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NUCLEAR
Abraham Wants Action Against Nuclear Arms
Brazil Prepares to Enrich Uranium for Reactors
Glitzy Weaponry Over People
Australia: DVA considers Gulf War contamination tests
UK: Legal case for Iraq war opened for public debate
Blair could face international court over war conduct
Iran Security Chief to Meet ElBaradei in Vienna
Secret Israel Missile - Test Video Breached
N. Korea to Seize Equipment From Reactors
N. Korea envoy says has nuclear deterrent
Seoul to deploy missiles able to strike across North
Koreas might finally sign armistice
N. Korea to Seize Equipment From Reactors
Russia to Take Back Uranium From Reactors
Bush Funded for Smaller Nuclear Weapons
Utah: Regulations could allow waste here
Plan to send nuclear waste around Cape Horn
Congress mostly backs Bush on nuke weapons, waste
Abraham Wants Action Against Nuclear Arms
Clark: Iraq war used to settle score
Republican and Democratic Panel Leaders Take Feud to the Senate Floor
Deal Reached on $400.5B Defense Bill
MILITARY
Sri Lankan President Declares State of Emergency
British Town Decries Plan to Scrap Ships
Army Eyes Halliburton Import Role in Iraq
Air Force's Tanker Lease Compromise Takes Shape
Recyclers Angered By EU Waste Shipment Changes
Iraq Made Last-Ditch Effort to Avoid War
Baghdad Scrambled to Offer Deal to U.S. as War Loomed
U.S. Detains Relatives of Suspects in Iraq
Iraqi Rejects Turkish Troops In Setback for U.S.
Bush Challenges Iran, Syria to Adopt Democracy
Rumsfeld Watch
U.S. Agencies Surf for Translators
Center to Speed U.S. Translations
Soldier Accused as Coward Says He Is Guilty Only of Panic Attack
Marines Will Return to Iraq In Rotation
Army: Helicopter Had Defensive System
Checks on IDs annoy press
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
When Can Drivers Be Halted? Justices Take Up Issue Anew
High Court Hears Arguments On 'Informational' Roadblocks
House Approves Funds to Cut State DNA Test Backlogs
Mexico To Allow 'Dirty War' Trials
ENERGY AND OTHER
Manitoba site eyed for Canada's biggest wind farm
Opinion: If There Must Be War, There Must Be Environmental Law
Bush administration is said to be backing off pollution cases
Environmentalists call energy bill a disaster
Lawyers at E.P.A. Say It Will Drop Pollution Cases
White House to End Power Plant Probes
India Is Dumping Ground for Toxic Mercury
Seeding Hearts With Healing Cells, Doctors Hope to Grow Muscle
ACTIVISTS
Enola Gay Draws More Flak
Gaveled to Freedom
British Police Brace for Bush Visit
Protesters gear up for Bush visit
-------- NUCLEAR
Abraham Wants Action Against Nuclear Arms
November 6, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-UN-Nuclear-Threats.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham called Wednesday for international action to make sure another country doesn't pursue nuclear weapons under the guise of using nuclear power for peaceful purposes, like North Korea did.
He accused Pyongyang of abusing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by using the technical help it offered to develop peaceful nuclear programs ``as a cover to build up a nuclear weapons capability'' -- and then withdrawing from the treaty and declaring itself a nuclear weapon state.
``I think we should all agree that that kind of precedent can't be allowed to be repeated,'' Abraham said. ``It isn't just the countries that we are looking at today. It's a long-term kind of challenge, and we need to take action to make sure the treaty remains strong.''
Abraham and Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev addressed the U.N. General Assembly's disarmament committee and then held a joint press conference.
Both spoke of the urgent need to keep nuclear material and weapons out of the hands of terrorists. They said the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty must be strengthened, and called for a broader international effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and the highly enriched uranium and plutonium used to make them.
Rumyantsev said one global priority must be to determine what to do with the vast amount of spent nuclear fuel from research reactors and reactors in nuclear power plants. He proposed that a number of countries join forces and build several centers to handle it.
In his annual report on Monday, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei suggested that all weapons-usable uranium and plutonium production should come under international control to limit ``the increasing threat'' posed by countries and by terrorists.
Abraham applauded ElBaradei ``for trying to think in a 21st century approach, a new approach.'' He said countries that can enrich and reprocess uranium and plutonium should be examined carefully to ensure their commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Abraham suggested this could be done through stronger IAEA safeguards or stronger steps to discourage nuclear enrichment and reprocessing in countries that might use nuclear material for illegal activities.
The United States will be carefully watching to see whether Iran makes a full declaration of its nuclear program, he said.
``If Iran carries out the obligations it has undertaken -- especially if it abandons its enrichment and reprocessing activities -- it will show what can be achieved when the international community sends the same firm message on the need to comply with nonproliferation requirements,'' Abraham said.
-------- brazil
Brazil Prepares to Enrich Uranium for Reactors
Daniel Koik,
November 6, 2003
Arms Control Today
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_11/Brazil.asp
Brazil plans to begin enriching uranium for its nuclear reactors next year and hopes to export enriched uranium by 2014, Brazilian Science and Technology Minister Roberto Amaral announced Oct. 6.
The news comes 10 months after Amaral made headlines when he told the BBC that Brazil should not rule out acquiring the ability to produce a nuclear bomb. At that time, a spokesperson for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva distanced the president from Amaral's remarks, saying they were not reflective of official policy. Yet, Lula's own commitment to nonproliferation came under scrutiny last year after a campaign speech in which he criticized the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as discriminatory.
Brazil signed the NPT in 1997 after a series of negotiations with Argentina resulted in each state giving up its nuclear weapons programs. However, Brazil did not entirely forgo the military uses of nuclear energy and its uranium-enrichment program remains linked to the Brazilian navy's attempts to develop nuclear-powered submarines.
Amaral stressed that the uranium-enrichment program is aimed solely at securing Brazil's energy supply. Brazil currently receives roughly 90 percent of its energy through hydroelectric power. Severe droughts a few years ago led to energy shortages and rolling blackouts in 2001, creating pressure to diversify Brazil's energy production capacity and renewing interest in the country's nuclear energy program.
Department of State spokesperson Kurtis Cooper said that the United States believes Brazil takes seriously its treaty responsibilities under the NPT and the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which calls for a nuclear-free zone in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, he added, "The United States urges all states, particularly with sensitive nuclear activities such as uranium enrichment, to adopt the highest nonproliferation standards including the Additional Protocol."
Although Brazil has not yet signed or brought into force an additional protocol, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spokesperson Melissa Fleming said that the agency is working with Brazilian authorities to bring Brazil's uranium-enrichment activities under safeguards. She said the IAEA encourages Brazil to sign the Additional Protocol "to provide the agency with the additional authority it requires in order to provide the necessary peaceful use assurances."
Brazil plans to begin industrial-scale operations in the middle of next year at the centrifuge enrichment plant in Resende and hopes to provide 60 percent of the low-enriched uranium needed to fuel Brazil's two nuclear power plants by 2010. It is estimated that Brazil's current reactor needs will be satisfied by 2014, at which time the country plans to export enriched uranium and could also supply fuel for a possible third nuclear power plant.
According to Amaral, the proposed enrichment plan would save Brazil $11-12 million every 14 months. Currently, Brazil sends its raw uranium ore to Canada to be processed into uranium hexafloride, which is then sent to Europe for enrichment by URENCO. Brazil boasts the world's sixth-largest uranium reserve.
-------- depleted uranium
Glitzy Weaponry Over People
Rumsfeld's New Model Army
By CONN HALLINAN
November 6, 2003
Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/hallinan11062003.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/EK06Aa01.html
War is the ultimate test of reality and illusion.
On the eve of World War I, the French General Staff was convinced victory would go to the attacker, that massed soldiers marching together into battle could overcome technology with courage and elan. German machine guns and artillery swiftly shattered that illusion, along with several hundred thousand young Frenchmen.
Today, the United States is engaged in a very similar application of theory and warfare, albeit the opposite of the one the French tried. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's military is a swift moving, micro-chipped, killing machine, where electronics turns night into day, and satellites and laser guided weapons slice and dice enemy armor and artillery. President George W. Bush called it a "revolution," that has "shown that an innovative doctrine and high-tech weaponry can shape and then dominate an unconventional conflict."
Has it? With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq under our belt, isn't it time to tote up the bill and separate reality and illusion?
On the plus side for the 'revolution," we won. On the minus side, it was hardly a fair fight. In Afghanistan it was the 21st century verses the 12th, and we're not of the tunnel yet. Iraq had a 20th century army, but one hollowed out by a decade of sanctions and with little loyalty to the brutal dictatorship it served. And that war, too, is far from over.
Even the final victory in Iraq was not exactly a triumph for the "revolution." It wasn't swift moving, light troops that took Baghdad and Basra, but the conventional, tank-heavy U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, and the British 7th Armored Division. In short, the "old model army."
The latest "revolution" in warfare, the brainchild of the late Air Force Col., John Boyd, goes by the name "transformation" and combines high tech and maneuver. Its model was the German Blitzkrieg. But Rumsfeld's New Model Army is discovering that the very instruments which make it so invincible on a conventional battlefield are of little use in the non-conventional war the Bush Administration finds itself embroiled in. As long as the enemy was the Iraqi army, the "revolution" works just fine. It has done less well against roadside explosives, ambushes, and suicide bombs.
Part of the problem is the "transformation" army itself.
The US military looks increasingly like a temp agency on steroids: a massive organization of part-time workers armed with the latest in firepower.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, some 292,000 National Guard and reserve troops have been called to active duty, and more than 190,000 are still serving. The Pentagon just announced a further call-up of 30,000. Reserve and National Guard units now make up 46 percent of the military.
Reserves have always been an important component of the US military, but they are only supposed to be called up in times of national emergency. From World War I to Gulf War I---75 years--- they were called up nine times. In the last 12 years they have been mobilized 10 times.
Normally such troops work behind the front lines and serve for shorter periods than regular troops. However, under "transformation," their deployment has been stretched to 12, and sometimes 15 months. And the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan is anyplace a soldier happens to be.
The thinking behind all this is simple math: reserve and Guard troops are much cheaper than regular troops. As Christopher Caldwell at the Weekly Standard notes, "it is hard not see a similarity between the army's shift to part-time soldiering and businesses preferences for part-time vs full-time labor."
Transformation" has essentially shifted much of the financial burden for maintaining permanent troops to the families of the reserves. Most joined up for the educational grants and small stipends that comes with the job. But reserves are suddenly finding themselves locked into open-ended deployments in very dangerous places. "Weekend warrior, my ass," one sign spotted in Baghdad read.
The toll on these temps has been considerable. According to the British newspaper, The Guardian, 75 percent of the 478 troops shipped home from Iraq for mental health reasons were reservists.
Wounded reservists returning from Iraq complain they have been "warehoused" at Fort Stewart, Ga. in barracks without showers or bathrooms and sometimes wait weeks to see a doctor.
Inadequate medical care---another way the New Model Army is trying to save on personal costs--- has touched a raw nerve among veterans as well, many of whom are partially or fully disabled from Gulf War Syndrome. Veterans groups charge that almost 150,000 vets from Gulf War I have been waiting more than six months to see a doctor, and the wait for a specialist is up to two years.
Those numbers are likely to climb because solders in Iraq today are being exposed to many of the battlefield toxins that felled some 118,000 veterans in the first Gulf War.
The Syndrome has been linked to some 345 tons of Depleted Uranium Ammunition (DUA) used in the 1991 conflict. According to the London Express, the Americans and the British used between 1,100 and 2,200 tons of DUA, much of it in urban areas during the recent war. Radiation 1,000 to 1,900 times normal has been detected in four locations in Baghdad.
The situation is "appalling," according to Professor Brian Spratt, chair of the Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific body. "We really need someone like the UN environmental program or the World Health Organization to get into Iraq and start testing civilians and soldiers for uranium exposure."
Such testing is unlikely because the Department of Defense denies that DUA poses any health risks.
Reservists also charge that they are given second-rate equipment in the field, including inadequate body armor.
While spending on high-tech whiz-bangs is at an all time high, the Administration has steadily shaved the cost of personnal.
A recent Pentagon attempt to cut active duty pay was defeated by congressional outrage, but the Administration is still attempting to disqualify some 1.5 million veterans from eligibility for disability benefits.
The Pentagon has also resisted the Retired Pay Restoration Act that would correct an anomaly that reduces military retirement pay by the amount veterans draw in disability. The measure would level the playing field between Civil Service retirees and 670,000 vets caught in this bureaucratic oddity, but the Pentagon has resisted it as a "budget buster."
Besides increasingly relying on temp soldiers, the "transformation" army is also trying to apply private industry practices to public service. Rumsfeld is seeking the right to hire, fire and promote some 700,000 civilian Pentagon employees on "merit" alone, free of government employment regulations.
"The risk that this system will be politicized and characterized by cronyism in hiring, firing, pay promotion and discipline are immense," says Bobby Harnatge, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
While the manpower crisis on the ground is bad---there are just not enough troops available to match the Administration's imperial sprawl--- it is likely to get a whole lot worse. A recent poll by the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, found that only 49 percent of the reserves intend to re-enlist.
So is this blind folly? Or does "transformation" offer an unseen benefit?
"The arguments in support of technological monism echo down the halls of the Pentagon," Major General Robert Scales (Ret.) told the House Armed Service Committee Oct. 21, "precisely because they involve the expenditures of huge sums of money to defense contractors."
In the 2002 election cycle, US arms corporations' political action committees spent $7,620,741, two-thirds of which went to the Republican Party. "Transformation" might not work well once the initial "shock and awe"of battle is over, but it can be a formidable re-election machine.
When the "Young Turks" of the French Army adopted the doctrine of elan, they were certain it was a formula for victory. The battle of the Marne convinced them otherwise, and the French abandoned the tactic. Of course the French General Staff wasn't running for office.
Conn Hallinan is a provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He can be reached at: connm@cats.ucsc.edu
----
Australia: DVA considers Gulf War contamination tests
Wednesday, November 5, 2003.
ABC (AU)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s982572.htm
The Australian Veterans Affairs Department says it will consider testing veterans of the first Gulf War to see if they were contaminated by depleted-uranium ammunition.
The department's director of research, Keith Horsley, says veterans of the Gulf War in 1990 to 1991 would have to ask for the test.
"In effect, if a person wants to have their urine tested we will facilitate it," Dr Horsley said.
"But we do not have a formal testing program in place at the moment.
"Department of Defence does for those serving personnel returning from the current conflict in the Gulf region."
Dr Horsely told a Senate hearing in Canberra that contamination by depleted- uranium ammunition does not produce symptoms.
But he says the vast majority of Australians in the first Gulf War served on Navy ships so there was little chance of exposure to the ammunition used by the United States.
----
UK: Legal case for Iraq war opened for public debate
Donald MacLeod
Thursday November 6, 2003
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1079232,00.html
International law experts will be picking over the government's legal case for going to war in Iraq and the way the occupation is being conducted at an all-day public debate on Saturday.
A panel of eight leading lawyers from the UK, Canada, France and Ireland will debate the question: "Was it legal to go to war?" and are expected to cover topics such as the use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium, the targeting of civilian buildings and the military occupation. The debate at the London School of Economics is open to the public.
Dr Andrew Williams, of Warwick University's law department which is organising the event, said: "We don't know if war crimes have been committed or if global laws have been violated but there are troublesome aspects that deserve examination and inquiry.
"The debate is an independent inquiry into legal issues surrounding the war in Iraq. Much reporting has focused on the war itself and the Hutton inquiry, rather than the decision to go to war."
His colleague Professor Upendra Baxi, an expert on international law who will be on the panel said that in recent weeks the credibility of the case for an invasion of Iraq had been eroded.
"It is now clear that there was no imminent threat to the UK. Evidence to suggest that the government misled the country has to be scrutinised very carefully if democracy, transparency and honesty are to be respected," said Professor Baxi.
Throughout the day experts and eyewitnesses will present evidence to the panel and members of the public will have the chance to pose questions.
· November 8, 10am to 6pm at the Old Theatre, LSE Theatre, London. Members of the public wishing to attend should contact Solange Mouthaan s.mouthaan@warwick.ac.uk
----
Blair could face international court over war conduct
Donald MacLeod
Thursday November 6, 2003
UK Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1079225,00.html
Government ministers, including Tony Blair, could potentially face international prosecution for war crimes over the conduct of the war in Iraq, the organiser of a legal debate into the conflict, said today.
International law experts will be picking over the government's legal case for going to war in Iraq and the way the occupation is being conducted at an all-day public debate on Saturday.
A panel of eight leading lawyers from the UK, Canada, France and Ireland will debate the question: "Was it legal to go to war?" and are expected to cover topics such as the use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium, the targeting of civilian buildings and the military occupation. The debate at the London School of Economics is open to the public.
Dr Andrew Williams, of Warwick University's law department, who is organising the event, said: "We don't know if war crimes have been committed or if global laws have been violated but there are troublesome aspects that deserve examination and inquiry."
He said that the legality of the war was a key concern at the time and that the Attorney General was required to back the government with an opinion, but the way the war was conducted might also become a matter for the international criminal court. The UK is signed up to this court, although the US is not. Potentially the court could prosecute the UK for the use of cluster bombs or targeting civilians and the case might be looked on more seriously if the war was judged to have been illegal in the first place, said Dr Williams.
"If the strategy of conflict is authorised by government figures then that is where the buck stops. If there is an opinion that there is a case to investigate over the strategy and conduct of the war and occupation, that responsibility would have to lie at the head of government. It's not a question 'is Tony Blair guilty of war crimes?' - that would take us into the realms of campaigning which we are trying to avoid."
He added: "We want a reasoned and independent inquiry into these issues so that when a report is produced it will be treated seriously."
His colleague Professor Upendra Baxi, an expert on international law who will be on the panel, said that in recent weeks the credibility of the case for an invasion of Iraq had been eroded. "It is now clear that there was no imminent threat to the UK. Evidence to suggest that the government misled the country has to be scrutinised very carefully if democracy, transparency and honesty are to be respected," said Professor Baxi.
Throughout the day experts and eyewitnesses will present evidence to the panel and members of the public will have the chance to pose questions.
The other members of the panel will be: William Schabas, professor of human rights law at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights; Christine Chinkin, professor of international law at the London School of Economics; Bill Bowring, professor of human rights and international law at London Metropolitan University; René Provost, associate professor faculty of law McGill University, Canada; Paul Tavernier, professor at the Faculté Jean Monnet, and director of the Centre de recherches et d'é tudes sur les droits de l'Homme et le droit humanitaire at the Université de Paris Sud; Nick Grief, Steele Raymond professor of law and head of the school of finance and law at the University of Bournemouth; and Guy Goodwin-Gill, barrister, senior research fellow, All Souls College Oxford.
· November 8, 10am to 6pm at the Old Theatre, LSE Theatre, London. Members of the public wishing to attend should contact Solange Mouthaan at s.mouthaan@warwick.ac.uk
-------- iran
Iran Security Chief to Meet ElBaradei in Vienna
November 6, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-nuclear.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - The head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rohani, will meet the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog chief in Vienna Saturday, a U.N. official said, as Tehran moves to dispel concern over its nuclear plans.
Diplomats told Reuters Thursday the visit probably had to do with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei's report on IAEA nuclear inspections in Iran, expected to be circulated among diplomats in Vienna next week.
They said there was also a chance Rohani would give ElBaradei a letter formally expressing Tehran's intention to join a tough regime of short-notice U.N. nuclear inspections.
An IAEA press official confirmed the visit, though he was unable to give details about the purpose of the visit.
Rohani canceled a planned trip to Moscow earlier this week, which analysts said was because Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was there at the time.
Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Iran would soon give the IAEA the letter stating its desire to sign the Additional Protocol to the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Tehran signed in 1970.
``The letter has been prepared and we are going to hand it over to the IAEA Secretariat,'' Salehi told Reuters. ``I would say it's in days.''
Speaking on condition on anonymity, diplomats said it was possible Rohani would deliver the letter Saturday, but added that Iran would more likely hand it over immediately before the November 20 IAEA board meeting.
The Additional Protocol would give the IAEA access to, and the right to conduct snap inspections of both declared and undeclared sites in Iran.
Iran must give the IAEA the letter before the IAEA board meeting in order for the board to approve Iran's intention to sign the protocol. Once the board approves, Iran can sign the protocol.
Although it will take some time for Iran's parliament to ratify the protocol, Tehran has said it would allow the tougher inspections before ratification.
The United States accuses Iran of secretly working on an atomic bomb. Tehran rejects the charge and says its program is solely for peaceful generation of electricity.
-------- israel
Secret Israel Missile - Test Video Breached
November 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Missile-Test.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- In a rare breach of military security, portions of a secret Israeli missile test could be seen on television across the Arab world after the company conducting the exercise apparently failed to encrypt its video transmission.
The broadcast from the supersecret control room conducting the test, including the range and performace of the missile and the discussion among top officers, was available to anyone with a satellite television dish for 48 hours.
A member of parliament said Thursday that a committee would investigate the security breach, which was discovered by a local television station that stumbled upon on the secret broadcast.
State-owned Israel Aircraft Industries carried out the test Wednesday over the Mediterranean and intended to make an encrypted broadcast for an internal channel so the exercise could be monitored by officials on land.
Transmissions from the ocean test site were encrypted and not available for viewing. But a control room on land failed to encrypt the video at its end, said Alon Ben-David, a reporter for Channel 10, the station that discovered the security breach and broadcast a heavily censored version of the test.
``This was just like sending the test results to Damascus by fax,'' Ben David said, referring to the Syrian capital. ``The whole thing is terribly embarrassing for the Israeli defense establishment. It clearly should never have happened.''
A spokeswoman for Israel Aircraft Industries, Hadassah Paz, confirmed the test.
``Israel Aircraft Industries fired a long range and accurate artillery projectile in a test conducted off the coast of Israel,'' she said Thursday. ``Not all the goals of the test were achieved.''
The Israeli Defense Ministry, in a statement, said it would investigate the inadvertent broadcast, but denied the test was classified.
Channel 10 noticed the mistake because it routinely scans thousands of satellite frequencies. Its reporter said the raw footage of the exercise, including sensitive defense information, could be seen by anyone with a satellite dish for a 48-hour period.
