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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."
-------- europe
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 the struggle for leadership in Europe."
For Bernard Jenkin, the shadow secretary of state for defense of the Conservative Party, the government's action breaches "the fundamental undertaking Blair gave to Bush" on Europe's relation to America.
"If the government were really asserting NATO's primacy," he said, "it would be asserting the primacy of the 'Berlin Plus' accord we've agreed to which provides for 'separable but not separate' EU forces."
By Jenkin's standard, "the awful thing about structured cooperation is that you can't control the agenda and you lose your implicit threat of a veto within the EU. Blair is throwing away his real ace. The gravitational pull toward Europe will be immensely strengthened."
An informed French view hardly contradicted the emphasis on the significance of the turn.
François Heisbourg, director of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, reached back to the Suez crisis of 1956 to find a comparison for what he regards as the current movement for change in both London and Paris. Back then, after the failed French-British intervention in Egypt, both countries placed their security and defense policies in hardened molds: the British attaching themselves to any and all variations in the American line, and the French adopting a security policy alternately independent or scornful of the desires of their European neighbors.
"Those orientations have now run out of potential for realistic decision-making in both countries," Heisbourg said.
Following Iraq, he said, the British now wonder whether it will be wise to reflexively turn to Washington ahead of Europe in marking out their defense orientation. "The British are clearly giving themselves the opportunity to look and debate. All is up for grabs."
This attitude was accelerated, Heisbourg believed, by what he describes - without a trace of acknowledgment from the French government - as post-Iraq France's realization that neither Europe nor European defense "will be created in its own image."
The British, Heisbourg thought, had recognized what he contends is this major shift in the French mind-set.
"For all these years," said Heisbourg, "when we didn't like what the Europeans thought on defense, we'd go off on our own. We didn't go to Europe first on Iraq. We went to the United Nations first. Obviously, that didn't work. What you can say about the Europe to come is that it will be heavily un-French and that is the context in which we will work."
Regardless of whether Britain shares this view of French intentions - instead, officials here say the French-German decision to drop plans for an EU headquarters in Tervuren in no way signals the willingness of Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schröder to give up plans for an operational planning unit separate from NATO facilities - the Blair government is clearly entering new territory.
In the coming months, it will be pushed into making its position publicly explicit. Because the EU's current Inter-Governmental Conference, meant to come up with a final version of an EU constitution, will involve debate on how defense decisions are made and on rules for vanguard groups, Britain will run the risk of confrontation with either the United States or Germany and France.
To ensure that the vanguard defense group does not get out of its hands, the British are saying that all of its decisions will have to be unanimous ones.
And to make certain that the group has a more Atlanticist tone than that of the four countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Germany) which originally offered themselves up last April for the Tervuren initiative, the Blair government wants to see countries like Spain, Poland and the Netherlands join as participants.
Operational planning, in the British view, would be accomplished within the NATO framework, or in the case of a specific European military undertaking, through the national headquarters of one of the vanguard group's members.
All this, including what is described here as the French and Germans' continued attachment to a visibly separate EU operational planning operation, makes for excruciatingly difficult choices for the Blair government in the relatively near term.
Politically, accepting what the United States would consider unacceptable in relation to NATO - such as wording in the constitution that makes the EU a rival to the alliance in its responsibility for Europe's territorial defense - would be very dangerous, casting Blair, for a significant part of his electorate and many partner countries, as a turncoat.
With this in mind, the British say clearly that making Europe work is very much their wish, but not at any price. An impasse in relation to France and Germany's notions of European defense, they say, is a real possibility.
But a neutered outcome at this stage would also be painful. Having eventually to back off from their new move in Europe's direction would be a humiliating defeat for Blair and his European leadership ambitions.
In Iraq's wake, Britain has chosen a comfortless path.
-------- haiti
The ruins of another US try at democracy: Haiti
By Nick Caistor
October 14, 2003 edition
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1014/p11s01-coop.html
LONDON - The United States is committed to building democracies in Afghan-istan and Iraq. But there is a country much closer to home that is in desperate need of help - a country where the US and the international community have left a job half done and have abandoned millions of innocent citizens to poverty and despair.
That country is Haiti. Back in 1994, Bill Clinton and the Organization of American States (OAS) called the bluff of a nasty military dictatorship there. After a brief showdown, they succeeded in restoring to power the elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Catholic priest whose populist Creole rhetoric captured the hearts of the poor masses. The United Nations came in to help create an independent judiciary and a new police force, and to lay the basis for continued democratic rule.
Ever since, Mr. Aristide - who, along the way, resigned his priesthood and lost much of his popularity - or his associates have held power. But Haiti is poorer than ever, and the political situation has shown little or no improvement. During the months they were in the country, American troops helped build a few schools and a few roads, but then pulled out, anxious not to be seen as an occupying power.
The UN stayed much longer. Its compound at the international airport in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, received plane loads of aid, as well as small numbers of troops and larger numbers of international experts in judicial reform, police training, and human rights. But because of allegations that Aristide's election to his second presidency in late 2000 was rigged, the UN pulled out of Haiti completely the day before he took office in February 2001. Secretary-General Kofi Annan criticized the continuing instability in the country, and warned that Haiti could become an international "pariah" if the situation continued.
And pariah it has become.
International agencies and many individual countries have refused to send aid or enter into financial deals with the Aristide government. The opposition is so fragmented it can only agree on the "illegality" of the Aristide administration and complain of repeated attacks by Aristide thugs or other government attempts to disrupt democratic rights.
Aristide - who grew to fame promoting the rights of the poor through rabble-rousing liberation theology - has seen a dramatic erosion of his charismatic appeal to many ordinary Haitians. They have seen him keep few of his promises over the past decade and find themselves even poorer and more desperate than ever. The president now rarely appears in public, staying enclosed behind the high walls of his estate in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Tabarre, earning himself the nickname "baron of Tabarre."
This summer, Aristide announced that voodoo, the animistic belief practiced throughout rural Haiti, would be recognized as an official religion alongside Roman Cath-olicism and Pro-testant faiths. Haitian critics of his rule argue that this shows how desperate he has become in his efforts to find support ahead of legislative elections, due at the end of the year or early in 2004. These critics also recall the way the Duvalier dictatorship coopted voodoo beliefs to fan public fears and used the tontons macoute (gangs of thugs) to terrorize the populace. And they suggest that today's criminal groups - the chimčres - that operate at night in rural areas are simply this government's version of the tontons macoute.
Opposition groups in Haiti are refusing to participate in the coming elections. They claim they'll be rigged by the government, and they don't want to give Aristide further legitimacy. The OAS is starting from scratch, hurriedly trying to set up an electoral commission that all sides can agree will impartially guarantee free and fair elections.
The Bush administration could and should make a vital difference. The White House could put pressure on the Aristide regime to guarantee the rights of the opposition parties to organize and campaign without fear. It could also pressure the opposition to end its three-year boycott of the government and convince them that the play of political forces can bring progress to all Haitians.
If the US continues to look the other way, Haiti's future is grim. With no genuine political participation, democratic practice - never truly established since the fall of the Duvaliers 17 years ago - will wither more. The only people who will find comfort in that are the more extreme elements in the Aristide entourage, the drug bosses who thrive in any "failed state" of the Caribbean and Latin America, and the boat-builders who will be rubbing their hands, anticipating increased business from compatriots fleeing across the sea to the US.
• Nick Caistor is a British journalist who recently visited Haiti for the BBC World Service.
-------- iraq
Iraqi weapons dumps larger than expected
October 14, 2003
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20031014-075627-8540r.htm
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 14 -- The problem of uncounted and unguarded Iraqi weapons sites is considerably greater than previously stated, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
The U.S. military now says Iraq's army had nearly a million tons of weapons and ammunition, which is half again as much as the 650,000 tons Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior U.S. commander in the Persian Gulf region, estimated only two weeks ago.
Officials also say Saddam stockpiled at least 5,000 shoulder-fired missiles, and fewer than a third have been recovered. They fear many have been smuggled out of the country and may have fallen into the hands of terrorists.
"There are more sites than we can guard," an allied official said. "We are destroying them as fast as we can, but we are finding more and more every day."
One of the largest in the country, covering more than 10 square miles, is near Al Musaiyib, 20 miles south of Baghdad, and is still not adequately guarded, an official said.
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A List of Recent Bombings in Iraq
Tue Oct 14, 2003
By The Associated Press
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031014/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_blasts_glance_1
A list of recent bombings in Iraq:
_Oct. 14: A suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle near the Turkish Embassy, killing the driver and wounding more than a dozen others.
_Oct. 12: A suicide car bomber attacked the Baghdad Hotel in downtown Baghdad, killing himself and one other person, at least 32 are wounded.
_Oct. 9: A suicide bomber drove his Oldsmobile into a police station in Baghdad's Sadr City district, killing himself and nine other people.
_Sept. 25: A planted bomb damaged a hotel housing the offices of NBC News, killing a Somali guard and slightly injuring an NBC sound technician.
_Sept. 22: A suicide car bomber struck a police checkpoint outside U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing himself and an Iraqi policeman who stopped him and wounding 19 people.
_Sept. 9: A suicide bomber targeted a U.S. intelligence compound in northern Iraq, killing three people and seriously wounding four American intelligence officers.
_Aug. 29: A car bomb explodes outside a mosque in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf, killing more than 85 people including Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim.
_Aug. 19: A truck bomber struck at the headquarters of the United Nations at the Canal Hotel, killing 23 people, including the top U.N. envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
_Aug. 7: A car bomb shattered a street outside the walled Jordanian Embassy, killing at 19 people including two children.
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Suicide Bomber Wounds at Least 4 at Turkish Embassy in Iraq
October 14, 2003
By ALEX BERENSON with TERENCE NEILAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/middleeast/14CND-BLAS.html?hp
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 14 - A vehicle driven by a suicide bomber blew up some 50 yards from the Turkish Embassy here today, killing the driver and slightly wounding at least four other people.
At least two of the wounded were inside the embassy; the others were outside the building.
American forces quickly sealed off the area as a small crowd of Iraqi civilians watched.
The bombing, which reduced the vehicle to just its undercarriage, was the third such incident in Baghdad in a week. On Sunday eight people were killed in an attack on a Baghdad hotel used by members of the Iraqi Governing Council and by many Americans. Last Thursday a similar bomb killed two Iraqi police officers and six civilians.
The explosion comes amid widespread opposition in Iraq to the possibility that Turkey will deploy troops in the country as part of a peacekeeping force sought by the United States.
Turkey's Parliament has approved a government request to send in 6,000 to 10,000 troops, but the move is opposed by the Iraqi Governing Council and the country's Kurdish minority.
Kurds in particular fear that neighboring Turkey is seeking to dominate their territory.
In Ankara, a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman was reported today as condemning the attack and saying that the incident shows "how grave the security situation in Iraq is" and "how strong the need is for everyone to immediately contribute to ensure security and stability in the country."
In Karbala, a major Shiite religious center, a standoff continued today at two mosques that members of a party led by the 30-year-old Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr tried to take over on Monday night, coalition and military officials said.
Iraqi police officers and armed paramilitary shrine police countered the attempt. At least one person died, but it was not immediately clear from which side. Several people were also wounded.
Coalition forces from Bulgaria and Latin America were called in by the Iraqi police and they have now cordoned off the mosques, not allowing anyone to enter or leave.
Mr. Sadr, whose forces have clashed with American soldiers, proclaimed his own government in Iraq last week.
The incident is the first serious hint of Shiite factionalism, the first time that it appears that Shiites are fighting each other openly for control of holy sites.
It seems that Mr. Sadr, a young, aggressive cleric, is trying to galvanize the Shiite population against the occupation, but it is not clear that he is getting much support.
Meanwhile, the deaths of three more American soldiers were reported today by United States military officials, a day after three Americans were reported killed in the volatile area north of Baghdad and a roadside bomb in a tiny village narrowly missed a provincial governor on his way to work.
The three deaths reported today were not the result of hostile action. Two First Armored Division soldiers were killed and one was wounded when their military vehicle was in an accident with a civilian vehicle in the Kadhimya district of Baghdad at about 2:30 p.m. local time on Monday, the United States Central Command said in a statement today.
In the other incident, a Third Armored Cavalry Regiment soldier died after being found in the Euphrates River in Haditha, 70 miles northwest of Ramadi. The soldier was found about 9 p.m. on Monday and he died at 9:45 p.m., the command said.
No other details were released.
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Guerrillas in Iraq Tap Unsecured Arms Caches, Officials Say
October 14, 2003
By RAYMOND BONNER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/middleeast/14WEAP.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 13 - The two most recent suicide bombings here and virtually every other attack on American soldiers and Iraqis were carried out with explosives and matériel taken from Saddam Hussein's former weapons dumps, which are much larger than previously estimated and remain, for the most part, unguarded by American troops, allied officials said Monday.
The problem of uncounted and unguarded weapons sites is considerably greater than has previously been stated, a senior allied official said.
The American military now says that Iraq's army had nearly one million tons of weapons and ammunition, which is half again as much as the 650,000 tons that Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior American commander in the Persian Gulf region, estimated only two weeks ago.
In separate interviews, the officials, civilian and military and from different countries, expressed concern about the potential of attackers with access to the weapons dumps to nurture violence and insecurity.
The officials said they were receiving intelligence about the attacks - who is carrying them out and where they are getting their munitions - from a variety of sources. Among the most fruitful, they said, have been would-be bombers who were stopped before carrying out their missions.
The officials were deliberately vague about how many attacks had been thwarted, for fear of alarming an already jumpy populace here. But one of them said several car bombings had been prevented in recent weeks, suggesting that the number was more than just a handful.
Officials also say that Mr. Hussein stockpiled at least 5,000 shoulder-fired missiles, and that fewer than a third have been recovered. They fear that many have been smuggled out of the country and may have fallen into the hands of terrorist organizations.
There are not enough American soldiers here to do the job of finding the weapons and securing them until they can be destroyed, the officials said. A private American company, Raytheon, has been awarded a contract to destroy the weapons, but it will not begin work until December, one official said.
"There are more sites than we can guard," an allied official said. "We are destroying them as fast as we can, but we are finding more and more every day."
One of the largest in the country, covering more than 10 square miles, is near Al Musaiyib, 20 miles south of Baghdad, and is still not adequately guarded, an official said this week.
Last month the Army began patrols of the site, and helicopters fly over occasionally. But it is not guarded around the clock, and officials say they believe that weapons and munitions are still being removed - and probably being used in devices that are killing Americans and Iraqis.
The suicide bomb attacks, including two earlier ones on the United Nations and a shrine in Najaf, appear to be the work of various groups, allied officials said.
While emphasizing that they have only a sketchy understanding of the murky world in which the groups operate, allied officials theorize that they may be competing among themselves to prove to potential foreign backers that they are able to carry out terrorist operations.
A few weeks ago, one man was caught coming into the country carrying more than $500,000 in cash destined for a group that was carrying out terrorist attacks against American forces, an official said. He declined to provide any more details.
