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NUCLEAR
Workers test negative for plutonium radiation
Britain's tearaway nuclear missiles
Throwback to 1974 Grand Harbour accident
No increased radioactivity in Serbia
Perma-Fix Awarded $4.7M Contract For Treatment Of Depleted Uranium Chips
Veteran speaks on depleted uranium risks
Exile's book an unsentimental portrait of Iraqi pain
Iran secretly building new nuclear site: opposition group
Iran fully cooperating with IAEA, but needs interests respected: Khatami
UN nuclear watchdog warns Iran deadline cast in stone
Iran Denies Having Secret Nuclear Facilities
Nuclear neighborhood bully
Sharon predicts Libya could become first Arab nuclear power
Sharon says Libya after nukes
Intelligence Puzzle: North Korean Bombs
S.Korea to Press North to Resolve Nuclear Crisis
China Welcomes U.S. 'Flexibility' on N.Korea
Pakistan Tests Third Shaheen-1 Missile
Pakistan conducts third nuclear-capable missile test in 11 days
Pakistan Tests Nuclear - Capable Missile
Robertson Backtracks on Nuke Threat
Dept of Energy plans to further toxicify Hanford, Washington area
Kucinich makes run for president official
Dennis John Kucinich Formal Announcement Speech
The Cheney Curse
Edwards says he'll vote against $87 billion Iraq package
Bush Asserts Control Over Policy in Iraq
MILITARY
British go-ahead for arms exports to Iraqi security firms
Firms get ready for business in Iraq
Cheney, Halliburton ties facing more questions
German troops may start deploying in Kunduz in November
Polish spokesman blamed for Iraq missile claims: report
Britain's subtle shift on EU defense
The ruins of another US try at democracy: Haiti
Iraqi weapons dumps larger than expected
A List of Recent Bombings in Iraq
Suicide Bomber Wounds at Least 4 at Turkish Embassy in Iraq
Guerrillas in Iraq Tap Unsecured Arms Caches, Officials Say
New Draft of U.S. Resolution Gives Iraqi Council a Deadline
Israeli warplanes fly over southern Lebanon, no resistance
Israelis and Palestinians Join in Peace Draft
The sacrifice: Palestine's coveted right to return
Finding realistic solutions without grabbing land
Bolivia's President Halts Controversial Gas Project
Saudi Arabia Says It Will Hold First Elections
NATO to launch global rapid response force
Hapless Prisoners in a Black Hole
Chronology of China's Space Program
U.N. Chief Sees No `Major Shift' in U.S. Resolution on Iraq
New Iraq Proposal Offered To U.N.
U.N. Council Approves a Broader Afghan Mission
Army studying high suicide rate among US soldiers in Iraq
Environmentalists and Navy strike deal on controversial sonar system
Navy Agrees to Injunction Limiting Sonar Use
Suit Over Injury to Whales Ends in Deal to Limit Navy Sonar Use
Rumsfeld plans to close 100 bases
U.S. Troops' Body Armor Delayed
Armor shortfall hits U.S. troops
Army Is Studying Suicide in Ranks
Deaths deal their daily blows to pollyanna Bush
Form Letters From G.I.'s to the Editors
Gaza raids a 'war crime'
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Sept. 11 Panel Defends Director's Impartiality
Pillow Bombs Feared on Planes
Agencies in DHS Lose Logos
US eyes second-tier threats in terror war
Bin Laden Son Plays Key Role in Al Qaeda
ENERGY AND OTHER
Norway's Statkraft teams up for hydrogen future
Energy Bill Thin on Conservation, Critics Say
Pregnancy Created With Egg Nucleus of Infertile Woman
ACTIVISTS
National Youth and Student Coalition to End Nuclear Danger
Speaking Truth to Empire:
Bolivian President Remains Defiant as Protests Intensify
Thousands of foreign Christians stage Jerusalem march
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Workers test negative for plutonium radiation
Twelve potentially exposed during small-scale leak at Lab, undetected for four days
By Ian Hoffman,
TRI-VALLEY HERALD STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10669~1697476,00.html
Several workers at Lawrence Livermore nuclear-weapons lab have tested negative so far for plutonium contamination after what lab officials believe was a small-scale release went undetected for four days.
Five security officers were among the 12 potentially exposed workers, and their union said Monday that the incident underscores the need for regular radiological testing of the lab's protective force, which is largely based in and near the plutonium facility.
Lab spokesman David Schwoegler said plutonium-handling managers still are examining the incident and deciding how to prevent a recurrence of the release.
The release occurred Oct. 3, when workers shut off power to a portion of the lab's plutonium facility as part of a test.
Facility managers did not know that at least eight years ago, workers had decided not to replace the rubberized door seals on a single glove box that plutonium operators use as an enclosed container for extracting plutonium from liquid radioactive wastes.
When the power went off, a ventilation fan that sustains negative pressure in the glove box stopped working, allowing air tainted by plutonium residue in the box to seep out of the unsealed box door.
An air monitor nearby signalled the leak but a monitor in the room with the glove box stayed silent, leading workers on Oct. 3 to conclude that no actual releases had occurred and that the initial alarm was a figment of the power shutdown.
But four days later, on a Tuesday, a routine check of passive air filters showed a release had occurred from the glove box. Lab managers checked the room's electronic access log and last week warned all workers and security officers who had entered the room of their possible exposure.
Two plutonium operators entered the room two hours after the suspected release time and after the room fans had exchanged the air approximately 14 times over, Schwoegler said.
A total of seven plutonium workers and five of the lab's SWAT team members were offered radiological testing, start-ing with lengthy, full-body lung scans and urinalysis.
So far, Schwoegler said, the lung scans have all turned up negative. Urinalysis results will take another two weeks. But the lack of lung detections, coupled with the failure of the room's air-monitor to detect the release, suggest the release was small in quantity and did not travel far from the unsealed door, he said.
"It was completely contained. It was very low-level contamination within this room, and there was no risk to the workers or to people outside," Schwoeg-ler said. He said lab managers verified that the glove box in question is the only one lacking seals and are studying how best to refurbish it.
Still, the security officers were not notified of their potential exposure until almost a week after the release, leaving them less able to get immediate chelation treatment if the exposure had been greater, said Mathew Zipoli, vice president of Security Police Officers Association.
Zipoli and others have pressed lab managers to include security officers in mandatory radiological testing but say they have been told it is too expensive and unnecessary.
"You can have all of the controls in place but none of these controls can stop human error," Zipoli said. "Our officers pretty much won a game of Russian roulette because six days had gone by and they weren't able to seek quick medical treatment."
Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com .
-------- britain
Britain's tearaway nuclear missiles
By Rob Evans in London
October 14, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/13/1065917344103.html
British nuclear weapons have been repeatedly dropped, struck by other weapons and on one occasion carried on a truck that slid down a hill and toppled over, the Ministry of Defence has admitted after decades of secrecy.
The department has been forced to publish a list of 20 accidents and mishaps involving nuclear weapons between 1960 and 1991 following a critical verdict from the parliamentary ombudsman. No incidents have been reported since then.
The list shows that trucks carrying nuclear weapons on British roads overturned on two occasions, and cars crashed into two convoys.
Nuclear weapons were dropped or fell on four occasions, and other munitions struck the atomic weapons four times. Four of the incidents happened abroad - in Germany, Malta and near Hong Kong.
Sir Kevin Tebbit, the ministry's Permanent Secretary, released the list following a six-year "open government" campaign by the Guardian newspaper.
The ministry initially blocked the request, submitted in 1997, prompting the newspaper to lodge a complaint with the ombudsman, Ann Abraham.
Finding the ministry guilty of maladministration, Mrs Abraham, dismissed its objections and ruled that disclosing the information would not endanger Britain's security.
One accident hushed up by the ministry occurred in 1960 in Lincolnshire. According to the ministry, "an RAF nuclear weapon load carrier, forming part of a convoy, experienced a brake failure on an incline and overturned". The ministry insisted "there was no damage to any nuclear weapon".
Since Britain started making nuclear weapons in the early 1950s, convoys regularly transport missiles hundreds of kilometres on motorways and other roads from bases to the atomic weapons factory in Berkshire.
Shaun Gregory, a Bradford University academic who has studied the dangers of nuclear accidents, said the ministry's descriptions of the incidents had the "appearance of being a sanitised version" of events and did not ring true. "Any type of complex system is bound to run into trouble," he said.
--------
Throwback to 1974 Grand Harbour accident could have led to nuclear contamination
Herman Grech,
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Times of Malta
http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/print_article.php?id=137557
A Royal Navy ship's mishap in Grand Harbour in 1974 which could have triggered a nuclear spill is among the blunders admitted by the British Ministry of Defence after decades of secrecy.
The Maltese government was not informed.
The MoD was forced to publish a list of 20 accidents and mishaps with nuclear weapons which occurred between 1960 and 1991, following a verdict by the parliamentary ombudsman in the UK.
In that period nuclear weapons were dropped or fell on four occasions, and other munitions struck atomic weapons four times. Four of the incidents happened abroad - in Malta, near Hong Kong, and two in Germany, the Guardian newspaper reported.
The Malta incident took place in Grand Harbour in February 1974 when two Mk44 torpedoes which were being removed from a storage rack fell a few inches onto a nuclear WE177 weapon on board the battle-cruiser HMS Tiger.
The MoD said that only "superficial scratching" on the plastic protective strips on the edges of the weapon's rear tail fin were caused. A leaked version of the accident, seen by The Times yesterday, says that a torpedo blast could have detonated an explosive in the weapon, scattering radioactivity in the sea and land.
The Maltese government was not informed about the accident, according to the board of inquiry set up to investigate the incident.
An official inquiry had subsequently criticised crew training and that the torpedo handling equipment was incorrectly rigged. Modifications were made to the equipment as a result.
Sir Kevin Tebbit, the MoD's permanent secretary, has had to disclose the list following a six-year campaign by The Guardian.
The MoD initially blocked the request submitted in 1997, prompting the newspaper to lodge a complaint with the ombudsman.
The list shows that trucks carrying nuclear weapons on British roads overturned on two occasions, and cars crashed into two convoys.
One accident "hushed up" by the MoD was in 1960 in Lincolnshire when according to the MoD, "an RAF nuclear weapon load carrier, forming part of a convoy, experienced a brake failure on an incline and overturned".
In 1967, a Vulcan bomber carrying a nuclear weapon was struck by lightning at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire.
In 1987 in Wiltshire a truck with two 950lb WE177 n-weapons skidded and rolled on to the side; a second truck also slid off the road. According to the MoD, only minor damage was reported.
In Germany in 1974 a WE177 was dropped while being loaded onto a plane at RAF Laarbruch, and in 1984 another WE177 was dropped at RAF Bruggen which reportedly caused base to shut for the period.
Since Britain started making nuclear weapons in the early 1950s, convoys have regularly transported missiles hundreds of miles on motorways and other roads from bases to the atomic weapons factories.
Frank Barnaby, a nuclear physicist, described the designs of Britain's early nuclear weapons, from the 1950s and 1960s, as unsafe and primitive, and that the MoD was lucky to have got away with not having more serious accidents, including nuclear explosions. The MoD insists the accidents never caused radiation leaks but Shaun Gregory, a Bradford University academic who has studied the dangers of nuclear accidents, said that the ministry's descriptions of the incidents had the "appearance of being a sanitised version" of events and did not ring true.
He believed that there was little chance of a nuclear detonation, but an accident could have caused a fire or explosion which could have showered radioactive debris around the immediate area.
-------- depleted uranium
No increased radioactivity in Serbia
Andjelka Mihajlov,
Oct 14, 2003
Serbia Office of Communication
Email: ooc@srbija.sr.gov.yu
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/news/2003-10/14/331450.html
Belgrade- Serbian Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Andjelka Mihajlov said on Tuesday that results of the environmental radioactivity measurements in 2002 show that there was no increased radioactivity in Serbia that year.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Minister Mihajlov said that a risk of increased radioactivity was registered only in southern Serbia, in Bratoselce, Pljackovica, Borovac and Reljan, where the largest number of missiles with depleted uranium were fired during the NATO bombing.
