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NUCLEAR
Four nations spark WMD worries
The Welsh brains behind A-bomb tests
International Coalition Launches Campaign to Ban Depleted Uranium Weapons
Blackout on nuclear shipment details alarms ecologists
Nuke Dispute Tightens U.S., Iran Tension
U.N. Nuclear Agency Chief to Visit Iran
Russia delays launch of Iran nuclear power plant: report
EU Accuses Iran of Torture and Liberties Abuses
Iran Said to Hide Nuclear Site as UN Deadline Nears
Iran air-strike plan seen as bluff
Russia, China seek to restart N Korea nuclear talks
N. Korea says pact is key to standoff
Experts fear terrorist N-bomb
Contamination at old nuclear plant results in legal melee
Community's confidence in SRS alleviates some security concerns
'True Patriot' would restore rights
Impeachment is back
All the President's Votes?
Senators Say Bush Needs to Take Control
MILITARY
U.S. probing arms shipped to Iraq
Lockheed Martin Wins $812M Deal For Sea-Based Missile Defense
Chinese war games to face Taiwan again
EU sets out tough terms for aid to Iraq
Bulgarian Soldier Injured in Iraq, Recruitment Problems in Sofia
Iraqi group to kill peacekeepers
War without end
Car Bomb Kills 6 at Baghdad Hotel; at Least 35 Hurt
Suicide Bomber Kills 7 in Baghdad
U.S. Proposes Date for Iraqis to Start Planning for Self-Rule
Iraq Council Asks for Help Rebuilding
Israel ignores UK family's call for truth
Alternative 'peace deal' for Mid-East
New Rules for Israel and Syria
Arafat Appoints Acting Security Chief
Palestinian Cabinet Decides To Stay On Despite Infighting
Jordan's King Says Neighbors Should Avoid Iraq
Pentagon official Richard Perle: US may take action against Syria
US spy aircraft deployed in Philippines
Philippine Forces Kill Terror Suspect
China Plans Giant Step This Week
Bush Goes Around Media to Make Iraq Case
The Truth About Our Good Intentions
FAKE 'GOOD NEWS' FROM IRAQ
Letters Home
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
EU Accuses Iran of Torture and Liberties Abuses
Congress Looks to Grant Legal Status to Immigrants
ENERGY AND OTHER
Honda reduces cost of building fuel cell cars
Energy Industry to Win Big on Energy Bill
U.S. Ghost Ships Arouse Official European Opposition
Bone Marrow Research Is Questioned
ACTIVISTS
Bishops advise Catholic voters
BOLIVIA - Military controls city after deadly clashes
Protest targets military spending
Missile Protests Continue
Five Protesters Die in Bolivia After President Calls in Troops
Bolivian Clashes Claim More Lives
N.Y. Activists Prep for GOP Convention
-------- NUCLEAR
Four nations spark WMD worries
Programs in Mideast, Asia viewed as potential weapon sources for terrorism
Monday, October 13, 2003
JOHN YAUKEY
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20031013/frontpage/122938.shtml
PART 2 OF A THREE-PART SERIES
About this project
Find an interactive illustration of the key types of weapons of mass destruction and which countries are believed to have them in the Gannett News Service special report, "Deadly Weapons in Dangerous Hands," at www.theolympian.com.
GNS national security correspondent John Yaukey spent months analyzing intelligence reports and interviewing dozens of experts, diplomats, intelligence officers and lawmakers to track the threats Americans face from weapons of mass destruction.
Some of the work was done during a journalism fellowship Yaukey was awarded through the East-West Center, a Honolulu-based organization that promotes relations between the United States and Asia.
Yaukey, 42, is a Best of Gannett award winner. He has been covering national security and terrorism issues since May 2002. Prior to that, he covered technology and science. Yaukey has been with Gannett News Service since 1998.
Three parts
Today is the second part of a three-day series:
- SUNDAY: There is evidence that weapons of mass destruction are spilling into some of the world's most dangerous places through black markets U.S. intelligence knows little about.
- TODAY: Some nations have adopted the strategy in which they get as close to weapons production as possible while abiding by international nonproliferation restrictions, then start making warheads when the United States is caught in a vulnerable position that discourages pre-emptive strikes.
- TUESDAY: Buried in the Pentagon's budget proposal for next year is a statement rescinding the prohibition on the research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons.
WASHINGTON -- The regime-ending mistakes of Saddam Hussein were not lost on the mullahs of Iran.
Instead of pursuing banned weapons underground as the ousted Iraqi leader did after the first gulf war, Iran, by most accounts, is pressing forward with a nuclear weapons initiative in full view of the world.
Only it's disguised as a civilian energy program.
The strategy, intelligence analysts say, is to get as close to weapons production as possible while abiding by international nonproliferation restrictions, then start making warheads when the United States is caught in a vulnerable position that discourages pre-emptive strikes.
Much like it is now.
If Iran succeeds, an anti-American theocracy that supports both terrorists and the eradication of Israel would be able to strike anywhere in the Middle East with nuclear weapons.
That's just one of the many nightmare scenarios the intelligence community is confronting as weapons of mass destruction seep from the thaw of the Cold War into a clandestine coven of hostile governments and terrorists that trade in murky black markets.
And it isn't just adversaries that threaten national security.
Russia, a U.S. ally against terrorism, sits atop the world's largest WMD arsenal with frighteningly inadequate security and legions of ambitious arms dealers. If Pakistan's shaky President Pervez Musharraf falls to Islamic extremists, so goes his nuclear arsenal.
Here are the four most dangerous places:
Russia
Sometime in the 1990s, according to recently declassified intelligence reports, authorities intercepted 3 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from a car in Prague, Czech Republic.
The material, stolen from an engineering institute southwest of Moscow, was about a third of the mass necessary to make a nuclear weapon. The seizure led to the capture of a Ukrainian and a Belorussian, both with nuclear backgrounds.
When the Soviet Union dissolved, so did its iron grip on the world's largest arsenal of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons scattered from Russia's Arctic coast to Kazakhstan.
Since 1993, the International Atomic Energy Agency has investigated 175 cases of attempted nuclear smuggling, many of them involving elements of the former communist regime.
According to congressional security estimates, 60 percent of Russia's 20,000 nuclear warheads and 600 tons of weapons-grade material is not under adequate security.
Much of Russia's 40,000 metric tons of nerve gas and other chemical agents have not been sufficiently safeguarded because Moscow will not allow U.S. experts to engineer security upgrades, according to a General Accounting Office report.
At the Shchuchye chemical weapons repository in the Ural Mountains southeast of Moscow, there are some 2 million shells filled with sarin, VX and other nerve agents.
At Vozrozhdeniya Island in the Aral Sea, the Russians dealt with 100 tons of biological agent simply by burying it, with minimal security.
The human element in the Russian equation is cause for equal concern: thousands of WMD scientists making less than $50 a month, some thought to be freelancing in Iran under cover as civilian energy experts.
Iran
For a country that claims it just wants nuclear energy, Iran is going about it in highly suspicious ways.
Iran is trying to build a uranium enrichment facility it claims is meant to produce fuel for the energy reactors it is constructing at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf. The enrichment equipment could also be capable of producing weapons-grade nuclear material.
Iran also wants to produce heavy water, a liquid containing a form of hydrogen that's useful in making bomb-grade plutonium, yet its energy reactors will use only ordinary water.
The United States and Europe recently challenged Iran to prove its nuclear program is intended to produce only energy by submitting to aggressive inspections.
"The conclusion is inescapable that Iran is pursuing its 'civil' nuclear energy program not for peaceful and economic purposes, but as a front for developing the capability to produce nuclear materials for nuclear weapons," said John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.
Iran is known already to have blister, blood and choking agents, according to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California.
Combine all that with well-established connections to terrorists in Lebanon, and the result is unacceptable to both Washington, D.C., and Jerusalem.
Iran has signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but it can legally back out with 90 days notice. If Iran is allowed to use the treaty as cover for an illegal weapons program, it would set a dangerous precedent, igniting similar ambitions in Egypt, Turkey and even Saudi Arabia.
Pakistan
Third World countries eager to go nuclear or acquire chemical or biological weapons once needed help from a superpower.
Now they're approaching Pakistan, which has a nuclear arsenal and a well-documented record of selling deadly technology to some of the planet's most dangerous regimes, including North Korea.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, is known to have visited North Korea extensively. Meanwhile, Pakistan's Ghauri liquid-fuel ballistic missile is an identical copy of the North Korean Nodong missile, indicating some bartering.
Khan has been a frequent visitor to Iran as well, according to U.S. intelligence, while two retired Pakistani nuclear scientists have admitted to holding "academic" discussions with Osama bin Laden.
Pakistan's volatile politics and restive Islamic radicals are cause for further concern.
Sympathy for Afghanistan's ousted Islamic Taliban regime is rampant among Pakistan's cash-strapped military, which freely sells equipment without approval from the government, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"Pakistan is now leaking dangerous technology," said Joseph Cirincione, director of Carnegie's Non-Proliferation Project. "If it destabilizes, it will hemorrhage the stuff."
North Korea
There could scarcely be a more worrisome addition to the nuclear family than Pyongyang's wildly unpredictable Stalinist leader Kim Jong Il. Kim might already have one to three nuclear weapons and the capacity to make more.
The evidence all indicates North Korea can launch missiles across most of East Asia and possibly to Hawaii and Alaska, and it has a record of selling advanced weapons technology to Iran, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Pakistan.
U.S. officials have accused Kim's cash-strapped regime of selling drugs and missiles and counterfeiting currency to raise money. But would Kim sell fissile material on the terrorist market?
Kim has not been linked to any known terrorists, but he has been caught peddling weapons to the governments that support them.
The more immediate concern is whether Kim will test a nuclear weapon soon, as he has recently threatened. A successful test could easily kick off an Asian arms race, with security implications for Americans as the nuclear dominos fall.
The volatility would almost inevitably push China to expand its nuclear arsenal. India, a longtime foe of China, would follow suit, as would India's archenemy Pakistan.
According to both American and Russian intelligence, North Korea possesses large stocks of the nerve agents sarin and VX that were made at as many as eight chemical weapons facilities. Russian intelligence has reported that North Korea is experimenting with anthrax, cholera, plague and smallpox, and might have weaponized some of these lethal pathogens.
"This is one of the most intractable problems in the world," said Choi Young-jin, chancellor of South Korea's Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security.
-------- britain
The Welsh brains behind A-bomb tests
Oct 13 2003
The Western Mail (Wales)
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/content_objectid=13508102_method=full_siteid=50082_headline=-The-Welsh-brains-behind-Britain-s-A-bomb-tests-name_page.html
It was 50 years ago this month that Britain successfully exploded its first atomic weapon. Kurt Jacobsen talks to Colin Hughes, a Welsh scientist who was there.
Colin Hughes was standing four miles away when an explosion the size of the blast at Nagasaki happened.
"The ball of fire is turning into a cloud, an orange glowing ball dragging dust with it," said Mr Hughes, who worked on the plutonium core.
"It happens in complete silence. No one ever gets that close to hear and you see the shock wave coming toward you because it ripples the dust and that's when you hear the bang.
"Then we shook hands."
With Mr Hughes, a miner's son from Cefn Fforest, near Blackwood, was a group of scientists, including fellow Welshman Ieuan Maddock, who pressed the button and detonated the device.
Mr Hughes, now a widower, had married Gillian and had three children.
He remembers feeling relief above anything else. No one was likely to top the Bhagavid Gita quote - "I am become death, destroyer of worlds" - uttered at Los Alamos by Manhattan Project scientific leader Robert Oppenheimer.
But Operation Hurricane was a success and Britain at last had gone nuclear seven years after the Americans and three years after the Soviets.
At the time the bomb was seen as "a necessary thing, a deterrent", said Mr Hughes. Did he have any misgivings?