At one point, detailed data on the test results -- including missile range -- were displayed on a control room monitor, Ben-David said. The Israeli military censored that material from the report broadcast on Channel 10.
Yuval Steinitz, chairman of parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told Israel Radio that the broadcast of the missile test ``looks like a serious matter.''
Steinitz said his committee would look into broadcast and would demand explanations from defense officials to ensure there was no repeat of the incident.
Uzi Elam, formerly chief scientist in the Defense Ministry's research and development division, told Israel Radio that the satellite television broadcast was an enormous mistake.
``I was amazed at what I saw (on Channel 10), and at first I didn't understand what was happening,'' Elam said. ``I know of nothing like this in (Israeli) history ... It is really strange. It surely needs to be looked into.''
-------- korea
N. Korea to Seize Equipment From Reactors
Thursday November 6, 2003
By SANG-HUN CHOE
Associated Press Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3357090,00.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea will seize equipment and technical data from two nuclear power plants being built there, its government said Thursday, days after a U.S.-led group stopped the $4.6 billion project in retaliation for the communist country's atomic weapons programs.
The tit-for-tat came as North Korea and the United States vied for leverage ahead of six-nation talks being arranged by China to peacefully resolve the yearlong dispute over the North's nuclear weapons ambitions.
The North's Foreign Ministry on Thursday did not revoke its earlier agreement ``in principle'' to return to the talks, which have been stalled since the nations met in Beijing in August.
But it warned that suspending the reactor project gives the government ``a reason strong enough to take the most appropriate measure when necessary.'' It did not elaborate.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Beijing's point man on North Korea, traveled to Washington on Thursday to prepare for a new round of talks, where it hopes the United States and North Korea would sort out their differences. China, South Korea, Japan and Russia also participate, largely as mediators.
Earlier this week, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, a consortium based in New York, tentatively decided to suspend work for one year at Kumho, a remote northeastern coastal village where it has been building two light-water reactors to generating badly needed electricity for the impoverished state.
The project began after North Korea promised to freeze and eventually dismantle its suspected nuclear weapons facilities in a 1994 deal with the United States.
Washington has convinced three other members of KEDO's executive board - South Korea, Japan and the European Union - that they should halt the project because North Korea has flouted the 1994 accord. KEDO will make a final decision by Nov. 21.
The United States and KEDO must fully compensate North Korea ``under relevant articles of the light-water reactor agreement,'' an unnamed North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman told Pyongyang's official news agency, KCNA.
``The DPRK ... will never allow them to take out all the equipment, facilities, materials and technical documents now in Kumho area for the light-water reactor construction till this issue is settled.''
DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
South Korea accused Pyongyang of breaking agreements to protect personnel and equipment in Kumho.
``We are seriously concerned and strongly urge the North to withdraw its decision immediately,'' South Korea's Unification Ministry said in a statement.
Hundreds of workers, mostly from South Korea, have been working to build the reactors. The project is about one-third complete, but no core reactor parts have been delivered during the nuclear dispute.
The Bush administration says North Korea admitted in October 2002 it violated the 1994 deal by running an uranium-based weapons program. The State Department said it sees ``no future'' for the Kumho project.
In Seoul, visiting Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf denied allegations his country supplied North Korea with gas centrifuges and other crucial machinery for making weapons-grade uranium - in return for North Korean missile technology.
``President Musharraf reaffirmed that there was no such cooperation in the past and there will also be no such cooperation in the future,'' South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's office said in a statement.
Pyongyang says the United States has reneged on the 1994 accord by breaking its promise to build one reactor by 2003 and by refusing to compensate for the ``tremendous'' economic losses caused by the delays.
Since last year, Washington and its allies have cut off 147 million gallons of annual free oil shipments to North Korea that were part of the 1994 deal.
Pyongyang later expelled U.N. nuclear monitors and said it was restarting the plutonium-based weapons program it froze under the deal. Last month, it said it was building more atomic bombs, adding to the one or two it is believed to already possess.
----
N. Korea envoy says has nuclear deterrent
Thu 6 November, 2003
By Katherine Baldwin
(Reuters)
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=400053§ion=news
LONDON - North Korea's envoy in Britain says Pyongyang has a nuclear deterrent that is ready to use and powerful enough to deter any U.S. attack.
Ambassador Ri Yong Ho told Reuters in an interview on Thursday that North Korea would only use its capability in self-defence. Asked if North Korea had a nuclear bomb, he said: "What we are saying is, a nuclear deterrent capability."
North Korea has long hinted that it had a nuclear bomb. It said last month it was prepared to demonstrate the existence of its nuclear deterrent "when an appropriate time comes".
But Thursday's comments appear to be the first time it has explicitly stated that it has a nuclear weapon ready to use.
The ambassador said the deterrent was made with plutonium, most of which was recently reprocessed, and was now ready to use should the United States attack.
The latest crisis in North Korea-U.S. relations erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials said Pyongyang was pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons programme that violated its international commitments.
The crisis showed signs of deepening on Thursday when the United States proposed suspending a project to build nuclear power stations in the communist country.
Ri said the suspension, if it went ahead, would have a "very negative impact on the dialogue process" aimed at defusing the standoff.
The reactor project is based on a 1994 agreement under which the North Koreans froze their nuclear arms programme in return for two light-water reactors.
----
Seoul to deploy missiles able to strike across North
AP
November 6, 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/05/1068013254594.html
South Korea will, next month, begin deploying US-made missiles capable of hitting targets across most of communist North Korea, a South Korean Defence Ministry official said.
The Army Tactical Missile System Block 1A missiles, made by US Lockheed Martin with a range of 300 kilometres, will be deployed near the Demilitarised Zone - a four-kilometre-wide buffer zone separating the two Koreas.
"We plan to start deploying the missiles next month," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Seoul has said it plans to buy 111 of the missiles by 2004.
Under a 1979 accord with the United States, South Korea was barred from developing missiles with a range longer than 180 kilometres. But, in 2001, it was granted US approval to develop weapons with a range of up to 300 kilometres.
Such long-range missiles would be capable of striking Pyongyang and also Yongbyon, where the North says it is using spent nuclear fuel rods to make atomic bombs.
North Korea is believed to be armed with missiles capable of covering all South Korea and parts of Japan. It alarmed the region by firing a long-range missile in 1998 which flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific.
----
Koreas might finally sign armistice
By Shane Green Herald Correspondent in Tokyo
November 6, 2003
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/05/1068013265772.html
The United States is reportedly proposing a treaty that would finally bring peace to the Korean peninsula 50 years after the end of the Korean War, as part of the deal to solve the North Korean nuclear crisis.
North and South Korea are still technically at war because South Korea did not sign the armistice that ended the conflict in 1953.
Japan's Nikkei financial newspaper reported yesterday that Washington had proposed the peace treaty in talks with North Korea earlier this year.
The treaty would be signed by the original armistice signatories - North Korea, the US and China. South Korea and Japan would also be included.
The agreement would depend on North Korea ending its nuclear arms program and resolving concerns about its missile capability, as well as its biological and chemical weapons program. It would also set down how the two Koreas should co-exist.
The US has flagged the possibility of a regional security guarantee for North Korea, something it has said it will consider.
But the US will demand a verifiable end to North Korea's nuclear program before making commitments to Pyongyang. It is determined to avoid a repeat of the 1994 deal negotiated by the Clinton administration, under which the North gave up its nuclear ambitions in return for substantial energy aid, including two light-water nuclear reactors.
That deal was voided last October when North Korea admitted having a clandestine nuclear program. Yesterday, the program to build the reactors also appeared to be dead.
Reports from New York said the US had convinced Asian and European members of the Korean Energy Development Organisation to suspend the building of the reactors.
The developments come as intense diplomatic efforts continue to convene peace talks on the nuclear crisis by the end of next month. They will be the third round of six-nation talks organised by China, which has played a central role in attempting to solve the crisis.
----
N. Korea to Seize Equipment From Reactors
November 6, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-Nuclear.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea will seize equipment and technical data from two nuclear power plants being built there, its government said Thursday, days after a U.S.-led group stopped the $4.6 billion project in retaliation for the communist country's atomic weapons programs.
The tit-for-tat came as North Korea and the United States vied for leverage ahead of six-nation talks being arranged by China to peacefully resolve the yearlong dispute over the North's nuclear weapons ambitions.
The North's Foreign Ministry on Thursday did not revoke its earlier agreement ``in principle'' to return to the talks, which have been stalled since the nations met in Beijing in August.
But it warned that suspending the reactor project gives the government ``a reason strong enough to take the most appropriate measure when necessary.'' It did not elaborate.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Beijing's point man on North Korea, traveled to Washington on Thursday to prepare for a new round of talks, where it hopes the United States and North Korea would sort out their differences. China, South Korea, Japan and Russia also participate, largely as mediators.
Earlier this week, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, a consortium based in New York, tentatively decided to suspend work for one year at Kumho, a remote northeastern coastal village where it has been building two light-water reactors to generating badly needed electricity for the impoverished state.
The project began after North Korea promised to freeze and eventually dismantle its suspected nuclear weapons facilities in a 1994 deal with the United States.
Washington has convinced three other members of KEDO's executive board -- South Korea, Japan and the European Union -- that they should halt the project because North Korea has flouted the 1994 accord. KEDO will make a final decision by Nov. 21.
The United States and KEDO must fully compensate North Korea ``under relevant articles of the light-water reactor agreement,'' an unnamed North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman told Pyongyang's official news agency, KCNA.
``The DPRK ... will never allow them to take out all the equipment, facilities, materials and technical documents now in Kumho area for the light-water reactor construction till this issue is settled.''
DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
South Korea accused Pyongyang of breaking agreements to protect personnel and equipment in Kumho.
``We are seriously concerned and strongly urge the North to withdraw its decision immediately,'' South Korea's Unification Ministry said in a statement.
Hundreds of workers, mostly from South Korea, have been working to build the reactors. The project is about one-third complete, but no core reactor parts have been delivered during the nuclear dispute.
The Bush administration says North Korea admitted in October 2002 it violated the 1994 deal by running an uranium-based weapons program. The State Department said it sees ``no future'' for the Kumho project.
In Seoul, visiting Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf denied allegations his country supplied North Korea with gas centrifuges and other crucial machinery for making weapons-grade uranium -- in return for North Korean missile technology.
``President Musharraf reaffirmed that there was no such cooperation in the past and there will also be no such cooperation in the future,'' South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's office said in a statement.
Pyongyang says the United States has reneged on the 1994 accord by breaking its promise to build one reactor by 2003 and by refusing to compensate for the ``tremendous'' economic losses caused by the delays.
Since last year, Washington and its allies have cut off 147 million gallons of annual free oil shipments to North Korea that were part of the 1994 deal.
Pyongyang later expelled U.N. nuclear monitors and said it was restarting the plutonium-based weapons program it froze under the deal. Last month, it said it was building more atomic bombs, adding to the one or two it is believed to already possess.
-------- russia
Russia to Take Back Uranium From Reactors
November 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russian-Nuclear.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Under a new agreement to avert theft, Russia will take back highly enriched uranium it shipped to at least 20 research reactors in the former Soviet states and Eastern Europe.
Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev and U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham planned to sign a bilateral statement on the uranium retrieval on Friday.
Rumyantsev acknowledged the agreement in an interview Thursday but declined to give details other than to say the uranium retrieval program will be limited to Eastern Europe and countries formerly part of the Soviet Union.
Other sources, who declined to be identified, said the agreement will cover 20 reactors in 17 states.
There has been growing concern among nuclear nonproliferation advocates about the large amount of weapons-suitable highly enriched uranium that is located at often modestly secured research reactors around the globe.
Most of this uranium fuel, which is weapons grade and could be used in a crude nuclear device if obtained by terrorists, originated in either Russia or the United States under an atoms-for-peace program.
The United States has been replacing much of the highly enriched uranium it sent overseas with low-enriched uranium fuel similar to what is used in commercial nuclear power plants, thereby reducing the nuclear proliferation threat.
Abraham said Thursday that about 50 percent of the U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium has been retrieved from overseas research reactors. In many of the other cases the task has been complicated because the reactors cannot easily use the low-enriched substitute.
The United States also has been urging Russia for years to step up its program of replacing the more dangerous uranium at research reactors around the world.
Harvard University researchers said in a report last year that there are 345 operating or idle research reactors in 58 countries that have highly enriched uranium that could be converted for use in a weapon by terrorists if they obtained the material.
Security varies widely at these facilities, the report said.
``In some cases security is provided by a single sleepy watchman and a chain-link fence,'' wrote Matthew Bunn, a researcher at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
The U.S.-Russia agreement was not expected to provide any significant details about the reactors that will be targeted, how much uranium will be returned to Russia or a specific timetable, according to U.S. officials.
The Harvard report cited several cases of large amounts of highly enriched uranium at poorly secured research reactors in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Among them were a reactor in Ukraine that has 75 kilograms of uranium and another in Belarus with 300 kilograms of highly enriched fuel.
In August, 2002, a joint operation between the United States and Russia resulted in 1,797 pounds of highly enriched uranium being whisked away from a poorly secured research reactor near Belgrade, Yugoslavia and returned to Russia. The uranium had been provided by Russia in 1976.
The United States also has been working with Uzbekistan, another former Soviet state, for the disposal of highly enriched uranium from one of its research reactors. That reactor has been of special worry because of Uzbekistan's proximity to Afghanistan and to Islamic groups tied to al-Qaida terrorists.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Bush Funded for Smaller Nuclear Weapons
November 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Congress-Spending.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush will get funds for research on ``bunker buster'' bombs and other lower-intensity nuclear weapons, but not as much as he wanted.
House-Senate bargainers agreed to the cuts Wednesday as part of a compromise $27.3 billion bill financing energy and water programs for the government's new budget year. Lawmakers hope to push the measure through Congress in the next several days.
The bill also contains $580 million for early work on a nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert -- nearly the full amount Bush requested.
Negotiators shook hands on the bill as lawmakers stepped up efforts to finish their business for the year and adjourn by Nov. 21. To do that, they still must complete nine of the 13 spending bills for the federal budget year that started on Oct. 1.
They took a step in that direction Wednesday when the House voted 417-5 to approve a $9.3 billion measure for military construction. The Senate is expected to approve that measure soon.
Bargainers on the energy-water bill provided $7.5 million for work on the bunker busters, bombs that would burrow through earth and rock to destroy underground targets. The administration wanted twice that amount.
The bill would provide all $6 million Bush proposed for research into ``mini-nukes'' of less than 5 kilotons. But $4 million of that amount would be provided only after the administration submits a report on the status of the country's nuclear weapons stockpile.
The lawmakers provided $11 million of the $23 million the Energy Department wanted for preliminary studies for manufacturing plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons. The department says the triggers are needed for the country's aging arsenal of warheads.
They also agreed to enough money to shorten the current three-year lead time needed to resume underground testing of nuclear weapons to two years, not the 18 months the administration requested.
The House version of the bill had made even deeper cuts in the nuclear weapons work, while the Senate had agreed to give all the administration had requested.
Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chief authors of the bill, called it a compromise. But opponents of nuclear testing complained that the final version went too far.
``I have the most profound objection to this reopening of the nuclear door,'' said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
The measure also provided $580 million for this year's work at Yucca Mountain, an underground site envisioned as the ultimate home for 77,000 tons of used reactor fuel and other highly radioactive waste now accumulating around the country. Its cost is expected to exceed $50 billion.
Bush had requested $591 million for this year. Though Bush and Congress decided last year to proceed with the project, Nevada lawmakers are still trying to kill it.
One of the last disputes that had delayed the military construction bill was resolved when bargainers agreed to split earmarks -- money directed to specific home-district projects -- 53 percent for the Senate and 47 percent for the House. Earlier versions of the bill set aside roughly $700 million for Senate projects and $400 million for House earmarks.
Controlling the House, Senate and White House for a full year for the first time since 1954, the GOP had hoped to efficiently churn out all 13 annual spending bills by Oct. 1. That is when the government's 2004 budget year began.
But five weeks into the new fiscal year, fights over overtime pay for workers, media ownership, school vouchers and other issues have tripped up Republicans hoping to demonstrate their efficiency in running the government.
They are also trying to find about $3.6 billion in additional funds for updated voting equipment, AIDS assistance abroad, veterans health care and education.
The eight unfinished bills cover the budgets of 11 Cabinet level departments and dozens of other agencies.
To keep them functioning, the House voted 418-5 to temporarily finance those agencies through Nov. 21. Quick Senate passage was also expected for the third such bill lawmakers have passed this year.
On the Net:
Information on the energy-water bill, H.R. 2754; the temporary spending bill, H.J. Res 76; and the military construction bill, H.R. 2559, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- utah
Utah: Regulations could allow waste here
Thursday, November 06, 2003
N.S. Nokkentved
UTAH DAILY HERALD
http://www.harktheherald.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=5753&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Radioactive waste the federal government would like to ship to Utah fits the state's definition of Class C waste -- banned under a state moratorium. But that may not keep it out of the state.
Because the waste would be classified as uranium mill tailings -- and not low-level waste -- it would be exempt from state regulation.
"It technically could sit in that category," said Dianne Nielson, executive director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
Uranium mill tailings are regulated by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Other low-level radioactive waste disposal in Utah is regulated by the Utah Division of Radiation Control.
At issue is 1.4 million cubic feet of radioactive waste with a high concentration of radium from the U.S. Department of Energy's cleanup at Fernald, Ohio. The department would like to send the waste to Envirocare of Utah Inc., but it's blocked by a kink in federal radioactive waste regulations.
The issue came to a head recently when U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham got a rider inserted in the federal Energy Bill that would allow the Energy Department to send the waste to Envirocare.
Bishop is a former Envirocare lobbyist. He has had some reservations about sending waste to Utah that could be considered Class C waste. He is continuing to look at the issue and wants to hear from state experts at the Department of Environmental Quality, Bishop's spokesman Scott Parker said.
The state this year enacted a moratorium on class B or C radioactive waste, which remains in effect through Feb. 15, 2005, "prohibiting any entity in the state from accepting class B or C low-level radioactive waste for commercial storage, decay in storage, treatment, incineration, or disposal."
Under state radiation control rules, waste containing radium up to a concentration of 100,000 picoCuries per gram is considered Class C waste. A Curie is a unit of radioactivity, and a picoCurie is one trillionth of a Curie.
Anything above that "is not generally acceptable for land disposal" and would require disposal in a geologic repository designed for high-level or plutonium-contaminated waste.
The waste from Ohio contains radium at a concentration of about 400,000 picoCuries per gram.
Before the waste can be shipped for disposal, however, it must be treated and packaged, which would reduce the concentration to about 90,000 picoCuries per gram -- under the Class C bar.
The waste would be mixed with concrete and poured into half-inch-thick steel tanks.
When Envirocare applied for its current license to dispose of uranium tailings, it figured radium concentration up to 4,000 picoCuries per gram would accommodate any uranium tailings, vice president Ken Alkema said.
In January 2003, Envirocare applied for a license amendment with the NRC to increase the radium limit to 100,000 picoCuries per gram to accommodate the Fernald waste.
Meanwhile, Utah officials have applied to take over regulation of uranium tailings from the NRC. The process is not expected to be completed until next year. NRC is not likely to complete its review of Envirocare's amendment before authority shifts to the state, Nielson said.
It is not certain how the state's moratorium would apply to the Fernald waste once the state has regulatory authority over uranium tailings, Nielson said.
"I think there'll be considerable discussion," she said.
Among the issues to be discussed is whether the Envirocare site can safely contain the long-lived wastes -- radium has a half-life of 1,600 years.
"That's exactly the question we're trying to figure out," Nielson said. "That's the question NRC has to answer."
The answers will play in NRC's decision on whether to let Utah take over regulation of uranium tailings.
Envirocare's answer is that the disposal cells would be designed to contain the material long after the steel containers have corroded away and concrete has crumbled, Alkema said.
The Energy Department for several years has considered sending the waste to Envirocare in an effort to accelerate cleanup of Fernald.
The original intent had been to send the waste to an existing disposal facility at the department's Nevada Test Site, said Jeff Wagner, spokesman for Fluor Fernald, the cleanup contractor.
However, sending it to Envirocare, or another commercial waste disposal site, would allow the department to send it by rail, speeding up the process, he said.
"We're committed to safely transporting the waste and completing the site cleanup by December 2006," Wagner said.
To do that, however, requires the waste be shipped to a disposal site with rail access. Sending it by rail would require fewer shipments, both cheaper and faster than the truck shipments required to send it to Nevada, he said.
In addition, Utah imposes no tax on uranium mill tailings disposal. State law specifically exempts it to protect the state's existing uranium operations, Nielson said.
-------- us nuc waste
Plan to send nuclear waste around Cape Horn hits roadblock in Washington
Thursday, November 06, 2003
By Seth Hettena,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-11-06/s_10158.asp
SAN ONOFRE, Calif. - A plan to ship 600 tons of nuclear waste from California around South America to an East Coast burial site has hit a stumbling block in Washington, where officials are concerned the voyage could set off a diplomatic furor.
The Department of Transportation, which must grant the final permit before the voyage can get under way, is raising safety concerns about what would be the longest journey for a piece of nuclear waste in U.S. history: more than 15,500 miles (about 25,000 kilometers). The U.S. State Department has been asked to review the case.
Southern California Edison, which operates a nuclear power plant 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of San Diego, wants to load the radioactive steel container of a decomissioned reactor onto a barge and sail it around the icy tip of South America on a 90-day, nonstop voyage through international waters.
If the shipment is approved, the vessel would pass Cape Horn, considered one of the world's most dangerous nautical passages. Severe weather or an emergency could force the barge into the territorial waters of South American countries that have made clear their opposition to unapproved nuclear shipments.
Documents filed by Edison describe the "political sensitivities" and possible "entanglements" involved with shipping nuclear waste around South America, especially with the government of Chile.
In Santiago, Chile, officials said Wednesday that the government had not been informed of any possible nuclear shipment from California around Cape Horn.
In 1995, the Chilean Navy chased away from its coast a freighter bound for Japan with 14 tons of high-level nuclear waste. Last year, Chile amended its nuclear safety law requiring safety and contingency measures for all radioactive shipments through its waters.
According to its 835-page regulatory filing, Edison said it consulted the U.S. State Department, which advised that it "should not apply for Chilean authorization for the passage because it was concerned that our doing so would set an unfavorable precedent for future shipments."