The radioactivity research was carried out by the Institute of Industrial Medicine and Radiological Protection of the Clinical Centre of Serbia, said Mihajlov and added that the Ministry funded the research with 5 million dinars.
Mihajlov also presented the results of the clean-up of Bratoselce from depleted uranium, which began on September 15 and is expected to be completed by the end of November. The Ministry set aside 15 million dinars for the clean-up campaign.
Mihajlov said that the other three locations in southern Serbia will be cleaned up during 2004.
----
Perma-Fix Awarded $4.7M Contract For Treatment Of Depleted Uranium Chips
Tuesday October 14
PRNewswire-FirstCall
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031014/fltu015_1.html
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 14 -- Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: PESI; BSE) (Germany: PES.BE) today announced that it has been awarded a contract valued at over $4.7 million by Bechtel Hanford, Inc. of Richland, Wash., for the treatment and disposal of Depleted Uranium Chips in Oil and Stabilized Soil and Oil. The waste materials are now at Perma-Fix and the treatment process is underway.
Bechtel Hanford, Inc., the U.S. Department of Energy's Environmental Restoration Contractor at the 586-square-mile Hanford site in southeastern Washington State, excavated a total of 520 containers of depleted uranium chips and oil from the 618-4 Burial Ground at Hanford, in 1998 - 2002. Perma-Fix was awarded this contract in September 2003 to transport and treat the excavated depleted uranium chips and ensure that they were treated in a safe and regulatory compliant manner prior to return to Hanford for final disposal at the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility. Perma-Fix had previously won a Basic Ordering Agreement issued by UT Battelle in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to address this problematic waste stream.
Perma-Fix has developed a phase separation and stabilization technique that allows for safe encapsulation of the depleted uranium, a pyrophoric radioactive metal, to a form that meets Hanford disposal site criteria.
The availability of this newest treatment system offers the government and commercial sectors a safe option for this problematic waste stream. Dr. Louis F. Centofanti, Perma-Fix chairman and chief executive officer, said: "We have undergone years of development and testing to safely and efficiently address a waste stream that has previously been considered an orphan waste without treatment capability in the U.S. commercial sector. Treatment of these wastes will ensure that buried and stored legacy material will now be able to be treated in accordance with regulatory requirements and will support DOE's effort to cleanup legacy wastes generated at sites throughout the United States."
Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. is a national environmental services company, providing unique mixed waste and industrial waste management services. The Company has increased its focus on the nuclear services segment, which provides radioactive and mixed waste treatment services to hospitals, research laboratories and institutions, numerous federal agencies including the Departments of Energy and Defense and nuclear utilities. The industrial services segment provides hazardous and non-hazardous waste treatment services for a diverse group of customers including Fortune 500 companies, numerous federal, state and local agencies and thousands of smaller clients. The Company operates nine major waste treatment facilities across the country.
Please visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.perma-fix.com.
----
Veteran speaks on depleted uranium risks
by Karla Rivas
Lumberjack Staff Writer
10.14.03
http://media.humboldt.edu/merge1/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=821&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
A prominent and experienced veteran spoke about depleted uranium to the Humboldt Bay Veterans for Peace organization last Friday at the Arcata Community Center.
Rokke spoke about the consequences of depleted uranium in Afghanistan, ex-Yugoslavia and among U.S. veterans. He also addressed how to diminish war and the use of depleted uranium.
Rokke has been diagnosed with radioactive airway disease thought to be caused by the uranium he was exposed to while decontaminating and treating casualties and facilities in the first Gulf War.
According to "Rolling Stone," Rokke suffers from "cataracts, kidney damage and a disease called RADS, a lung-destroying malady caused by inhaling hazardous substances over short periods."
Rokke is traveling all over the world to make a statement and inform people about what happened to him and other soldiers. His next scheduled stop is in Hamburg, Germany, this week for the World Uranium Weapons Conference.
"We are blessed for having Rokke talk for us at this event," the Chair of the Veterans for Peace organization, Robert Nelson, said. "All of us played a big role in getting him here."
Rokke received his Doctorate in physics and technology education at the University of Illinois. He specialized in hazardous materials and served 35 years in the military.
He also served in the Air Force in 1967, where he bombed Vietnam targets and planned, conducted and evaluated medical operations and education for U.S. medical units and personnel. From 1994 to 1995 Rokke was the director of the depleted uranium project.
The message he gave at the community center was a detailed elaboration of all the horrors that go on in war. First he stressed the point that any soldier in war, no matter who he or she is, changes physically and psychologically forever.
"The purpose of war is simple," said Rokke. "It is to kill and destroy!"
Rokke said when a nation goes to war its leaders have a responsibility to provide soldiers with adequate training, equipment and medical care.
He said they should not put soldiers in a position where they have to think about the ethics of what they are doing.
"Those kids over there are put into a situation where they have no option. They must kill and destroy!" Rokke said. "And all of a sudden you get to come back, you have to think about, 'Holy shit...was that justified?'"
Rokke said there have been too many military actions that had nothing to do with defending the U.S.--such as the first Gulf War, Afghanistan, Panama and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
"Iraq absolutely, definitely possessed chemical and biological warfare," Rokke said. "They absolutely did possess them in 1990. You know how we know? Because we sent them! We sold it to them and kept the receipt!
"We knew exactly where it was and we knew that they had produced more because that's where the equipment came from. We allowed them to produce it. Surprise!"
In the first Gulf War, 40 percent of the soldiers who were in Liberia came back with malaria, a disease that cannot be cured.
Rokke said that the commanders didn't give the soldiers necessities such as immunizations "because the military forgot to do that!"
As a result of the friendly fire that occurred in the the first Gulf War, no one was allowed to go into the area without skin protection, Rokke said. He said the protection they had was defective, and gas masks came off from the sweat.
"Take a breath and die slowly...slowly...slowly," Rokke said.
Rokke was given the task of cleaning the tanks that contained depleted uranium and was told there were no health risks or precautions to take.
Rokke and his team became sick within two days of their initial visit to the tanks and developed cancer within two years.
When in Saudi Arabia, he received US mail from a lieutenant at the Pentagon that started, "Dear Doug, oh shit."
"Now you know you have a problem when you get a letter calling you by your first name and not your title," Rokke said.
The letter confirmed there are health problems when exposed to depleted uranium.
"Nobody considered the consequences of the contamination, which is great," Rokke said. "There were no procedures taken. There was a bulletin that specifically showed how to fix depleted uranium contaminations and how a contamination could not exceed 200 counts per minute in order to decontaminate it. They were using 1,000 counts per minute!"
The U.S. is currently using depleted uranium weapons in Iraq, Rokke said.
"You get the uranium all airborne and every time you get another explosion...it gets suspended, blowing up particles again and then the wind picks it up and blows it all around," Rokke said.
He said just a few micrograms of uranium can cause problems.
"You have the deliberate spreading of solid radioactive materials--our radioactive waste, half of which we can't dispose of effectively," Rokke said. "They are spreading tons and tons of radioactive waste all over Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Portorico--all over the place.
"The whole thing with war is that we have to find better ways for war," Rokke said.
"The results of technology and war are destroying the air, water, and environment with contamination for which we have no resolution," he said. "We have to ensure that uranium emissions are banned, that medical care is provided for everyone, and that environmental clean up is done."
----
Exile's book an unsentimental portrait of Iraqi pain
Baghdad Diaries counters stock images used by Western media with an appealing human face
Jim Quilty
The Daily Star (Lebanon)
14/10/03
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/features/14_10_03_c.asp
DAMASCUS: The cover of the revised edition of Nuha Radi's Baghdad Diaries features an epigram from the late Edward Said.
This book, he writes, is one of the few that describes Iraq "as a real country." A political rather than an aesthetic evaluation, the remark evidently issued from Said the anti-Orientalist rather than Said the literary critic.
In any case, it nicely captures the true worth of Radi's book. Baghdad Diaries first chronicled a period from January, 1991 when the administration of George Bush the Elder launched America's first war against Iraq to March, 1996 by which point Radi had emigrated to Beirut.
The book has been updated to cover the period when the regime of George Bush the Younger was impatiently waiting through the formality of UN inspections before launching a new Iraq war, one premised on Saddam Hussein's harboring "weapons of mass destruction."
Then as now, Radi's selected diary entries make for a valuable, unusual, aggravating book.
The value arises from the author's perspective. A prominent visual artist whose paintings and sculptures have been exhibited internationally, Radi is a member of Iraq's cosmopolitan, English-speaking, and much-beleaguered bourgeoisie.
She writes in the language of dinner parties and cafes, about the joys of eating baladi truffles and the inconvenience of securing a residency permit in your country of exile. It is a mundane and unadorned representation of her world and, no doubt, a perplexing one for her intended Anglo-American audience.
In North America and Britain, after all, media representations of Iraq alternate among a limited number of stock images: the dictator firing a shotgun into the air; the suffering, emaciated victims of 12 years of sanctions-deprived, Baath Party rule; and, more recently, turbaned sheikhs and throngs of angry masses.
Given this media collage mingling elements of "Iran" and "Palestine" a la CNN and BBC North Americans might almost (almost) be forgiven their ignorant assumption that these images are the sum total of "the Middle East." The "human face" of Iraq under the rule of Saddam, the wars and the sanctions, has been one of suffering, one quite alien, and alienating, to the Anglo-US audience. Baghdad Diaries provides the possibility of empathy via a more appealing human face.
The book is an honest reflection of Radi's preoccupations at times amusing, at times frivolous, at times self-absorbed. Its greatest strength also makes it so unusual, even unfortunate.
As she admits in her opening line, Radi is no writer. Whatever grace and wit she has exhibited in her art are rarely demonstrated here. Her writing offers neither a profound analysis of Iraq's political, cultural or social makeup nor an eloquent barometer of her country's depth of suffering.
Radi experienced the first Gulf War and the early years of the embargo from the vantage of "my Baghdad orchard with its 66 palms and 161 orange trees." The first substantive crisis she professes to have experienced was weight gain as the want of electricity forced her and her friends to host a series of extravagant barbecues to eat all their frozen meat before it went off.
She was able to leave Baghdad, travel and with the help of her wasta secure residency permits in Jordan and Lebanon, work and achieve notoriety. The reader cannot help but feel that, for Radi and those of her class, Iraq's agony was felt as more of an inconvenience than anything.
This is ironic perhaps, as it is her privileged position that makes Radi "comprehensible" to a middle-class North American readership.
Aggravating, infuriating, as it sometimes is, Radi's book is still one which deserves reading for its authenticity alone.
As a personal memoir of the last decade or so, its harrowing anecdotes of cancer, death and mutation linked to Washington's use of depleted uranium in the first Gulf War and the impossibility of healthcare under the UN sanctions regime are rendered without undue sentiment.
It also contains fossils of sentiments which have been banished from the public record in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. On the December 1998 bombings of Baghdad, Radi writes: "Out of 500 UN supervision visits, five were contested We have to be bombed for that? CNN says 70 percent of Americans approve of the bombing. Are they sick or something, these Americans? I wish someone would bomb them at home. As that's not likely we'll have to settle for a few natural disasters."
-------- iran
Iran secretly building new nuclear site: opposition group
VIENNA (AFP)
Oct 14, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031014115350.vh9h3ful.html
Iran is secretly building a nuclear site in the west of the country to test centrifuges that could be used to make highly enriched uranium for military purposes, a leading Iranian opposition group said on Tuesday.
