative.
The ``Control Arms'' campaign -- launched by the three groups at news conferences around the world Thursday -- focuses on promoting a new international treaty covering arms transfers, as well as a number of regional and local measures designed to limit arms proliferation and misuse.
The groups began a petition drive aimed at gathering 1 million signatures supporting their draft international Arms Trade Treaty, which they hope to have adopted by the United Nations and its member countries by 2006.
As part of that campaign, the groups displayed 300 model gravestones in Trafalgar Square in central London, each containing the slogan ``one person every minute killed by arms.''
The report said more than 630 million small arms are in circulation around the world, more than one for every 10 people, and that someone is killed through armed violence every minute, or more than half a million people a year.
The report said existing national arms export controls are riddled with loopholes. The result is the easy availability of arms, which increases the incidence of armed violence, acts as a trigger for conflicts, and prolongs wars once they break out. Increasingly, civilians are being targeted in such attacks, the groups said.
Such conflicts and armed crime also often prevent international relief aid from reaching those who desperately need it, said the report.
``The arms trade is out of control,'' said Barbara Stocking, the director of Oxfam. ``It is a global problem with horrific local consequences, and it is poor people who suffer most.''
She said an international arms trade treaty is needed to stop the flow of arms to abusers and to help make the world safer. The groups also urged governments to control national arms exports, brokers and dealers.
The draft Arms Trade Treaty was developed by the three groups and other human rights and arms control organizations working with international legal experts, the report said. The central aim is to provide a set of common minimum standards for the control of arms transfers, based firmly on a state's existing responsibilities under international law.
The groups urged Britain -- which they called the world's second largest arms exporter after the United States -- to lead the way in supporting the proposed treaty.
British Foreign Officer Minister Mike O'Brien said Britain has been at the forefront of international arms control efforts and has a tough export control system itself. But he praised the report about the misuse of small arms and light weapons around the world, and he said such an international treaty would be a worthwhile goal.
On the Net:
www.controlarms.org
www.amnesty.org
www.iansa.org
www.oxfam.org.uk
-------- balkans
Visiting the Vassals
Former Potentates Tour Balkans Sycophants
by Nebojsa Malic
October 9, 2003
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m100903.html
Following in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, two more former Imperial dignitaries have toured the occupied Balkans this past weekend. Onetime stepfather of Bosnia Richard Holbrooke and former Kosovo viceroy Bernard Kouchner visited Sarajevo and Pristina, reminiscing about their glory days. The adulation of local media and politicians must have made them believe they actually mattered once again, and they were even followed by an entourage of Western journalists for good measure.
This traveling circus of nostalgic former power-mongers underscored once again the nature of Imperial occupation, and highlighted the widespread sycophancy of petty Balkans tyrants towards the outsiders who keep them in power.
Holbrooke Unleashed
The publicity-grabbing former envoys' mission was to support local Imperial clients and campaign to "keep America in the Balkans" (NYT).
As usual, the abrasive and flamboyant Holbrooke hogged the limelight. In a commentary for Dnevni Avaz, a militant Bosnian Muslim daily, he denounced the ruling Bosnian Serb party as "Nazis who should disappear," and heaped praise on the ailing Muslim leader Izetbegovic as someone Bosnia "could not have existed without."
In another interview, for the daily Oslobodjenje, Holbrooke argued that Bosnia should have a "stronger central government" and called the Dayton Accord "a living document... a framework, not a straitjacket."
Kosovo Albanians got Holbrooke's support for independence and advice on how to improve their image by publicly denouncing the ongoing murders of Serbs.
Now, Holbrooke's sympathies for Izetbegovic and his cause are well-known, as they were published in his 1998 memoir. Nor are his sympathies for Kosovo Albanian militants a secret, not since his famous sit-down with the KLA when they were still mysterious bandits. He has advocated Kosovo independence before, most recently this July. The man is remarkably consistent for someone who believes in "living" Constitutions.
He is also utterly irrelevant - a former official of a former government, and widely loathed by his former State Department colleagues. As Serbia's deputy PM Nebojsa Covic commented in a rare moment of integrity, "Hoolbroke is a typical politician who lost his job, then came back to a conflict zone to try and find a new one." (Glas Javnosti, 7 October)
Political Marketing
Covic may be wrong about Holbrooke's lack of official capacity. While Kouchner is a member of the European Parliament, Holbrooke is officially a civilian. A question arises, then, as to who exactly paid for their extravaganza? Neither the US government nor the EU bureaucracy appears a likely candidate. Holbrooke and Kouchner might somehow be men of considerable means, but should hardly be able to afford such a trip. The New York Times provided the answer Wednesday: the private-jet tour was funded by "two private foundations," one of which remained anonymous, while the other was an American pseudo-governmental set up to campaign for the Empire. Suddenly the mission becomes much clearer... Holbrooke and Kouchner weren't looking for a new job - they already had one. If their remarks sounded just like paid celebrity endorsements, it is because they were.
For that matter, so was Clinton's speech in Srebrenica last month. Several Bosnian sources indicate that Clinton was paid $250,000 by the Muslim ethnic party, the SDA. His brief sojourn in Kosovo may have been funded by the Albanians in a similar fashion. Such "investments" tend to disparage the plaintive remarks about the crushing poverty of those Imperial protectorates, demonstrating that while the people of those democratic satrapies are indeed destitute, their rulers have no such troubles.
A Little Less Conversation
The way things are going, Kosovo Albanians could certainly use some good press. In just under a week, a "Kosovo" delegation led by the new viceroy Holkeri is supposed to meet with the highest Serbian officials, purportedly to discuss "technical issues" such as license plates. While official Belgrade looks forward to the meeting in Vienna, Albanians are not happy at all, and seek to delay or sabotage the talks.
It is hard to see why. Yes, the fact that Serbia is still invited to talk about its occupied province seems to counter the painstakingly crafted impression that Kosovo's separation was a fait accompli. Yet there is no indication that Serbia will be asked about anything more than the manner in which to renounce Kosovo.
Several sources have opined that the Vienna talks might open a way to final status negotiations. While this seems unlikely, any such talks would necessarily revolve around the present status of Kosovo: a territory almost ethnically purely Albanian, administered by the UN and NATO on behalf of the KLA and other Albanian separatists. Now, the Vienna talks will also be attended by EU and NATO bigwigs Javier Solana and George Robertson. They are both "heroes" of the 1999 war, and to some extent the architects of today's Kosovo. So what are the KLA afraid of?
There is one piece of the puzzle that does not fit. The EU agency in charge of selling off government property in Kosovo has just stopped the process, citing "legal problems." Could it be that the EU bureaucrats have finally realized they can't sell off property they have stolen through an illegal occupation? It would be too much to hope.
Either way, Kosovo Albanians are so distressed with their slip from Imperial graces - real or imagined - they have eagerly embraced Holbrooke's support as if it were official, and even made him an offer of "peacekeepers" for Iraq and Afghanistan.
A Vassal's Offering
What prompted "President" Rugova and KLA "general" Agim Ceku to offer their services was the news that Belgrade has offered some 700-1000 men for NATO's mission in Afghanistan. Truth be told, it would be far easier to imagine the KLA keeping the Pax Americana in Mesopotamia and Bactria than Serbian soldiers. Not because, as some have suggested, the Serbs' presence would "enrage Muslims," but because of everything that has happened between the Serbs and the Empire in the past decade or so.
Perhaps that is precisely what the ruling cabal in Belgrade had in mind when it made the offer: that an offer of cannon fodder to Washington could somehow overcome a decade of demonization. There is little chance of that, but it is far more likely that many of those who go will never return.
According to the New York Times, the US wanted "combat troops ready to take casualties," and the Dossie sycophants were happy to oblige. Serb troops would be based in Kandahar, a region rife with Muslim militants along the Pakistani border. The location makes casualties a certainty.
So, here is a defeated, dismembered, brainwashed, demonized and disappearing nation, offering its young men as a blood levy to its conqueror yet again. And the Empire-worshipping vermin have the nerve to claim it as a success!
Insult and Injury
Actually, the whole affair is even worse. Not only will Serbian troops be soldering thousands of miles from their homeland, for NATO - which bombed them in 1999 and still occupies a portion of their country - they will do so under German command.
Kaiser's Germany cruelly occupied Serbia from 1915 to 1918. Hitler's Germany did it again between 1941 and 1944, massacring entire towns and sponsoring a genocidal Croat regime that slaughtered Serbs wholesale. The current German government was a most enthusiastic supporter of the 1999 Kosovo war.
Not only are Germans not contrite about any of this, especially Kosovo, their Chancellor sees nothing wrong with coming to visit Serbia later this month. Schroeder must have figured that since French President Chirac and former NATO GenSec Javier Solana have already triumphantly paraded through Belgrade, he might as well follow their example.
And the DOS regime - remnants of a foreign-backed putsch led by the deposed and the dead - is welcoming him with open arms. Go figure.
Shills and Revelations
Despite their fraudulent claims of international respect, Dossie groveling before the Empire is inversely proportional to the amount of favor Serbia enjoys in Washington. It is obvious that the current rulers of Serbia are obsessed with winning - and staying in - Empire's good graces, no matter the cost (to their subjects, not them personally). However, they are by no means alone in this obsession. In the minds of former Yugoslavs - and many other a nation in the world - even the illusion of Washington's blessing equals the divine dispensation of ancient kings.
One example is the recent visit of the Bosnian Croat leader and current chairman of Bosnia's tri-partite Presidium to the US, during which he met with government officials, Croat lobbyists and supporters in Congress. Soon thereafter, a professional Croat apologist published a commentary in the Washington Times, urging support for Croatia's annexation of Bosnian Croat lands and its role as a "bulwark of Christianity" against the bloodthirsty Muslim terrorist hordes and mass-murdering Serbian barbarians.
Ironically, there were several morsels of truth, and even an inkling of logic, somewhere in the middle of the specious screed. They were wrapped in such exaggerated nonsense, though, that a Reuters commentator had a field day denouncing it all as malicious fabrications. In a piece co-written by one Muslim and two Albanian correspondents, one Mr. Hamilton claims there is absolutely no terrorism in the Balkans (ha!), while the paragons of tolerance that are Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians worship America with everlasting gratitude, rather than plot its demise; those who claim otherwise are simply vile nationalists. Of course, they say, both Muslims and Albanians know that "tolerating extremism" would be the sure way to "kill U.S. support for united Bosnia and Kosovo's hopes of independence from Serbia."
Oops. So there is such support, then? There goes plausible deniability. Fervor often makes for such rash confessions.
Futile Sycophancy
Its military power has established the Empire as the supreme arbiter in the former Yugoslavia, much as Tito used to be in the Old Days. Eagerness to gain the hegemon's favor is a natural reflex of servile governments, perfectly exemplified by the current ex-Yugoslav regimes. To compensate for their international sniveling, they are predictably callous and abusive towards their own populations.
Everything points to the conclusion that foreign policy of Yugoslavia's successors has become focused solely on currying favor with the Empire. Those who have such favor (Bosnian Muslims, Albanians) seek to keep it, those who lost it (Croats) seek to regain it, and those who didn't have it at all (Serbs) seek to gain it. Such is this obsession that even former representatives of Imperial power such as Clinton, Holbrooke and Kouchner, are worshipped by groveling vassals when they drop by for a visit.
Yet whatever the ex-Yugoslavs do will make little difference. Certainly, there is no shortage of kind words for the sycophants, but the Empire always ends up doing whatever favors the expansion of its power at any given moment. Some high-ranking individuals may harbor paid sympathies that color their actions and judgment, but the machine as a whole is indifferent to anyone's cause but its own.
That cause has already destroyed the lives of many Balkan inhabitants, even as it has enriched their petty tyrants. But it is only a matter of time before those tyrants learn that Imperial support won't always be there, and to their great detriment.
-------- britain / ireland
Ireland's unhappy troops pull back from protest action
DUBLIN (AFP)
Oct 09, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031009145056.uifmydp1.html
Soldiers, sailors and airmen in Ireland retreated Thursday from a threat to protest against cutbacks in the armed forces, union leaders said.
Delegates to a meeting of the Permanent Defence Forces Other Ranks Representative Association voted by 42-30 to remit a motion on industrial action to its executive council.
General secretary Gerry Rooney said there would be regional discussions with members, and the motion could be considered at any time.
The association, which represents some 10,000 members of Ireland's armed forces, was set up in 1990 and until now it has never voted to defy a ban on strike action.
In recent years the Irish military has been slimmed down from 14,000 personnel, and the association says Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's government now is backing off a promise to keep the strength at 10,750 until 2010.
A spokesman for the association alleged that the Irish government was, without consultation, going to cut that number down by axing 250 slots for personnel in training.
"We seem to be regarded as an easy target for economies," he said.
-------- business
Junkie Justice
Are drug addicts covered under the ADA?
By Dahlia Lithwick
Wednesday, October 8, 2003
http://slate.msn.com/id/2089534/
Raytheon v. Hernandez is the sort of case the Warren Court lived to hear: An old-fashioned sob story about a broken victim and the soulless corporation that wouldn't cut him a break. On one side, Joel Hernandez, recovering addict fighting for his old job after he finds God and gets sober. On the other, Raytheon, huge defense contractor, which-along with the federal government-is defending its no-second-chances-for-cokeheads policy. Hernandez is, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed from the word go. His case is being argued by his Phoenix trial attorney, while Raytheon is represented by D.C.'s Carter Phillips, one of those appellate Harlem Globetrotters who's spinning-the-ball-on-his-finger-while-tap-dancing-and-talking-Urdu magnificent. Hernandez's brief in the case is, well, not good. And Justices David Souter and Stephen Breyer-who tend to side with the sad sack-both recuse themselves for unexplained reasons.
You might think the Supreme Court would treat all these imbalances and disparities with compassion: Put a wee thumb on the scale for the little guy. But this is a court of tough guys and just-the-facts. Unless the facts are the problem.
The facts: Hernandez worked for Hughes Missile Systems (later acquired by Raytheon) for 25 years. He started as janitor, working his way up to technician. He got in trouble in 1986 for absenteeism and admitted to being an alcoholic. He underwent treatment, fell off the wagon and-after going on a bender in 1991-tested positive for cocaine. He resigned in lieu of termination, and a note to that effect went on his file. It did not specify that he was an addict. Hernandez bottomed out, gave up drugs, and joined AA. In 1994, he asked for his job back.
Hughes rejected his application immediately. Hernandez says this was because he was an addict. Hughes says it was because of their unwritten zero-tolerance policy of never rehiring employees terminated for misconduct. Hernandez sued Hughes under the Americans With Disabilities Act claiming his application was rejected as a result of his drug use, which constitutes discrimination.
The case never went to trial. The district court granted summary judgment for Hughes-meaning the judge felt there was no genuine factual issue for trial
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg agrees, noting that the "record is suspicious" on whether there even was a no-rehire policy and whether it was "applied with an even hand." These are facts for a jury, she says, they cannot be decided by courts of appeals. Phillips insists that there is no dispute that the policy exists, pointing to Footnote 17 in the 9th Circuit opinion, which seems to concede this point. ("There is no question that Hughes applied this policy in rejecting Hernandez's application.") Here he gets flustered (or as flustered as a Carter Phillips can get), calling Ginsburg, "O'Connor." After years of O'Connor as swing justice, most oral advocates have learned to start every sentence with "Yes, Justice O'Connor," regardless of who is posing the question. We call it cutting out the middlemen ...
Phillips closes by noting that the only way the 9th Circuit could decide as they did was by believing that the Hughes employee who rejected Hernandez's application "flat-out lied" when she testified at deposition that she never knew about his addiction and simply rejected him based on his prior termination and the no-rehire policy.
Paul Clement from the solicitor general's office gets 10 minutes to defend Raytheon. He admits upfront that he doesn't much care whether this case goes to trial, so long as the high court vacates the 9th Circuit ruling that every zero-tolerance policy violates the ADA. The whole summary judgment issue is distracting from Clement's real concern: That this broader opinion get off the books.
Stephen G. Montoya represents Hernandez, and he gets into hot water when Justice Antonin Scalia asks him to reconcile his contention that Hughes had a no-rehire policy with Reinhardt's Footnote 17, finding they did. "I can't," confesses Montoya, and it is indeed unfair that the 9th Circuit decided the case on a different theory than his own. The court wants Montoya to argue Reinhardt's theory. Montoya wants simply to convince them that Hughes' policy was a pretext. Montoya squirms while Scalia levels with him: "We didn't take this case to decide whether or not there was a policy," he says. "We assume the policy exists. It's an important proposition, whether such a policy violates the ADA. You care about it, I know. But that's not what's important to us." It takes a brave man to screw the little guy, but it takes a braver one to tell him that he's totally immaterial to the case he's brought.
Finally, the court seems to agree that Hernandez has never even recovered from his cocaine addiction, and this bit is so depressing, I can only quote it for you:
Ginsburg points out that Hernandez's proof that he's no longer a drug addict consists of a letter from his pastor and another letter from his AA counselor. "There's not one thing here that says he's not addicted to cocaine," she notes.
Montoya tries to parse the letter: "[I]n recovery for addiction," he quotes, noting that addiction includes cocaine.
Ginsburg: If I get a letter from an AA counselor, I assume it's an alcoholic.
Montoya: If you construe the facts in favor of the nonmoving party ...
Scalia: The inference you want us to construe is that "alcohol" means "other than alcohol."
So Montoya points out that the letter discusses Hernandez's "sobriety."
Scalia: Sober refers to drunkenness.
Rehnquist: A drug addict is stoned.