"I made aircraft engines during the war, and followed newspaper accounts of bigger and bigger bombing raids on Germany. To me, the atomic bomb seemed a natural progression, and fewer pilots would be put at risk.
"Yes, I had seen camera footage of Hiroshima, and I had also seen pictures of Japanese soldiers torched by flame throwers.
"No armaments are benign. This was a job the Government wanted done. You were a scientific civil servant."
Mr Hughes began his working life at a Merlin engine factory before seeing an advert in 1949 for "assistant experimental officers" at unspecified research establishments.
Lugging a battered suitcase, he reported at Fort Halstead, an armament research centre high on the Kent Downs.
"Inside the fort was a compound, called High Explosive Research, for which you needed a special pass to get in. That's the bomb project."
It was run by William Penney, who had worked at Los Alamos. Mr Hughes worked among "a tremendous array of talent: mathematicians, physicists chemists, engineers".
They included a surprisingly large number of Weshmen - David Barnes, John Davis, Graham Hopkin, David Lewis and John Rowlands.
Mr Hughes, a chartered engineer, worked under Jack Shackleton on the core of the bomb - "the innards". In 1951 he began to study in Birkbeck's honours physics programme under JD Bernal, an eminent scientist and a Marxist.
"All Bernal knew is that I was working on armament research of some kind. He wasn't against the bomb at that time, and the security services seemed not to be bothered by my presence in his department."
In the summer of 1952, bomb components delicately were loaded into HMS Plym to be taken to the Monte Bello islands off Northwestern Australia.
Mr Hughes said, "The Plym was a rusty old tub. When I disembarked a petty officer was frowning into the water. 'I hope this bloody ship sinks,' he said. I replied with a grin, 'So do I."
In the end, it was vaporised. However, many considered the test a failure.
A year later, Mr Hughes, Alan Moat and Bill Moyce bounced over 14 miles of Australian desert with a plutonium canister in the rear of their Land Rover.
"The area was remote and well patrolled, and no escort was needed."
At the blast site, the team inserted the plutonium cartridge into the bomb.
Penney, who was in charge of the whole trial, organised an Australia-England cricket match on the air strip. Then the team went into the history books with two test explosions 12 days apart.
-------- depleted uranium
International Coalition Launches Campaign to Ban Depleted Uranium Weapons
Press Conference Location:
CSC office rue Plétinckx 19 - B-1000
Brussels, Belgium.
For Immediate Release
Monday, October 13, 2003 at 11:00 AM
Contact: Ria Verjauw at 0032-474 75 66 68 (mobile) or Marc Daelemans at 0032- 0476 35 24 84 (mobile)
Experts in several disciplines and from eight countries met this weekend to discuss the creation of a strategy for an international ban on the use depleted uranium and other radioactive materials in military weapons. Participants traveled from Belgium, Germany, Japan, Malta, The Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States to attend a three-day conference held in Berlaar, Belgium on October 10-11-12.
We believe there is mounting evidence of the effects of depleted uranium on human health and the environment. Therefore, we call for an immediate ban on depleted uranium and the use of other radioactive materials in conventional arms, the cleanup of all contaminated sites, compensation and care for all affected populations, a halt to the production, testing, sale, and export of DU weapons and a decommissioning of all existing stockpiles.
In pursuit of this goal, we have established The International Coalition For a Ban on Depleted Uranium Weapons. We call on Governments, Non-Governmental Organizations and other interested parties to join us in this urgent effort.
These radioactive and chemically toxic weapons were first used on a large scale in the Gulf War in 1991, subsequently in other countries (Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan) and again in the current conflict in Iraq. We feel that the occupying powers as well as the countries involved in the stabilization force in Iraq will be putting their soldiers in harms way. Therefore, we call on governments to demand full disclosure on the amount and the locations of DU contaminated sites, access for the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to conduct an environmental assessment and for an independent investigation into the human health consequences in Iraq.
Enclosure: List of Coalition Partners
--
International Depleted Uranium Study Team
Military Toxics Project (USA)
No DU Hiroshima Project (Japan)
Campaign Against Depleted Uranium (UK)
Center for Peace and Justice (USA)
Grassroots Action for Peace (USA)
For Mother Earth (Belgium)
Laka Foundation (NL)
AMOK (NL)
Our Common Future (UK)
-------- europe
Blackout on nuclear shipment details alarms ecologists
13.10.2003
By CATHERINE FIELD
New Zealand Herald
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3528422&thesection=news&thesubsection=world
PARIS - France has quietly imposed a ban on information about its controversial shipments of nuclear material, declaring that such details are tantamount to military secrets and disclosure of them is punishable by a jail term.
The move has outraged the country's powerful ecology movement, as it coincides with a push by the Government to not only maintain France's big dependence on nuclear power - a tendency that runs counter to trends elsewhere in Europe - but extend it for decades to come.
The information blackout was requested by Cogema, a state agency which reprocesses nuclear fuel for France's 58 reactors, has a lucrative contract to do the same for clients in Switzerland and Germany and is scouting for customers in Japan.
It asked the Government to classify details about the transport route and timing of these shipments and about training exercises to protect these convoys as being equivalent to "secrets of national defence".
The decree - published without fanfare in the Official Journal on August 9, in the heart of the summer vacation - ostensibly aims at preventing terrorists from using the information to hijack the shipments and get material to make nuclear bombs.
It came after Greenpeace repeatedly published details of shipment itineraries on its website to encourage "citizen inspections" about safety. On February 19, its supporters blocked a truck carrying 150kg of powdered plutonium, enough for several nuclear bombs, in the centre of Chalon-sur-Saone. The truck was en route from Cogema's reprocessing plant at La Hague, on the Normandy coast, to a plutonium fuel production plant at Marcoule, in Provence, in the far south of the country.
France derives about three-quarters of its electricity needs from nuclear power, the highest proportion of any country in the world. The present generation of reactors is heading towards the end of its life and a public debate is supposed to unfold over the next six months about what should be done to replace them.
But remarks last week by Junior Industry Minister Nicole Fontaine are clearly priming the public to accept the building of the next generation of reactors.
-------- iran
Nuke Dispute Tightens U.S., Iran Tension
By BRIAN MURPHY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 13, 2003
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-me/2003/oct/13/101307463.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - At a Tehran University forum on nuclear technology, a bright green banner proclaimed the nation's "absolute right" to build reactors. Nearby, a student took notes in a folder decorated with Uncle Sam chasing an elusive atom around the Middle East.
The scene last week was another snapshot from one side of the huge gap between Iran and the United States. The tremors over Iran's nuclear ambitions have apparently wrenched it even wider at a delicate time.
Russia is building a nuclear reactor for Iran that the United States fears could be part of efforts to produce material for atomic weapons. In response, the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency has set an Oct. 31 deadline for Iran to prove it has no secret agenda for producing nuclear weapons.
Iran is also being pressed to sign an additional protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty giving U.N. inspectors unfettered access to any site.
The tension has reduced hopes that shared regional interests - topped by Afghanistan and Iraq - could draw the United States and Iran into the most productive dialogue since relations ended after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Instead, many Iranian leaders and opinion-shapers have revived the bitterness that followed President Bush's "axis of evil" label last year. They see Washington directing the international pressure to clarify Iran's nuclear objectives and capabilities - though the European Union and others also fully support unrestricted U.N. inspections of nuclear sites.
"It's a classic case of two sides of the same coin," said Davoud Hermidas Bavand, a Tehran-based political analyst. "The United States sees big worries. The Iranians say they are being unfairly bullied."
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - the pinnacle of power in Iran - claims the United States wants to cripple Iran's economic potential by blocking nuclear development. It's one of the few messages that unite feuding reformers and conservatives.
"There is the right for all countries to have the peaceful use of nuclear technology," an Iranian atomic scientist, Mohammad Kazem Marashi, told a gathering of Tehran University students and professors. "Every time someone mentions nuclear power all they can think of is bombs."
Weapons are clearly on the minds of Washington and some allies.
The White House fears a chilling scenario: Iran could develop nuclear warheads for its Shahab-3 missiles, which could reach as far as Israel. That could touch off a regional arms race or an Israeli pre-emptive strike - as in 1981 when Israeli warplanes hit an Iraqi nuclear reactor.
Iran insists it has nothing to hide and wants nuclear plants for research and power - looking decades ahead to when its oil reserves dwindle.
But there is resistance to the U.N. demands that Iran allow international inspections. The Iranian leadership wants assurances that the nuclear reviews won't turn into spying, with inspectors combing ministries and offices.
That's as far as the objections go for the moment. Iran does not want an impasse that ends up in the U.N. Security Council, which could lead to international sanctions and a new host of problems for the ruling theocracy.
"Every way you look at it, the stakes are very high and getting higher," said Jonathan Stevensen, a regional analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
It's also thrown obstacles into what could have been a rare patch of common ground between Iran and the United States.
Iran sits between two of Washington's biggest burdens: Afghanistan and Iraq. And Iran shares the West's immediate goals in those countries.
A modernized Afghanistan would open important new commercial routes for Iran. A stabilized Iraq could boost Iran's regional power as the ally of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority.
Iranian and American envoys have taken part in Afghan meetings. Iran is expected to attend an Iraq donors' conference in Spain later this month.
But - for the moment - much of the diplomatic energy is being diverted to the nuclear dispute.
The United States seeks to keep a united front with European allies, although some have said Iran should be allowed to pursue nuclear power if inspections are thorough.
Iran, meanwhile, must deal with internal quarrels on how far to push nuclear development.
A Russian-built reactor could go into service as early as 2005, and Iran says it will continue to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Highly enriched uranium is needed for nuclear weapons and lower grades are used in power plants and research.
Some hard-line groups have openly urged Iran to develop nuclear weapons, citing neighboring Pakistan's nuclear program and the belief that Israel has nuclear warheads. Israel has never admitted to having a nuclear program.
In July, the conservative Students' Islamic Association urged Iran's government to "openly and seriously" develop nuclear arms as "deterrence against our enemies." Others have also insisted Iran should hold open the right to develop such weapons.
----
U.N. Nuclear Agency Chief to Visit Iran
Oct 13, 2003
(AP)
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NUCLEAR_AGENCY_IRAN?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
VIENNA, Austria -- The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency chief will visit Iran this week to help persuade Tehran to meet an Oct. 31 deadline to prove it is not producing atomic weapons, a diplomat said Monday.
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said only that Mohamed ElBaradei had received a formal invitation. But a Western diplomat close to the agency told The Associated Press that ElBaradei had accepted and would head to Tehran on Thursday.
The IAEA has been pressing Iran to prove it is not producing nuclear weapons as the United States suspects. Iran has protested the Oct. 31 deadline and said its nuclear program is to generate electricity as its oil reserves decline.
Failure to satisfy the IAEA could result in Iran's being referred to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions. The IAEA board of governors will meet on Nov. 20 to assess the Iranians' compliance.
Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which bans the spread of nuclear weapons. Pierre Goldschmidt, an IAEA deputy director general, and another top agency official held two days of talks in Tehran earlier this month. An IAEA inspection team is also in Tehran to carry out routine inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities.
A senior Iranian official said earlier this month that the IAEA representatives had reached "total agreement" with Iran on measures to prove the country's nuclear program is peaceful.
Iran has agreed to provide the IAEA with a list of imported equipment it contends had been contaminated.
In recent weeks, Iran has twice confirmed that particles of weapons-grade uranium had been found in separate places in the country. The government said the particles came from imported nuclear equipment that had been contaminated.
----
Russia delays launch of Iran nuclear power plant: report
MOSCOW (AFP)
Oct 13, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031013115604.8t3jjrdm.html
Russia may delay the launch of the Bushehr nuclear power reactor in Iran by one year, the ITAR-TASS news agency quoted a senior Russian atomic energy official as saying Monday.
