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NUCLEAR
Italy furious after US Navy tried to cover up sub accident
Ventnor City Hall gets a radiation scare
Iraqis To Take Brunt 'For Generations' To Come: Report
Axis of evidence
Iranian openness may enhance nuke safety
U.N. nuclear report 'impossible to believe'
EU, US headed for showdown over Iran nuclear report
Iran's Leader Says U.N. Report Removes Suspicions of Weapons
White House Has 'Serious Concerns' About Iran
U.N. Atomic Agency Draws Fire Over Iran
U.N. and U.S. in Dispute Over Iran's Nuclear Plans
Plan Would Reduce Fish Deaths Caused by Nuclear Plant
Nuclear panel has harsh words for Entergy deal
VY settlement takes heavy fire
U.S. Sen. Ernest F. Hollings: The truth about Iraq
Poll Shows Americans' Views on Iraq War
MILITARY
Japan Delays Dispatching Troops for Iraq
European arms sector gets three-billion-euro missile contract
Senate Approves Tanker Compromise
THE CHARGE OF HALLIBURTON
Colombia's Armed Forces Chief Quits
Colombian Military Commander Resigns
With His Policies Facing a Major Test, Berlusconi Insists
Rice Clarifies Stand On Iranian Group
U.S. Moves to Speed Up Iraqi Vote and Shift of Power
At Least 27 Killed in Attack on Italian Troops
Blast at Italian Police Post in Iraq Kills 29
U.S. Mounts Fierce Air Battle Against Suspected Guerrilla Targets
Cabinet Approved, Arafat Calls for Peace Talks
Arafat says Israelis have right to live safely
Premier Approved By Palestinians
Global campaign launched to ban cluster bombs
NATO confirms exercises with Russia in 2004
Arming outer space
C.I.A. Report Suggests Iraqis Are Losing Faith in U.S. Efforts
Former U.K. Intelligence Worker Arrested
'AWOL Mom' May Be Given Guard Duty
4 Soldiers Charged In Comrade's Slaying
Hawaiians Regain Control Of Sacred Island From Navy
Army Official Eyes Copter Upgrade Plan
Rumsfeld: U.S. Making Progress on Military Change
Richard Perle Libel Watch, Week 34
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Panel Reaches Deal on Access to 9/11 Papers
9/11 Panel Reaches Deal On Access To Papers
Former Guantánamo Interpreter Indicted
Prison Interpreter Is Indicted
ENERGY AND OTHER
Experts tell of fuel cells' future
Boone firm helps work on solar-powered blimp
Americans Chose More Energy Stars in 2002
Proposed Energy Bill Favors Oil, Coal, and Nuclear
World to Add 2.6 Billion People By 2050
Companies to Pay New Jersey $17 Million for Toxic Cleanup
GOP Seeking to Delay Environmental Bills
Scientists Progress on Artificial Bugs
Study of Two Cholesterol Drugs Finds One Halts Heart Disease
Cycle of War Is Spreading AIDS and Fear in Africa
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Italy furious after US Navy tried to cover up sub accident
Charles Digges,
2003-11-13
Bellona Foundation
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nuke_industry/co-operation/31750.html
The US Navy covered up for nearly a month an incident during which a 7,000 tonne nuclear powered submarine from the US Navy's Sixth Fleet in Italy ran violently aground in the Mediterranean Sea north of Sardinia last month, a US Naval official confirmed Thursday.
The US Navy-by its own admission in an interview with Bellona Web-sought to cover up the accident until relatives of the vessel's crew, who spoke to US papers about the sailors' early return after the accident, made the incident impossible to conceal.
The Los Angeles class submarine, the USS Hartford, hit the rocky sea-bed of the Mediterranean with such force that rudders, sonar and other electronic equipment were severely damaged, the US naval official said. The 114-metre long USS Hartford had left its Sardinian base at La Maddelena carrying Tomahawk missiles, possibly loaded with nuclear warheads, the British Independent reported. The US Navy official, who requested anonymity, however, would not confirm this.
A near miss
The USS Hartford was sailing east past the island of Capera where, soon after midnight on October 25th, it ran aground. The US Navy, said the naval source in a telephone interview from Washington, had "admittedly tried to keep a lid on the accident." But US naval brass were apparently trumped when relatives of the submarines crew found out that the submarine's scheduled six-month tour of duty was being cut short a month after it began and leaked the story to local media outlets, the US Naval source said.
The naval source added that after "temporary repairs in Italy that will make it seaworthy," the USS Harford will cross the Atlantic to the Norfolk, Virginia dockyard for full repairs. The naval source said he had not idea how long the repairs would take.
The naval source said that the Hartford's reactor had suffered no damage and the crew had suffered no injuries. But the Sixth Fleet's image, in the eyes of its Italian hosts, sustained a heavy blow. Reaction in Italy-both to the discovery of the cover-up and the incident itself-has been rage.
Rage in Italy
"It's the umpteenth demonstration not only of the grave risks to which the civilian population is exposed [...] but also of the culture of silence that invariably covers military activities in Sardinia," Italian Green Party MP, Mauro Bulgarelli said in Parliament, according to the Independent. "Our country was denuclearised nearly 20 years ago, due to the wish of the overwhelming majority of the Italian population. It is unacceptable that, thanks to American troops based in our territory, the nuclear risk should be reintroduced. In another age, that would be called colonisation."
Italy's Minister of the Environment, Altero Matteoli, said that the USS Hartford incident was "a serious incident" and said an official had been sent to investigate, the Independent reported. But, Matteoli said that "first reports [from the site of the incident] did not mention environmental problems."
Immediate firings
In spite of what appears to be a lucky near miss, the incident's gravity was underscored by the fact the both the USS Hartford's captain, Commander Christopher Van Metre, and his squadron commander, Captain Greg Parker-who was also on board at the time the sub ran aground-were immediately fired, said the US navy official. When the USS Oklahoma, another US submarine, hit a Norwegian Merchant ship east of the Straits of Gibraltar last year, that subs captain was only fired two weeks after the incident, the US navy source said.
A spokeswoman for the US Sixth Fleet, which is based in Gaeta, near Naples, told the Independent Wednesday that the two officers were immediately removed from their posts because their commander, Rear Admiral Stephen Stanley "no longer had confidence in their ability to command." Six other crewmembers, including two officers, have also been disciplined.
The US Navy's Los Angeles class submarine
The United States Navy has 51 nuclear powered Los Angeles Class attack submarines. It is equipped for anti-submarine warfare, intelligence gathering, show-of-force missions, insertion of special forces, strike missions, mining and search and rescue.
Nine Los Angeles class submarines were deployed in the Gulf War in 1991, during which Tomahawk missiles were launched from two of the submarines. It is unknown how many are currenly deployed in the ongoing US-Iraqi crisis, but the Sixth Fleet provided significant sea support during the latest Guld War.
----
Ventnor City Hall gets a radiation scare
By JOHN BRAND (609) 272-7275
November 13, 2003
Atlantic City Press
http://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/atlantic/111303RADIATION_N13.html
VENTNOR - When an NJ Transit police officer visited City Hall on Friday to discuss a case with the Police Department, his radiation detector sounded.
NJ Transit officers typically use the detectors, which look like a beeper, on public buses and trains.
But it went off inside City Hall.
The Atlantic County Hazardous Materials team, the city's emergency coordinator and police officers responded. An official from the state's Department of Environmental Protection maintained telephone contact, City Manager Andrew McCrosson said.
They found low levels of radiation on one of the floor tiles near City Hall's front entrance, where the city seal is painted.
"The bottom line at this point is that there is no risk to the employees or the public," McCrosson said. "It can't be transmitted or brought home through clothing."
McCrosson, reading from a Ventnor Police Department report, said the radiation rating was 1.5, which is below the state's minimum allowed level of 2.0.
It appears that the radiation was emanating from the paint or glaze used on the tile. The tile does not need to be repainted, removed or reglazed, McCrosson said.
"It's very insignificant," he said.
-------- depleted uranium
Iraqis To Take Brunt 'For Generations' To Come: Report
The U.S.-British invasion "led to the death and injury of thousands of Iraqi civilians and combatants on all sides," said the report
November 13
IslamOnline.net & News Agencies
Iraqis will feel the brunt of the U.S.-British invasion for years and "maybe generations" to come with the "alarming deterioration" of the health care system in the war-ravaged country, unveiled a medical report by a London-based medical charity.
"What is certain is that the war has led to the death and injury of thousands of Iraqi civilians and combatants on all sides," read a 16-page report by Medact, a medical non-governmental organization grouping health professionals, on Tuesday, November11 .
More than20 , 000Iraqis, 7,500 Iraqi civilians and at least13 , 500soldiers, have died between the start of invasion (in March) and when the report was finalized in late October, said the report carried by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
It added that the invasion has caused "a further deterioration in the health of the Iraqi people and contributed to the chronic stress on the environment".
The report urged U.S. and British forces in Iraq, plus the United Nations, to ensure that the rebuilding of health services is fully funded, and that hospitals and health workers are protected.
It calls for an assessment of chemical risks and a rapid clear-up of unexploded ordnance should be organized, saying that a strong health sector, eventually paid for by progressive taxation, must be established quickly.
"We cannot make an assessment of the health impact this disruption has caused, but the evidence presented in this report suggests it may be considerable," it said.
The report took the blame to occupation forces "for failure to provide full information" and the deteriorated security situation "which caused most U.N. staff and many non-government organizations to leave have led to an information black hole of unique proportions".
The Medact report marked that a breakdown in law and order, lack of security and damage to infrastructure threatened further casualties.
"Limited access to clean water and sanitation, as well as poverty, malnutrition and disruption of public services including health services, continue to have a negative impact on the health of the Iraqi people," the report's co-author, Sabya Farooq, said.
Farooq pointed to dangers such as leftover explosives and ammunition - Unicef has said this has hurt more than1 , 000children - landmines, and risks of cancers from toxic dust from weapons with depleted uranium, according to the Guardian daily.
"The environment is littered with mines, and they are killing humans. A lot of unexploded bomb lets are continuing to injure civilians, particularly children because they are brightly colored," Farooq added.
The report, which is entitled Continuing Collateral Damage: the health and environmental costs of war on Iraq2003 , follows Medact's initial report on the country, Collateral Damage, published in November2002 .
Medact said that the findings were based on a "comprehensive independent survey assessing the health and environmental impact of the war, carried out by an international team of authors and advisers, all experts on health and conflict".
The World Health Organization (WHO) expected in May 2003 a cholera epidemic in southern Iraq, and warned that other infectious waterborne diseases could break out.
-------- india / pakistan
Axis of evidence
The Beijing-Islamabad-Riyadh nuclear nexus poses new challenges
G. PARTHASARATHY,
November 13, 2003
Indian Express
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=35269
Barely a few weeks after Pakistan's humiliating defeat in the Bangladesh conflict of December 1971, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto convened a meeting in Multan with close aides and nuclear experts. Bhutto announced he was determined never to allow India to repeat what it had done in Bangladesh. He said that given the immense conventional superiority India would continue to wield, Pakistan had no option but to develop nuclear weapons. But Pakistan's nuclear programme never had an exclusively Indian dimension. Writing his memoirs in his prison cell while awaiting the gallows, Bhutto stated that if he had not been overthrown he would have put the "Islamic Civilisation" at par with the "Hindu, Christian and Jewish Civilisations" by giving the "Islamic Civilisation" a "full nuclear capability".
But Bhutto avoided any reference to China's nuclear capabilities. After India's nuclear test in May 1974, China sent its first batch of 12 scientists to assist Pakistan in developing nuclear capabilities. Bhutto alluded to this cooperation in his memoirs where he spoke of a "historic agreement" in 1976 with China that would be "my greatest contribution to the survival of our people and our nation". By the early 1980s, China had supplied Pakistan with enriched uranium to build a few weapons along with designs for these weapons. Even after China acceded to the NPT, it supplied Pakistan with 5000 crucial ring magnets to assist its nuclear enrichment programme. It is currently providing unsafeguarded plutonium processing facilities to enable Pakistan to miniaturise nuclear and thermonuclear warheads. Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin project of arms control, noted: "If you subtract China's help from the Pakistani nuclear programme, there is no Pakistani nuclear programme."
While China's support for Pakistan's nuclear and missile programmes is evidently part of its effort to "contain" India, Bhutto's references to the Islamic dimensions of Pakistan's nuclear ambitions are now coming under closer international scrutiny. His political adviser, Khalid Hassan, has revealed how Bhutto solicited and obtained funding for Pakistan's nuclear programme from Libya and Saudi Arabia. Around the same time, the then Indian prime minister, Morarji Desai, rejected a Libyan request for nuclear assistance in 1978. UN weapons inspectors are reported to have evidence about offers from Pakistan's A.Q. Khan to provide nuclear know-how to Iraq. Iran is also reported to have acknowledged obtaining "second hand nuclear equipment" from Pakistan for uranium enrichment. But, given the antagonism and suspicions that prevail between Iran and Pakistan, it appears that any equipment supplied by Pakistan to Iran would have been given primarily to enable Pakistan to retain some leverage and goodwill in Tehran.
While the Americans have predictably been making a song and dance about Iran's quest for nuclear weapons capabilities, they are remarkably reticent about growing evidence of Pakistan-Saudi Arabia collaboration in nuclear and missile development. The Petroleum Intelligence Weekly reported in July 2000 that Saudi Arabia was providing Pakistan and the Taliban 150,000 barrels of oil per day as undocumented economic assistance. Referring to this aid amounting to $1.4 billion annually, former CIA analyst Robert Baer notes: "Beginning in the 1970s Saudi Arabia poured over $1 billion into Pakistan to help Pakistan develop an 'Islamic' nuclear bomb to help it counter the 'Hindu' nuclear threat." Saudi Arabia also provided nearly $1 billion to enable Pakistan to buy nuclear capable F-16s from the US in the 1980s.
Saudi Arabia emerged as Pakistan's closest economic patron in the aftermath of the international sanctions Pakistan faced following its May 1998 nuclear tests. A year later, in May 1999, Nawaz Sharif escorted Saudi Arabia's defence minister, Prince Sultan, on a visit to Pakistan's nuclear and missile facilities in Kahuta. This was the first ever visit of a foreign dignitary and only the third by a Pakistani prime minister to these facilities controlled and administered by Pakistan's military. US analysts say the visit laid the basis for closer Pakistan-Saudi Arabia links in missile and nuclear related matters. In September 2000, a Pakistani delegation led by A.Q. Khan visited Saudi Arabia as guests of Prince Sultan.
The Saudi-Pak nexus is being documented by those in the US not as sanguine as Colin Powell about its implications. Anthony Cordeman, author of a State Department study entitled "Weapons of Mass Destruction: The New Strategic Framework", remarked that very senior Saudi officials have held conversations with officials involved in Pakistan's nuclear programme. A former official of the US Defence Intelligence Agency, Thomas Woodrow, said: "Saudi Arabia has been involved in funding Pakistan's nuclear and missile purchases from China." He added Saudi Arabia was "buying nuclear capability from China through a proxy state, with Pakistan serving as the cut-out".
There are also now a number of reports by well informed analysts indicating that following the recent hurried visit of Crown Prince Abdallah to Islamabad, Pakistan has reached a "definitive agreement" to station nuclear weapons on Saudi soil, fitted with a new generation of Chinese supplied ballistic missiles, which would be under Pakistani command. These missiles would replace the aging CSS 2 missiles with a 2800-km range that China supplied to Saudi Arabia in 1987. Pakistan evidently intends to compensate the "strategic depth" it lost following the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan, by positioning missiles and nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia.
Shortly after the visit of former Chinese prime minister Zhu Rongji to Pakistan in 2001, General Musharraf made it clear that he would not hesitate to provide the Chinese navy a base in the Gwadar port at the mouth of the Persian Gulf which is being built with massive Chinese assistance. Saudi Arabia has also reportedly agreed to provide financial assistance for Gwadar. Given its growing demand for imported energy, it makes sense for China to forge closer strategic ties with Saudi Arabia, sing Pakistan as a "cut-out". Are we seeing the emergence of a Beijing-Islamabad-Riyadh missile and nuclear axis that could fulfill Bhutto's vision for Pakistan's self-styled "Islamic Bomb"?
-------- iran / inspections
Iranian openness may enhance nuke safety
A report this week from the UN's nuclear watchdog reveals that Iran acknowledges a uranium enrichment program
By Dan De Luce
The Christian Science Monitor
11/13/03
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1113/p07s01-wome.html
TEHRAN, IRAN - Iran is moving quickly to defuse Western concern about its nuclear ambitions, as the United Nations' atomic watchdog agency released a critical confidential report, leaked widely this week, detailing Iran's 18-year clandestine uranium enrichment program.
While UN inspectors found "no evidence ... related to a nuclear weapons program," Iran was chastised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for concealing "many aspects" of its nuclear effort that deal with the "most sensitive aspects" of the nuclear fuel cycle.
As it prepares for a Nov. 20 meeting of its Board of Governors on Iran, the IAEA said it welcomed decisions by the Islamic Republic this week to halt all uranium enrichment efforts and accept snap inspections by adopting the Additional Protocol of the Nonproliferation Treaty.
Iran's new openness could shed light on a nuclear program that has unsettled international observers because of its secrecy. It may also yield a less obvious advantage: Increased safety expertise from abroad that could curb the risks of a nuclear accident.
In its report, the agency said it required a "particularly robust verification system," and that, "given Iran's past pattern of concealment, it will take some time" to conclude the peaceful nature of the programs.
Striving to conform with an Oct. 31 ultimatum set to come clean on its ambitions, Iran acknowledged a centrifuge and laser uranium enrichment program, as well as the separation of small amounts of plutonium.
"The failures that Iran has been reproached for are minor, and only on the order of a gram or milligram," Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, was quoted as saying on state television. Though some test results are still out, experts say that traces of highly enriched uranium found in Iran over the summer were "molecular."
With the United States and European governments focused on trying to slow Iran's alleged attempt to build a bomb, safety issues have been largely overlooked.
That reluctance is likely to ease after Iran's deal in Octoberwith the European foreign ministers of Britain, France, and Germany which offered eventual access to civilian nuclear technology and expertise, in exchange for Iran coming clean about nuclear weapons issues.