Intelligence agencies have also picked up conversations between Wahhabi Muslims from Saudi Arabia and Iraqi Baathists loyal to Mr. Hussein. That has surprised the officials, because the Wahhabis are highly conservative fundamentalist Sunni Muslims, while the Baathists are moderate Sunnis who until recent years encouraged secularism.
"These are people who normally want to kill each other," said one official.
Officials also are investigating whether Moktada al-Sadr, a radical, anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric, was responsible for the car bombing at the Baghdad Hotel on Sunday, two officials said.
Any involvement by Mr. Sadr in the bombing would represent a significant new development in the challenge facing the United States and its allies here. Until now it was thought that most of the attacks were carried out by Sunnis loyal to Mr. Hussein.
At a news briefing on Monday, an allied spokesman said some people had been detained in connection with the attack. He declined to say how many or give any other details.
The allies have found no evidence of any involvement here by Al Qaeda, an allied official said, though American intelligence agencies have been looking very hard, under pressure from Washington, the spokesman said.
Allied officials still do not have a firm idea of who is carrying out the suicide attacks. Iraqi officials have insisted that they are not Iraqis, and most coalition officials appear inclined to agree with that.
"It's hard to think of Iraqis offering themselves as suicide bombers to blow up a few other Iraqis," said one official. "But it is hard to go beyond that logic and say who is doing it."
The attacks do not appear to be coordinated, officials said. The assault on the United Nations headquarters in August was far more sophisticated than the one on Sunday against the Baghdad Hotel, one official noted.
He said the attack on the Baghdad Hotel was not terribly successful, at least not in comparison with other attacks. Allied officials have publicly praised the Iraqi security forces for acting swiftly to keep the explosives-packed vehicle from getting close to the hotel.
But one official, noting that the attack was not well planned, said it might have been carried out prematurely to sow chaos and further reinforce the notion that the Americans cannot control the violence.
Ordinary street crime has diminished considerably in Baghdad in the last two months, officials and residents say. But the risk to allied forces and anyone viewed as working with them has intensified, officials said. Even if 95 percent of the country is peaceful, one official added, it will not matter if the Americans cannot make the capital safe.
--------
DIPLOMACY
New Draft of U.S. Resolution Gives Iraqi Council a Deadline
October 14, 2003
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/middleeast/14DIPL.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 - The Bush administration, seeking broader support for a United Nations resolution on Iraq, made small changes in its proposed language on Monday, including setting a date, Dec. 15, for the Iraqi Governing Council to begin taking on more power. But there were also new snags in the drive to get more troops and aid to Iraq.
The administration's proposed changes were intended to try to address the demands from other countries that the United States agree to the rapid transfer of power from the occupation authority to Iraqis and turn over supervision of the process to the United Nations.
The American effort to bolster the Iraqi council, however, was undercut Monday when the Governing Council reiterated its opposition to accepting troops from Turkey. The rebuff put the administration in the awkward position of telling the world that it wanted to enhance Iraqi sovereignty while telling Iraqis they must accept outside forces against their wishes.
In the other area of difficulty faced by Washington, American officials say they hope they will be able to secure a few billion dollars at a donors conference in Madrid later this month. But they say the donations would pour out more generously if the United Nations could pass a resolution on Iraq.
The European Union agreed Monday to put up a little more than $200 million, far less than the several hundred million dollars that Washington is hoping to elicit from European nations at Madrid.
In the newly amended draft resolution circulated at the Security Council, the administration also proposed that the United Nations recognize the Iraqi Governing Council as a unit that "will embody the sovereignty" of Iraq during the time that the nation returns to self-rule.
It was not clear what the term "embody" meant, but an administration official said it did not mean that the Governing Council would actually exercise control over Iraq's affairs. As a result, the change came across to many at the United Nations as more linguistic than substantive.
France has demanded that the Governing Council be vested with authority as the legitimate government of Iraq, and that the United Nations be given a central authority over the Iraqi occupation, steps endorsed by Secretary General Kofi Annan more than a week ago.
Last week, after Mr. Annan's reservations dimmed the chances of winning, administration officials said that it might not even try to get a vote. Then, in a shift that diplomats said was due in part to British pressure for a resolution, the administration said Monday that it would try for a vote on Wednesday.
An administration official said Monday that the United States would probably be able to get at least the minimum votes of nine countries on the 15-member Security Council to pass the resolution, with the rest abstaining rather than voting no.
Beyond the question of sovereignty for the Governing Council, the administration proposed to give it the Dec. 15 deadline to submit its own timetable for writing a constitution and holding elections. Without such steps, the administration says, no Iraqi government would be seen as legitimate.
The resolution circulated Monday contained other small changes, including language saying that Mr. Annan, the United Nations secretary general, would become involved in overseeing Iraqi affairs "as circumstances permit."
This language was seen as trying to satisfy Mr. Annan's concerns about sending United Nations personnel to play a subordinate role in a violent, unstable Baghdad.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others say that, as it is constituted now, the Iraqi council is not ready to govern. Installing it as the government could even intensify anti-American violence, they say.
The new language of the resolution drew a mixed response. Spokesmen for several countries on the Security Council said they were studying it.
Russia, considered the crucial wavering country, was unenthusiastic.
American officials say they hope to turn Russia around, thereby bringing along China, Germany and other countries in the Security Council, though perhaps not France. Council members from Africa and Latin America are getting a lot of diplomatic pressure from Washington, American officials say.
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli warplanes fly over southern Lebanon, no resistance
TYRE, Lebanon (AFP)
Oct 14, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031014162200.ep6dmqf1.html
Two Israeli warplanes overflew southern Lebanon at a low altitude early Tuesday evening, police here reported.
The incident occurred over Tyre, 90 kilometres (54 miles) south of Baghdad, but did not result in anti-aircraft fire from batteries of the Syrian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah.
Israeli warplanes flew over southern Lebanon Monday, and Hezbollah's batteries also remained silent.
Hezbollah and Israel are engaged in German-mediated talks to broker a deal on the exchange of prisoners, which is nearing completion.
Tension in the border areas flared up a week ago following the first Israeli air strike in 30 years on Syria, the main powerbroker in Lebanon.
A five-year-old Lebanese boy was killed on October 7 when a rocket fired at Israel exploded in his border village.
Staffan de Mistura, the representative in Lebanon of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, has said the overflights are aggravating the situation in southern Lebanon and the wider region.
----
Israelis and Palestinians Join in Peace Draft
October 14, 2003
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/middleeast/14MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, Oct. 13 - A group of prominent Israeli and Palestinian politicians, working outside official channels, have written a symbolic peace agreement that they hope could be a foundation for future negotiations.
The announcement came with the Palestinian leadership engaged in a political crisis that pits Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, against his newly installed prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, over who will be the Palestinian security chief. While some Palestinian officials said on Monday that no official action had been taken, The Associated Press reported, quoting an unnamed official, that Mr. Arafat had already decided to name his choice, Hakam Balawi, to the position.
The 50-page draft peace agreement was completed over the weekend in neighboring Jordan by the two delegations, which included current legislators and former cabinet members on both sides.
The proposal offers highly specific solutions and calls for major compromises on the most sensitive issues that have torpedoed previous peace efforts, ranging from the status of Palestinian refugees to Israeli settlements.
The right-wing Israeli government immediately denounced the proposal, calling it irresponsible, freelance diplomacy.
"The public rejected these same political figures," Limor Livnat, Israel's education minister, said of the Israeli delegation. The Palestinian Authority did not immediately comment.
The proposal, dubbed the Geneva Accords, will be formally signed at a ceremony planned for next month in that Swiss city.
The Israeli delegation was led by Yossi Beilin, a former justice minister. The most prominent Palestinian was Yasir Abed Rabbo, a former information minister.
Under the proposal, a Palestinian state would be created that would include the entire Gaza Strip and almost all of the West Bank. The capital would be in the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.
The plan identifies about 20 of the larger Israeli settlements among the 140 in the West Bank that Israel would keep, and Israel would give the Palestinians land in southern Israel in compensation.
On another delicate issue, the plan calls for the Palestinians to have ultimate control over Jerusalem's most important and contested holy site, the mosque compound in East Jerusalem, called the Noble Sanctuary by Muslims. Israel would relinquish its claim of sovereignty over the site, which Jews call the Temple Mount. Israel would keep full control of the Western Wall, the Jewish place of prayer that borders the compound.
On another complicated question, Palestinian refugees from the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 and their descendants would be allowed to live in a future Palestinian state, move to a third country or receive compensation for their losses. But they could not return to their old land inside Israel without Israeli consent, according to the plan.
-----
The sacrifice: Palestine's coveted right to return
By Leonard Doyle, Foreign Editor
14 October 2003
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=453117
The deal took two and a half years of subterfuge and secret talks to negotiate and is 50-pages long, but the core of the unofficial peace plan finalised at the weekend is an agreement to give up the right of return for Palestinian refugees in exchange for Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharif.
Despite the scathing reaction from Israel's government to an agreement forged by its enemies inside and out of Israel, the deal appears to have the imprimatur of Yasser Arafat, who was fully briefed on the details. The Palestinians were represented by former cabinet ministers, legislators and leaders of the ruling Fatah Party.
The Geneva Accords, as the draft is being described, will be signed in Switzerland, possibly on 4 November, the anniversary of the assassination of the former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by an Israeli opponent of the peace process. The talks were financed and mediated by the Swiss Foreign Ministry and according to Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper, both sides will aggressively market the agreement.
Yesterday's ceremony in Jordan was attended by the former Israeli minister Yossi Beilin, who led the negotiating team; others included the former Israeli Labour leader Amram Mitzna, Brigadier General Giora Inbar and the author Amos Oz. On the Palestinian side, one of the negotiators, Muhammad al-Hurani, four of whose brothers are in jail in Israel, said: "We understood that Israel cannot defeat us by military means, but we also understood that we can't defeat Israel, and the solution must be political."
Mr Mitzna said: "The peace camp now has an agenda. We've finished the easy part, now we've come to the hard part to return to Israel and knock on every door, and convince the public." Oz said: "Those who attack us will undoubtedly ask: 'What have you done? You've given them everything in exchange for a few embraces' ... But what we have done today will determine the future."
The main points are:
• The Palestinians will concede the right of return. Some refugees will remain in the countries where they now live, others will be absorbed by the PA, some will be absorbed by other countries and some will receive financial compensation. A limited number will be allowed to settle in Israel.
• The Palestinians will recognise Israel as the state of the Jewish people.
• Israel will withdraw to the 1967 borders, except for certain territorial exchanges.
• Jerusalem will be divided, with Arab neighbourhoods of east Jerusalem becoming part of the Palestinian state. Jewish areas of east Jerusalem, as well as West Bank suburbs of Givat Ze'ev, Ma'aleh Adumim and the historic part of Gush Etzion, will be part of Israel.
• The Temple Mount will be Palestinian, but an international force will ensure access for all visitors of all faiths. Jewish prayer will not be permitted on the Mount, nor will archaeological digs.
The Western Wall will remain under Jewish sovereignty and the "Holy Basin" will be under international supervision.
• The settlements of Ariel, Efrat and Har Homa will be part of the Palestinian state. Israel will transfer parts of the Negev near Gaza, but not Halutza, to Palestinians in exchange for parts of the West Bank.
Finding realistic solutions without grabbing land
By Ron Pundak in Tel Aviv
14 October 2003
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=453113
It all began two years ago with two ex-ministers, Yossi Beilin from Israel and Yasser Abed Rabbo for the Palestinians. Unlike Oslo, it was no cloak-and-dagger exercise. We didn't cover our tracks. People knew that something was taking place, but until the final meeting in Jordan this week nobody took it too seriously. It meant we were not under pressure.
Mr Beilin and Mr Abed Rabbo recruited drafters and mapping people, then gradually enlarged the circle to 10 to 15 people in each side. Most of the meetings were sponsored by the Swiss foreign ministry, but one gathering near London was under Japanese auspices.
The atmosphere was always positive. At the start the gaps were very wide, but the principles were hammered out during a long process, with many ups and downs.
We were trying to do two things: to show that moderate and pragmatic forces on both sides could find a solution; and to work on a win-win strategy. We were not trying to score points or get something we didn't need from the other side. For instance, we were ready to relinquish the area of the West Bank settlement of Ariel, even though the Palestinians had been willing to concede it at Camp David and Taba in 2000.
The approach on the major sticking points - what we call the Temple Mount and the Muslims call the Haram al-Sharif, and the Palestinian refugees - was one of realpolitik. It was clear to both sides that eventually they would not insist on a right of return to their old towns and villages in Israel, but we understood that they couldn't go home without sovereignty over the Haram.
If this had been suggested at Camp David in July 2000, I'm certain that we would have had an agreement that would have pre-empted the terrible tragedy of the last three years.
Ron Pundak, a veteran of the 1993 Oslo negotiations, is director of the Shimon Peres Centre for Peace.
-------- latin america
Bolivia's President Halts Controversial Gas Project
15 Reported Killed as Violent Protests Spread
By Rene Villegas
Reuters
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21261-2003Oct13.html
LA PAZ, Bolivia, Oct. 13 -- Bolivia's president suspended on Monday a project to export natural gas through Chile to the United States, hoping to defuse weeks of widening anti-government protests in which about 50 people have been killed.
Despite the decision, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets, demanding the removal of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. Bolivia's Permanent Human Rights Assembly said 14 people, including two soldiers, were killed during Monday's protests in La Paz and the nearby industrial suburb of El Alto. Local television reported that another protester was killed in demonstrations in the Amazonian district of Santa Cruz. The government did not confirm the deaths.
In a televised address, Sanchez de Lozada, a U.S. ally in the anti-drug war, refused to step down. He repeated accusations that unspecified foreign interests were bankrolling the protests, which were sparked by the plan to export natural gas to the United States. Many Bolivians feared the proposal would not benefit the broad population.
The planned export route, via Chile, also raised tension because of a long-standing dispute between the two neighbors over Bolivian access to the Pacific.
The protests gained momentum from resentment of Sanchez de Lozada's free-market economic policies and his failure to ease poverty.
Thousands of coca farmers angry at a U.S.-backed drive to eradicate illegal plantations of the crop, the raw material used to make cocaine, joined striking workers.
Sanchez de Lozada, who was forced to flee the presidential palace in an ambulance during riots in February, suspended the gas project earlier Monday in a bid to defuse the protests.
The U.S. State Department voiced support for Sanchez de Lozada, saying in a statement that it "will not support any regime that arises from undemocratic means."
Meanwhile, a rift in Sanchez de Lozada's administration emerged as Vice President Carlos Mesa said he disagreed with the use of deadly force to quell the protests and Economic Development Minister Jorge Torres resigned, citing differences of personal ethics with the government. Sanchez de Lozada declared martial law over the weekend.