Do these guys have the drug lingo down or what?
Then Ginsburg chides Montoya for failing to file interrogatories to determine whether, in fact, the unwritten no-rehire policy ever existed. If they lose on Montoya's theory, she implies, it's Montoya's own fault.
So let's recap: We were supposed to be hearing a case about whether blanket bans on rehiring drug-addicted workers violate the ADA. But instead, we go nine rounds on whether the plaintiff is recovered enough to be discriminated against as an addict, under a policy that may or may not have existed, for purposes of a law that plainly cannot protect him.
It's a good thing Joel Hernandez has found Jesus. Because the meek and downtrodden are not the concern of the court today.
Correction, Oct. 9, 2003: Summary judgment is granted where a judge finds no material issue of fact in dispute. (Return to corrected sentence here.)
--------
Spending On Iraq Sets Off Gold Rush
Lawmakers Fear U.S. Is Losing Control of Funds
By Jonathan Weisman and Anitha Reddy
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 9, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A496-2003Oct8?language=printer
As the House today takes up President Bush's $87 billion spending request for Iraq and Afghanistan, the debate over the bill is increasingly focused not just on the amount of money but also on who will get it.
Of the $4 billion a month already being spent in Iraq, as much as a third is going to the private contractors who have flooded into the country, said Deborah D. Avant, a political scientist at George Washington University and an expert in the new breed of private military companies. The flow of money will increase greatly if Congress approves Bush's request.
Many of the services being sought -- including police training, crimes-against-humanity investigations and prison-construction expertise -- are highly specialized. Conditions are dangerous. Experts say American taxpayers can expect to pay a hefty premium to contractors in a classic seller's market.
Among the dozens of projects in the proposal is a State Department plan to spend $800 million to build a large training facility for a new Iraqi police force. Management fees alone would run $26 million a month, while 1,500 police trainers would cost $240,000 each per year, or $20,000 each per month. DynCorp of Reston is likely to get the contract.
"All I can say is it's mind-boggling," James Lyons, a former military subcontractor in Bosnia, said of the opportunities for private contractors. "People must be drooling."
Avant said that as many as 1 in 10 Americans deployed in Iraq and Kuwait -- perhaps 20,000 -- are contractors, a group larger than any of the military forces fielded there by Britain or other U.S. allies. Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Vice President Cheney's former firm, Houston-based Halliburton Corp., has an exclusive contract to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure. San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp. is the prime contractor for much of the infrastructure reconstruction.
The Iraqi gold rush has raised concerns on Capitol Hill that the administration may be losing control of the taxpayers' money. As the task of rebuilding shifts from government employees to for-profit contractors, members of Congress are worried that their oversight will diminish, cost controls will weaken and decisions about security, training and the shape of the new Iraqi government will be in the hands of people with financial stakes in the outcome. Avant calls it "the commercialization of foreign policy."
The Coalition Provisional Authority is bolstering its contracting operations to keep up with the flow of money from Washington, congressional aides said, but lawmakers still complain that the process of bidding out and awarding contracts and subcontracts needs to be far more transparent and organized.
"What we're seeing is waste and gold-plating that's enriching Halliburton and Bechtel while costing taxpayers billions of dollars and actually holding back the pace of reconstruction in Iraq," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a leading critic of the administration's handling of Iraq. "We need greater transparency."
Driven by those concerns, the Senate last week added provisions to its version of the president's request that would increase penalties for war profiteering and demand a more open and competitive bidding system.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) included a provision to limit noncompetitive bidding in the House version of the war-spending bill.
Dan Senor, a senior adviser to Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer, said such concerns are misplaced. He said competition among contractors would keep costs down.
"We are confident that there will be an enormous supply of contractors and subcontractors interested in these projects," he said. "That's what our experience has shown."
But Senor also emphasized that the authority's primary contracting concerns right now are speed and reducing the pressure on U.S. troops by replacing them with contractors wherever possible.
For example, Fairfax-based Vinnell Corp., a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corp., won a $48 million contract in July to begin training a new Iraqi army, a sum that would be dwarfed by the $164 million for military contract training contained in Bush's $87 billion request. Vinnell, in turn, subcontracted with Alexandria-based Military Professional Resources Inc. and several other companies.
Erinys, a British company with offices in the Middle East and South Africa, is guarding oil fields and pipelines that are in danger from saboteurs.
Custer Battles LLC, another Fairfax company, is providing security for Baghdad International Airport, guarding ground convoys and protecting other contractors with 250 employees who served in the U.S., Nepalese, British, French and Australian military, joined by 300 to 400 Iraqis, said Scott Custer, a principal of the firm. Those numbers, he said, are "expanding exponentially."
"Iraqi operations are now the majority of our business," Custer said yesterday.
Those contracts are only the beginning. Edwin E. Brockway, a manager in the defense and federal products division of the construction-equipment company Caterpillar Inc., said 500 to 600 of his company's machines are already in Iraq. He said he expects Caterpillar to receive many more orders for bulldozers and pipe layers as private companies win contracts to rebuild Iraq's sewer systems, water-purification plants and roads. The bulldozers used by soldiers in Iraq range in price from $100,000 to nearly $1 million, and the Army hires service companies to repair and maintain the equipment.
Engineered Support Systems Inc. estimated that the military is using 4,000 of its gigantic portable air conditioners and heaters in tents and portable shelters in Iraq. Each unit costs $11,000 and can heat or cool a few thousand square feet.
"The Army and Air Force have said, 'How many more can you build? How quickly can you build them?' " said Bruce Gibbens, director of field marketing for the St. Louis company.
Congressional aides from both parties point to the police-training program to illustrate their concerns. DynCorp, a subsidiary of California-based Computer Sciences Corp., landed the initial police-training contract this summer, a contract that is likely to expand greatly if all $800 million is approved. The State Department envisions establishing a training camp capable of handling 3,000 recruits and 1,000 trainers and support staff at any given time. The camp would turn out 35,000 Iraqi police officers in just two years.
DynCorp has begun recruiting 1,000 "police advisors" with at least 10 years of experience in law enforcement or corrections, an "unblemished background" and "excellent health." The draw? DynCorp plans to pay salaries as high as $153,600, with minimum pay of $75,076.92.
DynCorp declined to comment on the contract, referring calls to the State Department.
"The money is pretty good," said Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, an Alexandria-based trade group of private military companies. "But the risk is there, too."
Brooks said fears of price gouging are overblown. Erinys, the British firm guarding oil facilities, won its $30 million security contract by underbidding its competition by $10 million, he said.
"Yes, there are a lot of security companies there," he said. "But I know quite a few that are still waiting for contracts. If one company asks a gouging price, there's going to be another in line."
--------
Feeling Insecure About Uncle Sam
By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post TechNews.com
Thursday, October 9, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A865-2003Oct8.html
Jared Goodman thinks it's more than a little ironic that a bomb scare occurred during the National Summit on Security last week at the Washington Convention Center. There was no bomb, of course, and the show itself was something of a bust, said Goodman, an account representative for View Systems Inc., a Baltimore weapons-detection company.
"It was distressing, to say the least. At a security conference, how could there be a scare like that?" Goodman asked. The evacuation was triggered by a trained Army dog that smelled something suspicious, conference officials said.
It was a disappointing end to a disappointing event for many of the vendors.
Held in Washington for the first time ever, the conference was meant to be an opportunity for the industry to show its latest and greatest technologies to government officials who hold the keys to monstrous security budgets. But the droves of federal buyers never materialized, and Uncle Sam's appetite for revolutionary widgets has disappointed many of the techies who figured homeland security dollars into their business plans.
The biannual conference attracted 4,000 to 4,500 people, compared with the 12,000 to 15,000 who normally attend a more commercially focused version of the event held each March in Las Vegas, said Dave Saddler, associate executive director of the Security Industry Association, a sponsor of the conference
"We didn't get quite the attendance from the government sector that we wanted. There is just a lot of information coming at these people, and it's up to organizations like ours to differentiate the companies," said Saddler. "The reception from them is a little slower than hoped. Educating this market is a process like anything else."
Overall the security industry, which includes companies that manufacture and install security products as well as those that provide services, has grown annually by 15 to 20 percent since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But that growth was mostly due to increased business from private industry clients, said Saddler.
Some sectors of the security business have seen an uptick in government business since the attacks, particularly those that provide security services or integrate various security products and systems. But many firms that make facial-recognition technology, movement sensors and other high-tech security products, so far, have benefited little from the government's homeland security push.
Michael S. Harper, president and chief executive of Vienna-based BNX Systems Inc., is disappointed that the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies have not purchased more biometric systems to scan fingerprints. BNX, which sells software to control the systems attached to those scanners, has received a warmer reception from financial and health care companies than federal agencies over the past two years.
"The initial spending had to be hiring people with guns and putting up fences," Harper said of the government's security priorities.
(In fact Dario Marquez, president of MVM Inc., a Vienna security staffing firm, said that his company's annual revenue has jumped to $165 million this year from $50 million before the terrorist attacks and that 90 percent of MVM's guards are protecting federal buildings.)
Goodman said he had plenty of time to get to know his neighboring vendors while manning the View Systems booth last week but would have liked a little more face time with government representatives. His company makes detectors like those used at schools and airports. But he says his machines are not triggered by harmless items like belt buckles and do not emit rays that are harmful to pregnant women or people with pacemakers.
What firms originally thought was "Wow, Homeland Security has a $36 billion budget -- I'm going to go get me some of that," said David M. Nadler, chairman of the Northern Virginia Technology Council's business-to-government committee. "But what they are realizing now is that money isn't ready to be doled out just yet," he said.
Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said: "There are all sorts of contracts that are being looked at, but remember, the department was only set up a few months ago. As far as money is concerned it's just now beginning to flow out to the private sectors. We're one week into our new fiscal year and there is a substantial amount of money for new technology projects in our [fiscal 2004] budget."
And that's exactly the type of statement BNX's Harper loves to hear. BNX Systems is not yet profitable, Harper said, but he expects that to change in the next couple years, hopefully in part because of government spending.
"It just takes a little while for new technology to get through the government budgeting cycle," Harper conceded.
--------
Panel Asked To Review Air Force Lease Plan
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page E04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A863-2003Oct8.html
The House Armed Services Committee, which in July approved an Air Force plan to lease 100 refueling planes from Boeing Co., should take another look at the issue in light of recent questions raised about the deal, a committee member said yesterday.
Rep. Victor F. Snyder (D-Ark.) said he did not know whether the lease-buy strategy should be approved but he was concerned that the committee acted before the latest information had become available. "In light of our responsibility to our constituents to oversee military spending and ensure that tax money is spent wisely, I think another hearing on the subject is the best course to follow," Snyder said in a statement.
Snyder sent a letter to the chairman of the committee, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), requesting a hearing. Another high-ranking Democrat on the committee has made a similar request, according to a congressional source.
Since the committee approved the deal, the Congressional Budget Office has said leasing the planes would be $5.7 billion more expensive than buying them outright, and the Senate Commerce Committee has released hundreds of pages of internal Boeing documents, some of which have spurred an investigation by the Pentagon inspector general's office.
The House Armed Services Committee approved the plan to lease and then buy 100 of the planes, which can refuel fighter jets in flight, in late July, but there was no public vote. Hunter issued a statement that he was "endorsing the proposal" and notified the Air Force of his action. It is unclear whether the committee could reverse the decision after another hearing.
"We're not sure there is much more to examine on this issue. While a purchase of the tankers would be ideal, there are many constraints in the defense budget," said Harald Stavenas, a committee spokesman.
The deal has been stalled by the Senate Armed Services Committee, the lone panel with jurisdiction over the issue yet to approve it. Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the committee, has said he will wait until the General Accounting Office and the Congressional Budget Office finish analyzing his proposal to scale back the lease-purchase strategy before scheduling a vote.
Warner wants the Air Force to lease up to 25 of the planes and buy the rest through the traditional procurement process. The Air Force has said the alternate plan would save money but delay the deployment of the planes. One of the chief objectives of the lease-buy strategy is to ensure swift delivery of the aircraft.
The Air Force wants to push ahead with its current contract to lease 100 of the Boeing 767s and pay off 26 of the leases early, saving money on interest payments. The current fleet of tankers is more than 40 years old and has become increasingly expensive to maintain, Air Force officials said. Given current budget constraints, the planes are too expensive to buy outright, making a lease the only way the Air Force can afford them on an accelerated schedule, the officials said.
-------- colombia
Bomb in Colombian Capital Kills 6, Wounds 19
October 9, 2003
By JUAN FORERO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/international/americas/09COLO.html
BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Oct. 8 - A car bomb exploded in a crowded commercial district here in the country's capital on Wednesday morning, killing 6 people and injuring 19, the Metropolitan Police said. The explosion, the most deadly in Bogotá since 36 people died in February in a bombing at an elite social club, raised new fears of an urban bombing campaign in Colombia's simmering civil conflict.
Government officials called the attack a terror bombing by one of Colombia's three insurgent groups - either one of two leftist rebel organizations or a right-wing paramilitary group.
"We do not know which group to blame yet, but without a doubt it is one of the terrorist groups that is responsible," said Martha Lucía Ramírez, the defense minister.
Colombia's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, is often blamed for detonating bombs in rural regions, including a bomb in a nightclub in Florencia last month that killed 12 people. The group was also responsible for the 330-pound bomb that killed 36 and wounded 160 on Feb. 7 at the Nogal Club in Bogotá.
But today, police officials said they were also considering whether paramilitaries might have set off the bomb in reaction to a recent police crackdown in the commercial district, San Andresito.
The bomb on Wednesday, 100 pounds of explosive packed into an old jeep, sent shrapnel flying and pedestrians running in horror in front of a commercial building filled with stores selling electronics, CD's, clothing, shoes and liquor. The bomb went off at 7:50 a.m. after two policemen, responding to a report of a suspicious car, arrived at the scene on their motorbike.
Authorities said the policemen were killed, as well as four civilians, including a 62-year-old woman who sold orange juice on a street corner. The police motorbike lay overturned on the street, the jeep was turned into a mangled wreck and the windows of buildings were shattered.
Mayor Antanas Mockus announced new checkpoints around the city, and said 650 policemen would be assigned to patrol busy streets where cars packed with bombs could be parked. He also announced a reward of $16,000 for information leading to the arrest of the bombers.
--------
Bombing in Bogota Market Kills at Least Six
Associated Press
Thursday, October 9, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A210-2003Oct8.html
BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct. 8 -- A car bomb exploded Wednesday morning in a black-market shopping district in downtown Bogota, killing at least six people and wounding 12 as employees were arriving for the start of the workday.
The explosion in the San Andresito shopping area was the first in the Colombian capital since a car bomb destroyed an exclusive social and sports club on Feb. 7, killing 36 people and wounding 160.
Leftist rebels were accused in the February bombing, but authorities did not immediately blame them for Wednesday's attack, which may have been part of an extortion plot.
The bomb, packed inside a jeep, exploded as two police officers approached it after residents complained about the suspicious vehicle, said Gen. Jorge Daniel Castro, Bogota's police chief.
The blast killed both policemen and four civilians, Mayor Antanas Mockus said. He said 12 people were wounded.
"This is an unacceptable act of terrorism," Mockus said.
Castro said the bomb apparently was placed to maximize casualties.
"This is a strategic, busy place with a lot of commercial business, and it appears they strategically selected it to create this impact," the police chief said.
Teodora Lagos, a cleaning woman, was going to her job at a nearby bank when the explosion rocked the neighborhood with a thunderous blast that shattered windows and hurled debris at least a block.
"We all ran out, and looked around. There was smoke everywhere," Lagos said. "I saw four dead people, including the woman who sells coffee here."
The neighborhood is filled with stores selling electronics, clothing and liquor -- much of it contraband.
The vendors often are targeted by violent criminals seeking protection money. Police said members of a right-wing paramilitary group recently have been muscling their way into San Andresito and extorting shopkeepers.
-------- iraq
Iraqi Leaders Condemn Plan for Troops From Turkey
October 9, 2003
New York Times
By IAN FISHER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/international/middleeast/09IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 8 - The prospect of the deployment of Turkish troops in Iraq provoked an unusually vocal reaction Wednesday from Iraq's interim leaders, who are publicly breaking with their American backers on the issue by saying they do not want soldiers from neighboring countries meddling in their affairs.
But members of the Iraqi Governing Council also said they wanted to avoid full-scale confrontation on an issue the Americans feel strongly about and would win anyway. Rather, council members said on Wednesday night, they intend to limit their public protest to a unanimous statement against stationing any Turkish troops here while working quietly to gain concessions from Americans that may soften Iraqis' worries.
"To be realistic - and I'm sorry to say it - we don't have full sovereignty," said Wael Abdul Latif, a member of the council, which was appointed by the Americans. "Security is one of the main tasks of the occupation forces."
On Tuesday, the Turkish Parliament approved sending troops to Iraq, though the exact details will be negotiated in several weeks.
The decision represented a victory for the Bush administration, which lobbied hard for it and has been eager for help in Iraq from any quarter but especially from a Muslim country. Turkey is offering as many as 10,000 troops, and most Turks are Sunni Muslims and their troops would likely be stationed in the fractious Sunni areas west of Baghdad that have been the spots of greatest difficulty for American soldiers.
Even while Turkish public opinion seems largely opposed to the deployment, Turkey's leaders have pushed it for numerous reasons. It is a way to mend fences with the White House after the Turkish Parliament decided last spring, at the last minute, to bar the Americans from attacking Iraq from Turkey. Sending troops also gives Turkey some say in the future of its large neighbor to the south, containing Kurdish rebel groups and heading off any future Kurdish state.