A State Department spokeswoman referred questions to the Transportation Department.
The utility said in its filing it will not make arrangements for safe harbor to "avoid setting a precedent." Edison says there are only three things that could require the barge to seek safe harbor: a collision, serious illness among the crew, or hurricane-force winds.
However, regulators with the Transportation Department are pressing Edison to contact coastal states.
"Although we recognize that advance notification of coastal states is not required, we consider it to be an important element in preparation for contingencies," Robert A. McGuire, the associate administrator for hazardous materials, wrote in an Oct. 17 letter. "It may be necessary to seek shelter in waters of a coastal state."
Edison said it has notified the embassies of countries along the route about its shipment plans. On Oct. 27 McGuire asked the State Department's Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs to review the utility's application. It's not clear when a ruling will be delivered.
McGuire's Oct. 17 letter also notes that Edison has not made arrangements for emergency equipment, such as cranes, backup tugs, or salvage vessels. McGuire also wrote that the utility offered a "minimal approach" to salvaging the reactor vessel if it tumbled into the ocean.
"Given that your transport is entirely over open ocean, your proposal to salvage only in water up to 300 feet (90 meters) appears insufficient," McGuire wrote.
Edison's reply is that it is insured for a $50 million salvage operation.
For now, the reactor vessel, entombed in a case of concrete and steel bigger than a railroad car, sits in a fenced yard at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station between San Diego and Los Angeles.
Until 1992, when it was closed prematurely due to what the utility calls cost concerns, the reactor generated enough electricity annually to power 450,000 homes for 24 years. The plant has two working reactors, generating power for more than 2.2 million homes each year.
Now, the company says, the container holds slightly less than 46,600 curies of radiation. (Nuclear experts say about 1,000 curies is a "sizable" radiation source.) The container emits the equivalent of half of a chest X-ray to someone hugging it for an hour. A study commissioned by the utility found the container could survive intact on the sea floor for 500 years.
Edison says the nonstop voyage around Cape Horn was the best option for moving the vessel to a dump for low-level radioactive waste in Barnwell, S.C. Edison failed to reach a plan for domestic transit when a railroad company insisted on a waiver of all liability for the vessel's journey by rail. A plan to ship it through the Panama Canal fell apart when authorities there refused to waive a weight limit for nuclear waste.
Last year, the Transportation Department approved Edison's request to ship the reactor by rail to Houston and then by barge. But they are giving greater scrutiny to the proposed voyage around Chile, sending the utility two series of detailed questions about the plan. Department officials said they could not rule out another series of questions.
Even moving the vessel from San Onofre onto a barge is a logistical challenge. Edison has had to win permission from several state and federal agencies to drive it down a stretch of coastline that is habitat for endangered birds. The utility says it's taking pains to avoid the breeding season of both the western snowy plover and the California least tern.
Reactor vessels have traveled long distances by rail and barge in the past. In 1989, the Paul Bunyan hauled the Shippingport reactor vessel 8,100 miles (13,000 kilometers) from Pennsylvania to a nuclear graveyard in Hanford, Wash., via the Panama Canal. (Under rules setting regional guidelines for nuclear waste, California waste can't be shipped to Washington state.)
The voyage of the San Onofre vessel would be nearly twice as long and would pass through more dangerous waters. Around Cape Horn, gale-force winds blow an average of 200 days a year.
Edison spokesman Ray Golden said the utility had consulted maritime experts and was confident it could successfully navigate the waters. A naval engineering firm hired by the utility found the barge could handle rough seas.
"It's not that unusual for barges to go around the cape," Golden said during a recent tour of the nuclear plant.
Environmentalists and antinuclear groups call the voyage foolhardy.
"It's best to secure it on site than risk having it end up being 'stored' forever on the bottom of the ocean or leaking radiation in a trench in South Carolina," said Tom Clements of Greenpeace International's nuclear campaign.
-------- us politics
Congress mostly backs Bush on nuke weapons, waste
Thursday, November 06, 2003
By Andrew Clark,
Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-11-06/s_10146.asp
WASHINGTON - House and Senate negotiators agreed Wednesday to give President Bush most of the money he had sought to study new types of nuclear weapons, as critics warned the move could spark a new nuclear arms race.
The funds were approved as part of a $27.3 billion bill funding energy and water programs next year, which also includes spending for a controversial nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert that opponents have vowed to block.
Both chambers are expected to clear the spending bill soon and send it to Bush to be signed into law.
The bill would give Bush half of the $15 million he had sought to develop an Earth-penetrating nuclear warhead for use against deeply buried bunkers and all of the $6 million he wanted to research small, low-yield nuclear weapons.
Critics argue small nuclear weapons are dangerous because policy-makers may see them as a usable adjunct to conventional arms, heightening risks of nuclear escalation. And they say U.S. moves to develop them may force others to follow suit.
"This is just a horrible message to send to the rest of the world," said North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan.
The House initially cut almost all of the funds for the programs. But most were restored at the Senate's insistence.
"We have compromised rather substantially," said New Mexico Republican Sen. Pete Domenici. Congress is scrambling to finish its overdue budget work before it adjourns for the year, and the House later Wednesday approved the latest in series of stopgap measures to keep the federal government open until Nov. 21.
The spending bill would also provide $580 million for the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal project in 2004 - around $11 million less than Bush had requested but far above a $425 million limit earlier endorsed by the Senate.
The plan aims to site the first permanent U.S. nuclear waste repository in the desert northwest of Las Vegas and is bitterly opposed by the state of Nevada, whose senators have generally succeeded in capping its funding in past years.
While Congress has given final approval for the repository, scheduled to open in 2010 and hold up to 77,000 tons of radioactive waste, the state has launched multiple lawsuits seeking to block it on safety grounds.
The spending bill would commit $11 million next year - around $12 million less than the White House had requested - to a proposed new factory to make the plutonium "pits" at the heart of U.S. nuclear weapons. The last U.S. facility manufacturing the nuclear triggers closed in 1989.
It also contains nearly $25 million to fund an effort to cut the time it would take to again begin testing U.S. nuclear weapons from three years to two years. The Bush administration has argued that period needs to be cut further, to 18 months.
The United States has observed a nuclear test moratorium since 1992, but officials have said it may need to resume testing at some point to ensure its arsenal is not degrading.
----
Abraham Wants Action Against Nuclear Arms
By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press
11/06/03
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3354359,00.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham called Wednesday for international action to make sure another country doesn't pursue nuclear weapons under the guise of using nuclear power for peaceful purposes, like North Korea did.
He accused Pyongyang of abusing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by using the technical help it offered to develop peaceful nuclear programs ``as a cover to build up a nuclear weapons capability'' - and then withdrawing from the treaty and declaring itself a nuclear weapon state.
``I think we should all agree that that kind of precedent can't be allowed to be repeated,'' Abraham said. ``It isn't just the countries that we are looking at today. It's a long-term kind of challenge, and we need to take action to make sure the treaty remains strong.''
Abraham and Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev addressed the U.N. General Assembly's disarmament committee and then held a joint press conference.
Both spoke of the urgent need to keep nuclear material and weapons out of the hands of terrorists. They said the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty must be strengthened, and called for a broader international effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and the highly enriched uranium and plutonium used to make them.
Rumyantsev said one global priority must be to determine what to do with the vast amount of spent nuclear fuel from research reactors and reactors in nuclear power plants. He proposed that a number of countries join forces and build several centers to handle it.
In his annual report on Monday, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei suggested that all weapons-usable uranium and plutonium production should come under international control to limit ``the increasing threat'' posed by countries and by terrorists.
Abraham applauded ElBaradei ``for trying to think in a 21st century approach, a new approach.''
Abraham said countries that can enrich and reprocess uranium and plutonium should be examined carefully to ensure their commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Abraham suggested this could be done through stronger IAEA safeguards.
The United States will be carefully watching to see whether Iran makes a full declaration of its nuclear program, he said.
``If Iran carries out the obligations it has undertaken - especially if it abandons its enrichment and reprocessing activities - it will show what can be achieved when the international community sends the same firm message on the need to comply with nonproliferation requirements,'' Abraham said.
----
Clark: Iraq war used to settle score
By KEVIN LANDRIGAN,
Telegraph Staff
Thursday, November 06, 2003
http://nashuatelegraph.com/main.asp?SectionID=25&SubSectionID=354&ArticleID=92896
CONCORD - The attack against Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism, but was the work of military leaders in the Bush administration with a long score to settle, retired Gen. Wesley Clark charged Wednesday.
The Democratic presidential candidate predicted that poor planning and the cost of the Iraq war aftermath would lead to a political realignment, since Americans no longer see Republicans as more trustworthy on national security issues.
"The legacy of Vietnam will be put to rest by the legacy of Iraq," Clark said during remarks at the New Hampshire Political Library.
Clark said a memo from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington was a foreshadowing of the effort to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
"It is a world-class bait and switch," Clark told reporters.
CBS News and The Philadelphia Daily News have reported Rumsfeld wrote a memo five hours after the terrorist attacks that ordered up intelligence on whether it could be used to "hit S.H.,'' referring to Saddam.
"Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not," the memo said, according to those reports.
Republican State Committee spokeswoman Julie Teer said this is another example of Clark's bid to peel away from the anti-war base in the Democratic Party
"It's another week and another whopper from Wesley Clark," Teer said.
"He has based his facts and charges on rumors and gossip on the Sunday talk shows. These comments illustrate Wesley Clark's desperation."
Clark released a short but impressive list of prominent Democrats backing his candidacy Wednesday. The newest name was Mark Fernald of Sharon, former state senator and 2002 nominee for governor.
"The party needs a good communicator. He's the best communicator we've got," Fernald said.
The list included two well-known state officials who were Republicans but have since become independent voters: former Administrative Services Commissioner Pat Duffy and retired Naval Cmdr. Bill Johnson, a former state senator.
Earlier Wednesday, Clark said he came to lean toward Democratic ideals near the end of his 35-year military career.
"To be really cold about it, the Republicans are mostly interested in weapons systems. The Democrats are more interested in people," Clark said during an interview on New Hampshire Public Radio's "The Exchange" with Laura Knoy.
"The more senior I became in the armed forces, the more clear it became to me that it's the people that matters the most, not the weapons systems."
Clark insisted his early release as Supreme NATO Commander of the Allied Forces by Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen was not a firing.
"I was suddenly called and told I would have to give up command early. I was told at the time I was not being fired. I was told at the time it was just an administrative matter," he said.
Clark said Pentagon brass did not like his urgent calls to prevent the ethnic cleansing of 1.5 million Albanians in the province of Kosovo under former President Slobodan Milosovic.
"Frankly, I was told to mind my own business, that they were too busy in the Pentagon dealing with Congress to hear any commander in the field report there might be problems coming. That's not adequate," Clark said.
----
INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Republican and Democratic Panel Leaders Take Feud to the Senate Floor
November 6, 2003
New York Times
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/politics/06PANE.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 - Five months after the Senate Intelligence Committee began its review of prewar intelligence on Iraq, a contentious dispute broke out on the Senate floor on Wednesday as the panel's top Republican and Democrat traded accusations of bad faith.
The simmering debate about how far the inquiry should go burst into light with the circulation by Republicans late Tuesday of a draft memorandum written by a member of the committee's Democratic staff.
The memo said that Democrats seeking to call attention to the supposed misuse of intelligence by senior Bush administration officials should prepare to disavow the main thrust of the inquiry, which under the committee's Republican majority has primarily remained focused on the conduct of intelligence agencies.
Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the panel's Republican chairman, accused Democrats of trying "to discredit the committee's work and undermine its conclusions, no matter what those conclusions may be." But Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the panel's Democratic vice-chairman, accused Senator Roberts of blocking his efforts to mount a complete review of how the public was given what now appears to have been an inaccurate picture of Iraq's alleged illicit weapons stockpiles and ties to terrorism.
"The majority has left the Senate minority with two choices." Senator Rockefeller said on the Senate floor. "Either abandon what we believe is a fundamental obligation of this body to the American people or reluctantly part ways and use our rights as a minority to get that job done on our own."
The dispute spilled over into the House as the Republican whip, Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, accused Democrats of seeking to lead the public "down a path of deception to score political points."
Investigators have been unable to turn up evidence of the Iraqi illicit weapons stockpiles and ties to terrorism that the administration cited as principal reasons for going to war. The exchanges in Congress underscored the considerable extent to which Democrats and Republicans now believe that the question of who is to blame for the failure to verify those original assertions will carry enormous political consequences.
The text of the Democratic memorandum was first reported on Tuesday by the radio host Sean Hannity. It called for plans to "identify the most exaggerated claims" by Bush administration officials about Iraq, and "to contrast them with the intelligence estimates that have since been declassified."
The memo also said that Democrats on the panel should be prepared to "pull the trigger" and call for an independent investigation beyond the jurisdiction of the committee in order to reveal "the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral pre-emptive war."
In a statement issued Tuesday night and then in his comments on the Senate floor on Wednesday, Senator Roberts called on Senator Rockefeller to repudiate what he denounced as a "strategy of attack." He denounced the memorandum as "a purely partisan document that appears to be a road map for how the Democrats intend to politicize what should be a bipartisan, objective review of prewar intelligence."
Senator Rockefeller sought in reply to minimize the significance of the memo, calling it a draft written by staff that had not been approved by or shared with any member of the committee. But he was plainly angered by the memo's disclosure, saying that it had raised "serious questions" about whether Republicans were "obtaining unauthorized access to private, internal materials."
Senator Roberts issued a strong defense of Republican strategy. "There should be no legitimate question as to our approach or our dedication to following the information no matter where it leads," he said.
--------
Deal Reached on $400.5B Defense Bill
November 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Defense-Spending.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement Thursday on a $400.5 billion defense bill that would raise soldiers' pay, give the Pentagon more control over its civilian employees and lift a ban on research on low-yield nuclear weapons.
The bill authorizing 2004 defense programs is likely to be approved by the House on Friday and by the Senate early next week. It will then go to President Bush for his signature.
``This is a great bill,'' said Chairman Duncan Hunter of California. ``It makes sweeping reforms that will accrue to the benefit of men and women in uniform.''
The House and Senate approved separate versions of the bill in the summer, but a dispute over expanding ``Buy America'' rules bogged down negotiations.
Hunter's proposal would have required that 65 percent of components in items purchased by the Pentagon be made in America, compared with 50 percent under current law. Certain items, such as machine tools and tires, would have to be made in America.
Details of the final language weren't available, but congressional staff said the 65 percent requirement would be dropped. They said the final language was expected to require the Pentagon to examine how domestic purchases could be increased and to bar purchases from countries that have refused to provide materials because of their objections to U.S. military operations.
``It got watered down by the Senate considerably, although there are a couple of provisions that did prevail,'' said Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
Skelton said he has some reservations about the bill, but ``it's good for the troops and good for the families.''
The bill would raise soldiers' pay by an average of 4.15 percent. It would also extend an increase in monthly combat pay to $225 a month from $150, and increase a monthly family separation allowance to $250 from $100.
Congress initially approved the combat pay and family separation increases in spring, but they expired Sept. 30. Democrats have repeatedly attacked the Bush administration for opposing an extension. The Pentagon has said it planned to ensure that compensation for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan remain stable by giving them other forms of raises.
The civilian personnel issue was one of the Pentagon's top priorities. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he needed more flexibility in hiring workers, firing incompetent ones and granting raises. He said that outdated personnel rules force the Pentagon to use service members for jobs better performed by civilians.
Unions and many Democrats opposed his plan, saying it strips workers' of basic rights. The Senate added additional worker protections and congressional staff said some of those provisions were likely to be included in the final version.
According to lawmakers and congressional staff, the bill also:
-- Includes a compromise plan to lease 20 Boeing 767 planes as midair refueling tankers and buy another 80. Some senators objected to the Air Force's original proposal to lease all 100 planes as too costly. The Bush administration agreed to the compromise Thursday.
--Lifts a decade-old ban on the research of low-yield nuclear weapons, though it would require the administration to go back to Congress before development work could begin. It also authorizes $15 million for continued research into the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, a powerful nuclear weapon capable of penetrating deep underground bunkers.
Democrats say this research could lead to a new generation of nuclear weapons and trigger a new arms race.
-- Grants the military exemptions to the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The Pentagon says those and other environmental rules impede training exercises. Environmentalists say exemptions could be detrimental.
--Allows foreign-born U.S. soldiers to seek citizenship after one year's service. Their immediate families could also become citizens. The change would follow an executive order by Bush to speed the process for foreign-born soldiers to become citizens.
--Approves a $22 billion plan to partially overturn rules preventing disabled veterans from receiving some of their retirement pay.
The negotiators rejected a House provision that would restrict the number of military bases the Pentagon could shut in the 2005 round of closings. The House bill would have required the military to retain enough facilities to support a military force larger than today's. The White House strongly opposed the provision.
Instead, the compromise bill instructs the Pentagon to consider future threats as it goes through the base-closing process.
The bill does not provide the money for military programs. Most of the funding will come from a $368 billion defense appropriations bill signed by Bush on Sept. 30.
-------- MILITARY
-------- asia
Sri Lankan President Declares State of Emergency
Prime Minister, Her Rival, Says Power Grab Will Not Thwart Attempt to Forge Peace With Rebels
By Shimali Senanayake
Associated Press
Thursday, November 6, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5936-2003Nov5.html
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Nov. 5 -- Sri Lanka's crisis deepened Wednesday as the president declared a state of emergency giving her wide-ranging powers, and her rival met with President Bush and said the power grab would not derail efforts to end 20 years of civil war.
Aides insisted President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga would not resume the battle with the Tamil Tiger rebels, a conflict at the root of her feud with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe. Kumaratunga has said she believes the prime minister has been too soft on the rebels.
After meeting Bush in Washington, Wickremasinghe played down the developments in Sri Lanka, a country of 19 million off the southern coast of India.
"This is part of Sri Lankan politics," he said. "For 25 years we have had these ups and downs."
He added that he had the support of a majority in Parliament and that he would get the peace process with the rebels of the minority Tamil ethnic group back on track.
"When I go back I will sort it out," he said.
Before the meeting, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, "The United States strongly supports the peace process and strong democratic institutions in Sri Lanka."
In Jaffna, the main city in the Tamil-dominated north, worried residents lined up outside stores and gas stations to stock up on food, fuel and other supplies. Both the government and rebels put some of their forces on alert.
The crisis was ignited Tuesday -- while the prime minister was in the United States -- when Kumaratunga fired three key ministers who have been instrumental in the government's peace efforts, suspended Parliament for two weeks and deployed troops in the capital.
On Wednesday she imposed a state of emergency to "take stock of the security situation," presidential aide Eric Fernando said. The emergency order was to take effect at midnight Thursday, Fernando said.
The emergency laws give broad power to the military -- controlled by Kumaratunga -- to make arrests, interrogate suspects and search houses at will. They also give the president lawmaking powers and allow for censorship of the news media.
The Tigers signed a cease-fire in 2002, halting the fighting. But they have since dropped out of talks and demanded broad administrative power in the Tamil-majority areas of Sri Lanka's northeast as a condition for returning to the peace process.
-------- britain
British Town Decries Plan to Scrap Ships
November 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Ghost-Fleet.html
HARTLEPOOL, England (AP) -- Plans to bring aging U.S. Navy vessels here to be dismantled are triggering strong opposition in this old shipping town, with many fearing the environmental risks outweigh any economic boost.
In its Victorian heyday, Hartlepool proudly built the ships of a global empire. That empire is long gone, as are the shipyard jobs. But residents say they don't want to be a ``dumping ground for the world'' -- and are skeptical the new shipyard jobs will go to locals anyway.
``There's no need for them to come here,'' said June Ryder, a 63-year-old retiree. ``We've got a lot of muck about here already. Surely America can deal with them on its own.''
The plans to scrap 13 ships from the ``Ghost Fleet'' of retired U.S. Navy vessels were thrown into limbo Wednesday, when Britain's High Court ruled they could not be dismantled in England until legal challenges by environmentalists are heard next month.
The government says that means four rusting ships already crossing the Atlantic -- two just days away from this port town on the mouth of the River Tees in northern England -- should return to the United States.
When, or if, that will happen remains in doubt.
On Thursday, Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett said while the government ``believes that in the circumstances it would be preferable for the ships to be returned to the United States while the regulatory issues are resolved,'' she accepted U.S. contentions that turning them back immediately would be impractical. She said the two lead ships would be stored temporarily instead of being returned.
Negotiations are under way to see whether two more ships that have set sail for Britain could be turned back, she said.
In Washington, the Environmental Protection Agency said it was working with the State Department and Defense Department to resolve the conflict.
Robyn Boerstling, spokeswoman for the U.S. Maritime Administration, which manages the fleet of retired vessels, said the ships have all the necessary permits from U.S. and British agencies.
``We are continuing to positively work with our partners and the UK with the hope of reaching a mutually acceptable resolution,'' she said.
The environment group Friends of the Earth says the first two ships, the World War II-era auxiliary oil tankers Canisteo and Caloosahatchee, each contain 34.1 tons of non-liquid PCBs -- polychlorinated biphenyls, which were used as electrical insulators but are suspected of causing cancer -- and 61 tons of asbestos.
The two others, the Compass Island and the Canopus, contain even more of the contaminants, the group says.
The vessels are among nearly 100 ships, many more than 50 years old, anchored in Fort Eustis, Va., as part of the U.S. Navy's Reserve Fleet. The fleet has been an environmental concern in Virginia for years, and nearly 70 ships are considered obsolete and ready to be scrapped.
Able U.K. Ltd., the British company hired to dismantle the ships, disputes the environmental risk. Spokesman Peter Dodson said for years the company has safely dismantled oil rigs ``which contain a great deal more hazardous material than these ships could ever contain.''
``The facility at Hartlepool is regarded as one of the best in the world,'' he said.
The company says dismantling the ships will bring 200 new jobs to an area that has seen decades of economic decline. The last of Hartlepool's shipyards closed in the 1960s. Most of the steelworks, the town's other major employer, shut down in the 1970s and 1980s.
The docks that once built trawlers, cargo boats and passenger steamships now house a museum and a restored ``Historic Quay'' aimed at tourists. Several big supermarkets nearby are among the town's biggest employers.
Many residents don't think the new shipyard jobs will go to people who live in the area.