Mesa said that he would continue to serve as vice president and that it was time the government held open dialogue with its opponents.
Human rights groups said 26 people were killed on Sunday after thousands of troops, backed by tanks, were sent in to crush increasingly violent protests.
Fuel and basic foods have run short in the capital as protesters stopped convoys of trucks entering the Andean city.
-------- mideast
Saudi Arabia Says It Will Hold First Elections
By Isa Mubarak
Reuters
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21277-2003Oct13.html
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 13 -- Saudi Arabia announced on Monday that it would hold its first elections, a vote for municipal councils, in a move seen by some as the first concrete political reform in the Persian Gulf kingdom.
The announcement by the cabinet, reported by the state Saudi Press Agency, said "the council of ministers decided to widen participation of citizens in running local affairs through elections by activating municipal councils, with half the members of each council being elected."
It did not give further details, suggesting that other members would be appointed by the government. It said preparations for the voting should not take more than a year.
The announcement followed growing demands by reformists that the conservative Muslim kingdom's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, allow wider political participation, elections and freedom of expression. Under the dynastic rule of the House of Saud since the 1930s, Saudi Arabia has had an appointed advisory council but has never had elections for public office.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States -- in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis -- there has been intense U.S. pressure for social and political reforms in the kingdom, which is the cradle of Islam and the world's largest oil exporter.
"I think this is a positive step because many people in our society have been calling for comprehensive elections, including municipal," said Mohammed Harfy, a columnist for al-Watan newspaper.
"But this is not enough. We hope these elections are a beginning and would lead to elections in the Shura Council, in universities and the right to form syndicates," he added.
The cabinet statement said the decision was intended to implement promises that King Fahd made in May after suicide bombings targeted Western compounds in Riyadh. He said the government would "expand public participation and open up wider horizons for women's employment."
The cabinet statement did not specify whether women would be allowed to vote. Women are forbidden to drive and were issued identity cards starting only in 2001.
-------- nato
NATO to launch global rapid response force
BRUSSELS (AFP)
Oct 14, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031014135758.ku2hbwww.html
NATO will on Wednesday inaugurate a rapid response force eventually totalling 20,000 troops to dramatically extend the military alliance's reach in the fight against terrorism.
US General James Jones, the 19-member Alliance's supreme commander, will launch the force in a ceremony at the Dutch military base of Brunssum, home of NATO's northern command.
The contingent, which will only reach its full capacity in 2006, represents a radical doctrinal departure for the 54-year-old Alliance originally conceived to protect the West from the Soviet threat.
It also comes only two months after NATO began its first-ever "out of area" mission -- outside its traditional European theatre of operations -- by taking command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.
The NATO Response Force (NRF) -- called an "expeditionary" unit in Alliance jargon -- will comprise naval, airborne and ground forces capable of deploying to hotspots around the globe within five days. It will be able to sustain itself for up to one month or longer if re-supplied.
"It's not being created for pre-emption, but to respond to crises," said a NATO official.
The US proposal to launch the force was approved at a landmark NATO summit in Prague last November, at which the Alliance also formally approved its expansion to 26 members due to take place next year.
NATO defence ministers then approved how the force will work in June. Since then Alliance military planners have been coordinating offers of men and material from member states to build an "initial operational capacity."
The force's potential on the ground was tested last week at a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Colorado Springs, in a fictional scenario involving a terrorist threat in 2007 somewhere in the Red Sea.
"We were given very clear political guidance to change; the instrument of change is the NRF," General Jones said recently.
Initially the force, which will not have a home base, will comprise some 6,000 troops, growing to its full capacity of 20,000 over the next two to three years.
France, which is not part of NATO's integrated military command, has offered to provide a 500-strong battalion and aircraft including one AWACS radar surveillance plane.
The force is set to be able to deploy in response to threats worldwide, gradually building to its full potential of tasks ranging from evacuation sitautions to responding to terrorist acts.
While the military commanders are trigger-ready to deploy wherever and whenever needed, one potential problem may be in taking the political decision to send the force into a given situation.
NATO works by consensus, so any decision must be agreed by all member states. In some countries national parliaments must authorize any foreign deployment of troops.
In Colorado Springs ministers agreed to study ways of speeding up this decision-making process, with results expected by December.
The force's launch will come two days after the UN Security Council voted unanimously to allow the NATO-led peacekeepers in Afghanistan to expand their work beyond the capital Kabul.
-------- prisoners of war
Hapless Prisoners in a Black Hole
The Disgrace That is Guantanamo
By ELAINE CASSEL
October 14, 2003
Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/cassel10142003.html
I started to write about the disgraceful situation in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Friday morning. I had read about the International Red Cross's condemnation of the Bush administration's continued detention of 650 or more prisoners, some of them juveniles, captured in Afghanistan two years ago. They have been held in cages on the American military base there, without attorneys, with little access to family, and without any charges being placed against them.
Before the war in Iraq fell apart, we heard that Paul Wolfowitz was planning to be in charge of trying some of the men. Several prisoners were targeted to be the guinea pigs for prosecution and, of course, they were facing the death penalty. But it turned out that one or more of those were British subjects. Tony Blair stepped in and, with support for his wholesale commitment to Bush's war waning, begged Bush not to execute any British citizens. That's the last we heard from Guantanamo.
Until this week when we heard from the Red Cross. Men are trying to commit suicide repeatedly, physical and mental health is deteriorating. One wonders what the hell we are doing down thereand the answer is probably nothing.
It's just as well I did not get the article written Friday morning. For on Friday afternoon, driving home, I heard that Bush may now be planning our next war in Cuba. Whether that materializes or not, he was placing new restrictions on Americans visiting Cuba, threatening tourists with criminal prosecution on the grounds that taking money to Cuba was "money laundering for terrorists." I swear that is what he said. Because I pulled over to the side of the road and wrote it down. So being a friend to Cuban people or a fan of Cuban musicwell, in the administration's Alice-in-Wonderland world, that makes you a terrorist, too. Whatever you do, don't buy the video or CD of Buena Vista Social Club. Ry Cooder, you better watch your back. You might be tried as a terrorist sympathizer.
So the Bush is administration, is, I guess, going to try to get all the Cubans here who want to get here, and do what it can to destabilize Cuba so that the Cubans left there are as desperate as the Iraqis are now. Of course we know the reason whyBush needs desperately to win Florida in 2004. He's counting on this invitation to Cubans in Cuba to win the votes of the Cubans already there. So it is all about politics. Politics as usual. And the Bush administration's politics is, at the core, destructive of civil rights and human rights. In fact, that appears to be its one of its main agendas--destruction of human rights. It has already done a damn fine job of destroying civil rights.
At his press briefing yesterday, Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary who makes Ari Fleichser look like a genius, said that the President "rejects" the report of the Red Cross about the horrible treatment of people in Guantanamo. Rejects it. What the heck does that mean? We just don't listen to it? We don't care what the international community thinks of us? It's irrelevant? We are not going to read it? Yes, to all of the above.
Then I heard a attorney on NPR Friday night boast that "we" had to treat the prisoners that way. After all, they caused the September 11 attacks. Honestly, that is what he said! What? You can be sure if they were even remotely connected to September 11 they would have been brought to trial, in public, and be awaiting death now. Sadly, the interviewer did not question him about his statement. How many listeners heard it and assumed it to be the truth? How many, like me, heard it and were incensed at the lie of it?
As for the prisoners of Guantanamo, their chaplain and at least two of their translators have been locked up in military prisons, at least one of them charged with treason. Their crimes so far have been enumerated as serving baklava to prisoners (on the banned food list, I guess), having on their computers emails intended for prisoners' families, and having "maps" or their cells. If the government could, it would charge them with the crime of kindness to fellow human beings or treating prisoners humanely. It can't do that, so it trumps up charges to make those who try to help them look like terrorists themselves. When the prisoners have not themselves been shown to be terrorists.
So, in an administration where irony is too subtle a term, we have George Bush opening up the shores of Florida to Cubans who will, as soon as they can, become citizens and vote for him and his brother. In the meantime, the Cuban lobby in Florida will see that Bush carries Florida. By hook or crook.
At the same time, we have Bush presiding over the wholesale mistreatment, even torture, some say, of upwards of 700 men who have been shown to have done nothing wrong. Except to have been on the streets of Afghanistan when Bush wanted to act like a cowboy and get "somebody" for September 11.
I guess there is nothing any of can do about any of this. Except face the fact that the Bush administration is, at its core, a cruel, hateful, and mean bully of a government. To put it in psychological terms, it is sociopathiclacking in empathy, self-absorbed, a sense of entitlement, hatred of all but self, and with total disregard for the rights of others. Bush will, I fear, get what he wantsone way or the other. Sociopaths do that.
In the meantime, the Supreme Court has been asked to review an federal appeals court ruling that forecloses federal courts from hearing the pleas of the Guantanamo prisoners. The lower courts agreed that the federal courts had no jurisdiction because the prisoners are not on American soil. How's that for a catch-22? We arrested them, brought them to a U.S. military base, classified them as "enemy combatants" so as to try to exempt them (and us) from international law, the laws of war, and U.S. law, and now we have declared them outside of the law. I guess, in a sick and twisted way, that does make some sense.
For the hapless prisoners in the black hole of Guantanamo comes a voice from the past to file a friend of the court brief in their behalf. Fred Korematsu, a American citizen of Japanese descent, who refused to enter a Japanese internment camp in California 60 some years ago, and who was prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned for challenging the internment order.
The Supreme Court then said it was just fine that he was ordered to be locked up, and even finer that he was prosecuted for challenging the order.
In his brief he begs the court to respect the fundamental principle that those deprived of liberty have the right to a fair hearing. Doubtless, the Supreme Court will follow its leader and "refuse to accept" Mr. Korematsu's plea. After all, what does fairness, justice, and decency have to do with anything anymore?
Elaine Cassel watches the Bush administration's war on civil liberties and reports on it at Civil Liberties Watch at http://babelogue.citypages.com:8080/ecassel/. She practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia and teaches law and psychology.
Elaine Cassel practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, teachers law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime's dismantling of the Constitution at Civil Liberties Watch. She can be reached at: ecassel1@cox.net
-------- space
Chronology of China's Space Program
October 14, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-Space-Chronology.html
Major events in the history of the space program of the People's Republic of China:
--September 1955: Chinese-born Tsien Hsue-sen, an American-trained rocketry expert and co-founder of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, leaves the United States for China. His departure comes after five years of virtual house arrest following accusations of communist sympathies. He becomes the leader of China's rocketry program.
--1956-58: Soviet Union provides intermediate-range ballistic missile to China for study.
--1960: China launches its first rocket despite a cutoff of Soviet aid amid a political falling-out.
--1968: Research center established to prepare for manned space flight, with 1973 target date for launch. Program later canceled because of lack of money and political support.
--1970: China becomes the fifth country to launch a satellite into space, sending up the Dongfanghong-1 -- the name means ``The East is Red'' -- aboard a Long March rocket.
--1991: Tsien retires.
--1992: Manned program launched under code-name Project 921, with target launch date of October 1999. Qi Faren, trained in Russia, named chief spacecraft designer.
--1995: Russia agrees to assist China with manned spaceflight technology and training of Chinese astronauts in cosmonaut academy near Moscow.
--Nov. 20, 1999: Successful test flight of the unmanned capsule Shenzhou 1, or ``Divine Vessel.'' Three further unmanned test flights follow, the most recent one earlier this year accompanied by promised of manned space travel by the end of 2003.
--Oct. 15, 2003: Shenzhou 5 launches into orbit with air force Lt. Col. Yang Liwei, 38, aboard, making China the third nation to put a human in space on its own, after the former Soviet Union and the United States.
-------- un
U.N. Chief Sees No `Major Shift' in U.S. Resolution on Iraq
October 14, 2003
By BRIAN KNOWLTON,
International Herald Tribune
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/worldspecial/14CND-NATION.html?hp
The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, said today that a new draft resolution on Iraq that the United States circulated at the Security Council did "not represent a major shift" from an earlier version, since it does not restore full Iraqi sovereignty until the end of a multistep transition process.
Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said the draft, circulated over the weekend, might be formally introduced as early as today. "This new draft further defines the vital role of the U.N. and addresses some of the concerns that some expressed about sovereignty," he said.
At the United Nations, Richard Grenell, an American spokesman, said a vote was possible as soon as Wednesday.
Such an early vote appears to be problematic, however. Germany and Russia said they planned to offer amendments to the text, and China and France said further changes were needed.
Mr. Annan, who has pressed the United States to accelerate the handover of power in Iraq, said today that he was "grateful" that Washington had reflected some of his concerns in the new text, giving the secretary general leeway to take certain steps in Iraq only "as circumstances permit." Mr. Annan sharply reduced the United Nations' presence in Iraq after violence killed several United Nations employees.
He noted, however, that the proposal for restoring sovereignty would still follow a sequence - writing and ratifying a constitution, holding democratic elections, then handing over power - that would leave the American-led coalition forces as the occupying and governing power until the very end.
The draft resolution, co-sponsored by Britain and Spain, includes a much-noted phrase that describes the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and its ministers as "the principal bodies of the Iraqi interim administration, which will embody the sovereignty of the state of Iraq during the transitional period."
Asked by a reporter at the United Nations headquarters in New York what that phrase meant to him, Mr. Annan replied, "It's a nice phrase, but the resolution also says that the occupying power is the authority and is the government."
"So in my judgment," he added, "the occupying power is the government, will remain the government whether this resolution is passed or not, until such time that power is fully handed over."
Other diplomats said that it was difficult to see how Iraqi officials could "embody sovereignty" while Americans retained military control and ultimate political authority in the country.
"That is a contradiction," Said Ahmad, head of Iraq's mission to the United Nations, told Bloomberg News. "If the Governing Council assumes sovereignty, it should mean it is a government with full authority. If not, it is not sovereign."
Ambassador Wang Guangye of China also said the resolution included a "contradiction" on the question of sovereignty.
And in Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said Russia planned to introduce "very important" changes, Agence France-Presse reported.
The latest draft would set a Dec. 15 deadline for the Iraqi Governing Council, in cooperation with the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority and the secretary general's special representative, to submit a timetable for drafting a constitution and for holding elections.
The deadline was an American concession to critics of the earlier version, including France, Germany and Mr. Annan, who have called for an accelerated program of American disengagement in the face of persistent violence against the American-led coalition forces.
According to the draft resolution, a multinational force in Iraq would remain under "unified command" - led by the United States, that is - while administrative power is "progressively" turned over to Iraqis. The Security Council would review the arrangement after a year.
"I have stated my views very clearly," Mr. Annan said. "Obviously, the current resolution does not represent a major shift in the thinking of the coalition."
His objections are said to have held sway with some Security Council members on previous versions of the resolution.
--------
New Iraq Proposal Offered To U.N.