But Iraqis themselves seem widely opposed to the presence of Turkish troops, and Governing Council members say they have repeatedly raised the issue with American officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
On Thursday, all 24 council members are expected to release a statement condemning the deployment. The 25th member, Akila al-Hashimi, was assassinated last month.
"The majority of Iraqi people will not be happy to see troops from a neighboring country here," said Rowach Shaways, who is representing Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, in the council while Mr. Barzani is out of Iraq. "And I think it is essential that the Iraqi people know the Governing Council's position on this."
The Turkish presence stirs the greatest concern among the Kurds, who have suffered at the Turks' hands over the years and who continue to view Turkey as a threat. Many other Iraqis oppose a Turkish presence out of historical resentment over 400 years of rule by the Ottoman Empire. More immediately, council members said, they do not want troops from any of Iraq's neighbors, even if it seems unlikely that Washington would seek help from Iran and Syria.
"It's not against Turkey," said an aide to a top council member. "But if it's Turkey today, who's next? Syria? Iran? Jordan?"
The public statement, according to one council member, will make three points: that placing more foreign troops in Iraq does not represent a move toward greater Iraqi sovereignty; that Turkey had promised not to send troops without consulting the council; and that neighboring countries should limit their involvement in Iraq to civil projects, like reconstruction.
However gingerly worded, such a statement would seem to put the council on the path of direct opposition to the Americans who appointed them. Council members held long discussions on the issue today with L. Paul Bremer III, the American civilian administrator in Iraq, who members said strongly supported a Turkish presence.
But several council members said Wednesday that they wanted to avoid a direct confrontation with Mr. Bremer and the Bush administration, a fight they said could undermine the council's authority in other areas.
"We will not allow ourselves to be in a confrontational position," said Mowafak al-Rubaie, a council member, who characterized as "candid" the meeting with Mr. Bremer. "We have to find ways and means of cooperating collegially, cordially and finding middle ground."
At any rate, council members said, the United Nations Security Council ceded to the United States all decisions about security in Iraq - meaning that the Governing Council exercises no direct authority on military matters.
While several members said it was too early to discuss specifics, they said a deal might be possible to allay some of the concerns. One possibility, they said, is to declare Kurdish areas strictly off limits or deny Turkey the right to conduct operations against rebellious Turkish Kurds based in northern Iraq, a likely Turkish request.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, more than 1,000 Shiite Muslims protested in front of occupation authority's headquarters in downtown Baghdad, marching, chanting and blocking off streets as they demanded the release of a Shiite cleric arrested Monday. The cleric, Moayed al-Khazraji, was arrested for what the military would say only were unspecified "anticoalition activities."
The military also announced on Wednesday that it had uncovered three large weapons caches north of Baghdad, which included 49 Russian-made SA-2 antiaircraft missiles and 50 tank shells. Also, an American soldier was reported to have been wounded overnight by a roadside bomb near the town of Balad, north of Baghdad.
----
Coalition says hundreds of surface-to-air missiles in Iraq
BAGHDAD (AFP)
Oct 09, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031009144143.ghejrsvx.html
There are hundreds of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles scattered around Iraq, a coalition official said Thursday on condition of anonymity.
The missiles have targeted coalition aircraft at least six or seven times since the official end of hostilities on May 1, the official told AFP.
However, the coalition tally is said to be far lower than the actual number, a humanitarian agency official told AFP.
There have been at least 19 surface-to-air missile attacks on planes flying into Baghdad international airport since May, the humanitarian official said, requesting anonymity.
The failure to secure the area around the airport has been one of the main reasons for the delay in the airport's opening for commercial travel, with the exception of chartered flights for diplomats, aid workers and journalists.
Russian-made SAM-7s are the missile of choice in Iraq, the coalition official said.
On Wednesday, US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel George Krivo said 320 SAM-7 missiles have been turned in to the coalition, which is paying 500 dollars for every one handed in.
The weapons are evidence of the abundance of readily available arsenal left behind in Iraq with the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the top US military commander in Iraq, conceded last week it was impossible for his soldiers to fully guard the hundreds of weapons depots remaining from Saddam's time.
The US military seizes major weapons caches every day, including plastic explosives, ammunition, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and surface-to-air missiles, without making any real dent in the ability of Saddam loyalists and other resistance fighters to battle US soldiers.
Shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles have been used by international terrorist groups. Last November, two SAM-7s were fired at an Israeli jetliner flying out of Mombasa, Kenya, but missed their target, in an attack that was timed to coincide with a car bomb at a hotel resort.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Says Syrian Base Was Empty When Hit
By GAVIN RABINOWITZ
Associated Press Writer
Oct 9, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/ISRAEL_SYRIA?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
JERUSALEM (AP) -- The occupants of a suspected Islamic Jihad training camp in Syria were out on maneuvers when the empty base was hit by an Israeli airstrike, Israel's defense minister told a Cabinet meeting, according to a government official.
Meanwhile, a top Shiite cleric in Lebanon accused the United States of conspiring with Israel to strike Syria and urged Arabs to revive an economic boycott of the Jewish state.
In the pre-dawn raid Sunday, Israeli warplanes bombed the Ein Saheb camp about 15 miles northwest of the Syrian capital of Damascus, the first Israeli attack deep inside Syria since the 1973 Mideast war.
One person was wounded in the raid, Syrian officials said. Officials and residents who live near the base said it had been abandoned for years.
The airstrike came in retaliation for a Palestinian suicide bombing attack on a restaurant in the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Saturday that killed 19 Israelis and was claimed by the Islamic Jihad.
Israel charged that Syria was partly responsible for the bombing, since Islamic Jihad had offices in Damascus and Syria supports the group. Syria has said it closed the offices of extremist Palestinian groups.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Cabinet on Wednesday that the base was still operational, but most of the camp's occupants were out on training exercises at the time of the attack, a government official said. Mofaz said only a few administrative workers were left behind.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the decision to hit the camp was made by the Cabinet during a Sept. 11 meeting called to decide on a response to two suicide bombings that killed 15 Israelis two days earlier.
More than 400 Israelis have been killed in 103 suicide bombings in three years of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Most of the bombings were carried out by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Israel said the targeted base was used for weapons training by Islamic Jihad and other pro-Palestinian militant groups under Syrian supervision and with Iranian funding. The Palestinian group denied that it has bases in Syria.
In Beirut, Grand Ayatollah Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah claimed the bombing raid in Syria had been planned in "American and Israeli circles" a long time ago, and that Israel waited for the "right political time" to strike after receiving the "American green light."
U.S. officials say Israel did not inform Washington in advance of its retaliatory strike, though President Bush said Israel's airstrike was part of an "essential" campaign to defend the country against terrorism.
Fadlallah, 68, enjoys wide respect among Shiites in the Arab world and is the top religious authority for Lebanon's 1.2 million Shiites. His rank of grand ayatollah is the highest a Shiite cleric can attain.
During the Lebanese civil war of 1975-90, Fadlallah was linked to the militant group Hezbollah, which kidnapped Westerners and bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Subsequently, Fadlallah moved away from Hezbollah.
Associated Press reporter Hussein Dakroub in Beirut contributed to this report.
-------- mideast
Strike again and we will strike back, Syria vows
October 9, 2003
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/08/1065601914188.html
Syria's ambassador to Spain said yesterday that Syria would respond militarily if Israel continued to carry out attacks in its territory, as Israel released a map claiming to pinpoint the homes and offices of militants in Damascus.
The ambassador, Mohsen Bilal, said: "If Israel attacks Syria one, two and three times, of course the people of Syria and the Government of Syria and the army will react to defend ourselves."
The Israeli Army said on Tuesday its map was intended to illustrate the extent of the "Terror Network in the Damascus Region". It came as the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, said Israel would attack its enemies "any place, and in any way".
On Sunday, Israeli planes bombed what the Israeli military said was a training camp for Palestinian militants near Damascus, after a suicide bomber killed 19 people in Haifa. Syria said the target of the Damascus strike was a civilian site.
The Israeli Army map shows the alleged locations of the homes of the Hamas leaders Mousa Abu Marzook and Khaled Mashal, Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shallah and Ahmed Jibril, chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command.
It also shows 10 sites in Damascus the army claims are the political, military and in some cases media offices for these organisations.
"This step shows that Israel plans to press ahead with its assassinations policy and to give it an international dimension," an unidentified Palestinian official said. Another official in Syria said it was a "cheap form of blackmail against Syria because it refuses to bow to US and Israeli pressure".
Hamas and Islamic Jihad sources in the West Bank and Gaza Strip said Abu Marzook, Mashal and Shallah moved between Damascus and Beirut for "security reasons".
Syria, which has been under intense US pressure to expel militant groups, says Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups maintain only media offices in Damascus.
"The map is proof of the extensive presence of Palestinian terror groups in Syria," an Israeli security source said. "Everyone that is involved in terror and endangers the lives of Israeli citizens is not immune."
Mr Sharon took a tough line on Tuesday but made no specific threats. "Israel will not be deterred from defending its citizens and will hit its enemies any place and in any way," he said in a speech broadcast from a military cemetery in Jerusalem. "We will not miss any opening and opportunity to reach an agreement with our neighbours and peace."
The United States President, George Bush, confirmed his insistence that Mr Sharon had the right to defend Israel.
"The decisions that he makes to defend her people are valid decisions. We would be doing the same thing," he said.
Analysts see Israel stepping up its campaign to pressure Syria to cut links with Palestinian militant groups and expect more clashes with Hezbollah guerillas on the border with Lebanon, where Syria acts as the main powerbroker. But they expect it to stop short of war.
The Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, was defiant in the wake of the Israeli air raid.
"We can, with full confidence, say that what happened will only make Syria's role more effective and influential," he told the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat. "We are not a superpower, but we are not a weak state either. We're not a country without cards . . . We are not a state that can be ignored."
Reuters, The Guardian
----
U.S. set to impose sanctions on Syria
October 09, 2003
By Stephen Dinan and David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20031008-113654-3873r.htm
The United States took steps toward imposing sanctions on Syria yesterday, with the Bush administration dropping its opposition and a key House panel voting to penalize the Arab nation until it expels terrorists and limits its weapons programs.
The House International Relations Committee passed the bill on a 33-2 vote, and lawmakers said that with the White House no longer objecting to the bill, it has a strong chance of becoming law.
"I think for the first time the Congress is saying enough is enough," said Rep. Eliot L. Engel, New York Democrat and one of the chief sponsors of the bill. "We're fighting the war on terror, and here is a country in my opinion that has a worse record on terror than even Iraq."
The measure prevents sales of "dual-use" technology to Syria. It also requires that the president impose two other sanctions of his choice from among a list that includes prohibiting trade other than food or medicine, restricting diplomatic contacts, preventing Syrian airlines from entering U.S. airspace and prohibiting U.S. firms from operating in Syria.
To lift the sanctions, the president must certify that Syria has expelled terrorists, withdrawn troops from Lebanon, ended its missile and chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, and ceased supporting insurgents in Iraq.
Alternately, the president can waive the sanctions if he deems it in U.S. security interests, but he cannot waive the prohibition on selling dual-use items.
U.S. trade with Syria is relatively small. Syria imports about $275 million in goods from the United States, and exports about $150 million to America. But lawmakers said the goal is to show Syria that after so many years, actions have consequences.
"The current Syrian regime just isn't an ally in the war on terror," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, in a statement. "It's time Congress started identifying the initial consequences for Syria's hostility."
The Bush administration, which had opposed the bill for fear it would limit the president's foreign-policy options, yesterday announced at both the White House and the State Department that it has dropped its objection.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell bluntly warned Syrian President Bashar Assad during a visit in May that there was growing sentiment in Congress for punitive action against Damascus over Syria's continuing support of terrorist groups targeting Israel.
"We had told the Syrians that this type of move was likely, that we expected to see it," Mr. Boucher said.
"And frankly, the Syrians have done so little with regard to terrorism that we don't have a lot to work with," he said. "There's no particular reason or facts that one could go back to the Congress with and say, 'This is a bad idea.'"
Mr. Boucher said the State Department will still have to review the final version of the bill if and when it is presented to the full House. But Rep. Tom Lantos, California Democrat and ranking member on the committee, said dropping its objection was an implicit endorsement from the administration.
One House source said the administration notified lawmakers Oct. 3 - before last weekend's Palestinian suicide bombing that killed 19 Israelis and Israel's retaliatory air strikes on a terrorist training camp in Syria - that it no longer opposed the bill.
U.S. intelligence officials have determined that the Syrian camp bombed by Israel over the weekend was recently in use.
The House source said the "final straw" for the administration seemed to be when Syria offered a resolution at the United Nations three weeks ago to demand Israel halt its attempts to expel Yasser Arafat. The United States exercised its veto to prevent the resolution from passing.
Congressional members predicted certain passage of the bill, pointing to the more than 280 sponsors of in the House and 75 sponsors in the Senate.
"The only thing preventing the bill from being passed in the Congress, in my estimation, was the administration's opposition," Mr. Engel said. "Once they withdrew that opposition we had such broad support ... I knew the bill would sail."
Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has not taken a position on the bill. The committee will hold a hearing later this month on foreign policy toward Syria, and the bill will be part of that hearing, a spokesman said.
The Syrian Embassy did not return a call for comment, but Mr. Assad, in an interview with Al-Hayat newspaper published Tuesday, rejected U.S. demands.
"They are asking us to give up the [weapons of mass destruction]. But when we call for removing all the WMDs from the region, they refuse," he said.
He also disagreed on the issue of expelling leaders of terrorist organizations.
"These people did not break Syrian laws, did not harm Syrian interests and are not terrorists in the first place," he said. The two committee members who voted against the bill yesterday were Republicans: Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.
Mr. Paul said the bill seems to set the stage for another international entanglement and eventual nation-building exercise, much like Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It just looks like we're looking for more trouble," Mr. Paul said.
Mr. Flake said he doesn't support Syria but thinks sanctions are ineffective.
"The history of unilateral economic sanctions is not encouraging. I'd rather increase, not diminish, the president's flexibility to respond to Syria," Mr. Flake said.
----
Syria Criticizes Proposed U.S. Sanctions
By BASSEM MROUE
Associated Press Writer
Oct 9, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SYRIA_US?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Syria through its official media Thursday criticized the United States' preliminary approval of a bill authorizing sanctions against it, saying the legislation was the work of "ultra-extremists."
The House International Relations Committee approved the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act on Wednesday, which would give the president the right to impose a variety of sanctions on Syria. The bill accuses Syria of sponsoring terrorists, seeking weapons of mass destruction, and occupying Lebanon with more than 20,000 troops.
There was no immediate reaction from Syrian government officials on Thursday, but the official Tishrin newspaper said the bill was drawn up by "ultra-extremists who are doing their best to make the atmosphere tense between Arabs and the American administration."
"The whole world knows that Syria is the country that demanded, and is still demanding, the clearing of the whole (Middle East) region of weapons of mass destruction, and it is abiding by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which Israel is refusing to join," wrote the political editor of Tishrin.
The House committee passed the bill, by 33 votes to 2, three days after Israeli warplanes struck an alleged Palestinian militant training camp outside Damascus. The strike came a day after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 19 people in an Israeli restaurant. President Bush expressed approval of the Israeli retaliation.
Syria denies it supports terrorists, arguing that Palestinians have the right to oppose Israeli occupation of their territories.
Tishrin indicated Syria favors dialogue with Washington.
"It (Syria) is open to objective and constructive dialogue with all countries of the world," the editorial said.
The bill now goes to the full House, where it is expected to pass easily. It is also expected to pass the Senate with a comfortable majority.
Once enacted, the legislation would ban the export of weapons to Syria as well as items that could be used in weapons programs.
It would also give the president the right to impose two of the following sanctions: a ban on all U.S. exports to Syria except food or medicine; a ban of all American business investment in Syria; a restriction on the movement of Syrian diplomats in the United States; a ban on all Syrian-owned or -controlled aircraft from entering the United States; a reduction of diplomatic contact with Syria; or a freeze of Syrian assets in the United States.
A researcher on strategic affairs in Syria, Haitham al-Kilani, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the bill "would not affect Syria because commercial relations between the United States and Syria are very limited."
He said the likely victims of such sanctions would be American oil companies in Syria.
In Cairo on Thursday, the Arab League criticized the bill, saying it would "increase the tension in the region and make the chances for peace more remote. It also makes more difficult a dialogue between Syria, as a main power broker in the region, and the United States."
League Secretary-General Amr Moussa "is very worried about these baseless accusations against Syria," the league said in a statement on the bill.
----
Official says Iraq sent convoys to Syria
October 09, 2003
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20031009-095613-8367r.htm
AMMAN, Jordan, Oct. 9 -- A U.S. official in Jordan said Saddam Hussein sent convoys of Iraqi equipment to Syria prior to the U.S.-led war in Iraq in March, a report said Thursday.
David Kay, the head of the U.S. team looking for weapons of mass destruction, said his inspectors have not been able to determine the contents of the convoys, World Tribune.com said.
Kay also said his group has learned from Iraqi nationals the Saddam regime prepared fuel for Scud missiles during 2002. He said this activity indicates Iraq's military retained Scud missiles banned by the United Nations.
"Scud missile fuel is only useful in Scud missiles," Kay said.
Meanwhile, Iraq and Syria have opened discussions on a security cooperation accord.
Officials said the two countries have focused on border security in an attempt to stop Islamic insurgents from entering Iraq. The United States has said many of the fighters who have joined the Sunni insurgency against the coalition in Iraq have come from Syria.