Najmedin Meshkati, a nuclear expert at the University of Southern California, says the deal could bring Iran's nuclear program in from the cold when it comes to safety issues. Referring to the agreement promising "longer-term cooperation," Meshkati said: "I hope that it means state-of-the-art nuclear safety technology too."
The risks of isolation and secrecy have already manifested themselves, according to IAEA officials who asked not to be identified. They detail two incidents at a small five-megawatt research reactor in Tehran.
In one case in 2001, at least two control rods became stuck, but the reactor shut down properly without any release of radioactivity, the IAEA sources say.
And earlier this year, a similar incident occurred, prompting the Iranian authorities to ask for assistance from the IAEA to resolve the problem. The IAEA recommended replacing the aging stainless steel rods and buying new instrumentation for the reactor, which was supplied to Iran by a US firm in 1967.
Although Iran has shown a readiness to address safety issues that have been raised, many Western engineering companies and governments have refused to provide assistance. In one instance, the IAEA recently tried to organize a meeting between key figures in Iranian industry and representatives from regulatory bodies abroad. Fifteen countries declined to participate, so the event was canceled.
Until now, Iran has had to rely almost exclusively on Russian technology in the construction of a nuclear power plant in the southern port of Bushehr.
But the dangers are real, Mr. Meshkati wrote recently in the English-language Iran News. Iran's approach could "result in a piecemeal assemblage of potentially incompatible parts of dubious reliability in an untested reactor of questionable Soviet-designed technology with no operational track record and obsolete safety systems."
Further complicating the picture is that southern Iran is four times more earthquake prone than Russia. IAEA safety engineers have urged Iranian authorities to clarify how the reactor has been modified to account for the risk.
"Regarding the seismic threat, we think that issue should be investigated more thoroughly," says an IAEA official, who asked not to be named.
While Russia's nuclear industry believes it has learned from the tragic mistakes that caused the Chernobyl disaster, some independent safety experts remain concerned about safety issues.
The plant under construction in the southern port of Bushehr is a VVR1000 model, which is widely considered a far more reliable design than the reactor in the Chernobyl accident.
However, some countries using this model have chosen to enhance the instrumentation for safety systems, to make it more user friendly.
The Bushehr plant also presents a unique engineering challenge because the original containment vessel was designed more than 20 years ago for a completely different reactor. The Russian company hired by Iran in the 1990s has had to fit a Russian reactor into a German containment structure.
After reviewing a safety assessment document, a 20-member team from the IAEA recently urged the Iranian authorities to explain how they resolved this engineering challenge. Still, IAEA experts and Iranian officials say that the country's nuclear program faces no dire safety risk.
"Radioactivity does not recognize borders. For this reason, we are paying special attention to this issue," said Mr. Salehi, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, in an interview.
Iran hopes its compromise deal with Europe will clear the way for more outside assistance and equipment. But if the agreement falls through, safety experts are concerned that Iran's nuclear sector could end up like the country's troubled aviation industry, which has been unable to upgrade its fleet of pre-Revolution Boeing aircraft, and been plagued by accidents.
Salehi remains optimistic. "Of course, achieving safety standards requires a lot of know-how and technology from the outside world. After this agreement, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel."
----
U.N. nuclear report 'impossible to believe'
November 13, 2003
By Barry Schweid
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031112-111614-5902r.htm
A report by U.N. investigators that they have found no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program "is simply impossible to believe," Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said yesterday.
He said Iran has enriched uranium with both centrifuges and lasers and has produced and reprocessed plutonium.
"It attempts to cover its tracks by repeatedly and over many years neglecting to report its activities and in many instances providing false declarations to the IAEA," Mr. Bolton said in a speech at a dinner of the American Spectator magazine.
The United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report this week that Iran had been involved in numerous cases of covert nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment and the production of small amounts of plutonium that effectively put the nation in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
But it also praised Iran for cooperation and openness and said it had found no evidence of an Iranian nuclear-weapons program.
Independent arms specialists agreed that the IAEA report supported U.S. claims that Tehran had a secret atomic-weapons program, and Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said in Washington that the program could reach "the point of no return" within a year.
Mr. Bolton said the document reaffirms the U.S. contention that "the massive and covert Iranian effort to acquire sensitive nuclear capabilities makes sense only as part of a nuclear weapons program."
Separately, a senior U.S. official said Iran has been able to confuse the IAEA with partial disclosures that will keep the agency from referring Iran's program to the U.N. Security Council this month for potential sanctions.
Iran's revelations to the IAEA show a nuclear capability far beyond civilian purposes, and Iran almost certainly could produce nuclear weapons by the end of the decade, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
While maintaining it wants only to generate nuclear power, Iran has delivered what it says is complete information about past suspect activities to the IAEA.
Last month, Iran notified British, French and German officials it would suspend uranium enrichment and throw open its nuclear programs to unfettered agency inspections.
Iranian President Mohammed Khatami asserted yesterday that the IAEA report dispelled suspicions that Tehran was seeking atomic arms.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is expected to take up the issue in talks today with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
"We should be reacting calmly to the latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency," Mr. Straw told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Mr. Straw said that although Iran had concealed nuclear activities in the past, it had cooperated substantially with the IAEA.
----
EU, US headed for showdown over Iran nuclear report
November 13, 2003
Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1113/dailyUpdate.html
Reuters reports that the European Union and the United States appear headed for another confrontation. This time the showdown concerns the ramifications of a leaked International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEA) report about Iran's nuclear program. According to the IAEA report, no evidence of a bomb program in Iran has been found, but that Tehran had dabbled in possibly related activities, such as plutonium production and uranium enrichment, between 1988 and 1992.
In the US's first official reaction to the report, undersecretary of state for non-proliferation and arms control John Bolton called it "impossible to believe." Mr. Bolton, who is known for being taking a hardline approach towards countries like Iran, Cuba, Syria, and North Korea (in fact, he was recently accused of "exaggerating" some of his assessments of their nuclear capabilities) said the US believes the massive and covert Iranian effort to acquire sensitive nuclear capabilities "make sense only as part of a nuclear weapons program."
"This is not only the administration's view [said Bolton]. Thomas Cochran, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the New York Times that it's dumbfounding that the IAEA, after saying that Iran for 18 years had a secret effort to enrich uranium and separate plutonium, would turn around and say there was no evidence of a nuclear weapons program. If that's not evidence, I don't know what is."
Thursday the IAEA rejected Bolton's criticism of its report. IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said the organization stands by the report, "... but it's confidential and will be considered at next week's (IAEA) board meeting." He declined further comment.
Speaking at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast, Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, took a more moderate stance, saying he applauded the IAEA for the thoroughness of its report. Mr. Lugar said the report will provide evidence to many nations at the UN that "The need for vigilance and scrutiny at this point ... is rather imperative."
The CIA, however, warned earlier this week that even tough inspections may not stop Iran from developing a nuclear program. And an administration official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the US will work with other members of the IAEA board "to ensure that the Nov. 20 board meeting in Vienna takes the appropriate action." The US would like to see the IAEA board refer Iran's nuclear program to the UN Security Council.
But this not likely to happen for a number of reasons. Western diplomats said the US would have a tough fight getting France, Germany and Britain to toe its line at a November 20 meeting of the IAEA board. (For instance, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw responded to the report by saying that people should be "reacting calmly" to the report and that it should be pursued with "diplomatic scenes.") Reuters reports that the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Britain "did a deal" with Iran on October 21 under which Tehran was to suspend its uranium-enrichment program and sign a protocol permitting more-intrusive, short-notice IAEA inspections.
On Monday, Iran said it would suspend its uranium enrichment program, and would submit to tougher UN inspections. Wednesday, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the "EU's success" in helping make Iran account for its nuclear program is a model of how Brussels must conduct its future diplomacy. The Associated Press reports that Iran's "skillful diplomatic maneuvering" appears to be shifting sentiment among the 35-nation board away from a harsh response.
A familiar voice also added his weigh in favor of a less harsh response: former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, currently heading a new Swedish government-backed international commission on weapons of mass destruction, said Iran's civilian reactors were not themselves a worry and it was uncertain whether Tehran wanted to build a nuclear bomb. (Mr. Blix also reiterated his position that weapons of mass destruction will never be found in Iraq. "So much of the evidence was so wrong. There were no direct lies but...they [the US and the UK] put a spin on it to try to convince the citizens that armed force was the only way to do it," he said.)
Regardless of these opinions, one country that does worry about Iran's developing nuclear weapons is Israel. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Wednesday that Iran's nuclear program could reach "the point of no-return" within a year unless there was strong international pressure to stop it. Although Israel is believed to have over 300 nuclear weapons of its own, it worries that one day an Iranian nuclear weapons would be used on it. But Israel has, for the moment, ruled out a surprise strike on any Iranian nuclear facility.
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that safety experts say the greatest danger lies in the risk of a nuclear accident in Iran. These experts worry that international suspicion has meant that Western governments and companies have been reluctant to provide Iran with access to safety technology or expertise. The Christian Science Monitor reports that Iran's new openness to inspections of its nuclear facilities could yield another benefit to help this problem; increased safety expertise from abroad that could curb the risks of a nuclear accident.
--------
Iran's Leader Says U.N. Report Removes Suspicions of Weapons
November 13, 2003
By NAZILA FATHI
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/international/middleeast/13IRAN.html
TEHRAN, Nov. 12 - President Mohammad Khatami said Wednesday that a recent report on Iran's nuclear programs by the International Atomic Energy Agency cleared Iran of suspicions that it is developing nuclear weapons. But he added that Tehran might end its voluntary cooperation if the agency's next report, due on Nov. 20, bends to political pressures.
According to the report, Iran's nuclear program goes back 18 years, much earlier than what Tehran had declared. It further said that Iran had produced small amounts of material, including plutonium, that could be made into weapons.
The report concluded that because of Iran's past pattern of concealment it would take some time before the agency could determine if Iran's nuclear program was intended exclusively for peaceful purposes.
Speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting, Mr. Khatami said, "There is nothing to suggest that the Islamic Republic of Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons."
He admitted Iran had made some errors but dismissed them as inevitable slips. "Naturally, over 20 years of nuclear activity, some failures did occur," he said. "We do not deny this. But it does not mean we violated or transgressed the regulations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to which we are committed."
In Washington, the deputy undersecretary of state for arms control, John R. Bolton, called the agency's finding that there is no immediate evidence Iran has a nuclear weapons program "impossible to believe," Reuters reported Wednesday.
Mr. Bolton said the report reaffirms the American belief that "the massive and covert Iranian efforts to acquire sensitive nuclear capabilities make sense only as part of a nuclear weapons program."
Many experts who have read the report concurred. "The report is a stunning revelation of how far a country can get in making the bomb while pretending to comply with international inspections," Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, told Reuters. "This is a classic case of a bomb in the basement."
Under increasing international pressure, Iran reached an agreement with the foreign secretaries of Britain, Germany and France in mid-October to suspend its nuclear enrichment programs and open its sites to unexpected inspections.
But the report released this week raised concerns about whether the United Nations nuclear agency would send Iran's case to the Security Council, based on the new findings.
Britain's foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said, "We should all react calmly to the latest report," the Associated Press reported. Mr. Straw added that while Iran had concealed nuclear activities in the past, it had been cooperative in recent months.
Mr. Khatami said that Iran will remain committed to its obligations, at least until the agency's November report.
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White House Has 'Serious Concerns' About Iran
November 13, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iran-nuclear-usa.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Thursday called on Iran to ``come clean'' about its nuclear activities and said a U.N. watchdog agency's report raised ``very serious concerns'' even though it found no evidence Tehran has a nuclear weapons program.
White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice disputed Iranian suggestions that the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency laid ``to rest any concerns about what's going on in Iran.''
``I think that's, shall I say, an overstatement of the case,'' Rice told reporters.
``The IAEA report made clear that the Iranians have been concealing, that they've not been truthful in the past. And I think the issue now is are they going to be truthful in the future? Are they going to come clean about what had been going on Iran, what is going on in Iran?'' Rice asked.
The IAEA, in a report circulated on Monday, said Iran had a centrifuge uranium enrichment program for 18 years and a high-tech laser enrichment program for 12 years, both hidden from the United Nations.
It also said Iran produced small amounts of plutonium, usable in a bomb and with virtually no civilian uses, and conducted secret tests of enrichment centrifuges using nuclear material.
Despite Iran's secretiveness and the activities possibly associated with weapons, the IAEA said there was no proof to date of an arms program. Iran has always denied the charge.
Rice said the international community should keep up the pressure given Iran's track record of secrecy.
``The international community has an obligation, knowing now what we know about Iran's behavior, past behavior, to make sure that anything that is signed on to with the Iranians takes account of that past, and really insists on performance from the Iranians -- not promises from the Iranians,'' she said.
-------- un
U.N. Atomic Agency Draws Fire Over Iran
November 13, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Nuclear.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- The U.N. atomic agency is coming under fire for saying it has no evidence that Tehran tried to make nuclear weapons.
In a report detailing two decades of covert Iranian nuclear activity, the agency said Iran was guilty of numerous secret experiments, including uranium enrichment and the production of small amounts of plutonium that effectively put the nation in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
But the document, presented this week to the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors, also praised Tehran for cooperation and openness. It said the agency had found ``no evidence'' of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. That stance contradicts the American view that Tehran is not only trying to make such arms but could be just years away from putting nuclear warheads on missiles capable of reaching Israel.
In Washington, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said Wednesday the IAEA finding was ``simply impossible to believe.'' But in Iran officials say it should dispel suspicions their country had a nuclear weapons agenda.
``This proves our claim and removes the possibility for some powers to misuse the situation against us,'' Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said.
The board will be looking closely at the report, written by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, when it meets on Nov. 20. Any finding that Iran violated the nuclear treaty brings with it Security Council involvement.
The Council can impose sanctions as its ultimate weapon. At the least, it could be asked to note concerns about Iran's nuclear program but take no action while the agency continues to probe the country's activities.
The Bush administration wants the IAEA board to take a strong and unified stance, but there is concern now that it may not even refer the matter to the Security Council. One official in Washington, who declined to be identified, said Iran had succeeded in confusing the U.N. agency with its partial disclosures.
Some Vienna-based diplomats from other countries said they understood U.S. concerns.
``Factually, there is no evidence, no smoking gun,'' said one senior diplomat who follows the Iran issue and who declined to be identified. ``But there's a lot of circumstantial evidence, including 18 years spent in the pursuit of fissile material.''
The report outlines nearly two decades of illicit activity disclosed by Iran only recently and under international pressure.
In the last few weeks, Iran has swung from belligerent denial of wrongdoing to acknowledging it made ``mistakes'' by failing to keep the agency abreast of its nuclear programs.
While still maintaining it only wants to generate nuclear power, it has delivered what it says is complete information about past suspect activities, suspended uranium enrichment -- a key board demand -- and agreed to open its nuclear programs to closer international scrutiny, including unannounced inspections.
The strategy appears to be working. Another diplomat suggested some Western board members normally supportive of Washington did not share America's rejection of the ``no evidence'' clause.
He described ElBaradei's view that there is no direct proof Iran tried to make nuclear weapons as ``an interpretation that has a lot going for it.''
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was expected to discuss the issue with Secretary of State Colin Powell during a meeting Thursday in Washington. On Wednesday, Straw pointed to Iran's recent cooperation with the IAEA, saying ``we should be reacting calmly'' to the report.
In Stockholm, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said the United States has a history of jumping to conclusions, noting the war in Iraq was based on U.S. claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
``Experience has shown that that was not so. So one has to be cautious,'' said Blix, ElBaradei's predecessor as IAEA head.
Asked for comment, agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said the IAEA was ``standing by the report.'' He refused to elaborate on the leaked but formally still confidential document ahead of the board meeting next week.
One diplomat familiar with the agency said there was some debate by ElBaradei's team on whether to include the ``no evidence'' finding and the decision was made on the basis of ``we're going to be asked anyway.''
On the Net:
IAEA, www.iaea.org
--------
U.N. and U.S. in Dispute Over Iran's Nuclear Plans
November 13, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iran.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States has accused the U.N. nuclear watchdog of downplaying what it says is clear proof Iran is working on an atomic bomb, in a dispute over the word ``evidence'' reminiscent of the run-up to the war on Iraq.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's confidential report obtained by Reuters concluded there was no evidence yet that Iran's nuclear program was for anything but peaceful purposes.
In the first U.S. reaction, Undersecretary of State John Bolton said on Wednesday this was ``impossible to believe.''
On Thursday, the IAEA stuck to its guns.
``We stand by the report, but it's classified and will be considered at next week's (IAEA) board meeting,'' said spokesman Mark Gwozdecky. He declined to comment further.
Bolton said the report circulated to officials on Monday actually reaffirmed the U.S. contention that ``the massive and covert Iranian effort to acquire sensitive nuclear capabilities make sense only as part of a nuclear weapons program.''
The IAEA report harshly criticized Iran's concealment of many potentially weapons-related activities, but said it still needed time to say whether Iran's program was purely peaceful or not.
The report said Iran had had a centrifuge uranium enrichment program for 18 years and a high-tech laser enrichment program for 12 years, both of which it hid from the IAEA.
It also said Iran admitted to producing small amounts of plutonium, useable in a bomb and with scant civilian uses.
The United States wants the IAEA governing board on November 20 to declare Tehran in non-compliance with its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Such a finding would require the 35-member board to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which could take a variety of punitive measures, ranging from a statement of condemnation to imposing economic sanctions on the Islamic republic.
However, Washington has few allies on the IAEA board and faces an uphill battle to win over key board members France, Britain and Germany, who would prefer to encourage Iran to cooperate with the U.N. watchdog than punish past failures.
ECHOES OF IRAQ?
One European diplomat told Reuters that the dispute between the United States and the IAEA came down to competing definitions of the word ``evidence.''
Such disputes over what is and is not evidence recall the months before the war in Iraq. At that time, Washington insisted there was clear evidence Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had tried to revive his secret atomic weapons program.