In Its Bid for Aid, U.S. Moves to Give Iraqis More Control
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 14, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21713-2003Oct13.html
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 13 -- The Bush administration Monday offered a series of concessions aimed at increasing Iraqis' control over their future, in a final drive to win U.N. Security Council backing for a resolution calling on nations to provide more money and troops to support the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
The resolution, in calling for the establishment of a new multinational force for Iraq, reaffirms the authority of the United States and its military allies to command that force and administer the country. But it also states that the U.S.-approved Iraqi Governing Council and its ministers "will embody the sovereignty of the State of Iraq." And for the first time, it sets a deadline -- Dec. 15 -- for the 24-member council to present a firm timetable for writing a constitution and holding elections.
Senior U.N. officials and council diplomats said that by granting a symbolic measure of sovereignty to Iraqis and dropping a demand that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan play an immediate political role in Iraq, the United States had improved its chances for success in the council. "It is a little bit easier for us to live with than previous versions," a senior U.N. official said.
The move to delay a U.N. role in Iraq represents a reversal by the Bush administration, which had pressed the United Nations to expand its presence in Iraq and participate in the country's political transition. It diminished the likelihood that the United States will be able to engage the United Nations in a significant role in the country's political transition for some time.
The Bush administration had hoped that the latest revisions would attract support from key Security Council members, primarily Russia and China, that had pressed Washington to yield more control over Iraq's political and economic future to Iraqis and the United Nations.
Security Council diplomats raised concerns about the wisdom -- and legality -- of passing a resolution that affirms both the authority of the U.S.-led coalition and the sovereignty of the Iraqi Governing Council, saying it could blur the lines of authority and fuel confusion. They also noted that the latest U.S. text failed to accommodate appeals from the United Nations, Russia, France and Germany to transfer power in the coming months to an Iraqi provisional government.
France, Russia, China and Germany responded cautiously to the latest initiative, saying it was a positive step but needed to go further to satisfy their concerns.
"This is without doubt a further step in the right direction," German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told reporters at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Luxembourg. The ministers pledged $233 million in reconstruction aid for Iraq.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin conceded that the latest U.S. draft made "progress," but he questioned whether "this progress is enough" to improve the situation in Iraq. "That is why we want first to be able to analyze this text more deeply," he said.
China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, said that he was a "bit disappointed" by the latest version of the U.S. resolution but that it "represents improvement." He said that more changes needed to be made "to clarify the question of who retains ultimate sovereignty over Iraq" and to "leave the door open to a further [U.N.] role" in Iraq.
A Russian spokesman at the United Nations, Sergey Trepelkov, told the Associated Press that it would be "very difficult to reach consensus on this issue" unless the resolution includes a clear timetable for the transfer of authority to Iraqis and a "crucial central role" for the United Nations.
The Bush administration hopes that the resolution will provide greater political cover to countries considering providing troops and financial support in Iraq. Pakistan, India and other countries agreed to participate in the reconstruction effort only with a U.N. mandate.
The Bush administration launched its campaign to win support for a resolution strengthening the international community's role in Iraq after the Aug. 19 attack on the U.N. compound in Baghdad, which killed 22 people, including the U.N.'s top envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello. But the resolution has been revised three times since then , and the effort was nearly derailed earlier this month when Annan informed the United States that he would not agree to play a political role in Iraq unless the United Nations was granted more independence and the security of Iraqi staffers could be assured.
John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that he would begin formal council consultation on the text Tuesday morning and hoped to put it to a vote "in the course of the week." But U.S. and British diplomats said that Washington is not prepared to offer substantial changes to the draft, which was presented Monday to members of the 15-nation council.
The latest version of the resolution, which provides the Security Council with a role in reviewing the progress of the multinational force within one year, continues to urge the United Nations to "strengthen its vital role in Iraq" and outlines a series of tasks from the training of police to the preparation of elections.
But in recognition of the risks faced by U.N. workers in Iraq, the U.S resolution allows the United Nations to delay its implementation until "circumstances permit."
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U.N. Council Approves a Broader Afghan Mission
October 14, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/asia/14AFGH.html
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 13 (Reuters) - The Security Council on Monday authorized the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan to send troops anywhere in Afghanistan, rather than keep them confined to the capital, Kabul, and its environs.
A resolution approved unanimously by the 15-nation Council expanded the scope of the mission so it could provide security across Afghanistan, a change long sought by the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, and the United Nations.
But the resolution is likely to have little immediate impact as few countries say they are willing to commit the needed troops.
The resolution would also renew the United Nations mandate for an additional year.
The first new troops in rural Afghanistan are expected to come from Germany, which has said it wants to send up to 450 soldiers to the northern district of Kunduz.
Germany agreed to do so only if its soldiers were a part of the 5,500-member NATO mission and not the American force of some 12,500 soldiers that is trying to track down militants for Al Qaeda and the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.
The Taliban has stepped up its military activity in recent months. More than 300 people, including aid workers, American soldiers and Taliban guerrillas, have been killed since early August.
Relief groups and United Nations staff members, in particular, have raised alarms over what they see as a trend of rising attacks on relief workers in the Afghan provinces, which are largely under the control of a patchwork of feuding warlords.
Council members initially hesitant to send the peacekeeping force into the provinces have since changed their minds, in hopes that improved security will help Mr. Karzai's shaky Afghan Transitional Administration expand its authority across the country.
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Army studying high suicide rate among US soldiers in Iraq
AFP
October 14, 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/13/1065917350950.html
The US army has sent mental health specialists to Iraq to determine why so many soldiers are committing suicide there, a US media report said.
Eleven US soldiers and three Marines have killed themselves in the past seven months in Iraq, an annualised rate of 17 suicides per 100,000 soldiers.
The usual rate of army suicides is 13 per 100,000 soldiers, the report in the USA Today newspaper said.
A dozen other army deaths being investigated in Iraq could include suicides, and the US Navy is also investigating one possible suicide, it said.
"The number of suicides has caused the army to be concerned," said Lieutenant Colonel Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, an army psychiatrist helping investigate the deaths.
"Is there something different going on in Iraq that we really need to pay attention to?"
Most of the suicides have occurred since May 1, when major combat operations were declared over.
Depression, harsh and dangerous living conditions, a long deployment and the accessibility of weapons could contribute to the problem, experts said.
The army has sent 478 soldiers home from Iraq for mental-health reasons, the daily said.
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Environmentalists and Navy strike deal on controversial sonar system
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
By Angela Watercutter,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-10-14/s_9386.asp
SANTA MONICA, Calif. - The Navy has agreed to limit its peacetime use of a new sonar system designed to detect enemy submarines but which may also harm marine mammals and fish, an environmentalist group said.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, which sued the military on the issue, and the Navy reached a settlement last week in which the Navy agreed to use the new system only in specific areas along the eastern seaboard of Asia, according to documents provided by the environmental group.
The agreement must be approved by a federal magistrate to become permanent, but if implemented the deal would greatly restrict the Navy's original plan for the sonar system, which once was slated to be tested in most of the world's oceans.
The Navy has not received final word of the agreement but would comply, said Lt. Cmdr. Cappy Surette. "Whatever the final decision is, the Navy will uphold the law," Surette said from the Pentagon.
Environmentalists say sonar systems endanger marine mammals and fish, especially whales. They point to a different system the Navy used in 2000, when at least 16 whales and two dolphins beached themselves on islands in the Bahamas. Eight whales died and scientists found hemorrhaging around their brains and ear bones, which could have been caused by exposure to loud noise.
"Oceans are an acoustic environment, and the species that live there have an acute acoustic sense," said Frederick O'Regan, president of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. "If we interfere with these critical behaviors, we may be affecting not just individual animals but entire populations."
Last year the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups sued the Navy over the new system, seeking to restrict its use.
U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Laporte later issued a preliminary injunction restricting use of the system and in a separate ruling ordered the environmentalists and the Navy to negotiate a final settlement. The new deal, which is the result of those negotiations, largely mirrors the restrictions imposed by Laporte's injunction.
Since the injunction, the Navy has used the sonar system in restricted areas without harm to marine life, Surette said. It is designed to detect enemy diesel submarines at great distances.
Joel Reynolds, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council, welcomed the settlement.
"This agreement safeguards both marine life and national security," Reynolds said in a statement. "It will prevent the needless injury, harassment, and death of countless whales, porpoises, and fish and yet allow the Navy to do what is necessary to defend our country."
In addition to restricting the system to the eastern seaboard of Asia, the Navy also agreed to seasonal restrictions designed to protect whale migrations and to avoid using the system near the coast. None of the restrictions applies during time of war.
Meanwhile, the Natural Resources Defense Council, International Fund for Animal Welfare, and other environmental groups announced a new global campaign Monday to stop the spread of high-intensity sonar systems in oceans. Such systems are used by the defense forces of Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and other nations.
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Navy Agrees to Injunction Limiting Sonar Use
Hill Exemption Still Sought; Groups Say Whales Threatened
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 14, 2003; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19993-2003Oct13.html
The U.S. Navy will drastically limit the use of a controversial low-frequency sonar system, which environmental groups say disorients and kills endangered whales and other species, under a court agreement disclosed yesterday.
Even as it accepted a permanent injunction against most applications of the new sonar, however, the Navy said it will press for final action on pending modifications to the Marine Mammal Protection Act and other laws to allow it to deploy the system more widely. The low-frequency sonar can detect modern, quiet submarines over long distances.
The accord, which limits the Navy to less than 1 percent of the global range that was initially approved by federal authorities, was reached last week in federal district court in California. Environmental groups cheered the Navy's decision to accept a permanent injunction against wider use of the new sonar as "groundbreaking" and vowed to begin a worldwide campaign against the high-powered sonar. As part of the campaign, a bill was introduced in the European Parliament yesterday to limit NATO's use of the technology.
A Navy spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Cappy Surette, said the Navy does not see the agreement as a positive development and that "it will limit the readiness of our sailors and Marines to meet the submarine threats of the new century."
He said the agreement and permanent injunction "highlight why legislative change is required to achieve a statutory regime that effectively considers important national interests and national defense."
Both the House and Senate have passed versions of a bill sought by the Pentagon, called the Range and Readiness Preservation Initiative, as an amendment to the pending Defense Department appropriations bill. It is still being debated in a conference committee to resolve significant differences in the two drafts.
Surette said the Navy wants changes to clarify what constitutes "harassment" of whales, dolphins and porpoises, and to set standards for how many can be inadvertently harmed without breaking environmental laws.
Under last week's permanent injunction, the Navy will be allowed to use the new sonar -- which emits very loud, low-frequency sound that can travel for hundreds of miles -- only off the eastern seaboard of Asia, an area of about 1.5 million square miles. Both sides said they could not discuss the reasons for that exception.
The agreement prohibits the use of the sonar, called Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System-Low Frequency Active (SURTASS-LFA), within 30 to 60 miles of the coastlines of the approved area, which includes China, Korea, Japan and the Philippines. In addition, the sonar cannot be used when marine mammals are migrating through.
Surette said that the Navy still believes low-frequency sonar does not harm sea creatures and that it spent $10 million on an environmental impact assessment that supported its position. But in recent years, as more whale strandings have been tied to the loud sounds of mid-frequency sonar, also used to detect submarines and other underwater hazards, some prominent researchers have warned that low-frequency sonar could be equally harmful.
Researchers are still not certain how the loud sonar blasts affect whales and other marine mammals, but the animals are known to be very sensitive to sound, which they use to communicate and determine their location.
Last week, English and Spanish researchers reported in the journal Nature that they had found gas bubbles in the tissues of some beached whales, indicating they may have risen too quickly to escape sonar noise and developed decompression sickness, or "the bends." The whales tested had beached in the Canary Islands, just a few hours after active, mid-frequency sonar had been used as part of a Spanish-led international naval exercise.
Joel Reynolds, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against the Navy, said the new restrictions would not be in force during times of war or times of officially-declared increased threat.
"This agreement safeguards both marine life and national security," he said. "It will prevent the needless injury, harassment and death of countless whales, porpoises and fish, and yet allow the Navy to do what is necessary to defend the country."
The new court agreement replaces a temporary injunction ordered in August by U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Laporte, who struck down the permit issued 15 months ago by the National Marine Fisheries Service. At that time, Laporte told the Navy and the plaintiffs -- the NRDC, the Humane Society International and Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Futures Society -- to negotiate a permanent injunction consistent with her ruling.
The environmental groups said yesterday that they would start an international campaign to win global regulation of all types of active sonar, which send out blasts of sound that bounce off underwater objects whose location can then be identified. The International Fund for Animal Welfare, which is based in Europe and says it has 2 million members worldwide, said it will actively lobby European governments and the European Union to limit the deployment of the high-powered sonar.
Although much information about low-frequency active sonar remains secret, environmental officials said they believe some European nations, and the NATO organization, are testing new systems. Reynolds of NRDC said he did not believe any low-frequency sonar systems have been deployed except experimentally.
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Suit Over Injury to Whales Ends in Deal to Limit Navy Sonar Use
October 14, 2003
New York Times
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/science/14WHAL.html
The Navy has reached an agreement with environmental groups that restricts the use of a powerful new sonar system that could injure marine life to an area in the western North Pacific Ocean.
Environmentalists in California sued this year to stop the Navy from developing its new low-frequency active sonar system, often called L.F.A., which is more far-reaching than the midfrequency sonar system that has been blamed for mass whale beachings around the world.
The agreement, reached Wednesday, does not ban the use of the sonar system but limits it to areas near the eastern seaboard of Asia.
The Navy must avoid using L.F.A. along the coastline in that region, as well as restrict its use during migration periods for some whales, said Joel Reynolds, a senior lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
"This demonstrates that environmental protection and preparedness for our national defense are not inconsistent but can be balanced," Mr. Reynolds said.
The Navy had plans to use L.F.A. over 80 percent of the world's oceans, but Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte of Federal District Court issued an injunction in August limiting its use and ordered the two sides to negotiate an agreement. The deal requires the judge's approval.
The Navy says that low frequency sonar has never been conclusively linked to any whale deaths and that the agreement will hamper its ability to meet a growing threat from modern diesel submarines, which L.F.A. is designed to detect.
"We are thankful the courts have allowed the Navy to use the system as opposed to saying we can't use it outright," Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Surette, a Navy spokesman, said. "But this places limits on the ways our men and women in uniform can meet the threats from diesel submarines."
A study published last week in Nature found that midfrequency sonar could cause decompression sickness in whales, leading to strandings.
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Rumsfeld plans to close 100 bases
By John Hendren,
Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82~1865~1697611,00.html
WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is planning to cut at least 100 of the nation's 425 military bases -- more closures than in the four previous rounds of base closures combined -- beginning in 2005, Pentagon insiders said Monday.
Rumsfeld is expected to submit to the congressional Base Closure and Realignment Commission a plan to shutter as many as one-third of Army bases, one-quarter of Air Force bases and a smaller percentage of Marine Corps and Navy bases, a senior defense official said on condition of anonymity.
Such a proposal would guarantee a political firestorm on Capitol Hill, where members jealously protect the bases in their home states or districts.