--------
Panel Approves Sanctions on Syria With White House Support
October 9, 2003
By CARL HULSE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/international/middleeast/09SYRI.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 - Congress stepped up pressure on Syria on Wednesday when a House panel endorsed diplomatic and economic sanctions against the country, accusing it of sponsoring terrorism and fostering turmoil in Iraq. The White House dropped its previous opposition to the sanctions plan.
"The time has come to hold Syria accountable for its actions," said Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican of Florida, as the International Relations Committee easily approved a proposal that allows the president to cut diplomatic contacts and block American investment if Syria supports groups involved in terror.
At the White House, the spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the administration would no longer resist the sanctions, as it had previously when it argued that it needed time for diplomacy to work and that Syria was helping apprehend terrorists. "We have repeatedly said that Syria is on the wrong side of the war on terrorism and that Syria needs to stop harboring terrorists," Mr. McClellan said.
House officials said they viewed the White House statements as a clear sign that President Bush would sign the measure if it reached him, and House leaders hope to bring it to the floor as early as next week. It also has strong bipartisan support in the Senate.
The measure has been circulating in Congress for months but was given new momentum by the heightening of tension between Israel and Syria, and reports that Syria is allowing people to cross into Iraq to attack American forces.
In explaining the change in policy, the State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, said Syria had been warned that without significant action against groups linked to terror, the nation would face sanctions.
"Frankly, the Syrians have done so little with regard to terrorism that we don't have a lot to work with," Mr. Boucher said. "There's nothing - there's no particular reason or facts that one could go back to Congress with and say this is a bad idea."
Under the proposal, approved 33-2 by the panel, Syria could not receive certain American goods that could be converted for military use until it ended support of terror groups, withdrew its forces from Lebanon and showed that it was not developing medium- and long-range missiles and chemical and biological weapons.
The president would also be directed to impose two or more of six specific sanctions: a ban on American exports except food and medicine; a ban on business investment; restrictions on Syrian diplomats; a ban on Syrian airlines in American airspace; a reduction in diplomatic contacts; and a freeze on Syrian assets in the United States.
Representative Tom Lantos of California, the senior Democrat on the panel, said he had told President Bashar al-Assad during a visit to Damascus about six months ago that Congress would act "unless Syria changed its ways."
"Nobody in Damascus should be surprised by our action today on this legislation," he said. "You might even say the Syrian government is the moving spirit behind it."
But Representative Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, said he believed the sanctions approach was a mistake and could bring the United States more trouble in the Middle East. "I see this as a dangerous move," he said.
Representatives at the Syrian Embassy did not respond to requests for comment.
-------- nato
NATO Conducts Rapid-Reaction War Game
By T. R. Reid
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page A29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A918-2003Oct8?language=printer
COLORADO SPRINGS, Oct. 8 -- A terrorist group armed with chemical and biological weapons attacked the island nation of "Corona" on Wednesday, killing top governmental officials and threatening the entire population -- until a rapid-reaction force from NATO swept in, evacuated the capital city and eliminated the threat.
That, at least, is how the fictional terrorist crisis played out at Schreiver Air Force Base here as military and civilian leaders from all the NATO nations engaged in a "study seminar" to test the impact of a major transformation of the 54-year-old transatlantic defense alliance.
With nearly 3 million military personnel from 19 nations -- plus seven more countries to be admitted next year -- NATO leaders are worried that the huge organization is too sluggish and too poorly deployed to respond to the challenges posed by terrorists and other modern threats to peace.
"We have so many unusable soldiers," NATO Secretary General George Robertson said here Wednesday. "Taxpayers are being ripped off, paying for these soldiers who are configured for the wrong threat."
Accordingly, NATO has decided to mount a new "NATO Response Force," composed of about 20,000 personnel, that can respond instantly to "asymmetric" threats -- in which the enemy is not a national army but a small, loosely organized guerrilla or terrorist force.
Wednesday's war game, the centerpiece of a two-day gathering of NATO defense secretaries and chiefs of staff, was designed to get the member nations thinking about how to react in such cases. The exercise involved a terrorist attack on Corona, a fictitious Mediterranean island nation vaguely near the Middle East. In the attack scenario, the terrorists unleash chemical and biological weapons that threaten to "spill over" and harm civilians on the European mainland.
"This is the type of asymmetric threat that NATO is likely to face in the future," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said.
Robertson and Rumsfeld pronounced the "seminar" a success. Both men said they were excited because the Corona attack was the first NATO exercise in which the "Mods" and the "Chods" worked together. That is NATO-speak for the civilian ministers of defense and the military chiefs of defense. Normally, the Mods and the Chods study their hypothetical wars independently.
A key goal of the exercise was to demonstrate the need to act quickly. "This is an organization of 19 countries, with 19 political officials in charge," a NATO military leader said. "That can make it hard to get a consensus. But in these asymmetric situations, you need a consensus fast."
NATO's new quick-reaction unit -- which has its own abbreviation, NRF, for NATO Reaction Force -- is to be established formally next week. At the beginning, about 6,000 soldiers and sailors will undergo joint training, then return to their national commands to await a call to deployment. Within three to four years, officials said, the NRF should have 20,000 personnel, representing all member nations, on stand-by status.
Robertson, a liberal political veteran from Scotland, noted that far too much of the military strength of NATO's member nations is tied up with administrative and noncombat tasks. "We have 1.4 million non-U.S. soldiers in this alliance. We have just 55,000 of them assigned to field operations, and the members are complaining that they are overstretched."
Even in Colorado Springs, a politically conservative town with a large military population, the NATO ministers and defense chiefs were hounded by protesters everywhere they went. Some of the demonstrators seemed to be against war in general, while others focused specifically on the war in Iraq.
"Rummy lied -- our soldiers died," read one sign.
Rumsfeld arrived Tuesday and addressed soldiers and their families at Fort Carson, an Army base that has sent 12,000 troops to Iraq since winter. There have been about 100 casualties from Carson, the Army said, and 19 deaths. Rumsfeld choked up and had to restart his speech several times as he said thanks to the soldiers and their survivors.
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NATO Officials Play Out Terrorism Scenario at Colorado Talks
October 9, 2003
By THOM SHANKER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/international/americas/09NATO.html
COLORADO SPRINGS, Oct. 8 - NATO's defense ministers and military chiefs locked themselves away at a top-secret American base on Wednesday to play out a fictional scenario involving civilian evacuations, terrorist strikes and the threat of chemical or biological attack to test the Atlantic alliance's planned rapid-reaction force.
After the exercise, which officials refused to call a "war game," Lord Robertson, the NATO secretary general, called on the alliance to streamline its decision-making process and urged the non-American partners to reorganize their armed forces so that greater numbers of troops would be available to deploy quickly.
"Future crises will require prompt decision-making in national capitals," Lord Robertson said, and the alliance must write "rules of engagement to deal with the unexpected" if it wants to remain relevant in an age of global terrorism and threats beyond European borders.
"Crises which start small can finish big," he added, "and big crises can happen concurrently."
He called on the alliance to improve its intelligence gathering, analysis and sharing, and urged improved working relationships with the United Nations and the European Union.
But he seemed most concerned that the 18 non-American alliance members, which have a total of between 1.4 million and 1.5 million troops, only have 55,000 deployed outside their borders, but still complain their forces are over-stretched.
"The blunt message from Colorado is going to be this: We need real, deployable soldiers, not paper armies," Lord Robertson said, arguing that territorial defense forces must be redesigned for other deployments, given the diminished threat to European soil since the end of the cold war.
All military simulations are, in a sense, pre-cooked, with the scenario and its various branches written in advance to put stress on participants in premeditated ways.
The scenario that unveiled behind closed doors at Shriever Air Force Base here was set in 2007, a year after the NATO Response Force is scheduled to reach full power.
Senior military officers said that, under the scenario, the NATO rapid-reaction force was sent to a fictitious island in the Red Sea to evacuate civilians, and faced no opposition from the friendly government there. But the situation deteriorated as terrorists launched attacks on the island and, in short order, terrorists with ties to that group threatened a chemical or biological strike in Europe.
Plans call for the alliance to be able to deploy a brigade - a military unit that usually has about 5,000 troops - within 5 to 30 days of receiving orders. With its naval task force and air wing capable of flying 200 combat sorties a day, the total NATO Response Force would number 20,000.
Senior NATO officials conceded that, given the alliance's requirement for consensus decision-making, the rapid-deployment force might not move so quickly given political considerations that might arise in the capitals of various NATO nations.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumseld, who is the host for the annual informal meeting of defense ministers here, said it was the first time that the alliance had convened such a combined exercise and seminar involving defense ministers, military chiefs and alliance ambassadors.
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NATO to Quiz Russia on Attitude to Former Foe
October 9, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-nato-defense.html
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Reuters) - NATO defense ministers were set to quiz Russia on Thursday over an official report that characterized the U.S.-dominated alliance's military doctrine as ``offensive.''
NATO Secretary-General George Robertson sought before the meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov in Colorado Springs to underline the ``remarkable level of trust'' between the former Cold War foes.
Improving relations with Moscow is a key element of NATO's drive to reinvent itself to tackle terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction, threats highlighted on Tuesday by an unprecedented war-gaming exercise for the alliance ministers.
Diplomats said NATO would nevertheless seek details of a meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin had with his top military brass last week.
A Russian Defense Ministry report on tasks facing the armed forces, published at the time, twinned a reference to the value of military cooperation with the United States with unusually sharp comments about NATO.
The report said that if NATO remained a ``military alliance with its existing offensive military doctrine,'' Russia would have to overhaul its military posture and nuclear strategy.
Commentators said the contradictory message reflected competing views inside Russia's defense establishment, where many remain suspicious of NATO.
MIXED SIGNALS FROM MOSCOW
``I have no doubt that when Minister Sergei Ivanov comes tomorrow he will want to expand on the fairly sketchy details which came out of the meeting that the president had with his commanders last week,'' Robertson told a news conference.
``I spoke to Minister Sergei Ivanov at the end of last week ... and he was at pains to tell me that he thought some of the reports bore no relation to what the reality was.''
Putin has softened Moscow's criticism of NATO's decision to expand its borders behind the old Iron Curtain as part of his broad pro-Western policy. He agreed last year to set up a new NATO-Russia Council for closer cooperation on security issues.
There are still misgivings in Moscow about NATO's embrace of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which broke free from the Soviet Union in 1991 after a 50-year occupation. The Baltic states are among seven Eastern European countries due to join the 19-nation alliance next year.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was due to meet Ivanov separately at Colorado Springs for talks that officials said would focus on NATO's assistance with Russian military reform.
On the first day of their meeting on the edge of the Rocky Mountains, the alliance defense ministers and their counterparts from the seven future members watched a fictitious rescue operation escalate into a weapons of mass destruction crisis.
The ``study seminar'' was designed to focus minds on NATO's new global security role and challenge decision-making procedures that hobble its capacity to act at a moment's notice.
Before meeting Ivanov, the ministers were to discuss plans to expand NATO's Afghan peacekeeping operation and the European Union's offer to take over its Bosnia stabilization mission.
The 15-nation EU, which includes 11 members of NATO, agreed informally last weekend to aim for a takeover of the Bosnia mission by mid-2004, a timetable the United States had criticized as too hasty.
-------- pakistan / india
Pakistan Test-Fires Second 'Shaheen-I' Ballistic Missile, New Parameters Verified
Oct 9, 2002
Pakistan Net
http://members.rogers.com/pakistannet/ShaheenNews.htm
Pakistan successfully test-fired medium-range Shaheen-1 ballistic missile for second time, missile is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, its second missile test within five days.
"This test was in continuation of the one conducted on October 4 to validate certain additional parameters," a Defence Ministry statement said. "These parameters stand completely validated in the light of data collected from the test," it said, adding that the firing in Sonmiani near Karachi "concludes for now the series of planned tests".
The Shaheen-1 surface-to-surface missile, also known as Hatf-IV, has a range of up to 800 kilometres, which means it can carry a 1,000-kg warhead deep into India. The same type of missile was tested on Friday.
In a statement carried on Pakistan Television, President Pervez Musharraf congratulated the scientists who worked on the missile. "The successful test fire of the indigenously developed Shaheen weapons system is the culmination of years of hard work, dedication and professional excellence of Pakistani scientists and engineers," the army statement said.
Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha dismissed the test as meaningless, saying India would do "nothing" in response. "They are a sovereign country. They are testing their missiles, good luck to them," Sinha said while on a visit to Berlin.
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PAKISTAN - Second missile tested in a week
October 09, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene.htm
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan conducted its second nuclear-capable missile test in less than a week yesterday, launching a medium-range rocket capable of hitting New Delhi and most other targets inside archrival India.
The army said it yesterday successfully test fired the Hatf 4 missile, also known as the Shaheen 1. The missile has a range of 435 miles.
Pakistan tested a short-range Hatf 3 Ghaznavi missile Friday.
-------- space
China Ready for Leap Into Orbit
Manned Spaceflight Would Put Country in Elite Club
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A337-2003Oct8.html
BEIJING, Oct. 8 -- China is counting down to the launch of a man into Earth orbit, which would fulfill what Chinese officials say is a long-held dream for the emerging world power and make it the third country to embark on manned spaceflight.
Chinese journalists and China's main Web site, http://Sina.com, said that an air force pilot -- being called in English taikonaut, from the Chinese word for outer space, taikong -- is scheduled to board a three-seat spacecraft on a launch pad in western China on the morning of Oct. 15. The craft, called Shenzhou 5, or Divine Vessel 5, is to fly once around the globe and land in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia.
There has been no official announcement of a date, but Chinese officials have hinted strongly that the launch would occur this month and Chinese tour agencies have been selling package tours to near the Jiuquan launch site in Gansu province.
Officials have broadly suggested that the first manned flight would carry just one person. Clothed in a cream-colored spacesuit, the astronaut, who was chosen from a Russian-trained team of 14, is to be accompanied on his trip by a 2.2 pound bag of seeds -- some of them from Taiwan -- as part of a scientific experiment in irradiating seeds to increase crop yields, the journalists and Web site said Wednesday.
The program has been cloaked in intense secrecy, and no names of the crew or details of their training have been released.
China's manned venture to orbit the globe is part of an ambitious program by the world's most populous country to explore and develop space for both civilian and military purposes. In recent weeks, scientists have vowed that China would send a rocket to the moon, establish a space station, ring the globe with high-precision satellites and probe the possibility of extracting the moon's mineral wealth, particularly helium-3, a potential energy source.
"It is a dream of Chinese for generations," said Long Lehao, China's top rocket designer. Children here still read of how six centuries ago the mythical Chinese inventor Wan Hoo strapped rockets under his chair and blasted off in a fatal attempt to fly to the heavens. There is even a crater on the moon named for him.
"We have had a dream to fly to the sky for centuries," Long said in an interview Wednesday. "It will be realized soon. Many scientists said that the Earth is the cradle of mankind. I say we should not always stay in the cradle. We must go outside and see what's happening there."
"Our first step was to send an unmanned rocket into space," Long said. "We accomplished that. Our second step is to send a manned rocket into space. Our next step is to conduct an unmanned investigation on the moon within three years. Finally, we will have our own base on the moon."
The launch is scheduled just after a meeting of the decision-making Central Committee of the Communist Party and two weeks after the Oct. 1 national day, when China marked the 54th anniversary of the Communist revolution of 1949.
The space program also looks likely to be roped into a delicate power struggle between President Hu Jintao and his predecessor, Jiang Zemin. Sources at China Central Television Station said they have been told that Jiang, who has retained his position as head of the military, is scheduled to speak with the taikonaut during his orbit.
China started the program to put a man in space with the launch in 1970 of its first satellite, East Is Red. Since then China has sent 77 satellites into space. The manned space program was canceled because of a lack of funds but was resumed in 1992, under the code name Project 921. Since 1999, four unmanned Shenzhou capsules have been launched, orbiting Earth for up to a week and landing by parachute in Inner Mongolia region.
Some experts worry that China has not carried out enough test flights to ensure the safety of space travelers. The life support systems on Shenzhou 3 are believed to have failed in 2001.
Western experts say they believe China has come this far this fast because of assistance from Russia, which is the only country other than the United States with a record of manned spaceflight.
China's taikonauts were trained partly at Russia's Star City base in the late 1990s, and the Russian firm Energia helped Beijing with technology. The two countries have signed agreements to cooperate on space research, such as a radar satellite the Chinese plan to launch in 2005 specifically designed to penetrate cloud cover, essential for counter-naval missions.
Chinese diplomats have routinely called for a worldwide ban on the weaponization of space, but U.S. officials say that China's space program, which falls under the leadership of the People's Liberation Army, has important military applications.
China is developing space-based capabilities that could be used in the event of a conflict with Taiwan, according to an expert with the U.S. Defense Department. Such space assets in effect "are important force multipliers that can help to even the playing field when you go up against a technologically superior adversary," Mark Stokes, a senior China expert at the Defense Department, said at a forum sponsored by the Heritage Foundation last month.
China's space program also has a madcap side. Since 1987, for example, its scientists have been sending seeds and seedlings aboard rockets. When Russian and U.S. scientists have done this, their goal generally was to test the environment in a spaceship or probe the possibilities of raising plants in outer space.