One such U.S.-IAEA dispute concerned aluminum tubes. Washington argued that high-quality aluminum tubes Iraq tried to import were intended for making centrifuges to enrich uranium for use in a bomb -- and were therefore evidence.
Iraq said the tubes were for rocket launchers. The IAEA said the tubes were ``dual-use,'' with both military and civilian uses, and, to the frustration of President Bush, refused to call them evidence of an Iraqi atomic bomb program.
Since the war, the U.S. military has found no evidence Saddam revived his nuclear program.
RUSSIA - NO REASON TO DOUBT IRAN
Russia, which has annoyed Washington by building Iran's Bushehr nuclear power reactor, dismissed the U.S. position.
``There is no reason to claim Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons. Equally, there is no reason to believe it has breached the NPT,'' Deputy Atomic Energy Minister Valery Govorukhin said.
In a bid to head off international concern, Iran has submitted a comprehensive report to the IAEA on its past nuclear activities, agreed to allow snap U.N. inspections of its nuclear sites and temporarily halted its uranium enrichment program.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new york
Plan Would Reduce Fish Deaths Caused by Nuclear Plant
November 13, 2003
By LISA W. FODERARO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/nyregion/13NUKE.html
New York State told the company that owns the Indian Point nuclear plant yesterday to begin taking steps to install a new water cooling system that would prevent the deaths of large numbers of fish each year.
In a draft permit that is subject to review, the state also called on the plant's owner, Entergy Nuclear Northeast, to shut down one of the two reactors for 42 days a year from February to August to reduce the number of fish caught in the current intake system. It also required the company to pay $24 million a year to a Hudson River fund that helps pay for projects that would protect aquatic habitats. Those payments would continue until construction begins on the new cooling towers.
The decision by the state's Department of Environmental Conservation was hailed by environmental groups and Richard L. Brodsky, a state assemblyman, who together filed a lawsuit to press for such a permit. And some critics hope the project will be so expensive it will help lead to the shutdown of the plant.
But they criticized what they felt was a too generous timetable, giving the company as long as 2013 to begin construction on the towers.
An Entergy official expressed confidence that hearings would show that the new towers are not needed. But state officials disputed that assessment. "This draft permit puts the facility on a path to plan for the implementation of that system," said Mike Fraser, an agency spokesman. Indian Point draws up to 2.5 billion gallons of water a day from the Hudson River to cool its two reactors, and the environmental agency said in a news release accompanying the draft permit that the water intake systems "contribute to significant mortality of aquatic organisms."
A recent state environmental study said that Indian Point caused more than 1.2 billion annual deaths of several aquatic species from 1981 to 1987. Fish made up a small percentage of the deaths; most were eggs and larvae. Another concern among environmentalists is the heated water that is returned to the river and its effect on the Hudson's ecology.
The state identified "closed-cycle cooling" as the best available technology to minimize the impact of Indian Point. The new cooling towers would recycle water and reduce fish kills by 97 percent, environmentalists argue.
The draft permit, which will now wend its way through a public comment period, stipulates that construction of a so-called closed-cycle system is contingent on Entergy receiving a license extension from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But Entergy's current license does not expire until 2013 for one reactor and 2015 for the other.
"This is the biggest single victory with respect to the rape of the Hudson that Indian Point represents in 20 years," Mr. Brodsky said. "But because they don't have to do much until 2013, it amounts to an escape clause. There's no excuse for a 10-year delay for implementation."
But state officials said that the cooling towers were such a big investment for Entergy that their construction would make sense only if Indian Point were to continue operating beyond 2013. "The cost of constructing the closed-cycle cooling system would be wholly disproportionate when compared to the environmental benefits if the license extension is not granted," Mr. Fraser said.
Entergy appeared to interpret the draft permit less as marching orders than a call for more study. Jim Steets, an Entergy spokesman, said the permit asked the company to "do these necessary studies and assess the impacts on a variety of things."
Mr. Steets said the hearings would show that the current cooling method was actually best for the environment.
For one thing, he said, the cost of the cooling towers, estimated by Entergy to be $1.6 billion, would be so "prohibitive" that it might make the plant too expensive to operate. That, he said, would lead to dirtier replacement sources of electricity like fossil fuel plants. In addition, cooling towers might require blasting the banks of the Hudson.
"We think we can make a strong case for continuing to operate Indian Point well beyond its current license with the cooling system that we have because it provides adequate protection of fish in the Hudson and it avoids using fossil fuels that pollute the air," Mr. Steets said.
Entergy has long made the case that its present cooling system kills mostly fish eggs, and the vast majority of fish eggs die from natural causes anyway. "I've never seen slaughtered fish outside the Indian Point plants - never," he said.
-------- vermont
Nuclear panel has harsh words for Entergy deal
November 13, 2003
By SUSAN SMALLHEER
Rutland Herald Staff
http://rutlandherald.nybor.com/News/Story/74523.html
WEST BRATTLEBORO - Members of the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel and the public Wednesday sharply criticized the $20 million deal with Entergy Nuclear that won the Douglas administration's support of Vermont Yankee's proposed power increase.
The money should be spent on making Vermont Yankee safer, or cutting electric rates, people said.
And Vermont state nuclear engineer William Sherman was criticized for being too cozy with Vermont Yankee officials by one anti-nuclear activist, who said a review of Sherman's testimony in the uprate case revealed a lack of independent and critical thinking.
Several advisory panel members also criticized David O'Brien, who is both chairman of the panel and the commissioner of the Department of Public Service, for keeping them out of the loop about what the state's priorities were in the Entergy negotiations.
There is no logical connection between nuclear power and a plan to spend close to $8 million of the $20 million on cleaning up the state's waterways, in particular Lake Champlain, said panel member Russell Kulas.
Gov. James Douglas recently announced a $117 million Clean and Clear Initiative to clean up the state's waterways, in particular Lake Champlain.
The money would be better spent on energy issues, either reducing the cost of electricity or funding renewable energy projects, Kulas, an engineer, said.
And Kulas questioned the wisdom of using $200,000 on an Entergy economic development fund, which would only last a year or so.
Kulas asked O'Brien how much the state had asked from Entergy, but O'Brien told him he couldn't release that information publicly.
O'Brien said that any savings in rates would have been "insignificant impact," so the decision was made to use the money toward an environmental project to benefit the entire state.
Other components of the deal include up to $4.5 million that will go to indemnify Central Vermont Public Service Corp. and Green Mountain Power against any potentially higher power costs if Yankee has to shut down because of the power increase.
There will be $4.5 million in additional tax revenue coming to the state as well, and almost $2 million for the state's Warmth Program, which helps needy people pay their heating bills.
O'Brien stressed that the Public Service Board still had to make a decision on the deal and the uprate. Hearings on the case reconvene in January.
When the public got its chance to weigh in, residents said the Entergy deal smacked of closed-door dealings and didn't evaluate the deal on its merits.
Judy Davidson of Dummerston said the money should be spent on making the plant safer, from buying additional school buses for the evacuation plans "so that we don't have to wait for buses to come from Rutland," as well as hardened casks to store highly radioactive spent fuel safely at the plant.
She said it was clear from Sherman's testimony that he was "too close" to people at Vermont Yankee and that maybe it was time to find another watchdog.
Davidson said she had read Sherman's testimony from last month's hearings on the so-called power uprate, and that he had accepted Yankee's assessment of the environmental impacts of the uprate, such as the increased radiation coming from the plant, the effects of additional hot water in the Connecticut River and a bigger steam plume coming from the plant's cooling towers, without question.
Her remarks drew applause.
"This is all smoke and mirrors," said Ned Childs of Dummerston, who said that Vermont Yankee was "reliably dangerous" not "safe and reliable" as Entergy has claimed in recent full-page newspaper ads.
Sherman had reported that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had started reviewing Entergy's proposal, and that the NRC had already found the Entergy application lacking.
Sherman also reported that of three nuclear reactors that have undergone similar power increases, one, the Dresden reactor in Illinois, is doing well.
He said the two reactors at Quad Cities, both in Illinois, were having serious problems with damaged equipment as a result of the increased power production.
Until Entergy came up with the $20 million incentive, the Public Service Department had refused to endorse the plan, saying reliability issues could end up costing Vermont ratepayers more money.
The vast majority of the additional power is expected to be sold out of state.
Yankee officials said they had refocused their analysis on that problem component, the steam dryer, which while not technically a safety system is at the top of the reactor core. The dryer "dries" the steam coming out of the reactor before it goes to the turbine building, lessening corrosion.
At Quad Cities, increased vibration from the additional steam flows caused steel components to crack and move.
Entergy officials said that Yankee will be producing 20 percent more heat and steam and additional pressure, but that the core temperature of the reactor remains the same.
Kulas, the panel member, questioned Entergy officials on why there were so few changes on the safety side of the plant. Entergy officials had detailed the physical changes they were making to the plant for the panel.
Entergy official George Thomas said that the plant would be producing 20 percent more high-level nuclear waste and 17 percent more low-level radioactive waste.
Much of the early part of the meeting involved a discussion between O'Brien and three panel members, Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, Kulas and Timothy Nulty, who questioned whether there was an inherent conflict in O'Brien serving as chairman of the advisory panel since he also worked to negotiate the settlement.
Board members seemed inclined to take a vote on whether to support the uprate.
"We are not subverting the process," O'Brien told panel members.
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
----
VY settlement takes heavy fire
By TOBY HENRY
Brattleboro Reformer Staff
Thursday, November 13, 2003
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8860~1763221,00.html
BRATTLEBORO -- Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant owner Entergy and the Department of Public Service took heavy flak Wednesday night as legislators and local residents voiced strong discontent about last week's announced $20 million "uprate" settlement agreement.
Perhaps the strongest words came from Rep. Steve Darrow, D-Dummerston. Darrow told the six-member Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel -- chaired by department commissioner David O'Brien -- that the allocations in the $20 million agreement provide very little to the southern Vermonters whose lives are most directly effected by the hazards of the 31-year-old plant. He added that the funds, which are going toward projects such as clean-up efforts in Lake Champlain and a $4.5 million ratepayer protection plan for uprate-related outages, could be better spent on developing renewable energy sources or used as "seed money" toward the purchase of hydroelectric dams on the Connecticut and Deerfield rivers.
Darrow added that he will also be "working for legislation clarification on two policies that seem to be in conflict -- Vermont's energy policy and Gov. (James) Douglas' energy policy."
"So slow down, don't hurry; we'll take it up in a couple of months in the Legislature," he said.
Yankee's plan to boost the plant's power output by 20 percent was first proposed in February. In previous meetings, O'Brien and state nuclear engineer William Sherman, who is also a VSNAP panelist, had been unable to give a thumbs-up on the plan, stating that it provided no economic benefit to Vermonters. That changed last week, when Entergy and the department filed a "memorandum of understanding" with the Public Service Board, agreeing with the company's plan to give about $20 million to a variety of sources, including rate subsidies and energy assistance to low-income families.
Rep. Sarah Edwards, P-Brattleboro, also sounded off as the settlement came under heavy fire. While the economic criteria are important, she said, placing too much emphasis on this factor is the equivalent of "placing the cart before the horse."
"The statutory criteria for public health and safety really should be the first criteria we're investigating," she said.
Edwards, too, agreed that the money could be spent on better things. One part of the settlement, which refers to spending some $200,000 on the marketing of Vermont as a potential business location, should instead be spent on looking at ways to create new jobs for the hundreds of Yankee employees who may find themselves out of work when the plant's license expires in 2012.
Edwards and Darrow also called for the plant to be given a thorough independent safety assessment. Later, Brattleboro resident Gary Sachs entered a no confidence vote regarding the department's role as a "ratepayer advocate," and called for the attorney general or a licensed practicing lawyer to be appointed as the new ratepayer advocate.
The settlement also generated concern from panelists Tim Nulty and Russell Kulas. Asked by Kulas for a summary of why certain projects were chosen for funding, O'Brien responded that the main focus was to ensure that there was a "public benefit."
"What the settlement does is indicate (that) a portion of the sales (of electricity) flow back to the ratepayers," O'Brien said, adding that the funds "met the test" of establishing a clear public good for the uprate.
Kulas replied, if this is the case, he was still struggling to picture the department as a ratepayer advocate. He suggested that the funds could be more appropriately put to use lowering electricity rates to attract more businesses to the state and to also prepare for the plant's transition to another type of facility when its license expires.
"That would have been a more traditional approach to ratepayer advocacy," he said.
Later, Nulty suggested that even though O'Briens' department had indicated its approval of the uprate, it was still within the jurisdiction of VSNAP to issue its own findings "which may be different from the department's."
"My understanding is that VSNAP has been considering a wide range of merits," he said. "(The department) has come to a conclusion about some of these issues and that's fair enough but the panel, as a body, has not issued a report, finding or anything else on the uprate."
O'Brien said that he did not want to see the uprate hearing schedule, which is expected to conclude in mid-March, to extend any further, but panelist Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, was skeptical, noting that despite O'Briens' adherence to the set schedule, Entergy's own failure to provide information to an intervenor had already resulted in a schedule extension.
"Perhaps that's admirable leadership or perhaps we're fooling ourselves," MacDonald said.
O'Brien later appeared flustered as he fought against suggestions that the settlement deal had been conducted "in the closet" and outside of public view.
"This is not in the closet, this is due process," he said.
But Kulas later asked why the department didn't try to raise Entergy's $20 million amount, and asked O'Brien if the department had offered the company a counter-proposal.
"I don't think I can talk about that," O'Brien said.
-------- us politics
U.S. Sen. Ernest F. Hollings: The truth about Iraq
Voices of Carolina
Thursday, November 13, 2003
The author is U.S. Sen. Ernest F. Hollings.
http://www.lowcountrynow.com/stories/111303/LOCvoices.shtml
The majority leader of the Senate, Mike Mansfield, quietly opposed the war in Vietnam for years. He had a practice of writing memos in opposition to the war to Presidents Johnson and Nixon while publicly supporting the war on the floor of the Senate.
But finally, when Cambodia was invaded under President Nixon, he snapped. Going on television, he said Vietnam was a mistake from the get-go.
The next day he received a letter from an admirer who had just lost her son. She said: "I just buried my son to come home and watch you say that the Vietnam War was a mistake from the beginning. Why didn't you speak out sooner?"
I came to the Senate in 1966, and if Mansfield, an expert on the Far East, had spoken out at that time, we might have saved 50,000 lives.
I have reached my "Cambodian moment." In August and September 2002, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld all cautioned that Saddam was reconstituting a nuclear program.
On Sept. 8, the vice president said that we "know with absolute certainty" that this was what Saddam was about. On Oct. 7, President Bush went further, saying, "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof - the smoking gun - that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
Four days later, I voted for the Iraq resolution. I was misled. Saddam was not reconstituting a nuclear program, and in no way was he connected to 9/11. There were no terrorists in Baghdad, no weapons of mass destruction, and Saddam was no threat to our national security. Iraq was not a part of the war on terrorism.
Now we have another Vietnam. Just as President Johnson misled us into Vietnam, President Bush has misled us into Iraq.
As in Vietnam, they have not met us in the streets hailing democracy. Thousands of miles away, we are once again "fighting for the hearts and minds."
Again, we are trying to build and destroy.
Again, we are bogged down in a guerrilla war.
Again, we are not allowing our troops to fight and win - we do not have enough troops.
Again, we can't get in, can't get out.
Again, instead of Vietnamizing Vietnam, we are trying to Iraqify Iraq. And already, with Rumsfeld's memo, we have the Pentagon papers.
Once more we are blaming intelligence. It's not bad intelligence; it's because we refuse to listen to good intelligence, like that from Gen. Brent Scowcroft.
We had plenty of warnings. Iraq was under sanctions. We were overflying the north and the south; and you can bet your boots Israel knew whether or not Saddam had nuclear systems. Its survival depends on knowing.
Iraq was no more a part of the war on terrorism than North Korea.
If the troops are to fight, there are too few. If they are to die, there are too many.
My goal is to stop the killing and injuring of our GIs. To support the troops, we need more troops - at least 100,000 more. Get in, clean out Baghdad and the Sunni triangle. Get law and order. Then get a constitution and victory.
But since Gen. Eric Shinseki said we need "several hundred thousand troops," Secretary Rumsfeld is determined not to send troops, but to argue structure. "Operation Meatgrinder" continues.
Apparently, the game plan is to give 200,000 hungry Iraqis a uniform, a square meal, and then announce we have security and leave. We'll end up with exactly what Secretary Rumsfeld said we wouldn't have - a Shiite democracy, or another Iran. And, of course, a lot more terrorism.
For the first time in history, this administration, this Congress, will not pay for the war. And for the Guardsmen we are sending this time, Washington hopes they don't get killed so that they can hurry back and be given the bill. We are not going to pay for it; we need a tax cut.
We should have listened to former President "Papa" Bush, who wrote in
"A World Transformed," "We should not march into Baghdad ... turning the whole Arab world against us ... assigning young soldiers ... to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war."
----
Poll Shows Americans' Views on Iraq War
November 13, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Opinion.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than half of Americans say President Bush decided to go to war on Iraq based on faulty assumptions, says a poll released Thursday.
An overwhelming majority of those polled -- 87 percent -- said the Bush administration portrayed Iraq as an imminent threat before the war. About as many, 84 percent, say the United States has not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to the poll for the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.
Six in 10 say that before going to war, the U.S. government should have taken more time to find out if Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Troops have found little evidence to validate most of the Bush administration's assertions before the war that Iraq had an active chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
The 55 percent of the public that believes the war was based on faulty assumptions about Iraq are divided on whether the president knew the assumptions were false, according to the poll conducted by Knowledge Networks.
Despite these doubts, a majority, 57 percent, said the United States made the right decision going to war against Iraq -- down from 68 percent who felt that way in May.
Three-fourths said the United States has a responsibility to stay in Iraq as long as necessary until there is a stable government.
More than half, 52 percent, said this country has found clear evidence that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al-Qaida terrorist organization. U.S. authorities searching Iraq, however, have found little that would suggest widespread prewar links between al-Qaida and the government of Saddam Hussein.
As Bush faces continuing questions about the Iraq war and reconstruction, public support for his handling of the campaign against terror had dropped from 66 percent in July to 56 percent now, according to an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll out Thursday.