The site, 15 kilometres from the city of Isfahan, is used to test 120 and 180 centrifugues that can be used to produce highly enriched uranium, which is neccessary for making nuclear weapons, said a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCR).
The group had in August 2002 announced the existence of a secret nuclear plant in the central city of Nantaz, where the UN's nuclear agency subsequently discovered traces of enriched uranium during inspections last year.
Iran, which says its nuclear programme is for civilian and not nuclear purposes, said the traces came from accidental contamination from nuclear material imported from abroad.
The NCR spokesman for Austria, Firouz Mahvi, said that the 150,000-hectare (370,000-acre) Isfahan site is known under the name of a "fuel research and production centre" and also has other installations operating for Iran's nuclear programme.
Tehran "is continuing its uranium enrichment programme despite demands by the IAEA (the UN's nuclear agency) to the contrary," he said.
The comments by the NCR, which is the political wing of the Paris-based People's Mujahadeen resistance group, come a day before the head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, leaves for Iran following an invitation from the Islamic republic.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has given Tehran an October 31 deadline to dispel suspicions it is pursuing a nuclear weapons programme.
----
Iran fully cooperating with IAEA, but needs interests respected: Khatami
TEHRAN (AFP)
Oct 14, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031014110932.r07tvrcn.html
President Mohammad Khatami asserted Tuesday that Iran was ready to give full cooperation to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but said the UN watchdog also needed to take stock of the Islamic republic's interests.
"We are very benevolent people and we do not want to create problems. We have declared that we will cooperate with all our strength with the IAEA," the president told reporters after a parliament meeting.
The IAEA last month threatened to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if it failed to satisfy suspicions it was concealing covert weapons development behind its civil energy programme by the end of October.
The Vienna-based agency has also urged Iran to unconditionally sign an additional protocol to the NPT, which would submit Iran to a tougher inspections regime.
But Khatami stuck by the assertion that signing the text needed to be negotiated, and that the IAEA needed to take into account "the general conditions for the respect of our honour, national security and national interests."
The head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, is to visit Iran on Thursday, 15 days before the deadline expires for Iran to dispel suspicions it is pursuing a nuclear weapons programme.
----
UN nuclear watchdog warns Iran deadline cast in stone
VIENNA (AFP)
Oct 14, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031014214956.am0j58hp.html
The United Nations nuclear watchdog warned Iran on Tuesday that it would not stretch an October 31 deadline to clear up allegations that Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons.
The warning came as Britain warned military action could not be ruled out if the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme was not resolved peacefully, and the Iranian opposition gave details of a secret installation where it claims the regime is enriching uranium to produce atomic weapons.
The warning from the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, came ahead of a visit to Tehran by its chief Mohamed ElBaradei.
Last month, the IAEA gave Iran until October 31 to allay concerns that it may be developing nuclear weapons, warning that it could refer the issue to the UN Security Council, which could in turn slap sanctions on Tehran.
"As agreed with Iranian officials, the purpose of Dr ElBaradei's visit would be for Iran to provide the IAEA during that visit with all the remaining information required to clarify important questions that are still outstanding about Iran's nuclear programmes," the agency said on Monday. In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he wanted the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme resolved peacefully but did not rule out possible military action.
Asked in parliament if he ruled out such action, Straw said: "We wish to see this matter resolved peacefully. I'm not going to predict what is going to happen except to say we have adopted a consistent approach in respect of Iran.
"The UK government has frequent contact with the government of Iran on this subject and we've made clear our serious concerns," Straw said, calling on Iran to comply fully with IAEA demands.
He said ElBaradei would be making a report to the IAEA board on November 7.
IAEA inspectors' concerns focus in particular on traces of highly enriched uranium found on two samples they took from a nuclear site in the central town of Natanz.
The same opposition leaders who blew the whistle on Natanz in August 2002 alleged in Vienna on Tuesday that Iran was secretly building a uranium-enriching plant.
The site is being constructed east of the city of Isfahan and "has been built to test centrifuges that enrich uranium," said Firouz Mahvi, spokesman in Austria of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
Mahvi said the 150,000 hectare (370,500 acre) site known as Isfahan's "fuel research and production centre" included other installations and "120 to 180 centrifuges are planned to be installed at this facility."
The allegations were vigorously denied by Iran's representative to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, but IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the agency was listening to what the Iranian opposition had to say.
"We're taking good note of these elements that have gotten to us," she said.
Meanwhile, ElBaradei met Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in Vienna for talks on both Iran and Iraq.
Russia is helping Iran build a nuclear plant at Bushehr, in southern Iran, and operations could be delayed under pressure of the United States which accuses Tehran of using its atomic power programme as a cover to make nuclear weapons.
In Geneva earlier, Ivanov reiterated Russia's desire for a peaceful solution to the standoff and urged Tehran to sign an additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty authorising more intrusive IAEA inspections.
"We believe it is necessary that Iran signs up to the additional protocol," he added.
Tehran has stalled on the additional protocol but a top official signalled that it was ready to open talks on the matter on Saturday.
And President Mohammad Khatami told reporters in Tehran: "We are very benevolent people and we do not want to create problems. We have declared that we will cooperate with all our strength with the IAEA."
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Iran Denies Having Secret Nuclear Facilities
October 14, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-nuclear.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - A senior Iranian official, speaking two weeks before a U.N. deadline for Tehran to dispel doubts over its atomic ambitions, on Tuesday denied claims Iran was hiding a nuclear site from the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog.
``We have certainly not'' hidden any facilities from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, told Reuters.
``This piece of information is absolutely baseless,'' he said of the allegation by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an exiled Iranian opposition group which has given accurate information in the past about Iran's nuclear program.
Salehi was responding to the NCRI's initial allegation made on Monday. On Tuesday the group gave more details, saying Tehran had been hiding a nuclear facility near Isfahan in central Iran.
``The site has been built to test centrifuges that enrich uranium,'' NCRI member Firouz Mahvi told reporters in Vienna.
The IAEA in a tough resolution last month, gave Iran until October 31 to disprove U.S.-led concerns it was secretly trying to build a nuclear weapons capability.
Iran insists its nuclear program is purely aimed at generating electricity, not making bombs.
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.
Salehi said Iran had taken a decision ``to cooperate fully with the agency (IAEA) and reveal whatever peaceful nuclear activities we have had in the past.''
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected in Iran on Thursday. ElBaradei has warned that if Tehran fails to cooperate fully, Iran's case may be sent to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
Asked whether Iran planned to ask ElBaradei for an extension to the October 31 deadline, Salehi said Tehran refused to recognize the date as binding.
``That time limit is not our concern, it's a concern for others,'' he said.
Pressed on whether Iran would be able to answer all the IAEA's outstanding questions about its nuclear program by the end of the month, he said: ``We are doing our best to speed up our cooperation.''
ElBaradei has said the key issue for the IAEA is to make sure it knows everything about Iran's uranium enrichment program and whether it contains any sites or activities which have not been declared.
The IAEA has found traces of arms-grade enriched uranium at two sites in Iran this year. Iran says this was due to contamination from machinery bought on the black market and has agreed to provide details of the imported parts to the IAEA.
Salehi said talks during ElBaradei's short visit to Iran this week would not touch on the issue of Iran signing the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The protocol would give U.N. inspectors virtually unfettered access for short-notice checks on suspected sites.
``The protocol is a different matter and will be discussed at separate talks starting next week,'' Salehi said.
-------- israel
Nuclear neighborhood bully
By Reuven Pedatzur
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/349502.html
The effectiveness and success of Israel's nuclear policy could be attributed to the high degree of responsibility and restraint exhibited by decision makers, even at times when the state faced threats that were deemed existential in nature.
Even at the start of the Yom Kippur War, when Moshe Dayan feared for Israel's fate and considered ordering the army to arm the doomsday systems, this was done modestly and without fanfare or proclamations. To Prime Minister Golda Meir's credit, she immediately ordered Dayan to "forget" the idea of activating the nuclear arsenal, which further contributed to the image of a nuclearly responsible Israel. Similarly, in the Gulf War, when, according to foreign sources, Israel weighed the idea of using nonconventional weapons, the prime minister and his senior ministers maintained restraint and did not issue any open threats.
The advantages of this policy, called "nuclear ambiguity," were numerous. Deterrence was attained without any need to openly threaten the use of weapons whose existence Israel has never acknowledged; American and international sanctions, which would have been imposed had Israel openly declared the existence of nuclear arms or conducted nuclear tests, were sidestepped; Israel was seen around the world as being a responsible state, with levelheaded leadership - this prevented the exertion of pressure on Israel to disarm, as is the case for Iran and North Korea.
Nevertheless, the Sharon government has in recent months seemed to be stretching the envelope of its militant policy in the war against the Palestinians, as reflected by the air strike in Syria. The policy envelope has been stretched to include the nuclear realm, as well. Although only hinted at, of course, the nuclear threat has become an increasingly legitimate device employed by Israeli decision makers. This is not only a mistake; it is liable to erode the successes of the time-honored nuclear policy. Not only does increased use of the threat not contribute to deterrence, it testifies to a lack of good judgment and a dangerous predisposition for panic. Regrettably, those issuing the threats do not understand the critical difference between threatening the deployment of conventional military force and crossing the threshold and making nuclear threats.
So when Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatens to bomb the Aswan Dam and the prime minister fails to admonish him, Israel's image as a state with sensible leadership is further eroded. On the eve of the war in Iraq, thick hints were again leaked about Israel's nuclear potential. The intention was to strengthen Israel's deterrent capacity, but in essence it was an admission that the Israeli leadership is not able to withstand even the most minimal threat of Iraqi nonconventional warfare, even though the probability of their making good on the threat was practically nil. In the end, use of the nuclear threat did serious harm to Israel's image of deterrence, as it was obvious that its leadership lacked self-confidence and was not demonstrating the steadfastness that is the requisite basis for the success of any deterrence.
The latest leak, to The Los Angeles Times, should be judged against this background. The report alleges that Israel has adapted American-made cruise missiles to carry nuclear warheads that would be launched by submarine. According to the report, the "Harpoon" missiles, which are designed for sea-to-sea warfare, have been converted for use as nuclear-tipped missiles with a long-range sea-to-land capacity. Of course, this is not the first leak about the building of an Israeli "second-strike capacity" through the use of Dolphin-class submarines. That same day, the German weekly Der Spiegel published a report that Israel plans to launch an air-force attack on Iran's nuclear sites.
Is this an Israeli attempt to put pressure on Iran by trying to frighten it? If so, it is misguided. It is obvious that Iran will not liquidate its nuclear program merely because its leaders suddenly hear that Israel has nuclear missiles aboard its submarines. The only chance of the Iranians abandoning their development of nuclear arms is through international pressure, led by the United States. In fact, leaks about Israel's nuclear capability and a threatened attack on Iran's nuclear facilities hurt the chances of this scenario unfolding. The leaks only serve to provide the Iranians with the best argument of all: Why should they stop their nuclear program when another state in the Middle East has nuclear arms and is threatening to attack Iran? First deal with Israel's nuclear facilities, which are not under international supervision, the Iranians will say.
Our decision makers are inclined to believe that presenting Israel as a "lunatic state" will help deter its enemies. This is almost certainly not true in the face of conventional threats, but it does real harm when one moves into the nuclear realm. Anyone who believes that making Israel the nuclear neighborhood bully will strengthen its image of deterrence is liable to find that it could do lethal harm to its nuclear deterrence, weaken its international status, and invite pressure on itself in the nuclear realm.
----
[Sharon sure is good at feeding Dubya's paranoia.]
Sharon predicts Libya could become first Arab nuclear power
JERUSALEM (AFP)
Oct 14, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031014160847.3kei0tru.html
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned that Libya could become the first Arab nuclear power, one of his close aides said Tuesday.
"Sharon said that Libya is pursuing its efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction and could become in the medium to long term the first Arab country to have nuclear weapons, with the help of Pakistan and North Korea" the official said on condition of anonymity.