"The Russian-Iranian commission has developed a new time frame (for Bushehr's development) in which the launch of the first energy reactor has been moved from 2004 to 2005," the unnamed ministry official was quoted as saying.
The official added that the Russia and Iran would agree on a firm date for the Bushehr project's launch in future negotiations.
Russia is building the Islamic state's first nuclear power reactor, but says it will not begin delivering nuclear fuel needed to operate the plant until Tehran signs a deal pledging to return the spent material to Russia.
Under pressure from the United States and Israel -- which fear that Iran is developing nuclear weapons -- Russia has made the return of the spent fuel a key condition for concluding the 800 million dollar (715 million euro) project.
----
EU Accuses Iran of Torture and Liberties Abuses
Mon Oct 13, 2003
(Reuters)
By Sebastian Alison
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=4&u=/nm/20031013/wl_nm/rights_eu_iran_dc
LUXEMBOURG - The European Union accused Iran Monday of torture and a catalog of civil liberties abuses, but foreign ministers said they wanted to maintain a dialogue on human rights.
For that reason, the 15-nation EU stopped just short of agreeing to table a resolution condemning Iran at the United Nations, saying instead it would "convey its serious concern."
"The Council continues to be seriously concerned about executions being carried out in Iran in apparent absence of respect for internationally recognized safeguards," the EU said in a statement on an Iran-EU human rights dialogue last week.
"The Council is equally concerned by the continued use of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment in Iran," it added.
The statement highlighted public executions and amputations as well as shortcomings in freedom of opinion and expression, women's rights, religious freedom, and discrimination against women and girls.
It drew special attention to the case of Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian citizen of Iranian descent whose death in custody in June, from a blow to the head, seriously damaged relations between Ottawa and Tehran.
A member of Iran's intelligence services is currently on trial for her murder, a charge he denies.
Kazemi's family is to be represented in Iranian courts by human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last week. The EU congratulated Ebadi in its statement as an "eminent Iranian lawyer and human rights defender."
While welcoming the dialogue and looking forward to the next round of talks on human rights, to be held in Tehran, the EU said improvements on the ground were needed if talks were to continue.
"As the Council has recalled on previous occasions, this dialogue is an acceptable option only if sufficient progress is achieved and reflected on the ground," the statement said.
The EU is fully backing demands by the U.N. nuclear watchdog that Iran produce proof before the end of this month that it is not secretly working to develop nuclear weapons under cover of its bigger than previously disclosed civilian nuclear program.
"The Council considered that the Iranian nuclear program remains an issue of grave concern...," the statement said, reaffirming that the entire relationship would be reviewed in the light of Tehran's compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency deadline.
--------
Iran Said to Hide Nuclear Site as UN Deadline Nears
October 13, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-nuclear-opposition.html
TEHRAN/VIENNA (Reuters) - An Iranian opposition group with a proven track record said Monday Iran was hiding another atomic facility, just two weeks before a U.N. deadline for Tehran to come clean about its nuclear ambitions.
The Oct. 31 deadline, set by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency in a tough resolution last month, requires Tehran to prove it has no secret weapons program as Washington alleges, or face possible U.N. Security Council sanctions.
``We have information about another secret nuclear facility in Iran,'' an official from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an exiled opposition group, told Reuters in Vienna. He said the facility has been hidden from IAEA inspectors.
He gave no details about the site, but said the NCRI would provide full details Tuesday.
Tehran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and did not comment on the fresh allegations.
But separately, Iran said IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei would visit Tehran for talks Thursday.
In August 2002, the NCRI broke the news of two undeclared nuclear sites in Iran -- a massive uranium-enrichment complex at Natanz and a heavy-water production facility at Arak.
Tehran later declared these facilities to the IAEA, which has since placed surveillance cameras at Natanz.
In an e-mailed statement, the NCRI also said it would provide information on Iran's use of foreign technology in its atomic program and details about the Kalaye Electric Co., where U.N. inspectors found traces of weapons-grade uranium.
OUTSTANDING QUESTIONS
U.N. inspectors arrived in Iran two weeks ago and President Mohammad Khatami has said Tehran would provide all cooperation needed to prove its nuclear aims are limited to generating electricity and not making a nuclear bomb, as Washington claims.
A spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization told Reuters ElBaradei would spend two or three days in Iran. The IAEA confirmed that ElBaradei had accepted the invitation and said he would be accompanied by senior IAEA officials.
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the purpose of the visit was for Iran to ``provide the IAEA ... with all the remaining information required to clarify important questions that are still outstanding about Iran's nuclear programs.''
``In terms of inspections, so far, we have been allowed to visit those sites to which we have requested access,'' ElBaradei said in e-mailed comments to Reuters Monday.
But he added that ``no later than October 31 Iran must provide full and complete information on their nuclear program. This task is certainly doable in this timeframe and really shouldn't take more than a week or two.''
The IAEA declined comment on the latest NCRI allegation but said it would closely study any information the exiles released.
The NCRI is a coalition of exiled opposition groups and sees itself as a potential replacement for Islamic rule in Iran. But the State Department lists the NCRI and its armed wing, the People's Mujahideen, as a terrorist organization.
Tehran denies it secretly enriched uranium and blamed the traces found on contaminated machinery purchased abroad in the 1980s, an explanation that has met with widespread skepticism.
Russia, which Washington says is helping Iran develop the capacity to build atomic weapons by building a nuclear reactor at Bushehr, said Iran understands it must come clean.
``Iran's even greater understanding of the need for transparency in its nuclear program has become clear,'' First Deputy Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Trubnikov was quoted by Russian agencies as saying after weekend talks in Tehran.
``Tehran announced that it was ready to answer any questions that the IAEA might have,'' he added.
-------- israel
Iran air-strike plan seen as bluff
October 13, 2003
By Abraham Rabinovich
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031013-121441-2893r.htm
JERUSALEM - Reports that Israel is preparing for pre-emptive air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and is now able to fire nuclear missiles from submarines were seen as reflecting deep anxiety in Israel for Tehran's nuclear program.
Israeli newspapers said officials appear to have leaked the reports in an attempt to focus the attention of the international community on the dangers of Iranian nuclear weapons development.
The German magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday that Israel's Mossad intelligence agency had prepared detailed plans for attacking six nuclear facilities in Iran.
Any attack, according to the report, would be carried out by the Israeli air force, which in 1981 destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear facility just before it was to go on line. Der Spiegel quoted an Israeli pilot as saying such an attack would be "complex, yet manageable."
Simultaneously, the Los Angeles Times, quoting Israeli and American officials, reported that Israel has modified nuclear warheads to fit U.S.-made Harpoon missiles aboard its submarines. This would give Israel a second-strike capability that could respond even if the country's land facilities were obliterated.
Israeli officials denied the Los Angeles Times report yesterday, and nuclear experts expressed deep skepticism that it would even be possible to modify a Harpoon missile for a nuclear attack.
"Anyone with even the slightest understanding of missiles knows that the Harpoon can never be used to carry nuclear warheads," former Deputy Defense Minister Efraim Sneh told Army Radio.
"Not even [Israel´s] extraordinarily talented engineers and its sophisticated defense industries can transform the Harpoon into a missile capable of doing this. It's simply impossible."
Ted Hooton, editor of Jane's Naval Weapon Systems in London, told the Associated Press that the weight of a nuclear payload would put the Harpoon out of balance, limiting its range and accuracy.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has demanded that Tehran open its nuclear facilities to inspection by the end of the month and make them available for spot checks. Three of Iran's nuclear sites have never been inspected.
It was widely assumed in Israel that the stories were initiated by the Mossad as part of a campaign to keep the Iranian nuclear issue high on the international agenda.
"Heading off Iran's attempt to attain nuclear capability is one of the Mossad's main missions," wrote analyst Aluf Benn in the Ha'aretz newspaper yesterday, "and the foreign media is one of the most important instruments utilized in this effort."
Adding substance to this analysis was a report in the daily Ma'ariv yesterday that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered the Mossad to devote most of its efforts to uncovering information about Iran's nuclear program.
"Iran constitutes the biggest danger to Israel," Mr. Sharon said, according to the newspaper. "We are coordinated on this with the U.S. down to the last detail."
A former head of the Mossad, Shabtai Shavit, told Israel Radio that Iran is a threat because "it is ruled by clerics who act according to the word of God, not according to rational considerations." Iranian leaders have frequently called for Israel's destruction.
One of the principal reasons Israel acquired F-16 aircraft from the United States was that its range permits it to reach Iran, some 800 miles from Israel's borders. Iran has warned that Israel would pay a very heavy price for any attack.
-------- korea
Russia, China seek to restart N Korea nuclear talks
MOSCOW (AFP)
Oct 13, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031013094900.5d6ibjv6.html
Top negotiators from China and Russia met in Moscow Monday to discuss how to persuade North Korea to resume nuclear talks with its arch-foe the United States, local media reported.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who flew into the Russian capital on Sunday, began consulations with his Russian counterpart Alexander Losyukov, the Interfax news agency reported, citing diplomatic sources.
"So far, Pyongyang says there is no point in carrying on the (negotiating) process and does not want to. We hope this attitude will eventually be reconsidered. Any type of negotiation is better than war," Losyukov told Interfax.
Wang and Losyukov were the senior Chinese and Russian delegates to six-party talks on the issue in Beijing in August.
In a telephone conversation on the eve of Wang's trip, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing agreed six-way talks were an important step toward the peaceful resolution of the issue through dialogue, Chinese state news agency Xinhua said.
China's ambassador to the United Nations said Friday that December could be a good time for a new round of talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons drive.
North Korea had thrown doubt on the likelihood of more talks when earlier this month it rejected Japan's further involvement in the six country negotiations.
The first round of talks in Beijing in August -- involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States -- ended inconclusively.
North Korea expressed no interest in continuing the dialogue without US concessions, which Washington rejected.
In addition to rejecting Japanese involvement this week, North Korea has raised the stakes by claiming it has completed the reprocessing of 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, which would yield enough plutonium for six nuclear weapons, and suggesting it was building new weapons.
The North also claimed it was building two nuclear reactors which were part of a 1994 agreement with the United States. The accord was frozen because of North Korea's renewed efforts to acquire a nuclear arsenal.
Wang is expected to remain in Russia until Tuesday, according to Xinhua.
----
N. Korea says pact is key to standoff
Mon, Oct. 13, 2003
By John Zarocostas
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20031013-121423-7389r.htm
GENEVA - North Korean demands for a nonaggression pact with the United States are the key to any resolution of the nuclear standoff between Pyongyang and Washington, North Korean diplomats say.
"A nonaggression pact is the litmus paper for a settlement," said a North Korean diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The United States, while saying it has no plans to attack North Korea, has been unwilling to negotiate a formal agreement to that effect. "That's not in the cards," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said last week.
However Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Friday that the Bush administration has "some ideas with respect to security assurances that we will be presenting in due course."
The North Korean official also said during a visit to Geneva late last week that the United States had been unwilling to negotiate seriously during six-way talks in Beijing, and said the Bush administration had failed to respond to Pyongyang's proposals.
Washington "should respond to the constructive proposals" made by North Korea during the Beijing talks in late August, the official said.
Asked Friday about the prospects for another round of talks, Mr. Powell said the North Koreans were reported to be considering a new round of talks in December but nothing has been scheduled.
"We are in contact with our colleagues. We are also in contact with the North Koreans through different channels," he said.
A senior diplomat from a major power familiar with the six-way talks in August - which involved the United States, China, Russia, Japan, North and South Korea - said Washington had agreed in those talks to provide "political assurances" to Pyongyang but not legally binding ones.
On Oct. 7, the North's official KCNA news agency said the existing security assurances from the United States "are nothing but a blank sheet of paper, which can never give any legal guarantee that the Bush administration will not attack [North Korea]."