Only 50 percent in a CBS News poll out Thursday said removing Saddam Hussein was worth the loss of American lives and other costs of attacking Iraq, while 43 percent said it wasn't.
The PIPA poll of 1,008 adults was taken Oct. 29-Nov. 10 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
-------- MILITARY
-------- asia
Japan Delays Dispatching Troops for Iraq
November 13, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-japan.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - Shocked by a deadly bomb attack on Italian troops in what had been seen as a relatively safe area of Iraq, Japan said on Thursday its planned dispatch of non-combat forces was not possible under existing conditions.
The bloodiest single attack on U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq since August put Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a close Washington ally, in a tight spot a day ahead of a visit to Tokyo by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
At least 18 Italians and nine Iraqis were killed in the southern region where Japan's troops were expected to be based.
``There should be a situation where our country's Self-Defense Forces can conduct their activities fully,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told a news conference where he was grilled on the issue.
``But to our regret, the situation is not like that.''
Asked whether the dispatch could be delayed until next year, Fukuda said: ``That possibility has always existed.''
Fukuda had said on Wednesday Tokyo was determined to send troops by year-end to help rebuild Iraq.
News agency Kyodo quoted an unidentified source as saying Japan believed its decision to not send troops soon would not hurt ties with the U.S. and that pressure on Tokyo to make ``visible contributions'' to the Iraq reconstruction effort appears to have lessened recently.
Japan has pledged $5 billion in grants and loans to rebuild Iraq, making it the biggest donor after the United States, and the source quoted by Kyodo said this may have soothed U.S. dissatisfaction with Japan's caution about sending troops.
Japan enacted a law in July allowing the dispatch of troops to help with reconstruction and humanitarian activities.
However, the law stipulated that the military, whose overseas activities are curbed by Japan's pacifist constitution, would only be sent to non-combat zones.
The planned dispatch of the military, which has not fired a shot in combat since 1945, is controversial in Japan, where many people opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
EYE ON POLLS
Koizumi, whose ruling coalition saw its majority shrink in a general election last weekend and who faces an Upper House poll in July, was non-committal.
``We will decide after looking carefully at the situation,'' he told reporters, using the phrase he has repeated for months.
A worsening security situation in Iraq and big gains in a weekend election by Japan's opposition Democratic Party, which opposes the dispatch, had already fed speculation the government would delay sending an advance party to Iraq until next year.
Critics say no distinction can be made between ``combat zones'' and ``non-combat zones'' in a country where more than 150 American troops have been killed since President Bush declared major combat over in May.
``The situation is returning to a state of war,'' Democratic Party chief Naoto Kan told a news conference on Wednesday.
``If this situation persists, I think it will be impossible to send troops based on the law,'' said Kan, whose party opposed the enactment of the legislation itself.
Rumsfeld is set to arrive in Japan on Friday for a three-day stay. The situation in Iraq and the crisis over North Korea's nuclear arms program are likely to be high on the agenda.
-------- business
European arms sector gets three-billion-euro missile contract
PARIS (AFP)
Nov 13, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031113174217.18pytj9f.html
The European arms production sector has gotten a boost with the announcement of a three-billion-euro (3.5-billion dollar) contract to supply common air defense missile systems to the armed forces of Fritain, France and Italy.
The contract was awarded by OCCAR, an organization formed by France, Germany, Italy and Britain for the management of collaborative armament programs, to the European aerospace entity Eurosam and to UKAMS of Britain.
Eurosam will draw on contributions from the missile specialist MBDA and the French defense electronics group Thales. UKAMS is MBDA's British subsidiary.
MBDA chairman Marwan Lahoud said Thursday the contract was the largest ever awarded by OCCAR after that for the Airbus military transport plane A400M.
"It's a major step toward a common European security and defense policy," he said.
MBDA, the world's leading missile manufacturer after Raytheon of the United States, is controlled by the European aerospace consortium EADS, BAE Systems of Britain and Finmeccanica of Italy.
The contract calls for production by Eurosam of 18 medium-range, land-based surface-to-air missile systems, 12 for France and six for Italy.
Deliveries are expected to run from 2007 to 2014. The system is designed to protect battlefield forces and sensitive sites such as airports and ports from an attack by missiles or aircraft.
The deal also calls for the supply of Aster missiles for surface-to-air anti-missile systems to the aircraft carriers Charles de Gaulle of France and the future Andrea Doria of Italy and for principal anti-air missile systems to the French-Italian Horizon frigates.
UKAMS will also supply Aster missiles for Britain's T45 destroyers.
In all, 21 naval systems and 20 ground-based air defense systems, along with an estimated 1,800 missiles, will be delivered to the armed forces of Britain, France and Italy.
Of the three billion euros specified in the contract, 2.3 billion will go to MBDA, with a portion sub-contracted to Thales.
The program also opens the possibility for exports beyond Europe, according to Lahad, who said "certain countries in Asia and the Middle East have already shown great interest in this arms system."
At the same time the contract will enable EADS, the European Aeronautic, Defense and Space company that holds a 37.5 percent stake in MBDA, to increase its defense-related sales.
EADS wants to boost such sales from six billion euros in 2002 to nearly 10 billion between now and 2005.
----
Senate Approves Tanker Compromise
Air Force Lease-Buy Plan Going to Bush
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 13, 2003; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34085-2003Nov12.html
The Senate gave final congressional approval yesterday to a multibillion-dollar plan to allow the Air Force to lease 20 Boeing Co. tankers and buy 80 others.
But as they approved the deal, some senators also raised the possibility of holding another round of debate on the controversial program.
The Air Force originally proposed leasing and then buying 100 Boeing 767s for about $21 billion as a way to replace its 40-year-old fleet of tankers, which refuel fighter jets in flight. But faced with resistance from some in Congress, particularly Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Pentagon agreed to a compromise.
"It took two years and a great deal of negotiation, discussion and compromise, but today the Boeing tanker deal is on its way to the president for his signature," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash). "For the Boeing workers, for the Air Force crews and for the economy of Washington state, this 100-plane program is great news."
McCain, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, sought yesterday to ensure that the legislation is interpreted to require two contracts for the program, instead of the current single one. Having two contracts -- one for the lease, another for the purchases -- would reduce the overall cost of the planes, the senators contend.
Buying the planes under one contract, as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz proposes, "could be very costly and could dramatically slash the savings that this compromise intends to provide -- an outcome that is unacceptable," said McCain, who is also on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
If the Air Force relied on one contract for the purchase and lease of the planes, it would reduce the original $21 billion cost by $3 billion. Two contracts would result in a savings of more than $5 billion by eliminating some costs already built into the original contract, according to the senator.
The Air Force has said that any change in the contract would delay the service's acquisition of the planes.
Nickles said he calls "upon the secretary of defense to implement the compromise provision in a way that accurately reflects the intent of the conference -- acquire its tankers for the Air Force in a way that maximizes savings to taxpayers."
The Air Force is deciding whether it will pursue one contract or two, said Air Force spokeswoman Cheryl Law.
But a Senate aide said the legislative intent has been established and the Air Force has no choice but to fall into line.
The debate is expected to continue during Senate confirmation hearings on the nomination of Air Force Secretary James G. Roche to be secretary of the Army, and on Michael W. Wynne's nomination as the Pentagon's chief procurement officer.
It is unclear how the Air Force will pay for the tankers. The original lease proposal was designed to help the Air Force avoid the high upfront cost of purchasing the planes. Under the compromise, the Air Force would have to come up with nearly $3 billion in 2008.
An Air Force spokeswoman said payment details are still being worked out.
The deal was included in the 2004 defense authorization bill, which was passed by the House last week, and now needs only President Bush's approval.
"What at first looked like just another slam-dunk, dole-out to a defense contractor turned out instead to be a very refreshing case of the public interest for once prevailing over the interests of the private sector," said Eric Miller, a defense industry specialist with Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group.
----
THE CHARGE OF HALLIBURTON
11/13/2003
Jim Hightower
http://www.jimhightower.com/air/read.asp?id=11230
Like a bad tamale, Halliburton, Inc. keeps repeating on us.
This massive military contractor has a long history of weaseling into war deals that reap huge profits for the company's owners and executives. During the Vietnam years, its Brown & Root subsidiary pumped money into Lyndon Johnson's campaign coffers and then drew billions of dollars from us taxpayers in profiteering funds from that war. Then, with Dick Cheney as its CEO in the 1990s, it grew even fatter on military deals, including getting Iraqi contracts to repair Saddam Hussein's war-torn oil industry.
Now, Cheney has moved up to vice president, Saddam has been declared the Great Satan, our troops are in an ongoing war in Iraq - but there's Halliburton . . . still weaseling, still profiteering. Cheney's old company (which puts more than $150,000 a year into his bank account) was first in line to get taxpayer funds from the Bush-Cheney regime for rebuilding Iraq. Of all the companies in the world, the Cheney-connected Halliburton got the non-bid contract to import gasoline into Iraq. So far, it has been paid $700 million for this chore, with the money coming not only from U.S. taxpayers, but also from a United Nations fund meant to provide humanitarian aid in Iraq.
Lest you think Halliburton is humanitarian, it has been caught gouging everyone involved. The company is charging $1.59 a gallon for the gasoline that it delivers from countries close around Iraq. Yes, says Halliburton, this is expensive, but after all, it takes a lot to distribute fuel in a dangerous war environment.
We might swallow that . . . except that an Iraqi oil agency is able to get gasoline from the same surrounding countries, deliver it in the same hostile environment--and charge only 98 cents a gallon, 40 percent less than Halliburton!
Hey, Halliburton - in war, when the bugle blows, you're supposed to charge, not overcharge.
-------- colombia
Colombia's Armed Forces Chief Quits
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press Writer
Nov 13,
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/COLOMBIA_SHAKEUP?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- The commander of Colombia's armed forces became the latest senior official to quit his post, abruptly turning in his resignation and ending a 42-year military career.
Gen. Jorge Enrique Mora didn't explain his decision Wednesday and neither did President Alvaro Uribe, who has seen three Cabinet ministers, the head of the Colombian National Police and four other senior police officials resign recently.
The departures came after an Oct. 25 referendum in which Colombians rejected measures that would have cut government spending to free money to fight the rebels, who have waged four decades of guerrilla warfare in this South American country. The measures also would have strengthened Uribe's battle against corruption.
Mora said he would step down on Nov. 20.
"It has been a privilege to have taken part in the colossal transformation that our beloved Colombia is undergoing toward a great destiny," Mora said in his resignation letter to Uribe. Only three days ago, Colombia's first female defense minister, Martha Lucia Ramirez, resigned after clashing with Mora and other senior military commanders. Her departure gave many the impression that the commanders had triumphed over her, but Mora's departure called that theory into doubt.
A veteran European ambassador here said the changes show that Uribe - with three years remaining in his four-year term - is asserting his authority.
"This is a signal to both the military and civilian authorities, and the message is 'I am in charge and you do what I tell you,'" the ambassador told The Associated Press. "The military cannot bask in its victory over the civilian authorities."
By choosing an old friend, Jorge Alberto Uribe, as the new defense minister, the president ensures implementation of his policies, the ambassador said. The new minister, who is not related to the president, is a U.S.-educated economist with no military experience.
The president last week also chose another ally, businessman Sabas Pretelt, to head the Interior and Justice Ministry, replacing a sharp-tongued figure who clashed with lawmakers Uribe hopes will approve a tax increase to pay for the war against the rebels.
That so many heads have rolled is raising concern about Uribe's governing style and whether the counterinsurgency war - partly financed with $2.5 billion in U.S. aid - might falter.
Humberto de la Calle, a political commentator who served as interior minister and as vice president in the mid-1990s, said Uribe has mishandled the leadership changes.
"What should have been a favorable presentation of a rejuvenated Cabinet full of the possibility of improving the government ... has become a crisis," de la Calle said.
On Tuesday night, Uribe ousted the commander of the Colombian National Police, Gen. Teodoro Campo, and four other senior police officers amid a series of police corruption scandals.
Uribe told reporters Wednesday he remained focused on fulfilling his pledge to put this war-ravaged country in order, and that all other matters were secondary.
Uribe did not immediately name a replacement for Mora. Presidential spokesman Ricardo Galan insisted that the government's war against the rebels would continue.
--------
Colombian Military Commander Resigns
By Andrew Selsky
Associated Press
Thursday, November 13, 2003; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33662-2003Nov12.html
BOGOTA, Colombia, Nov. 12 -- The commander of Colombia's armed forces, Gen. Jorge Enrique Mora, announced Wednesday he was resigning, making him the fifth top official to leave President Alvaro Uribe's government in a week.
His voice choking with emotion, Mora read a statement on national television and before a crowd of journalists saying he would leave the military on Nov. 20 after a 42-year career. He did not give an explanation.
Mora's announcement came three days after Colombia's first female defense minister, Marta Lucia Ramirez, resigned after clashing openly with Mora and other senior military commanders. Her departure gave many the impression that the commanders had triumphed over her.
In the past week, two other cabinet ministers, the head of the Colombian National Police and four other police officials have resigned under pressure following the defeat of political reforms that Uribe said were needed to fight leftist rebels and crack down on corruption.
The series of changes is raising concern about Uribe's governing style and whether the counterinsurgency war -- partly financed with $2.5 billion in U.S. aid -- might falter.
Humberto de la Calle, a political commentator who served as interior minister and as vice president in the mid-1990s, said Uribe had mishandled the leadership changes.
"What should have been a favorable presentation of a rejuvenated cabinet full of the possibility of improving the government . . . has become a crisis," de la Calle said.
The president designated a longtime friend, Jorge Alberto Uribe, as the new defense minister. The choice was seen by analysts as an indication that the president was ensuring implementation of his policies. The new minister, who is not related to the president, is a U.S.-educated economist with no military experience.
The president last week also chose another ally, businessman Sabas Pretelt, to head the Interior and Justice Ministry, replacing Fernando Londoño, a sharp-tongued figure who clashed with lawmakers whose support Uribe needs to approve a tax increase to pay for the war against the rebels.
On Tuesday night, Uribe ousted the commander of the Colombian National Police, Gen. Teodoro Campo, and four other senior officers over a series of police corruption scandals.
Uribe told reporters Wednesday he remained intensely focused on fulfilling his pledge to put this war-ravaged country in order, and that all other matters were secondary.
"Victory is what I work for," Uribe said. "And that is victory against terrorism, victory in the struggle against corruption and victory in stimulating the economy. Other defeats don't matter."
Uribe did not immediately name a replacement for Mora. Presidential spokesman Ricardo Galan insisted that the government's war against the rebels would continue.
Still, Mora's departure was unsettling, said Gen. Carlos Ospina, the commander of the Colombian army.
"It is a very hard blow for us because Gen. Mora is a national hero and a great leader of the armed forces," said Ospina, considered a leading candidate to become the next armed forces commander.
-------- europe
ROME
With His Policies Facing a Major Test, Berlusconi Insists the Troops Will Stay in Iraq
November 13, 2003
By FRANK BRUNI
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/international/europe/13REAC.html
ROME, Nov. 12 - Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, said Wednesday that his mind was unchanged and his determination unshaken: Italian forces belonged and would stay in Iraq, despite the deaths of 17 Italians in a suicide bombing.
But as Italians absorbed the horror of that bloodshed, it was clear that Mr. Berlusconi's commitment to helping the United States in Iraq would come under newly intense scrutiny and perhaps increased opposition.
Italian public opinion has run strongly against the war in Iraq, at odds with Mr. Berlusconi's deep desire to please the United States.
The bombing on Wednesday, which Italian officials called the deadliest single strike against Italian armed forces since World War II, threatened to sharpen that tension and cause Mr. Berlusconi significant political trouble.
"I don't think Berlusconi is willing or able to say, `O.K., we're pulling our forces back,' " said Lucio Caracciolo, the editor of Limes, the leading Italian foreign policy journal.
"It would mean that the special relationship he has deliberately built over the last couple of years with Bush and Blair would be disrupted," said Mr. Caracciolo, referring to the American president and the British prime minister.
"On the other hand," Mr. Caracciolo added, elaborating on Mr. Berlusconi's problem, "I think he will have quite a rough time in Parliament and in public debate."
Mr. Berlusconi seems well aware of that.
Shortly after the bombing, he visited and addressed both houses of the Italian Parliament, as did his defense minister, Antonio Martino. Their speeches were televised nationwide.
Mr. Berlusconi told the country that the government's decision, after the fall of Baghdad, to dispatch up to 3,000 Italian soldiers, paramilitary police officers and civilians to Iraq was a just one. He said that Italians should not suddenly question that. "Our determination must be the same as that of the Italians in uniform who have brought honor to themselves and to the coalition that is committed to supporting Iraq's journey toward democracy," he said. "No intimidation will budge us from our willingness to help that country rise up again."
But the depth and durability of that willingness, inside and outside Mr. Berlusconi's center-right governing coalition, are unclear.
A majority of Italian legislators voted in the spring to authorize an Italian military presence in Iraq, and many of Mr. Berlusconi's opponents did not wage much of a fight against it. The military presence was framed as a relief, not a combat, mission.
But the authorization expires at the end of the year, and it is expected to come to another vote in Parliament just before then.
One Western diplomat said the bombing would certainly prompt dissent and debate, but also predicted the military presence would be re-authorized. "I don't think that this dramatically shifts the equation," the diplomat said.
Several Italian political analysts and politicians agreed, saying that Italian lawmakers would not want to act in a way that made Italy seem fickle or easily cowed by terrorists.
"It is not possible to say, `We are there,' and then, after such a dramatic event, decide to withdraw," said Paolo Gentiloni, a center-left member of Parliament.
Sergio Romano, a former ambassador to NATO, noted that Mr. Berlusconi's case for the military presence in Iraq had arguably been strengthened by a recent United Nations Security Council vote that authorized an American-led multinational force there.
But those same analysts and politicians said that Mr. Berlusconi was nonetheless in a difficult position, because he had nudged Italians down a road that held little appeal for most of them - and the toll the country paid Wednesday would remind them.
"Berlusconi has got to be very worried," Mr. Romano said.