The source said Sharon made his comments to some 70 ambassadors he had invited to his Jerusalem residence Monday night to mark the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, or Feast of the Tabernacles.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied having nuclear arms, but Washington has accepted it as a nuclear power since 1969 and analysts say it has up to 200 sophisticated nuclear weapons.
----
Sharon says Libya after nukes
Tue 14 October, 2003
(Reuters)
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=387830§ion=news
JERUSALEM - Libya is trying to develop nuclear weapons with help from countries such as North Korea and Pakistan, an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has quoted him as saying.
"One would not be surprised if Libya would be the first Arab country (to) have nuclear weapons," the aide quoted Sharon as telling foreign ambassadors in a meeting on Monday.
"Libya is diligently attempting to acquire nuclear know-how with help and support from North Korea and Pakistan," the aide quoted Sharon as saying. "Not help as in buying a bomb but help in acquiring technology and know-how to build a bomb."
There was no immediate comment from Tripoli.
Israel is believed to possess nuclear weapons, but it tries to maintain a policy of ambiguity over its nuclear status.
Israel regularly accuses Libya and Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons and says Iran is in an advanced stage of its nuclear programme. Both countries deny developing nuclear arms.
A 2002 CIA report said Libya was developing a civilian nuclear research programme after United Nations sanctions were lifted but was dependent on foreign suppliers to advance it.
-------- korea
Intelligence Puzzle: North Korean Bombs
By DAVID E. SANGER
October 14, 2003
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/asia/14KORE.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 - New intelligence estimates that North Korea may have produced one or two nuclear weapons in recent months - or perhaps more - have immersed the administration in another internal debate about the quality of intelligence about illegal weapons.
With President Bush just days from embarking on his longest foray in Asia, some of his advisers say it is possible that North Korea is telling the truth about having turned 8,000 nuclear fuel rods into enough weapons-grade plutonium for several warheads.
Others, including more cautious intelligence analysts at the State Department, say there is still no proof, and plenty of incentive for the North Koreans to bluff.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, in a series of confidential briefings, has taken a middle view: It has told Asian governments that North Korea has probably produced enough plutonium to make two new nuclear weapons, according to officials who took notes on the briefings.
"When you add up the evidence, we have every reason to believe they've made two new weapons," a senior Asian official said. That would be in addition to the one or two that the C.I.A. has said the North probably made in the early 1990's.
American officials caution that the international agency reached its estimates by reinterpreting data from the United States, South Korea and other nations.
The international estimate concerned fuel and did not assess whether the North could convert it into a working bomb. North Korea has never tested a nuclear weapon. The C.I.A. assessment that North Korea built two bombs a decade ago appears to assume that the country had mastered the technology, but the basis for the conclusion is unclear.
Without fully embracing the international estimate, administration officials say American analysts have concluded that the North has turned at least an eighth of its nuclear fuel into weapons-grade plutonium, and maybe as much as a third.
What it all adds up to is that no one knows for certain how big the North's arsenal is.
President Bush vowed earlier this year that he would never tolerate a nuclear North Korea. But he has left deliberately ambiguous how he defines "tolerate."
Charles Pritchard, who resigned this summer as the State Department special envoy for North Korean nuclear issues, cast Mr. Bush's political and strategic problem this way:
"We've gone, under his watch, from the possibility that North Korea has one or two weapons to a possibility - a distinct possibility - that it now has eight or more," said Mr. Pritchard, who also worked on North Korean issues during the Clinton administration. "And it's happened while we were deposing Saddam Hussein for fear he might get that same capability by the end of the decade."
In June, evidence collected by American satellites and sensors that capture a gas, krypton 85, released during reprocessing offered up tantalizing hints that additional nuclear facilities exist. But intelligence officials were unable to reproduce those findings, leaving what one senior official called "a lot of suspicions, but zippo evidence."
The facilities are thought to be in the mountains toward the Chinese border, and perhaps in underground tunnels, making them less vulnerable. "It's the hardest intelligence target we have," one senior American official said, "much harder than Iraq."
For Mr. Bush, that uncertainty greatly complicates his trip to Asia.
Mr. Bush's spokesman, Scott McClellan, said on Friday that Mr. Bush's strategy had already "achieved important success," because the North has "agreed to multilateral talks, six-country talks" on resolving the nuclear issues.
The administration's strategy relies heavily on pressure from China, which supplies the desperately poor North with most of its oil and much of its food.
Yet as Mr. Bush heads to Asia, administration officials are trying to put down a minor rebellion with a key ally over the strategy.
South Korea's foreign minister, Yoon Young Kwan, held a heated meeting with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell last month in New York, demanding that Mr. Bush respond to North Korea's call for security treaties and a plan for gradual improvement in economic relations in return for dismantling any nuclear facilities. In a twist that angered Mr. Powell, the South Korean said his new president, Roh Moo Hyun, would not consider sending any troops to aid in Iraq unless the United States gave ground on North Korea.
Mr. Powell, according to several officials familiar with the exchange, curtly told told him, "That is not how allies deal with each other."
In a telephone interview on Friday, Mr. Powell declined to discuss the meeting. But, he said, "we have some ideas, some interesting ideas, about how we can move forward on providing some security assurances to the North Koreans that might open up some new possibilities" during Mr. Bush's trip.
Mr. Bush meets President Roh next week at an Asian summit meeting in Bangkok, along with China's president, Hu Jintao, with whom the United States has shared a tremendous amount of highly classified intelligence in recent months about the progress of the North's program.
Unlike Iraq, North Korea is not denying its efforts, but rather boasting with an enthusiasm that makes many analysts suspicious. Earlier this month the North Korean government said it had solved "all of the technological matters" for making weapons.
The debate over what is actually going on in some ways mirrors the arguments that unfolded a year ago over how to interpret contradictory intelligence about Iraq.
Hawks in the administration, from the White House to the vice president's office to the Pentagon, argue that it is entirely possible that all 8,017 spent-fuel rods stored in North Korea since 1994 have been converted into bomb fuel. They note that when the North last turned fuel rods into bombs, in 1991, they went undetected by intelligence agencies for years.
Yet the Iraq experience has bred significant caution among intelligence agencies, now more careful than ever about overinterpreting the evidence. And, as in the case of the krypton gas, that evidence sometimes seems to appear, then disappear.
"There are lots of ways for the North Koreans to scrub their facilities and reduce the amount of krypton that gets out," said a former intelligence official with long experience with the technology. "So measuring the gas output is a crummy way of figuring out how much plutonium they have produced."
Satellites have detected other suspected facilities, but that technology is also not reliable.
"Our knowledge of North Korea is so limited that you have to sympathize with the poor intelligence analysts who have to make sense of all this," said Joel S. Wit, a former State Department official who visited a site five years ago that the C.I.A. believed was a new reprocessor, only to find a huge hole in the ground. "The ramifications of a screw-up are pretty big: that you've missed a second facility, or that they have reprocessed and we haven't picked it up. Either one of those is a pretty terrifying thought."
--------
S.Korea to Press North to Resolve Nuclear Crisis
October 14, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea began three days of ministerial talks in North Korea on Tuesday, with Seoul's envoy saying turmoil in the South's domestic politics would not affect efforts to persuade the North to abandon its nuclear arms.
Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said before leaving Seoul that he expected the Pyongyang talks to be ``useful'' in resolving the dispute over North Korea's nuclear ambitions and removing security fears on the divided peninsula.
``There have been many international reactions and our people are highly concerned about North Korea's declaration that it has competed reprocessing plutonium,'' he added.
Domestic political turmoil triggered by South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's sudden decision to hold a referendum to renew his mandate, and to step down if he loses, ``had not had an impact on current South-North relations'' Jeong told reporters.
He said he would urge the North Koreans to accept an early resumption of six-party talks on the nuclear crisis.
China, Russia, the two Koreas, Japan and the United States held an inconclusive first round of talks in Beijing in late August. All sides pledged to avoid steps that would aggravate the year-old dispute.
Early this month, Pyongyang said it had redirected plutonium extracted from thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods to help enhance its deterrent force.
North Korea has made conflicting statements about whether it wants another round of talks, at one point saying a further meeting would be of no use, but then saying that Japan was not qualified to attend future negotiations.
This week's talks in the North Korean capital will be the 12th ministerial meeting since a thaw in ties began in 2000.
--------
China Welcomes U.S. 'Flexibility' on N.Korea
October 14, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-korea-north-china.html
BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Tuesday welcomed a new U.S. initiative on giving security assurances to North Korea and reiterated calls for a second round of six-party talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear standoff with the United States.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Friday Washington had drafted new ideas on security assurances to offer to reclusive North Korea in exchange for a promise to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
Powell said the United States envisaged a public written document, preferably signed by some of North Korea's neighbors, but not the formal non-aggression treaty which Pyongyang has demanded in previous talks.
``China is happy to see the flexible and positive gesture taken by the United States,'' Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue told a news conference.
``We hope that relevant parties can further demonstrate their sincerity and flexibility to help contribute to the continuity of the six-party talks.''
China, a long time ally of communist Pyongyang, has been eager to broker a solution to the year-old crisis which erupted after Washington said North Korea had admitted to a nuclear weapons program.
In August, Beijing hosted an inconclusive first round of talks also attended by the United States, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas.
North Korea, branded by Washington as part of an ``axis of evil'' along with pre-war Iraq and Iran, has made conflicting statements about whether it wants another round of talks, at one point saying a further meeting would be of no use and then saying Japan was not qualified to attend future negotiations.
-------- pakistan / india
Pakistan Tests Third Shaheen-1 Missile
By MUNIR AHMAD
Associated Press Writer
Oct 14, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PAKISTAN_MISSILE_TEST?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- The Pakistani military test-fired a mid-range missile on Tuesday that can fly 435 miles and hit many targets in India, the country's main rival. The launch was the last in a series of three tests this month, it said.
Longer-range missiles will be tested in the future, the army said in a statement.
The medium-range, surface-to-surface Hatf-4, also known as the Shaheen-1, was successfully test-fired Tuesday from an undisclosed location, the army said.
The Indian Defense Ministry had no immediate comment on the test. Pakistan has insisted the tests are not aimed at its rival despite simmering tensions.
India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed countries, are bitter rivals who have fought three wars since their 1947 independence from Britain.
Media have reported that a long-range Shaheen-2 missile would be tested in coming days. It has a range of about 1,200 miles and has never been test-fired.
Pakistan began its latest test series on Oct. 3 by firing a short-range Hatf-3 Ghaznavi missile, which has a range of 180 miles. It fired another Hatf-4 on Oct. 8.
Officials have said such tests aim to validate the designs of their missile systems.
"While the successful flight tests are a reflection of Pakistan's technical prowess in the field of missile technology ... they also reflect Pakistan's resolve and determination to continue to consolidate its minimum deterrence needs and national security," the army statement said.
The latest series was the first since March. Islamabad has insisted the test launches have nothing to do with simmering tensions with India.
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri said on Monday that the tests were part of the regular schedule of its weapons program, and not in response to any moves by India.
"We fired two; we may fire some more as well," said Kasuri, who was in Malaysia for a major meeting of Islamic countries. "But it is not tit-for-tat. We have our own timetable."
India and Pakistan have fought two out of their three wars over Kashmir, a Himalayan area divided between them but claimed by both in its entirety.
The two countries have used weapons tests in the past to send political messages to each other.
In 1998, both nations shocked the world with dueling nuclear tests that earned years of sanctions. They nearly went to war in 2002 after an attack on India's parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-backed Islamic militants. Pakistan denied the charge.
----
Pakistan conducts third nuclear-capable missile test in 11 days
ISLAMABAD (AFP)
Oct 14, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031014090243.k2cc3fnb.html
Pakistan on Tuesday test-fired its third missile in 11 days capable of carrying a nuclear warhead deep into rival neighbour India.