``The jobs won't be for the lads from the town,'' said Ryder, the retiree. ``There's not many of them left anyway. Most of them have had to go away to get jobs.''
Environmental campaigners say that whatever the economic benefits, the ships' pollution risk is too great, especially in an area already scarred by heavy industry. They say Teesside, home to a nuclear power plant and chemical factories, has rates of asthma and childhood leukemia well above the national average.
For some, the ``ghost ships'' are the last straw.
``People just don't want them here,'' said Neil Gregan, one of three Hartlepool residents whose legal challenge sparked Wednesday's High Court ruling. ``They're just sick to death of it. We shouldn't be a dumping ground for the world.''
In his ruling, High Court judge Maurice Kay said he would hear the challenges beginning Dec. 8. Until then, no work should take place on the ships, ``except for measures to make and keep them safe.''
The Environment Agency, a government watchdog group, said last week that Able U.K.'s license to scrap the ships is invalid because the firm does not have permission to build a dry dock in Hartlepool.
Able U.K. says it is talking to British and American authorities to try to resolve the legal wrangling. Environmentalists are pressing the two countries to turn the ships around.
On the Net:
Able UK Ltd., http://www.ableuk.com/
Friends of the Earth, http://www.foe.co.uk/
Hartlepool Borough Council, http://www.hartlepool.gov.uk/
-------- business
Army Eyes Halliburton Import Role in Iraq
Thursday November 6, 2003
By LARRY MARGASAK
Associated Press Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3354302,00.html
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Army said Wednesday it is negotiating to replace Vice President Dick Cheney's former company as an importer of oil products into Iraq, but denied that the talks were related to Democratic allegations of price gouging by Halliburton.
Robert Faletti, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said the Army needs to find a long-term importer to serve the Iraqi population and is talking with the U.S. military's fuel delivery agency.
Faletti confirmed the negotiations after they were disclosed by Reps. Henry Waxman of California and John Dingell of Michigan, two Democratic critics of the company that Cheney led before he ran for the vice presidency. The corps spokesman said the imports will be needed through the winter because of pipeline sabotage in Iraq.
The lawmakers said the Pentagon's Defense Energy Support Center imports military fuel from Kuwait to Iraq for $1.08 to $1.19 per gallon, compared with the $2.65 per gallon that Halliburton charges the U.S. government under a no-bid Army contract.
Waxman and Dingell said Jeffrey Jones, the recently retired head of the fuel support center, agreed with them that Halliburton's price was too high.
Jones, in an interview, said he did not know how Halliburton calculated the price it charges U.S. taxpayers. He said the fuel purchases should cost about 90 cents a gallon in Kuwait and transportation could add 10-to-20 cents more.
``I can't construct a price that high,'' he said of Halliburton's price.
Halliburton has said its price is controlled by the need for more expensive, short-term contracts and the high cost of transportation in a war zone. The company has denied gouging U.S. taxpayers.
The corps has said Halliburton's no-bid contract would be replaced by two separate competitive contracts, but the selection of new contractors - originally scheduled for October - would be delayed until December or January. The corps said it needed time to revise the contract proposal to reflect higher costs, resulting from the pipeline damage.
Faletti said arrangements have not been completed with the defense support center.
He said the talks are ``an admission that we know for sure this (the need for imports) will last through the winter because production in Iraq will not meet the needs.''
Faletti contended that every aspect of the Halliburton contract is audited and no irregularities have been found in the oil import program.
Lynette Ebberts, spokeswoman for the Defense Energy Support Center, said the corps has approached the center and ``we are evaluating the scope of the tasks and exploring our ability to respond to their request.''
One Democratic critic, presidential hopeful Joseph Lieberman, said the Pentagon should seek reimbursement from Halliburton ``for the amounts it has overcharged'' the government.
----
Air Force's Tanker Lease Compromise Takes Shape
White House Expected to Back Proposal
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 6, 2003; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6219-2003Nov5.html
The White House is expected to offer its support today to a compromise on a $21 billion Air Force plan to lease Boeing Co. 767 tankers, possibly paving the way for final congressional approval, Capitol Hill sources said.
An agreement would end two years of political wrangling over the proposal that critics called a sweetheart deal for Boeing during a downturn in the aviation industry. Lobbying for the deal reached the Oval Office with White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) intervening on behalf of Boeing and the Air Force.
The Air Force originally sought to lease 100 of the planes, arguing that leasing was the only way it could begin to modernize its fleet of 40-year-old tankers, which has become increasingly expensive to maintain.
But amid concerns about the program's cost, the Senate Armed Services Committee proposed a scaled-back version that called for leasing 20 planes and purchasing 80. The compromise developed by Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the committee chairman, and Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), a ranking member, would reduce the $21 billion cost of the Air Force plan by $4 billion.
A spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget said he was unaware that any agreement had been reached.
The compromise language is expected to be added to the 2004 Defense Authorization bill, which is currently in a conference committee. The details of the compromise were still being worked out late yesterday, congressional sources said.
The Air Force had originally objected to the scaled-down plan, saying it would require large payments upfront and would force the agency to cut back on other programs.
"We are getting closer to finalizing the details on a lease-plus-purchase combination that we hope will meet with congressional approval and begin the modernization of the aging Air Force aerial refueling tanker fleet," the Air Force said in a statement.
Speaker Hastert will support the compromise as long as the Air Force and Pentagon can afford it, said his spokesman John Feehery. "The speaker wants anything that will improve national security. I don't think he cared if it was a lease or buy," said Feehery. "What he supports is getting more planes in the air quickly and any way we do it is fine with him."
A Boeing spokesman declined to comment.
-------- europe
Recyclers Angered By EU Waste Shipment Changes
BRUSSELS, Belgium, (ENS)
November 5, 2003
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2003/2003-11-05-01.asp
New European Union transfrontier waste shipment rules approved by the European Parliament's Environment Committee on Tuesday could damage Europe's secondary materials recycling industry, according to the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR), an industry lobby group.
Committee proposals relate to an ongoing revision of the EU's 1993 waste shipments regulation. Their impact would be a massive new administrative burden on nonhazardous waste handlers, BIR claims.
The group insists that the committee's vision contradicts the entire rationale of the revision, which it says should streamline notification and permitting procedures.
The committee was voting on proposals tabled by the European Commission in July which aim to bring EU rules into line with new waste export rules agreed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2001, which the EU is legally bound to implement.
Construction waste ready for pickup (Photo by Ian Britton courtesy FreeFoto) But the Commission's proposals go beyond these by doing away with the existing principle of "tacit consents" for waste shipments. Under this principle, waste classified as semi-hazardous material intended for recovery can be moved if no objection is received from authorities in the EU member state where the shipment is to be treated.
This procedure currently applies to the middle rung of the current three-tier classification of waste shipments: semi-hazardous materials intended for recovery.
Under the Commission plan the semi-hazardous waste classification would be removed from the current three tier system, leaving only two categories.
The first would be non-hazardous waste for recovery, which now requires only the provision of certain information before shipment.
The second includes all other waste types, which would require prior notification of shipment and the explicit written consent of authorities before the waste can be moved.
In one major change to the Commission's proposals, the Environment Committee said firms sending non-hazardous waste for recovery in another EU member state - such as paper or steel for recycling - must notify authorities in writing in advance.
This would create a completely new requirement for some 90 percent of all waste movements in the EU, said BIR Director Ross Bartley, with authorities likely to be "snowed under" with paperwork.
It would also "open the possibility" for them to charge for shipments where currently they do not, Bartley warned.
Bartley also slammed the committee's demand that details of all shipment notifications be posted on the Internet. This would damage competitiveness by allowing big waste handlers to undercut smaller firms more easily, leading to market consolidation and eventually forcing up prices, he cautioned, saying, "Just because it's labeled waste doesn't mean everyone needs to see the details."
Other committee proposals were motivated by "protectionism," he said.
Authorities would have much greater scope to block shipments destined for recovery abroad, by invoking the proximity principle or simply by referring to their own national environmental laws.
Chris Cutchey of UK based Catalyst Recycling Ltd. told the International Environment Council meeting in Vienna last week that under the latest waste shipment proposals, "There is no room in the EU for the metal [waste] trader."
Scrap cars await recycling in the UK. (Photo courtesy FreeFoto) Cutchey, too, complained that the proposals required the provision of confidential commercial information with non-hazardous secondary material paperwork, including "advising your supplier who your customer is."
Elsewhere, Members of the European Parliament say interim waste shipments should be banned. These are shipments of waste not scheduled or immediate disposal or recovery but to be mixed with other wastes and repackaged for shipment elsewhere.
A proposal to put even tighter conditions on waste shipments that would set minimum recovery rates and calorific content before waste movements would be permitted, was defeated by a slim majority in committee.
This proposal was prompted by a landmark European Court of Justice ruling in February on when waste incineration is recovery and when it must be considered disposal.
The court said waste incineration could be considered recovery if the waste is used "principally as a fuel or other means to generate energy."
In addition, more energy must produced than consumed, and this surplus energy must be put to an effective use as heat or electricity to be considered recovery. Also, the court ruled that the majority of the waste must be consumed during the incineration operation and the majority of energy produced must be recuperated and used.
The recommendation for minimum recovery rates and calorific content could be reinstated when the Parliament's plenary body votes on the law. Sources say the Council of Ministers has yet to debate the draft revision.
{Published in cooperation with ENDS Environment Daily, Europe's choice for environmental news. Environmental Data Services Ltd, London. Email: envdaily@ends.co.uk}
-------- iraq
Iraq Made Last-Ditch Effort to Avoid War
By PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press Writer
Nov 6,
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_IRAQI_APPEAL?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Just days before U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq, officials claiming to speak for a frantic Iraqi regime made a last-ditch effort to avert the war, but U.S. officials rebuffed the overture, the intermediary and U.S. officials said Thursday.
An influential adviser to the Defense Department received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman indicating that Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal, they said. The businessman, Imad Hage, told the Associated Press Thursday that he believes an opportunity was missed.
But senior U.S. defense and intelligence officials said Thursday the war could not have been averted by the offer; numerous such prewar leads were pursued, they said, and the Bush administration viewed them largely as stalling tactics.
"The regime of Saddam Hussein had ample - well beyond ample - opportunity to avoid war," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Pentagon press conference.
The White House and State Department played down the offer.
"The United States exhausted every legitimate and credible opportunity to resolve this peacefully," presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said. "Saddam Hussein could have averted military action. He had a number of opportunities to do so."
He noted that the United States had given Saddam 48 hours to leave Iraq and avert war but that he had refused.
McClellan refused to say whether the purported Iraqi effort to avert the war was brought to President Bush's attention.
A State Department spokesman, Adam Ereli, said, "We never received any legitimate or credible opportunity to resolve the world's differences with Iraq in a peaceful manner."
"What we did see were vague overtures through third parties that appeared to be focused on attempts to forestall military action, as opposed to fulfilling U.N. Security Council resolution requirements," Ereli said.
The chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service and other Iraqi officials had told Hage that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction and offered to let American troops and experts do an independent search, said officials who discussed the matter only on condition of anonymity.
The Iraqi officials also offered to hand over a man accused of being involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who was being held in Baghdad, an offer that became public in February.
Iraq said long before the war - and captured officials still maintain - that the country had no unconventional weapons. Though none has been found in seven months of searching, finding the weapons and overthrowing Saddam were the main reasons the Bush administration gave for going to war.
Hage, speaking to The Associated Press in Beirut, Lebanon on Thursday, said he had six meetings - five in Beirut and one in Baghdad - with senior Iraqi intelligence officials in the three months before the U.S.-led invasion March 20.
He said he believed the Iraqis he spoke to were desperate to avoid war.
"Definitely these people feared for their life and they realized that the threat was real," Hage said. "They were motivated for some deal, that some deal could be achieved ...."
Defense Department officials confirmed the prewar overture, first reported late Wednesday by ABC News and The New York Times. But they dismissed the idea that the offer could have averted war, since numerous other efforts by the United Nations and others had failed.
"Iraq and Saddam had ample opportunity through highly credible sources over a period of several years to take action to avoid war and had the means to use highly credible channels to do that," said Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita.
"Nobody needed to use questionable channels to convey messages," he said in a statement.
During the run-up to the war there was a wide variety of people sending signals that some Iraqis might want to negotiate, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Thursday, adding that they came via foreign intelligence services, other governments, third parties, "charlatans and independent actors."
All leads that were "plausible and even some that weren't" were followed up, he said on condition of anonymity. But no one offering a deal was in a position to make an acceptable one, the official said, asserting that most were made just to stall the invasion.
In the case of Hage, messages from Baghdad beginning in February were portrayed by Iraqi officials as having Saddam's endorsement, though that could not be verified.
In early March, Richard Perle, an adviser to top Pentagon officials, met Hage in London, officials said. According to both men, Hage laid out the Iraqis' position and pressed the Iraqi request for a direct meeting with Perle or other U.S. representatives.
A defense official said the CIA authorized Perle's meeting with the Iraqis, but eventually told him they didn't want to pursue the channel. But a senior U.S. intelligence official said CIA officials are unaware of any conversations with Perle on this subject and are unaware of any such authorization.
Hage previously lived in suburban Washington, where he started an insurance company. He moved to Lebanon in the 1990s and has been trying for 10 years to break into politics there but so far with little success.
EDITORS: Associated Press writer Sam F. Ghattas contributed to this story from Beirut; AP Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid contributed from Washington.
----
Baghdad Scrambled to Offer Deal to U.S. as War Loomed
By JAMES RISEN
November 5, 2003
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/05/international/worldspecial/05CND-INTEL.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 - As American soldiers massed on the Iraqi border in March and diplomats argued about war, an influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman: Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal.
Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct an independent search. The businessman said in an interview that the Iraqis also offered to hand over a man accused of being involved in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 who was being held in Baghdad. At one point, he said, the Iraqis pledged to hold elections.
The messages from Baghdad, first relayed in February to an analyst in the office of Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy and planning, were part of an attempt by Iraqi intelligence officers to open last-ditch negotiations with the Bush administration through a clandestine communications channel, according to people involved.
The efforts were portrayed by Iraqi officials as having the approval of President Saddam Hussein, according to interviews and documents.
The overtures, after a decade of evasions and deceptions by Iraq and a number of other attempts to broker last-minute meetings with American officials, were ultimately rebuffed. But the messages raised enough interest that in early March, Richard N. Perle, an influential adviser to top Pentagon officials, met in London with the Lebanese-American businessman, Imad Hage.
According to both men, Mr. Hage laid out the Iraqis' position to Mr. Perle, and he pressed the Iraqi request for a direct meeting with Mr. Perle or another representative of the United States.
"I was dubious that this would work," said Mr. Perle, widely recognized as an intellectual architect of the Bush administration's hawkish policy toward Iraq, "but I agreed to talk to people in Washington."
Mr. Perle said he sought authorization from C.I.A. officials to meet with the Iraqis, but the officials told him they did not want to pursue this channel, and they indicated they had already engaged in separate contacts with Baghdad. Mr. Perle said the response was simple: "The message was, `Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad.' "
A senior United States intelligence official said this was one of several contacts with Iraqis or with people who said they were trying to broker meetings on their behalf. "These signals came via a broad range of foreign intelligence services, other governments, third parties, charlatans and independent actors," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Every lead that was at all plausible, and some that weren't, were followed up."
There were a variety of efforts, both public and discreet, to avert a war in Iraq, but Mr. Hage's back channel appears to have been a final attempt by Mr. Hussein's government to communicate directly with United States officials.
In interviews in Beirut, Mr. Hage said the Iraqis appeared intimidated by the American military threat. "The Iraqis were finally taking it seriously," he said, "and they wanted to talk, and they offered things they never would have offered if the build-up hadn't occurred."
Mr. Perle said he found it "puzzling" that the Iraqis would have used such a complicated series of contacts to communicate "a quite astonishing proposal" to the Bush administration.
But former American intelligence officers with extensive experience in the Middle East say many Arab leaders have traditionally placed a high value on secret communications, though such informal arrangements are sometimes considered suspect in Washington.
The activity in this back channel, which was detailed in interviews and in documents obtained by The New York Times, appears to show an increasingly frantic Iraqi regime trying to find room to maneuver as the enemy closes in. It also provides a rare glimpse into a subterranean world of international networking.
The Intermediary in Beirut
The key link in the network was Imad Hage, who has spent much of his life straddling two worlds. Mr. Hage, a Maronite Christian who was born in Beirut in 1956, fled Lebanon in 1976 after the civil war began there. He ended up in the United States, where he went to college and became a citizen.
Living in suburban Washington, Mr. Hage started an insurance company, American Underwriters Group, and became involved in Lebanese-American political circles. In the late 1990's, he moved his family and his company to Lebanon.
Serendipity brought him important contacts in the Arab world and in America. An influential Lebanese Muslim he met while handling an insurance claim introduced him to Mohammed Nassif, a senior Syrian intelligence official and a close aide to President Bashar al-Assad.
On trips back to Washington last year, Mr. Hage befriended a fellow Lebanese-American, Michael Maloof, who was working in the Pentagon as an analyst in an intelligence unit set up by Mr. Feith to look for ties between terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and countries like Iraq. Mr. Maloof has ties to many leading conservatives in Washington, having worked for Mr. Perle at the Pentagon during the Reagan administration.
In January 2003, as American pressure was building for a face-off with Iraq, Mr. Hage's two worlds intersected.
On a trip to Damascus, he said, Mr. Nassif told him about Syria's frustrations in communicating with American officials. On a trip to the United States later that month, Mr. Hage said, Mr. Maloof arranged for him to deliver that message personally to Mr. Perle and to Jaymie Durnan, then a top aide to the deputy defense secretary, Paul D. Wolfowitz. Pentagon officials confirmed that the meetings occurred.
Mr. Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board at the Pentagon, is known in foreign capitals as an influential adviser to top administration officials.
After Mr. Hage told his contacts in Beirut and Damascus about meeting Mr. Perle, Mr. Hage's influential Lebanese Muslim friend asked Mr. Hage to meet a senior Iraqi official eager to talk to the Americans. Mr. Hage cautiously agreed.
In February, as the United States was gearing up its campaign for a Security Council resolution authorizing force against Iraq, Hassan al-Obeidi, chief of foreign operations of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, arrived in Mr. Hage's Beirut office.
But within minutes, Mr. Hage said, Mr. Obeidi collapsed, and a doctor was called to treat him. "He came to my office, sat down, and in five minutes fell ill," recalled Mr. Hage. "He looked like a man under enormous stress."
After being treated, Mr. Obeidi explained that the Iraqis wanted to cooperate with the Americans and could not understand why the Americans were focused on Iraq rather than on countries, like Iran, that have long supported terrorists, Mr. Hage said. The Iraqi seemed desperate, Mr. Hage said, "like someone who feared for his own safety, although he tried to hide it."
Mr. Obeidi told Mr. Hage that Iraq would make deals to avoid war, including helping in the Mideast peace process. "He said, if this is about oil, we will talk about U.S. oil concessions," Mr. Hage recalled. "If it is about the peace process, then we can talk. If this is about weapons of mass destruction, let the Americans send over their people. There are no weapons of mass destruction."
Mr. Obeidi said the "Americans could send 2,000 F.B.I. agents to look wherever they wanted," Mr. Hage recalled.
He said that when he told Mr. Obeidi that the United States seemed adamant that Saddam Hussein give up power, Mr. Obeidi bristled, saying that would be capitulation. But later, Mr. Hage recounted, Mr. Obeidi said Iraq could agree to hold elections within the next two years.
Mr. Hage said Mr. Obeidi made it clear that he wanted to get his message to Washington, so Mr. Hage contacted Mr. Maloof in Washington. "Everything I was hearing, I was telling Mike," he said.
A few days later, Mr. Hage said, he met Mr. Obeidi at a hotel in downtown Beirut, and Mr. Obeidi repeated the offers of concessions, which he said came from the highest levels of the Iraqi government. Mr. Obeidi seemed even more depressed. "The U.S. buildup was clearly getting to them," Mr. Hage said.
A Meeting in Baghdad
A week later, Mr. Hage said, he agreed to hold further meetings in Baghdad. When he arrived, he was driven to a large, well-guarded compound, where he was met by a gray-haired man in a military uniform. It was Tahir Jalil Habbush, the director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, who is No. 16 on the United States list of most wanted Iraqi leaders. Mr. Hage said Mr. Habbush asked him if it was true that he knew Mr. Perle. "Have you met him?"
Mr. Hage said Mr. Habbush began to vent his frustration over what the Americans really wanted. He said that to demonstrate the Iraqis' willingness to help fight terrorism, Mr. Habbush offered to hand over Abdul Rahman Yasin, who has been indicted in United States in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Mr. Yasin fled to Iraq after the bombing, and the United States put up a $25 million reward for his capture.
Mr. Hage said Mr. Habbush offered to turn him over to Mr. Hage, but Mr. Hage said he would pass on the message that Mr. Yasin was available.
Mr. Hage said Mr. Habbush also insisted that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and added, "Let your friends send in people and we will open everything to them."
Mr. Hage said he asked Mr. Habbush, "Why don't you tell this to the Bush administration?" He said Mr. Habbush replied cryptically, "We have talks with people."
Mr. Hage said he later learned that one contact was in Rome between the C.I.A. and representatives of the Iraqi intelligence service. American officials confirm that the meeting took place, but say that the Iraqi representative was not a current intelligence official and that the meeting was not productive.
In addition, there was an attempt to set up a meeting in Morocco between Mr. Habbush and United States officials, but it never took place, according to American officials.
On Feb. 19, Mr. Hage faxed a three-page report on his trip to Baghdad to Mr. Maloof in Washington. The Iraqis, he wrote, "understand the days of manipulating the United States are over." He said top Iraqi officials, including Mr. Habbush and Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister, wanted to meet with American officials.
The report also listed five areas of concessions the Iraqis said they would make to avoid a war, including cooperation in fighting terrorism and "full support for any U.S. plan" in the Arab-Israeli peace process. In addition, the report said that "the U.S. will be given first priority as it relates to Iraq oil, mining rights," and that Iraq would cooperate with United States strategic interests in the region. Finally, under the heading "Disarmament," the report said, "Direct U.S. involvement on the ground in disarming Iraq."
Mr. Hage's messages touched off a brief flurry of communications within the Pentagon, according to interviews and copies of e-mail messages obtained by The Times.
