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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,