The army, announcing the "succesful test" of the surface-to-surface Shaheen 1/Hatf IV ballistic missile, declared an end to its current test series and foreshadowed future longer-range missile tests.
Here is a chronology of a missile race between Pakistan and India carried out against a background of tensions over the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir and a history of three wars in 1947, 1965 and 1971.
1998
April: Pakistan launches the first version of a surface-to-surface Ghauri missile with a range of around 1,500 kilometres (940 miles).
May: India and Pakistan shock the world with a series of tit-for-tat underground nuclear detonations, confirming their long-suspected entry into the exclusive nuclear club.
1999
April: India tests the nuclear-capable Agni II, which with a range of around 2,500 kilometres (1,560 miles) could hit anywhere in Pakistan and deep into China.
Pakistan retaliates with a test of its Ghauri II missile, with a range of 1,500 kilometres, and its Shaheen missile (800 kilometres or 500 miles).
2000:
February 7: Pakistan test-fires a short-range Hatf I surface-to-surface ballistic missile reportedly able to reach targets up to 100 kilometresmiles) away.
2002
January 25: India test-fires the intermediate Agni I missile with a range of 700 kilometres (440 miles). Islamabad warns test-firing increases regional instability but promises restraint.
April 28: India tests a supersonic cruise missile, known as BrahMos, jointly developed with Russia. The missile has a range of 300 kilometresmiles) and can carry a 200-kilogramme (440-pound) conventional warhead.
(In addition to the Agni (Fire) series, India has already inducted the Prithvi (Earth) missile, a more cumbersome, fixed-silo delivery system with a maximum range of just 250 kilometres (150 miles). It has also tested a Trident short-range surface-to-air missile.)
May 25-28: Pakistan tests three missiles in quick succession: a short-range Abdali and Ghaznavi missile (with a reach of 180-290 kilometers/110 to 180 miles) and a long-range Ghauri missile.
September 24: India test-fires a Trident or Trishul short-range missile, which can reach nine kilometers (5.5 miles).
October 4: Pakistan tests its medium-range Shaheen or Hatf-IV ballistic missile, capable of carring nuclear warhead deep into India.
October 8: Pakistan again tests the Shaheen/Hatf-IV ballistic missile, two days before first general elections since 1999 army coup.
2003
January 9: India test-fires its first surface-to-surface intermediate-range ballistic missile, Agni.
January 18: India test-fires medium range surface-to-air missile, Akash (Sky) missile which can carry a 55-kilogram (121-pound) warhead and target five warplanes simultaneously.
January 20: India test-fires surface-to-air Akash missile.
February 12: India test-fires short-range supersonic anti-ship cruise missile BrahMos.
March 26: Pakistan and India conduct short-range surface-to-surface missile tests on the same day, with India test-firing the Pirthivi missile and Pakistan test-firing its Abdali missile.
April 29: India test-fires its medium-range surface-to-surface Prithvi missile.
October 3: Pakistan test fires Ghaznavi or Hatf III surface-to-surface ballistic missile, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead 290 kilometersmiles).
October 8: Pakistan test-fires Shaheen 1 or Hatf IV surface-to-surface ballistic missile which can carry a nuclear warhead 700 kilometers (434 miles).
October 14: Pakistan test-fires Shaheen 1/Hatf IV, declaring end to the test series which began October 3 and foreshadowing future longer-range missile tests.
----
Pakistan Tests Nuclear - Capable Missile
October 14, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-pakistan-missile.html
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan test-fired a medium-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile on Tuesday, concluding a series of tests begun earlier this month which it said were necessary to deter attack from India.
It was the second test of the surface-to-surface Shaheen-1 (Hatf-IV) missile in less than a week and the third missile test this month.
``They reflect Pakistan's resolve and determination to continue to consolidate its minimum deterrence needs and national security,'' a statement from military's public relations department said.
Islamabad, wary of India's superiority in conventional weapons, began by testing a short-range Hatf-III Ghaznavi missile earlier this month, before carrying out two tests on the Shaheen-1.
The Shaheen-1 has a range of up to 700 km (435 miles) and can carry ``all kinds of warheads,'' the military says.
``Pakistan's nuclear and missile programs are defensive in nature,'' Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told Reuters at an Organization of the Islamic Conference summit in Kuala Lumpur.
``Pakistan's fear of India is not imaginary. We have already had three wars and last year were on the verge of another.''
India dismissed the first in the latest series of tests as ``nothing special.''
Nuclear-armed Pakistan and India engaged in what were seen as tit-for-tat missile tests last March, when Islamabad tested the short-range Abdali (Hatf-II) missile.
Since then India has also test-fired the nuclear-capable Prithvi missile in April and then a short-range, surface-to-surface missile in June.
But Kasuri said Islamabad had no intention of holding tit-for-tat tests. ``It has nothing to do with India's tests. That would have been immature, and Pakistan already has a highly developed missile program,'' he said.
Pakistani concerns have grown after Israel last week concluded a deal to sell India a strategic airborne radar system.
Tensions between the two South Asian rivals, which conducted a series of nuclear tests in 1998, have eased somewhat this year after they came close to a fourth war in 2002 over an insurgency in divided Kashmir.
But there has been little progress toward peace talks partly because of renewed violence in the disputed Himalayan region.
-------- terrorism
Robertson Backtracks on Nuke Threat
October 14, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Robertson-State-Department.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says he didn't really mean it when he recently suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device.
Robertson, who heads the Virginia Beach-based Christian Broadcasting Network, said in an on-air comment Monday night that he was merely trying to characterize in ``laughing fashion'' a book that casts the State Department in a negative light.
``I want to issue a correction to the State Department,'' Robertson said.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan took note of the correction.
``He changed what he said. I do not view those as helpful comments. It was wrong for him to say that,'' McClellan said.
Asked last Thursday about Robertson's comment, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher called it ``despicable.''
``I lack sufficient capabilities to express my disdain,'' Boucher told reporters.
In his original comment, Robertson told author Joel Mowbray, ``I read your book. When you get through, you say, 'If I could just get a nuclear device inside of Foggy Bottom, I think that's the answer.'''
-------- us nuc waste
Dept of Energy plans to further toxicify Hanford, Washington area
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003
From: Lars Bomm <l_bomm@yahoo.com>
"Further fueling (Washington state) opposition is the DOE's attempt to dispose of some 341,000 cubic meters of radioactive & toxic wastes from other department (DOE) sites in shallow, unlined 'megatrenches' at Hanford. According to Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the 'DOE's accelerated cleanup plan is just a shell game that will simply move the problem across our highways in order to create an even bigger environmental, safety & health danger to the Pacific Northwest.'" -R. Alvarez: "The Legacy of Hanford", in The Nation, 8-18-03, p. 35
-------- us politics
Kucinich makes run for president official
October 14, 2003
(AP)
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20031013-105014-4788r.htm
CLEVELAND - Democrat Dennis J. Kucinich, the liberal four-term congressman who has been steadfast in his opposition to the Iraq war, formally launched his long-shot bid for the White House yesterday.
"America cannot put its foot on the accelerator of war and advocate peace," said Mr. Kucinich, who envisions the creation of a Cabinet-level Department of Peace and devoted much of his speech to railing against the U.S.-led war.
Mr. Kucinich, who has been campaigning for months, made the announcement in his hometown of Cleveland, the first stop of a 12-state tour that will include Michigan, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Iowa.
"I'm running for president of the United States to enable the armies of peace," Mr. Kucinich told about 300 supporters in the chambers of the Cleveland City Council, largely quiet on the Columbus Day holiday.
Mr. Kucinich, who favors withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, said that if elected president, he would look for nonviolent ways to solve the world's problems, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The self-described urban populist also said he would order a study of reparations for blacks whose ancestors were slaves.
"Freedom bids us to free ourselves from the shackles of violence," he said. "When peace becomes innermost, it then becomes outermost in our communities and our nation."
The candidate has stressed several themes during his months on the campaign trail and in candidates' debates: his opposition to the U.S.-led war against Iraq and his call for American troops to return home, his desire to end the North American Free Trade Agreement that he argues costs U.S. jobs, and his support for a single-payer, universal health-care system.
The kickoff speech at Cleveland's City Hall served as a reminder of Mr. Kucinich's political triumphs and bitter disappointments. Elected in 1977, the 31-year-old "boy mayor" guided a city that two years later became the first since the Depression to go into default.
Mr. Kucinich faced death threats and was forced to wear a bulletproof vest when he threw out the first ball at a Cleveland Indians game.
He barely survived a recall election, but lost his bid for re-election by a landslide. In the 1990s he made a political comeback, winning a state Senate seat and eventually capturing a U.S. House seat in 1996.
Mr. Kucinich began campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination about eight months ago but trails many of his well-established rivals in fund raising and public opinion polls. He raised $1.7 million during a three-month period ending June 30 and hopes to show an additional $1.5 million when campaign-finance reports are filed Wednesday.
"I don't think he's in the race because he thinks he has a chance to win it," said Dave Rohde, a Michigan State University political-science professor. "He's in the race, at the very least, to give public vent to some of his concerns."
Mr. Kucinich is likely to appear not only on the presidential-primary ballot, but as a candidate for re-election to his House seat. He must file for both by Jan. 2, according to the Ohio Secretary of State's Office.
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Dennis John Kucinich Formal Announcement Speech
Cleveland, Ohio
From: Gmakreas@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Thank you for joining me for this important moment, not only for myself but for the Cleveland community. My brothers and sisters will remember this story. There is a fiery torch which lights the night skies over our beloved Cleveland. It rises from the furnace of a steel mill. I remember a time when that light played against the interior of our car. As a young child I pressed my face against the car window and watched as the flame reached up. It filled me with wonder, it gave me a spark of hope. It made me forget that my mom and dad, my brothers and sisters, all seven of us, were living in that car.
Light has the power to enkindle dreams. And though we lived in 21 different places by the time I was 17, including a couple of cars, I breathed in the image of blazing light and I breathe it out at this very moment.
The scriptures bid us to send forth our light and our truth and when children carry within their hearts the torch of hope, they learn the darkness yields not only to man-made fire, but to starlight, the rising sun, and to the light of the soul.
So I dedicate this day to the light bearers of today and tomorrow. The children who seek hope, who seek homes, who seek our help to be lifted up, to learn how to look for the light, how to read, how to dance, how to sing, how to play, how to love, how to summon from seemingly nothing the new realities which some call miracles. Miracles occur when our faith meets inner vision, where believing is seeing.
This moment, this moment, which evolved as the dream of an inner city child who once lived in a car, to become President of the United States celebrates not my potential but the creative potential of each and every child to be somebody, to be loved, to serve, to lead, to be carried into the myth and magic of the express power of the American Dream and our responsibility to make each child's dreams come true.
Last month, I introduced a bill and as President will seek to enact a program to provide for universal pre-kindergarten for children ages 3-5; to give each child the earliest start in a 5 day a week program, in a school setting, to learn reading skills, educational, social skills and to have to have proper nutrition available. This day care program would be funded by a 15% reduction in the bloated Pentagon budget. You know and I know that there is massive waste in the Pentagon budget, and this would not jeopardize our national security. However, it would instead enhance the economic security of our nation, of our nation's families, it would help provide day care for our children, it would allocate families at least $5,000 per child to do this, I will match an effort to provide free tuition to public colleges and universities for all of America's youth.
We see the deeper meaning of a sculpture which towers over the entrance of the House of Representatives: A woman's arm is outstretched, protecting a child who sits blissfully atop a pile of books. This artwork is entitled, "Peace, Protecting Genius" Peace protecting genius. Not through nuclear arms, but with the arms of eternal love is a child genius is protected, and the child genius achieves peace through love and through education.