Threats by the Communist regime of Kim Jong-il to conduct a nuclear-weapons test pose a serious threat to global security, say senior diplomats and experts.
"We have got a precarious situation in northeast Asia because of North Korea," said Patricia Lewis, director of the Geneva- based U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research.
She said that if North Korea has reprocessed as much plutonium as it claims, "we have a situation far and beyond" their withdrawal earlier this year from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"Are they going to test a nuclear weapon? That's our biggest fear, because that will spell disaster for the region and international security," she said.
The assessment of some disarmament diplomats is that North Korea will conduct a nuclear test if the standoff continues, prompting fears that other states such as India and Pakistan could use that as an excuse to resume nuclear testing of their own.
If North Korea tests, Mrs. Lewis said, it will mean they have the bomb, and therefore no more negotiations on the possibility they are bluffing.
A Western diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said, "North Korea keeps on upping the ante. But I'm not sure America would blink."
A diplomat close to both Washington and Pyongyang, who also declined to be identified, said: "I don't think the North Koreans realize this is a different [U.S.] government to the previous one.
"They need to be aware this is a very ideological administration. One cannot rule it out that in the end [the United States] might bomb them."
So far, South Korea and Japan have discouraged the United States from such action, the diplomat said.
On July 31, John Bolton, undersecretary for arms control and international security affairs, said in Seoul:
"Some have speculated that the U.S. is resigned to nuclear weapons on the peninsula, and we will simply have to live with nuclear weapons in the hands of a tyrannical dictator who has threatened to export them. Nothing could be further from the truth."
The complete, verifiable and irreversible elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons program through diplomacy remains a top priority of the administration, he said.
-------- terrorism
Experts fear terrorist N-bomb
Sunday, October 12, 2003
(Reuters)
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/10/12/nuclear.fears.reut/
STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- International nuclear experts are quietly confronting the most terrifying scenario of all -- what to do if terrorists manage to build and detonate a nuclear fission bomb, a diplomat and senior nuclear scientist said.
The diplomat, who is also close to the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), told reporters a team of ICRP experts from around the world had met this weekend in Stockholm to discuss emergency responses should this scenario become a reality.
Asked what was the worst-case realistic scenario for an act of nuclear terror, the diplomat said: "A very badly done, but done nuclear weapon."
After September 11, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned states must tighten up security of radioactive sources to prevent terrorists getting hold of them to make a "dirty bomb" -- when a conventional explosive like dynamite is used to disperse radioactive material.
The IAEA has always said the possibility of terrorists making nuclear fission devices was very low because of the difficulty of acquiring bomb-grade uranium or plutonium and the technical sophistication needed to construct a fission bomb.
"The biggest hurdle in making nuclear weapons is getting weapons-grade material," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.
But the diplomat, who is also a nuclear scientist, suggested that it was not so hard: "Do you really believe it's difficult?"
As for the technical difficulties, he said: "I know that to do a bad nuclear weapon, not one that would destroy a whole city but just to make an explosion, is not so difficult." 'Just a few kilos'
Although it would take 25 to 35 kilograms (55 to 80 pounds) of highly enriched uranium (HEU) to make a conventional nuclear bomb, the diplomat said in Stockholm that it would be possible to make a less efficient bomb with "just a few kilos."
"The efficiency of the explosion will be bad (but) you will get a chain reaction," he said, adding there would probably be no mushroom cloud, the trademark of a sophisticated fission bomb.
In the simplest terms, the chain reaction in a classic atomic bomb is triggered when a high explosive like TNT is detonated and compresses the highly unstable bomb-grade material into such a dense mass that it sparks a fission explosion.
Without giving details, the diplomat said a crude fission device could cause significant damage -- in contrast to the kind of dirty bomb that has been widely discussed in the media, aimed more at causing panic than physical harm and destruction.
In December 1994, Czech police seized 2.72 kg of HEU from the back seat of a parked car in Prague, the largest ever seizure of bomb-grade nuclear material.
Shifting to the topic of dirty bombs, the diplomat said underground railway systems could be targets. He said highly radioactive caesium-137 powder, found in many hospitals, would be the likely material of choice.
"When the train is coming it is like a piston. You just open the canister and ... after two or three hours you'll have caesium all over the tube," the diplomat said.
"Nothing will (probably) happen from the health point of view but people will be so afraid that no one will use it," he said. "I know the London Underground has a working party looking at this."
Several dirty bomb simulation studies have concluded that an attack with caesium would result in diluted, low-level exposure.
But in 1987, a single canister of it was found in a Brazil junkyard and caused a serious radiation contamination disaster. A total of 249 people were exposed, 10 were seriously injured and four died due to heavy exposure.
There has never been a dirty bomb attack, but the diplomat said he assumed it was only a matter of time before it happened.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- missouri
Contamination at old nuclear plant results in legal melee
The Associated Press
Monday, October 13, 2003
http://www.semissourian.com/story.html$rec=122068
HEMATITE, Mo. -- Over decades, a string of companies made nuclear fuel rods at a plant in Jefferson County. Since the plant closed two years ago, the current and past owners of the plant have been pointing fingers at each other, claiming the others are responsible for cleaning up the contamination left behind.
The current owners, Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC, and former owners Mallinckrodt and United Nuclear Corp. of Waterford Corp. have all made claims in federal court that the other party, and in some cases the federal government, is liable for the contamination at the plant in Hematite, 35 miles southwest of St. Louis.
All parties claim they are not to blame.
Joseph Bindbeutel, chief counsel for the Missouri attorney general's environmental division, expects a legal melee to figure out who is at fault.
"Everybody's going to claim every defense possible under the sun," Bindbeutel said. "They will bring other potentially responsible parties into the litigation. We're going to go through the whole nine yards."
From 1956 to 2001, the plant turned uranium into fuel rods under a parade of owners. The first was Mallinckrodt, which built the plant in 1956 and ran it until May 1961.
After that, United Nuclear owned and operated it until 1971. Combustion Engineering Inc. bought the plant in 1974 and ran it until April 2000, when Westinghouse purchased the nuclear operations of Combustion Engineering's parent company, ABB Ltd.
Westinghouse finally closed the plant in June 2001, days after the purchase was finalized.
60 pounds of uranium
Last month, the state of Missouri got involved by filing a federal lawsuit in St. Louis seeking damages from the companies and the federal government.
The state's lawsuit claims radioactive material -- including nearly 60 pounds of potentially dangerous radioactive uranium-235 -- was dumped in 40 unlined pits from the late 1950s through the early 1960s.
The threat to humans was not found until December 2001, when tests found trichloroethylene -- a cancer-causing chemical used as a solvent -- in the first of eight private wells used for drinking water.
In response, Westinghouse supplied neighbors with bottled water and filtration systems. It has spent more than $2 million to connect about 25 families to a public water system, the company says.
But the company thinks the federal government and former owners are responsible. Kevin Hayes, an environmental manager for Westinghouse, said the government is responsible because the plant made fuel rods for the military and the Atomic Energy Commission for about two decades, ending in the mid-1970s.
Hematite residents are also looking for someone to blame. Several have filed lawsuits saying the companies fouled their land and water while failing to inform them.
"It's something that's been neglected for a long time, and now I don't think they know how to handle it," said Clarissa Eaton, who has filed a lawsuit.
"They kept playing hot potato. Someone would move in and sell the stuff and make a lot of money. Well, the music stopped, and Westinghouse ended up with the hot potato."
-------- south carolina
Community's confidence in SRS alleviates some security concerns
October 13, 2003
Associated Press
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=21977
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/7000541.htm
AIKEN, S.C. - Just a few miles from a sprawling gated government facility where some of the worlds most powerful and deadly material is being stored, 70-year-old Rabun Cowart buys fresh peanuts from the open-air farmers market.
Cowart is distrustful of the federal government and doesnt think the public knows everything it should about the Savannah River Site. One thing hes not worried about, though, is possible terrorist activity at the former nuclear weapons complex.
Nah, shoot no, Cowart said when asked whether hes scared or worried about living so close to the site, where more than 12 tons of highly radioactive material recently was shipped from a facility in Colorado. That dont ever cross my mind.
Many residents in the small, rural towns surrounding SRS feel the same way about their security, but the potential for terrorist attack remains a big concern at the site, said U.S. Department of Energy spokesman Bill Taylor.
Area emergency officials and law enforcement say they have a great working relationship with staff at the site, talking sometimes daily.
I feel like the folks out at the Savannah River Site do an excellent job. I feel like the security is good, said Aiken County director of emergency services Richard Powell, who has been in the area for 50 years and director for 18. And I was always fairly comfortable with their ability to handle whatever came up. Powell received hazardous material training at the site, donning an impermeable, insulated suit with rubber gloves, and he said other emergency workers have received training there, an aspect of the facilitys outreach to the community.
But not all of the outreach at SRS is official. Much of it is personal, which adds to the communitys safety assurance.
I think all of us would have some ties out there, as far as having a neighbor, a friend or a relative who has worked or been involved with the Savannah River Site, Powell said. I think that gives us even more confidence.
Cowart, who also has been in Aiken for more than 50 years, has a son-in-law who has worked at the plant for 25 years. The two have had disagreements over the site but Cowart concedes it has enabled his son-in-law to raise a family.
It provides good jobs for some, he said. Thats the good side of it, I guess.
SRS has long been one the states biggest employers with a work force of 25,000 during its heyday, down to about 13,400 now.
The reliance on SRS for jobs and the driving force behind the local economy could make it easier for some residents to overlook potential health and security concerns at the site, said University of South Carolina economics professor Don Schunk. It really does sort of identify that community, he said.
Ask Aiken residents Joel Johnson and Michael Priester about SRS safety and the two get into a 20-minute exchange, as emotions run high.
Priester, 47, who has five children, said he is worried about his children growing up near the facility and wouldnt let them work there. Savannah River Site poses a threat, he said. South Carolina needs more plutonium like I need three heads.
His buddy Johnson said theres not much residents can do now because SRS has been a mainstay in the area for so long.
If its not here, its going to be somewhere else, he said. I dont see any threat with it.
Taylor said the facility has a 900-member security team run by private contractor Wackenhut Services Inc.
They have a variety of levels of security they provide. The visible ones are people who man our barricades, he said. We also have people who guard access to areas ... where special nuclear materials are stored.
Those personnel would be roving and walking posts watching for anything unusual, Taylor said.
We dont have a person guarding every foot of our 310-mile perimeter, but we do have what we feel is appropriate security in the areas where its needed, he said.
The site might be vulnerable because of thick vegetation that could shield intruders from detection, said Tom Clements of Greenpeace International.
Any time there is a large stockpile of plutonium accumulated at one spot, a security concern is present, he said. Security threats can come from offsite or from individuals on staff who have nefarious goals in mind. Insiders can help with attacks or divert or steal material.
The SRS security system, consisting of alarms, high fences, cameras and two helicopters has been tested on at least an annual basis in war game situations to find weaknesses, Taylor said. Some guards are considered paramilitary, carrying automatic weapons and staying in top physical condition.
Its probably not impossible to get on this site undetected, but if you get near the areas where the highest level of security are, then, yes, we expect any intruder is going to be detected, he said. Weve increased a lot since 9-11, but we really havent reinvented the wheel because most of these systems were in place.
-------- us politics
'True Patriot' would restore rights
By CHARLES LEVENDOSKY
Casper Star-Tribune / Billings (Montana) Gazette
October 13, 2003
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2003/10/13/build/opinion/guest.inc
The backlash against the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 is picking up speed and snap.
On Sept. 24, Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul introduced the Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act (HR3171) to repeal the most controversial sections of the Patriot Act as well as some of the more egregious actions taken by the Department of Justice.