But China's scientists have hitched rides for thousands of seeds as part of a program to mutate them and turn them into high-yielding crops on Earth, viewed as unusual by Western scientists because seeds can be irradiated more easily in a laboratory. So far, according to Liu Luxiang, the director of the Center of Space Breeding at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China has approved for farming 11 types of seeds that are descended from those irradiated in space -- six types of rice, two types of wheat, one green pepper, a tomato and a sesame seed. China's state-run media have also heralded cucumbers from space, saying they taste better and resist diseases.
"We have many more types in the pipeline," Liu said in an interview Wednesday. "We don't really know why we are the only ones working to grow the seeds on Earth."
----
India does not foresee Asian space race, as China readies for lift-off
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP)
Oct 08, 2003
http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/031008124318.xrru2lr1.html
India, which runs a fledgling space program, does not foresee an Asian space race emerging, even though China is about to send a man into orbit for the first time, a top official said Wednesday.
"Not at all, not even remotely," Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal told AFP when asked if he saw a rivalry developing similar to one between the United States and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Chinese reports and officials said Wednesday that China's first manned space mission would make a single orbit of the Earth in a flight that would last just 90 minutes on October 15.
"I think it is a very strong reminder to all of us about the progress that China is making all around, and if they succeed in this feat, they deserve to be congratulated," said Sibal, who is India's top foreign ministry official.
China is expected to push ahead with its space program if it pulls off its first manned mission, and could eventually set up its own space station, according to experts.
India's cabinet last month approved a proposal by space authorities to send an unmanned mission to moon by 2008, following a suggestion by Indian scientists first made three years ago.
The mission called Chandrayan-I will cost 3.86 billion rupees (83 million dollars) and plans to put a 400-kilogram (880 pound) satellite into orbit within the next five years using an Indian-made polar satellite launch vehicle.
Sibal was speaking on the sidelines of a summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.
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NASA Is Speeding Work on Space Plane for Some Shuttle Tasks
October 9, 2003
New York Times
By WARREN E. LEARY
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/national/nationalspecial/09SHUT.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 - NASA is accelerating development of a space plane to take crews to and from the International Space Station, but the aging space shuttles could remain in use for many years, the agency administrator, Sean O'Keefe, said on Wednesday.
The Orbital Space Plane, primarily designed to carry people, is on a fast track that could make it available as a station rescue vehicle in five years and ready to serve as a crew hauler a few years later, Mr. O'Keefe said at a news conference.
A space plane, however, would not replace the shuttle altogether, he said.
The committee that investigated the Columbia accident recommended that crews be separated from cargo in future space travel, Mr. O'Keefe noted, and the space plane would meet the crew requirement. But carrying cargo to and from the station, and perhaps beyond, requires the capability of the shuttle or other vehicles capable of lifting heavy loads.
NASA is also looking at options to transport cargo that include the shuttle, with possible modifications.
"I don't know if we are accelerating plans to retire it or accelerating plans to extend its life," Mr. O'Keefe said of the shuttle.
"For the immediate near term," he said, "there is no other option but the shuttle."
Even after the space station is completed, with parts that only the shuttle can deliver, the remaining three shuttles will be needed to carry large quantities of supplies and equipment to and from the station, he said.
Mr. O'Keefe said the agency could still not estimate what the new space plane would cost. Dennis Smith, the space plane program manager from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, told Congressional staff members this week that it would cost $11 billion to $12 billion to develop the craft to the stage of being a rescue ship for the station by 2008. No numbers were provided for further developing the craft into a regular crew transporter by 2010 or 2012.
In addressing other recommendations made by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Mr. O'Keefe said that rather than creating a separate engineering authority to oversee space flight safety he preferred using organizations within NASA or already existing outside groups.
The recommendation for management reform that involved an independent engineering group, Mr. O'Keefe said, could become so far removed from NASA that it could lose relevance to the mission of the agency. The panel's recommendation for an independent group was to verify launching readiness, track flight-related problems and oversee requests for waivers from established flight rules.
This recommendation could be fulfilled by using several entities to handle its desired functions, like a new engineering and safety organization that NASA is establishing at its Langley Space Center or oversight panels selected by established groups like the National Academy of Sciences, he said.
Mr. O'Keefe said NASA was well on its way to complying with other recommendations of the panel. The board, which investigated the Feb. 1 destruction of the Columbia and its crew of seven, issued 29 recommendations, including 15 required before new shuttle flights.
"Some of the challenges of the recommendations look more doable now than they did earlier," Mr. O'Keefe said, using the ability to repair damaged heat protection tiles as an example.
-------- un
U.N. Urges Against Wider Mideast Conflict
October 9, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Syria-UN.html
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) --The United Nations envoy to the Middle East urged Syria, Israel and Lebanon on Thursday to break a cycle of attacks that could set off a wider confrontation and destabilize the region.
Terje Roed Larsen held talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad four days after Israeli jets bombed a purported Palestinian militant training camp in Syria in retaliation for a suicide bombing Saturday in Israel that killed 19 people.
The bombing, Israel's first foray deep inside Syria in three decades, has heightened tensions along the Israeli-Lebanese border. On Monday, an Israeli soldier was killed in a cross-border shooting from Lebanon, and a Lebanese boy was killed by a missile that was apparently fired at Israel but fell short of the Israeli border.
``We agree that every party concerned now has to do everything possible in order to calm down the situation not only related to Israeli-Syrian relations but the situation in the whole region,'' Larsen told reporters after meeting late Thursday with Syria's foreign minister, Farouk al-Sharaa.
Neither Syria nor Israel appeared ready to back down Thursday. Syria's official news agency SANA criticized Israel and its main ally, the United States, suggesting they were trying to start a war. SANA quoted Assad as telling Larsen that ``the Israeli government is a war government and could not go on without war.''
Raanan Gissin, an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, responded to those comments by saying that Israel, not Syria, was interested in peace.
``Israel does not harbor terrorists, Syria does,'' Gissin said. ``Israel does not have offices of 11 terror groups, Syria does. It encourages terrorists who operate not only against Israel, but also against the United States in Iraq. So before making such statements about Israel, Syria should examine its own actions very carefully.''
President Bush said after Sunday's attack on Syria that Israel has the right to defend itself. On Wednesday Congress gave preliminary approval to a bill authorizing sanctions against Syria.
Al-Sharaa and Larsen discussed ``the tense situation in the region and the late escalation by the Israeli government and its allies in Washington who are against peace,'' SANA said. The agency added that Israel and its friends in Washington ``put their personal interests above the interest of their country and above international law.''
Larsen praised the Syrian government for not retaliating to the Israeli airstrike.
Israel and the radical Lebanese group Hezbollah fought a bloody guerrilla war for 18 years in south Lebanon, and Hezbollah often rained rockets down on Israel's northern villages before Israel withdrew in May 2000. Since then, most of the frontier has been quiet, except for a small section still disputed by Hezbollah, a radical Shiite Muslim group backed by Syria.
-------- us
Adding Weight to Suspicion, Sonar Is Linked to Whale Deaths
October 9, 2003
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/science/09WHAL.html
Scientists have long suspected a link between mass whale strandings and the Navy's use of powerful sonar systems, but the evidence - dying whales washing ashore when sonar exercises occur - has been mostly anecdotal.
Now, international researchers have identified a disorder similar to decompression sickness, or the bends, as the cause of at least some whale beachings, and they say military sonar is most likely to blame.
The new findings, being reported today in Nature, are based primarily on necropsies of 10 whales that stranded themselves in the Canary Islands during a 2002 international naval exercise there that included one American ship.
The incident drew worldwide attention, and this year environmentalists in California sued to stop the Navy from developing a newer, more far-reaching sonar system.
All of the Canary whales examined had widespread bubble formation in tissue and blood vessels, the study says. The same thing occurs in scuba divers who surface too quickly after a deep dive.
"The bubbles forming in these animals may not be immediately fatal," said Dr. Paul Jepson, a lead author of the study and a researcher at the Zoological Society of London. "But it does make them distressed or causes impairment, and it's quite logical to conclude that this is what leads them to strand."
The study challenges the conventional notion that marine mammals cannot suffer from decompression sickness. But more important, says Jean-Michel Cousteau, director of the Ocean Futures Society in California, it demonstrates the toll that underwater noise pollution can have on marine life.
"A lot of people know the oceans have become a dumping ground for sewage and pollution, but they aren't aware that sonar is also a major issue affecting the quality of marine life," Mr. Cousteau said.
The United States Navy, emphasizing that it uses highly trained lookouts and other methods to protect whales, is reluctant to accept the study's conclusions.
"Previous studies have not, to date, revealed evidence of decompression sickness as suggested by the article," Lt. Cmdr. Cappy Surette, a Navy spokesman, said in an e-mail message. "The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Navy were not invited to participate in the studies conducted of these beaked whales, and as a result, we are unable to determine the actual cause of the strandings."
It is widely known that breathing compressed air from a scuba tank, even at the depths that recreational divers frequent, causes gases like nitrogen to dissolve and build up in the blood and tissues. If divers have been too deep, or down too long and ascend too quickly, the accumulated nitrogen can turn to bubbles as the pressure decreases.
The bubbles block blood flow and cause tissue damage, which, when severe enough, can be fatal.
How the bends would occur in whales and other marine mammals is not completely understood, Dr. Jepson said. What is known is that the beaked whale and the dolphin species that strand themselves most often when sonar is used nearby tend to have enormous levels of nitrogen in their tissues.
One theory holds that high-decibel military sonar can lead to bubble formation by startling the animals into shooting too rapidly from deep to shallow waters. Another suggests that the acoustic signals may somehow directly set off bubble eruptions in the nitrogen-saturated tissues.
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Navy Sonar May Give Whales the 'Bends'
Condition Similar to Decompression Sickness Found in Mammals Beached on Canary Islands
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63215-2003Oct8.html
High-powered sonar from Navy ships appears to be giving whales and other marine mammals a version of the bends, causing them to develop dangerous gas bubbles in some tissues and blood vessels and to beach themselves and die, according to a study published yesterday in the journal Nature.
Reporting on beaked whales that were stranded in the Canary Islands soon after an international naval exercise last year, researchers for the first time found a condition similar to decompression sickness in 10 of 14 dead animals.
The new data begin to explain how and why high-decibel mid-frequency sonar used by the U.S. Navy and other military fleets appears to cause some deep-diving marine mammals to die. Although the bends was previously unheard of in whales, dolphins and porpoises, the British and Spanish researchers concluded that a marine mammal version of decompression sickness was "the most likely cause" of the Canary Island strandings.
"This is the best data we've ever seen from a sonar-related stranding," said Roger Gentry, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Acoustics Team. He said NOAA will hold a workshop this year with the authors and others in the field to assess the new information and try to reach scientific conclusions.
The new research from the Canary Islands suggests two possible explanations for how the gas bubbles harm the whales. One is similar to the way humans get the bends: The whales panic at the sound of the loud sonar noises and rise too quickly from deep water. As they rise, nitrogen bubbles can be formed from the rapid change in pressure and cause the bends. The other hypothesis involves bubble formation caused directly by the sonar on gas nuclei, or bubble "precursors," in whale tissues that are already highly saturated with nitrogen.
Gentry said the scientific community remains skeptical that rapid ascents are causing the bubbles to form. "From an evolutionary point of view, it does not seem likely," he said. "Whales have been diving like this forever, and should have evolved mechanisms so they wouldn't succumb to decompression."
The Canary Island strandings and research involve mid-frequency (or pitch) sonar coming from Spanish-led, international naval maneuvers that included only one American destroyer. But they could affect a contentious debate over the U.S. Navy's desire to deploy very loud low-frequency sonar around the world to detect "quiet" submarines. That effort was stopped in August in California by a federal magistrate who said the government had violated environmental laws in giving the Navy permission to deploy the new sonar globally.
"We know there is a connection between military sonar and strandings, and now we're making progress on the physical mechanism causing them," said Joel R. Reynolds, an attorney with the National Resources Defense Council, which sued the government over the low-frequency sonar. "This is very compelling scientific evidence."
Lt. Cmdr. Joseph A. "Cappy" Surette, a Navy spokesman, said officials are still studying the Nature article. But he said the Navy takes many steps to avoid harming sea creatures and that the new sonar technology is necessary.
"Submarines are becoming an increasingly serious threat to the U.S. Navy," he said. "Diesel submarines have become increasingly difficult to detect and are proliferating around the world."
He also said that "there is no evidence of any negative impact on marine mammals" in areas where the new low-frequency sonar has been tested.
The legal problems faced by the new Navy sonar system, called the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System -- Low Frequency Active (SURTASS-LFA), have upset some in Congress and helped spur successful efforts to pass legislation to limit the reach of environmental laws that affect the Defense Department. The legislation, part of the Defense Department appropriations bill, is in conference. The House language broadly exempts the Defense Department from provisions of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, while the Senate language is considerably less limiting.
Several mass beachings of whales and dolphins have been tied to high-decibel sonar since the phenomenon was first identified in 1996, and Navy researchers are going back to see whether other strandings can be connected with nearby Navy sonar use.
Whales and other marine mammals are highly sensitive to sound and use it to communicate. Different species hear at different frequencies, and so are affected by various kinds of sonar. The low-frequency sonar that the Navy wants to use around the globe operates at the sound level used by the largest, and some of the most endangered, whales.
The whales stranded in the Canary Islands are beaked whales, the same kind killed in a similar stranding involving sonar in the Bahamas in 2000. Beaked whales are relatively small and dive deeper than most to feed on squid.
The Navy initially said that its sonar had no connection with the 2000 stranding, but a later inquiry ruled out all other possibilities and concluded the sonar most likely caused the deaths.
The research published yesterday in Nature was conducted by scientists at the Zoological Society of London and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain. The English researchers also reported that six dolphins and one beaked whale that had stranded along British shores between 1992 and 2003 had gas bubbles in their blood vessels.
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Defense Official Moves to Ease Strained Relations With Army
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A256-2003Oct8.html
Seeking to end a running feud that has strained relations between senior Pentagon civilians and the top brass for more than a year, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz extended the olive branch to the Army yesterday.
"We appreciate what the Army does," Wolfowitz said in a speech to the Association of the U.S. Army, the service's alumni organization and lobbying group. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he said, the service "has had a major role in joint operations that have won two wars and liberated nearly 50 million human beings from horrible tyrannies."
Most notably, he lauded Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, with whom he clashed publicly last spring about the likely size of the U.S. occupation force that would be needed in postwar Iraq. When Shinseki left office as Army chief of staff in June, neither Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld nor Wolfowitz attended his retirement ceremony, a breach of protocol that raised eyebrows across the service.
"If you've been reading any newspapers lately, you undoubtedly know that we had a difference or two," Wolfowitz told his audience of several hundred, which generally reacted with silence. "What the papers fail to report is that I have enormous respect for what General Shinseki accomplished in his four years as chief of staff, moving the Army into the 21st century. . . . General Shinseki did much to bring the Army into a new era, and we will be grateful for him in the future."
In a tone that was conciliatory yet unapologetic, Wolfowitz also reminded his audience that the Army is subordinate to civilian authority.
He praised Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the U.S. commander in the spring war, for his willingness to subject his plan to invade Iraq to questioning by Rumsfeld and others.
But Wolfowitz noted, "Of course, he had an obligation, as all military leaders do, to listen to his civilian leaders, and in that case, it means listening a lot to my boss, Don Rumsfeld, and quite a lot to his boss, the president of the United States."
Wolfowitz also delivered a backhanded compliment to the Army brass by praising its "deep bench in the two-star [general] rank." That comment apparently criticized the service's higher-ranking three- and four-star generals, all of whom were passed over last summer when Rumsfeld named retired Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker to succeed Shinseki.
Schoomaker, meeting with reporters earlier this week, also signaled that he wanted to end the feuding.
Asked about the Rumsfeld-Shinseki relationship, he said, "I don't think either one of them were happy with how they were communicating." His own relations with Rumsfeld, he said, have been good: "I think he's demanding . . . but personally I find it refreshing."
-------- propaganda wars
Israel Defends Itself
As Cynthia McKinney, 'Child of the 60s', Tapdances
by Anthony Gancarski
October 10, 2003
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/gancarski/gan101003.html
Reading the New York Post Letters page is like smoking opium, without the body high. It seems so surreal, so removed from reality, that I wonder if the letter writers are real people or simply constructs.
The Letters from 7 October, "Israel's Right to Take the War to Damascus", were the first I'd read in a while. I hadn't noticed the new advertiser links before; one of the current crop urges me to take the advice of the Good Book and adopt two orphaned Iraqi children [left unsaid is why they're orphans, whether their parents were done in by the recent invasion or by the Clinton-era sanctions].
But I digress. On 7 October we have five separate letters, all of which assert, with admirable consistency, Israel's right to defend itself. Mr. Brosnan of Kinderhook contends that since "Syria supports Hamas, then Israel has the same right as the United States: to bomb terrorist camps in Syria, like the United States did in Afghanistan against al Qaeda." Brooklyn's Harvey Karten is incredulous that "innocent Syria is asking the United Nations to condemn Israel for attacking its terrorist camps!" From Mr. Geller of Hoboken, "How hypocritical is the U.N. Security Council that it would call an emergency meeting when a country accused of harboring and funding terrorists gets attacked?" Flushing's Maurice Moore simply states that "Israel has a legitimate right to protect its citizens." And Michael Ber maintains that "Israel has to stop caring what the world says or what monetary repercussions might occur, shut their mouths and do what is way overdue."
Five letters on the page, all of which make the same point. That Israel is irreproachable. That Israel is given rights the governments of Syria, Iran, or Egypt would never be granted. That Israel deserves unquestioning support. That Israeli lives matter as much as American lives, and that the accursed non-Israeli might as well just die like a dog; Israel has the right to defend itself, after all, whatever the hell that even means.