I am running for President of the United States to enable to goddess of peace to encircle within her reach all the children of this country and all the children of the world. And we would protect our children from poverty and war, to hold them in the light of grace, and to hold them in the power of peace.
I am running for President of the United States to challenge this system which traps so many Americans, children and adults, in fear, in violence and poverty and makes us pay for wars we don't want and causes us to sacrifice our childrens' future.
I am running for President of the United States to create a cabinet level department of peace and nonviolence. Fifty members of Congress already supported the bill I introduced in July of 2001. The Department of Peace will facilitate the dream and vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, that dream will still seek to make nonviolence an organizing principle of our society, and we can do that, though education, we can do that, through teaching our children peace, sharing, charity, giving and mutuality. We can do that through education that addresses the challenge of domestic violence, spousal abuse, child abuse, all of those afflicted which occur in our home and our society seldom to organizes to deal with. American can organize her collected efforts to focus on and to help free our homes from this violence. The Department of Peace knows that America does not have to be helpless in the face of violence in our schools, in the face of racial violence and violence against gays.
The same power, the same power that brought to our nation freedom bids us to free ourselves from the shackles of violence through making non-violence a structured part of the everyday life of our nation - to teach peace, to teach conflict resolution, to free our homes and to free our communities of violence, to prove that the American evolution is within and when peace becomes innermost it then becomes outermost in our communities and in our nations. The men and women who we treasure, who serve this country honorably, stand in Iraq because there are those who believe that war is inevitable. To believe that war is inevitable creates violence. As president I will work with leaders of the world to make war a thing of the past, to abolish nuclear weapons, America must lead in peace, and in rejoining the world community.
We must rejoin the world community through signing the biological weapons convention, the chemical weapons convention, the small arms treaty, the land mines treaty, join the international criminal court and sign the Kyoto climate change treaty, it time for America to rejoin the world! And after we rejoin the world community, we can then work to make sure our principles of peace are carried aloft throughout the foundation and a moment when our brothers and sisters, Israelis and Palestenians alike find themselves locked into recursive conflict. This is the moment when the hand of peace proceeds to create conditions where all nations live together and coexist peacefully, is so needed, America cannot put its foot on the accelerator of war and advocate peace simultaneously!
Our work for peace will be strengthened when we repair breaks within our own society. Today, is the day to remind ourselves of the necessity of healing the grief with Native Americans, who were dispossessed when exploration turned to exploitation, and when the laws of the American Natives were excluded in the cause of all Americans. I have joined Congressman John Conyer's call to study reparations for those whose African American ancestors suffered enslavement. And let me tell you why I've done that- because we must recognize the debilitating effects of slavery which are with us still, the debilitating effects of racism which still exist. We must recognize this because so many of our African American brothers and sisters are locked still in prisons of poverty, substandard housing, unemployment, run-down schools, without health care, without hope. I know this. And my brother Gary, my brother Frank, my brother Larry, my sister Terry, my sister Beth, my brother Perry- We know this, because often we were the only Caucasian family living in a community of color. We know this.
This is not only about repairing the breach for African Americans, this is about healing our world, this is about what is called in the Jewish faith tikkun olam. We must heal the breach. We must heal the beach. We must begin this process of reconciliation and healing. We must be repairers of the breach, and we can help to repair the breach by having a nation which stands for jobs for all, health care for all, education for all. Let's use this as a moment to lift up America!
And we need, too, to stop the breaches that are occurring right now with an immigration policy which causes so many of our Latino brothers and sisters to be reduced to another kind of slavery because they have to come into America to try to receive an opportunity to survive financially, but they don't have the protection of law, they don't have the protection of the Fair Labor Standard Act, their children don't have health care, their children don't have education. We must do everything we can to create legalization and amnesty for immigrant workers; we must lift them up, too. We must be repairers of the breach! We must repair the breach for people of color.
And we must heal America from the pain and the suffering and the fear of 9/11 which, unfortunately, led this administration to attack a nation which did not attack us, and to pass a Patriot bill which undermines our civil liberties. America stands strongest in challenging terrorism when we do not give up an inch of our civil liberties, and when we cooperate with the world community in matters of international security. I ask you: how can we afford to be the policemen of the world, when we can't afford to hire police, firefighters, and EMS back here at home in our cities?
That is why this week I will be present in Congress to vote against funding 87 billion dollars for the occupation of Iraq. I am running for President of the United States to end the United States occupation of Iraq, and put an end to the lies which brought us into Iraq, and to help make this country whole again in the world community and to challenge those lies which, if left unchallenged, will cause this administration to lead this country into another war. We must challenge those lies! I am running for President of the United States to stop the hundreds of billions of our tax dollars from going towards the continued occupation of Iraq, and I am here at this moment to say that it is time to support our troops, and I say: Support our troops, bring them home! Bring them home. Bring them home.
People ask: Oh well, that sounds great, how can you do it? I put on my website, at www.kucinich.us, a few days ago an exit strategy to bring our troops home by New Years, and here's how we can do it. The United States must go to the UN with a resolution that has these features:
Number one: that the UN will handle all of the oil assets on behalf of the Iraqi people with no privatization- no privatization!- until the people of Iraq can handle their own affairs. Number two: that the UN will handle the contracts- no more Haliburton sweetheart deals! No more war profiteering, no more contracts going to political contributors of the administration. Number Three: that the UN handles the clause of creating new governance in Iraq, until the Iraqi people can handle their own affairs.
This is the moment that we need to reach out and connect with the world community once again. We can do that. We can bring the UN in and get the US out. We need to bring the UN in and get the US out, and to bring our troops home.
And I'm running for President to break the shackles of fear which have deprived our citizens of rights. The passage of the Patriot Act was an abomination and as President I intend to lead the effort to repeal it. We need to regain the trust of the American people and we need to have a government which trusts the American people.
This war threatens our civil liberties, our civil freedoms, our economic freedoms. The rising budget deficit, at national and state levels, will continue to mount with the continued occupation. Meanwhile, absolutely no attention is being paid to a rising trade deficit which is now approaching 450 billion dollars.
Americans have lost 3 million manufacturing jobs since July of 2000. NAFTA and the WTO have facilitated the movement of jobs out of America. Because you know and I know: corporations move where they can pay workers less. Corporations move where workers don't have rights, where nations provide little legal protection. America can change that. America can set new rules for trade, but to do that you must set aside NAFTA and the WTO. I'm running for President to cancel NAFTA and the WTO.
This is about fair trade. People ask: what will you do next? We return to bilateral trade. Everyone wants access to our market. We can help set the rules, and through setting the rules we can lift up the cause of all workers. And how can we do that specifically? We must put into our new bilateral trade agreements workers rights, the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike, the right to decent wages and benefits, the right to a safe workplace, the right to a secure retirement. We can put those into our trade agreements. We can protect American workers, and we can lift the cause of workers all over this world, and it is time to do that.
We need to remember another time when America was hurt economically, and an American President by the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced a nation that was broken economically, and said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself", and enacted a range of social and economic programs to restore America. As the next President of the United States I intend to lead the way to restore our cities by having a new WPA-type program to rebuild our bridges, our roads, our water systems, our sewer systems, to build new energy systems. We can rebuild America; we can put millions and more back to work. I will work to create new jobs, too, with the help of the inventive genius of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which here at Glen Research Center in Cleveland, we are privileged to have them work on creating the future of America.
Under my administration, NASA will help America lead the way in enabling the private sector to work with the public sector, through the licensing and purchase of the right to develop from the first stage: new technologies in research and energy, technologies in materials, technologies in communication, technologies in environmental protection, in medicine, technologies which are in propulsion. This cooperative private/public partnership will lead us in the meeting, in creating the industries of the future; will create new high-tech jobs. We can do that. We have the ability to do that today and I intend to help NASA lead the way to creating the new jobs.
And we can create new jobs, too, with a new approach to health care. We know. How many places in America, where businesses are laying off employees because they can no longer afford the cost of health care, where employees are seeing cutbacks in their health care benefits, because of a health care system that is no longer about people.
Last month, I introduced a bill which takes the profit out of health care, together with John Conyers and Jim McDermott. This proposal brings to the American people a universal, single-payer system, Medicare for all. It is time for health care for people, not for profit. You know. You know. You know and I know that insurance companies make money not providing health care. They make money by stopping people from getting the care they need. They make money by making insurance agents more powerful than doctors. They make money because they are interested only in profit.
Universal, single-payer, health care: this proposal that I am talking about covers all medically necessary procedures, complimentary and alternative medicine. Insurance companies don't make money when people aren't sick. Yet, we have people in this country who can't afford to be sick and they can't afford to be well. But complimentary and alternative medicine is included in a universal health care proposal. And it includes vision care, and it includes dental health care.
Let me tell you, this smile did not come cheap. And all the children of America should have a beautiful smile, but we know that the rising cost of health care, and particularly the costs of dental care, takes proper dental care out of the reach of many families. And so what I intend to do as the next president, is to make sure that this provision for dental health care is included in a universal health care bill.
It will also include long-term care. Some baby boomers are still fortunate to still have their parents with them, and I will tell you: as we learn about the cost of nursing home care we know that some families have to give up everything they work for because of the cost of nursing home care. My proposal for universal health care covers long-term care. No more health poverty in America because people need long-term care! It covers mental health care. It covers prescription drugs.
In my district in Cleveland Ohio, senior citizens are splitting their pills to try to make prescriptions last. They are giving up meals or giving up purchases of clothing to be able to pay for the high cost of prescription drugs. This proposal for universal health care includes a fully- funded prescription drug benefit, another way to take our people out of health poverty.
People ask me, "Oh, sounds great. How can you do this?" We are already paying for universal health care. We're not getting it. Why aren't we getting it? Because the health care dollar involves stock options, executive salaries, high profits, lobbying, marketing, advertising, the high cost of paper work! We want the health care dollar to go into caring for people and that is exactly what this proposal does. No more bankruptcies for health care. No more health care poverty in America. No more premiums, no more co-pays, no more deductibles. We are already paying for universal health care, we're not getting it.
It's time, America and it's time, too, to make corporations accountable to the American people; to require that they tell the truth to their shareholders; to require that they tell the truth to their investors; to require that they tell the truth to their employees, to their retirees; that they tell the truth.
And I will bring to the Presidency of the United States, an independence to insist on a higher standard of conduct for Wall Street and its captains. It was a century ago when America had a president, Theodore Roosevelt, who took on the trusts of his era; who challenged the monopolies of his time. I say that now is the time to, once again, break up the monopolies and restore competition in our economy. And we must do so again on behalf of small businesses, and on behalf of family farmers. And as president, I will move to break up the monopolies in agriculture, which strangle the market from seed to shelf. And to make sure that our family farmers are able to get their product to market and get the price that they are entitled to.
Of course as Peter, and C.J., and Jay and others have pointed out, I have some experience in dealing with monopolies. It was here. It was here in this very Council Chambers, 25 years ago that I had the privilege of stopping the sale of Cleveland's municipal electric system. And stopping the takeover of our public power by a utility monopoly because I recognized then, as I recognize now, that it matters how much people pay for electricity. That's why I fought to make sure that the people of this community would be able to have access to cheaper power.
I'll share with you a story from that time 25 years ago. The very day that I said "no" to the sale of our municipal electric system- on December the 15th, 1978- I was thinking, brothers and sisters, Frank and Gary: I was thinking about when we lived above Martha's Delicatessen at 10712 St. Clair. And I was thinking about Mom and Dad sitting at the kitchen table counting the pennies so they would have money to pay the utility bill. I can still hear those pennies dropping…click, click, click on that tabletop. I could hear that on that day when I was asked to sell Cleveland's municipal electric system.