The Rebuff in Washington
In an e-mail on Feb. 21 to Mr. Durnan, the Wolfowitz aide, Mr. Maloof wrote that Mr. Perle "is willing to meet with Hage and the Iraqis if it has clearance from the building," meaning the Pentagon.
In an e-mail response, Mr. Durnan said: "Mike, working this. Keep this close hold." In a separate e-mail to two Pentagon officials, Mr. Durnan asked for background information about Mr. Hage. "There is some interesting stuff happening overseas and I need to know who and what he is," he wrote in one e-mail.
Mr. Hage had impressive contacts, but there was one blemish on his record: In January he had been briefly detained by the F.B.I. at Dulles Airport in Washington when a handgun was found in his checked luggage. He said he did not believe it was a security violation because it was not in his carry-on luggage, and the authorities allowed him to leave after a few hours.
Senior Pentagon officials said Mr. Durnan relayed messages he received from Mr. Maloof to the appropriate officials at the Pentagon, but they said that Mr. Durnan never discussed the Hage channel to the Iraqis with Mr. Wolfowitz. (In May, Mr. Maloof, who has lost his security clearances, was placed on paid administrative leave by the Pentagon, for reasons unrelated to the contacts with Mr. Hage.)
Mr. Hage continued to hear from the Iraqis and passed on their urgency about meeting Mr. Perle or another representative of the United States. In one memo sent to other Pentagon officials in early March, Mr. Maloof wrote: "Hage quoted Dr. Obeidi as saying this is the last window or channel through which this message has gone to the United States. Hage characterized the tone of Dr. Obeidi as begging."
Working through Mr. Maloof, Mr. Hage finally arranged to meet with Mr. Perle in London in early March. The two met in an office in Knightsbridge for about two hours to discuss the Iraqi proposals, the men said. Mr. Hage told Mr. Perle that the Iraqis wanted to meet with him or someone from the administration.
Mr. Perle said he subsequently contacted a C.I.A. official to ask if he should meet with the Iraqis. "The answer came back that they weren't interested in pursuing it," Mr. Perle said in an interview, "and I was given the impression that there had already been contacts."
Mr. Perle now plays down the importance of his contact with Mr. Hage. He said he found it difficult to believe that Saddam Hussein would make serious proposals through that kind of channel. "There were so many other ways to communicate," he said. "There were any number of governments involved in the end game, the Russians, French, Saudis."
Nonetheless, Mr. Hage continued to deliver messages from the Iraqis to Mr. Maloof.
In one note to Mr. Perle in mid-March, Mr. Maloof relayed a message from Mr. Hage that Mr. Obeidi and Mr. Habbush "were prepared to meet with you in Beirut, and as soon as possible, concerning `unconditional terms.' " The message from Mr. Hage said, "Such a meeting has Saddam Hussein's clearance."
No meetings took place, and the invasion began on March 20. Mr. Hage, speaking in Beirut, wonders what might have happened if the Americans had pursued the back channel to Baghdad.
"At least they could have talked to them," he said.
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U.S. Detains Relatives of Suspects in Iraq
Attacks Military Denies Claims That It Takes Hostages
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 6, 2003; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6116-2003Nov5?language=printer
KHALDIYA, Iraq, Nov. 5 -- Her eyes still heavy with sleep, 60-year-old Aufa Towqan awoke at 3 a.m. on a cool Saturday. Her husband was away, working as a night watchman. Her daughter-in-law and mother-in-law were still in bed. The house cloaked in darkness, she bowed her head in prayer, as was her custom on a restless night. And moments after she whispered the first ritual words of faith, she said, U.S. soldiers charged through her battered front door.
"They were pointing their guns and yelling at us in English," she said, "and I didn't understand them."
The soldiers were seeking her fugitive son, Thamer, 31, whom she said she has not seen in four months. They detained her, another son and the other women instead -- one of them, by villagers' accounts, well over 100 years old. She said brown burlap bags were placed over their heads. Terrified and crying, they were driven in Humvees to the nearby U.S. base at Habbaniya.
Standing outside her home Wednesday, her hair covered by a black veil and her weathered face adorned with the green tattoos of rural Iraq, Towqan groped for the right words to denounce the five-day detentions, which ignited protests last month in Khaldiya. She found them in the religion that infuses this Sunni Muslim region west of Baghdad.
"God does not accept this," she said simply.
As the U.S. military searches for tactics to break an escalating guerrilla war in a region where grievances tend to accumulate but rarely fade, few occurrences have unleashed more anger and etched deeper the cultural divide than several recent arrests of wanted men's relatives -- particularly women -- in Khaldiya and nearby hamlets in the Euphrates River valley. Some villagers insist the relatives have been taken as hostages to force fugitives to turn themselves in, a charge the military has denied.
While acknowledging the arrests of Towqan and the others on Oct. 18, U.S. military officials said they believed the women had information on Thamer, who was accused of planting deadly improvised mines. Maj. John A. Nagl, a battalion operations officer for the 1st Infantry Division, said that in certain cases it becomes necessary to detain anyone "who has knowledge of the acts of particularly nefarious people."
Whatever the motive, some in the region around Khaldiya insist, revenge is requisite. "Of course, you must have vengeance, 100 percent," said Nasrallah Mukhlif, a sheik in the nearby town of Husseiba.
Head of the Albu Fahd, a tribe that he says has 100,000 men, Mukhlif insists there are two red lines in the tribal code that have been infused with new vigor since the fall of Saddam Hussein's government: killing an innocent person or mistreating someone's family. "You cannot let either of these pass without a response," said Mukhlif, who speaks with the slow cadence of authority. "You have to take revenge."
'Creating Enemies'
Last month, Mukhlif was called on to mediate one of the American arrests.
After a roadside explosive was set off, U.S. soldiers had come to search the house of his neighbor, Fathallah Mohammed Zaydan, 28, a truck driver who at the time was returning from Amman, the capital of Jordan. Zaydan said soldiers found empty artillery casings -- used, he said, to make cooking pots and a fireplace -- and a doorbell of the type that some guerrillas have used as a trigger for mines.
"When I got back, they had already raided the house and taken my wife," Zaydan said.
His mother was still there, and his three sons and two daughters were crying.
"I started beating my head," Zaydan said. "I felt dizzy. I was swaying back and forth. 'What do I do?' I said. 'Where do I go?' "
Sitting at the sheik's house this week, he was still angry, still shamed by the arrest: "It would have been better if they killed me than take my wife," he said.
On the advice of the soldiers' interpreter, who the sheik said understood the implications of the arrest, the soldiers brought Zaydan's wife to the sheik's house in a Humvee, entrusting him with her safety. The sheik was asked to find the husband and bring him with the wife to the U.S. base in Ramadi, west of his village. He did so the next day, and a day later, both were set free.
"I told them they were creating enemies for themselves," the sheik said. "If they don't exist already, you'll make them exist now. They can try to get closer and closer to the people, but these actions wipe everything out."
Nagl acknowledged that it was "a valid concern" that such arrests may create more enemies than they take off the streets. But with a limited number of interpreters and interrogators, the military is often forced to take people to bases for questioning. With women, he said, troops ensure that they are watched by female guards and that the facilities are appropriate.
"We understand that Arab culture is different than ours, and we make as many allowances as we can for those cultural sensitivities," he said. He added that detainees are held "for the minimum possible time necessary to extract information."
The arrests underline the competing demands of U.S. counterinsurgency efforts: military effectiveness balanced with hearts and minds, tactical necessities balanced with cultural mores.
Sentiments are rawer in the region around Khaldiya than in perhaps any other part of Iraq. Though the town is populated by Sunni Muslims, it was not a stronghold of Hussein's Baath Party like other Sunni towns, even if he personally enjoyed support here. It remains fiercely conservative and tribal and, to many of its residents, the U.S.-led occupation and presence of American soldiers -- often described as Christians or infidels -- inflame sentiments. Stories build on themselves, and even rumors -- of soldiers breaking down doors, stealing gold and money -- stand as undisputed truths.
Running deep in conversations among local people is the fear that U.S. forces are determined to reshape Iraqis' identity.
"There are three things that are important to Arabs," declared Abed Ali, 61, a farmer swathed in a red-and-white head scarf, waving three fingers on a hand as furrowed as the nearby fields. "Honor, generosity and bravery."
"In Saddam's time, when he repressed us, he put a gun to our head and fired a bullet. Now, [U.S. soldiers] put us on the ground and step on our head," Ali said. "Would you accept that? It's more dignified to put a bullet in my head."
Three Days in Handcuffs
Down the road at the house of Khalid Anad, as many as two dozen U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter arrived last week to question Anad, his family said. Already questioned once, he had gone into hiding. Not finding him, family members said, the soldiers detained his father, who was drinking tea at night with the rest of his family and neighbors in the family's yard.
In questioning over three days, soldiers asked 60-year-old Ibrahim Anad who in the neighborhood had enough money to finance attacks, the whereabouts of well-known Baath Party officials and who was planting mines along the roads.
"I told them, 'I swear to God, I don't know,' " Anad said.
The elder Anad said he was made to sleep on a dirt floor, with no blanket. When he shouted that he needed to go to the bathroom, rocks were thrown at his door to keep him quiet. The first day, his arms were handcuffed behind his back, he said. The latter two days, they were cuffed in front.
"God help the people who are staying one week or one month," he said.
Despite the military's denials, Anad said he remained convinced that he was arrested as a hostage. "They didn't find Khalid, so they took me instead," he said.
Marching to the U.S. Base
During the five days that Aufa Towqan and the two other women were detained, they were questioned each day, usually for about half an hour, by a female officer and interpreter. They said they were not mistreated.
But as word of their arrests spread, tempers flared in Khaldiya, where angry residents had overrun the mayor's office in August. Guerrillas there have carried out regular attacks on U.S. patrols, and the police chief was assassinated in September.
A protest involving about 100 people erupted on the fourth day after the women's arrest. The next day, led by a convoy of dozens of motorcycles flying Iraqi flags, hundreds marched to the U.S. base in Habbaniya. Banners read, "Our religion rejects the arrest of women."
As helicopters flew overhead, the crowd chanted: "There is no god but God. America is the enemy of God." Iraqi police, responsible for security along the route, themselves shouted slogans demanding the women's release, witnesses said. A delegation of religious leaders and tribal sheiks later visited the base, and the women were released by late afternoon.
Nagl said the protests had nothing to do with the decision. "Upon completion of the investigation, the women were released," he said.
On Wednesday morning, Towqan sat outside her house. Her three grandchildren played in the yard. No admirer of Hussein, she was even less approving of U.S. forces. Her perspective was shaped by religion, framed in absolutes that leave little room for gray.
"Wild animals are better than the Americans," she said. "They're trying to destroy Islam. They don't like Muslims. They want us to be infidels like them. But we have God, and God is stronger than them. He will rid us of these people."
Staff writer Vernon Loeb contributed to this report.
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Iraqi Rejects Turkish Troops In Setback for U.S.
Planners Contingent Would Have Been Third-Largest Foreign Force
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 6, 2003; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6118-2003Nov5.html
BAGHDAD, Nov. 5 -- The head of Iraq's Governing Council gave a final rejection Wednesday to a proposed deployment of Turkish troops, derailing another effort by the United States to beef up foreign security forces in Iraq.
Jalal Talabani, the council's president this month under a rotating leadership system, told reporters, "The question of sending Turkish troops is closed." He spoke a day after Turkey's ambassador to Washington, Osman Faruk Logoglu, left the door open to the dispatch of 10,000 soldiers, but only at the invitation of the Iraqis.
The Bush administration has been looking for countries to supply forces to reduce pressure on U.S. troops engaged in a low-intensity conflict with resistance fighters, mostly in central Iraq. On Wednesday, guerrillas fired grenades at a U.S. Army position in the northern city of Mosul. Two Iraqi teenagers were killed and one U.S. soldier was wounded.
The Governing Council, composed of U.S.-appointed Iraqi leaders, has repeatedly opposed the idea of Turkey deploying troops.
Talabani heads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and Kurds are especially opposed to the entry of Turks, their historical enemy. "I will go to Turkey later this month to ease the atmosphere," Talabani said.
The contingent offered by Turkey would have been the third-largest foreign force in Iraq, after those of the United States and Britain. Other countries have expressed reluctance. Reports from South Korea have said the government wants to send only noncombatants. No Arab country has volunteered to send troops. Neither has France or Germany, both of which opposed the U.S.-led invasion.
That has left a hodgepodge of countries, including Poland, Spain, Ukraine and Italy, to provide small numbers of troops. In the United States, several Democratic Party politicians have proposed reinforcing the U.S. presence with as many as 100,000 more soldiers. President Bush, who declared major combat over on May 1, has made no move to augment the U.S. contingent of about 130,000 troops with reinforcements from home.
The Governing Council has proposed supplying paramilitary fighters from members' militias as the core of an anti-guerrilla force. L. Paul Bremer, the American civilian administrator of Iraq, had long opposed such an option for fear of building a warlord culture. He now would accept such a unit, U.S. and Iraqi officials say, on the condition that several standards are met. He is insisting that recruits to the force be carefully screened, trained only in police tactics, enter the force as individuals and not as representatives of the party militias, and number only a few thousand.
Talabani's group has a 35,000-member militia known as the pesh merga, which means, in Kurdish, "those who seek death." He said they could be made available. "We have tens of thousands of police and also the pesh merga, the Kurdish militia that is loyal and cooperates with coalition forces," he said.
The other main Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, also has a large militia. The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite Muslim organization that is also represented on the Governing Council, commands about 10,000 militiamen who maintain an unarmed presence in the southern cities of Najaf and Karbala.
Talabani said Iraqi civilians would be more likely to support a force of Iraqis than of foreigners, including Americans. "We can cooperate with our people," he said.
The United States is training a revamped Iraqi army as well as a police force. But the army, when reactivated, is supposed to defend Iraq against outsiders, and the lightly armed police are meant to fight crime. The anti-guerrilla unit would fall under the Interior Ministry. Such domestic security forces are common in the Arab world, as well as parts of the former Soviet Union, including Russia.
A senior Iraqi cabinet member said the proposed unit must amount to something more robust than a police force. "We must be able to kick in doors," he said. "We must be tougher than the Americans. The Americans are too soft. Only Iraqis can deal with the resisters from the old regime."
He said the Governing Council was willing to meet Bremer's conditions for training and command. In addition, the recruits, although from party-based militias, would be integrated into a pan-Iraqi force, as Bremer wants. "There would be no Kurdish units, no Shiite units," the cabinet member said.
Talabani had harsh words for Syria, which organized a conference of neighboring countries last week. Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zubari, refused to attend because the invitation was issued late and because of its "insulting" form, Talabani said. He criticized Syrian officials for saying the Governing Council was purely an American creation and asserted that it represented all factions of Iraqi society. "It is better representative than the governments in all the Arab countries," he said.
Talabani is the first Kurdish official to lead an Iraqi government, in this case one with limited powers. The Kurds, who make up about 15 percent to 20 percent of Iraq's 24 million people, once aspired to independence, but their leaders now say they want to remain in Iraq under a federal system that grants them wide autonomy.
Their destiny is the Kurds' main point of dispute with the Turks. Turkey has battled a separatist revolt of its large Kurdish minority for many years and fears that Iraqi Kurd aspirations will incite Kurdish demands for autonomy in Turkey. Logoglu, the Turkish ambassador to Washington, warned, "In case it is said 'north of Iraq belongs to the Kurds' . . . this will be a disaster."
-------- mideast
Bush Challenges Iran, Syria to Adopt Democracy
Thu November 6, 2003
By Steve Holland
(Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3770960
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Thursday challenged Iran and Syria and even key U.S. ally Egypt to adopt democracy and broke with past U.S. policy by vowing Washington will not support Arab states that reject liberty.
"The regime in Tehran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people or lose its last claim to legitimacy," Bush said in a sweeping foreign policy speech. He said Syrian leaders as well as those ousted in Iraq had promised a restoration of ancient glories but instead left "a legacy of torture, oppression, misery and ruin."
Of Egypt, whose president, Hosni Mubarak, has been a vital Middle East interlocutor for successive U.S. presidents, Bush said: "The great and proud nation of Egypt has shown the way toward peace in the Middle East and now should show the way toward democracy in the Middle East."
The speech was Bush's latest attempt to justify the war in Iraq as necessary to foster democracy in the region at a time when he is under fire for mounting U.S. troop casualties and as anti-Americanism spreads among many Muslims who feel Islam is under attack.
Bush declared a failure of past U.S. policy spanning 60 years in support of governments not devoted to political freedom.
"Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe, because in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty," Bush said.
He called for democracy throughout the Middle East, praising the tentative steps that are taking places in such nations as Morocco, Bahrain, Kuwait and even Saudi Arabia, whose royal family is firmly in command.
"Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even have a choice in the matter? I, for one, do not believe it," Bush said.
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Rumsfeld Watch
Star Wars Makes Defense Secretary Space Out
November 6th, 2003
Village Voice
by James Ridgeway
Additional Reporting: Ashley Glacel
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0346/mondo5.php
WASHINGTON, D.C.-At the heart of Donald Rumsfeld's master plan for remaking the U.S. military lies the Defense Secretary's doctrine of the unilateral first strike. That means: Hit your enemy, be they rogue states or terrorist organizations, before they hit you. To do the job, the U.S. military is planning for possible deployment of mini-nuke weapons. And to protect ourselves from almost certain retaliation (if not a sneak first attack), we need the protective screen of the star wars umbrella.
In military planning, space war has emerged from science fiction to real time. And Rumsfeld, once dubbed the "Energizer bunny" by Jesse Helms, is Bush's point man to make sure the job gets done right.
Soon after taking office in May 2001, Bush outlined his new space war policy in a speech at the National Defense University. "We need a new framework that allows us to build missile defenses to counter the different threats of today's world," the president declared. "No treaty that prevents us from addressing today's threats, that prohibits us from pursuing promising technology to defend ourselves, our friends, and our allies is in our interests," he added, referring to what his administration interpreted as the ABM Treaty's limitations on research.
Last month, on October 10, Rumsfeld gave an update of where things stand: "Today, under President Bush's leadership, we have revitalized the missile defense research, development and testing, and we're on track to begin deploying the first rudimentary missile defenses, we hope, in the latter portion of next year."
A unilateral, first-strike military policy involving mini-nukes throws to the winds all the elaborate containment theories, agreements, and treaties that have been the stuff of international diplomacy since the end of the second world war. Instead, it opens the world to an era of pure anarchy.
In this setting, as the Bush administration sees it, a star wars umbrella becomes not an elegant research project but a paramount tool for ensuring national security. Space is at the very heart of American military strategy.
"More than any other country, the United States relies on space for its security and well-being," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference in May,2001. "It's only logical to conclude that we must be attentive to these vulnerabilities and pay careful attention to protecting and promoting our interest in space."
The U.S. wants to use its satellite and computer network to bring down earth-based missiles as well as enemy satellites. In a speech last winter, Rumsfeld said that a major transformation process is under way within the Defense Department, focused on a set of goals, including maintaining "unhindered access to space" and protecting U.S. space capabilities from enemy attack.
"We need to prepare for new forms of terrorism, to be sure," Rumsfeld said on January 31, 2002, in his talk at the National Defense University, "but also attacks on U.S. space assets, cyber attacks on our information networks, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. At the same time, we must work to build up our own areas of advantages, such as our ability to project military power over long distances, precision-strike weapons, and our space intelligence and under-sea warfare capabilities." The Department of Defense has been "reorganized and revitalized" to move forward on missile-defense research and testing "free of the constraints" of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Rumsfeld said, and "to better focus on space capabilities." Rumsfeld said "defending the U.S. requires prevention, self-defense, and sometimes preemption."
Within hours of the Chinese sending their first man into space, U.S. officials were claiming he was a spy and began setting the stage for space as a combat zone. "In my view it will not be long before space becomes a battleground," Lieutenant General Edward Anderson, deputy commander of the U.S. Northern Command, said at a geospatial intelligence conference in New Orleans. "Our military forces . . . depend very, very heavily on space capabilities, and so that is a statement of the obvious to our potential threat, whoever that may be." He added, "They can see that one of the ways that they can certainly diminish our capabilities will be to attack the space systems. Now how they do that and who that's going to be I can't tell you in this audience."
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U.S. Agencies Surf for Translators
A Dearth of Linguists Sends CIA, FBI to Web
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 6, 2003; Page A31
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6029-2003Nov5.html
The CIA and the FBI are launching a program to help solve the shortage of linguists in Arabic and other languages, which officials say has become a crisis in the fight against terrorism. They're going online and creating a "virtual" network of bilingual university students, professors and other language experts.
When the National Virtual Translation Center starts operations Dec. 1, it will initiate an unusual and perhaps risky plan: hiring individual language speakers around the nation who haven't worked in government to translate documents and audiotapes sent to their homes or offices by e-mail.
In the past, the CIA, the National Security Agency (NSA) and other agencies had to obtain security clearances for their translators and then bring them to the location of the untranslated materials -- to Afghanistan, say, to translate al Qaeda documents, or to secure vaultlike U.S. government facilities where classified data could be reviewed.
"Historically we brought linguists to the material, but now we'll get the material to the linguists," the new center's director, Everette Jordan, said in a recent interview. "It means we can move a lot faster."
To Kevin Hendzel, a spokesman for the American Translators Association (ATA), which is working closely with the Pentagon, the CIA and FBI on the linguist shortage, the new program is "truly revolutionary" and "perhaps the most important innovation to address this great national security priority."
Government officials say the backlog of untranslated documents -- and of unexamined tape recordings of conversations surreptitiously recorded by the NSA -- has become so colossal that they need to try something new.
"We're feeling trapped in the way we've always done things," said Jordan, a 27-year translator and administrator for the U.S. Army and the NSA. "The situation is dire."
Officials naturally are moving on other fronts, too -- the FBI and CIA have hired up to 500 translators since Sept. 11, 2001, and intelligence agencies are upgrading computers that translate texts automatically or can sort through vast amounts of data to find the most telling passages.
Jordan is officially announcing the new effort at an ATA conference today in Arizona.
The FBI will oversee day-to-day operations of the center, which is housed in a downtown Washington office building near FBI headquarters. But along with Congress, CIA Director George J. Tenet has been the driving force in creating it.