What are the consequences of Israel not being a debatable issue in public forums? According to Reuters on 7 October, "Buoyed by U.S. backing for Israel's right to defend itself, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the Jewish state was ready to hit its enemies anywhere following an air raid deep inside Syria. Speaking at a memorial service marking the anniversary of the 1973 Middle East war, Sharon took a tough line but made no specific threats after Sunday's strike on what Israel said was a training camp for Palestinian militants."
Defend doesn't really mean defend, obviously. It means to retaliate, perhaps, or to attack under false pretense. This from 7 October's Newsday: "The Bush administration, which yesterday defended Israel's bombing of Syria, has given the green light to Congress to approve economic sanctions against Syria. The Syria Accountability Act, which had been stalled in the House for a year by administration opposition, will be approved by the House International Relations Committee tomorrow, staff members said." [And it indeed was approved].
It has come to this. We rely on the Bush White House for moderation, for measures that ameliorate an amoral cabal's push for a fruitless war that will span the Middle East once it gets started. Instant legislation, as if awaiting an inevitability.
What happens to politicians who don't assert Israel's right to defend itself? Many have lost their jobs for taking just that position. Consider Cynthia McKinney, the Georgia Democrat who lost her House seat in 2002 in a Democratic primary. McKinney defines herself as a "child of the 60s", and embraces the rhetoric of the left in explaining what happens to those few dozen in Congress [right or left; in this case it's all the same] who challenge select planks of the prefabricated consensus in America. She has addressed the topic in the past, but most recently in remarks prepared for the October 4, 2003 "Project Censored" awards ceremony in San Rafael, California.
McKinney as a Democratic primary candidate would be a draw. But she isn't likely to run anytime soon in an election as a Democrat. Why? Because she spoke out against Israel's right to defend itself, and got her ass handed to her, that's why.
The 4 October remarks bespeak her legitimate sense of betrayal. She went to the wall for every special-interest clique and every pet "progressive" issue imaginable, yet wondered "what the progressive community in Georgia and around the country was thinking as I was running my race... Was it that I deserved the mischaracterizations because I had dared to hold this Administration and America accountable on the 2000 election, the missing $2.3 trillion at the Pentagon, the Pentagon's corporate sweetheart deals with political insiders, US continued use of depleted uranium in Iraq, US covert activities in Africa that resulted in genocide, clearcutting of our national forests, a return to COINTELPRO through the legislation we were passing, the treatment of black people in this country?"
Was that why McKinney lost? Because she spoke out on the behalf of black people? Check out this tale of woe: " [I] was even booed at our annual Gay Pride Parade despite my lifetime 100% HRC voting record. And Atlanta's white gay and lesbian leadership refused to march with me, including Georgia's only openly gay Member of the Legislature whom I had endorsed and for whom one of my trusted staffers had worked to ensure that she won. I protected her during redistricting when other Democrats targeted her. A white lesbian that I helped get elected in a majority black district."
To hear McKinney tell it, speaking out against clear cutting and Cointelpro were why McKinney found herself unseated from Congress [despite having "worked to ensure" a "white lesbian [getting] elected in a . . . black district]. That's a fanciful recollection, at best. McKinney lost her spot because, as Alex Cockburn succinctly put it last August on the CounterPunch website, "she wasn't cowed by the Israel right-or-wrong lobby and called for real debate on the Middle East. And she called for a real examination of the lead-up to 9/11."
I would add that the tone for her removal was illustrated best when Cynthia McKinney's father Billy was asked by Fox News if he bore a special antipathy for Jews. McKinney, a veteran of Georgia politics, replied that his quarrel wasn't with Jews, per se, but with "Zionists." Without allowing the reporter to interject, he asked her a question rarely heard amidst the din of the international Cable News Conspiracy: "Are you a Zionist?" The reporter refused to affirm or deny; for once, someone had called the bluff of a Fox News employee, putting her on the defensive, getting in the last word via posing an inconvenient question. An admirable gambit: Papa McKinney, as the saying goes, was screwed, blued, and tattooed; but at least it was on something approaching his own terms, providing a tantalizing flicker of spontaneous political theater.
Would Billy's daughter Cynthia ask a question worthy of her father at this point? The difference between McKinney in 2003 and McKinney last year boils down to Israel alone. She's scared to even mention the place at this point; the word Israel, as far as I could tell, was absent from her remarks in San Rafael. But just think - if she toes the line for long enough maybe she'll get an ovation at a future Gay Pride Parade. [And they say the minstrel tradition is dead].
-------- war crimes
Amnesty for U.S. citizens boosted
October 09, 2003
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031008-113708-1189r.htm
NEW YORK - The Bush administration has negotiated agreements protecting Americans from prosecution by the International Criminal Court with more than five dozen nations, knitting together a partial shield to protect U.S. citizens from politically motivated prosecutions.
As of this week, 68 governments have signed treaties with the United States promising not to surrender American soldiers, lawmakers or civilians to the court's jurisdiction. About half of these countries are parties to the ICC.
The so-called Article 98 agreements have outraged legal analysts who support the ICC. The pacts also have created rifts in the European Union; some governments in the bloc would like to sign them but cannot because of a negotiated common position in support of the court.
So sensitive is the issue in some countries that more than a dozen governments, including those of Egypt, Nigeria and Pakistan, have signed agreements but declined to announce that to their publics.
Other countries that signed such pacts in confidence include Kuwait, Morocco and Bangladesh, U.S. officials told The Washington Times.
The officials say the bilateral agreements are not an ironclad protection for U.S. citizens but are the best the Bush administration can do right now.
"It covers us in a lot of regions in the world," said John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. "There may be other protections we need to seek - no one says the Article 98 agreements are all we need. But for now, that's what we're pursuing."
The two-page agreements - named after Article 98 of the ICC treaty that provides for such exemptions - essentially say that the other government will not turn over to the international court any American soldier, official, businessman, journalist, aid worker or other person accused of a war crime.
Some nations have sought, and received, a reciprocal assurance. But other nations that have signed on to the court statute feel they cannot request amnesty for their own citizens.
U.S. officials have negotiated immunity deals with roughly one-third of the members of the United Nations, including with nations where U.S. soldiers are deployed, such as Afghanistan, the Philippines and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The State Department announced yesterday that Liberia, which was host to U.S. forces earlier this year, has become the latest country to sign an Article 98 agreement with Washington.
Critics say that small nations and recipients of U.S. military aid figure disproportionately on the list. Few agreements have been negotiated with Western European capitals or strategic powers.
"I'd feel better if I saw France and Russia on that list instead of, uh, Tuvalu," said one congressional staffer. "Is this significant protection for our soldiers? I don't know."
The agreements were reached during two years of intense but low-key military and diplomatic negotiations in which U.S. officials wielded a variety of carrots and sticks. A half-dozen of the agreements were signed last month, and administration officials said a half-dozen more will be inked shortly.
A pro-ICC umbrella organization said recently that more than $80 million in U.S. foreign aid and military assistance was jeopardized by the refusal of certain governments to shield Americans from the court's reach.
The United States was an early supporter of the ICC, which was conceived as a permanent tribunal to prosecute crimes against humanity, genocide and other atrocities of war.
But as the court took shape, negotiators gave it "universal jurisdiction," meaning that it has the right to try citizens of nations that have chosen not to recognize the court's jurisdiction.
Last year, Congress passed the American Servicemembers Protection Act, which forbids U.S. cooperation with the tribunal and appears to authorize the use of force to rescue U.S. citizens in the dock.
That law also cuts off military assistance to non-NATO allies unless they agree not to transfer American citizens to The Hague-based court.
Despite significant pressure from the United States, 92 nations have ratified the treaty creating the ICC, called the Rome Statute after the city where the drafting convention was held.
There is no statute of limitations for war crimes, but the court cannot hear cases that predate its entry into force on July 1 last year. ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo has said the court's first investigation will deal with war crimes committed since then in Congo.
Since the ICC came into force, Washington has undertaken several negotiations to defang the court. U.S. diplomats have amended U.N. Security Council resolutions to bar ICC prosecution of any citizen or soldier connected to peacekeeping missions in East Timor and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Another U.S.-backed resolution exempts all soldiers in U.N.-authorized peacekeeping missions and multinational forces. That one-year exemption was recently renewed, and the Bush administration says it expects it to be rolled over annually.
But the efforts have angered nations that support the court and resent Washington's efforts to protect its citizens. They say the protections are not needed in any case.
It would be almost impossible for U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq to come before the court, legal experts say, since the country is not a signatory and cannot refer purported crimes to the court.
But U.S. officials point out that any country can arrest and turn over a person accused by the court, and warn that as the ICC becomes better established, more governments are likely to join.
For that reason, U.S. officials plan to continue negotiating exemptions with any government that will discuss them, even if it is not a party to the court.
"If you find a rock with a flag on it, we'll negotiate an agreement," one U.S. official said last week.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- death penalty
EU, US clash over death penalty
October 09, 2003
By Gareth Harding
UPI Chief European Correspondent
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20031009-095429-6152r.htm
BRUSSELS, Belgium, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Friday is the first World Day Against the Death Penalty.
The European Union will use the occasion to stress its outright opposition to the death penalty and urge countries that still believe in capital punishment to abolish what it considers a medieval practice.
The U.S. government is likely to mark the event with stony silence.
Europe and America are divided over many matters -- climate change, the war in Iraq, genetically modified crops and so on -- but if there is one issue that appears to confirm Robert Kagan's claim that "Americans are from Mars and Europeans from Venus," it is the death penalty.
The EU and the Council of Europe -- a 45-nation human rights body stretching from Moscow to Madrid -- have both abolished capital punishment and made it a precondition for entry into the two clubs; the federal government in Washington and the vast majority of American states believe the death penalty is a just form of punishment for heinous crimes.
The last criminal to be executed by the state in Western Europe was in 1977; in the United States, more than 800 people have died by lethal injection, firing squad or the electric chair since that date and a further 3,700 are sitting on deathrow.
Although many Europeans believe in bringing back capital punishment -- the loudest cheer at this week's Conservative Party conference in Britain was for a delegate who bellowed "bring back hanging" -- there is not one European government that supports this stance. For the first time in its bloody history, Europe has effectively become a death-penalty-free zone.
Speaking at the first World Congress Against the Death Penalty in 2001, EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten said: "Although member states' experience of abolition has differed, they have shared common ground: they insist on the inhumane, unnecessary and irreversible character of capital punishment, no matter how cruel the crime committed by the offender."
Europeans argue that the death penalty is a tool for private vengeance, fails to deter criminals and often claims the lives of innocent victims -- and they are not shy about preaching this message to the unconverted.
The EU has frequently sponsored resolutions calling for capital punishment to be scrapped at various U.N. forums and it is prepared to put its money where its mouth is. Last year, the European Commission doled out more than $5 million to promote the abolition of the death penalty in countries that still retain it, and is now sponsoring the World Day Against the Death Penalty Friday.
"We hope to attain the goal of seeing the death penalty consigned to the history books as a form of punishment which has no place in the modern world," said Patten.
The EU does not miss an opportunity to rap countries such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia over the knuckles for carrying out state-sponsored killings -- which numbered 1,500 across the globe last year.
But it reserves most of its energy for the United States -- as President George W. Bush knows all too well. When Bush was governor of Texas, the EU sent 10 letters to the state capital in 2000 protesting against the imminent killings of prisoners on deathrow.
At the federal level, the bloc also does not mince its words.
In a letter presented to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Frank Leroy in 2000, the 15 members of the EU said they were "deeply concerned about the increasing number of executions in the United States, all the more since the great majority of executions since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 have been carried out in the 1990s."
One Brussels-based U.S. diplomat told United Press International: "The death penalty is an issue that comes up constantly between the EU and the United States."
Despite close cooperation between the world's two biggest political and economic powers in fighting terrorism, the EU refuses to extradite suspected criminals to the United States if there is a threat the death penalty will be used. And pleas to show clemency toward European citizens on deathrow are made at the highest levels of government.
Asked whether EU proselytizing on the death penalty irritated members of the Bush administration, one U.S. official replied: "It doesn't grate; we just don't like seeing ourselves singled out."
William Drozdiak, director of the Transatlantic Center of the German Marshall Fund of the United States is blunter.
"Nobody likes being lectured," he says. "It smacks of arrogance and smug superiority when Europe feels it is the paragon of civilized values and tries to impose those values on the United States."
Many Americans believe that a continent that gave the world the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, two World Wars, concentration camps, ethnic cleansing and gulags is in no position to deliver a sermon on the sanctity of human life.
"France had the guillotine until 15-20 years ago and it was only a couple of years ago that we were witnessing genocide on a massive scale in the Balkans," says Drozdiak.
The EU says its uncompromising opposition to capital punishment has helped convert two to three countries a year to the abolitionist cause, including Russia, Turkey and Serbia and Montenegro in recent years. But there is no sign the United States is listening to Europe's message.
Some radical politicians' groups have called for sanctions to be slapped on the United States -- and other like-minded countries -- if it does not stop state-sponsored killings.
But neither the commission nor Michel Taube from the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty believes sanctions are necessary.
"You can't abolish the death penalty by force. It must come internally. It must be a choice of the governments and people concerned," says Taube.
Members of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg are running out of patience with the United States, which along with Japan is the only observer to the human rights club that executes its own citizens.
In a report earlier this month, the Council's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights reported a "fruitful and ongoing" dialogue with Japanese parliamentarians on the subject of abolition. However, it noted that, in contrast, "there is little willingness on the American side to engage in parliamentary dialogue with us, their European colleagues, on this important issue."
The report's author, Renate Wohlwend, added the committee was "certainly not made to feel welcome" when it held a conference on abolition in the U.S Senate earlier this year. Not a single member of Congress attended the event.
-------- immigration / refugees / deportation
Canadians Ask Probe of Deportation to Syria
By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page A08
TORONTO, Oct. 8 -- Members of Canada's Parliament have called for an investigation into the case of a Canadian man who was arrested by U.S. officials in New York last year, held as a suspected terrorist, then deported to Syria where he may have been tortured.
Maher Arar, 33, who spent more than a year in a Syrian jail after his arrest at JFK International Airport, returned to Canada Monday after pressure from the Canadian government led to his release. Arar thanked Canadians for helping him "get back home," then went into seclusion with his family. He said he would talk later about allegations that he was tortured in a Syrian jail.
Members of Parliament have raised questions about whether Canadian officials gave information to U.S. officials that prompted Arar's arrest. During a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday, several members of Parliament demanded to know what role the Royal Canadian Mounted Police played in Arar's deportation. Canada's solicitor general, Wayne Easter, would not provide details, saying that releasing information about the case would jeopardize other investigations.
John Harvard, a member of Parliament, asked Easter: "Aren't you as mad as a wet hen over the behavior of the Americans? They took a Canadian citizen . . . and they sent him to a Syrian gulag." He called on the Canadian government to lodge an official protest with U.S. officials.
Easter, who apologized for Arar's ordeal, said the police assured him they were not involved in the decision to deport him. He said the United States "indicated that had happened on the United States' soil and it was their decision."
Arar was arrested on Sept. 26, 2002, while returning to Montreal through New York from a family vacation in Tunisia. U.S. officials accused him of being connected to al Qaeda and deported him, sending him first to Jordan then to Syria, where Arar was born. Arar, who emigrated to Canada as a teenager, was never charged with a crime. According to his family, he was held in solitary confinement in a Syrian prison.
"Maher Arar was reportedly beaten with sticks and cables, had electric shocks applied to him, and painfully suspended in the 'dulab' or tire and deprived of sleep," according to a report by Amnesty International.
Riad Saloojee, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Canada), said Canadians are upset at how Arar was treated by U.S. authorities. "He was deported to a country where the United States knew he would face foreseeable harm," Saloojee said. "Canadians are incensed he was deported to Syria and not sent back to Canada."
Saloojee said it was unclear why Arar was sent to Syria. "He was sent first to Jordan for 12 days," Saloojee said. "We don't know what was done to him in Jordan. There are suggestions the CIA interrogated him in Jordan and they dumped him in Syria. We don't have answers to why they chose Jordan and why they chose Syria. The United States knew that in its risk assessment before sending him back to Canada."
A State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said in a telephone interview that Arar was detained in New York "after his name appeared on an immigration watch list." The official said Arar was refused entry into the United States. "U.S. immigration law gives the attorney general the discretion to deport an alien to the country in which he was born," the official said.
Kerry Pither, who works with the Maher Arar Support Committee in Ottawa, said the organization is pushing to find out what role Canadians played in deporting him. "One thing that is of major concern in the Muslim and Arab community is Canada doesn't seem prepared to go to bat for them if they get in trouble traveling through the United States," Pither said. "The big question is if the United States had evidence, any kind of worthwhile evidence, Mr. Arar was associated with any terrorist organization, why on Earth would they let him go? Why would they send him to Syria?"
Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, said the group had made repeated unsuccessful efforts to meet with U.S. officials to find out why Arar was sent to Syria. "The concern deepens as the months go on, without any explanation or accountability by U.S. officials, that he was sent to Syria, because they knew he would be beaten, that rough tactics to illicit information from him would be used. That is their practice in the post-September 11 world. Some use the label 'subcontracting.' "
-------- justice
9/11 and the LA 8
by David Cole,
October 9, 2003
The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031027&s=cole
David Cole represents the LA 8. he next time you hear Attorney General Ashcroft dismiss complaints about civil liberties abuses under the USA Patriot Act as "built on misrepresentation, supported by unfounded fear [and] held aloft by hysteria," consider the plight of Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh. Born in the West Bank, both men came to the United States in their college years and have now lived here thirty-two and twenty-four years, respectively. They are lawful permanent residents and hard-working fathers--Hamide supplies luxury coffee shops; Shehadeh runs an Italian restaurant. They have never been charged with even the most minor criminal offense. Yet in September they learned that the government will seek their deportation under the Patriot Act for distributing Palestinian magazines and raising humanitarian aid in Los Angeles more than twenty years ago. Such activity was legal at that time, and it is plainly protected by the First Amendment. Yet the Bush Administration claims that the Patriot Act authorizes the government to deport the two men.
To be sure, Hamide and Shehadeh's troubles did not begin with the Patriot Act, or even with this Administration. Immigration authorities arrested them sixteen years ago with five other young Palestinians and a Kenyan woman--dubbed the "LA 8" by the media--on charges of being affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, then the second-largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The government claimed that the PFLP advocated world communism, making affiliation with it a deportable offense under the McCarran-Walter Act. At the time FBI Director William Webster testified before Congress that none of the eight had engaged in any criminal activity, and that had they been US citizens there would have been no basis for their arrest.
In 1989, in a case I litigated with the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild and the ACLU, a federal judge declared the McCarran-Walter Act charges unconstitutional. The following year Congress repealed that McCarthy-era law. The government nonetheless pursued deportation under new charges. The federal courts next barred the deportations on the grounds that the government, in violation of the First Amendment, had selectively targeted the group for constitutionally protected political activities. In 1996, however, Congress stripped federal courts of authority to hear selective-enforcement challenges to deportation, and in 1999 the Supreme Court ruled that the cases could go forward.
The Administration's Patriot Act charges render foreign nationals deportable for providing "material support" to any group of two or more that has threatened to use or has used a weapon with intent to endanger person or property. The government need not show that the support has any connection to terrorist activity. In the Orwellian land of the Patriot Act, distributing magazines becomes "material support." And it gets worse. At the same time, the Administration also announced that it would seek Hamide and Shehadeh's deportation under the original McCarran-Walter Act charges. The statute still technically applies, because its repeal did not affect pending cases.
But what interest does the government have in enforcing a statute that punishes speech and association, was declared unconstitutional fourteen years ago and was repealed by Congress thirteen years ago?
It's all in the name of the "war on terrorism," the government will say. But the LA 8 case, seen in Arab-American communities as the prime example of US hostility toward Arab immigrants, has probably done more to undermine that effort than any case in the past twenty years. Immigrants from all over the world have come here, distributed magazines discussing the conflicts back home and sent charitable donations there as well. But the only immigrants in deportation proceedings for doing so for at least a quarter-century have been pro-Palestinian activists.
The vendetta against the LA 8 was a critical reason for the Arab community's deep distrust of the government even before 9/11. The cost of that distrust became clear in the aftermath of the attacks, as the government, evidently with no idea where the terrorist threats might lie, rounded up several thousand Arab and Muslim foreign nationals who had nothing to do with terrorism--further alienating the communities it most needs to cultivate. The latest chapter in the LA 8 case, courtesy of the Patriot Act, will do nothing to make us more secure--and much to make us less free.
-------- police
F.B.I.'s Counterterrorism Chief Is Leaving After Three Months
October 9, 2003
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/national/09FBI.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation's chief point man in the campaign against terrorism is leaving to join a Las Vegas gambling empire, less than three months after he became the third-ranking official at the bureau, officials said on Wednesday.
The F.B.I. official, Larry Mefford, who is head of the bureau's counterterrorism and counterintelligence operation, becomes the third person to leave that post in the last 14 months. No immediate successor was named. The bureau made counterterrorism its top priority after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Mr. Mefford is retiring at the end of October after 24 years with the bureau and will return to Nevada to assist Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas gambling magnate, in security and other operations, bureau officials said. He was a law enforcement officer in Reno, Nev., before joining the bureau in 1979.
Mr. Mefford's departure creates another temporary hole in management at the F.B.I. at a time the bureau is seeking to reorganize itself as a first line of defense against terrorism. Since Robert S. Mueller III took over as director of the F.B.I. just days before the Sept. 11 attacks, the bureau has undergone widespread personnel changes. New leaders have taken over in virtually every section of the agency as officials have retired or left for the private sector.
Mr. Mueller said Mr. Mefford had been "a valued colleague whose experience both as an agent in the field and as a manager at F.B.I. headquarters will be greatly missed."
Mr. Mefford did not return telephone calls, and officials said he was unavailable for comment on his decision.
His departure surprised some law enforcement officials both in and out of the bureau because it came so soon after he was promoted, in July, to the post of executive assistant director. But a senior bureau official said that when Mr. Mefford moved to headquarters in Washington in April 2002 from the San Francisco office, he told Mr. Mueller that he planned to retire in 12 months.
Several bureau officials said Mr. Mefford's decision to resign appeared to be driven by both an attractive job offer and what amounted to professional burnout in a high-pressured setting. He has led efforts to expand the F.B.I.'s counterterrorism operation and strengthen its ability to gather, analyze and share intelligence.
"It's a rough job," a bureau official said. "The guy's here from 6 in the morning till 8 at night, and there's a point where you just say, `Enough.' "
When Mr. Mefford was promoted to oversee counterterrorism operations, he replaced Pasquale J. D'Amuro, who became the assistant director in charge of the bureau's New York office.
Mr. Mefford and Mr. D'Amuro were credited with helping reshape the bureau and instill a new mindset there by pushing agents to predict and prevent terrorist attacks, rather than simply respond to them.
Mr. Mefford told reporters last month that while he believed that Americans were less vulnerable to terrorism than they were before Sept. 11, "Al Qaeda remains our No. 1 concern."
But critics in Congress and elsewhere, questioning whether the F.B.I. is up to the task of reinventing itself, have continued to push for consideration of a separate domestic intelligence-gathering agency to supplement the bureau.
--------
Top FBI Counterterror Official Announces Retirement
Veteran's Departure, After Three Months on Job, Is the Latest in a String Since Attacks of Sept. 11
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A255-2003Oct8.html
The FBI's top counterterrorism official announced his retirement yesterday after just three months on the job, marking the latest in a wave of departures from the senior ranks of the FBI since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Larry Mefford, a 24-year FBI veteran who became executive assistant director for counterterrorism and counterintelligence in July, will leave at the end of the month to take a top security job for a large casino firm in Las Vegas, FBI officials said.
Mefford is the third person in the past 18 months to hold that position, which FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III created to oversee terrorism and intelligence investigations. All the senior posts at the FBI have turned over at least once since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The steady stream of departures has left the bureau "extremely thin in the experience department," one FBI official acknowledged yesterday. The bureau has struggled to hold on to personnel amid grueling hours, intensive congressional scrutiny and a dramatic effort to remake the FBI into an agency focused on preventing terrorism.
"These are just high-burnout jobs," said Robert Blitzer, a former FBI counterterrorism official who has worked with Mefford and others who have left in recent months. "The pressure is incredible, given everything that's going on around the world. You can only take that pounding, emotionally, for so long."
One FBI official said that Mefford, 53, left in part because of family ties in Nevada and because of the lucrative offer to be a top security official at the company controlled by casino magnate Steve Wynn.
Mefford declined to comment through the FBI press office.
Mefford joined the FBI in 1979 and worked at field offices in Sacramento, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Diego and San Francisco before coming to FBI headquarters to work on weapons of mass destruction issues and to oversee establishment of a new cybercrime division. He took over the counterterrorism division last November before being named to his current post.
In a statement, Mueller called Mefford "one of the most experienced leaders in the FBI and in the law enforcement community." No replacement was immediately named.
--------
Philadelphia Mayor Finds Office Bugged
Device Linked to FBI Probe of Corruption
By Robert Strauss and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64506-2003Oct8?language=printer
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 8 -- A federal corruption investigation was inadvertently exposed here this week when a secret listening device was discovered in the City Hall office of Mayor John F. Street.
The bug was uncovered Tuesday during an electronic sweep of Street's office by the city police department, a sweep officials said was performed routinely every few months.
Its discovery set off a political firestorm when local FBI officials announced that the bug was not part of any electoral espionage -- Street (D) is locked in an acrimonious campaign with Republican Sam Katz -- but would not say how they knew that.
"The FBI doesn't confirm or deny investigations," said special agent Linda Vizi, the FBI spokeswoman in Philadelphia. "We were contacted by police that they found the device and responded. We will confirm, however, that we have ruled out the possibility of it being connected to the election campaign."
On Wednesday, federal law enforcement sources said the bug had been placed in the mayor's office as part of an "anti-corruption investigation" by the FBI in Philadelphia, but the sources refused to elaborate on the nature of the inquiry.
The city is already the subject of federal investigations into ticket-fixing and an airport-maintenance contract that was given to the mayor's brother but then rescinded, according to local news reports.
"This is a huge matter of concern to me," Street said in an impromptu news conference Tuesday afternoon, not long after the bug was found. "You'd like to think you have a certain amount of privacy in your own office, and when you don't, you feel violated."
The battery-powered device was found in the ceiling of the mayor's office, along with several microphones throughout the large room. The device transmitted its signal outside City Hall.
Street has said he had no knowledge of the bug before it was discovered and angrily demanded an explanation from the FBI. "I haven't done anything wrong, and I don't know that anybody in my cabinet or in my staff around me has done anything wrong," he said Wednesday.
Katz spokeswoman Maureen Garrity said she was happy that the FBI had quickly exonerated the Katz campaign, but she could shed no further light on what the bug meant.
"I don't think anyone knows what is going on yet. We just don't know the truth," she said. "We have three-and-a-half weeks to go in the race, and hopefully this investigation will take its course, and the people of Philadelphia will find out just what it is about."
This year's election is a repeat of the close race that Street won four years ago. The discovery of the listening device is the latest in a string of incidents that have plagued his campaign.
In June, the mayor had to rescind the multimillion-dollar city contract for airport maintenance with a firm connected to his brother to avoid suspicion of no-bid nepotism; the city turned over 25,000 pages of documents relating to the contract to federal investigators. Then Katz made an issue of the ticket-fixing scandal.
The wife of a Street spokesman was found to be writing letters to the editor of a local newspaper under her maiden name criticizing Katz. In August, someone threw a firebomb into a Katz campaign office, though police could not determine who did it.
The campaign has also prompted heated discussions about race in the city, which is divided about equally between white and black residents, with a much smaller percentage of Asians. Katz, a former Democrat whose only city office has been as a school board member, is white. Street, who was a longtime city council member and council president before becoming mayor, is black.
Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D), a former Philadelphia mayor and a longtime ally of Street's, has asked the FBI to make public what it knows about the bug.
Street campaign spokesman Frank Keel suggested that any investigation was being orchestrated by the Justice Department for political reasons because Pennsylvania is an important state in next year's presidential election. "Is the Republican Party capable of dirty tricks? I think that is well documented," Keel told the Associated Press.
The local U.S. attorney, Patrick L. Meehan, a Republican appointee, denied that politics would have any role in any investigation by his office but did not address directly the topic of the listening device found in Street's office.
"The U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has a long and proud history of doing its work without regard to partisan politics. That was the practice of my predecessors, and it is my practice as well," Meehan said in a statement.
Appearing agitated during the Tuesday news conference, the mayor said he was not going to just wait for the FBI to tell him what was going to happen next.
"We'll conduct our own investigation in conjunction with the investigation that the FBI is conducting," he said. "We'll try to get to the bottom of it."
Eggen reported from Washington.
-------- terrorism
Science Panel Urges Review of Research Terrorists Could Use
October 9, 2003
By NICHOLAS WADE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/science/09RESE.html
Despite scientists' general distaste for any constraints on research, a panel of the National Academy of Sciences yesterday recommended prior review, at the university and federal levels, of experiments that could help terrorists or hostile nations make biological weapons.
The panel's work was initiated by the academy, the leading scientific body in the nation, and represents an attempt by biologists to put their own review systems in place before others might do so for them.
But Dr. John H. Marburger, science adviser to President Bush, suggested that the report might not go far enough. Though it was "a very positive move by the scientific community, I am sure there are other things that will happen in the future," he said.
"So it isn't as if this is a magic bullet that will bring an end to all discussion of the issue," Dr. Marburger said. Asked what further measures might be necessary, he said only that this was the first time biologists had defined areas of concern and that the proposed list of seven fields needed more discussion.
Dr. Marburger said the administration had not yet decided whether or how to act on the proposal.
Though physicists have long lived with the fact that certain areas of research are classified and cannot be discussed openly, biologists are relatively new to security concerns. Apart from biological defense research, done mostly at military institutions, academic biology is focused on medicine and conducted without security restraints.
The academy panel has sought to institute some measure of review of possibly harmful biomedical research without burdening scientific research with onerous controls. Its proposed solution is to reinvigorate a review system put in place after a 1975 conference at which biologists called for a moratorium on certain genetic engineering experiments then becoming possible.
Concern about those experiments has long since faded. But the review system remains, with biosafety committees at all leading research universities and the federal Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, known as the R.A.C.
The National Academy of Sciences panel, led by Dr. Gerald Fink of the Whitehead Institute at M.I.T., said research proposals in seven areas of biology should be reviewed by both a scientist's local biosafety committee and by the R.A.C. Local committees could decree that an experiment should not be conducted on their premises, and the federal committee could advise the director of the National Institutes of Health that an experiment should not receive government money. The government has the power to make any research secret and therefore prevent the work from being published, but in practice would not wish to classify large chunks of biomedical research like immunology and virology.
Both Dr. Fink and another panel member, Dr. Ronald Atlas of the University of Louisville, said the academy had taken up the security issue on its own initiative, not from government pressure, and had paid for the study. Most academy studies are financed by the government.
The time has come when "interaction between the security community and life scientists is extremely important, so that we speak the same language," Dr. Fink said.
The panel's work seems likely to be palatable to many scientists, but it remains to be seen if those concerned with national security will be satisfied.
A national security expert who served on the panel, Dr. David Franz of the Southern Research Institute, said he expected that "individuals who look carefully at this will see it as a reasonable approach."
Dr. Donald Kennedy, editor of Science magazine and former president of Stanford, said his impression of the report was "very favorable." Dr. Kennedy praised the panel for deciding not to second-guess journal editors on what could be published, and for having avoided a step under discussion, that of creating a murky category of research that would be deemed somehow sensitive but not so dangerous as to be classified.
A chief ingredient of the panel's ideas is the creation of an advisory committee high in the Department of Health and Human Services where biologists and national security experts could swap ideas and fashion advice for the R.A.C. and local biosafety committees.
Such guidance might be in great demand. One practical problem is that neither the R.A.C. nor the local committees have any expertise in bioterrorism or national security.
If the administration accepts the panel's ideas, Congressional action could be needed to set up the proposed biological defense advisory committee. Or it could be created by executive order, though Congress would have to approve its budget. The new duties of the R.A.C. and local safety committees, however, could be ordained by the director of the National Institutes of Health through standard regulatory procedures, panel members said.
Though the anthrax mailings of fall 2001 demonstrated the havoc that terrorists might wreak with biotechnology, the Fink panel's work began 15 months earlier, stimulated by an Australian effort to enhance the natural potency of a virus, said Dr. Eileen Choffnes, the study director for the panel. To eradicate mice in Australia, the scientists souped up the mousepox virus with a human gene. The enhanced virus killed even mice that were vaccinated against the disease.
Both the authors and editors of The Journal of Virology, to which they submitted their work, knew the paper could give terrorists direct ideas about enhancing human pathogens. But realizing that all the components of the research had already been published, the editors decided to publish the article, though after a two-year delay.
--------
Terror Risk Screening of Bioresearch Is Urged
Panel Also Recommends Better Cooperation Between Scientists and National Security Community
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A339-2003Oct8.html
Researchers conducting biotechnology experiments in the United States should submit their plans in advance to specially trained panels of scientists and national security experts who would decide whether the research's benefits are outweighed by the potential for misuse by bioterrorists, an independent panel recommended yesterday.
In a widely anticipated report, the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, also called for the creation of a high-level federal board to facilitate a new degree of cooperation between biologists and the national security community.
If implemented, the recommendations could substantially revamp the way biotechnology research is overseen in this country by urging -- though not legally requiring -- drug and biotechnology companies and privately funded research institutions to submit to a level of federal review that until now has been mostly applied to publicly funded scientists.
Although physicists and the Department of Defense forged such a relationship decades ago to keep nuclear technology out of enemy hands, biology researchers have traditionally had, at best, an arm's length relationship with military and intelligence agencies. Even after the anthrax attacks of 2001, which raised concerns about access to dangerous biotechnologies, many biologists resisted calls for tighter controls, warning that a regulatory overreaction could stymie research that could someday prove crucial to defending against future attacks.
"The crux of the dilemma is that the technology that protects us can also be used to cause harm," said Gerald R. Fink, a geneticist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., and chairman of the NRC committee.
The report notes that the recent rapid growth in funding of biodefense research has increased the amount of information that could be used by terrorists, making it more important that the nation start integrating security controls into biotechnology research.
For the most part, however, the report opposes new government restrictions on scientific research or on the dissemination of scientific information. Instead, it favors solutions in which scientists and scientific societies would take the lead in preventing misuse of their work.
Weighing in on one of the more contentious issues that divide many scientists and security experts, the report strongly recommends against government censorship of scientific publications once research has been completed. The panel argued that by then it is generally too late to keep dangerous findings under wraps.