Oh, I want all of you to know that I remember where I came from. I want all of you to know that. Because, there are so many families in America, so many families struggling to hold on to their homes, to hold on to their health care, to hold on to their retirement security, to hold on to their education funds, that it matters how much people pay for electricity, for gas, for home heating oil, for food, for health care, for education. These kitchen-table issues always bring us home…if we know where home is.
Cleveland is my home. Cleveland is where my heart resides. Cleveland is where my dreams started. Cleveland is where I've learned the lessons I want to share with every American: The lesson that one person can make a difference; the lesson that anyone can, and anyone should be able to rise from humble beginnings to lead a nation; the lesson that we can change the outcome; the lesson of the power of the human heart, and the power of the human spirit to transform the world. I have seen miracles. I have seen the people of Cleveland create miracles. During my career you have helped me to save a municipal electric system when it was already sold. You have helped me to keep hospitals open when they were already closed. You have helped me to save a steel mill, to help keep that bright light burning over the industrial valley when other communities' hopes were extinguished. Because of you, because of you, because of you, I know the power of hope, the power of optimism, the power of light!
Years ago, my grandfather, John Kucinich, now the name was spelled K-u-c-i-n-i-c. When he came over on the boat, they added the "h". A lot of names were changed there: K-u-c-i-n-i-c. When he came over, because he pronounced it "Kuchinich", they added the "h" on. So now, Gary, anytime somebody tells me to "get the h out of there," I think they're talking about my grandfather. And my grandfather, when he traveled from Croatia as a very young man, he traveled to Ellis Island, and he was welcomed by a light as well. He was welcomed by the light of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty that holds its lamp high, and on the base of the Statue of Liberty, there's that inscription by Emma Lazarus: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Send these tempest-tossed, to me. I lift my lamp, beside the golden door". The tens of millions who journeyed to this nation, from other lands, connect us in fact and in spirit to the entire world. And in this campaign they connect us to the highest aspirations of everyone who ever journeyed here. To become full partners, Peter Lawson Jones, full partners in the life of our nation.
So, by the lights which guided my grandfather to America; by the light still shining celebrating public power; by the lights which still emblazon the sky over Cleveland's steel valley, I stand here, ready to light up America. I am Dennis John Kucinich and I am running for President of the United States!
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The Cheney Curse
The veep hasn't helped Halliburton. He has hurt it.
By Daniel Gross
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
SLATE,
http://slate.msn.com/id/2089811/
Last week, Halliburton, the oil-services and construction company formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, surprisingly warned that its earnings for the current quarter would be 15 percent lower than estimates. You'd think that Halliburton would be thriving. After all, oil prices are high, and the company has received giant-if controversial-contracts to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq. The no-bid prewar contract it received to work on Saddam's oil fields has, according to the Wall Street Journal, gushed $1.3 billion of revenues thus far. The company also won a competitive bid for a $1.4 billion contract to support military personnel.
Here is a strange fact about the well-connected company: Dick Cheney hasn't helped it. In January 2001, if you bought stock thinking that Cheney's ascension would be a boon to Halliburton, you made a bad bet. Since January 2001, Halliburton has underperformed both the Oil Services Index and the S&P 500-although it has outperformed both indexes over the past year.
It turns out that as much as Halliburton has benefited from having Cheney in government, it suffers from having had him in the executive suite before then. As CEO, Cheney was less an operations manager than a deal-maker, a boldface name who opened doors, especially abroad, and sealed huge contracts. But several of the deals he struck proved to be ill-advised and questionable and, ultimately, damaging to the company and its shareholders.
Halliburton attributes its earnings shortfall to problems in joint ventures and high legal fees-both of which can be laid at Cheney's feet. Cheney midwifed the Barracuda-Caratinga Project, which is gnawing a hole in the company's balance sheet. Under the $2.5 billion deal, announced in January 2000 when Cheney was CEO, Halliburton was supposed to develop two offshore oil fields in Brazil by December 2003 and April 2004, respectively. But the project has turned into a fiasco, with huge cost overruns and bad schedule misses. As of June 30, 2003, the project was 75 percent complete-and more than a year behind schedule. By that date, Kellogg, Brown and Root, the responsible subsidiary, had already recorded a pretax loss of $345 million on the project, with the possibility of greater losses to come. The miserable experience has caused the current management team to cease making fixed-price bids on giant projects.
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Halliburton is piling up legal fees from Cheney-era mistakes. One of Cheney's largest deals was the $7.7 billion acquisition of Dresser Industries in 1998. At the time, only companies that had been directly involved in asbestos production and use were being held liable. But as the volume of asbestos-related claims rose, lawyers began to pursue companies that were tangentially connected to asbestos-yet still legally liable. Dresser had once owned a unit, Harbison-Walker, that used asbestos. When Harbison-Walker declared bankruptcy in 2002, Halliburton began to face massive claims. Last year, the company said it would put $4 billion in cash and stock into a trust to help settle such claims. As part of an effort to settle the claims once and for all, Halliburton is trying to engineer a bankruptcy filing for a major subsidiary.
Halliburton is also fending off class-action lawsuits and a Securities and Exchange investigation related to its accounting practices. In May 2002, questions were raised about how Halliburton accounted for unapproved claims and change orders on long-term construction projects. A year later, Halliburton settled about 20 shareholder class-action lawsuits for approximately $6 million. But there could be more costs associated with the Cheney-era accounting issues. Judicial Watch, the conservative gadfly organization whose suit against Halliburton was dismissed in September, is considering an appeal. And the SEC investigation is continuing.
On the positive side of the balance sheet, crony capitalism has certainly helped Halliburton in Iraq. Without Cheney, after all, the Iraq war and the massive Halliburton contracts that followed would have been far less likely. But it's easy to overstate the importance of such work to Halliburton. In its second-quarter conference call, the company reported that Iraq-related activity accounted for only about 9 percent of revenue. And this type of business is unsustainable-unless the United States invades a country that needs new infrastructure every year. (Is that the plan, Mr. Vice President?)
American citizens must hope they avoid the fate of Halliburton shareholders: at first glad to have the experienced Cheney at the top, then excited about his ambitious plans, and, finally, dismayed to be left holding the bag when Cheney moves on to another job.
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Edwards says he'll vote against $87 billion Iraq package
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
(AP)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/14/elec04.prez.democrats.iraq/index.html
WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Tuesday he will vote against President Bush's $87 billion request for Iraq, saying it's time somebody "stand up to him and say no."
The North Carolina senator, who last fall backed the congressional resolution authorizing the war, said Bush needs to change his policies to win his vote.
"I believe we have a responsibility to support our troops in Iraq. I believe we have a responsibility to help rebuilt Iraq. But our troops will not be safer and this mission will never be successful unless the president dramatically changes course," Edwards said in an interview with The Associated Press.
He said Bush needs a plan to rebuild Iraq, work more closely with allies and take steps to make sure the money is not exploited by Bush's political allies.
"It is clear to me President Bush is not going to change direction unless somebody stands up to him and say no," Edwards said. "And for that reason, I plan to vote against" the president's plan.
Edwards' rival John Kerry said Sunday he is inclined to vote against the $87 billion request for military operations and reconstruction there and in Afghanistan. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, another Democratic presidential candidate, also plans to oppose the package.
Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a strong proponent of the war, said he would vote for the package, saying, "We have 135,000 troops over there. We have to give them every dollar in support and get them home in peace."
At a town hall meeting in Oklahoma City, Lieberman called it an "infuriating vote," arguing that "this administration has messed up postwar Iraq."
Another rival from the congressional ranks, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, also will have to vote on the package this week.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, the front-running candidate, has no vote in Congress but told the AP he would oppose the $87 billion unless Bush pays for it by repealing a portion of his tax cuts.
"We should support our troops," he said. "If the president doesn't have a sufficient commitment to this operation to get rid of the $87 billion in tax cuts then we should vote no."
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Bush Asserts Control Over Policy in Iraq
October 14, 2003
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/middleeast/14PREX.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 - President Bush, the most powerful political figure in the world, felt compelled on Monday to assert that he, not his advisers, was in control of his administration's policy on Iraq.
"The person who is in charge is me," he told Tribune Broadcasting in a White House interview that was part of an administration effort to counter criticism of its Iraq policy. Advertisement
Mr. Bush was responding most directly to Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Lugar said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" on Sunday that "the president has to be president" as his top advisers have quarreled over postwar Iraq.
Mr. Bush also said the White House strategy for postwar Iraq was in able hands. "In all due respect to politicians here in Washington, D.C., who make comments, they're just wrong about our strategy," he said.
Mr. Bush added, "We are making very good progress about the establishment of a free Iraq."
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British go-ahead for arms exports to Iraqi security firms
LONDON (AFP)
Oct 14, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031014162525.declvce0.html
Britain has given the go-ahead for the export of light weapons including assault rifles, machine guns and pistols to private security firms operating in Iraq, the Foreign Office announced Tuesday.
The arms were to be used only by firms contracted to provide "close protection for employees of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)," Junior Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell told the House of Commons.
An arms embargo on Iraq remained in force, although it did not apply to arms to protect the US-led authority, the official said.
Eight people were killed in a bomb blast Sunday at a Baghdad hotel that houses US security staff and members of the US-backed interim Iraqi Governing Council.
The dead included Iraqi security staff and civilians, but no one inside the hotel itself was hurt.
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Firms get ready for business in Iraq
Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Tuesday October 14, 2003
The Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1062567,00.html
About 100 private companies, mainly from Britain and the US, gathered in London yesterday to discuss investment opportunities in post-Saddam Iraq.
The companies, mainly oil and banking, are being invited by the US and British governments to move in as soon as security is restored. The fast-food chain McDonald's, which has a branch in most parts of the world, was predicted by the conference organisers to open in Baghdad next year.
Brian Wilson, Tony Blair's special representative on trade and reconstruction in Iraq, told the conference: "A major drawback for companies wishing to visit Iraq is, of course, the continuing problems with the security situation."
He added that the bombing of the Baghdad Hotel on Sunday had "provided another grim reminder of the dangers which exist".
But he said the British government would send trade missions to Iraq "when the time is right".
Among the Americans attending were the energy giant, ExxonMobil, Delta Airlines and the American Hospital Group.
McDonald's is to attend a follow-up conference at Portland, Maine, next month.
Rubar Sandi, the chairman of Corporate Bank and founding director of the US-Iraq Business Alliance, said McDonald's was "not yet" ready to go to Baghdad.
Mr Sandi, one of the owners of the Baghdad Hotel, said of McDonald's: "I have spoken to the top management but probably [they will not go until] next year. That would be a sign of normality."
The conference - Doing Business in Iraq: Kickstarting the Private Sector - was organised by the US-Iraq Business Alliance, set up in June last year. Its supporters say the conference has attracted the support of 145 multinationals. The alliance has close contacts with the Pentagon.
About two dozen people from Voices UK, a group opposed to the war in Iraq and which campaigned against pre-war sanctions imposed on Iraq, protested outside. A spokeswoman, Emma Sangster, said: "A neo-liberal economy is being imposed on an already impoverished country with unprecedented haste and with absolutely no democratic process."
Ms Sangster, who visited Iraq last year, said: "Instead of a reconstruction process that involves Iraqi companies, who have the necessary experience to do the job properly, foreign companies will be buying up sectors of the Iraq economy for a quick profit."
But Mr Wilson, a former minister with the trade department and the Foreign Office who has been asked by Mr Blair to encourage investment in Iraq, said outside the conference: "What they are essentially saying is that Saddam Hussein should still be there and, in that case, no one would be talking about investment and reconstruction."
Addressing the conference, Mr Wilson said: "Let me say straightaway that this conflict in Iraq, now thankfully behind us, was not about business or about oil.
"It was about liberating the people of Iraq and giving them the chance to enjoy a life free from tyranny."
He said the aim was for Iraqi oil to benefit the Iraqi people. "The operation of this sector, which is so core to Iraq's future, should be returned to the Iraqi people as soon as practically possible."