At least 300 non-government employees are expected soon to be working as center contractors, with most coming from universities, companies and private laboratories. Jordan is scouring the country for experts in fields including economics, politics, immunology and metallurgy who also know languages such as Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, Bahasa Indonesian and Korean.
Most of them will get a cursory background check and will not receive full security clearances. Those working at this level will not be given secret materials to translate, but they will do more humdrum work, such as translating transcripts of a Chinese biotechnology conference or texts on Iran's oil industry.
The translators won't be informed of the context of the government's interest in the documents.
The idea is to fill in the U.S. government's knowledge of societal trends in those countries, in the same way that the CIA spent years scrutinizing the Soviet bloc's politics and economics during the Cold War.
Most of the government's best linguists grew up speaking the languages being translated and understand the subtle nuances in dialect and culture, officials said. Jordan added that in Arab culture, people often speak in allegorical or mystical terms that can flummox even expert outsiders.
Jordan has a reputation as a star at the NSA, say people who know him. He learned French and Spanish effortlessly in high school. Posted to Germany while in the Army, he mastered first German and then Russian. He started his work in the NSA in 1982, and for years he wore headphones listening to Soviet military officers discussing their work and their lives -- though he refuses to discuss it.
In 1990, he learned Arabic and shifted to work in that part of the world. But ever since he appeared at his superiors' instruction in a CNN documentary about the NSA in March 2001, he has been unable to travel abroad for security reasons.
His center will struggle to overcome many academics' innate unease about working with the intelligence community, officials said. Since the Vietnam War and scandals about the CIA in the 1970s, some college professors and administrators have come to view intelligence professionals as "baby killers," Jordan said.
Likewise, suspicion pervades intelligence circles about working with academics, said Jordan, who added that it won't be easy persuading intelligence officials to entrust their untranslated documents to college professors lacking full security clearances.
"To them, it's having strangers do your work," Jordan said, "a bit like sending your kid off to kindergarten in another town."
--------
Center to Speed U.S. Translations
November 6, 2003
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/politics/06TRAN.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 - Counterterrorism officials said on Wednesday that they planned to open a clearinghouse for government and private linguists by January to allow faster translation of possible terrorist communications.
The director of the clearinghouse, a National Security Agency linguist named Everette Jordan, is expected to announce plans for what will be known as the National Virtual Translation Center today.
An official at the F.B.I., which will help lead the multi-agency clearinghouse, said, "This has been a critical need of ours for some time."
Lawmakers have identified the intelligence community's inability to translate many intercepted terrorist communications quickly as a pressing problem.
-------- us
Soldier Accused as Coward Says He Is Guilty Only of Panic Attack
November 6, 2003
New York Times
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/national/06SOLD.html
FORT CARSON, Colo., Nov. 5 - Not since the Vietnam War has the Army punished a soldier for being too scared to do his duty.
But on Friday, Sgt. Georg Andreas Pogany will appear in front of military court here to face charges he was a coward.
The Army says he is guilty of "cowardly conduct as a result of fear" and not performing his duties as an interrogator for a squad of Green Berets in Samarra, Iraq.
But Sergeant Pogany says he did not run from the enemy or disobey orders. The only thing he is guilty of, he says, is asking for help for a panic attack.
On his second night in Iraq, one month ago, Sergeant Pogany, 32, saw an Iraqi cut in half by a machine gun. The sight disturbed him so much, he said, he threw up and shook for hours. His head pounded and his chest hurt.
"I couldn't function," Sergeant Pogany said in an interview on Tuesday in his lawyer's office in Colorado Springs, not far from Fort Carson. "I had this overwhelming sense of my own mortality. I kept looking at that body thinking that could be me two seconds from now."
When he informed his superior that he was having a panic attack and needed to see someone, Sergeant Pogany said he was given two sleeping pills and told to go away. A few days later, Sergeant Pogany was put on a plane and sent home.
Now he faces a possible court-martial. If convicted, the punishment could range from a dock in pay to death.
Cowardice cases are very rare. According to the Department of Defense, in 1968 Pvt. Michael Gross was found guilty of running away from his company in Vietnam and sentenced to two years in prison. His case is the last cowardice conviction on the books.
Military officials have declined to discuss the details of Sergeant Pogany's case. But Maj. Robert Gowan, spokesman for Special Forces Command in Fort Bragg, N.C., disagreed that a soldier would be stigmatized simply for asking for help, even among battle-hardened Green Berets.
"Special Forces soldiers are mature professionals, and they know that if someone is under stress and asking for help it is important to give it to them," Major Gowan said.
Military officials also emphasized that being scared is not enough to be charged with cowardice. To level such a charge, Army prosecutors must have evidence that a soldier is frightened and misbehaves because of that fear.
On the official charge sheet dated Oct. 14, prosecutors say that Sergeant Pogany refused to perform his duties, which at the time were going out on missions with Green Berets and interrogating any Iraqi suspects they captured.
The Manual for Courts-Martial defines cowardice as "misbehavior motivated by fear."
But the manual goes on to say that fear is "a natural feeling of apprehension when going into battle."
The Military Judges' Benchbook defines cowardly conduct as "the refusal or abandonment of a performance of duty" before or in the presence of the enemy "as a result of fear."
Eugene R. Fidell, president of the nonprofit National Institute of Military Justice, said the way the law is written makes these cases difficult to prosecute. "Fear is an essential element of a cowardice charge,and judges know that fear is an extremely human reaction," he said. "We have come a long way from when we shot people for this."
Bartlett J. Carroll Jr., a retired Army colonel who prosecuted cowardice cases in Vietnam, said, "It was usually only the most severe cases we went after, like when guys repeatedly refused to get on the helicopters, even after a cool-down period."
Mr. Carroll said the occupation in Iraq, with its steady death toll, could foment a new generation of cowardice charges.
"The first Iraq war was 100 hours, and there wasn't enough time to be scared," Mr. Carroll said. "But now the guys in Iraq have enough time to dwell on their mortality."
That is exactly what Sergeant Pogany has been doing as he awaits his hearing.
The Marlboro Lights still tremble in his fingers. The body still bleeds in his dreams.
Sergeant Pogany remembers that it was midnight on Sept. 29 when he was standing in the doorway of an American military compound in Samarra, north of Baghdad. A group of American soldiers dragged the corpse of an Iraqi man right past him, he said.
The soldiers said the Iraqi had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy. The convoy fired back. The results were gruesome.
"From his waistline to his head, everything was missing," Sergeant Pogany said.
Sergeant Pogany said he has seen the bodies of people killed in car accidents and that he is not squeamish.
"But nothing could have prepared me for that," he said.
He also said some of the other soldiers were laughing.
Sergeant Pogany is not a Green Beret. But he had just deployed to Iraq with a team of Green Berets from the 10th Special Forces Group from Fort Carson.
Sergeant Pogany said he never told his superiors that he wouldn't go on missions. Rather, he said that he was not fit to work and needed help.
"I wanted to speak to someone who could tell me what was going on," he said.
A few days later, after he was confined to his room and put on a suicide watch, he was taken to a bigger base where he met with a psychologist who evaluated him and wrote, "the soldier reported signs and symptoms consistent with those of a normal combat stress reaction."
Sergeant Pogany said the psychologist recommended he rest a few days and then get back to work.
Instead, Sergeant Pogany said he was told by a senior officer that he was a coward and he was going home and his fate was sealed. On Friday, he will appear at a preliminary hearing to determine if there is enough evidence for a court martial.
Once a rising military intelligence agent, Sergeant Pogany, a college graduate and five-year serviceman, is now left at Fort Carson loading pallets and sweeping parking lots. His gun has been taken. So too, he said, has a chunk of his pride.
"Coward is a pretty big stigma to carry around," he said.
----
Marines Will Return to Iraq In Rotation
Associated Press
Thursday, November 6, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6747-2003Nov5.html
The Marine Corps, which played a central role in toppling Saddam Hussein this spring, will return to Iraq as part of a U.S. troop rotation approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday, officials said.
Since the Marines' departure from Iraq in September, the military effort to stabilize and rebuild the nation has fallen almost entirely to the Army, plus multinational units led by Britain and Poland.
The 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit recently began anti-smuggling operations in the Persian Gulf coastal area in southern Iraq. But no Marines have been doing stability operations, such as working with Iraqi civilians on rebuilding projects or hunting for fugitives loyal to Hussein, since the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force left south-central Iraq in September.
Also included in the next U.S. rotation will be thousands of newly mobilized National Guard and reserve troops as well as active-duty Army units such as the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Tex., and the 1st Infantry Division in Germany, said officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.
No National Guard combat brigades will be called on, beyond the three already mobilized from North Carolina, Arkansas and Washington state to prepare for deployment to Iraq next year. The extra Guard and reserve troops to be mobilized will be combat support forces such as military police.
--------
Army: Helicopter Had Defensive System
November 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Chinook-Shootdown.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army helicopter shot down over Iraq last weekend apparently had a last-second warning of an approaching missile and managed to launch flares designed to draw the heat-seeking missile away, a senior Army official said Thursday.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, announced that one of the soldiers injured in the attack died Thursday at a medical facility in Germany, raising the death toll to 16. Twenty-six others were injured.
It is not clear why the defensive moves did not work, but the official, who discussed the attack investigation on condition he not be identified, said U.S. officials believe the shooter simply got in a ``lucky shot.''
The helicopter was flying at between 200 and 300 feet, he said -- meaning that the fast-moving missile, when fired at the correct angle of approach, allowed little time for its target to escape.
Two missiles were fired. One slammed into the right side of the helicopter's rear engine, causing it to fail catastrophically and triggering a fire.
All three crew members perished.
The exact type of missile used has not been determined, the Army official said, although it is known to have been of the shoulder-fired variety, also known as a man-portable air defense missile. Speculation has centered on the SA-7, a Russian-designed missile widely available in Iraq.
The official said a number of survivors, Iraqi eyewitnesses on the ground and passengers aboard a second Army helicopter flying nearby reported having seen flares after the missile was launched. The official stressed, however, that he considered this information to be unconfirmed.
The investigation is likely to continue for many weeks, the official said.
The attack was the single deadliest of the war for American forces. It triggered questions from some members of Congress about whether the Army was adequately equipping its helicopters against threats like shoulder-fired missiles of the sort apparently used to bring down the CH-47D Chinook.
U.S. military officials said on Tuesday that the Chinook in question was equipped with an ALQ-156 missile alert system, as is standard for the entire Chinook fleet. But it had not previously been disclosed whether the alert system functioned and whether flares were dispensed.
The destroyed Chinook was operated by pilots of the Illinois and the Iowa National Guard, attached to the active-duty 12th Aviation Brigade. It was a 1991 model and was ferrying soldiers to Baghdad; some were due for short R&R breaks in Baghdad, others were headed out of the region for two-week breaks.
The Army official said the Chinook had not only an ALQ-156 missile warning system but also an APR39V radar warning system. The ALQ-156 system is linked electronically with the flare and chaff canisters, and can be set either to automatically or manually dispense them once a missile is detected. The official said he could not disclose whether it was in automatic mode at the time but described the system as ``operational.''
``The aircraft had what is required to defeat the threat over there,'' the official said.
Some Chinooks in Iraq are equipped with a different missile alert system, called the ALE-47, the official said. He insisted that while different in function, the ALE-47 is not necessarily more effective against all missile threats.
-------- propaganda wars
Checks on IDs annoy press
November 06, 2003
By Joshua Mitnick
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031105-103958-7168r.htm
TEL AVIV - Journalists in Israel yesterday described new rules for accreditation as an "insult" and charged that planned checks by the Shin Bet security service would impinge on the country's tradition of free press. Israel says the Shin Bet checks, announced Tuesday, are needed so that terrorists cannot exploit the freedoms afforded to journalists.
But journalists said the new regulations governing the issuing of press identification cards could be used to bully and crack down on reporters critical of the government.
Security personnel request press cards when reporters cross into the West Bank and Gaza Strip or want access to the scenes of terrorist bombings, as well as at events with the prime minister and other top-ranking officials.
The new rules have aggravated an already strained relationship between Israel's Foreign Press Association (FPA) and the Government Press Office (GPO).
The new regulations "appear to be another step in a two-year campaign to harass and intimidate the foreign press," the FPA said in a statement. Foreign Press Association Deputy Chairwoman Tami Allen-Frost called the rules "insulting and demeaning."
"Here, you're guilty before proven innocent. We don't think security forces should tell us if we're valid journalists or not," Miss Allen-Frost said. "They think anyone holding a press card needs to be investigated."
The government argues that the tightened regulations are aimed primarily at reducing the number of Israelis who have obtained the credentials even though they are not full-time journalists, said GPO Director Danny Seaman.
He said press cards have been issued to about 11,000 Israelis, many of whom posed as reporters in order to get VIP access. A decade ago, only 2,000 journalists received credentials from the GPO.
Mr. Seamen said most reporters will be able to obtain press cards within minutes, although the new regulations allow the GPO 90 days to check applicants with dubious credentials. The Shin Bet will have a chance to review the journalists only after they are issued their press cards.
The Israel Press Association, representing Israeli journalists, is calling on members to boycott the new accreditation process.
"In the last few years, it feels that there are more and more steps making journalists' work more difficult and problematic," said press association director Yaron Enosh. "It's a way for the authorities to control what the journalists write and report."
Reporters are much less concerned about a long-standing requirement to submit stories on military matters for censorship to ensure that they do not include sensitive material that could endanger soldiers or operations.
That requirement applies mainly to Israeli reporters, who tend to have better military sources and whose material is more likely to be seen or read.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts
When Can Drivers Be Halted? Justices Take Up Issue Anew
November 6, 2003
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/national/06SCOT.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 - Police roadblocks, and the circumstances under which the police can impede the free movement of drivers whom they have no reason to suspect of a crime, are familiar territory for the Supreme Court. The court has upheld roadblocks to catch drunken drivers and, near the country's borders, illegal immigrants. It has struck down those aimed at finding illegal drugs.
The justices wrestled in an argument on Wednesday with still another variant: "informational checkpoints" designed to find not wrongdoers but witnesses to a crime, in this case a fatal hit-and-run accident in a Chicago suburb. A week after the accident, at the same location and late hour, the police in Lombard, Ill., blocked the road and handed each driver a flier that described the incident and asked for any information about it. One approaching driver nearly hit one of the officers with his car, leading to a sobriety test and a drunken driving conviction.
The question for the justices was whether the roadblock was a valid investigatory tool or, under the Fourth Amendment, an unreasonable and therefore unconstitutional seizure. The Illinois Supreme Court, dividing 4-to-3, found the roadblock unconstitutional and overturned the conviction of the driver, Robert S. Lidster. The state appealed.
Whether the justices turn out to be as closely divided as their Illinois counterparts or not, it was clear on Wednesday that they found the case intriguing and challenging. On the one hand, "why isn't this the most reasonable thing in the world?" Justice Stephen G. Breyer asked Donald J. Ramsell, Mr. Lidster's lawyer. "This is not much of a demand, to stop for 10 seconds to find someone who killed someone," the justice continued. "Why is that unreasonable?"
On the other hand, "there should be some limiting principle," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy told Gary Feinerman, the Illinois solicitor general. Justice Kennedy's comment reflected several justices' concern that these checkpoints, once endorsed by the Supreme Court, could become routine.
Justice Antonin Scalia envisioned the police stopping every car to ask, "Sir, or Madam, have you seen any crime committed in the last six months?" He asked Mr. Feinerman if that be would be "good or bad."
"In most instances, bad," Mr. Feinerman replied. But he added that it might be acceptable in a city overcome by "rampant lawlessness," with hundreds of unsolved crimes and people afraid to approach the police openly, for officers to stop drivers and distribute fliers with numbers that witnesses could call privately.
But crimes occur every day in major metropolitan areas, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg objected. Police chiefs would inevitably have a range of views on when and whether to use the technique, she said, depicting a roadblock-strewn landscape lacking in standards or consistency.
Mr. Feinerman urged the court not to rule out the roadblocks completely. Each instance should be evaluated by balancing the intrusion against the law enforcement justification, he said.
The Justice Department entered the case on the state's side. Patricia A. Millett, an assistant solicitor general, said that an informational checkpoint differed significantly from the narcotics-search checkpoint that the court found unconstitutional in a decision three years ago, City of Indianapolis v. Edmond.
Ms. Millett said that while the roadblock in the earlier case involved "seizing people first and looking for a crime," the informational checkpoint was a sensible aide to solving a crime that was known to have taken place.
But Mr. Ramsell, the lawyer for Mr. Lidster, argued that there was little difference between the two cases. Like the earlier decision, he said, his client's case involved the "mass suspicionless seizure of ordinary citizens for the purpose of investigating criminal wrongdoing."
In this case, Illinois v. Lidster, No. 02-1060, the police set up the roadblock exactly a week after the accident on the theory that people might be in the same place at the same time. In fact, while the roadblock did not find a witness, local television coverage of it prompted a viewer to call the police and identify a suspect.
This sequence of events led some justices to wonder whether the police could skip the roadblock and simply make a televised appeal for witnesses to come forward. But "maybe television will only cover roadblocks," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist commented.
Justice David H. Souter then observed that "if they had someone like Justice Scalia to go on the screen," there would be ample coverage. Justice Scalia is notoriously camera-shy. There was much knowing laughter in the courtroom.
--------
High Court Hears Arguments On 'Informational' Roadblocks
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 6, 2003; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6369-2003Nov5.html
A legal struggle of potential importance to every American who drives a car occupied center stage at the Supreme Court yesterday as the justices heard oral argument in a case that could determine how much police in search of criminals can limit the motoring public's freedom of movement.
At issue are "informational checkpoints" where police officers stop traffic, inform vehicle occupants of a recent crime and ask if they have any information about it. Opponents, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, call them de facto roundups of innocent people that violate the constitutional prohibition against "unreasonable" seizures.
Supporters, including 23 state governments, a big-city police chiefs' organization and the Bush administration, say such checkpoints are a modest inconvenience. They say the checkpoints are selectively employed and beneficial to public safety.
Yesterday's argument produced few clues to how any of the justices are leaning, with most of them asking equally difficult questions of both sides.
A hint of the broader stakes also emerged from examples cited in support of informational checkpoints by Patricia A. Millett, assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, who noted that they had been used in the hunt for abducted Utah teenager Elizabeth Smart.
The case arose from the 1997 drunken-driving conviction of Robert S. Lidster, who was stopped by police at an informational checkpoint in Lombard, Ill. The police were passing out fliers and asking for help in finding the perpetrator of a fatal hit-and-run at the same site a week earlier; Lidster nearly hit an officer with his car and smelled of alcohol.
But he appealed his case all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court, which struck down the checkpoints by a vote of 4 to 3. The Illinois court said it did not want to "make roadblocks 'a routine part of American life.' "
The U.S. Supreme Court has approved checkpoints for such special purposes as checking for drunk drivers or hunting contraband near U.S. borders. But in 2000, the court ruled 6 to 3 that police in Indianapolis could not stop cars and check them for drugs using sniffer dogs.
In an opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the court held that "the ordinary enterprise of investigating crimes" was not sufficient justification for randomly stopping motorists.
The Illinois Supreme Court based its ruling on that decision, but Illinois Solicitor General Gary Feinerman argued yesterday that Lombard's checkpoint was different from the one in Indianapolis.
"This is not a general crime-control roadblock," Feinerman said. It was not aimed at finding wrongdoers among the motorists, he added, but rather treated them "as an ally of the police."
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg countered that this position gives local police too much latitude.
"One worrisome thing about this setup is that all you need is a crime," she noted.
Lidster's attorney, Donald J. Ramsell, told the court that the Lombard checkpoint amounted to a "mass suspicionless seizure of citizens."
Justice Stephen G. Breyer immediately interjected. Noting that he had been delayed for two or three minutes on the way to work by "tree-pruning equipment" in the street, he asked: "This is asking people to spend 10 seconds to help solve a crime. . . . Why is that so unreasonable?"
The fight against terrorism -- and the attendant tension between counterterrorism and civil liberties -- is also a background issue in the case.
In their friend-of-the-court brief, the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police and the Major Cities Chiefs Association noted that the Department of Homeland Security instructs local law enforcement to set up vehicle checkpoints around airports when the national terrorist threat level reaches Code Orange. The organizations argued that the Illinois Supreme Court's ruling "casts doubt on the constitutionality of such practices."
The case is Illinois v. Lidster, No. 02-1060. A decision is expected by July 2004.
--------- dna
House Approves Funds to Cut State DNA Test Backlogs
Associated Press
Thursday, November 6, 2003; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6386-2003Nov5.html
The House agreed yesterday to provide more than $1 billion for DNA testing to help prove the innocence of some death row inmates and the guilt of rapists and killers who may have gone free.
The legislation, passed 357 to 67, would give states $755 million for working through a backlog of about 350,000 untested DNA samples in rape evidence kits in criminal laboratories.
"To have this tool available and not to fully use it is tragic," said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. "Many crimes could be solved, many guilty people could be taken off the streets, and many victims could be spared from further crimes."
-------- human rights
Mexico To Allow 'Dirty War' Trials
Court Strikes Down Statute of Limitations
By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 6, 2003; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5935-2003Nov5.html
MEXICO CITY, Nov. 5 -- The Mexican Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that there was no statute of limitations for prosecuting officials implicated in forced disappearances of anti-government activists in the 1960s and 1970s.
The historic ruling, essential in possible prosecutions of those responsible for what is known as the "dirty war," could lead to numerous trials, including one soon of two top police officials, analysts said.
A lower court had blocked arrest warrants for the officials, Miguel Nazar Haro and Luis de la Barreda, saying the time had passed for pursuing such cases. But the high court said as long as the victim was still missing, "the crime of illegal deprivation of liberty cannot be subject to statue of limitations."
"This is a landmark ruling for accountability in Mexico," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, head of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, the New York-based watchdog group. "It removes a potential obstacle to the prosecution of hundreds of disappearance cases from the 1960s and 1970s."
The ruling was a victory for the special prosecutor, named by the government of President Vicente Fox to investigate crimes that have never been adjudicated. In the 1960s and 1970s, anti-government activists were frequently tortured, kidnapped and killed; the bodies of many of them have never been found.
After decades of denial, the government has only recently acknowledged that soldiers, police and secret security agents were involved in at least 275 of the 532 cases of disappeared activists on record.