When introducing the True Patriot Act, Kucinich told members of the House: "Twenty-four months after the Sept. 11th attacks, this nation has undergone a dramatic political change, leading to an unprecedented assault on the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights." Diverse supporters
The act already has 20 other cosponsors, at this point all Democrats, but as the word gets out concerning key elements of this bill, expect conservatives, moderates and liberals to push for its passage.
The Kucinich-Paul bill has already garnered the support of the American Civil Liberties Union, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), American Muslim Voice, Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), and Religious Action Center of Reformed Judaism.
The True Patriot Act heralds its intent by quoting Benjamin Franklin's famous statement: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty or Safety."
The act would make 11 sections of the Patriot Act null and void 90 days after the bill is enacted. Under the language of the bill, the president can request Congress to hold hearings to determine whether a particular section should be removed from the repeal list before the end of the 90-day period. Congress may or may not honor that request.
The True Patriot Act would repeal Section 213 of the Patriot Act, which authorized property to be searched and seized in secret by government law enforcement officials, without notifying the subject of a warrant.
The act would repeal Section 214 and Section 216, relating to the use of pen registers for foreign intelligence purposes and criminal cases. Pen registers record all phone numbers dialed from a person's telephone.
It would repeal Section 215, which authorized searches of library, bookstore, medical, financial, religious and travel records without a judicial warrant. Probable cause
The True Patriot Act would repeal the broader application of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorized by the Patriot Act, Section 218. This section of the Patriot Act, in essence, gutted the Fourth Amendment's requirement for probable cause to obtain a search warrant in criminal investigations.
The act would repeal Sections 411 and 412 of the Patriot Act, which granted new grounds for the deportation and/or the mandatory detention of aliens.
The act also would repeal Section 505 of the Patriot Act which authorized FBI field agents to issue national security letters to obtain financial, bank and credit records of individuals - all without a court order or judicial oversight.
And the True Patriot Act would repeal Sections 507 and 508 of the Patriot Act relating to the seizure of educational records and the disclosure of individually identifiable information under the National Education Statistics Act of 1994.
Finally, in regard to the Patriot Act, the True Patriot Act would repeal Section 802, which defined the new crime of "domestic terrorism." The definition is so broad that political protests that unaccountably become violent could be classified as domestic terrorism.
The Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act also would repeal sections of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, so that the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security are no longer exempt from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
The True Patriot Act goes further - to roll back policing powers that the federal government took upon itself since Sept. 11 without congressional authorization.
For example, the federal government would no longer be able to monitor conversations between attorneys and their clients, violating the fundamental right of attorney-client privilege.
The act would void U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's memorandum to all agencies of the federal government narrowing the scope of FOIA and the ability of citizens to obtain information about how their government is working.
The act reinstates tough guidelines instituted in 1989 by former Attorney General Dick Thornburg to rein in a runaway FBI, which had been conducting unlawful surveillance of protesters, peace demonstrators and religious groups. Spying on religious institutions - allowed by Ashcroft's rules - would be put under strict limits. Fundamental liberties at stake
The Patriot Act of 2001, a 342-page document, was passed without meaningful review. Many members of Congress hadn't read the bill; some still haven't.
The Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act would rectify the Patriot Act's serious shortcomings. And, if passed, the True Patriot Act would put this administration on notice that the American people will not barter away their fundamental liberties for so-called safety. Americans understand the risks involved in living with and for freedom - after all, our freedom was born in revolution.
Charles Levendosky, editorial page editor of the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, has a national reputation for Bill of Rights commentary. His e-mail is levendos@trib.com.
----
Impeachment is back
Andrew Bird,
The Arcata (California) Times-Standard
Monday, October 13, 2003
http://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127~2896~1695452,00.html
ARCATA -- Impeachment is on the agenda again this week.
City Councilman Dave Meserve will ask the council at Wednesday's meeting to approve his resolution calling for the immediate impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney.
The vote in Arcata on Wednesday is likely to attract some national attention.
Last month the Santa Cruz City Council voted to send a letter asking the House Judiciary Committee to investigate the Bush administration.
Meserve's resolution, which he is sponsoring on behalf of Veterans for Peace, is somewhat stronger.
As written when presented at an Aug. 20 meeting, the resolution reads, "The City Council of the city of Arcata calls upon the United States House of Representatives to immediately impeach George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney."
The case for impeachment outlined in the resolution focuses on the war in Iraq and statements the president made in his State of the Union address that turned out to be false.
The City Council declined to take action at the Aug. 20 meeting, although Mayor Bob Ornelas said he would vote for the resolution.
To gauge support for the resolution, in early September Meserve and the Veterans for Peace held a town meeting, which was dominated by those who want to impeach the president.
Meserve said the resolution on Wednesday's agenda is identical to the one that came before the council in August.
He needs just one more vote to get it passed.
However, Meserve said on Friday he is willing to compromise if he can't get the third vote.
He said he would accept a letter similar to the one the Santa Cruz City Council sent last month.
The resolution comes back before the council as the White House is attempting to bolster support for its Iraq policy.
Bush, Cheney and other top administration officials have delivered speeches in the past week, as the president's poll numbers have slipped.
Meserve said the California recall election last week was a sign that voters are becoming more disenchanted with government -- and it's reflected in the president's drop in popularity.
Now the White House is facing an investigation by the Justice Department to determine who leaked information that revealed the identity of a CIA agent.
Meserve said he will bring up that investigation at Wednesday's meeting to bolster the case for supporting his resolution.
Mike Harvey, chairman of the Humboldt County Republican Party, said he doesn't care what the Arcata City Council does Wednesday.
"I've said everything I'm going to say about it," Harvey said.
Harvey spoke against the resolution at the town meeting last month, but said he doesn't plan to be at Wednesday's City Council meeting.
"I've got better things to do with my time," he said.
The City Council meets in open session at 7 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, 736 F St.
The resolution comes under Old Business and is item No. 7 on the agenda.
----
All the President's Votes?
A Quiet Revolution is Taking Place in US Politics. By the Time It's Over, the Integrity of Elections Will be in the Unchallenged, Unscrutinized Control of a Few Large - and Pro-Republican - Corporations.
by Andrew Gumbel
Monday, October 13, 2003
by the lndependent/UK
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1013-01.htm
Something very odd happened in the mid-term elections in Georgia last November. On the eve of the vote, opinion polls showed Roy Barnes, the incumbent Democratic governor, leading by between nine and 11 points. In a somewhat closer, keenly watched Senate race, polls indicated that Max Cleland, the popular Democrat up for re-election, was ahead by two to five points against his Republican challenger, Saxby Chambliss.
Corporate America is very close to running this country. The only thing that is stopping them from taking total control are the pesky voters. That's why there's such a drive to control the vote. What we're seeing is the corporatization of the last shred of democracy.
Those figures were more or less what political experts would have expected in state with a long tradition of electing Democrats to statewide office. But then the results came in, and all of Georgia appeared to have been turned upside down. Barnes lost the governorship to the Republican, Sonny Perdue, 46 per cent to 51 per cent, a swing of as much as 16 percentage points from the last opinion polls. Cleland lost to Chambliss 46 per cent to 53, a last-minute swing of 9 to 12 points.
Red-faced opinion pollsters suddenly had a lot of explaining to do and launched internal investigations. Political analysts credited the upset - part of a pattern of Republican successes around the country - to a huge campaigning push by President Bush in the final days of the race. They also said that Roy Barnes had lost because of a surge of "angry white men" punishing him for eradicating all but a vestige of the old confederate symbol from the state flag.
But something about these explanations did not make sense, and they have made even less sense over time. When the Georgia secretary of state's office published its demographic breakdown of the election earlier this year, it turned out there was no surge of angry white men; in fact, the only subgroup showing even a modest increase in turnout was black women.
There were also big, puzzling swings in partisan loyalties in different parts of the state. In 58 counties, the vote was broadly in line with the primary election. In 27 counties in Republican-dominated north Georgia, however, Max Cleland unaccountably scored 14 percentage points higher than he had in the primaries. And in 74 counties in the Democrat south, Saxby Chambliss garnered a whopping 22 points more for the Republicans than the party as a whole had won less than three months earlier.
Now, weird things like this do occasionally occur in elections, and the figures, on their own, are not proof of anything except statistical anomalies worthy of further study. But in Georgia there was an extra reason to be suspicious. Last November, the state became the first in the country to conduct an election entirely with touchscreen voting machines, after lavishing $54m (£33m) on a new system that promised to deliver the securest, most up-to-date, most voter-friendly election in the history of the republic. The machines, however, turned out to be anything but reliable. With academic studies showing the Georgia touchscreens to be poorly programmed, full of security holes and prone to tampering, and with thousands of similar machines from different companies being introduced at high speed across the country, computer voting may, in fact, be US democracy's own 21st-century nightmare.
In many Georgia counties last November, the machines froze up, causing long delays as technicians tried to reboot them. In heavily Democratic Fulton County, in downtown Atlanta, 67 memory cards from the voting machines went missing, delaying certification of the results there for 10 days. In neighboring DeKalb County, 10 memory cards were unaccounted for; they were later recovered from terminals that had supposedly broken down and been taken out of service.
It is still unclear exactly how results from these missing cards were tabulated, or if they were counted at all. And we will probably never know, for a highly disturbing reason. The vote count was not conducted by state elections officials, but by the private company that sold Georgia the voting machines in the first place, under a strict trade-secrecy contract that made it not only difficult but actually illegal - on pain of stiff criminal penalties - for the state to touch the equipment or examine the proprietary software to ensure the machines worked properly. There was not even a paper trail to follow up. The machines were fitted with thermal printing devices that could theoretically provide a written record of voters' choices, but these were not activated. Consequently, recounts were impossible. Had Diebold Inc, the manufacturer, been asked to review the votes, all it could have done was program the computers to spit out the same data as before, flawed or not.
Astonishingly, these are the terms under which America's top three computer voting machine manufacturers - Diebold, Sequoia and Election Systems and Software (ES&S) - have sold their products to election officials around the country. Far from questioning the need for rigid trade secrecy and the absence of a paper record, secretaries of state and their technical advisers - anxious to banish memories of the hanging chad fiasco and other associated disasters in the 2000 presidential recount in Florida - have, for the most part, welcomed the touchscreen voting machines as a technological miracle solution.
Georgia was not the only state last November to see big last-minute swings in voting patterns. There were others in Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois and New Hampshire - all in races that had been flagged as key partisan battlegrounds, and all won by the Republican Party. Again, this was widely attributed to the campaigning efforts of President Bush and the demoralization of a Democratic Party too timid to speak out against the looming war in Iraq.
Strangely, however, the pollsters made no comparable howlers in lower-key races whose outcome was not seriously contested. Another anomaly, perhaps. What, then, is one to make of the fact that the owners of the three major computer voting machines are all prominent Republican Party donors? Or of a recent political fund-raising letter written to Ohio Republicans by Walden O'Dell, Diebold's chief executive, in which he said he was "committed to helping Ohio to deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" - even as his company was bidding for the contract on the state's new voting machinery?
Alarmed and suspicious, a group of Georgia citizens began to look into last November's election to see whether there was any chance the results might have been deliberately or accidentally manipulated. Their research proved unexpectedly, and disturbingly, fruitful.
First, they wanted to know if the software had undergone adequate checking. Under state and federal law, all voting machinery and component parts must be certified before use in an election. So an Atlanta graphic designer called Denis Wright wrote to the secretary of state's office for a copy of the certification letter. Clifford Tatum, assistant director of legal affairs for the election division, wrote back: "We have determined that no records exist in the Secretary of State's office regarding a certification letter from the lab certifying the version of software used on Election Day." Mr Tatum said it was possible the relevant documents were with Gary Powell, an official at the Georgia Technology Authority, so campaigners wrote to him as well. Mr Powell responded he was "not sure what you mean by the words 'please provide written certification documents'".