After news of the bombing broke here, Italians could be seen crying as they walked down the street. They could be heard sobbing in television broadcasts of calls they placed to police stations to express their sorrow for the people who were killed. In Parliament, one lawmaker after another rose to express grief and rage.
For the most part, opposition lawmakers avoided partisan comments, saying debate could wait while the country mourned.
But some of Mr. Berlusconi's opponents did not hesitate.
"The time has come to change course," said Massimo D'Alema, a former Italian prime minister and current opposition leader.
From the moment Mr. Berlusconi took office, he has stressed kinship with the United States, which he sees as both an economic advantage and a way to lift Italy's stature in the world.
On Wednesday, some Italians said that they were glad that Italy was playing a part in trying to build a democratic Iraq, and some said that Italy should help, however possible, in the American campaign against terrorism around the world.
But many other Italians said that being in Iraq made no sense and was not serving any purposes.
"It's useless to be there," Valentino Valentini, a 27-year-old bartender here. Mr. Valentini said that he was enraged by both the Italian military presence and its bitter consequence, adding: "What we should do is send the politicians to Iraq."
-------- iran
Rice Clarifies Stand On Iranian Group
Dissidents in Iraq Under U.S. Scrutiny
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 13, 2003; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33885-2003Nov12.html
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, rebutting suggestions the Bush administration is being lenient with an Iranian opposition group operating out of Iraq, said yesterday that the Mujaheddin-e Khalq is "part of the global war on terrorism" and its members "are being screened for possible involvement in war crimes, terrorism and other criminal activities."
Rice, in an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors, said she was responding to an article in The Post on Sunday that described an apparently easygoing relationship between U.S. forces and the 3,800 Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) troops. One military official, Sgt. William Sutherland, told a reporter that MEK members are patriots. "The problem is they're still labeled as terrorists, even though we both know they're not," Sutherland said.
Rice said, "The story and such stories have been causing some confusion about American policy. We just wanted to make sure the reference is clear, that everyone understands where we stand on the MEK."
The MEK is a highly sensitive issue for Iran, which has privately suggested to the administration that it will turn over al Qaeda members in exchange for captured members of the MEK. Last month, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage ruled out such a deal "because we can't be sure of the way they'd be treated," referring to the MEK members.
But the administration has also indicated that it is willing to restart Iraq-related discussions with Iran, which were suspended six months ago. Rice's remarks appear to be part of an effort to signal to the Iranians that the administration is firm on dealing with the group.
"I just want to be very clear that the U.S. remains committed to preventing the MEK, which is now contained in Iraq, from engaging in terrorist activities, including activities against Iran, and its reconstitution inside Iraq as a terrorist organization," Rice said.
The State Department officially designated the MEK as a terrorist group in 1997. The MEK has been campaigning for several decades to overthrow the Iranian government, and since 1987 has been operating out of Iraq with the backing of Saddam Hussein.
But since the start of war in Iraq, the MEK has been the subject of a fierce tug-of-war within the administration. While the State Department pressed for MEK members to be treated as terrorists, some Pentagon officials appeared to view them as a possible vanguard against the Iranian government.
Six months ago, President Bush ordered U.S. military forces to surround the MEK's camps along the Iraq-Iran border and to force the group to give up its arms. But administration officials said the Pentagon for months allowed the group to retain its weapons, to come and go at the camps at will and to use camp facilities to broadcast propaganda into Iran.
In September, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell wrote Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about the issue. Powell's note cited reports that the MEK enjoyed broad freedom to continue its operations. The note also mentioned that intercepts of Iranian government communications indicated the MEK continued to pose problems for the government in Tehran.
The White House at the time acknowledged that, while the MEK was to be treated by the military as a terrorist organization, "recently, the Department of Defense has come to believe that guidance has not been fully implemented." Officials said a plan was carried out to fulfill the original guidance "in accordance with resources available."
In January, before the war against Iraq was launched, U.S. officials held a secret meeting with Iranian officials. They suggested that the United States would target the MEK as a way of gaining Iran's cooperation in sealing its border and providing assistance to search-and-rescue missions for downed U.S. pilots during the war.
In early April, U.S. forces bombed the MEK camps, killing about 50 people, according to the group, before a cease-fire was arranged on April 15. The cease-fire convinced the Iranian government that it had been double-crossed -- until Bush ordered in May that the group be disarmed.
-------- iraq
U.S. Moves to Speed Up Iraqi Vote and Shift of Power
November 13, 2003
By DAVID E. SANGER and STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/politics/13PREX.html?hp
WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 - The Bush administration, moving up its timetable for self-government in Iraq and yielding to its own handpicked leadership there, has decided to try to hold elections in the first half of next year and turn civilian authority over to a temporary government before a new constitution is written, administration officials said Wednesday.
Increasing attacks on American and other foreign forces forced a rethinking of the administration's approach in recent days, the officials said, lending more urgency to the need for Iraqi self-rule by the middle of next year.
The new plan - a two-step process - was intended in part, they said, to change the political climate in Iraq and reduce the anger toward occupying forces that fosters support for violence, including attacks on American and other foreign forces, by demonstrating to Iraqis that the United States is moving more quickly to establish self-rule.
But it was not clear whether those behind the guerrilla attacks, whoever they are, would regard a changed political situation as significant if large numbers of American forces are still in Iraq.
L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator in Iraq, who returned to Washington for high-level discussions earlier this week, headed back on Wednesday to begin consultations with Iraqi leaders about the American plan. They appear to have grown increasingly impatient with the American-led occupation.
In Baghdad, Iraqi political leaders in the 24-member Iraqi Governing Council said that they had decided to reject any plan to write a new constitution in the coming months, saying they will propose instead that they immediately assume the powers of a provisional government.
Members of the Governing Council said Wednesday that they had reached a consensus that writing a constitution and electing the drafters of a constitution as demanded by the powerful Shiite clergy would be too divisive at this stage. They are also increasingly frustrated with America's exercise of power.
Administration officials said Mr. Bremer was carrying a set of ideas rather than a fixed plan and would work with Iraq's Governing Council to develop a mutually agreeable approach to turning over civilian authority to Iraqis.
It appeared that the two sides were moving in the same direction but still had differences to bridge. The Iraqis favor the immediate formation of a provisional government, made up of the current Iraqi Governing Council, rather than elections.
An early transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government would not mean a withdrawal of American troops, administration officials said. But if an Iraqi government could command broad support within the country, it could enable a significant draw down of troops before the American elections next November.
"The Iraqis won't tolerate us staying in power for that long," said an administration official, referring to American rule as opposed to the presence of American forces. "Whatever we want to call ourselves, we are an occupying army, and we just cannot stay in power for that long."
The American plan to hold elections has yet to be worked out in detail. Administration officials said that voter rolls could be put together for an election in 2004 of some kind of representative body that would, in turn, select an interim government and write a new constitution. A second round of elections would follow the guidelines in that constitution.
Earlier American plans intended the drafting of a constitution to be followed by elections late next year, with no transfer of power before then to a provisional Iraqi government.
Various options for the future government of Iraq were discussed Wednesday at a meeting of the National Security Council, with President Bush in charge and Mr. Bremer in attendance.
Until recently, American policy was to have the current Iraqi Governing Council decide how to write a constitution. In its latest resolution, the United Nations Security Council called on the Governing Council to decide on such a process by Dec. 15.
But lately, the council told Mr. Bremer that the only way the writing of a constitution would be seen as legitimate was if the delegates were elected.
Elections have been demanded by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite religious leader. Experts assume that Shiites, who predominate in Iraq, would win a commanding majority of seats in any election.
Ayatollah Sistani's demand stirred fears among some American officials that an elected constitution-writing body might write a theocratic charter that enshrined Islam as a state religion and marginalized the Sunni minority, potentially aggravating the violent rebellion of remnants loyal to Saddam Hussein.
Ayatollah Sistani has kept his distance from the occupation forces, but administration officials said council members have tried to suggest alternatives to him, like having the convention chosen by some amalgam of elections, provincial councils, town meetings, local caucuses and the like. But he has rejected the proposals, the officials said.
"Sistani has enormous weight," an administration official said. "We have to heed what the Iraqis are telling us on this."
Administration officials said that after the constitution is written, a permanent Iraqi government would be recognized and another set of elections could be held. These ideas were to be carried back to the Iraqi Governing Council by Mr. Bremer later this week, administration officials said.
The United Nations and many European leaders have been pushing for a more rapid transfer of power to Iraqis, and the American refusal to speed up a transfer has made it more difficult for the United States to win international support for the rebuilding effort.
Mr. Bush, officials said, was impressed with the argument that writing a constitution would take a long time. "The president agreed that we couldn't wait for a constitution to be written," said one official. "The system can't handle it."
--------
At Least 27 Killed in Attack on Italian Troops
November 13, 2003
By JOHN F. BURNS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/international/middleeast/13CND-IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
NASIRIYA, Iraq, Nov. 13 - A car or truck bomb exploded in the courtyard of an Italian paramilitary police headquarters in this southern Iraqi city on Wednesday, killing 18 Italians and at least 9 Iraqis and wounding more than 105 others.
It was the most lethal single attack on forces of the American-led occupation since Saddam Hussein was swept from power in April.
A British military spokesman, Maj. Charlie Mayo, confirmed today that the number of Italians killed had risen by one, to 18. He also said that it was very difficult to put an exact number on the number of Iraqis who may have died, and said that news agency reports that a total of up to 32 people were killed could not be confirmed.
Major Mayo, the multinational divisional spokesman based in Basra, said that on occasion many Iraqis who have been wounded in such incidents "aren't necessarily taken to a hospital," or transported by ambulence, adding that is is "therefore extremely difficult to know exactly how many people" are involved.
Major Mayo said his information was being supplied by the Italian military police at the scene, the local police and local residents.
The bomb exploded at 10:40 a.m. local time on Wednesday, ripping apart the three-story building and an annex that stand beside a broad stretch of the Euphrates river in the center of Nasiriya, 180 miles south of Baghdad. The lightly protected buildings, formerly the city's Chamber of Commerce, served as offices and accommodation for 200 members of the Carabinieri, the Italian military police force, and most were in the buildings at the time of the attack.
"A truck crashed into the entrance of the military police unit, closely followed by a car which detonated," a spokeswoman for the British-led multinational force in southern Iraq said shortly after the blast.
An Iraqi witness said he saw a blue-and-white Russian-built truck approach the building at high speed along a boulevard leading to the river, with a bearded man in the front passenger seat firing at Italian guards before the vehicle swung past the guards and a line of low, earth-filled barriers before exploding.
There were no claims of responsibility for the attack, the latest in a series that have struck at not only Americans but other foreigners and the Iraqis that support them. Earlier targets have included the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Jordanian Embassy.
Hours after the blast, American forces launched a pair of ferocious strikes against suspected loyalists of Saddam Hussein's government in Baghdad, signaling a new and more aggressive strategy.
In Nasiriya, the force of the bombing of the Italian compound left a crater 50 yards from the main building that was more than 50 feet across and 10 feet deep. The front and side of the building was sheered off, with iron beds, desks and other equipment and personal belongings strewn in the wreckage.
Ammunition stored in the building exploded, and vehicles in an adjacent parking lot caught fire, sending a huge plume of flame and smoke curling for hours into the clear autumn air. A wide area around the site was immediately sealed off by Italian and Romanian troops.
Many of the Italians killed and wounded in the attack had been due to head back to Italy at midweek, at the end of a four-month stint.
In addition to the dead, there were 20 Italians among the wounded. At the Nasiriya hospital, doctors said 85 Iraqis had been injured, 30 seriously. They said the dead included three schoolgirls of about 10 who died in a passing minibus, as well as a 10-day-old infant whose mother survived. At least 10 of the injured Iraqis were women and children.
In Rome, Italy's defense minister, Antonio Martino, blamed loyalists of Mr. Hussein for the attack but presented no evidence to support his claim. The Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, said Italy would not be shaken from its commitment to Iraq and the United States.
An Italian official representing the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American-led governing body, told reporters 12 hours after the blast that its force left little that was immediately identifiable from any vehicle or attacker. Whether the attack was carried out by a car and a truck, or only one vehicle, was in doubt, the official, Andrea Angeli, said.
He said the Italians killed were 11 military police officers, 4 soldiers and 2 civilians, one a television documentary filmmaker.
Attacks have killed more than 40 American soldiers since the beginning of November, and a total of 154 Americans since President Bush declared major combat operations over on May 1, contributing to a sense of crisis in Washington as administration officials seek ways to stabilize the situation.
The immediate question raised by Wednesday's bombing was how it would affect the United States' faltering efforts to draw other nations into committing troops and police to the occupation forces.
American officials say 33 nations are represented in the occupation effort, but an American diplomatic drive to draw contingents from Muslim nations like Turkey and Pakistan has failed, and several nations in Europe, including France and Germany, have also refused. Italy's role has been prized by Washington in the face of broad European resistance.
Among international agencies seeking to bring relief to Iraq's 22 million people, morale has been battered by the bombings of the United Nations headquarters in August, which killed 22 people, and the blast that struck the Baghdad compound of the International Red Cross late last month, killing at least 12. Both organizations have ordered all non-Iraqi personnel to leave Baghdad.
The attack on Wednesday was followed by reassurances for Washington from nations that have said that they will send troops here. In Portugal, which had pledged to replace some of the Italian paramilitary troops who were the target of the bombing, officials said plans to send 128 police officers to Iraq were unaltered. But opposition parties demanded that Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso's conservative government review the plan, which has drawn limited support in Portuguese opinion polls.
Poland, which has 2,500 soldiers in Iraq, mostly in the British-led southern sector of the country, said that its troops would stay. The Polish units suffered the country's first combat death since World War II when a Polish soldier died in an Iraqi ambush last week.
For the occupation forces, the bombing was a disturbing change in the pattern of suicide attacks, which have been mainly concentrated in Baghdad and other cities in the central part of Iraq, close to the centers of Sunni Muslim population that were the core of support for Mr. Hussein's government.
But the most lethal of all the bomb attacks, outside a Muslim shrine in the city of Najaf in August, which killed more than 80 people, including one of the country's leading Shiite Muslim clerics, occurred in a city with a majority Shiite population.
Until Wednesday, Nasiriya had been something of a model for the occupation forces. Although paramilitary forces loyal to Mr. Hussein put up a fierce resistance at Nasiriya to American troops pushing north to Baghdad during the war to overthrow Mr. Hussein, the city has been mostly quiet for months. It was garrisoned first by marines, and then by Italians and Romanians. Iraqis interviewed across the city after Wednesday's blast that the occupation forces had been broadly popular, riding a wave of gratitude for ridding the country of Mr. Hussein.
It was a marked contrast to the Sunni cities of central Iraq like Falluja, Ramadi and Tikrit, where attacks on the Americans have drawn cheering crowds. That was the pattern last week, when two American helicopters were shot down, killing 22 American soldiers. In those areas, Mr. Hussein remains a hero.
In Nasiriya, the common attitude was grief for the Italians and support for the occupation forces. Reporters were assured that the attackers had to have come from the north, or perhaps from Islamic fundamentalist groups elsewhere in southern Iraq. On street corners, and in homes as much as a mile from the blast where doors were blown out and wrought-iron window grills buckled, people competed with one another to say that they did not want the attacks to drive coalition forces from Iraq. They were also proud of the role played by doctors at the Nasiriya hospital, where most of the wounded were taken, in treating Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who was taken prisoner after her maintenance unit was ambushed outside Nasiriya during the war and rescued in a helicopter raid. On Wednesday, many people asked after her.
Italian officers and officials lingered deep into the night outside the bombed buildings' shattered hulks. They said that the attack was a terrible blow for Italy, which had taken great pride in the role its military police had played in Bosnia and Kosovo, and in Albania. "Our policy has been to be quite open, and to have a genuine dialogue with the people," said Mr. Angeli, the spokesman for the occupation authority. "This is a real tragedy."
--------
Blast at Italian Police Post in Iraq Kills 29
Worst Assault Against U.S.-Allied Forces Continues Escalation of Guerrilla Campaign
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 13, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34015-2003Nov12?language=printer
NASIRIYAH, Iraq, Nov. 12 -- A vehicle packed with explosives hurtled through a lightly defended barricade and devastated the headquarters of the Italian military police here Wednesday, killing at least 18 Italians and 11 Iraqis, officials and witnesses said. About 100 people were wounded in the deadliest assault on foreign forces allied with the U.S. military in Iraq since the start of the occupation.
The bombing, another in a series of suicide attacks that have become a hallmark of an escalating guerrilla campaign against occupation forces, cleared a path of destruction through an upscale neighborhood in this southern city on the Euphrates River about 185 miles southeast of Baghdad.
The blast sheared the facades off houses, shattered windows hundreds of yards away and incinerated cars with people still in them. Witnesses said the resulting blaze and smoke were so intense that firetrucks could not enter surrounding streets, which were smeared with blood and littered with severed limbs and heads.
"It was louder than a bomb dropped by an airplane," said Khaled Abdel-Amir, 20, a grocer who ducked behind blocks of ice as debris rained down on his stand. "I've never heard anything like it."
The attack was the deadliest in Iraq since a car bomb on Aug. 29 killed at least 85 people, including a leading Shiite Muslim cleric, outside a shrine in the southern city of Najaf. It caused the Italian military's single biggest loss of life since World War II and its first since joining the occupation forces in Iraq.
During an insurgency that has been largely confined to Baghdad and an arc north and west of the capital, the bombing demonstrated the capacity of guerrillas to maneuver and strike even in the Shiite south, where the occupation had met little resistance until Wednesday. For the United States, it underlined the challenge in seeking more foreign forces to bolster a U.S. military already spread thin.
In Italy, where some opposition parties have demanded an end to the country's involvement in Iraq, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi pledged that his government would not withdraw its 2,300 troops. "No intimidation must deter us from the will to help this country to lift itself up and build a government and a situation of security and freedom," he told the Italian Senate in an address broadcast nationwide.
At the White House, President Bush offered his sympathy, as well as support and gratitude for Italy's role. "Today in Iraq, a member of NATO -- Italy -- lost some proud sons," Bush said.