The Supreme Court ruling immediately sends back to a lower court the case involving Nazar and de la Barreda, two former chiefs of a now-defunct federal police agency who have been implicated in the 1975 kidnapping of Jesus Piedra Ibarra. A third police official, Juventino Romero, has also been implicated in the disappearance of Piedra, then a 21-year-old medical student and accused leader of a guerrilla group.
Those familiar with the case against Nazar and de la Barreda said documents have been uncovered directly linking them to the Piedra's disappearance. The documents describe how he was kidnapped in the city of Monterrey, tied up, shoved into a car and eventually driven to a military camp in Mexico City, where he was interrogated. Forensic experts are scheduled to dig up suspected mass grave sites at the military base, according to the office of the special prosecutor, Ignacio Carrillo Prieto.
The ruling cleared the way for a trial in Monterrey and the possible arrest of Nazar and de la Barreda, the highest ranking officials so far officially accused in the dirty war. The two men, who are rarely seen in public, have denied any wrongdoing.
"It's better late than never," said Rosario Ibarra, the mother of Jesus Piedra Ibarra. Rosario Ibarra, a prominent human rights activist, said the legal fight was far from over and that she was still upset that decades have been lost in prosecuting those responsible for killing her son and hundreds of others. "It would make me happy to see those responsible go to jail and to find out exactly what happened to my son," she said.
"It's an important decision," said David Vega Becerra, a student activist at the time of the dirty war. "I am hopeful this is the first step toward finally seeing justice done."
Carrillo Prieto, the special prosecutor, has said that the elimination of the statue of limitations would clear the way for him to present 10 additional cases from the period.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Manitoba site eyed for Canada's biggest wind farm
Story by Roberta Rampton
REUTERS CANADA:
November 6, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/22778/story.htm
WINNIPEG, Manitoba - An upstart wind energy developer said this week it plans to build what could be Canada's largest wind farm in Manitoba, a province known for its ample hydroelectric resources.
Sequoia Energy Inc. of Victoria, British Columbia, said it hopes to have environmental approvals, sales agreements and financing sewn up within the month to build a wind farm by mid-2005 near the central Manitoba town of St. Leon.
The project would produce up to 100 megawatts, enough power for 40,000 homes, said Bob Spensley, managing director of Sequoia Energy, noting the company needs to line up more than C$175 million ($132 million) in private financing for the farm.
"From day one we've set out to prove that large-scale wind power is economic in Manitoba, a province with among the cheapest electricity prices in the world," Spensley told Reuters.
The company has been testing wind speed in the area for the past year, and is working with Global Renewable Energy Partners of San Diego and Germany's Windkraftkontor on the project, he said.
Manitoba Hydro, a government-owned utility that produces 4,500 MW of hydroelectric power, confirmed it is negotiating purchase and transmission agreements with Sequoia.
"It is a technology which we have kept an eye on for a number of years," said Manitoba Hydro spokesman Glenn Schneider.
"It's declining in cost, becoming more competitive with other forms of energy, and so we want to make sure we're taking advantage of it as an emerging form of renewable energy," he said.
Schneider said the utility has seven wind monitoring sites of its own around the province, and has also agreed to study opportunities for wind power with Shell Canada (SHC.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) .
Manitoba Hydro wants to see 250 megawatts of wind power developed in the province over the next decade, Schneider said.
Canada currently produces only 312 megawatts of wind power, or less than 1 percent of its energy requirements, according to industry statistics.
The country's largest wind farm to date, in southern Alberta, generates 75 MW of power. The C$100 million farm was built by natural gas and coal power producer TransAlta Corp (TA.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) and Enmax Corp.
-------- environment
Opinion: If There Must Be War, There Must Be Environmental Law
{Editor's Note: Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and a former German Environment Minister, offers this statement to mark November 6 as the International Day for Preventing Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict.}
By Klaus Toepfer
NAIROBI, Kenya, (ENS)
November 6, 2003
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2003/2003-11-06t.asp
War must and should always be a last resort, and if armed conflict occurs, warring factions have a duty to minimize the casualties and the suffering of those caught in the crossfire.
Another duty must also be considered, namely to minimize the damage and pollution to air, water and soil supplies.
A post-conflict society will struggle even harder to recover its dignity, its health and its future if the very life support systems upon which people rely have been partially or wholly destroyed.
The environment has, since the dawn of time, been one of the casualties of war.
In the fifth century BC, the retreating Scythians scorched the earth and polluted drinking water supplies, to slow the advancing Persians.
At the end of the final Punic war, in the second century BC, the conquering Romans, salted the soils around Carthage to make them infertile and the area uninhabitable. A damaged and degraded land was seen as way to permanently end the Phoenicians' might.
During the Vietnam War of the 1970s, the United States used defoliants to expose enemy positions in heavily forested areas.
U.S. forces apply defoliant in Vietnam to remove vegetation. (Photo courtesy Free Stock Photos) Tests were also carried out on rain seeding in an attempt to trigger downpours to impede and bog down enemy movements on the Ho Chi Min Trail.
More recently, during the first Gulf War of the early 1990s, Iraqi troops deliberately sabotaged oil installations with smoke, turning day into night, and oil spills severely polluting the desert and the waters of the Gulf.
The environment is what you might also call an innocent bystander damaged not deliberately but as a result of a hit on a target such as a chemical plant or hydroelectric dam.
The environment can also be a casualty as a result of a military machine deliberately overexploiting natural resources. During World War I, Turkey severely depleted the forests in the Lebanon for fuel for its railways.
More recently, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and the Sudan, rhinos, gorillas and other wildlife have been killed to raise money for armies.
While humankind's ability to wage war continues apace with new and even more potentially devasting weapons, international rules and laws designed to minimize the impact on the Earth's life support systems have lagged far behind.
We have the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 that do have environmental implications. However, their primary aims are the protection of civilians, prisoners of war, the sick and wounded, and cultural objects such as internationally important monuments.
There have also been a myriad of treaties attempting to outlaw specific targets such as dams, or military acts such as torching crops that are seen by many as targeting and attempting to demoralize the civilian population rather than an enemy army.
There are also treaties that attempt to regulate specific weapons that may have environmental implications. One thinks of the Chemicals Weapon Convention of 1997 and ones covering nuclear weapons and landmines.
This does not mean that there have not been attempts to specifically address the environmental aspects of war.
Iraqi tanks abandoned on burning oil field, 1991. (Photo courtesy U.S. State Department) One, article 35 of what is known as the Geneva Protocol I, prohibits combatants from " methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long term and severe damage to the natural environment."
The other, the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, aims to tackle new technologies that might, for example, alter weather systems as a way of waging war.
But most legal experts have concluded that these and others fall far short of what is ideal and what is needed.
In a new report, commissioned by the German Environment Ministry, Daniel Bodansky of the School of Law, University of Georgia, argues that the requirement of proving "widespread, long term and severe damage" renders the Geneva Protocol I ineffective in respect of environmental protection.
The environmental damage caused by the Iraqi forces in 1991 that resulted in nearly 700 oil fires and oil spills 40 times greater than the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, is a case in point.
The Protocol also appears silent on the issue of long term risk, of the so-called precautionary approach which guides many of our modern environmental treaties covering everything from the the ozone layer to climate change.
It is possible that, 20 or so years down the road, some of the pollution arising from recent theaters of war may prove to be a long term environmental and public health hazard. But the Protocol only applies to expected damages rather than possible ones.
Civilian casualties, the displaced and the dispossessed, will be and should be the focus of our attention during and immediately after hostilities cease. But the environment, which has a key role in ensuring the stability of a country and its citizens, cannot be ignored.
A destroyed oil storage facility in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 2002 (Photo courtesy UNEP) The world is slowly waking up to the powerful links between a healthy environment and national and regional stability, or to use the buzz phrase "environment security." And there there are many ways in which the world can improve the security of natural resources and nature's life support systems during conflict. Some are legal, others are codes of conduct or improved guidelines for military commanders on what constitute legitimate targets.
Should striking an oil tanker sailing near a coral reef be deemed unacceptable or a legitimate act of war? Does the crippling of an enemy's oil supplies justify the killing of an ecosystem upon which hundreds, maybe thousands, of the poor rely for food in the form of fish?
These are the kinds of issues that the world needs to grapple with. International law is in its infancy, war is not. It is time that international law, or at the very least the rules of engagement, achieved some kind of maturity, if not full adulthood.
The original Geneva Conventions have demonstrated that the world can take humanitarian steps designed to minimize suffering, and many countries adhere to these principles.
The United Nations, since the war in the Balkans, has been increasingly linking environmental assessments and clean up with the humanitarian effort, which gives some indication of the importance of the issue.
So, on this second observance of the International Day for Preventing Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict, let us reflect on the next steps needed to bring the laws of war into a more sustainable, 21st, century.
Visit the UNEP Post Conflict Assessment Unit at: http://postconflict.unep.ch/
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Bush administration is said to be backing off pollution cases
Thursday, November 06, 2003
By Chris Baltimore,
Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-11-06/s_10150.asp
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has decided not to sue dozens of coal-burning utilities, oil refiners, and other industries for past dirty air violations now that it has eased pollution rules for plants undergoing major expansions, an Environmental Protection Agency official said Wednesday.
Environmentalists said the move confirmed their suspicions that a business-friendly Bush administration is willing to relax pollution rules, then refuse to attend to past violations.
Emissions from coal-fired power plants and refineries can aggravate asthma, chronic bronchitis, and pneumonia.
Over complaints of environmental groups and many Democrats, the EPA in August eased rules for aging utilities to make it easier for them to revamp facilities without triggering expensive air-pollution-reduction requirements.
J.P. Suarez, the EPA's top enforcement official, met with enforcement staff in Seattle late Tuesday and said the agency will not pursue active complaints against over a dozen electricity plants and other facilities, according to an EPA official briefed on the meeting.
"Suarez announced that the agency has made a decision not to pursue investigations or further work on utility cases unless they can show that they would have violated the new rule," the official said on condition of anonymity.
The EPA flatly denied it had made any decision to drop enforcement actions and called the report "simply not true."
"We are vigorously pursuing all filed cases, and we will evaluate each pending investigation on a case-by-case basis to determine whether it will be pursued or set aside," the agency said in a written statement.
The impetus for the action comes from EPA's changes to the "new source review" section of the 1970 Clean Air Act proposed by the EPA in August. When Congress wrote the provision, it assumed most of the aging plants would be replaced with new facilities and it exempted plants operating at the time from stricter pollution curbs unless they launched a major renovation.
The EPA and the Justice Department are still pursuing cases brought by the Clinton administration in 1999 against large U.S. utilities over past violations of the Clean Air Act.
But complaints forwarded to the Justice Department by EPA enforcement staff could be dropped, involving companies including utilities like DTE Energy Co. and Reliant Resources Inc. and refiners like Exxon Mobil Corp. and Citgo Petroleum Corp., a unit of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, a source close to the agency said.
Complaints already filed in federal court against utilities like Cinergy Corp., Duke Energy Corp., and Southern Co. will still proceed, the EPA official said.
"This confirms my worst fears," said Sen. James Jeffords, an independent from Vermont. "First the administration weakens our clean air law, and now it won't enforce it."
Green groups assert that EPA fast-tracked the decision to take the heat off incoming EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt, who will be sworn in later this week.
The Edison Electric Institute, the biggest utility lobbying group, applauded the move.
"The government's resources and ours are better spent on air-quality improvements than protracted legal wrangling," a spokesman said.
The EPA's relaxed rule allows companies to replace aging equipment with their "functional equivalent" without triggering expensive pollution-reduction requirements. It also exempts replacement costs that are less than 20 percent of the value of the plant.
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Environmentalists call energy bill a disaster no matter how negotiations go
Thursday, November 06, 2003
By H. Josef Hebert,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-11-06/s_10160.asp
WASHINGTON - The impasse over an energy bill is music to the ears of Anna Aurilio of the environmental group USPIRG and to the Sierra Club's Debbie Boger. David Alberswerth of the Wilderness Society is rooting just as hard for the energy gridlock to continue.
As lawmakers face off in Congress over the details of a national energy blueprint - the first in 10 years - environmentalists are in wide agreement on one thing: They don't like the bill that is emerging.
"There's little in the bill for the conservation community," said Alberswerth, a land use specialist for the Wilderness Society. "We should be moving in an entirely different direction."
Aurilo, USPIRG's legislative director, said "This bill is a disaster any way you cut it. There's nothing good to be said about it. And it's getting worse."
Boger said, "We already know enough about this bill to know that it should die."
For environmentalists it is no longer an issue over drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge. That victory has been won.
Republican lawmakers are ready to jettison a proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They're also discarding a requirement for a new inventory of oil and gas resources in offshore waters now under drilling bans - after howls from coastal state lawmakers who fear it's a prelude to lifting the bans.
But those changes have done little to attract support from the environmental community. Neither has the argument by the Bush administration and other of the legislation's supporters that the largely Republican-crafted bill is designed to be balanced and is aimed at spurring new energy development to meet the growing demand for electricity, motor fuels, and other energy sources in the decades ahead.
Environmentalists maintain the bill is still a bonanza for traditional, polluting energy industries and gives short shift to measures that cut energy use or promote cleaner renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. And they say it fails to address such issues as climate change or curtailing fuel use by automobiles.
As the energy talks drag on, the bill is getting worse from an environmental perspective, said Aurilo.
This week, Senate Republicans agreed to accept a proposal offered by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, that would give cities - including the Dallas-Forth Worth and Beaumont, Texas areas - two additional years to meet federal air-quality standard for smog. Barton has been pushing the proposal for weeks. Senate GOP negotiators agreed to accept it after the House endorsed Barton's proposal this week.
Barton has said he wants to help cities get more time to deal with air pollution that originates hundreds of miles away - a problem acknowledged by the Clinton administration's EPA which sought similar delays but later was overruled by the courts.
But environmentalists cite other concerns including measures that will make it easier for energy companies to push into pristine areas in search of oil and gas while easing environmental reviews. The bill's supporters say they are only trying to end the bureaucratic gridlock that has prevent companies from development needed energy resources.
Here are other provisions opposed by environmentalists:
- A measure that would protect makers of the petroleum-based gasoline additive MTBE from product liability lawsuits when it contaminates drinking water.
- A measure that prevents the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating a method of oil recovery, known as hydraulic fracturing, that critics says threatens drinking water supplies. The oil industry argues no such threat has been proven.
- Proposals that would allow federal land managers to speed up energy permits, establish "energy corridors" through public lands, and give officials new authority to approve energy projects without meeting existing environmental reviews.
- Tax incentives to promote oil, gas, and coal development at the expense of alternative nonfossil energy sources and conservation, adding to concerns about carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.
- Allowing pipelines, oil wells, roads, and other petroleum infrastructure to be built without meeting wastewater runoff requirements that apply to other construction.
- An easing of restrictions on the sale of federal oil leases on Alaska's North Slope (outside of the Arctic refuge) while avoiding measures to protect wildlife habitat.
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Lawyers at E.P.A. Say It Will Drop Pollution Cases
November 6, 2003
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/politics/06EPA.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 - A change in enforcement policy will lead the Environmental Protection Agency to drop investigations into 50 power plants for past violations of the Clean Air Act, lawyers at the agency who were briefed on the decision this week said.
The lawyers said in interviews on Wednesday that the decision meant the cases would be judged under new, less stringent rules set to take effect next month, rather than the stricter rules in effect at the time the investigations began.
The lawyers said the new rules include exemptions that would make it almost impossible to sustain the investigations into the plants, which are scattered around the country and owned by 10 utilities.
The lawyers said the change grew out of a recommendation by Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, which urged the government two years ago to study industry complaints about its enforcement actions. The Bush administration has said its goal is to ensure cost-effective improvements to air quality.
Congressional critics, environmental groups and officials in some Northeast states described the change as a major victory for the utility industry and a defeat for environmentalists, who had viewed the cases as the best way to require the companies to install billions of dollars of new pollution controls.
Representatives of the utility industry have been among President Bush's biggest campaign donors, and a change in the enforcement policies has been a top priority of the industry's lobbyists.
In a statement, the E.P.A. said that it had not made a formal decision to drop all the investigations and that it would review each "on a case-by-case basis to determine whether it will be pursued or set aside."
An E.P.A. spokeswoman, Lisa Harrison, said the agency would continue to pursue a handful of earlier cases that are already being litigated. She said some cases could still be filed in court under the old rules. "That possibility is more remote, but it's still possible," she said.
Under the old rules of the so-called New Source Review program, power plants, oil refineries and industrial boilers that were modernized in ways that increased harmful emissions generally had to install more pollution controls.
Under the new rules, any renovation project that costs less than 20 percent of the power-generating unit's value will be exempt, and no pollution controls will need to be added even if the project increases emissions. Critics say thresholds set at that level would exempt most of the power plants that have been under investigation.
One career E.P.A. enforcement lawyer said the decision, coupled with the changes in the underlying rules, could mean that the utility industry could avoid making as much as $10 billion to $20 billion in pollution-control upgrades.
The Bush administration and the utility industry say the old rules were too costly and ineffective.
The old rules "were based on a serious misinterpretation" of federal law, said Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, the industry's main trade group. The new rules, Mr. Riedinger said, "are consistent with the companies' obligations to maintain reliability and safety," and will "keep emissions trending downward."
But critics expressed outrage on Wednesday, saying the decision would eliminate one of the most effective weapons government regulators had to curtail pollutants.
"This latest attack on the environment sends a clear message to the president's corporate polluting cronies - do whatever you want to improve the bottom line," said Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey. "Profits are more important than cleaning the air for children who suffer from asthma and seniors with respiratory diseases."
Other Democratic leaders, including three presidential candidates, also criticized the decision, suggesting that President Bush's record on air pollution could become an issue in next year's election.
In referring to the scope of the changes, the career E.P.A. enforcement lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: "I don't know of anything like this in 30 years." He also questioned whether the administration had followed appropriate procedures in making the change.
"If you say, `I'm not going to enforce the law at all,' that is doing rule-making without a rule-making process," he said.
The change was announced in an internal meeting of E.P.A. enforcement officials late on Tuesday in Seattle. The decision came as Michael O. Leavitt, the former Republican governor of Utah, was preparing to begin his new job as E.P.A. administrator on Thursday. His predecessor, Christie Whitman, who had resisted some proposals considered by Mr. Cheney's energy task force, resigned last summer.
The revised New Source Review rules were initially released in late August, while the agency was being run by the acting E.P.A. administrator, Marianne Horinko.
Those rules will take effect in December in 12 states that do not administer these rules themselves. The 38 other states will have up to three years to decide whether to adopt the new rules.
Last week, about a dozen states and cities filed suit in federal court to overturn the changes to the New Source Review program that the agency seeks to enact.
One E.P.A. official said that about half of the 50 power plants under investigation had already received notices of violations, meaning the agency believed that an environmental violation had occurred.
Under this week's change, the E.P.A. lawyers said they also would review investigations involving 30 to 40 oil refineries, though they said some of those investigations were still likely to proceed.
Officials said that the Justice Department would have to decide whether to file lawsuits in several other cases the E.P.A. has referred to it. Under the Clinton administration, filing these types of lawsuits had been a priority within the E.P.A. Lawsuits filed against six companies during the Clinton years are still pending.
Critics of the new policy are concerned it will undercut all those actions. "Those cases will still bumble along, seriously crippled by the administration's legal reversals," said John Walke, the director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Clean Air Program.
Industry officials have argued in some of those cases that it would be unfair for the government to continue to enforce violations under standards that are now being revised. But judges have had mixed reactions to that argument.
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White House to End Power Plant Probes
Move Follows EPA Easing of Enforcement
By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 6, 2003; Page A31
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6028-2003Nov5.html
The Bush administration confirmed yesterday that it will close pending investigations of 70 power plants suspected of violating the Clean Air Act and will consider dropping 13 other cases against utilities that were referred to the Justice Department for action, following the Environmental Protection Agency's decision in August to ease enforcement rules.
J.P. Suarez, the EPA's assistant administrator for enforcement, first disclosed the decision during a speech to agency enforcement officers in Seattle late Tuesday, and a senior EPA official confirmed it. Since the EPA issued the final rule changes this summer, government lawyers have found it increasingly difficult to prosecute existing pollution cases.
The rules in question, part of the Clean Air Act, say that plants and refineries built before 1970 generally do not have to install modern "scrubbers" during routine maintenance, but must do so if they make extensive improvements that extend the facilities' lives and increase their emissions. The new rules, likely to begin to take effect late this year, expand the definition of routine maintenance.
The administration and industry advocates say the rules changes were needed to bring more clarity and certainty to the regulatory process, and to encourage facility upgrades.
EPA and Justice Department spokesmen insisted that the government would continue to prosecute existing cases that were brought against power plants in the late 1990s under the old rules. Justice Department lawyers filed a brief Sept. 5 at the end of a trial involving a Dynegy Midwest Generation Inc. power plant in Illinois disavowing their previous definition of "routine maintenance" in light of the newly adopted rule. "As the agency has consistently stated, we are vigorously pursuing all filed cases, and we will evaluate each pending investigation on a case-by-case basis to determine whether it will be pursued or set aside," the EPA said in a statement yesterday.
But environmentalists and congressional Democrats said the decision to drop dozens of ongoing investigations confirms their suspicions that the administration is retreating in its enforcement efforts as a favor to utilities and refineries that contributed heavily to the Republicans.
"First the administration weakens our clean-air law, and now it won't enforce it," said Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.), the ranking minority member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "Instead of fighting pollution, this administration is at war with the Clean Air Act. Innocent bystanders such as children, the elderly and the infirm will be the principal casualties."
John D. Walke, a clean-air specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, "This is easily the most vile, radical and illegal enforcement stance ever taken by the EPA in its 30-plus-year history."
Eric Schaeffer, a former EPA enforcement officer who now heads the Environmental Integrity Project, said some of the investigations being dropped involve large power companies, such as Detroit Edison, which President Bush visited in September, and Reliant whose former executives are "Pioneers" who have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the president's reelection campaign.
Scott Segal, an industry spokesman with the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, said that the preamble to the new rule states that it applies only to future cases, and that "all indications are that existing filed cases . . . are being aggressively pursued by the federal government."
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India Is Dumping Ground for Toxic Mercury
REUTERS INDIA:
November 6, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/22773/story.htm
NEW DELHI - India, already saddled with high air and water pollution, is fast becoming the world's dumping ground for toxic mercury, a leading environmental group said.