"If the machines were not certified, then right there the election was illegal," Mr Wright says. The secretary of state's office has yet to demonstrate anything to the contrary. The investigating citizens then considered the nature of the software itself. Shortly after the election, a Diebold technician called Rob Behler came forward and reported that, when the machines were about to be shipped to Georgia polling stations in the summer of 2002, they performed so erratically that their software had to be amended with a last-minute "patch". Instead of being transmitted via disk - a potentially time-consuming process, especially since its author was in Canada, not Georgia - the patch was posted, along with the entire election software package, on an open-access FTP, or file transfer protocol site, on the internet.
That, according to computer experts, was a violation of the most basic of security precautions, opening all sorts of possibilities for the introduction of rogue or malicious code. At the same time, however, it gave campaigners a golden opportunity to circumvent Diebold's own secrecy demands and see exactly how the system worked. Roxanne Jekot, a computer programmer with 20 years' experience, and an occasional teacher at Lanier Technical College northeast of Atlanta, did a line-by-line review and found "enough to stand your hair on end".
"There were security holes all over it," she says, "from the most basic display of the ballot on the screen all the way through the operating system." Although the program was designed to be run on the Windows 2000 NT operating system, which has numerous safeguards to keep out intruders, Ms Jekot found it worked just fine on the much less secure Windows 98; the 2000 NT security features were, as she put it, "nullified".
Also embedded in the software were the comments of the programmers working on it. One described what he and his colleagues had just done as "a gross hack". Elsewhere was the remark: "This doesn't really work." "Not a confidence builder, would you say?" Ms Jekot says. "They were operating in panic mode, cobbling together something that would work for the moment, knowing that at some point they would have to go back to figure out how to make it work more permanently." She found some of the code downright suspect - for example, an overtly meaningless instruction to divide the number of write-in votes by 1. "From a logical standpoint there is absolutely no reason to do that," she says. "It raises an immediate red flag."
Mostly, though, she was struck by the shoddiness of much of the programming. "I really expected to have some difficulty reviewing the source code because it would be at a higher level than I am accustomed to," she says. "In fact, a lot of this stuff looked like the homework my first-year students might have turned in." Diebold had no specific comment on Ms Jekot's interpretations, offering only a blanket caution about the complexity of election systems "often not well understood by individuals with little real-world experience".
But Ms Jekot was not the only one to examine the Diebold software and find it lacking. In July, a group of researchers from the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore discovered what they called "stunning flaws". These included putting the password in the source code, a basic security no-no; manipulating the voter smart-card function so one person could cast more than one vote; and other loopholes that could theoretically allow voters' ballot choices to be altered without their knowledge, either on the spot or by remote access.
Diebold issued a detailed response, saying that the Johns Hopkins report was riddled with false assumptions, inadequate information and "a multitude of false conclusions". Substantially similar findings, however, were made in a follow-up study on behalf of the state of Maryland, in which a group of computer security experts catalogued 328 software flaws, 26 of them critical, putting the whole system "at high risk of compromise". "If these vulnerabilities are exploited, significant impact could occur on the accuracy, integrity, and availability of election results," their report says.
Ever since the Johns Hopkins study, Diebold has sought to explain away the open FTP file as an old, incomplete version of its election package. The claim cannot be independently verified, because of the trade-secrecy agreement, and not everyone is buying it. "It is documented throughout the code who changed what and when. We have the history of this program from 1996 to 2002," Ms Jekot says. "I have no doubt this is the software used in the elections." Diebold now says it has upgraded its encryption and password features - but only on its Maryland machines.
A key security question concerned compatibility with Microsoft Windows, and Ms Jekot says just three programmers, all of them senior Diebold executives, were involved in this aspect of the system. One of these, Diebold's vice-president of research and development, Talbot Iredale, wrote an e-mail in April 2002 - later obtained by the campaigners - making it clear that he wanted to shield the operating system from Wylie Labs, an independent testing agency involved in the early certification process.
The reason that emerges from the e-mail is that he wanted to make the software compatible with WinCE 3.0, an operating system used for handhelds and PDAs; in other words, a system that could be manipulated from a remote location. "We do not want Wyle [sic] reviewing and certifying the operating systems," the e-mail reads. "Therefore can we keep to a minimum the references to the WinCE 3.0 operating system."
In an earlier intercepted e-mail, this one from Ken Clark in Diebold's research and development department, the company explained upfront to another independent testing lab that the supposedly secure software system could be accessed without a password, and its contents easily changed using the Microsoft Access program Mr Clark says he had considered putting in a password requirement to stop dealers and customers doing "stupid things", but that the easy access had often "got people out of a bind". Astonishingly, the representative from the independent testing lab did not see anything wrong with this and granted certification to the part of the software program she was inspecting - a pattern of lackadaisical oversight that was replicated all the way to the top of the political chain of command in Georgia, and in many other parts of the country.
Diebold has not contested the authenticity of the e-mails, now openly accessible on the internet. However, Diebold did caution that, as the e-mails were taken from a Diebold Election systems website in March 2003 by an illegal hack, the nature of the information stolen could have been revised or manipulated.
There are two reasons why the United States is rushing to overhaul its voting systems. The first is the Florida débâcle in the Bush-Gore election; no state wants to be the center of that kind of attention again. And the second is the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), signed by President Bush last October, which promises an unprecedented $3.9bn (£2.3bn) to the states to replace their old punchcard-and-lever machines. However, enthusiasm for the new technology seems to be motivated as much by a bureaucratic love of spending as by a love of democratic accountability. According to Rebecca Mercuri, a research fellow at Harvard's John F Kennedy School of Government and a specialist in voting systems, the shockingly high error rate of punchcard machines (3-5 per cent in Florida in 2000) has been known to people in the elections business for years. It was only after it became public knowledge in the last presidential election that anybody felt moved to do anything about it.
The problem is, computer touchscreen machines and other so-called DRE (direct recording electronic) systems are significantly less reliable than punchcards, irrespective of their vulnerability to interference. In a series of research papers for the Voting Technology Project, a joint venture of the prestigious Massachusetts and California Institutes of Technology, DREs were found to be among the worst performing systems. No method, the MIT/CalTech study conceded, worked more reliably than hand-counting paper ballots - an option that US electoral officials seem to consider hopelessly antiquated, or at least impractical in elections combining multiple local, state and national races for offices from President down to dogcatcher.
The clear disadvantages and dangers associated with DREs have not deterred state and county authorities from throwing themselves headlong into touchscreen technology. More than 40,000 machines made by Diebold alone are already in use in 37 states, and most are touchscreens. County after county is poised to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on computer voting before next spring's presidential primaries. "They say this is the direction they have to go in to have fair elections, but the rush to go towards computerization is very dubious," Dr Mercuri says. "One has to wonder why this is going on, because the way it is set up it takes away the checks and balances we have in a democratic society. That's the whole point of paper trails and recounts."
Anyone who has struggled with an interactive display in a museum knows how dodgy touchscreens can be. If they don't freeze, they easily become misaligned, which means they can record the wrong data. In Dallas, during early voting before last November's election, people found that no matter how often they tried to press a Democrat button, the Republican candidate's name would light up. After a court hearing, Diebold agreed to take down 18 machines with apparent misalignment problems. "And those were the ones where you could visually spot a problem," Dr Mercuri says. "What about what you don't see? Just because your vote shows up on the screen for the Democrats, how do you know it is registering inside the machine for the Democrats?"
Other problems have shown up periodically: machines that register zero votes, or machines that indicate voters coming to the polling station but not voting, even when a single race with just two candidates was on the ballot. Dr Mercuri was part of a lawsuit in Palm Beach County in which she and other plaintiffs tried to have a suspect Sequoia machine examined, only to run up against the brick wall of the trade-secret agreement. "It makes it really hard to show their product has been tampered with," she says, "if it's a felony to inspect it."
As for the possibilities of foul play, Dr Mercuri says they are virtually limitless. "There are literally hundreds of ways to do this," she says. "There are hundreds of ways to embed a rogue series of commands into the code and nobody would ever know because the nature of programming is so complex. The numbers would all tally perfectly." Tampering with an election could be something as simple as a "denial-of-service" attack, in which the machines simply stop working for an extended period, deterring voters faced with the prospect of long lines. Or it could be done with invasive computer codes known in the trade by such nicknames as "Trojan horses" or "Easter eggs". Detecting one of these, Dr Mercuri says, would be almost impossible unless the investigator knew in advance it was there and how to trigger it. Computer researcher Theresa Hommel, who is alarmed by touchscreen systems, has constructed a simulated voting machine in which the same candidate always wins, no matter what data you put in. She calls her model the Fraud-o-matic, and it is available online at www.wheresthepaper.org.
It is not just touchscreens which are at risk from error or malicious intrusion. Any computer system used to tabulate votes is vulnerable. An optical scan of ballots in Scurry County, Texas, last November erroneously declared a landslide victory for the Republican candidate for county commissioner; a subsequent hand recount showed that the Democrat had in fact won. In Comal County, Texas, a computerized optical scan found that three different candidates had won their races with exactly 18,181 votes. There was no recount or investigation, even though the coincidence, with those recurring 1s and 8s, looked highly suspicious. In heavily Democrat Broward County, Florida - which had switched to touchscreens in the wake of the hanging chad furore - more than 100,000 votes were found to have gone "missing" on election day. The votes were reinstated, but the glitch was not adequately explained. One local official blamed it on a "minor software thing".
Most suspect of all was the governor's race in Alabama, where the incumbent Democrat, Don Siegelman, was initially declared the winner. Sometime after midnight, when polling station observers and most staff had gone home, the probate judge responsible for elections in rural Baldwin County suddenly "discovered" that Mr Siegelman had been awarded 7,000 votes too many. In a tight election, the change was enough to hand victory to his Republican challenger, Bob Riley. County officials talked vaguely of a computer tabulation error, or a lightning strike messing up the machines, but the real reason was never ascertained because the state's Republican attorney general refused to authorize a recount or any independent ballot inspection.
According to an analysis by James Gundlach, a sociology professor at Auburn University in Alabama, the result in Baldwin County was full of wild deviations from the statistical norms established both by this and preceding elections. And he adds: "There is simply no way that electronic vote counting can produce two sets of results without someone using computer programs in ways that were not intended. In other words, the fact that two sets of results were reported is sufficient evidence in and of itself that the vote tabulation process was compromised." Although talk of voting fraud quickly subsided, Alabama has now amended its election laws to make recounts mandatory in close races.
The possibility of flaws in the electoral process is not something that gets discussed much in the United States. The attitude seems to be: we are the greatest democracy in the world, so the system must be fair. That has certainly been the prevailing view in Georgia, where even leading Democrats - their prestige on the line for introducing touchscreen voting in the first place - have fought tooth-and-nail to defend the integrity of the system. In a phone interview, the head of the Georgia Technology Authority who brought Diebold machines to the state, Larry Singer, blamed the growing chorus of criticism on "fear of technology", despite the fact that many prominent critics are themselves computer scientists. He says: "Are these machines flawless? No. Would you have more confidence if they were completely flawless? Yes. Is there such a thing as a flawless system? No." Mr Singer, who left the GTA straight after the election and took a 50 per cent pay cut to work for Sun Microsystems, insists that voters are more likely to have their credit card information stolen by a busboy in a restaurant than to have their vote compromised by touchscreen technology.
Voting machines are sold in the United States in much the same way as other government contracts: through intensive lobbying, wining and dining. At a recent national conference of clerks, election officials and treasurers in Denver, attendees were treated to black-tie dinners and other perks, including free expensive briefcases stamped with Sequoia's company logo alongside the association's own symbol. Nobody in power seems to find this worrying, any more than they worried when Sequoia's southern regional sales manager, Phil Foster, was indicted in Louisiana a couple of years ago for "conspiracy to commit money laundering and malfeasance". The charges were dropped in exchange for his testimony against Louisiana's state commissioner of elections. Similarly, last year, the Arkansas secretary of state, Bill McCuen, pleaded guilty to taking bribes and kickbacks involving a precursor company to ES&S; the voting machine company executive who testified against him in exchange for immunity is now an ES&S vice-president.