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Cheney, Halliburton ties facing more questions
By JAMES ROSEN
SACRAMENTO BEE WASHINGTON BUREAU
October 14, 2003
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/7589897p-8498586c.html
WASHINGTON -- Between 1995 and 2000, while Democrat Bill Clinton ran the country and Republican Dick Cheney ran Halliburton, there was no talk of favoritism or political ties as the Houston-based company billed the government $2.2 billion for its work in Kosovo.
Now, six months after the United States toppled Saddam Hussein, there is mounting scrutiny of Halliburton's Iraq contracts, which total $3.1 billion and grow by the day. The contracts look suspect to some critics, given Halliburton's past overcharges to the government, its ties to Cheney and the absence of competitive bidding for a $1.4 billion oil fields contract.
At the same time Cheney, vice president since January 2001, faces renewed criticism for getting nearly $368,000 in deferred salary from a company that is profiting so handsomely from a war he helped launch.
Not surprisingly, many of the critics are Democrats. Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, brandishing a Congressional Research Service report that he said proves the vice president's ongoing financial ties to Halliburton, urged Cheney on Sept. 25 to come clean.
"I ask the vice president to stop dodging the issue with legalese and acknowledge his continued financial ties with Halliburton to the American people," he said.
Rep. Henry Waxman, a Los Angeles Democrat, wrote White House budget director Joshua Bolten on Tuesday to inquire about "waste and gold-plating" in Iraq.
"Too much money appears to be going to Halliburton and Bechtel while costing the U.S. taxpayer millions and imperiling the goal of Iraqi reconstruction," Waxman wrote.
Bechtel, a San Francisco-based engineering and construction company, has a $1 billion contract from a State Department agency to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure apart from the oil industry. That contract also is likely to grow.
Beyond Bechtel, a number of other companies have landed smaller contracts. But Halliburton is so dominant that it is hardly a stretch to call it the general contractor of the war in Iraq and its aftermath.
Spending not capped
Kellogg Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, has received $1.7 billion so far under a broad-based, competitively bid Pentagon contract signed in December 2001 for an array of military support services in and around Iraq. The contract, which is annually renewable through 2011, has no cap on spending.
Under a separate contract awarded in March -- without seeking bids from other companies -- the Army Corps of Engineers is paying Halliburton $1.4 billion to rebuild Iraq's oil industry. Halliburton is one of four firms competing for a massive oil services contract that the corps expects to announce any day.
Scott Saunders, a spokesman for the Corps of Engineers, said there is no reason to think Halliburton has the inside track.
"We've never really done something like this before -- gone in and tried to fix a country while it's still being terrorized," he said. "We wouldn't have competitively bid the contracts if we didn't think there was more than one firm in the world that could do the job."
Cheney and his aides vigor- ously reject allegations of wrongdoing in the awarding of Halliburton contracts or the receipt of Halliburton money. The vice president has nothing to do with deciding which companies get government contracts, they say, and his payments from Halliburton since taking office are for 1999 salary that he chose to defer long before taking office.
Cheney served as a Wyoming congressman in the 1980s, then as defense secretary under the elder George Bush, helping lead the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Three years after Bush lost to Clinton in 1992, Cheney took over Halliburton, running it until August 2000.
"Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice president, I've severed all my ties with the company," Cheney said last month on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The president and vice president are exempt from recent government ethics rules, but Cheney's personal lawyer, Terry O'Donnell, said that before Cheney took office in January 2001, he directed O'Donnell to handle his Halliburton affairs as if he were covered by the laws.
O'Donnell said Cheney told him to do everything possible to sever all ties to the firm and avoid conflicts of interest.
O'Donnell said one step was giving an outside administrator control over 433,333 Halliburton stock options that Cheney owns and designating three charities to receive any profits from exercising those options.
A recent rise in Halliburton's stock price -- which is up 50 percent since Bush began talking about war in Iraq 18 months ago -- has pushed the value of Cheney's options to more than $10 million. It is not known whether his administrator has exercised any options this year.
None was exercised in 2001 or 2002, according to Cheney's tax returns.
Cheney aide Cathie Martin said Cheney decided in December 1998 -- 25 months before taking office -- to receive his 1999 salary in five annual payments from 2001 through 2005. "He had no idea he was going to be nominated or elected vice president," Martin said. "He was just making a choice about deferred compensation for his 1999 salary."
For its part, Halliburton is no stranger to controversy when it comes to dealings with the fed- eral government. In 1978, the company paid $1 million to settle grand jury charges that it and a competitor had colluded on construction work. The government fined Halliburton $3.8 million in 1995 for making illegal exports to Libya.
The company also settled a lawsuit last year, filed in Sacra- mento, agreeing to pay the government $2 million over charges of contract inflation for maintenance and repairs at Ford Ord, a now-closed military base near Monterey, between 1994 and 1998. Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive officer during most of that time.
Kosovo services unnecessary
And a September 2000 report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found that Brown & Root, the subsidiary, had overbilled the government millions of dollars for excessive electric-ity, overstaffing and unnecessary furniture in Kosovo.
Despite the outcry among some Democrats on Capitol Hill, polls show the Halliburton controversy barely registering with the American public.
Benjamin Barber, a University of Maryland political science professor and author of "Fear's Empire," a new book about the war on terrorism, said many Americans don't care about the Cheney-Halliburton questions because of broader changes in public thinking that began nearly a quarter-century ago.
Under an ideological revolution introduced by Ronald Reagan, Barber said, government was branded as bulky and inefficient and many public functions were shifted to the private sector.
The result, according to Barber, is a blurring of the tradi-tional line between public service and private work.
"When the government is the problem and the market is the solution, it no longer is corruption," he said. "It becomes efficiency."
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German troops may start deploying in Kunduz in November
Tuesday, 14-Oct-2003
Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/do/Qafghanistan-un-isaf.RghG_DOE.html
BERLIN, Oct 14 (AFP) - A first contingent of 40 to 70 German troops could deploy in northern Afghanistan in November after a UN vote to allow peacekeepers to extend their mission, a defence ministry spokesman said Tuesday.
If the Bundestag lower house of parliament gives its approval, which could come as early as next week, the contingent may be able to set off next month, the spokesman added, although stressing no date had been fixed.
The German deployment in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz will only reach its full complement of troops early next year.
Although the proposed mandate to be approved by the Bundestag would permit deployment of up to 450 soldiers, the ministry is planning at the moment only to send 230.
There are currently just under 1,600 German soldiers serving in Afghanistan with the international security force (ISAF) and a further 200 in neighbouring Uzbekistan.
The UN Security Council late Monday voted to authorise ISAF to deploy into the provinces if necessary.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer hailed the extension as being "of great importance for the establishment of a new order in Afghanistan."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, UN officials and relief agencies have been calling for more than a year for the peacekeepers' mandate to be extended, citing rampant factional fighting and guerrilla attacks in outlying regions.
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Polish spokesman blamed for Iraq missile claims: report
WARSAW (AFP)
Oct 14, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031014100304.803eecc3.html
Poland's top military commander has blamed a former defence ministry spokesman for making false allegations that the country's troops found recently manufactured Franco-German missiles in Iraq, daily Gazeta Wyborcza said on Tuesday.
In a secret report, which was sent to Prime Minister Leszek Miller on Monday, the chief of staff put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the spokesman Eugeniusz Mleczak, who resigned over the matter on October 7.
On October 4 Mleczak, who was in his post for several years, said that Iraqi police has notified the Polish troops of the missiles, and "on October 1, we seized four Roland missiles bearing French markings, made in 2003, in a house near Al-Hillah", south of Baghdad.
The announcement sparked a denial from French President Jacques Chirac, talks with Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller at the EU's Rome summit and an apology from Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski.
Poland's top military commander, Chief of Staff General Czeslaw Piatas, then said Polish forces had made an "error of interpretation" when they said they had found French missiles in Iraq manufactured this year.
The missiles, reportedly Roland surface-to-air missiles, had the markings that read 07-01-KND 2003, which the troops mistook for the year of production.
France was strongly opposed to the US-led war in Iraq, while Poland supported the American and British campaign to oust president Saddam Hussein. Last month it took over the command of some 9,000 troops as part of a stabilisation force patrolling a large portion of central and southern Iraq.
The Roland air defense short-range missile system was produced by a Franco-German consortium known as Euromissile, based just outside Paris, according to French and German defence websites.
Euromissile was originally set up by Aerospatiale-Matra of France and DaimlerChrysler Aerospace of Germany, now a subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space company, or EADS.
Gazeta Wyborcza said the report also criticised a lack of consultation between the defence ministry and the foreign ministry and criticised the head of the Polish troops in Iraq for having badly weighed up the political impact the matter would have.
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Britain's subtle shift on EU defense
John Vinocur/IHT
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/113629.html
LONDON A potential trans-Atlantic breach has opened in the aftermath of the Iraq war that seems to leave Britain wavering between its exclusive, pro-American commitment to NATO and involvement in a European Union defense initiative pushed by France and Germany.
So far the British and Americans have wadded their differences in gentlemanly exchanges.
But the circumstances have been described by defense and security analysts as a defining moment in U.S. - European relations, a change in basic geopolitical orientations as significant as those brought about by the 1956 Suez debacle, or a fracture in the basic undertakings given by Prime Minister Tony Blair to President George W. Bush.
All that may be excessive.
Still, it is now certain that Blair in late September shifted Britain's position from "no" to "yes" on whether the country would take part in a developing a spearhead defense group within the European Union. That group would allow a handful of countries (notably including France, Germany and Britain) to carry on, unencumbered by the rest of the membership, with what the EU calls "structured cooperation," be it procurement, strategy or the engagement of troops.
British officials hold that there is nothing ominous about this for the trans-Atlantic relationship since Britain regards NATO as having clear primacy except where it is specifically transferred - a recent African operation run out of French national headquarters is an example - to wholly European auspices.
And the officials say they will not accept a French-German initiative to create an operational planning headquarters for the EU separate from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a so-called red-line item for the Americans. Privately, the British assert that they reject the idea of those in France and Germany who would seek to manipulate the vanguard group to assert a European defense identity both decoupled from the United States and NATO and signaling an institutionalized separation between the trans-Atlantic allies.
All the same, said an American official, regarding the situation far from London, the British had caved in on a key issue.
From its previous resistance to structured cooperation as superfluous and divisive, he said, the Blair government had turned the concept into a fact.
This in turn created, according to the official, the possibility of a defense group with a life of its own, an agenda difficult to control, and the political subtext, since Britain intended the group to magnify its role as pacemaker in European defense, of the Blair government having to come up with initiatives to give the vanguard life and prominence.
"In the Iraq aftermath," the official said, "things are happening." Was a momentous change at hand? That would depend on developments, he went on, "but I don't see it as a tectonic shift."
Perhaps because there is no interest in the White House in a public argument with its great friend Tony Blair, and perhaps because the British move coincided with the French and Germans acknowledging they would abandon for now their plan to set up a separate EU operational planning facility in Tervuren in the Brussels suburbs - an idea profoundly troubling to the Americans - there have been no loud exchanges about the British policy shift.
But that hardly modulated the view of those who describe the developments in epochal terms.
"In the long run, all this will be seen as having been the thin end of the wedge. It's the beginning of a separation," said Julian Lindley-French, director for European security at the Geneva Center for Security Policy. "Blair is absolutely not averse now to tweaking the tail of the American tiger."
This, for Lindley-French, fit into the context of a British effort to assert a leadership role in the area of European defense. Britain knew it could not foresee entry into the euro at any clear time in the future, but considering Blair's commitment to involvement in the EU, and the leadership disarray created by France's arrogant handling of its European partners during the Iraq war, the British saw a chance to seize the role as the EU's primary defense and security player.
"In this sense," he said, "the discussion has nothing much to do with defense. It's politics. And it's a major element in t