While the developed world is phasing out mercury, Indian imports of recycled mercury and mercury compounds used mainly by the electrical industry have increased almost sixfold in the past seven years, the Center for Science and Environment (CSE).
"We are rapidly becoming the toxic dumping ground of the world's mercury," a CSE statement quoted Director Sunita Narain as saying. "We will become the world's dirt capital."
India, the world's largest recycler, is increasingly being confronted by the health risks of taking global waste - from plastics to computer gear to steel - and the dangerous ways it is recycled, often releasing poisons and heavy metals.
CSE, an environmental lobby group that made headlines recently by sparking a row over pesticides in soft drinks made by Coca-Cola and Pepsi, said India's mercury imports jumped to 1,386 tonnes in 2002/03 from just 257 tonnes in 1996/97.
A CSE official said most of the mercury comes in recycled form from Spain, Britain, Russia, Italy and the United States because India lacks regulations. "We cannot afford to become the world's dump yard for toxic mercury.
Remember, mercury is mobile, it moves across continents," CSE said. "It persists, it builds up in organisms and moves up the food chain. Therefore, the use of mercury is putting entire populations at risk."
Activists say large amounts of mercury are already found in Indian groundwater. They say tests have also uncovered lethal pesticides, poisons, antibiotics, heavy metals, feces and adulterations such as iron filings and cow dung in the food and water consumed in the country.
Some government tests have found at least 50 percent of food and drinks on sale is adulterated in one way or another and state and federal officials acknowledge that contamination is a public health crisis.
But laws and, perhaps more importantly, policing remain lax.
Campaigners say contaminants can cause cancer, birth defects and fatal illnesses as poor, illiterate farmers use too much pesticide and fertilizer - some even smear DDT, used to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes, straight onto their livestock.
-------- health
Seeding Hearts With Healing Cells, Doctors Hope to Grow Muscle
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 6, 2003; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6319-2003Nov5?language=printer
After a massive heart attack, Douglas Rogers had few options. His heart was badly battered, and most of his arteries were blocked. His doctors did not think surgery would do any good.
"They thought there was no use with half my heart being dead muscle," Rogers said. So when doctors suggested he undergo an experimental procedure to try literally to grow new heart muscle, he did not hesitate.
Three months later, he is back working full time, playing softball and bowling. "It's wonderful," said Rogers, 44, a Cincinnati factory manager. "I don't feel bad at all."
Although it remains unclear how much, if any, of his recovery was the result of the treatment last spring, and not the quadruple bypass operation he got along with it to nourish what doctors hoped would be new heart tissue, Rogers is in the forefront of a new wave of research aimed at doing something long thought impossible -- mending broken hearts.
"This could be transformational therapy -- meaning it fundamentally changes the way we treat patients," said Dean J. Kereiakes, medical director of the Carl and Edyth Lindner Center for Research and Education in Cincinnati, who treated Rogers. "It changes our whole perspective."
Kereiakes and other researchers caution that it is still far too early to know whether the therapy will save lives, which patients might benefit and which approach might work best. It has only been tested directly in people in a handful of studies in Europe, the United States and Brazil, each involving a dozen or two patients at most.
But so far the results have been tantalizingly promising, and a spate of new positive results is being presented next week at the American Heart Association's annual meeting in Florida. Some experts speculate cell therapy for heart disease could become standard within five years if all continues to go well.
"For years, when we worked on this, people said we were nuts. They said it wouldn't work," said Doris Taylor of Duke University Medical Center. "Now the field is finally coming of age -- it's exploding. This is a huge shift in thinking about the potential to treat injured hearts." Trying the Impossible
For decades, one of modern medicine's dictums was that, like the brain, the heart, once damaged, could not heal. Grafting new arteries could restore blood flow to nourish remaining heart tissue. Mechanical pumps could help compensate for dead muscle. A diseased heart could be replaced with a healthy transplant -- if the patient was lucky enough to get one. The heart, however, could not grow new tissue or be repaired.
But scientists have begun to try to do what was once unthinkable -- grow new heart muscle. Doctors are injecting or infusing immature cells from leg muscles and bone marrow into the heart. The hope is the cells will take root and develop into healthy muscle, replacing dead scar tissue and allowing patients to avoid transplants, mechanical pumps or a slow death.
If the approach continues to show promise, it could benefit hundreds of thousands. More than 1 million Americans have heart attacks every year, and more than 2 million are suffering from congestive heart failure, which often occurs after multiple heart attacks cause so much damage that the heart begins to fail.
In addition to growing new heart muscle, researchers are also infusing bone marrow cells into hearts in the hope they will stimulate the growth of new blood vessels. Because the cells in all these experiments come from the patient's own body, there is no risk of rejection. And because they do not come from embryos, the work avoids the controversy that has accompanied research with embryonic stem cells, which has not yet progressed as far.
In related work, some researchers, including a team at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, are experimenting with drugs that stimulate immature cells to migrate on their own out of the bone marrow. The hope is that they will travel through the bloodstream, implant inside damaged hearts and begin replacing damaged tissue.
"Hopefully, we'll be able to avoid having to ram or jam cells into the heart," said Richard O. Cannon III, the institute's clinical cardiology director.
And researchers have recently discovered evidence that, contrary to long-held notions, the heart itself can generate immature cells that appear able to grow into new muscle. Scientists are now hunting for chemical signals they might be able to give heart-attack patients to coax the cells to replace scar tissue in damaged areas.
"I think we will eventually have a much better tool -- a cell that is already programmed to make heart muscle," said Piero Anversa of the New York Medical College. "The fantasy would be to have a patient come in with a heart attack and go home with a normal heart."
The most advanced attempts involve immature cells known as myoblasts, found in muscles elsewhere in the body. Researchers in Europe and the United States have been removing marble-sized pieces of muscle from heart patients' legs and sending them to labs that extract the myoblasts and let them multiply into the millions. Researchers then inject hundreds of millions of the cells directly into the hearts of patients when they undergo bypass surgery or operations to have heart-assisting pumps implanted.
The hearts of patients who have undergone the procedure appear to start pumping more strongly, sometimes within weeks. Follow-up tests indicate that the cells have indeed implanted in areas that had seemed irreparably scarred, growing and acting similar to heart muscle. In some cases of patients who later received transplants, researchers have examined the diseased heart and confirmed that the cells transformed scar tissue into viable muscle.
"People did not believe that you could take cells from a different part of the body and transplant them into a dead part of the body. That was just out of the imagination," said Nabil Dib, director of cardiovascular research at the Arizona Heart Institute in Phoenix. Dib is coordinating the largest multicenter trial in the United States for GenVec Inc., of Gaithersburg, one of a handful of biotech companies involved in the work.
"It's fabulous," said Samuel H. Cohen, 60, a dentist from Paradise Valley, Ariz., who received myoblast cell treatment at the Arizona Heart Hospital in May 2002 after being diagnosed with congestive heart failure. He had had multiple heart attacks and surgeries, including a quintuple bypass.
"I can't say enough. Now, I'm feeling great. As far as my heart's concerned . . . I don't even think about it anymore," he said. "Here I am living a normal life -- I think it's unbelievable." Encouraging, but Unproven
To avoid the need for surgery, Dib and other researchers plan to try infusing the cells into the heart through catheters inserted into arteries in the leg and then snaked up to the heart.
There are indications, however, that the newly implanted cells may not be making the electrical connections that allow normal heart muscle cells to beat in sync. That has raised fears that they could trigger life-threatening irregular heartbeats, or arrhythmias.
The number of patients who have undergone the procedure is still very small, moreover, and they have not been followed for long periods of time. Perhaps most important, none of the studies has compared the patients with those who did not receive the procedure to try to determine whether the treatment or something else produced the improvement.
After encouraging results from 10 patients, Phillipe Menasche of the Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris has launched a study in Europe with 300 patients that will for the first time directly compare those who get the treatment with those who do not. He is awaiting permission to expand the study to the United States.
"Until we get the results of the randomized trial, we have to be extremely careful," Menasche said by telephone. "But the evidence so far has been encouraging. What has been considered something completely unrealistic could actually turn into a clinical reality."
In Europe and Brazil, researchers are experimenting with infusing bone marrow cells into damaged heart tissue. Some scientists think bone marrow cells may be superior to myoblasts because they might be more able to develop into bona fide heart cells. Several groups have reported promising initial results in recent months.
"We have found that the treated patients are significantly better," said James T. Willerson of the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, who has been involved in testing the approach in heart-failure patients in Brazil.
In some cases, the results appeared to be dramatic. "Several of them were able to do things they could not do before -- walk without shortness of breath, have sex. One of them is even jogging," he said.
It remains unclear whether the effects are the result of the cells themselves or substances that the cells secrete. In either case, Willerson and his colleagues are awaiting approval from the Food and Drug Administration to start tests in this country.
"It's very exciting, but yet one has to be very cautious," Willerson said. "This is still a small number of people followed for a short period of time. One can't claim victory, but it is right to get excited and encouraged and to pursue this."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Enola Gay Draws More Flak
Petitioners Want Atom Bomb Deaths Added to Exhibit
By Jacqueline Trescott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 6, 2003; Page C01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6401-2003Nov5.html
A new display of the Enola Gay, the World War II plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, should include information about the number of Japanese killed by the explosion, a group of scholars, writers and activists says in a petition delivered yesterday to the director of the National Air and Space Museum.
The fully restored and reassembled B-29 Superfortress goes on display next month at the museum's new facility near Dulles International Airport.
More than 150 people have signed the petition under the banner of the Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy. Peter Kuznick, a historian at American University and the director of the Nuclear Studies Institute, said the petition was delivered to Gen. Jack Dailey, the director of the museum.
The signatories include Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, Daniel Ellsberg, psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, economist Gar Alperovitz, political activist Barry Commoner, Julian Bond, authors Kai Bird, E.L. Doctorow, Ariel Dorfman, Kurt Vonnegut and Garry Wills, historian Howard Zinn, Stanley N. Katz, director Norman Lear, sociologist Orlando Patterson and filmmaker Oliver Stone.
This is not the first time the plane has caused headaches for the Smithsonian.
In 1994, plans to display the plane's fuselage in an elaborate exhibit at the Air and Space Museum on the Mall provoked a storm of criticism. A coalition of veterans and politicians objected to an early draft of the labels that were to be part of the exhibition. The uproar caused the museum to scrap its original approach, opting for a display that focused on the plane's hardware and text that was factual but not interpretive.
Now the museum has moved the plane, which is in one piece for the first time in 43 years, into its newest building, the Steven Udvar-Hazy Center. The cavernous Dulles facility will hold dozens of air- and spacecraft.
Kuznick said yesterday that the committee strongly objects to the museum showing the plane as a technological achievement while omitting more of its historical context, including the controversies leading up to the bombing and the casualties.
"We want to encourage a balanced discussion of what happened in 1945 and the potential ramifications of what happened in the past for policy today. We don't want a whitewashed exhibition. That kind of display only helps to legitimize the past use of nuclear weapons and, I fear, lends support for lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons now," Kuznick said.
The text that will accompany the plane describes how it was an improvement over other bombers, such as its use of pressurized compartments for the crew. It also states: "On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan."
In a meeting at the Udvar-Hazy Center this week, Dailey said the museum had received very little reaction to the description since it was made public in August. He said he had received 15 letters supporting the display and 15 against. He said the new explanatory label was based in part on the reactions of people who had seen parts of the plane in the main museum.
"We put a lot of thought into how we are going to do this. We essentially had 4 million people see the display downtown, and now the entire airplane has been put together and it seemed to be well accepted by that sample group that we had. We think we are on the right track," said Dailey. The smaller exhibit was open for 21/2 years.
Dailey acknowledged that the history of the plane is complicated, and he has his own view of its place in history. "I feel very strongly that this airplane was the first act of deterrence for a nuclear exchange because it showed what can happen," he said. "But we don't tell people what to think about it. Our primary focus is that it was the most advanced aircraft in the world at the time."
Kuznick said his group doesn't object to the plane being displayed but said the museum is missing the point by not including more of its history. "Displaying the Enola Gay puts a special kind of burden on the museum. It is not just another plane. They understand it is not just another plane. The Enola Gay has more symbolic meaning associated with it than any other plane in history," he said. He argued that some mention of the number of casualties should be included, even though estimates of the number killed vary from 140,000 to 231,000.
In its petition, the committee asks for a meeting with Dailey not only to discuss the plane and its display but also to urge the Smithsonian to hold a conference on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and nuclear weapons in general. If that doesn't take place, the petition states, "We will join with others in this country and around the world to use appropriate means to protest the exhibit in its present form and to catalyze a national discussion of critical nuclear issues."
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Gaveled to Freedom
Patriots in the truest sense, the Springfield Eleven prevail
by Stephanie Kraft
November 6, 2003
Springfield, MA VALLEY ADVOCATE
http://valleyadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:41363
Is anti-war protest unpatriotic? Some of President Bush's supporters in high places may talk as if it were, but the good news is, that's not how the courts see it.
Eleven people who briefly blocked the doors of the Federal Building in Springfield after an interfaith prayer service April 9 were acquitted Oct. 22 of trespassing charges in U.S. District Court in that city. "When do citizens become trespassers on federal property, which constitutionally they own?" Judge Frederic Rutberg demanded as he banged down the gavel on the D.A.'s case.
The defendants were part of a group of 110 who gathered in front of the Federal Building for a worship service protesting the war in Iraq. They had a permit from the city for the hour-long service, which included prayers by Christians, Buddhists and Native Americans. When it ended, 14 participants tried to block the doors of the building, but Springfield police and federal security personnel stopped them.
All 14 spent the night in a police lockup in Springfield, where they slept on steel beds in chilly cells without pillows or blankets and were roused for searches every hour, according to one defendant, Eric Wasileski of Greenfield. Three chose to settle the charges before the trial, but 11, including Wasileski, went to trial.
The verdict Wasileski described as "a pleasant surprise." Wasileski, who spent two years in the army and six in the navy and saw combat in the Persian Gulf War, said he participated in the protest in order to carry out the promise to defend the Constitution that he made when he volunteered for the armed services.
"I feel as though George Bush is a domestic enemy," he said. "His introduction of the Patriot Act [which allows the government to carry surveillance of citizens to new levels] is a direct violation of the Constitution." Bush's claims that Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction that threatened the U.S. were disingenuous, Eric said, adding, "Bush lied, people died."
And in Minneapolis on Oct. 17, a six-person Hennepin County jury acquitted 28 people who had been charged with trespassing after they entered the property of Alliant TechSystems Corp., makers of depleted uranium munitions, on April 2 to demand access to the company's books and records.
The jury agreed with the protesters that private property laws can be overriden by international law -- in this case, international laws against the manufacture and sale, as well as the use, of weapons that cannot discriminate between combatants and civilians. Among the defendants were people with outspoken commitments to Christianity, Judaism and even atheism; at least two had brothers who served in the Gulf War and, their relatives believe, became terminally ill because of weapons made from depleted uranium.
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British Police Brace for Bush Visit
November 6, 2003
By WARREN HOGE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/international/europe/06BRIT.html
LONDON, Nov. 5 - President Bush, who has been shielded from protests in recent travels, arrives in Britain on a state visit in two weeks, and the police here are weighing how to control promised street demonstrations without resorting to crowd control measures that could be seen as curbing free expression.
"There will be substantial demonstrations over President Bush's visit - as much as 50,000 to 60,000 people," Sir John Stevens, the Scotland Yard chief, told the Police Complaints Authority. "Apart from ensuring his safety, which is our primary concern, we have to ensure the demonstrations are allowed to take place in the normal way we do in this democracy."
Mr. Bush is the least popular American president in memory with Britons, and Prime Minister Tony Blair has been castigated by critics as the president's "poodle" for being Mr. Bush's loyal ally and fighting an unpopular United States-led war in Iraq.
"A central problem for Bush in Britain is that while he is greeted with wary respect at 10 Downing Street, his unilateralism and folksy Texas style don't go down well with the chattering classes, who regard him as exceedingly dangerous and something of a buffoon," said Anthony King, professor of government at Essex University.
Mr. King said that while Mr. Bush profits from appearing with Mr. Blair, the president's presence is a liability for Mr. Blair.
"Bush's visit will remind people, and not just the members of the chattering classes, of what Blair has done that they dislike most," he said, "namely, joining the United States in the war in Iraq."
On his recent visit to Australia, another ally of the United States during the Iraqi war, Mr. Bush left after 21 hours and was whisked down roads clear of ordinary people. He avoided Sydney, where tens of thousands had come out to protest the war earlier this year, in favor of Canberra, the less contentious capital city.
The visit to London is certain to meet protests from militants representing a wide range of causes, who are expected to congregate here. "Many groups and activists are uniting to make London inhospitable for Bush," the Web site for Global Resistance predicts. "We need to make the place as unwelcome as possible."
The London police were harshly criticized in 1999 when they cracked down on actions against the visiting Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, and a Scotland Yard spokesman said that in light of that episode, the police were now being counseled to make sure policing was "appropriate, relevant and proportionate."
Ghada Razuki, spokeswoman for the Stop the War Coalition, said that while the police were restricting access to the government center, they were raising no objections to plans for large street protests and a demonstration in London's traditional forum of dissent, Trafalgar Square.
"The police have said to us directly that it is our democratic right to march, and that they want to uphold that," Ms. Razuki said.
During Mr. Bush's trip to Asia in October, both the agenda and the security arrangements assured that he saw few protesters. He met Indonesian leaders on Bali, a Hindu-dominated resort island where anti-American feeling does not run as high as in Jakarta, the capital of what is the world's most populous Muslim nation. In Manila, demonstrators were kept far from Mr. Bush, and his arrival at the Philippine Congress was delayed until a large crowd could be dispersed.
In Britain, Mr. Bush will travel by helicopter and limousine and is unlikely to confront protesters personally, but their presence will be far more visible than on his Asian swing.
"We want to make sure that the biggest photo opportunities are ones of streets filled with protesters," Ms. Razuki said.
Mr. Bush will arrive in London the evening of Nov. 18 and begin the public part of his state visit the next morning with a formal reception followed by a speech in an as yet undisclosed public hall in London before an audience of dignitaries. The queen will give a banquet in his honor at Buckingham Palace that night. He will leave on Nov. 21 after meetings with Mr. Blair.
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Protesters gear up for Bush visit
Warren Hoge/NYT
Thursday, November 6, 2003
The International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=116549
LONDON President George W. Bush, who has been shielded from protests in recent travels, arrives in Britain on a state visit in two weeks and police officials here are weighing how to handle expected street demonstrations without resorting to crowd control measures that could be seen as curbing free expression.
"There will be substantial demonstrations over President Bush's visit - as much as 50,000 to 60,000 people," Sir John Stevens, the Scotland Yard chief, told the Police Complaints Authority. "Apart from insuring his safety, which is our primary concern, we have to insure the demonstrations are allowed to take place in the normal way we do in this democracy."
Militants from a wide range of causes are expected to congregate here. "Many groups and activists are uniting to make London inhospitable for Bush," the Web site for Global Resistance predicts. "We need to make the place as unwelcome as possible."
London's police officials were harshly criticized in 1999 when they cracked down on actions against visiting China's president, Jiang Zemin, and a Scotland Yard spokesman said that in light of that episode, the police were now being advised to make sure policing was "appropriate, relevant and proportionate."
Ghada Razuki, spokeswoman for the Stop the War Coalition, said that while police were restricting access to the government center, they were raising no objections to plans for large street protests and a demonstration in London's traditional forum of dissent, Trafalgar Square.
"The police have said to us directly that it is our democratic right to march and that they want to uphold that," Razuki said.
During Bush's trip to Asia in October, both the agenda and the security arrangements assured that he saw few protesters. He met Indonesian leaders on Bali, a Hindu-dominated resort island where anti-American feeling does not run as high as in Jakarta, the capital of what is the world's most populous Muslim nation.
In Manila, demonstrators were kept far from Bush, and his arrival at the Philippine Congress was delayed until a large crowd could be dispersed. In Australia, he avoided Sydney, where tens of thousands had come out to protest the war this year, in favor of Canberra, the less contentious capital city.
The stated reason for this insulated itinerary was security, but the result was that no dissenting words were heard except in a polite exchange with Indonesian religious leaders arranged by the American Embassy.
In Britain, Bush will travel by helicopter and limousine and is unlikely to personally confront protesters, but their presence will be far more visible than on his Asian swing. "We want to make sure that the biggest photo opportunities are ones of streets filled with protesters," said Razuki, whose group brought out more than 1 million anti-war protesters in Hyde Park in February.
"A central problem for Bush in Britain is that while he is greeted with wary respect at 10 Downing Street, his unilateralism and folksy Texas style don't go down well with the chattering classes, who regard him as exceedingly dangerous and something of a buffoon," said Anthony King, professor of government at Essex University.
King said that while Bush profits from appearing with Blair, the president's presence is a liability for Blair. "Bush's visit will remind people, and not just the members of the chattering classes, of what Blair has done that they dislike most," he said, "namely, joining the United States in the war in Iraq."
Blair has been steadfast in proclaiming solidarity with Bush even as it has cost him the support of many voters, and he can be expected to be seen by the President's side during much of the three-day visit.
A Downing Street aide sought, however, to distance him from the argument raised by critics about the untimeliness of Bush's coming to Britain now. It is a state visit, he said, one in which the Queen is the person inviting, the guest stays in Buckingham Palace and plans are made years in advance.
"As a state visit, it is more a celebration of the overall relationship between the two countries, a relationship that goes back in time and is constantly progressing, and that is the point the prime minister will want to be stressing," the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The President is a guest of the Queen."
Bush will arrive in London the evening of Nov. 18 and begin the public part of his state visit the next morning with a formal reception followed by a speech in an as yet undisclosed public hall in London before an audience of dignitaries. The Queen will give a banquet in his honor at Buckingham Palace that night.
On Nov. 20, Bush will spend time at 10 Downing Street with Prime Minister Blair and members of the British government, and the two leaders will hold a joint press conference. That night Bush is the host at the return banquet for the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at Winfield House, the official residence of U.S. Ambassador William Farish.
Friday morning, the president formally leaves Buckingham Palace, and the state visit ends. He will spend the rest of the day in talks with Blair and possible travel outside London before flying back to Washington.
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