If much of the worry about vote-tampering is directed at the Republicans, it is largely because the big three touchscreen companies are all big Republican donors, pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into party coffers in the past few years. The ownership issue is, of course, compounded by the lack of transparency. Or, as Dr Mercuri puts it: "If the machines were independently verifiable, who would give a crap who owns them?" As it is, fears that US democracy is being hijacked by corporate interests are being fueled by links between the big three and broader business interests, as well as extremist organizations. Two of the early backers of American Information Systems, a company later merged into ES&S, are also prominent supporters of the Chalcedon Foundation, an organization that espouses theocratic governance according to a literal reading of the Bible and advocates capital punishment for blasphemy and homosexuality.
The chief executive of American Information Systems in the early Nineties was Chuck Hagel, who went on to run for elective office and became the first Republican in 24 years to be elected to the Senate from Nebraska, cheered on by the Omaha World-Herald newspaper which also happens to be a big investor in ES&S. In yet another clamorous conflict of interest, 80 per cent of Mr Hagel's winning votes - both in 1996 and again in 2002 - were counted, under the usual terms of confidentiality, by his own company.
In theory, the federal government should be monitoring the transition to computer technology and rooting out abuses. Under the Help America Vote Act, the Bush administration is supposed to establish a sizeable oversight committee, headed by two Democrats and two Republicans, as well as a technical panel to determine standards for new voting machinery. The four commission heads were supposed to have been in place by last February, but so far just one has been appointed. The technical panel also remains unconstituted, even though the new machines it is supposed to vet are already being sold in large quantities - a state of affairs Dr Mercuri denounces as "an abomination".
One of the conditions states have to fulfil to receive federal funding for the new voting machines, meanwhile, is a consolidation of voter rolls at state rather than county level. This provision sends a chill down the spine of anyone who has studied how Florida consolidated its own voter rolls just before the 2000 election, purging the names of tens of thousands of eligible voters, most of them African Americans and most of them Democrats, through misuse of an erroneous list of convicted felons commissioned by Katherine Harris, the secretary of state doubling as George Bush's Florida campaign manager. Despite a volley of lawsuits, the incorrect list was still in operation in last November's mid-terms, raising all sorts of questions about what other states might now do with their own voter rolls. It is not that the Act's consolidation provision is in itself evidence of a conspiracy to throw elections, but it does leave open that possibility.
Meanwhile, the administration has been pushing new voting technology of its own to help overseas citizens and military personnel, both natural Republican Party constituencies, to vote more easily over the internet. Internet voting is notoriously insecure and open to abuse by just about anyone with rudimentary hacking skills; just last January, an experiment in internet voting in Toronto was scuppered by a Slammer worm attack. Undeterred, the administration has gone ahead with its so-called SERVE project for overseas voting, via a private consortium made up of major defense contractors and a Saudi investment group. The contract for overseeing internet voting in the 2004 presidential election was recently awarded to Accenture, formerly part of the Arthur Andersen group (whose accountancy branch, a major campaign contributor to President Bush, imploded as a result of the Enron bankruptcy scandal).
Not everyone in the United States has fallen under the spell of the big computer voting companies, and there are signs of growing wariness. Oregon decided even before HAVA to conduct all its voting by mail. Wisconsin has decided it wants nothing to do with touchscreen machines without a verifiable paper trail, and New York is considering a similar injunction, at least for its state assembly races. In California, a Stanford computer science professor called David Dill is screaming from the rooftops on the need for a paper trail in his state, so far without result. And a New Jersey Congressman called Rush Holt has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, asking for much the same thing. Not everyone is heeding the warnings, though. In Ohio, publication of the letter from Diebold's chief executive promising to deliver the state to President Bush in 2004 has not deterred the secretary of state - a Republican - from putting Diebold on a list of preferred voting-machine vendors. Similarly, in Maryland, officials have not taken the recent state-sponsored study identifying hundreds of flaws in the Diebold software as any reason to change their plans to use Diebold machines in March's presidential primary.
The question is whether the country will come to its senses before elections start getting distorted or tampered with on such a scale that the system becomes unmanageable. The sheer volume of money offered under HAVA is unlikely to be forthcoming again in a hurry, so if things aren't done right now it is doubtful the system can be fixed again for a long time. "This is frightening, really frightening," says Dr Mercuri, and a growing number of reasonable people are starting to agree with her. One such is John Zogby, arguably the most reliable pollster in the United States, who has freely admitted he "blew" last November's elections and does not exclude the possibility that foul play was one of the factors knocking his calculations off course. "We're plowing into a brave new world here," he says, "where there are so many variables aside from out-and-out corruption that can change elections, especially in situations where the races are close. We have machines that break down, or are tampered with, or are simply misunderstood. It's a cause for great concern."
Roxanne Jekot, who has put much of her professional and personal life on hold to work on the issue full time, puts it even more strongly. "Corporate America is very close to running this country. The only thing that is stopping them from taking total control are the pesky voters. That's why there's such a drive to control the vote. What we're seeing is the corporatization of the last shred of democracy.
"I feel that unless we stop it here and stop it now," she says, "my kids won't grow up to have a right to vote at all."
----
Senators Say Bush Needs to Take Control
Iraq Policy Disputes Cited
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 13, 2003; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17479-2003Oct12.html
A key Republican lawmaker urged President Bush yesterday to take control of his fractious foreign policy team and plans for Iraq's reconstruction, as one Democrat deepened his criticism of the administration's arguments for going to war.
"The president has to be president," Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "That means the president over the vice president, and over these secretaries" of state and defense. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice "cannot carry that burden alone."
In the first week of the administration's public relations campaign to explain its Iraq policy and highlight its achievements, Lugar noted that Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Rice had given speeches whose tone "was distinctly different" and that senators were rightly concerned about "the strength, the coherence of our policies."
Lugar, a moderate Republican, predicted Iraq's reconstruction would cost $50 billion more than the $87 billion the White House is seeking from Congress for military and reconstruction efforts, and that the duration of U.S. involvement in Iraq "may be comparable to Bosnia," where U.S. and European peacekeepers are nearing their eighth year of deployment.
He and the ranking member of the committee, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), predicted narrow approval of the $87 billion Iraq reconstruction request. But both said the administration had to improve its plan for turning over power to Iraqis, and Lugar added that it should make "a genuine attempt" to persuade competent allies, including "Germany, France, Russia and China" to join the peacekeeping effort.
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said yesterday he was "inclined not to" vote for the $87 billion request and criticized Bush for "haphazard, shotgun, shoot-from-the-hip diplomacy" on Iraq.
Divisions over Iraq policy reflect larger ideological differences within Bush's national security team. Cheney and Rumsfeld have pursued more hard-line, unilateralist approaches to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea; Powell favors dialogue and greater efforts to include allies.
Last week, with rising concerns about the direction and public perception of the Iraq reconstruction project, the White House put Rice in charge of the effort, possibly at the expense of the Defense Department, which had been running the show.
Biden, responding to news that Bush had asked Rice to unify the differing views on Iraq, said Bush had to "take charge, settle this dispute. Let your secretary of defense, state, and your vice president know, 'This is my policy. Any one of you that divert from the policy is off the team.' "
Kerry, who voted for the congressional war resolution before the invasion, stepped up his attacks on Bush's decision to go to war in the first place. He said some of the administration's pre-war assertions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction "misled America."
"They told us there were aerial vehicles" to deliver Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. "They weren't there," he said, speaking on ABC's "This Week." "They told us they had a 45-minute deployment period for weapons of mass destruction. That wasn't true. They told us they were on the road to nuclear weaponization. That was not true."
"He ought to apologize to the people of this country because what they've done now is launch a PR campaign instead of a real policy," Kerry said. "We need to go to the United Nations more humbly, more directly, more honestly, solicit help in a way that brings the United Nations into this effort, or you are going to continue to see bomb after bomb after bomb."
Kerry also derided the administration's effort to portray current efforts in Iraq as international in nature. "We have a fraudulent coalition, and I use the word 'fraud.' It's a few people here, a few people there. It's basically the British, and, most fundamentally, the United States of America."
"This administration has alienated people all across this planet," he said. "They have, in fact, made America less safe."
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms
U.S. probing arms shipped to Iraq
Federal agents find evidence of illegal components
EXCLUSIVE
By Pete Williams
NBC NEWS,
Oct. 13, 2003
http://www.msnbc.com/news/979931.asp?0cv=CA01
WASHINGTON - Federal agents have turned up evidence that U.S. companies may have illegally sold sensitive equipment that wound up helping Iraq's military, said U.S. officials, who told NBC News that criminal charges were likely.
IN A SIX-MONTH investigation, teams of immigration agents tracking what was left of Iraq's military have found signs not of Iraqi violations but of something entirely different - weapons components that appeared to have been made in the United States, which would be illegal to sell to Baghdad.
"We've gotten approximately 14 good leads on U.S. companies that may have been involved in illegal transactions of material that wound up in Iraq," Michael Garcia, director of the Homeland Security Department's new Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said in an interview.
Specialists said weapons smuggling was notoriously difficult to investigate because agents can seldom trace a sale all the way to the final buyer. It took three years, for example, to build a case against a California liquor dealer, Fadi Boutros, who was eventually convicted in 1999 of trying to buy military-grade night-vision goggles for Iraq.
In addition, arms shipments usually go through several countries before reaching their destination, complicating the paper trail for investigators. Since the United States launched its war to disarm Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in March, teams of U.S. inspectors - like the U.N. teams before them - have found no clear evidence to back U.S. and British claims Saddam had secret caches of weapons of mass destruction.
LEAVING A PAPER TRAIL
But Iraq appears to have offered huge sums of cash and circulated shopping lists seeking components of such weapons, especially missile guidance parts, giving ICE agents in Iraq a rare look at the end of the paper trail.
"Saddam had a dedicated shopping spree going on, in Eastern Europe primarily, to buy missile parts and other things that he wasn't permitted to get under the U.N. embargo," Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington, said in an interview.
David Conboy, assistant director of strategic investigations for the immigration bureau, said the companies' motivation was simple.
"In all these cases, one of the common features is their greed, is their drive to make a dollar at the expense of the national security of the United States," Conboy said in an interview.
In a recent report, David Kay, head of a separate U.S.-led team that has been searching for evidence of Saddam's weapons in postwar Iraq, said he had found no stocks of such arms. But he, too, said there was "evidence of Saddam's continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons" and other weapons of mass destruction.
The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Monday that it was imperative that U.N. inspectors return to Iraq to finish verifying whether it had such weapons before the war.
-------- business
Lockheed Martin Wins $812M Deal For Sea-Based Missile Defense
A missile is launched an Aegis guided missile ship
Oct 13, 2003
(AFP)
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/bmdo-03t.html
Moorestown - The U.S. Navy was awarded Friday an $812.5 million contract to Lockheed Martin for the continued development of the Missile Defense Agency's Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) capability.
Under the contract, Lockheed Martin is responsible for developing and fielding the sea-based element of the Ballistic Missile Defense System. The contract includes the development and integration of the Aegis Weapon System upgrades, Vertical Launching System upgrades, Command and Control System upgrades, Aegis BMD signal processor efforts, and Flight Test support including equipment, computer programs and system engineering required to accomplish the Aegis BMD mission.
The work will be performed in Moorestown, NJ, and Baltimore, MD, and is expected to be complete in 2006. The company anticipates approximately 50 - 65 new jobs will be created.
"The U.S. Navy and the Missile Defense Agency have set clear expectations for success of the sea-based missile defense program," said Fred P. Moosally, president of Lockheed Martin's Maritime Systems and Sensors unit. "The Lockheed Martin team understands that our customers are counting on us to deliver, and we will."