Military analyst Loren Thompson reported Rumsfeld's plans in an analysis prepared late last week for defense officials and reporters. Thompson, of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va., public policy organization, said the savings are expected to exceed the $66 billion the Pentagon saved during the last decade from previous base closures, but would come at the politically controversial cost of shutting about 25 percent of the nation's bases.
Under legislation passed in 2002, Rumsfeld is required by May 16, 2005, to prepare a list of bases to be closed or realigned, and the nine-member Base Closure and Realignment Commission is due to submit its list to the White House by Sept. 8, 2005. A vote by a simple majority of the nine is all that is needed to keep any base on the closing list. If President Bush accepts the list, the closures become law in 45 days unless Congress blocks them -- something Congress did not do in the first four rounds.
The more activities a base performs -- if more than one service is housed there, if it is a command post, or if it is home to Reserve and National Guard units, for instance -- the less likely it is to be closed. Defense insiders estimate that as many as 150 bases could be on the 2005 list because the cuts would come in overall capacity and would likely target smaller, less efficient locations.
"If there's a base that only has one particular purpose, one particular unit, one particular mission that could be accomplished somewhere else, that would be more vulnerable," one senior defense official said.
In the past, lawmakers have grudgingly accepted the lists of base closures, but this time, because the facilities to be realigned or cut would be in a majority of the 50 states, they might revolt, Thompson said. An effort last summer by Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, D-N.D., to eliminate the 2005 round of base closures received more than 40 votes, even before any bases to be cut were named.
"I think this could backfire on them," Thompson said of Rumsfeld's Pentagon managers. "This would be so big in one round that it might affect enough senators or congressmen that they might have enough critical mass that they could vote the whole thing down."
A Pentagon spokesman declined to confirm the specifics of the cuts, but said Rumsfeld has been clear about his plans for base closures.
"What the secretary has said ... is that experts estimate that somewhere between 20 and 25 percent of bases are in excess," Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said. "We're at the very beginning of a process that's going to take years."Rumsfeld came into office with, as President Bush put it prior to his election, "a broad mandate to challenge the status quo and envision a new architecture of American defense."
But Bush was widely viewed as pro-military and appeared unlikely to oversee sweeping change. Yet Rumsfeld has challenged the status quo from a wide variety of angles, including nuclear deterrence and the U.S. relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
He has outlined a plan to use the savings from base closings to modernize such military programs as missile defense and unmanned planes and to streamline procurement systems.
The plan has rankled uniformed officers, particularly in the Army, because it threatens to reduce the size of their force -- particularly at a time when the United States leads a force in the Persian Gulf of about 180,000 soldiers.
In December, Raymond DuBois, the deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, estimated that the 2005 closures would cost the Pentagon $10 billion to $20 billion over four to six years. But by 2011, savings should reach $6.5 billion, he said.
In the previous four rounds of base closures -- 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995 -- the Pentagon picked 97 major domestic bases for closure and 55 major bases for realignment, meaning cuts short of closure. In addition, 235 smaller facilities were either closed or realigned.
The elaborate base closure program was created because shutting down military facilities has stirred such controversy in Congress.
In Pittston Township, Pa., near Wilkes-Barre, Tobyhanna Army Depot supporters are already planing to raise $350,000 in private money to fend off any attempts to shut down the region's largest employer. That base averted cuts in 1995.
In Olympia, Wash., Gov. Gary Locke and state and federal legislators are quietly crafting a plan to shield that state's bases from the closure list.
In Rhode Island, Gov. Donald R. Carcieri and local lawmakers and business leaders have held a series of meetings to form a base-protecting strategy.
And in Florida, an advisory panel appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush agreed to contract the law firm Holland & Knight to hire lobbyists, military experts and others to defend the state's bases.
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U.S. Troops' Body Armor Delayed
Associated Press
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21366-2003Oct13.html
Nearly one-quarter of the 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq still have not been issued a new type of ceramic body armor strong enough to stop bullets fired from assault rifles.
Delays in funding, production and shipping mean it will be December before all troops in Iraq will have the vests, which were introduced four years ago, military officials said.
Congress approved $310 million in April to buy 300,000 more of the bulletproof vests, with 30,000 destined to complete outfitting of the troops in Iraq. Of that money, however, only about $75 million has reached the Army office responsible for overseeing the vests' manufacture and distribution, said David Nelson, an official in that office.
Angry members of Congress said as many as 44,000 troops -- significantly more than the Pentagon's figure -- lack the vests due to the sluggish supply chain. Relatives of some soldiers have resorted to buying body armor in the United States and shipping it to their troops, congressional critics said.
The Interceptor vests include removable ceramic plates in the front and back that can stop bullets such as the rounds fired by Kalashnikov rifles common in Iraq and Afghanistan. Older-model vests can protect against shrapnel and other low-speed projectiles but not high-velocity rifle rounds.
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Armor shortfall hits U.S. troops
ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 14, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20031013-105024-2226r.htm
Nearly one-quarter of the 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq still have not been issued a new type of ceramic body armor strong enough to protect against bullets fired from assault rifles.
Delays in funding, production and shipping mean it will be December before all troops in Iraq will have the vests, which were introduced four years ago, military officials say.
Congress approved $310 million in April to buy 300,000 bulletproof vests, with 30,000 destined to complete outfitting of the troops in Iraq. Of that money, however, only about $75 million has reached the Army office responsible for overseeing the manufacture and distribution of the vests, said David Nelson, who works at the office.
Angry members of Congress have denounced the Pentagon. They say up to 44,000 troops lack the vests because of sluggish supply chain, a figure significantly higher than that given by the Pentagon. Relatives of some soldiers have resorted to buying the body armor, which costs more than $1,000, and shipping it to Iraq, the lawmakers say.
"I got a letter from a young soldier in Baghdad saying that the men in his group were concerned that they had cheap armor that was incapable of stopping bullets. And they wondered why they could not have the best protection possible under the circumstances," said Rep. Ted Strickland, Ohio Democrat.
The House version of an $86.7 billion supplemental spending request for Iraq's reconstruction passed last week would include $251 million for body armor and for clearing unexploded munitions, although it's not clear whether additional money would speed up the process at this point. President Bush's original request included no additional money for body armor.
The military's Interceptor vests, introduced in 1999, include removable ceramic plates in the front and back that can stop bullets such as the 7.62 mm rounds fired by Kalashnikov rifles common in Iraq and Afghanistan. Older-model vests can protect against shrapnel and other low-speed projectiles but not high-velocity rifle rounds.
Several soldiers serving in both countries have credited the Interceptor vests with saving their lives.
Each vest with its plates weighs more than 16 pounds and costs more than $1,000.
The shortfall in Iraq occurred because the military's need for body armor outstripped its ability to make and deliver the Interceptor plates, said Mr. Nelson, the Army's deputy product manager for outfitting soldiers.
The Army had boosted production to supply soldiers fighting in Afghanistan when planning for the Iraq war began in earnest last year, Mr. Nelson said.
Production of the plates surged a year ago from about 3,000 per month to 6,000 to 10,000 per month, Mr. Nelson said. Current production is about 25,000 plates per month, and the Army is working to double that to 50,000 per month, he said.
"It's not a question of money, it's a question of capacity to manufacture these devices," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard B. Myers told a Senate committee last month. "We're making them as quickly as we can."
Of the American soldiers in Iraq who have the body armor, some received it before arriving there and others after deployment.
Mr. Nelson said the Army originally hired three companies to make the plates: Armor Works LLC of Tempe, Ariz.; Ceradyne Inc. of Costa Mesa, Calif; and Simula Inc. of Phoenix.
The Army recently added three companies to make the inserts, Mr. Nelson said: Point Blank Body Armor Inc., a division of DHB Industries, of Carle Place, N.Y.; ProTech Armored Products, a subsidiary of Armor Holdings Inc., of Jacksonville, Fla.; and ForceOne LLC, of Spruce Pine, N.C.
To help meet the demand, all six companies also are making heavier versions of the bulletproof plates, which can be manufactured more quickly and easily, Mr. Nelson said.
Army Sgt. Chris Smith, 24, shot in the chest during an ambush in Iraq in late August, is among those who has credited the vest with saving his life.
"His armor blew up with the force ... shattered like it was supposed to," said his mother, Bev Smith of Bismarck, N.D. Her son returned fire and killed his attacker and suffered only a bruised chest, she told the Bismarck Tribune.
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Army Is Studying Suicide in Ranks
October 14, 2003
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/middleeast/14MILI.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 - Army officials sent mental-health experts to Iraq last month to study cases of suspected suicide among ground troops and determine whether sufficient counseling was available, a Defense Department official said Monday.
Pentagon officials are trying to determine whether the reported suicides can be attributed to combat stress or the growing length of tours in Iraq, or whether the numbers of deaths attributed to self-inflicted wounds are in keeping with suicide rates in the military when not deployed.
USA Today, in an article on Monday, quoted military officials as saying at least 11 Army soldiers and 3 marines had committed suicide in Iraq over the past seven months.
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Deaths deal their daily blows to pollyanna Bush
October 14, 2003
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/13/1065917343869.html
Baghdad: Another United States soldier was killed in northern Iraq as Baghdad nervously prepared to go to work following the death of at least six people in a two-car suicide bombing.
The soldier was killed and another wounded when their vehicle struck a landmine near Bayji.
The suicide bombers struck outside the Baghdad Hotel, which is used by members of Iraq's Governing Council and United States contractors. A coalition spokesman denied the hotel was the headquarters for the CIA.
But a US officer at the scene, who asked not to be identified, said that US security personnel, contractors and Iraqi Governing Council members lived in the hotel.
The latest attacks dealt a new blow to President George Bush's campaign to claim success in the effort to rebuild Iraq. They have also further eroded Iraqis' trust that the administrators can protect them from daily violence.
Dozens of Iraqi civilians have been killed in attacks aimed at the US-led coalition and their allies.
Paul Bremer, the leading US official in Iraq, said:
"The terrorists know that the Iraqi people and the coalition are succeeding in the reconstruction of Iraq. They will do anything, including taking the lives of innocent Iraqis, to draw attention away from the extraordinary progress made since liberation . . . The terrorists will not succeed."
But in Washington, Mr Bush came under renewed pressure from politicians who demanded a clearer plan for securing Iraq and winning international support for rebuilding the country.
"We need to go to the United Nations more humbly, more directly, more honestly, solicit help in a way that brings the United Nations into this effort, or you are going to continue to see bomb after bomb after bomb," said Senator John Kerry, a Democrat.
Ali Abbas, the Iraqi boy who lost both arms and most of his family when a US missile destroyed their home in Baghdad on March 29, has been fitted with artificial limbs at St Mary's Hospital, London, the Daily Mirror reported yesterday. His prosthetic arms were paid for by the Kuwaiti Government.
Agence France-Presse, Reuters, The Boston Globe, Associated Press
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MAIL CALL
Form Letters From G.I.'s to the Editors
By JACQUES STEINBERG
October 14, 2003
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/middleeast/14LETT.html
At least 11 American newspapers have inadvertently published identical or nearly identical letters from soldiers serving in the same unit in Iraq, each signed by a different person, as a result of a coordinated effort within the unit to get positive news about the war printed in their hometown papers, an Army spokesman traveling with them said yesterday.
``They are working at an extremely fast pace and getting the good news back home is not always easy,'' Sgt. First Class Todd G. Oliver, a spokesman for the 173rd Airborne Brigade, of which the soldiers' battalion is a part, wrote yesterday in an e-mail message from Iraq. ``They thought it would be a good idea to encapsulate what they as a battalion have accomplished.''
``With the current and ongoing media focus on casualties and terrorist attacks,'' he added, ``we thought it equally important to share with the American public the good news associated with our work.''
The fact that the same letter had been sent to various publications - essentially a form letter that was printed by newspapers as large as The Boston Globe and as small as The Tulare Advance-Register in central California - was first reported by Gannett News Service.
A Gannett spokeswoman said the newspaper company got its first clues about the letter-writing campaign in the middle of September, when it was forwarded two letters that had been received by one of the newspapers it owns, The Olympian in Olympia, Wash.
The text in each of the typewritten, one-page letters, which arrived a few days apart in mid-September, was identical. Each began with the writer making a reference to having served in Iraq for five months in the second battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment.
The letters went on to describe conditions in Kirkuk, ``The city that has since become our home away from home,'' as overwhelmingly positive, with the soldiers building a new police department and living amongst the people as they learn about democracy.
``After nearly five months here, the people still come running from their homes, into the 110 degreescq extra 's' heat, waving to us as our troops drive by on daily patrols of the city,.'' the letters said.
Jerry Wakefield, the managing editor of The Olympian, which has an average daily circulation of about 40,000, said the newspaper declined to publish the letters after an editor noted that the signatures were different. One was signed ``SPC Marois, Alexander C.'' and the other ``SPC Ackler, Joshua.''
``It's been a policy for a quite a while here that we not run things that are clearly form letters,'' Mr. Wakefield said.
After receiving the letters, Gannett identified at least 11 newspapers, some of which are owned by the company, that had printed the letters.
In his e-mail message from Iraq, Sergeant Oliver said that ``every soldier who signed the letter did so after a careful read.''
Rick Elkins, the managing editor of The Advance-Register in Tulare, which has a circulation of about 7,500, said he had had no qualms about publishing the letter on Sept. 16 - signed by Specialist Myron Tuttle - because the soldier's mother is a Tulare resident who occasionally passes on news of her son to the newspaper.
Had he known of the multiple letters, Mr. Elkins said, he would have at least run an editor's note preceding the letter.
Sergeant Oliver did not disclose who had written the letter. But Amy Connell, a home health aide in Sharon, Mass., said she felt confident that it was not her son Adam, a paratrooper with the 503rd. ``It's not his writing,'' she said. ``He's 20 years old.''
Ms. Connell passed on the letter, as forwarded to her by her son and bearing his signature, to both The Globe and a local weekly newspaper, each of which printed them last month. ``I wanted the positive view put out there,'' she said.
-------- war crimes
Gaza raids a 'war crime'
14/10/2003
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1429823,00.html
London - Human rights group Amnesty International on Monday condemned Israeli raids at the weekend on the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah that killed eight Palestinians, describing the operation as a "war crime".
"The repeated practice by the Israeli army of deliberate and wanton destruction of homes and civilian property is a grave violation of international human rights and humanitarian law... and constitutes a war crime," Amnesty said in a written statement issued in London.
"Amnesty International calls on the Israeli authorities to put an immediate end to the practice of destroying Palestinian homes and other properties, and of using excessive, disproportionate and reckless force against unarmed Palestinians... which frequently result in the killing and injuring of unarmed civilians, including children."
Amnesty also urged Palestinian armed groups to "immediately halt" deliberate killings of Israeli civilians.