The explosion occurred at about 10:50 a.m., as the street in front of the Italian base -- housed in Nasiriyah's former chamber of commerce -- was congested with traffic. Witnesses reported hearing gunfire erupt near the base, followed by the screech of tires and then the deafening blast.
As with bombings in Baghdad, the attack appeared coordinated and well-planned. At least two vehicles were involved -- a blue truck pulling a tank trailer, followed by a car. British Flight Lt. Katherine McIntosh, a spokeswoman for the multinational division based in Basra, said the tanker barreled through the base's entrance, making way for the car, which detonated inside.
Several witnesses interviewed at Nasiriyah General Hospital, however, insisted that the explosives were packed inside the tanker. They said they saw the truck speed across a nearby bridge, then veer toward the base, which was fortified with sand-filled barricades, metal ties and coils of barbed wire. It zigzagged through some of the barriers, then entered a gate that one witness said was open.
As the truck approached the gate, a passenger wearing a black shirt fired a pistol at the Italian guards, said Fadhil Abbas, a guard at a relief agency across the street. The driver then opened the door, possibly triggering the device about 20 yards from the building. Abbas, hospitalized with shrapnel wounds to his back, arm and leg, said he was thrown 15 feet by the explosion.
"It was like a storm," he said. "How can I describe something that lifts me from the gate and throws me into the garage?"
The blast ignited fuel and ammunition at the base that burned for an hour. It carved the facade off two sides of the three-story base, which housed about 200 military police officers, and left twisted ribbons of steel hanging from the walls.
Andrea Angeli, a spokesman for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Nasiriyah, said the differing accounts of the incident may never be reconciled. Most of the witnesses, he said, were killed in the explosion.
"The truck made it through. Whether it was the truck that contained the explosives or opened the way for the vehicles, this for me remains to be seen," he said at the site, which was bathed in the pallid glow of a searchlight.
Italian officials said the attack killed 12 military police officers, known as carabinieri, four soldiers working on a documentary film, the documentary's civilian producer and an Italian aid worker. About 20 others were wounded. The carabinieri were part of the Multinational Specialized Unit, a highly trained force that has served in peacekeeping roles in Kosovo, Bosnia and Albania.
Most of those killed had been scheduled to leave Iraq in two days, Angeli said.
A list posted at the Nasiriyah hospital named five Iraqis killed and 83 wounded. Hospital officials said the bodies of six Iraqis had not been identified. Among them were four girls and the driver of a taxi incinerated by the blast.
In the crowded wards, men in tribal dress and women in flowing black abayas huddled near the beds of the wounded, sharing food to break the fast that Muslims observe from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ramadan. Into the evening, Nasiriyah television broadcast appeals for blood.
Around the blast site, families hastily packed bags with clothes and a few belongings and left.
"The attack was random and it was criminal," said Abbas Ali, 32, a lawyer cut by flying glass from the windows of the nearby courthouse. "Why are we guilty? What did we do to have the innocent injured and killed?"
In Rome, Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino blamed the bombing on fighters loyal to the former government of Saddam Hussein. Residents here also blamed remnants of Hussein's Baath Party, as well as followers of Osama bin Laden and other Sunni Muslim militants seeking to ignite strife among Shiites.
Running through the conversations in Nasiriyah was fear that Wednesday's attack could open the way for more bombings in the city. "This may be the first time, but I think it will happen many times in the future," said Haider Khalaf, 19, a student.
The Italian military had prided itself on its relations with people in Nasiriyah, and several residents said they believed the base was only lightly guarded. Barbed wire and barricades lined the entrance, but unlike government buildings and offices in Baghdad, the base had no concrete barriers. From witness accounts, the drivers apparently shot their way through.
"The policy is to be quite open, have a dialogue with the people," Angeli said.
Until Wednesday, the guerrilla campaign against U.S.-led forces was largely confined to Baghdad and the Sunni areas between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, an arc of territory relatively favored under Hussein's rule. Homemade bombs in that restive area killed two U.S. soldiers Tuesday -- one when his vehicle hit an explosive on a road north of Baghdad on Tuesday evening, the other when a bomb went off near the center of the capital.
In the violence-prone town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, American soldiers killed at least five Iraqis, including a 10-year-old boy, on Monday night in an attempt to shoot at a truckload of thieves who had fired at the Americans, witnesses said.
Witnesses said the Iraqis were making an evening shipment of live chickens when they approached a U.S. checkpoint near a hospital. Just moments before, at least two Iraqis in a truck laden with metal pipes tried to run the roadblock, and Iraqi police had alerted the soldiers.
The Americans fired automatic weapons, hitting the chicken truck, witnesses said. "The Americans shot all over the place. They just shot like they were crazy," said Ziad Abud Abadi, who runs a gift kiosk in front of the hospital.
The 82nd Airborne Division, which is deployed in Fallujah, gave a different version of events. In a statement, the unit said that when a vehicle drove up and its passengers fired at the soldiers, the troops fired back and the assailants tried to flee into a second vehicle. Then a third vehicle approached at a "high rate of speed" and the soldiers shot again, killing two passengers. Another vehicle approached, shots rang out from it, and the soldiers fired back.
In all, six "aggressors" were killed, the statement said.
In downtown Baghdad on Wednesday, a driver for a member of Iraq's Governing Council was wounded when soldiers firing on another vehicle hit his instead. The council member, Muhammed Bahr Uloum, was not injured. Uloum is an independent Shiite Muslim leader.
The soldiers shot at a car that they suspected was trying to enter the council's headquarters by slipping in behind Uloum's. The Pentagon issued a written apology.
Correspondent Daniel Williams in Fallujah contributed to this report.
--------
NEW TACTICS
U.S. Mounts Fierce Air Battle Against Suspected Guerrilla Targets in Baghdad
November 13, 2003
By DEXTER FILKINS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/international/middleeast/13BAGH.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 13 - American forces carried out two ferocious airstrikes Wednesday evening against suspected loyalists of Saddam Hussein's regime, signaling a new and more aggressive strategy to regain the initiative in the guerrilla war now raging across the country's Sunni Muslim heartland.
American military officers said Wednesday evening that they had called in an AC-130 gunship to destroy a warehouse in southern Baghdad that was suspected of serving as a base for guerrillas planning actions against American forces. They said an Apache helicopter had been called in to cripple an Iraqi van suspected of carrying a mortar used to mount attacks on Americans.
Two Iraqis were killed and three were wounded in the strike against the van, officials said, while five other men traveling inside were taken prisoner. Casualties at the warehouse, which was in ruins, were unknown early Thursday morning. American troops sealed off the neighborhood.
"These are offensive operations," Capt. David Gercken of the Army's First Armored Division said. "We are telling these guys, `You aren't going to do this anymore.' "
Air attacks have been rare since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations on May 1. This month, American commanders called in airstrikes on suspected Iraqi targets near where two American helicopters had been shot down outside Falluja and Tikrit.
Captain Gercken said the attacks Wednesday evening were the opening round of an operation in Baghdad expected to last several days. He said the strikes had been made possible by a recent influx of intelligence, most of it from local Iraqis, that began to flow to the Americans after recent suicide attacks against police buildings and relief agencies.
The strikes Wednesday came a day after the senior American military commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, outlined a new strategy to crush the insurgency that is now generating an average of 30 attacks a day against Americans.
General Sanchez said the war here was at "turning point" and, certain it was turning in the Americans' favor, he promised to wage it with greater intensity than ever before.
The American attacks, which officials said had been in the works for some time, were begun hours after a truck bomb attack against an Italian military police compound in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriya.
The attacks Wednesday were reminiscent of the tactics employed by the Israeli military against Palestinian guerrillas; high-tech weaponry of overwhelming force, directed at specific targets, often in urban areas.
As if to signal that the American military was loosening restraints, a military spokesman said tonight that the Army had used one of the most lethal weapons at its disposal to destroy the warehouse: an AC-130 gunship armed with a rapid-fire 105-millimeter cannon.
Just after sunset, the gunship fired 18 cannon rounds into the warehouse and 50 rounds from its 40 millimeter heavy machine gun. The howitzer's explosions echoed through the streets of Baghdad, one after the other in rapid succession. For months, such echoes have signaled an attack by Iraqi insurgents on American forces, but not this time.
Troops from the 82nd Airborne Division and the First Armored Division sealed off the area around the warehouse, in the Sadiya neighborhood, and were sweeping the building, officials said.
Later in the evening, an Apache attack helicopter disabled the Iraqi Hvan. Capt. Gercken, the spokesman for the First Armored Division, said American soldiers, suspecting the van contained a mortar, had tried to stop it near the area known as Abu Garhib, just west of Baghdad. It raced off, managing to elude the much heavier Humvees, gaining such a lead, officials said, that it stopped several times. The American soldiers called in the Apache.
It was unclear what the Apache had fired at the van, Captain Gercken said, but the van was stopped in its tracks. Inside, there were two dead Iraqis and three wounded. Five others were taken prisoner. No mortar or ammunition were found inside the van, officials said, but soldiers did find an 82-millimeter mortar near the place where the van had stopped during the chase.
American officers, including General Sanchez, have complained of the failure so far to secure such intelligence. Wednesday evening, Captain Gercken suggested that that was changing. American commanders, he said, had been deluged in recent days by Iraqis coming forward with information about the insurgents.
"Ordinary Iraqis are coming in off the streets," Captain Gercken said.
Still, the hazards of the new American strategy seemed clear enough. By early Thursday, officers said they had not found weapons inside the van.
In Falluja, soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division killed six people and wounded four in an attack on the Jordanian Hospital, according to a statement released here. According to the statement, the soldiers with the 82nd came under attack and returned fire.
-------- israel / palestine
Cabinet Approved, Arafat Calls for Peace Talks
November 13, 2003
New York Times
By GREG MYRE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/international/middleeast/13MIDE.html
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov. 12 - The Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, and his prime minister called Wednesday for reconciliation with Israel and delivered strong pleas to restart the troubled Middle East peace plan in speeches to the Palestinian parliament, which approved a new government.
"We do not deny the right of the Israeli people to live in security side by side with the Palestinian people also living in their own independent state," Mr. Arafat told the parliamentary session, which was held at his badly damaged compound in Ramallah.
After more than two months with virtually no contact between the two sides, Israel is also signaling its willingness to talk to the new Palestinian government led by Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, though its boycott of Mr. Arafat remains in force.
"It is high time for us and you, Israel, to come out of this destructive war that will never provide either of us with security," he said.
Israel quickly dismissed Mr. Arafat's remarks. "You cannot hold an olive branch in one hand and a ticking bomb in the other," said Dore Gold, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Speaking immediately after Mr. Arafat, Mr. Qurei, 65, commonly known as Abu Ala, said his top priorities were to "attain a complete and mutual cease-fire with the Israeli government" and to restart the Mideast peace plan, known as the road map. He also called for an end to the "chaos of weapons" in the Palestinian areas, and said the Palestinian Authority needed to impose "law and order" in areas it controls.
Later, Palestinian lawmakers voted 48 to 13 to confirm Mr. Qurei's government, ending two months of political uncertainty that followed the resignation of the previous prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas.
In the improved political climate, Palestinian and Israeli cabinet ministers are likely to meet in coming days. If those sessions go well, they will try to arrange a meeting between Mr. Qurei and Mr. Sharon, both sides said.
The previous Palestinian government assumed office in April on a similarly upbeat note, followed by several meetings between the prime ministers. But peace efforts collapsed in August amid Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli military crackdowns directed at militants.
Israel says the Palestinian leadership must break up the violent factions and sees little hope of that with Mr. Arafat retaining his dominant political position, including the continued control of the security forces.
While Mr. Arafat struck a conciliatory note, he has made similar remarks in the past, and much of his speech covered the more familiar terrain of sharp criticism directed at Israel.
"This is a criminal Israeli war that is an attempt to uproot the Palestinian people and impose settlers on our land, and prevent us from establishing a Palestinian state," he said.
Mr. Arafat reluctantly agreed to establish a prime minister's post this year after demands by Palestinian reformers as well as Israel and the United States.
The intent was to reduce the power concentrated in his hands, but Mr. Arafat has consistently resisted efforts to weaken his authority. Most of the 24-member cabinet is loyal to Mr. Arafat, and Mr. Qurei is seen as having little room to act without Mr. Arafat's consent.
----
Arafat says Israelis have right to live safely
By Wafa Amr Ramallah
November 13, 2003
Reuters
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/12/1068329637649.html
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat held out an olive branch to Israel yesterday, saying it had a right to live in security alongside a future Palestinian state and calling for an end to bloodshed.
Launching a parliamentary debate on confirming a new Palestinian government, Mr Arafat also denounced what he called Israel's "criminal war" to crush the three-year-old uprising, dwelling on Israeli blockades, raids and expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Ratification of a cabinet under Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie is seen as crucial to reviving US-backed peace talks. Israel refuses to deal with Mr Arafat, accusing him of fomenting violence.
When Mr Qurie spoke, he said he was committed to halting violence and demanded an end to armed "chaos" in Palestinian areas. He also called for an international conference to draw up a final peace settlement.
"We do not deny the right of the Israeli people to live in security side by side with the Palestinian people also living in their own independent state," Mr Arafat said in his address.
"The time has come for us to get out of this spiral, this destructive war, that will not bring security to you or us."
Mr Qurie told lawmakers: "It is not acceptable to any of us to see the chaos of weapons and shelling among the public."
Weeks of Palestinian power struggles and continued violence have stalled the US-engineered "road map" peace plan for a Palestinian state by 2005.
A stable government would help Mr Qurie negotiate a truce with militants and revive talks with Israel on halting violence and freezing settlements.
Palestinian political sources said they expected Mr Qurie would muster a majority but forecast a delay in the vote because of last-minute disputes over the make-up of his team.
"The vote might be today and might be tomorrow. But most probably the government will enjoy a vote of confidence bringing us to a new chapter more or less conducive for the resumption of peace efforts," said Labour Minister-designate Ghassan Khatib.
But some Palestinian officials said Mr Qurie feared he might lack the support needed to consolidate his position after weeks of wrangling over cabinet posts.
Most of the 24 ministers in the new cabinet are Arafat loyalists and Mr Qurie faces the prospect of Mr Arafat wielding continued clout over security forces.
Washington has said it will judge the new cabinet on its success at reining in militants behind a suicide bombing campaign against Israel.
-----
Premier Approved By Palestinians
Critics Say Little Change Is Likely
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 13, 2003; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33892-2003Nov12.html
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov. 12 -- The Palestinian parliament approved Ahmed Qureia as prime minister Wednesday, confirming by a narrow margin the former parliamentary speaker and a 24-member cabinet. Critics said Qureia and his new government offer little hope of significantly improving relations with Israel or invigorating stalled peace talks Qureia and his cabinet, which has many familiar politicians considered close to the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, came under attack from lawmakers who complained that it was not the sort of independent, reform-minded government needed to fundamentally change the Palestinian Authority, which many Palestinians view as corrupt and hindered by Arafat's autocratic rule. And few said it was likely to lay the groundwork for ending the Palestinians' three-year-old uprising against Israel.
"This government is just a way out of one crisis and the way into another," said Hatam Abdul Qader, a member of Arafat's Fatah movement who complained that the new cabinet had too many familiar figures tainted by corruption allegations. "It won't take us anywhere."
The Palestinian Legislative Council approved Qureia and his cabinet by a vote of 46 to 13, with five abstentions. Because of vacancies in the 88-member body, 44 votes were needed for confirmation.
In his first speech to the council, Qureia, who is also known as Abu Ala and who was one of the architects of the Oslo peace accords, called on Israel to accept a "mutual and comprehensive cease-fire" and urged his own people to reject "the chaos on the ground just under our nose" created by the proliferation of weapons and armed groups in Palestinian society.
He denounced people who equate the Palestinian struggle for statehood with terrorism, saying: "We are not terrorists and we shall never be. Our struggle has never been directed against children, women and civilians. . . . We reject it, we condemn it and we refuse it."
A banker by profession and a longtime member of Fatah, Qureia, 66, offered to resume peace negotiations with Israel that have been stalled for two months, since the resignation of the first Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen. But he warned the Israelis, "I am telling you with all frankness that settlements and settlement expansion, in addition to the siege and isolation of Jerusalem, is a wound in our hearts which we will never accept." He said that the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails was a "condition for any agreement with the Israeli government."
Israeli officials did not reject Qureia's cease-fire offer -- perhaps signaling a significant policy shift. A unilateral Palestinian cease-fire announced by the Abbas government this summer was rejected by Israeli officials, who said it was sham under which Palestinian militant groups could rearm and prepare attacks.
"We will probably acquiesce in a cease-fire if it is clearly a first step toward what has to be done ultimately, which is to begin breaking up the terrorist organizations," said Zalman Shoval, a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "But we will not see the cease-fire as an alternative to what he should actually be doing."
Officially, both the Israeli and U.S. governments have sounded hopeful notes in their comments in recent weeks about the prospects for Qureia's administration, saying that they looked forward to getting relations and negotiations back on track with a new Palestinian government willing to combat terrorism.
But analysts said that there was scant room for optimism and that, in many respects, the situation has grown dramatically worse since Abbas resigned on Sept. 6 after just four months in office. Despite U.S. and Israeli efforts to marginalize Arafat by working through a Palestinian prime minister, Qureia's government was approved by Arafat and serves at his pleasure. Arafat is firmly in charge of Palestinian security agencies, and he runs the negotiations and relations with the United States and Israel through surrogates and longtime aides.
"Arafat is fighting for survival, with Israel and the United States calling for new leadership, and everything he does must be seen in that context, so he has to be careful how much power he gives the prime minister," said Khalil Shikaki, a leading Palestinian pollster and political analyst.
In the 10 weeks since Abbas resigned, at least 81 Palestinians and 45 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian suicide bombings, Israeli helicopter strikes and other violence. During that period, Arafat and Qureia wrangled over who would be interior minister in Qureia's government and who ultimately would control Palestinian security agencies -- continuing a power struggle that played a large role in the collapse of Abbas's government.
In the end, Qureia relented on both counts, allowing Arafat to install one of his loyalists, Hakam Balawi, as interior minister and ceding control of security matters to the National Security Council, a 12-member body headed by Arafat.