The Aegis BMD element of the nation's BMD System will provide the capability for Aegis-equipped cruisers to use hit-to-kill technology to intercept and destroy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.
Additionally, designated Aegis-equipped destroyers will be modified to expand the ability of Aegis BMD to provide surveillance and tracking of intercontinental ballistic missiles, and work with other BMD System elements to provide advance warning for the defense of the nation, deployed U.S. forces and allies.
The Aegis Weapon System includes the most powerful and robust naval surface tactical radar in the world, SPY-1. Equally advanced and tightly integrated Weapon Control and Command and Control subsystems support it. When paired with the MK 41 Vertical Launching System, it is capable of delivering missiles for every mission and threat environment in naval warfare.
The system is currently deployed on 66 U.S. Navy Aegis-equipped ships on station around the globe, and 23 more ships are planned. Aegis is the primary naval weapon system for Japan, it is part of two European ship construction programs -- the Spanish F-100 and the Norwegian New Frigate -- and the Republic of Korea recently selected Aegis for its newest class of destroyers.
Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, Lockheed Martin employs about 125,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture and integration of advanced technology systems, products and services.
-------- china
Chinese war games to face Taiwan again
October 13, 2003
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20031013-121448-6037r.htm
China is set to hold large-scale military exercises aimed at stepping up pressure on Taiwan's government, U.S. officials said yesterday.
About 100,000 Chinese troops are expected to take part in the war games, to be held in China's Fujian province, facing the island of Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait.
"This is almost an annual event," said a senior U.S. defense official.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it appears that the Chinese are trying this year to be more "open and visible" about the exercises.
"The feeling is that perhaps they are being more open in response to [Republic of China (Taiwan) President] Chen Shui-bian and his current statements that lean toward independence," the official said.
The official said U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Chinese may be conducting an "information operation" using the war games as a tool.
Mr. Chen said in a speech in Taiwan last week that "Taiwan is an independent, sovereign country" that "has long been neglected by the international community."
"We are prevented from entering the [United Nations], denied membership in the World Health Organization and constantly face the threat of a missile attack from China," he said.
Mr. Chen also wants to hold a vote on a new constitution that he said would "transform Taiwan into a normal, great country."
"We hope that by writing a new constitution, we can deepen the democratization of our constitutional system," Mr. Chen said Oct. 4.
The remarks drew a harsh rebuke from Beijing, which views the island as a breakaway province.
A Chinese government spokesman said Mr. Chen's comments had heightened tensions across the Taiwan Strait and were "extremely dangerous."
Chinese war games in 1996 triggered what became known as the Taiwan Strait crisis of that year. China test-fired short-range missiles north and south of Taiwan during the exercises, which were held around the time of upcoming Taiwanese elections.
The U.S. government responded by dispatching two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region.
Officials said the latest exercises will begin later this month.
The annual exercises are "always fairly large-scale" and the exact scenario is difficult to determine, the official said.
However, the official said, "They have all the appearance of focusing on a cross-Strait" conflict scenario.
Another U.S. official said the upcoming exercises are not unusual for the Chinese military. "The Chinese army does exercise a lot in the summer [and] in the fall," the official said.
A recent Pentagon report on China's military stated that Chinese war games "increasingly focus on the United States as an adversary and on preparing for combined arms and joint operations under more-realistic conditions.
"Over the past few years, Beijing's military training exercises have taken on an increasingly real-world focus, emphasizing rigorous practice and operational capabilities, and improving incrementally the military's actual ability to use force," the report said. "These actions are aimed not only at Taiwan, but also at increasing the risk to U.S. forces and to the United States itself in any future Taiwan contingency."
Singapore's Straits Times newspaper, which first reported the upcoming exercises, stated that the war games will practice surprise attacks on Taiwan. Several Chinese army groups and a missile unit will participate.
China's last major war games near Taiwan were in May last year and involved amphibious-assault operations, as well as aerial raids and other ground-forces maneuvers.
The State Department announced Tuesday that it had granted a transit visa to Mr. Chen to permit the leader to make stops in Alaska and New York next month as part of a visit to Panama.
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EU sets out tough terms for aid to Iraq
By Mark Turner at the United Nations and Judy Dempsey in Luxembourg
October 13 2003
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059480549018&p=1012571727102
The US and its allies were due on Tuesday to make a last-ditch effort to win a new United Nations resolution on Iraq designed to secure international backing for reconstruction efforts, as European Union ministers set out tough new terms for their help in the country.
The draft text, to be proposed formally on Tuesday, seeks a resolution that sanctions greater international military and financial support in Iraq. It could garner enough votes to pass this week, coalition diplomats claimed.
Both France and Germany indicated the text was a step in the right direction but said they needed to study it further.
Diplomats said the draft was about as close as they could go to winning support from UN Security Council members, while at the same time "corresponding to reality" on the ground.
Calling for a multinational force and financial assistance, the text underscores the temporary nature of the occupation but maintains ultimate coalition control until an elected Iraqi government is established.
In response to concerns about the timing of a handover of power to the Iraqis, it asks Iraq's Governing Council to produce a timetable by December 15 for a constitution and elections.
European Union foreign ministers meanwhile yesterday set out tough terms for helping in Iraq. At a meeting in Luxembourg, only the UK offered new funding - a €375m ($442m) commitment, starting from next January and spread over two years. Other countries would not say publicly what contributions, if any, they would make at next week's donors' conference in Madrid.
Sweden won support for demands that the UN play "a strong and vital role" in any successful reconstruction programme. EU ministers also demanded assurances of security, a realistic schedule for the handover of power, and a transparent multilateral donor fund.
UN Security Council members, led by France, Russia and Germany, have called for a rapid return of sovereignty to Iraq and greater UN involvement in the reconstruction than the US has so far been willing to concede.
The coalition says it can only progressively hand over authority over time, transferring effective sovereignty to Iraq after a constitution and elections. Britain, however, says the text does not preclude the possibility of setting up a provisional government before elections.
Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, had complained that the partial UN political role envisaged in an earlier version of the text was unworkable. The new text, on which Mr Annan has yet to comment, says the UN should help in writing a constitution and preparing elections "as circumstances permit".
A coalition diplomat insisted a "partnership" was possible.
Responding to complaints that a US-run Development Fund for Iraq, into which oil receipts are channelled, was not yet subject to international scrutiny, the new text calls for an advisory and monitoring board to be established "as a priority".
It also potentially removes obstacles facing international financial institutions seeking to lend money to Iraq, urging them "to take immediate steps to provide their full range of loans and other financial assistance".
President George W. Bush on Tuesday sought to shore up sagging domestic support for the US presence in Iraq. "If the people don't think I'm doing my job they'll find somebody [else]," Mr Bush told Tribune Broadcasting.
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Bulgarian Soldier Injured in Iraq, Recruitment Problems in Sofia
Politics:
13 October 2003, Monday.
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=27042
A soldier from Bulgaria's stabilization force in the northern part of Iraq's holy city of Karbala, has been slightly injured on Sunday as a car broke through a security barrier at a high-speed, paying no heed to the control post of the Bulgarian contingent stationed in the city. Four Iraqi nationals were in the car.
Yordan Dinev Stefanov from the second infantry company was injured in the left knee and has been treated immediately by the camp's medical staff. An official statement of the Defense Ministry assured that Stefanov feels good and is already carrying out his obligations.
High speed is the most likely cause for the accident, the ministry said.
A nearly 500-strong Bulgarian infantry battalion is carrying out a six-month mission in Iraq, patrolling the city of Karbala, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Baghdad, as part of a 9,000-strong 22-nation force under Polish command.
Bulgaria faces serious problems in recruiting members for its second contingent to help the U.S. restore order in Iraq following the war there, Deputy Defense Minister Ilko Dimitrov admitted on Monday without specifying the number of Bulgarian servicemen yet to be recruited.
The second contingent will see an increase in the military police and civilian members, who need to be experts in economics or public relations. According to Minister Dimitrov the increased presence of civilians in the Bulgarian unit will not reflect negatively on the locals' attitude to the contingent.
In what comes as a comment of the two attacks against Bulgaria's force after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, Minister Dimitrov admitted that the unit works in a "danger-ridden environment".
-------- iraq
Iraqi group to kill peacekeepers
From correspondents in Baghdad
13oct03
Australia Herald Sun
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,7542621%255E1702,00.html
A MAN claiming to speak for an Iraqi resistance group warned foreign troops against joining the US-led occupation forces in Iraq, saying they will be treated as occupiers and provoke attacks on their home countries.
A compact disc video was accompanied by a statement signed by the same group. In the statement, the group promised to kill every member of the US-picked Governing Council and Iraqis who are cooperating with the US-led occupation authorities. It also listed politicians and tribal leaders as among its targets.
It was impossible to verify the authenticity of the statement or the recording, both of them obtained by The Associated Press in the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad.
The recording showed five men wearing robes and covering their faces with Arab head scarves. All five squatted motionlessly on the floor except for the one who read the statement. The group called itself The Jihad Brigades of Imam Ali bin Abi-Taleb. Behind them was a curtain with a floral design.
The men had machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and what looked like anti-tank rockets.
"We are determined to fight every soldier that arrives in Iraq from any Arab or non-Arab nation. We shall treat everyone of them as an occupier," said the man who read the statement.
"In the near future, inshallah (God willing), we shall take our operations to neighbouring and non-neighbouring nations, Arab, and non-Arab nations that send troops to Iraq," he said.
Fallujah, about 50km west of Baghdad, has been one of the most dangerous places for US troops in Iraq. It is in the "Sunni Triangle", a vast swath of land north and west of Baghdad that is mostly inhabited by Sunni Muslims who benefited from the rule of Saddam Hussein, himself a Sunni.
US troops in the area come under daily attacks from insurgents suspected to be Saddam loyalists opposed to American occupation on religious grounds.
The speaker in the recording did not say whether his hitherto unknown group operated in the Fallujah area.
The group is named after Ali bin Abi-Taleb, a cousin of Islam's 7th century prophet Muhammad and one of the most revered Shiite Muslim saints.
Iraq's Shiite majority had for nearly a century been oppressed by the country's minority Sunni Arabs. Unlike many Sunnis, the Shiites have welcomed Saddam's overthrow although they have misgivings about the Americans. Because they are the majority, Iraqi Shiites are virtually assured of dominating any future government produced by a general election, something that the Americans want to see held before the end of 2004.
Attacks on US forces blamed on Shiite Iraqis are rare, a fact that casts doubt on the authenticity of the recording and the statement accompanying it.
The statement's ending, however, makes it clear that the hitherto unknown group is Shiite. It names the holy Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala as its intended battlefields in the fight against the Americans.
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War without end
A catalogue of killings in Iraq
Monday October 13, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1061760,00.html
May 8
US soldier shot dead by unknown assailant while directing traffic in Baghdad
May 13
US soldier killed when convoy ambushed near Diwaniya
May 26
US vehicle hits landmine in Baghdad killing one soldier and injuring three
May 26
US soldier killed and another wounded as convoy comes under enemy fire near Haditha
May 27
Two US soldiers killed and nine wounded in attack on army unit in Falluja.
Two attackers killed, six captured
May 29
US soldier killed travelling on supply route
June 3
US soldier killed at checkpoint south of Balad
June 5
US soldier killed and five injured in rocket-propelled grenade attack in Falluja
June 7
US soldier killed and four injured in attack near Tikrit involving rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire
June 8
US soldier shot dead at checkpoint in al-Qaim, near Syrian border, by men who had approached vehicle asking for medical help.
One assailant killed and one captured, but others escape
June 10
US paratrooper killed and another injured in rocket-propelled grenade attack in south-west Baghdad. They were manning trash collection point when assailants got out of a v