Eight Palestinians were killed and about 80 injured during the operation launched on Rafah on Thursday night, which Israel says was aimed at destroying tunnels used to smuggle in weapons from across the border with Egypt.
About 1 500 people were also left homeless in Rafah refugee camp, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Sept. 11 Panel Defends Director's Impartiality
Concerns of Victims' Relatives Over Zelikow's National Security Ties Are Dismissed
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21478-2003Oct13.html
The executive director of a panel investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is at the center of an escalating fight between the commission and some relatives of attack victims, who have demanded that he remove himself from a broad part of the inquiry because of his ties to key national security officials.
The families wrote in an Oct. 3 letter to the Sept. 11 commission that executive director Philip D. Zelikow should recuse himself "from any aspect of national security and executive branch negotiations and investigations" because of his past connections to the National Security Council and to key Bush administration officials.
If not, the letter said, Zelikow should resign because of the "danger these conflicts pose to [the commission's] credibility."
The commission's leaders, former New Jersey governor Thomas H. Kean (R) and former representative Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), responded in a letter Friday that Zelikow had previously agreed to recuse himself from issues related to the NSC's transition from the Clinton to Bush administrations, which Zelikow had helped manage. But commission officials said Zelikow would continue to guide the panel's investigation in other areas.
"[T]he matters you raise are not news to us," Kean and Hamilton wrote. "Dr. Zelikow explained fully his past association with government agencies and the breadth and depth of his work experience before he was retained in his present position. We continue to believe his experience makes him an invaluable asset to the Commission."
The disagreement over Zelikow marks the climax of rising tensions between the commission and outspoken relatives of Sept. 11 victims, who have closely monitored the work of the congressionally created panel and who have raised concerns about its lack of progress.
After the commission was created last year, former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger bowed out of an appointment to head the panel in part because of conflict-of-interest concerns. Since then, half of the panel's 10 members, with backgrounds in intelligence, law enforcement and the airline industry, have recused themselves from areas that might pose a conflict.
Zelikow, a University of Virginia professor with a long career in national security matters, wrote a 1995 book on reunified Germany with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. He also was named a member of President Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in October 2001.
A group of victims' relatives, the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission, said they were previously aware of those connections but hoped they would help the commission get access to documents and other information from the Bush administration. But the families said they changed their minds after learning that Zelikow had also helped reorganize the NSC as a member of the Bush transition team.
Commission spokesman Al Felzenberg said yesterday that Zelikow's recusal from transition matters should adequately address any conflict-of-interest concerns. "He does not in any way want to compromise the investigation," Felzenberg said.
But Bill Harvey, the husband of World Trade Center victim Sara Manley Harvey, said Zelikow's past associations raise serious questions about his ability to effectively lead the commission's inquiry.
"This report is going to have his fingerprints all over it," Harvey said. "I'm not sure I'm satisfied with the exoneration that he's been given. It seems that they answered us a little too quickly, and they didn't give us any kind of data to support their views."
The Sept. 11 commission, which is scheduled to hold a public hearing on intelligence issues today in the Russell Senate Office Building, was hobbled by delays in its early months and has since complained of a lack of cooperation from the Bush administration.
Hamilton said three weeks ago that the White House continued to block access to key documents and that it was "crunch time" for the panel. Kean and Hamilton issued a statement Friday noting "substantial progress" in obtaining documents from the administration, but said that the commission is "continuing to press for necessary access to some key items."
-------- homeland security
Pillow Bombs Feared on Planes
U.S. Says Al Qaeda Explosives Could Also Be Stuffed Into Coats, Toys
By John Mintz and Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21509-2003Oct13.html
Airport screeners in this country and overseas are on the lookout for suspicious pillows, coats and even stuffed animals after U.S. intelligence concluded that al Qaeda operatives are being trained to apply special chemicals to the material inside to transform them into bombs.
American intelligence officials have picked up several indications that al Qaeda is attempting to create a chemical called nitrocellulose to fashion explosive devices that could be smuggled aboard jetliners, according to a warning the Department of Homeland Security sent in August to airlines and airport security officials around the world.
"We judge this type of threat to be real and continuing," the department said in the Aug. 8 warning. It noted there has been "persistence [in a] line of reports from several credible, independent sources" that al Qaeda is training to build such bombs. Among other things, confiscated al Qaeda training manuals show the sophistication of its preparations, the document said.
Explosives experts said that the detonating power of a nitrocellulose bomb depends on numerous factors -- but most particularly on how tightly the cottonlike material is packed into an area. If small free-standing wisps of it are set on fire, they could blaze up quickly and die down just as fast. But large wads of it tightly crammed into a container of some kind could create a booming detonation, they said.
"It has to be confined in an area to be explosive," said Gregory G. Baur, a former director of the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators. "Producing this requires somebody who has some sophistication and who knows what he's doing."
Items such as buttons, zippers or wristwatches could be used in tandem with tightly packed nitrocellulose as power sources or ignition components to set off a detonation, the directive said.
Baur, who retired in 2000 after 23 years with the Milwaukee police department's bomb squad, said that he had not heard of terrorists using nitrocellulose but that it is similar in its combustibility to black powder, a substance used as a propellant in ammunition.
U.S. officials said that while airport X-ray machines cannot detect nitrocellulose, another type of technology called a trace-detection machine can. Screeners rub the inside of, say, a briefcase or jacket with a specially treated cotton swab or piece of gauze and then insert the swab into the machine. The machine heats the swab and can detect from the vapors whether explosive chemicals or narcotics are present.
The Homeland Security Department's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has purchased several thousand trace-detection machines in the past year as part of a broader effort to check for explosives in checked luggage.
Nitrocellulose, also called guncotton or cellulose nitrate, can be created by combining cotton or cottonlike material with nitric acid or sulfuric acid, substances that are used in various forms to clean drains and by artists in metal etching. Mixing in nitroglycerine makes the mixture even more dangerous.
If dried carefully, it emits no odor, but if dried incompetently, it has a slight etherlike smell, the August memo said.
The existence of the warning was reported by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo earlier this month. In the warning, later obtained by The Washington Post, Homeland Security officials told recipients that the document should not be shared with the media or public.
TSA spokesman Brian Turmail said his agency and its predecessor, the Federal Aviation Administration, have circulated memos on the threat of explosives hidden in clothing or toys for three years.
"This is a threat that has been anticipated in the design and development of the procedures our screeners follow," he said. That's why passengers are asked to remove their jackets and place them, as well as stuffed animals and pillows, on X-ray machines, he said.
Many passengers have complained that such procedures don't seem to make sense. But the TSA pointed to an incident in July when airport screeners found a .22-caliber handgun hidden inside a teddy bear at a Florida airport checkpoint.
"Our screening procedures call for the full scrutiny of jackets, pillows and toys," Turmail said.
The TSA is experimenting with new walk-through portals at airports that blow puffs of air on people to shake loose invisible chemical residue on their clothes, possibly revealing explosives.
-------- police
Agencies in DHS Lose Logos
Only Coast Guard, Secret Service Can Keep Own Seals
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 14, 2003; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21235-2003Oct13.html
Just under two years ago, Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta proudly unveiled a logo for the Transportation Security Administration, pointing out its nine stars and 11 stripes that symbolized the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy that prompted the agency's creation.
"We hope that when travelers see this symbol that they will breathe a little easier," Mineta said at a news conference at Reagan National Airport.
But now folded into the brand-conscious Department of Homeland Security, the TSA and 19 other federal agencies that helped form the new department have lost their distinctive logos and seals.
Instead, nearly every agency will use the same departmental seal featuring an eagle with a shield divided into three sections "that represent the American homeland -- air, land and sea," according to DHS.
The only distinction among agencies is a "signature" with the agency's name on the right side of the logo, although for official purposes it must be written in a typeface known as Joanna MT.
"We wanted a seal which would demonstrate unity behind the mission in Homeland Security for all the various entities that were brought under this umbrella," department spokesman Brian Roerhkasse
Roerhkasse points out that the new logo features 22 stars, each representing an agency forming the department. Other symbols include the eagle's wings, which "break through the inner circle into the outer ring to suggest that the Department of Homeland Security will break through traditional bureaucracy and perform government functions differently," according to a fact sheet issued by the agency.
The seal cost $30,000 to develop.
Only the Coast Guard and the Secret Service of the 22 agencies that make up the department get to keep their own logos.
According to congressional and department sources, both agencies negotiated to be recognized as a "distinct entity" within Homeland Security in the law that created the department. The Coast Guard serves a military role, along with the duties of saving boats lost at sea and drug interdiction The Secret Service, which congressional aides say fought most against joining the department, received special consideration because of its duties to protect the president.
Organizationally, their "distinct entity" status means the leaders of the Coast Guard and Secret Service report directly to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge rather than to one of the undersecretaries.
TSA spokesman Brian Turmail said security screeners at airports will continue to wear the uniforms that feature the old logo on the sleeve or on the front of their shirt until they need to be replaced.
It is important to have "a common look . . . so someone could readily identify us," Turmail said, then joking, "Yes, we all go to the same barber as well."
Retired Adm. James M. Loy, head of TSA, continues to carry the old logo on a lapel pin tucked away in his pocket, Turmail added.
-------- terrorism
US eyes second-tier threats in terror war
It signals hardening stance by focusing on Syria, Libya, and Cuba.
By Howard LaFranchi
The Christian Science Monitor
October 14, 2003
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1014/p02s01-usfp.html
WASHINGTON - The "axis of evil" is back - and in expanded form. Anticipated congressional action against Syria this week is just one sign that the US plans to keep up the pressure on countries it places on the wrong side in the war on terror.
The triad of WMD-seeking states that President Bush first targeted in his January 2002 State of the Union address no longer includes Iraq. But the club otherwise made up of North Korea and Iran has grown to include Syria, Libya, and Cuba, in the administration's eyes, as it seeks to keep the nation and the world focused on the dual threats of weapons proliferation and state-sponsored terrorism.
Some experts see the new club members as minor threats compared to the original three - one former US official calls them "the ladies' auxiliary of the axis of evil." But the Bush administration is showing lack of patience with any state tolerance of terrorism, while making clear its determination to see development of and trading in weapons of mass destruction stopped. Some recent examples:
• With the administration dropping its opposition, stiff new sanctions against Iraq's neighbor Syria are likely to win House approval this week and a Senate nod after that. Called the Syria Accountability Act, the legislation would impose new sanctions against a country that has long been on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism - but which has also aided the US in efforts against Al Qaeda.
• John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, has linked several states - including Syria - with the charter members of the axis of evil. In remarks last week at the American Embassy in London, Mr. Bolton said, "We're now turning our attention to Iran, Syria, Libya, and Cuba."
• The White House on Friday announced new travel restrictions and other measures against Cuba, which it accuses of pursuing biological and chemical weapons programs.
The stepped-up action against states like Syria and Cuba represents both new terror concerns and White House electoral interests, some analysts say.
Syria, for example, is getting new attention because of growing indications that it has allowed Arabs set on fighting a jihad against the US to filter into next-door neighbor Iraq. The longer-standing issue the US has with Syria is the haven it provides to Palestinian groups that continue to carry out violence and terrorist acts against Israel.
But at the same time the legislation targeting Syria has the strong support of pro-Israel lobbying groups that are very influential with Jewish voters. Similarly, measures aimed at Fidel Castro's Cuba play well with Cuban-American voters in key states like Florida.
Yet these latest targets in the war on terror aren't likely to raise the alarms - or level of action - that the original three "axis" members did, experts say, primarily because they are not growing nuclear threats.
"In terms of capability, population, economic weight, but principally because it differs from the 'axis of evil' with their active nuclear programs, Syria won't be going from the triple-A league to the majors," says Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "It's a different order of magnitude."
Even so, Undersecretary Bolton's comments draw new attention to the Bush administration's perspective that its list of violating states is not limited to seekers of nuclear arms, but includes developers of chemical and biological weapons.
At the same time, the administration appears to want to reassure the American public and the world that getting tough doesn't mean a rush to military action. Any new measures against Syria will be limited to economic and diplomatic measures - for now.
But taking on Syria at this point has its risks. Stanley Bedlington, a former senior analyst in the CIA's counterterrorism center, says Syria has long cooperated with the US in terms of intelligence-sharing. He and other intelligence experts say the cooperation only increased after 9/11.
Yet since the US went to war with Iraq, they add, the US and Israel are increasingly making the case that Syria sponsors terrorists and must stop.
Right after the war with Iraq began, for example, the US issued several warnings to Syria to close its borders. Over the months since, several officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, have accused Syria of allowing Arab foot soldiers to cross into Iraq and of harboring political and military refugees.
Robert Baer, a retired CIA operative with years of experience in the region, says Syria doesn't understand the new US position saying it's done everything Washington has asked.
Syria's case with the US was complicated earlier this month when Israel bombed a Palestinian terrorist training camp deep inside Syria. With congressional action on Syria imminent, the Israeli raid may have cemented the legislation's prospects.
US action against Syria won't have much economic impact, experts say, since the US already has some sanctions on the books against Syria. But it will send a message to the region that could complicate the US position there.
Richard Murphy, a former assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs and now at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, says it is not just the Syria Accountability Act, but Mr. Bush's strong words of support to Israel after its raid on Syrian territory, that are taken by both sides in the Middle East conflict as a green light to Israel for such actions.
But even in these circumstances, not everyone sees Syria responding to US action by closing its diplomatic doors. "The response may be to grill the US publicly but to work behind the scenes to find what more the US wants," says CSIS's Mr. Alterman.
• Staff writer Faye Bowers contributed to this report.
----
Bin Laden Son Plays Key Role in Al Qaeda
By Douglas Farah and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21484-2003Oct13?language=printer
Saad bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden's oldest sons, has emerged in recent months as part of the upper echelon of the al Qaeda network, a small group of leaders that is managing the terrorist organization from Iran, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.
Saad bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda operatives were in contact with an al Qaeda cell in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the days immediately prior to the May 12 suicide bombing there that left 35 people dead, including eight Americans, European and U.S. intelligence sources say. The sources would not divulge the nature or contents of the communications, but the contacts have led them to conclude that the Riyadh attacks were planned in Iran and ordered from there.
Although Saad bin Laden is not the top leader of the terrorist group, his presence in the decision-making process demonstrates his father's trust in him and an apparent desire to pass the mantle of leadership to a family member, according to numerous terrorism analysts inside and outside government.
Like other al Qaeda leaders in Iran, the younger bin Laden, who is believed to be 24 years old, is protected by an elite, radical Iranian security force loyal to the nation's clerics and beyond the control of the central government, according to U.S. and European intelligence officials. The secretive unit, known as the Jerusalem Force, has restricted the al Qaeda group's movements to its bases, mostly along the border with Afghanistan.
Also under the Jerusalem Force's protection is Saif al-Adel, al Qaeda's chief of military operations; Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, the organization's chief financial officer; and perhaps two dozen other top al Qaeda leaders, the officials said. Al-Adel and Abdullah are considered the top operational deputies to Osama bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman Zawahiri, who communicate with underlings almost exclusively through couriers.