"It's an Arafat government," said Hassan Khreisheh, a firebrand lawmaker from the West Bank city of Tulkarm. In terms of people, problems and policies, "it's the same as Abu Mazen -- no difference at all."
"The redundancy would be rather tedious if not for its tragic components," said lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi, who laid much of the blame on the United States and Israel for not adequately backing Abbas with tangible concessions, which she said contributed to his downfall. "That really destroyed the impetus, the drive toward real change," and damaged the entire Palestinian reform movement, she said.
As a result, said Shikaki, the pollster, "Abu Ala will do no reforms. This was one of the lessons for Abu Ala: Anyone who engages in reform that threatens Arafat's authority -- and that's the only reform that's real reform -- will be out."
In recent weeks, Israel made several goodwill gestures toward Qureia's government-in-waiting, allowing thousands of Palestinians to work in Israel and relaxing closures, curfews and travel restrictions in much of the West Bank. But it still has not dismantled the estimated 102 illegal Jewish settlement outposts in the West Bank or frozen growth of settlements in the Palestinian territories. In fact, in recent weeks, the Israeli government has announced plans to expand several settlements while expediting construction of a fence meant to surround the West Bank and its 2.2 million Palestinian residents.
In his one-hour speech, Qureia called on Israel to halt construction of the fence and to stop settlement expansion.
-------- landmines
Global campaign launched to ban cluster bombs
THE HAGUE (AFP)
Nov 13, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031113170938.14f95nzd.html
More than 80 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from around the world launched a campaign on Thursday to ban cluster bombs, which are widely used, including by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Cluster bombs are designed to widely scatter smaller explosive charges which, in theory, detonate when they hit their target, causing horrific injuries.
But experts estimate between five and 30 percent of these bomblets do not explode immediately on contact and continue to put innocent lives at risk, notably children, long after a conflict has ended.
The Cluster Munition Coalition, which including NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Handicap International, said in a statement it wanted the production and trade of cluster bombs to be banned "until their humanitarian problems have been resolved".
The coalition also wants countries who use cluster bombs to be obliged to clear those that do not explode and provide assistance to victims.
"We joined together because the lack of restriction in the use of cluster bombs is taking a toll that is unacceptable," Paul Hannon, director of Mines Action Canada, said at the launch of the campaign in The Hague.
Fifty-eight countries possess cluster bombs in their weapons arsenal. The United States, China and Russia hold the largest stocks.
Later this month, international negotiations are due to take place in Geneva on extending the United Nations' 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons to cover so-called "unexploded remnants of war".
But Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, whose country is chairing the negotiations, told the launch many of the governments who possess cluster bombs were opposed to any constraints on their use.
He said it was unlikely that nations with cluster bombs would agree at present to any moratorium on their production, trade or use.
"I believe this is not currently attainable," he said. "Even a provision on technical specifications is too far-reaching in the eyes of other countries at this point in time."
The Cluster Munitions Coalition deplored the stance taken by these countries, pointing out that cluster bombs could be as devastating as landmines, which are banned under a UN treaty.
"These unexploded munitions act essentially like anti-personnel mines," said Hannon from Mines Action Canada. "These explosive remnants destroy lives long after conflict has ended and they impede reconstruction."
In Afghanistan 127 people were victims of cluster bombs in the 13 months form October 2001, when the United States began a bombing campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Nine out of ten victims were under 18, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The US-led war on Iraq might have ended over six months ago but cluster bombs remained an extremely serious problem there, according to Steve Goose, executive director of HRW's arms division.
"The situation in Iraq is particularly grave," he told the launch. "We estimate ... tens of thousands of unexploded munitions have been left behind."
Handicap International cited the case of Wahid, a 12-year-old Iraqi who picked up a strange metal object near his house in Kerbala, several weeks after the end of the war.
When it exploded it tore off his right hand, irreparably shattered three fingers on his left, and embedded scores of metal fragments in his skull and one leg.
A number of NGOs in the Cluster Munitions Coalition are also members of the Nobel-winning Campaign to Ban Landmines, which recently bemoaned Washington's continuing refusal to sign the UN Mine Ban Treaty.
-------- nato
NATO confirms exercises with Russia in 2004
BRUSSELS (AFP)
Nov 13, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031113201122.3vte0fl7.html
NATO confirmed Thursday that it will conduct next year its first joint military exercises with Russia, saying that one of them would be a maritime rescue operation.
"There is one exercise that is already planned for autumn next year and that is a very important exercise of rescue at sea," German general Harald Kujat, president of the NATO military committee, told a news conference.
He was speaking at the end of two days of meetings of chiefs of staff of NATO and NATO-partner countries at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels and gave no details of further exercises.
Earlier this week Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov announced the holding of joint exercises.
"These will be fairly serious military exercises, which Russia will carry out with interested countries belonging to the North Atlantic Alliance," Ivanov said.
The drills would involve the participating countries' navies, air forces and air transports, and would take place on the territories of both Russia and unspecified NATO countries, he said.
One of the NATO meetings involved the Russian chief of staff General Anatoly Kvashnin for discussion of the practical aspects of military cooperation.
Relations between former Cold War foes Russia and NATO have markedly improved over the past years, particularly since the creation in May last year of the Russia-NATO council, meant to give Moscow a voice in decisions by the 19-member alliance.
-------- space
Arming outer space
Ruth Rosen
Thursday, November 13, 2003
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/13/EDG11308KV1.DTL
LOOK UP at the sky. Imagine space-based weapons orbiting the globe, ready to zap or nuke any country declared an imminent threat to the United States.
No, this is not science fiction. It is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's vision of global domination.
Before he headed the Pentagon, Rumsfeld was chairman of the Commission to Assess U.S. National Security Space Management Organization. In its final report, submitted to Congress on Jan. 11, 2001, it warned, "If the United States is to avoid a 'Space Pearl Harbor,' it needs to take seriously the possibility of an attack on U.S. space systems." The commission recommended the creation of a U.S. Space Corps that would defend our space-based "military capability."
Rumsfeld's report was actually a tamer version of an earlier Department of Defense Space Command document -- "Vision for 2020" -- that, on its Web site, showed laser weapons shooting deadly beams from space, zapping targets on Earth. Beneath this sci-fi image crawled the words "U.S. Space Command dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect U.S. interests and investments."
"Vision for 2020" rightly predicted that the global economy would widen the gap between "the haves" and "the have-nots." By deploying space surveillance and weaponry, the United States would have the ability "to control space," and, from this higher ground, "to dominate" the Earth below.
By appointing Rumsfeld as his defense secretary, President Bush chose a man whom the Washington Post described as "the leading proponent not only of national missile defenses, but also of U.S. efforts to take control of outer space."
Since then, the Air Force Space Command has issued a progress report, "Strategic Master Plan FY04 and Beyond (SMP)," which puts forth the U.S. intention to dominate the world by turning space into a crucial battlefield.
In the introduction, Gen. Lance W. Lord proudly writes, "As guardian of the High Frontier, Air Force Space Command has the vision and people to ensure the United States achieves space superiority today and in the future. A new space corps will fight from and in space."
"Space," according to the SMP, "is the ultimate high ground of military operations . . . . Our vision calls for prompt global-strike systems with the capability to directly apply force from or through space against terrestrial targets. Space superiority is essential to our vision of controlling and fully exploiting space to provide our military with an asymmetric advantage over our adversaries."
The immediate goal, according to the SMP, is to prevent anyone else from launching space-based weaponry. To dominate the globe, the United States must dominate outer space.
Clearly, this space-based vision is useless against terrorist attacks in Iraq or Afghanistan. China, however, believes it is the unnamed enemy who might be the target of this country's newly articulated policies of pre- emptive war and global supremacy.
Last September, China fought hard at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva for an agreement that would prevent an arms race in outer space. The Bush administration, as usual, insisted that an international treaty was unnecessary.
Rumsfeld's dream is dangerous. It not only violates the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which wisely prohibited the militarization of space, but also threatens to reignite the arms race, this time in space. It is also hugely expensive, costing hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used to care for people who live right here on Earth.
Look up at the heavens. Do we really want to leave future generations with a legacy of space-based warfare? If not, let's pressure every presidential candidate, as well as President Bush, to keep the heavens free of weapons of mass destruction.
E-mail Ruth Rosen at rrosen@sfchronicle.com. For documentation, go to www.wslfweb.org/space/spacedocs.htm
-------- spies
INTELLIGENCE
C.I.A. Report Suggests Iraqis Are Losing Faith in U.S. Efforts
November 13, 2003
New York Times
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/politics/13INTE.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 - A bleak top-secret report by the Central Intelligence Agency suggests that the situation in Iraq is approaching a crucial turning point, with ordinary Iraqis losing faith in American-led occupation forces and in the United States-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.
The report, sent to Washington on Monday by the C.I.A.'s Baghdad station chief, suggests that the situation is creating a more fertile environment for the anti-American insurgency. Officials said the report was adding to the sense of urgency behind the administration's reappraisal of its policies in Iraq.
The officials said that the report, dated Nov. 10, had been explicitly endorsed by L. Paul Bremer III, the top American official in Iraq, and that the warnings it spelled out had been a factor behind Mr. Bremer's abrupt return to Washington for consultations this week.
The C.I.A. and the White House refused even to confirm the existence of the report, which was first disclosed by The Philadelphia Inquirer. But government officials outside those agencies said its conclusions were among the darkest intelligence assessments distributed since the American-led invasion of Iraq in March.
"It says that this is an insurgency, and that it is gaining strength because Iraqis have no confidence that there is anyone on the horizon who is going to stick around in Iraq as a real alternative to the former regime," one American official said.
The latest C.I.A. report follows earlier intelligence assessments that warned American commanders in Iraq of increasing resentment among ordinary Iraqis. The picture those reports presented was very different from the public view presented by administration officials. In particular, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has repeatedly spoken of the opponents of the American-led occupation as "dead-enders, foreign terrorists and criminal gangs."
But the Nov. 10 situation report was described by the officials as reflecting a more formal assessment. They said Mr. Bremer's unusual endorsement was intended to give the document added credibility.
A second American official said the grim conclusions were based in part on a classified opinion poll conducted by the State Department's intelligence branch, which found that a majority of Iraqis now regard American troops as occupiers rather than liberators. The concern has been reinforced, another official said, by an increasing consensus among intelligence analysts that appointed Iraqi leaders do not appear to be capable of carrying out the task of governing or working toward elections.
"The trend lines are in the wrong direction," a third government official said. "I haven't seen anything in any of the intelligence reports that offers a hard and fast recipe for how to turn things around."
The officials would speak about the report only on condition of anonymity, and all refused to quote directly from the document because of its classified nature. They said they had been briefed about its findings, and were discussing them publicly because they believed the warnings should have wider circulation inside and outside government.
Among other concerns raised by the C.I.A. report, the officials said, was the danger that Iraqi Shiite Muslims, who represent a majority of the country's population, could soon join minority Sunni Muslims in carrying out armed attacks against American forces. The report also described what it portrayed as major obstacles to efforts by the United States and American-led Iraqi forces to halt a small but steady infiltration of foreign fighters from Syria and Iran.
----
Former U.K. Intelligence Worker Arrested
Nov 13, 2003
(AP)
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BRITAIN_SECRETS_ARREST?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
LONDON -- Police charged a former British intelligence employee with breaking state secrecy laws Thursday, after she was linked to the disclosure of a memo in which U.S. officials allegedly asked for British help in eavesdropping on U.N. envoys.
Katharine Gun, 29, who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters, was arrested in March after a British newspaper published the memo, which came as the United States still hoped to win U.N. backing for the war in Iraq.
In the memo allegedly from U.S. officials, the intelligence agency was asked for help bugging the home and office telephones of delegates of key countries on the U.N. Security Council. The agency in Cheltenham, western England, uses high-tech equipment to monitor international communications.
Gun, who was fired in June, was charged under a section of Britain's Official Secrets Act, which bars the unauthorized disclosure of security and intelligence information. Police didn't elaborate on the charges or say if they were in connection to the memo.
The Jan. 31 memo sent to The Observer newspaper reportedly originated from the U.S. National Security Agency. It said that the NSA had begun a "surge" of extra eavesdropping on officials from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea and Pakistan - then all members of the Security Council.
The NSA in Washington couldn't be reached for comment Thursday. Britain's Government Communications Headquarters refuses to discuss the case, saying it is a matter for police.
Gun, who is free on bail pending a hearing on Nov. 27, said that the disclosures were justified because they "exposed serious illegality and wrongdoing on the part of the U.S. government who attempted to subvert our own security services." She also defended the disclosures as an attempt to prevent the deaths of Iraqi civilians and British troops in a war.
"No one has suggested - nor could they - that any payment was sought or given for any alleged disclosures. I have only ever followed my conscience," she said in the statement, released by Liberty, a human rights group representing her.
-------- us
'AWOL Mom' May Be Given Guard Duty
Army Seeks Solution For Medic Who Left Iraq To Care for Children
By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 13, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33641-2003Nov12.html
FORT CARSON, Colo. -- The Army ordered her to go back to Iraq. The judge told her to stay home with the kids.
Faced with an intractable conflict between military and motherly duties, Army Spec. Simone Holcomb finally decided to stay home with her seven children -- and not return to her unit outside of Baghdad when her four weeks of family leave expired last month. For that, Holcomb's lawyer said, she has been threatened with disciplinary charges of missing movement and disobeying a lawful order.
But with the case developing into a major cause célèbre at this sprawling military base at the foot of the Rockies -- the local papers quickly dubbed Holcomb the "AWOL Mom" -- the Army now says it will try to find a legal way for the mother and soldier to serve both roles. She will probably be given National Guard duty here. Her husband, Vaughn Holcomb, an Army platoon sergeant, will remain on duty in Iraq.
The clashing calls of duty that left the Holcombs with a seemingly impossible dilemma illustrate the problems facing two-soldier families at a time when both active duty and reserve units are being stretched to the limit to provide the force necessary for the ongoing operations in Iraq.
In the Holcomb family, it was the part-time soldier who went to war first. Simone Holcomb, 30, a medic with the Colorado National Guard, was mobilized with her medical team and sent to the Middle East in January. First Sgt. Vaughn Holcomb, 40, stayed with the children at their home at Fort Carson until he, too, was ordered to the front in April with his unit of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.
The Army required the couple to present a family-care plan before the deployment, and they produced an acceptable one: Vaughn Holcomb's mother would move from Akron, Ohio, to Fort Carson to care for her grandchildren.
This arrangement worked until late summer, when the grandmother told the Holcombs that she needed to return to Ohio to care for her ill husband.
With the child-care situation looking precarious, Vaughn Holcomb's first wife, the biological mother of two of the seven children, went to court in Colorado to seek custody of those two children.
Now facing a custody battle back home as well as the guerrilla war in Iraq, both Holcombs took emergency leave in September and returned to Colorado to settle the dispute. A district court in Colorado Springs ruled that at least one of the parents must live with the children -- despite the standing military orders requiring both Holcombs to return to the war zone -- or the ex-wife would be granted custody.
With no parent or grandparent to live with them, the remaining five children probably would be sent to various foster families, either on or off the military base where they live, lawyers said.
When the couple's leave expired on Oct. 9, they decided that Sgt. Holcomb would return to Iraq, in accordance with orders -- but Spec. Holcomb would stay home to care for the children and keep the family together.
Giorgio Ra'Shadd, a lawyer from Centennial, Colo., whom the Holcombs hired to help resolve the muddle, told the Associated Press that Simone Holcomb was then threatened with disciplinary charges that could end her seven-year Army career and possibly send her to prison. Ra'Shadd said that Simone Holcomb's commanding officer in Iraq called her Monday to inform her that she was considered absent without leave, or AWOL.
But Army officials now say the case will probably be resolved through a "compassionate reassignment" that will permit Simone Holcomb to leave her active-duty status and return to part-time National Guard duties here.
"She's in the process of being demobilized," said Lt. Col. Thomas Budzyna of the public affairs office at Fort Carson. "The paperwork will take about a week, and then she will be returned to her National Guard unit."
Master Sgt. Debra Smith of the Colorado National Guard said, "An offer has been made to her, and it is still standing, for a position with a Guard medical support unit here in Colorado."
Neither Holcomb could be reached to comment.
"From what we understand, they have determined that she will not be going back to Iraq," said Dick Wadhams, spokesman for Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), who intervened in the case. "We don't know yet what will happen to any possible disciplinary measures, but they may go away if she returns to her old Guard unit."
Budzyna said the military "is looking for the common-sense solution to this situation."
Of the 15,000 soldiers normally stationed at Fort Carson, which stands beneath Pike's Peak at the southern edge of Colorado Springs, more than 12,000 have been sent to serve in Iraq, he said.
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4 Soldiers Charged In Comrade's Slaying
Associated Press
Thursday, November 13, 2003; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33645-2003Nov12.html
COLUMBUS, Ga., Nov. 12 -- Four Fort Benning soldiers have been arrested and accused of stabbing to death a member of their 3rd Infantry Division, setting the body on fire and leaving it in the woods just days after their return from Iraq in July.
Police said the soldiers had gotten angry at Spec. Richard R. Davis, 24, of St. Charles, Mo., for insulting a stripper.
Three soldiers -- Jacob Burgoyne, Mario Naverrete and Douglas Woodcoff -- were arrested Friday and charged with murder. A judge on Monday reduced the charges against them to concealing a body. The fourth suspect, Alberto Martinez, is awaiting extradition from California on murder charges.
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Hawaiians Regain Control Of Sacred Island From Navy
By Rita Beamish
The Washington Post
Thursday, November 13, 2003; Page A29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33656-2003Nov12.html
HONOLULU, Nov. 12 -- For five decades, Kahoolawe Island, a 45-square-mile patch of land just 6.7 miles from the swanky tourist island of Maui, was pumped full of bombs, shrapnel and bullets by the Navy.
But local protesters finally prevailed, and on Tuesday, Hawaiians regained control of the wounded landscape, 13 years after President George H.W. Bush ordered the Navy to cease its target practice there.