The report, "Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism," also offers a sobering reminder that efforts in this country will be for naught if other countries fail to enact similar protections.
"The techniques, reagents and information that could be used for offensive purposes are readily available and accessible," the report notes. "Without international consensus . . . limitations on certain types of research in the United States would only impede the progress of biomedical research here and undermine our own national interests."
The 110-page report reflects 18 months of analysis by experts in science, law, national security and private industry. It focuses not so much on how to keep dangerous microbes out of terrorists' hands (several recent acts of Congress have addressed this) but on how to minimize the misuse of biotechnology knowledge without slowing the development of new medicines, vaccines, microbe detection systems or agricultural advances.
The panel avoided solutions that would require big new bureaucratic responses and instead came up with a plan that builds on existing mechanisms for reviewing research proposals involving genetically altered microbes.
Under the plan, which panelists said could be implemented without new legislation, researchers would first show their proposals to committees of experts at their own institutions, which would decide whether the work posed worrisome risks. The report highlights seven types of work that would trigger alarms, including research that would make vaccines ineffective or make microbes more virulent, more contagious or harder to detect.
Experiments that trigger such alarms would be sent for further review by a newly expanded recombinant DNA advisory committee of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which today primarily assesses the safety of gene therapy experiments.
Participation would be voluntary and the relevant committees would lack the legal power to prevent research from going forward. Some private research firms in the past have balked at aspects of voluntary NIH review because such proceedings are generally public, making it difficult to keep proprietary information secret.
But a combination of patriotism and peer pressure from fellow professionals would ensure a high degree of compliance, panelists predicted.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which would be responsible for implementing most of the proposed changes, characterized the report as "a good job on an important issue" and said its details are under review.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- energy
Energy Bill May Be Delayed Until January
By REUTERS
October 9, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-energy-congress.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A vote by U.S. Senate and House negotiators on a broad energy bill could be delayed until January because of bitter disagreements over electricity grid rules and a fuel additive that competes with ethanol, a Senate aide said on Thursday.
The bill, the first overhaul of U.S. energy policy in a decade, aims to offer billions of dollars worth of incentives for investments in natural gas drilling, coal-fired power plants, nuclear power and alternative energy.
Negotiators still hoped to reach agreement next week but ``there's a possibility that this could go into January,'' said an aide to Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, who heads the negotiations.
``I hope that a conference meeting can occur next week and am working toward that objective,'' Domenici said in a statement.
President Bush has repeatedly urged Congress to finish an energy bill as soon as possible. Speaking in New Hampshire on Thursday, Bush asked Congress to ``come together and get a bill to my desk before they go home for Christmas.''
Although negotiators agree on the need to improve the reliability of the U.S. electric transmission grid, Southern lawmakers have demanded the legislation block federal energy regulators from requiring U.S. utilities to join regional grid groups.
Republican Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi also has insisted on participant funding provisions to protect Southeast utilities from paying to build new power grids that benefit other regions, congressional sources said.
Other major disagreements center on whether to ban the MTBE fuel additive that competes with ethanol, subsidies for an Alaskan natural gas pipeline, tax provisions and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The threat of a delay was ``politics played by a professional'' said one lobbyist who follows energy legislation. ``This is nothing more than a big bump'' by Domenici to get both Senate Democrats and House Republicans to negotiate, he said.
With the 2004 presidential election on the horizon, the longer negotiators haggle, the less chance there is of Congress passing an energy bill.
``If this is going to happen, it's going to happen in the next two or three weeks,'' another industry lobbyist said.
Senate Democratic staff workers, caught off guard by the possible delay, said it could give them more time to try to alter the bill. Democratic negotiators have complained that Republicans have shut them out of the bill-writing process.
A spokesman for Republican Rep. Billy Tauzin, Domenici's House counterpart, said Tauzin opposed any delay because House negotiators are ready to vote on the bill next week. ``If there's a problem, it's in the Senate,'' he said.
A delay would be a case of deja vu from 2002, when energy bill negotiations also fell apart over the plan for regional transmission grid groups proposed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
-------- environment
Myanmar's Ancient Forests Stripped by Military Government
BANGKOK, Thailand, (ENS)
October 8, 2003
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2003/2003-10-08-02.asp
The forests of Myanmar are being liquidated to serve the needs and desires of the country's cash-poor military government, according to a new report released Tuesday by Global Witness, a UK nongovernmental organization which focuses on the connections between natural resource exploitation and conflict.
Myanmar's vast forests contain over 80 percent of the world's remaining teak trees and a variety of rare hardwoods. But the northern old-growth temperate rainforests of the country once known as Burma are being wiped out by Chinese timber companies from neighboring Yunnan Province, the report warns.
At the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Bangkok Global Witness held a news conference to discuss the study, "A Conflict of Interests: The uncertain future of Burma's forests."
The result of extensive research and fieldwork within Burma, Thailand and China, the report examines the roots of the civil war and the links between conflict and the control of natural resources in Burma.
"Revenue derived by the regime and insurgents alike from the exploitation of natural resources, including timber, has perpetuated violent armed conflict throughout Burma," said Jon Buckrell of Global Witness.
The current exploitation of Burma's forests is "inseparable from the wider political process in Burma," Global Witness says. The report details for the first time the history of logging in Burma, the reality of current logging by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), logging by insurgent groups, rampant logging in ceasefire areas, and the cross-border trade in particular with China.
Forty years after the imposition of military rule in 1962, the SPDC remains in power, sustained in part by its control over access to minerals and timber, Global Witness said. In 2002, logging alone represented 9.3 percent of legal foreign earnings. The regime has also traded these resources forpolitical and military support both within Burma and with neighboring countries.
In 1960, about 50 percent of the country was forested, and the Ministry for Forestry contends that this amount of forest cover has not changed in the past since then. Independent observers put forest cover at about 30 percent and dwindling rapidly.
Destructive and unsustainable logging, as exemplified by Chinese logging companies operating in Kachin State, is "inextricably linked" to conflict, SPDC management of internal and foreign relations through the control of access to natural resources, coercive, non-transparent and poorly planned ceasefire arrangements, and corruption, Global Witness reports.
Over the past few years, a number of roads in Kachin state were built in return for huge logging concessions.
"The large standing army, the dire state of the formal economy, and inadequate and inequitable application of forest legislation" makes the situation worse, the organization states.
"Burma is resource rich but surrounded by resource hungry nations, and the regime has used this fully to its advantage," said Buckrell.
The need for foreign currency has resulted in cutting by the state controlled Myanmar Timber Enterprise that exceeds levels set by the Forestry Department.
"Informal" logging has put even greater pressure on the forests of the central part of the country. A comparison of official import-export figures conducted by Global Witness suggest that the trade in Burmese timber is "at least double" that recorded by the regime.
"Unrecorded exports in excess of one million cubic meters, worth approximately US$250 million, strongly suggest that the regime has lost control of its forest sector," said Buckrell.
According to Chinese import data cited by Global Witness, China imported over one million cubic metres of timber from Burma in 2002. This figure is likely to exceed 1.4 million cubic meters by the end of this year.
Global Witness investigations along the China-Burma border show that logging on this scale has led to the destruction of large stretches of pristine forest in Kachin State. These forests form part of an area said to be "very possibly the most biodiverse, rich, temperate area on earth," the environmental investigators say.
To preserve what is left of these forests, it is essential that the international community renews efforts to end the conflict in Burma and actively encourages a dialogue between all stakeholders, including the ethnic communities, Global Witness recommends.
"The unsustainable exploitation of Burma's forests can only be effectively addressed by engaging the SPDC on a diplomatic level - engagement does not amount to legitimizing the regime or condoning what it does," says the report.
"People's livelihoods are being destroyed," said Buckrell. "China must stop logging in Burma immediately to allow time for proper planning that will ensure the forests are used for the benefit of the people of Kachin state rather than Chinese logging companies."
In 1998 China prohibited most logging to protect its forests and to halt soil erosion and floods. This policy has led to a large, unregulated timber trade that has devoured hundreds of square miles of ancient tropical forests in Burma.
Global Witness recommends that timber imported from Burma must not fund conflict, or lead to human rights abuse or increased poverty, and that it is harvested from a legal, sustainably managed source and produced in accordance with Burma's international obligations.
"Meaningful public consultation" is a watchword of the report, which advises that all ceasefire groups be enabled to carry out Environmental and Social Impact Assessments for all development projects, and any commercial activities involving the exploitation of natural resources
All data relating to the importation of timber from Burma should be made available to the public, including volumes, value, and origin, the report asks.
A forest sector review and forest value assessment is needed to determine how to protect and sustainably manage all of Burma's forests in the best interests of the people of Burma.
The international community should help rebuild society at a local level through the promotion of educational projects including environmental awareness, encourage the continuation of sustainable resource use and protection, and support grassroots environmental initiatives.
To ensure that the illegal timber trade does not support conflict, Global Witness says the international community should step in and, "Take unilateral, bilateral or multilateral action to make it illegal to import conflict timber and timber that has been logged, transported or traded illegally and to punish those companies and individuals involved."
Global Witness would like to see the United Nations Security Council recognize conflict resources as natural resources that should be banned from international trade.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Israel jails Canadian `refusenik'
Reserve medic won't serve in West Bank, Gaza `We simply have to break the circle of violence'
MITCH POTTER MIDDLE EAST BUREAU
Oct. 9, 2003.
Toronto Star
http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1065651009902&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724
JERUSALEM-A Canadian-born Israeli reserve soldier has been jailed for refusing to serve in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, citing "reasons of conscience."
Dan Goldenblatt, 33, a Montreal native, declined the order to deploy to the territories Tuesday morning after returning from a funeral for a friend killed in last weekend's Palestinian suicide bombing in the Israeli port city of Haifa, in which 19 civilians died.
Officers at the Israeli Defence Forces base at Yokneam immediately tried Goldenblatt, a paratrooper battle medic, sentencing him to 28 days. His detention began yesterday at an Israeli military prison near the northern Israeli town of Atlit.
"Until today, I have never refused to obey an order. I always came when called, with my army boots, hat and uniform," Goldenblatt said in a written statement to his superiors obtained by the Star.
"For reasons of conscience, I refuse to take part in acts of occupation. I refuse to give any Palestinian even the slightest additional reason to participate in terrorist acts, to hate my country. I refuse to participate in the policy of revolving and stupid revenge of the current government of Israel, which believes in power and lacks initiative or hope," Goldenblatt said.
"And I refuse to guard the poisonous and extremely costly settlements, which are the foundation of the policy of oppression and occupation.
"I believe with all my heart that in refusing to serve in the occupied territories, I am serving the State of Israel in the most important manner."
In a dramatic declaration last month, 27 Israeli pilots vowed to abstain from flying "assassination strikes" in densely populated Palestinian areas.
Goldenblatt was a toddler when his Montreal-born parents moved to Israel in the early 1970s. His family has always maintained close ties to Canada, his father said in an interview last night.
"I'm proud of him, I agree with him 100 per cent, but at the same time I'm not happy about it," David Goldenblatt, 62, said.
"The question is what happens after 28 days? The army has jailed several dozen so-called `refuseniks,' and at least one of them keeps having his detention renewed. He's spent months in jail."
David Goldenblatt said the irony is he once served as an Israeli military prosecutor, yet he feels helpless to assist his son.
"The Israeli Supreme Court doesn't want to interfere, so there was no point even having a lawyer at the trial. This is political, and you can't beat politics with law. Basically, there's nothing I can do."
The Goldenblatts are a prime example of how the contentious issue of conscientious objection can tear at the fabric of a society in which army service is compulsory.
The entire family holds Canadian passports, and Dan's younger, Israeli-born brother, Ilan, 29, lives on Gabriola Island, B.C., where he renovates houses for a living.
"Ilan is behind Dan completely. One of the reasons he lives on Gabriola is because of the political situation here. But his sisters, both of who did their IDF duty, are less supportive, veering towards no," said David Goldenblatt.
"It's a source of argument between the children."
In his written statement, Goldenblatt cited the death of his friend, Zvi Bahat, who was killed in Saturday's suicide attack at Maxim Restaurant in Haifa. The bomber, Goldenblatt noted, was revealed to be a woman, a young Palestinian law clerk from Jenin, whose own brother and cousin were killed in earlier IDF operations.
"How is it possible that a young woman can carry out such an awful suicide bombing?" Goldenblatt wrote.
"The only possible answer is that she was driven by an utter lack of hope, that the result of 36 years of occupation is this utter lack of hope for a better life, freedom, self-respect - in short, all of the things that all of us hope for and expect.
"We have turned the lives of women and children into hell, but we are shocked, enraged and demand retribution when the people who are the products of our occupation take action against us."
David Goldenblatt, who has a sister living in Toronto, said he is concerned something will be lost in the translation when the Canadian family learns of his son's incarceration.
"It's a problem. My sense is the overwhelming majority of the Canadian Jewish community gets its views from the Israeli government," he said.
"I would tell them that at this point, it doesn't even matter who is right. We simply have to break the circle of violence."
----
Shiites Again Protest Arrest at Mosque
Thousands March to Demand Leader's Release; Turkish Troop Issue Unsettled
By Theola Labbé and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 9, 2003; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A266-2003Oct8.html
BAGHDAD, Oct. 8 -- The U.S. military squared off with angry Shiite Muslim protesters for the second straight day Wednesday after thousands marched to the headquarters of the U.S.-led administration in Iraq to demand the release of a local religious leader arrested this week by U.S. forces.
More than 3,000 Shiites shouting "No! No occupation!" snaked through the city streets carrying religious banners as OH-58D Kiowa helicopters hovered overhead. After a nearly three-hour walk, the crowd reached the Presidential Palace, and some protesters laid in front of military vehicles and refused to move.
The U.S. military arrested Moayed Khazraji, the leader of the blue-domed Bayaa mosque in southwest Baghdad, on Monday after receiving several tips that he had stashed weapons in the mosque, said the chief U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. George Krivo.
Soldiers found a box of .50-caliber ammunition, a box of hand grenades, numerous AK-47 assault rifles and other prohibited weapons at the mosque, and Khazraji was arrested on charges of being "in support of anti-American activities," Krivo said.
Khazraji is reportedly close to Moqtada Sadr, a Shiite cleric who has been outspoken against the occupation but has stopped short of calling for a holy war. Local media have reported that Khazraji also has delivered sermons opposing the presence of foreign troops in Iraq, and several marchers Wednesday accused the U.S. military of planting the weapons as a means of removing a high-profile ally of Sadr.
"If the dogs keep arresting the sheik, they will face a war," said Sayd Qassam Mousawi, a Sadr spokesman from Baghdad.
Krivo said the search of the mosque was based on "actionable intelligence" and that there was no evidence that the weapons had been planted.
Meanwhile, one day after Turkey's parliament approved sending troops to Iraq to serve as peacekeepers, Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council told the U.S. civil administrator here, L. Paul Bremer, that it did not support the deployment of forces from neighboring countries.
Council members resolved, however, to continue discussing the matter with U.S. officials in an effort to reach a compromise that would satisfy the Bush administration's desire to bring more foreign troops to Iraq, particularly from a Muslim-dominated country such as Turkey, while respecting the nationalist sentiments of Iraqi politicians.
Council member Mowaffak Rubaie said the 24-member body told Bremer that Iraqis view the presence of troops from neighboring countries "with anxiety and caution" because they have interests that sometimes "contradict the interests of the Iraqi people."
U.S. officials said Bremer told council members that he is open to discussing the issue with them but that the final decision on the Turkish troops rests with the U.S.-led occupation authority.
Among those most concerned about a possible Turkish military presence is Iraq's Kurdish population, which has had a long history of conflict with the Turks. An official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of Iraq's two largest Kurdish parties, warned that the arrival of Turkish soldiers "could spark civil war."
Council members said they remained optimistic a resolution could be reached with U.S. officials. A meeting between members of the council's security committee and U.S. military commanders was scheduled for Thursday.
Council member Samir Shakir Mahmoud Sumaidy said there was a difference of opinion on the council, but he expressed hope the groups would be able to "work through these different perspectives."
--------
Protesters' rights violated, ACLU says
By Dick Foster,
Rocky Mountain News
October 9, 2003
http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_2333525,00.html
COLORADO SPRINGS - The city could land in court for denying protesters access to the delegates and reporters at the NATO defense ministers meeting here.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado is considering whether to file the lawsuit on behalf of six members of Citizens for Peace in Space, a Colorado Springs group. "Their First Amendment rights have been violated, in my view," ACLU legal director Mark Silverstein said Wednesday.
"Of course the police have a legitimate interest in assuring the security of the NATO conference," he said. "The question is whether they're banning too much expression over too wide a geographical area."
Police on Wednesday blocked the six from entering a "security zone," a two-block perimeter around the Broadmoor Hotel, where the ministers have been holding their two-day meeting that ends today.
"We'd like to chitchat with some of the delegates and the international press," said group spokesman Bill Sulzman. "We want to give them a different point of view than they're getting from (U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald) Rumsfeld."
Sulzman said the United States is violating international weapons nonproliferation treaties.
City litigation attorney Lori Miskel told Sulzman on Wednesday that his group wouldn't be allowed inside the perimeter because of security issues. "It's within a security zone that we believe is necessary for the safety of the delegates," she said.
She added that to allow one group access would open the way for others. "I could not have denied other groups access within the security perimeter if I had allowed your group in," she said.
Silverstein said even residents living within the perimeter have been banned from posting protest signs in their yards. "It's not a security zone. It's a no-protest zone," he said.
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