The presence of Saad bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders in Iran has become part of a debate within the governments of the United States and Saudi Arabia over the best way to reduce Iranian support for terrorism. U.S. officials have sent stern warnings to the government of President Mohammad Khatami that Iran's harboring of senior al Qaeda operatives would have repercussions for a nation the Bush administration has labeled part of the "axis of evil."
Intelligence officials believe that although the State Department is eager to renew talks with Iran on a variety of issues, primarily its nuclear program, it is not clear whether that nation's civilian government could deliver its end of any bargain, especially if it entailed turning over al Qaeda leaders.
"Iran will continue to pursue an asymmetric strategy in which they court Western acceptance, while maintaining their surrogate leadership roles within the Islamic extremist community," a U.S. intelligence analysis says.
Similarly, Saudi Arabia, which in recent years has tried to thaw relations with its larger and more powerful neighbor across the Persian Gulf, is trying, unsuccessfully, to persuade Iran to extradite Saad bin Laden and others suspected in the Riyadh bombing. Saudi officials estimate there are as many as 400 al Qaeda members there.
"Those people are in Iran and somebody must be helping them. The question is who?" Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador, told the San Francisco Chronicle last month. "This is the problem with Iran. The people who we can deal with can't deliver, they can't lead eight ducks across the street. And the guys who can deliver, they're not interested."
As a child, Saad bin Laden was at his father's side in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s when Osama bin Laden formed the al Qaeda network. The younger bin Laden was groomed to take a leadership role in the terrorism organization. He is fluent in English and is computer-literate, two qualities rare among al Qaeda leaders and assets that have enhanced his importance beyond his family name.
Yet Saad has only recently emerged as an important target for the CIA, FBI and other organizations trying to disrupt the terrorist network. It has only been since his arrival in Iran in the past year that he has assumed a more active role in directing al Qaeda, and that he has been identified as a senior leader. Before that, analysts said, he often sat with his father in leadership meetings but seldom spoke and was not given a voice in deliberations.
Many experts believe, for example, that he also had direct involvement in coordinating a series of bombings on May 16 that killed 45 people in Casablanca, Morocco.
Kenneth Katzman, a terrorism analyst for the Congressional Research Service, said Saad "is touted as his father's stand-in. Because his father is incommunicado, a lot of people are looking to Saad to give them direct instructions."
While there is broad agreement that Saad bin Laden's role within al Qaeda has grown increasingly important in the past six months, not everyone agrees he is now a senior operational commander. One U.S. intelligence official said Saad is "more of a player than most of the offspring, but not that significant." Osama Bin Laden has more than two dozen children with five wives.
But European intelligence officials and independent analysts said Saad bin Laden, while not the most important al Qaeda leader, is helping to make key operational decisions and is an important part of al Qaeda's logistical network. Some analysts believe he was very close to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, who was captured in March.
"Saad is capable of mounting operations against the West because he knows the West very well," said Rohan Gunaratna, director of terrorism research at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore. "Saad has been very close to his father, almost functioning as his bodyguard."
Saad bin Laden is one of the eldest sons of bin Laden and his first wife, Najwa Ghanem, a Syrian who is also the terrorist leader's first cousin. The couple had 11 children, but Osama bin Laden has taken at least four other wives and divorced one, according to biographies in the Arab media and U.S. officials. Islam allows men to take as many as four wives at one time.
Born in Saudi Arabia, Saad bin Laden spent time with his father in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviet occupation. His father returned to Saudi Arabia in 1989, but left in 1991 to settle in Sudan. Again, Saad accompanied him. When bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in 1996, so did Saad.
According to one terrorism expert, Osama bin Laden was filmed in Afghanistan admonishing al Qaeda members not to expect their children to take leadership positions in the movement unless the children were willing to work hard for the cause. Bin Laden then singled out Saad for praise as a hard worker and said he was proud of his son.
Gunaratna said that an analysis of bin Laden's satellite telephone calls from 1996 to 1998 showed that more than 10 percent were placed to Iran, demonstrating the ongoing contacts with Iran during that time.
Officials said there is also evidence that another key liaison between the hard-line Iranian factions and al Qaeda is Imad Mugniyah, one of the world's most wanted terrorists.
Mugniyah, a Lebanese national and senior Hezbollah leader, is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of several Americans, as well as the hijacking of aircraft and the bombing of U.S. military barracks in Beirut in the 1980s, according to the FBI and CIA. Before Sept. 11, 2001, he was responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any other terrorist.
According to court testimony of former al Qaeda operatives, Mugniyah met bin Laden several times in Sudan in the mid-1990s and agreed to train al Qaeda combatants in the use of explosives and other techniques in exchange for weapons.
A description of Mugniyah's ongoing role was provided to authorities by a member of the Jerusalem Force who defected to Britain earlier this year. In a February interview with the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sarq al-Awsat, the defector said Mugniyah remained in Iran and had personally "planned the escape of dozens of al Qaeda men to Iran."
The defector, Hamid Zakiri, said Mugniyah served as "a liaison officer with Dr. Zawahiri and with commanders of other fundamentalist organizations."
Zakiri said that among those Mugniyah aided were bin Laden's youngest wife, Amal al-Saddah, and her infant child, whom he provided with safe passage from Afghanistan through Iran to her homeland of Yemen as the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan began.
European intelligence sources said that much of Zakiri's information had been verified.
Research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Norway's Statkraft teams up for hydrogen future
REUTERS NORWAY:
October 14, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/22538/story.htm
OSLO - Norwegian power company Statkraft SF said on Monday that it would work with Canada's Stuart Energy Systems HHO.TO and Spain's Corporacion Energia Hidroelectrica de Navarra (EHN) to develop hydrogen-based energy systems.
"Hydrogen is the world's most easily available fuel, since it is extracted from water using electricity," Statkraft, Norway's top electricity producer, said in a statement.
Hydrogen is considered by many to be a fuel of the future as the only emission from hydrogen when used as fuel is water. It is produced by using electricity to split the gas out of water through a process called electrolysis.
"We see and many analyses show that hydrogen will be an important energy carrier for the future," Statkraft's head of research Erlend Broli told Reuters.
Statkraft said its cooperation with the Spanish and Canadian firms aimed "to assess, test and develop ways of producing hydrogen using renewable energy sources" and to be a "platform for long-term commercial collaboration."
"We are in a period of intensive research activity," Broli said. "Commercial use of hydrogen is still a few years down the road -- it is difficult to say when."
"We are looking 10-15 years ahead, but we have to do our groundwork now with the research and demonstrations," he said.
The company said that the partners would establish various research projects, including a demonstration facility that Statkraft will set up in Norway and hydrogen filling stations that EHN will establish in Spain.
"How environmentally friendly hydrogen is depends on how it is produced, and we see our renewable portfolio as a good basis for producing environmentally friendly hydrogen," Broli said.
Statkraft said that Stuart Energy Systems is a leader in electrolysis-based production of hydrogen, while EHN is one of Europe's top wind power producers.
Statkraft is Norway's biggest hydropower producer, with average annual electricity output of around 42 terawatt hours. The company says it is Europe's second-biggest producer of electricity from renewable sources after France's EdF [EDF.UL].
"When it comes to environmental goals, whether it is Kyoto or more local environmental rules, this is the one energy carrier linking stationary energy use and the transport sector and so it seems very important for the future," Broli said.
-------- environment
Energy Bill Thin on Conservation, Critics Say
Story by Chris Baltimore
REUTERS USA:
October 14, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/22530/story.htm
WASHINGTON - For conservationists, the behemoth energy bill crawling through Congress is most notable for its lack of stricter automobile mileage standards or any other major attempts to curb the nation's thirst for oil.
The bill, the first overhaul of U.S. energy policy in a decade, aims to offer billions of dollars in incentives for oil companies, electric utilities, coal plants and nuclear plant owners to boost production or generate more megawatts.
But while the Republican-written bill is generous in giving industry help to produce more energy, it gives U.S. consumers few reasons to conserve, critics say.
"The bill leaves at least three-quarters of the energy savings off the table, which is really a tragedy," said Bill Prindle, deputy director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a research group. "We really can't afford this ... tweaking-around-the-edges strategy."
To the Republican writers of the bill, the solution to the growing U.S. energy shortage is to make it easier for oil and gas companies to drill more.
They would accomplish this by opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, easing permitting requirements on Western federal lands, and ordering an inventory of energy reserves in protected offshore areas along the East Coast.
Environmentalists concede that some conservation measures have been included in the bill. These include boosting the efficiency of small everyday gadgets like illuminated building exit signs, traffic signals and fluorescent lightbulbs.
But that isn't enough, environmentalists say.
"There really aren't any conservation measures in the energy bill," said Betsy Loyless at the League of Conservation Voters. "This energy bill is a public lands and coastal area giveaway."
GAS GUZZLERS
Activists mourn Congress' refusal to require automakers to make more fuel-efficient cars, sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks. That would offer the single biggest way to reduce U.S. oil demand and imports, they say.
A former environmental official during the first Bush administration also expressed surprise at the lack of conservation measures.
An unsuccessful bill written by Democrats when they controlled the Senate struck more of a balance between energy production and conservation, said Dan Esty, an environmental policy professor at Yale University.
But Republicans view "the environment as an obstacle to energy production," said Esty, who worked for the Environmental Protection Agency during the administration of the first President George Bush, the current president's father.
The chance of legislation being passed this year became more doubtful a few days ago when an aide to Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, the bill manager, warned that bitter disputes over electricity and ethanol could delay it until 2004.
Although negotiators agree on the need to make the U.S. electric transmission grid more reliable, Southern lawmakers insist the bill must block federal energy regulators from requiring U.S. utilities to join regional grid groups.
Another major disagreement pits Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, an ethanol advocate, against House Majority Leader Tom Delay, a supporter of a rival fuel additive known as MTBE.
Also missing is a measure endorsed by Senate Democrats that would require electric utilities to get 10 percent of their supplies from renewable sources like wind and solar by 2020, versus 2 percent currently.
The Republican-written energy bill is "one of the most disastrous pieces of legislation in terms of the environment that we've seen in years," said Mark Wenzler, an energy expert at the National Environmental Trust, an environmental group.
-------- genetics
Pregnancy Created With Egg Nucleus of Infertile Woman
October 14, 2003
By DENISE GRADY
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/science/14CELL.html
Doctors in China have become the first to make an infertile woman pregnant with an experimental technique devised in the United States for women who have healthy genes but defects in their eggs that prevent embryos from developing.
The technique involves removing the nucleus, which contains the genetic material, from a woman's fertilized egg and transferring it to the egg of another woman that has had its nucleus removed. The resulting hybrid egg is then placed in the womb of the first woman. The idea is that the second woman's egg will provide a healthier environment for the genes.
Although researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou succeeded last year in impregnating a 30-year-old woman with the technique, she gave birth prematurely and the twin fetuses she was carrying died. Although the process, nuclear transfer, was legal at the time in China, it was recently banned there.
Critics say the technique is perilously close to human cloning, which has been widely condemned, although there is no proof it has been done or even seriously tried. Those who oppose nuclear transfer also say it poses unknown hazards to children who may be born as a result, and as evidence they cite the death of the fetuses in China.
Doctors involved in the research say it is not cloning but simply an effort to give infertile women a chance to have children that are genetically their own. They say it has been studied extensively in mice and is effective and safe.
A report on the experiment in China is to be presented today at a medical conference in San Antonio. It was described yesterday in The Wall Street Journal.
Nuclear transfer is similar to a crucial step in cloning, but it differs in important ways.
To make a clone, like Dolly the sheep, researchers start with a fertilized egg and remove its nucleus. Then they replace the nucleus with a nucleus from an adult animal, electrically stimulate the egg to start its development and implant it in the prospective mother's womb. Any offspring will be a genetic copy, or clone, of the adult animal from which the cell was taken.
Nuclear transfer and cloning are similar in that both involve taking the nucleus from one cell and slipping it into an egg from a different individual.
They differ in the goals of the procedure and in the kind of nuclei that are switched. In cloning, the goal is to make a copy of an adult, and the adult nucleus is transferred. In nuclear transfer for infertility, the nuclei transferred are not from adult cells but from the sperm and egg of the people who are trying to become parents. The offspring will be their child, not a clone.
Dr. James Grifo, who developed the procedure at New York University and tried it in 1998 on several patients who did not become pregnant, said it was irresponsible to confuse it with cloning.
"Cloning is making a copy of a human being who already exists," Dr. Grifo said in a telephone interview yesterday. "This is nuclear transfer, one element of cloning. It allows a couple to have their genetic baby, not a clone. They shouldn't even be discussed in the same sentence."
In China, Dr. Zhuang Guanglun, one of the researchers, said in an interview: "This isn't cloning. Cloning involves copying whole people."
Dr. Grifo said the twin fetuses that died in the experiment had no evidence of genetic defects or other problems from the technique. He said the pregnancy ended because the mother's membranes ruptured and she went into labor early, one of the risks of carrying more than one fetus. The first fetus was born at 24 weeks and the second at 29 weeks. Between the births, the mother developed an infection.
Dr. Guanglun said, "The problem was when an infection set in, but that doesn't negate the success of the initial experiment."
He said the research was banned because it was thought to be too similar to cloning.
He called China's regulations "nonsense for people who don't understand these techniques," and added, "When it's clear that something like this is to people's benefit, it should be allowed."
Dr. Grifo said he and his colleagues gave their findings to doctors in China because regulations imposed by the United States Food and Drug Administration in 2001 made it too difficult to continue the research in the United States.
Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, director of the center for bioethics at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, said he found the experiment in China troubling.
"My concern is that people see this as an end run around oversight and restrictions within the United States," Dr. Kahn said. He pointed out that stem cell researchers had left California for England and that cloning experts had left Scotland for Singapore to escape rules that they considered onerous.
"What's next?" he asked. "A ship out in international waters?"
Dr. Kahn also said that even though nuclear transfer was not the same as cloning, it helped demonstrate that cloning might work. "It is effectively creating the path for other people to do that," he said.
At the same time, Dr. Kahn said, stopping the research could have the effect of penalizing infertile people who have no other hope of having their own biological children.
Dr. Grifo said he had worked on the technique from 1995 to 1998 with consent from patients and the permission of New York University's ethics board. He said he had also studied it extensively in mice.
He said his goal was to help women whose eggs became fertilized but then stopped developing, a problem mostly traceable to defects in structures in their egg cells called mitochondria. The defects may appear with age but they affect younger women in some cases.
Now, the only way such women can have children is to adopt or to become pregnant with an egg from a donor. Nuclear transfer, Dr. Grifo said, would give them a chance to have children that are genetically their own.
But in 2001, the F.D.A. declared that it had jurisdiction over nuclear transfer and related research, and that experimenters would have to submit an Investigational New Drug Application.
That move put an end to nuclear transfer work in the United States, Dr. Grifo said. He said the application process - normally followed by drug companies - would be too time consuming and expensive for most infertility researchers working in clinics and universities. In addition, he said, it seemed to him that the research was so frowned upon that his application would probably be rejected anyway.
Dr. Grifo said that he and Dr. John Zhang, a graduate student from China studying with him, decided to give their research to doctors in China. Dr. Zhang visited the group at Sun Yat-sen University.
"We didn't perform the research, but we gave them the tools so they could do it," Dr. Grifo said.
Dr. Grifo and Dr. Zhang are named as co-authors on a summary of the research, and Dr. Zhang is presenting it today in San Antonio.
Dr. Grifo said, "We knew patients would benefit, and we did not want to see the research die."
-------- ACTIVISTS
National Youth and Student Coalition to End Nuclear Danger
youth.urgentcall.org - Join the Movement
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 14:11:15
From: speakers <speakers@urgentcall.org>
A decade after the end of the cold war, the nuclear threat is as great as ever and we urgently need your help to stop it. Instead of working to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, as is required under international law, the US administration is subscribing to a nuclear war-fighting doctrine and is making the threat and use of nuclear weapons a central part of its strategy. Leaders in the administration and Pentagon planners are pushing for the development of nuclear "bunker-busters" and "mini-nukes," as well as a resumption of nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. Arms control agreements like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are being undermined by efforts to produce a new, more "usable" nuclear arsenal. Congress failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty even though it was supported by 82% of Americans, and recently, the US has threatened to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries. The US and Russia still have 4,000 nuclear weapons pointed at each other on "hair-trigger alert" - A false alarm or computer glitch could result in a nuclear war. The risk of nuclear terrorism is grave. Rejection of efforts to control the arms race, along with the administration's aggressive nuclear posture, is setting an example for the rest of the world to develop their own nuclear arsenals and establishing a dangerous precedent for proliferation.
In response to this crisis situation, over a dozen national youth and student organizations are calling for an end to nuclear danger once and for all. Our goals are to educate mainstream American about nuclear danger and make disarmament a key issue in the 2004 elections, Through the power of youth and students, we can pressure the U.S. to immediately halt plans to develop new nuclear weapons and engage in serious efforts for disarmament.
As a youth organization, you can play an ESSENTIAL ROLE in building this national movement.
Here's how:
1) JOIN THE COALITION: Officially endorse the Urgent Call student and youth appeal as a campus club or youth organization and gather endorsements of other groups at your school. Use one of our "fact sheets" to help educate your club about nuclear danger. http://youth.urgentcall.org
2) HOST A SPEAKER at your School or University: Our national bureau features over 80 speakers from diverse regions, careers, honoraria and topics related to nuclear weapons! http://youth.urgentcall.org/speakers
3) GATHER SIGNATURES AND DONATIONS for the appeal: All donations go back to a coalition fund to help youth and students organize around nuclear weapons! All donors experience benefits at over a dozen environmentally conscious and politically-oriented businesses and publications. 4) MUCH MORE! Other efforts include working with groups in your region or our national coalition members, helping to organize a regional conference or educational seminar, flyering your campus, conducting research, organizing actions, writing articles... Our site assembles a wealth of information including fact sheets, quotes, research guides, alerts about upcoming actions and conferences, internships, news, available grants and other organizing materials. http://youth.urgencall.org/organize.html
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at youth@urgentcall.org.
"I am the only person who ever looked at all twelve thousand five hundred of our targets. And when I got through I was horrified. Deterrence was a formula for disaster. We escaped disaster by the grace of God. If you ask one person who has lived in this arena his whole career, I have come to one conclusion. This has to end. This must stop. This must be our highest priority." General Lee Butler, former head of US strategic nuclear forces 1991-1994.
The Urgent Call to End Nuclear Danger National Youth and Student Coalition is a project of:
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) http://www.afsc.org Campus Greens http://www.campusgreens.org Coalition to Demilitarize the University of California http://www.fiatpax.net Greenpeace http://www.greenpeaceusa.org Nukewatch http://www.nukewatch.com National Youth and Student Peace Coalition (NYSPC) http://www.nyspc.net Nuclear Reduction/ Disarmament Initiative (NRDI) http://www.nrdi.org Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA) http://www.stopthebombs.org Pax Christi USA Young Adult Forum http://www.paxchristiusa.org/young_adult.asp Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC) http://www.seac.org Student Peace Action Network (SPAN) http://www.studentpeaceaction.org Student Physicians for Social Responsibility (SPSR) http://www.psr.org/student Students Take Actions for New Directions (STAND) http://www.wand.org/stand and campus and youth groups across the United States.
Special thanks to the Federation of American Scientists, Peace Action Education Fund and Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance for providing many of the facts featured in this e-mail.
Your help is urgently needed to end nuclear danger. Please visit http://youth.urgentcall.org today !
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The Campus Anti-War Network and Muslim Students' Association present:
Speaking Truth to Empire:
End the Occupation of Iraq!
A Nationwide Speaking Tour -- Fall 2003
From: southend@southendpress.org
Speaking Truth to Empire is coming to a campus or city near you!
Featured Speakers
Tariq Ali, author, Bush in Babylon
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Ahmed Shawki, Editor, International Socialist Review
Medea Benjamin, Director, Global Exchange
Noam Chomsky, author, Hegemony or Survival
Rahul Mahajan, National Board member, Peace Action
Anthony Arnove, Editor, Iraq Under Siege
Rania Masri, Director, Southern Peace Research & Education Center
Michael Parenti, author, Democracy for the Few
Lou Plummer, Military Families Speak Out and Bring Them Home Now
Faruq Abd'al Haqq (aka Robert Crane), Center for Understanding Islam
Norman Solomon, director, Institute for Public Accuracy
Terry Rockefeller, 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
Howard Zinn, author, A People's History of the United States
John Farrell, Voices in the Wilderness
Military Families and Veterans and many others
Organizations are listed for identification purposes only
Select Location and Dates:
Oct. 14, NEW YORK, NY
SYNOD HALL, ST. JOHN THE DIVINE - 7PM
110th St & Amsterdam - co-sponsored with Verso Press and Center for Economic and Social Rights with Tariq Ali and Amy Goodman
6PM BOOK SIGNING with TARIQ ALI Contact: Monique Dols mjd139@columbia.edu
Oct. 16, SAN FRANSISCO, CA SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY - 4PM
1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco. Humanities Building Room 133
with Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange; Michael Parenti; Eyad Kishawi from the Free Palestine Alliance & ANSWER
Contact: Katrina Yeaw kyeaw@sfsu.edu
Oct. 16, CHICAGO, IL
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, CHICAGO - 5 PM
750 S. Halsted, Latin American Cultural Center
with Lou Plummer from Military Families Speak Out Sponsored by Campus Antiwar.
Contact: 312-316-2634 or uicnowar@hotmail.com
Oct. 17, AUSTIN, TX
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS - 7 PM
Jester Auditorium, 21st and Speedway with Rahul Mahajan; Caroline Hallman, Military Families Speak Out; Lisa Krebs (CAN).
Contact: Warren Craig warrenc36@yahoo.com Oct. 21, COSTA MESA, CA
ORANGE COAST COLLEGE - 7 PM
OCC Science Hall with KPFK radio host and co-producer Sonali Kolhatkar; Military Families Speak Out
Contact: jeremiahhepner@yahoo.com
Oct. 21, BOSTON, MA
NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY - 7 PM
Room 168 Snell Engineering Building with George Capaccio, Voices in the Wilderness; Elaine Hagopian; Military Families Speak Out; NU Campus Against War and Racism
Contact: Joe Knott: knott.j@neu.edu
Oct. 22, BURLINGTON, VT
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT - 7 PM
Memorial Auditorium Annex, Main Street with Rania Masri, John Farrell from Voices in the Wilderness
Contact: Kathleen Brown: angel5396@yahoo.com, 802-864-9678
Oct. 22, GAINESVILLE, FL
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
Civic Media Center - 8 PM with Noam Chomsky
AND MANY MORE CITIES AND CAMPUSES ACROSS THE U.S.
Speaking Truth to Empire is endorsed by:
South End Press http://www.southendpress.org
Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org
Haymarket Books http://www.haymarketbooks.org
Military Families Speak Out http://www.mfso.org
New York City Labor Against War http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows http://www.peacefultomorrows.org
SpeakOut http://www.speakoutnow.org
Traprock Peace Center http://www.traprockpeace.org
War Resisters League http://www.warresisters.org
War Times http://www.war-times.org
CONTACT INFORMATION
For the most up-to-date information on the tour, go to the Campus Antiwar Network's site http://www.antiwarnetwork.org.
The tour is co-sponsored by Muslim Students' Association http://www.msa-natl.org.
CAN is always looking for help on getting the word out and organizing against the occupation. Want to host a stop? Want to endorse? Send us an email canspeakingtour@yahoo.com, or call 802-363-4699
--------
Bolivian President Remains Defiant as Protests Intensify
October 14, 2003
By LARRY ROHTER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/americas/14BOLI.html
LA PAZ, Bolivia, Oct. 13 - Thousands of demonstrators marched in Bolivia's capital and other nearby cities on Monday, calling for the president's resignation. But they were dispersed by military units firing tear gas canisters, and at a midafternoon news conference President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was defiant and pugnacious.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said, citing his determination to remain in office and vowing that "order will be restored." He added, "It is not possible that democracy be replaced by a dictatorship of the unions" that will "pit region against region, class against class and ethnic group against ethnic group."
Clashes between demonstrators and the military have killed at least 42 people. At least 14 of them were killed Monday, according to Bolivia's Permanent Human Rights Assembly.
With popular revulsion growing, leaders of two parties that have been part of the precarious governing coalition said Monday that they were thinking of pulling out. But the clearest indication of weakening support came when Vice President Carlos Mesa announced that he was breaking with the government, which had the support of only 8 percent of those asked in recent polls.
"Neither as a citizen nor a man of principles can I accept that, faced with popular pressure, the response should be death," Mr. Mesa said, although he said protest groups bore part of the blame.
Bolivia, the poorest country in South America, has been racked since mid-September by antigovernment protests initially organized by groups representing the Indian peasants who are the country's impoverished and marginalized majority. But labor unions, student and neighborhood groups and opposition political parties have since joined and helped strengthen the movement.
In recent days, with many people angry over a government-backed proposal to export natural gas that opponents say would not benefit most Bolivians, the protests have grown increasingly confrontational, with demonstrators armed with sticks of dynamite blocking highways. Over the weekend, Mr. Sánchez de Lozada called out the troops, an action that has raised the level of violence even further.
The immediate cause of the unrest is the proposal to build a $5 billion pipeline to begin exporting Bolivia's vast reserves of natural gas to the United States and Mexico through a port in Chile. Opponents worry about corruption and complain that the royalty rate on gas shipments is so low that the project will end up offering more financial benefits to foreigners than to this Andean nation of eight million people.
"We've always exported our natural resources, like silver and tin, to others, so that they get rich and we remain poor," said Luis Alberto Javier, 30, a plumber's helper who supports the protests. "That gas should remain here to create jobs in Bolivia for Bolivians rather than be sold abroad, especially through Chile."
Chile is viewed as an enemy here because Bolivia has been landlocked ever since it lost its outlet to the Pacific Ocean in a war with Chile in 1879. Rapid economic growth in Chile during the past two decades has increased Bolivians' resentment. Mr. Sánchez de Lozada, a 73-year-old millionaire businessman, is seen as being overly cozy with Chilean business interests.
In a television address to the nation early on Monday, he promised that no new gas exports would be permitted until the citizenry was consulted, and he called for negotiations "to try to reach a consensus." Opposition leaders, sensing that his position was rapidly deteriorating, quickly rejected his call.
"We are not going to have dialogue with the murderers of the people," said Evo Morales, who leads the powerful coca growers union and who finished a close second in the presidential election last year. After the "massacre" over the weekend, he added, the opposition's attitude toward the president is one of "resignation or nothing."
Police officers in some outlying areas of the capital have joined demonstrators, according to local news reports. The loyalty of the police has been in doubt since a nationwide mutiny in February.
Mr. Sánchez de Lozada apparently decided to take the police off the streets in working class suburbs like El Alto and replace them with army troops backed by tanks and helicopters for precisely that reason. But even the prospect of continued military support for his government was being questioned.
"The Armed Forces are reaching the limit of their tolerance for a situation in which they are being blamed for these deaths," said Juan Ramón Quintana, a former military officer who now leads a private institute called the Bolivian Program for Strategic Research.
With roads in and out of the capital blocked, gasoline scarce and renewed violence a threat, many residents of La Paz stayed home from work on Monday. Most flights from the main airport, in the area that has experienced the most violence, have been canceled or postponed, airport officials said, and many stores are running out of supplies.
At a small butcher shop here, the proprietor, Estela Mamán, said on Sunday that she was about to run out of meat, and would soon be forced to close down. Nevertheless, she said she supported the protests.
"The government is going to have to give in if there is to be a solution," she said. "None of this would be happening if they just listened to us, the people, but they never do, and now they are paying the price."
----
Thousands of foreign Christians stage Jerusalem march to support Israel
Tuesday, 14-Oct-2003
Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/cy/Qisrael-religion.R7IT_DOE.html
JERUSALEM, Oct 14 (AFP) - Some 5,000 evangelical Christians from all over the world marched in the streets of Jerusalem Tuesday to mark the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and express solidarity with Israel.
The majority of demonstrators were Americans, but delegations from South Africa, Brazil, Germany, Japan and some 60 other countries also marched towards the Old City, waving their national flags and "We Love Israel" banners.
"I came to celebrate Sukkot, and to tell the people here that the God of Israel is reigning and remind them not to lose hope," said Shay Kasper, a 56-year-old Christian from California, who marched dressed up as Uncle Sam.
"I am here to fulfil the prophecy and, as a tourist, to spend much needed money in Israel," said Richard, a South African belonging to a charismatic Christian movement.
The organisers stressed that the number of participants who flew to Israel for the 24th annual Feast of the Tabernacles celebration had risen significantly from the 2002 figures.
Several Christian denominations were represented in the procession: Roman Catholics, Baptists, the Church of England and many others. The march also included a group of Falun Gong practitioners and Messianic Jews from Israel.
The visitors have been attending events organised by the International Christian Embassy, including a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday night.
"Christians stand with Israel", "Israel, you are not alone" read some of the other banners in the march, which also coincided with a summit of right-wing Israeli and US figures hosted by the Christian Coalition for Israel.
Among the most senior US guests were former under secretary of defence Richard Perle, a leading neo-conservative hardliner in the Pentagon, and Daniel Pipes, President George W. Bush's adviser on the Middle East.
The conference focused on "the strategy of fighting Islamic fundamentalism, the role of Jerusalem in creating a morality-based alliance against that threat and viable morality-driven alternatives to the current political challenges in the Middle East."
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