Although the Navy officially surrendered control of the uninhabited island Tuesday, in deference to Veterans Day, Navy officials and Gov. Linda Lingle (R) marked the transfer of control in a ceremony Wednesday with speeches and Hawaiian chants at Honolulu's Iolani Palace, the central reminder of Hawaii's onetime monarchy.
The transfer fulfilled 1993 legislation that authorized $400 million to clean up military ordnance on a 10-year timetable. That same law transferred the island's title from the federal government to Hawaii, but the Navy controlled access while it conducted the cleanup.
These days, dry winds whip Kahoolawe's red earth into clouds of dust where the bombs once fell. Even before the military commandeered it in 1941 -- right after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor -- the land was denuded by ranching and feral goats. Stripped of natural vegetation, it was subjected to erosion and runoff, which in turn crippled near-shore fishing grounds.
The island became an important symbol in the rebirth of Hawaiian culture and language and the nascent Hawaiian sovereignty movement. Native Hawaiians, who in recent years began revegetation efforts, are elated that the way is now cleared to restore one of their most sacred sites.
"We've taken on the biggest Navy in the world and held them responsible to the beliefs and practices of indigenous people. . . . That is significant for the native Hawaiian people," said Noa Emmett Aluli, an early protest leader who is chairman of the Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission, a state agency that will govern the island.
The agency plans to allow access for preservation and management of cultural sites, natural restoration, and educational and cultural practices. Some areas will remain off-limits because of continued danger from subterranean ordnance.
The Navy, which considered Kahoolawe a valuable training ground, says it has cleared ordnance and nonexplosive detritus from 71 percent of the island, totaling 9 million pounds. The Navy employed more than 300 workers on any day on the cleanup. It was the Pentagon's largest ordnance cleanup ever, said Lt. Cmdr. Jane Campbell, spokeswoman for Navy Region Hawaii.
The Navy will continue cleaning until March 12 and has agreed to return if more ordnance is found.
Native Hawaiian advocates are disappointed that full cleanup was not achieved, and although the law makes the military responsible for future work, they worry about sufficient funding. That uncertainty makes it a "bittersweet transition" from the Navy, said Stanton Enomoto, director of the Kahoolawe commission.
The Navy is confident it can handle future cleanup with its trust fund of $7 million to $11 million, Campbell said.
Kahoolawe is ringed with ancient fishing sites and contains more than 600 archeological and cultural sites, including petroglyphs and rock altars for deity offerings, landing it on the National Register of Historic Places. Small communities lived there hundreds of years ago, although it became a penal colony in the early 1800s. Its historic significance is tied to its role as a training center for celestial navigation between Tahiti and Hawaii, and its legendary role as a site for Kanaloa, the sea god.
"It's an ideal place to learn about the universe," said Davianna McGregor, spokeswoman for Protect Kahoolawe Ohana, which began civil disobedience visits to the island in 1976. "It stabs you in the heart and makes you feel this empathy and strong obligation to help the land heal. You can feel how precious this island is."
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Army Official Eyes Copter Upgrade Plan
November 13, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Helicopters.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army's top civilian official has called for an urgent plan to equip Army helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan with the most advanced defensive systems available, according to a memo obtained by a senator.
Five days after a surface-to-air missile brought down a CH-47D Chinook transport and left 16 dead, the Army's acting secretary, Les Brownlee wrote, ``Like other force protection measures, this is URGENT!''
The memo was obtained by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. It is dated Nov. 7, the same day that insurgents downed a Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq, killing six.
Army officials had no immediate comment on the memo, which also say, ``Affordability is not a constraint for the plan.''
Durbin said the memo was ``the right response to our recent helicopter tragedies in Iraq.''
The Chinook that went down Nov. 2 was from a joint Illinois-Iowa National Guard unit. It had a standard package of defensive chaff and flares, Army officials say, although more advanced -- and expensive -- versions exist on special operations helicopters. Some of the other Army helicopters in Iraq went for a few months without any defenses.
These defenses can confuse guided surface-to-air missiles if an attack is detected in time.
But the equipment did not save the Chinook. Officials have said the system fired flares but they did not deflect the enemy missile.
Some have noted that the equipment is not 100 percent effective and that there was not much time for the Chinook to avoid the missile; the helicopter was flying low, so the missile hit it quickly.
Officials believe the Black Hawk was brought down by an unguided rocket-propelled grenade. Chaff, flares and jammers would not have affected such a weapon.
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Rumsfeld: U.S. Making Progress on Military Change
November 13, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-asia-rumsfeld.html
TUMON, Guam (Reuters) - The United States has reached some preliminary conclusions in a planned major realignment of its military forces worldwide, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday at the start of a trip to discuss the moves with key allies Japan and Korea.
But Rumsfeld, speaking to reporters on a flight from Washington to this U.S. territory and key military outpost in the northern Pacific, declined to be specific about changes.
Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials -- who will go to Tokyo on Friday and later to Seoul -- stressed that no decisions had been made on whether to reduce the 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea or perhaps move any U.S. Marines from the Japanese island of Okinawa.
Washington has already signaled that it intends to reduce much of its large military presence in Germany, moving forces into former Soviet bloc states in Eastern Europe such as Poland in order to better deal with potential threats in the Middle East region in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism.
``The United States has for several years now been very systematically reviewing our arrangements with various countries in the world on force deployments and stationings and has come to some preliminary conclusions that we are now at the stage that we can begin discussions with our allies and with the (U.S.) Congress,'' Rumsfeld said.
He told reporters that such talks would include a search for additional basing rights for American forces, but would not be more specific.
``We don't have final decisions. Obviously, these things will be adjusted as we talk to our allies and friends and as we text various ideas about what might make sense...,'' he said.''
Rumsfeld stressed that the changes would take years, but ``will considerably better position the United States for the 21st century.''
Senior U.S. officials traveling with Rumsfeld said that the talks in Japan and South Korea would include North Korea's nuclear program, expected changes in the U.S. military presence in Asia and cooperation by Tokyo and Seoul in Iraq and the U.S.-declared war on terrorism.
Ahead of his visit, Japan said on Thursday that following the deadly bomb attacks on Italian forces in Iraq, it would not be possible for Tokyo to send non-combat troops to help with international peacekeeping and reconstruction.
But better news for Rumsfeld came from Seoul, where South Korea's Prime Minister asked ministers to draw up plans to dispatch no more than 3,000 troops -- although well short of Washington's requested 10,000 -- but further details have still to be announced.
Rumsfeld landed on Guam after a non-stop 7,936-mile flight from Washington that took nearly 18 hours.
One U.S. official said the secretary wanted a close personal look at both Guam and Okinawa -- where half of the nearly 60,000 American troops in Japan are stationed -- before making any final decisions on regional U.S. deployments.
``It's a big puzzle with a lot of different pieces to it,'' the official said of the U.S. military presence of more than 100,000 troops in the vast East Asia-Pacific region. ``What we do in Guam, what we do in Okinawa, what we do in Korea, all have to fit together.''
The United States and South Korea have reached preliminary agreement on moving American troops away from the demilitarized zone with North Korea but U.S. officials say that bilateral discussions have not yet begun on whether to reduce the 37,000 American troops there while at the same time increasing military protection for Seoul.
``I don't want to preview what might ultimately be decided because we're just not at that stage,'' Rumsfeld said.
Guam itself has become increasingly important to the U.S. military in recent years, especially after Washington withdrew from big naval and air bases in the Philippines.
The U.S. Navy recently moved two nuclear attack submarines on Guam and plans to add up to three more in the future. And the Pentagon this year dispatched 24 heavy B-52 and B-1 bombers to Anderson field as a temporary warning to North Korea against ``adventurism'' as the Iraq war began.
The aircraft have since been removed, but Washington is basing long-range, air-launched cruise missiles on Guam for potential use by bombers that might be dispatched in a future Asian crisis.
-------- propaganda wars
Richard Perle Libel Watch, Week 34
The neocon plays great offense. How's his defense?
By Jack Shafer,
Slate
Friday, Nov. 14, 2003
http://slate.msn.com/id/2091198/
Eight months ago, foreign policy hawk Richard N. Perle vowed to sue investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh for libel over Hersh's New Yorker feature, "Lunch With the Chairman." Perle described the story as "all lies, from beginning to end," in the March 12 New York Sun. Perle, a leading neoconservative thinker and member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, told the Sun Hersh had libeled him by falsely implying that was using his Pentagon position for personal financial gain.
But instead of filing a lawsuit in a good ol' American court, litigation sissy Perle announced his intention to outsource his legal action by suing Hersh in England, where the libel laws favor plaintiffs over defendants (relative to U.S. courts). Scenting the cheap aroma of a bully's bluff, I double-dared Perle to sue Hersh, predicting that his threatened suit was so completely without merit not even one of those licentious English courts would hear it. Subsequent installments of the Perle Libel Watch hectored Perle for failing to file his suit and chronicled his other potential conflicts of interest as reported in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and elsewhere. One member of Congress called for a Hill investigation of Perle because of the regularity with which his business interests collide with his official duties.
With just 18 weeks to file before the statute of limitations expires on his libel claim, one would expect Perle and his lawyers would be cracking. But today, instead of playing legal offense, Perle's counselors might be regrouping in a defensive formation. Yesterday's (Nov. 12) Financial Times reports that Hollinger International, which publishes the Chicago Sun-Times and London's Daily Telegraph, among other publications, is "examining investments made by Richard Perle, the former senior US defence adviser who is a Hollinger director, on behalf of the company."
According to the FT's Stephanie Kirchgaessner, the Perle probe is part of a larger internal inquiry led by former SEC Chairman Richard Breeden into "so-called 'related-party transactions,' or deals in which members of Hollinger's board or Hollinger executives benefited from deals the publisher agreed with other companies." Under investigation are "nearly $300m in management fees to Conrad Black, chief executive and chairman, and his deputies."
The studied transactions include a $2.5 million investment in Trireme Partners, the venture capital company co-managed by Perle that Hersh scrutinized so heavily in The New Yorker feature. Kirchgaessner continues: "Also under review is a $14m investment the company made under Mr Perle's direction through Hillman Capital, a venture capital group controlled by Gerald Hillman-who has since become a partner at Trireme and, like Mr Perle, is a member of the US Defense Policy Board." Perle and Hillman had no comment.
Somewhere, Sy Hersh was sipping Scotch with his socks off, enjoying life.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Panel Reaches Deal on Access to 9/11 Papers
November 13, 2003
By PHILIP SHENON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/politics/13TERR.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 - The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said on Wednesday that it had reached agreement with the White House to give the panel access to copies of the daily intelligence briefings sent to President Bush's desk shortly before the attacks.
The accord was reached after months of talks over the reports, known as the President's Daily Brief, which the Central Intelligence Agency presents to Mr. Bush and his senior aides every morning. The bipartisan commission had threatened to subpoena the reports.
"We believe this agreement will prove satisfactory and enable us to get our job done," the panel said in a statement that lacked details on the agreement.
Although panel officials said the pact imposed substantial limits on access, it still appeared to establish a precedent for outside access to some of the most highly classified intelligence reports in the executive branch, a precedent that the White House had not been eager to set.
Administration officials acknowledge that they fear that information in the reports might be construed to suggest that the White House had clues before Sept. 11, 2001, that Al Qaeda was planning a catastrophic attack. The White House acknowledged last year, in response to news reports, that an intelligence briefing in August 2001 suggested that Al Qaeda might be planning hijackings.
Commission officials said that under the accord two members of the 10-member commission would have access to the full library of daily briefings prepared in the Bush and Clinton administrations and that two other members would be allowed to read just the copies of the briefings that the White House deemed relevant to the inquiry.
The panel, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, created by Congress last year over the initial objections of the White House, is led by former Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey.
Although the agreement appeared to have the support of most of the commissioners, it was denounced by a Democrat on the panel, former Representative Timothy J. Roemer of Indiana. Mr. Roemer said in an interview that the White House was continuing to place unacceptable limits on access to the briefings.
"In paraphrasing Churchill, never have so few commissioners reviewed such important documents with so many restrictions," said Mr. Roemer, who was a member of the joint Congressional committee that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. "I am not happy with this agreement, and I will not support it."
The accord was also criticized by family members of victims of the attacks. The relatives have said all 10 commissioners should have access to the intelligence reports.
"Our understanding is that this is an unacceptable agreement," said Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband was killed in the attacks and who is now a spokeswoman for the Family Steering Committee, which represents many of the victims' families. "The details haven't been shared with us. But we understand that this access will be highly limited."
But another prominent Democrat on the panel, Richard Ben-Veniste, a lawyer in Washington who was a special prosecutor in the Watergate scandals in the 1970's, said the accord would give the commission adequate access to the reports.
"I think," Mr. Ben-Veniste said, "this is a compromise that respects the integrity of the commission inasmuch as it will be the commission - and not anyone else - that will designate the subcommittee that will initially review the materials."
The White House, he noted, had originally wanted to determine which commissioners would conduct the review.
"It also provides for immediate access to important material that we have been long delayed in receiving," Mr. Ben-Veniste said.
The President's Daily Brief, known in the White House as the P.D.B., is a 10- to 12-page report prepared nightly by the C.I.A. for the president and his senior staff. It outlines what the agency considers the most important intelligence information reaching the United States in the previous 24 hours.
Citing executive privilege and concerns over the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government, the White House refused last year to make the reports available to the joint Congressional committee. Senior administration officials said the White House felt pressure to reach some deal, given Mr. Bush's repeated promise to help the commission in every way possible and the threat of a politically damaging court fight if the panel issued a subpoena. The commission has already sent subpoenas to the Defense Department and the Federal Aviation Administration.
A spokeswoman for the White House, Ashley Snee, said on Wednesday, "We are pleased we are able to reach agreement with the commission and we look forward to their recommendations to make Americans safer."
Commission officials said they were barred from discussing many details of the agreement at the request of the White House. But they added that there was still potential for the agreement to break down, especially if the two members with full access to the reports believed that the White House was too restrictive in determining which reports the two commissioners with more limited access could see.
"We remain committed to obtaining the access we need to fulfill our mandate," the commission said.
Powder Sent to News Organizations
Envelopes received and opened yesterday at The Washington Post and a cable television news station on Long Island had a white powder, the authorities said. Preliminary tests in the two cases, they said, showed no evidence of anthrax or other dangerous substances. Additional tests were pending on the envelopes, which seem to have originated in Pakistan.
After the cable station, News 12 in Woodbury, N.Y., reported its incident, the police in New York City alerted news organizations to be cautious when opening mail. A police official in New York said the letter received on Long Island had the phrases "Death to Yankees" and "Praise Jihad Mujahadeen."
Letters with white powder were also delivered to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and a Denver location believed to be a radio station, the F.B.I. said. All tested negative for anthrax or other pathogens, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said. A spokeswoman for its Washington field office said the letters appeared to be identical.
"The content of each letter," she said, "is anti-American and pro-Muslim."
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9/11 Panel Reaches Deal On Access To Papers
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 13, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33881-2003Nov12.html
The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks reached an agreement with the White House yesterday to gain restricted access to years of classified presidential briefings, which had been the focus of subpoena threats from the panel's chairman.
The compromise will allow the 10-member commission to create a four-person subcommittee that will have varying degrees of access to the documents known as Presidential Daily Briefs from the Bush and Clinton administrations, according to a commission statement and sources familiar with the agreement.
But the accord also includes restrictions limiting what parts of the briefings can be seen and what parts can later be shared with the rest of the bipartisan panel, and it includes White House review of much of that information, sources familiar with the agreement said. Those with direct access will take notes, and those notes are subject to review by the White House before being shared with others, sources said.
The limitations prompted angry condemnations yesterday from two Democratic commissioners -- former senator Max Cleland (Ga.) and former representative Timothy J. Roemer (Ind.) -- who have argued that the commission should be more aggressive in seeking sensitive materials from the Bush administration.
Cleland called the agreement "unconscionable" and said it "was deliberately compromised by the president of the United States" to limit the commission's work.
"If this decision stands, I, as a member of the commission, cannot look any American in the eye, especially family members of victims, and say the commission had full access," Cleland said. "This investigation is now compromised. . . . This is 'The Gong Show'; this isn't protection of national security."
Roemer said: "To paraphrase Churchill, never have so few commissioners reviewed such important documents with so many restrictions. The 10 commissioners should either have access to this or not at all."
But Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Watergate prosecutor and another Democrat on the panel, said the deal was a "compromise that respects the integrity and independence of the commission."
"It is not perfect, but this will provide the commission with sufficient access," Ben-Veniste said.
The commission, which does not release vote counts and has conducted many of its deliberations behind closed doors, declined yesterday to publicly provide details about the agreement. "We believe this agreement will prove satisfactory and enable us to get our job done," a commission statement said.
White House spokeswoman Ashley Snee said that the administration "has been working closely with the commission to ensure they have the information they need to be successful" and that "we are pleased that we were able to reach an agreement."
The bipartisan Sept. 11 commission, created by Congress more than a year ago after months of resistance from the White House, has been seriously hobbled by ongoing battles with the Bush administration over access to documents. In the past month, the panel has issued subpoenas to the Defense Department and the Federal Aviation Administration for materials related to air defense on the day of the attacks.
But the commission balked at a proposal by Roemer last week to subpoena the presidential documents, which include an Aug. 6, 2001, briefing outlining possible attacks by the al Qaeda network. The commission's chairman, former New Jersey governor Thomas H. Kean (R), had warned two weeks earlier that the commission was considering subpoenas targeting the White House.
Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband, Ronald, was killed at the World Trade Center, assailed the commission yesterday for refusing to provide details of its deal with the White House.
"They should be clear on why this is better than subpoenaing and getting full and unfettered access," Breitweiser said. "That should be part of the public debate."
-------- prisons / prisoners
Former Guantánamo Interpreter Indicted
November 13, 2003
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/national/13GITM.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 - A former civilian interpreter at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base was indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday on charges of improperly gathering military information and lying to the F.B.I.
The case against the Arabic-language interpreter, Ahmed F. Mehalba, has attracted wide attention since his arrest at Logan Airport in Boston on Sept. 29 because he was the third person linked to security breaches at the Guantánamo prison. The facility houses 680 detainees, most captured in the war in Afghanistan.
Mr. Mehalba's lawyer, Michael C. Andrews, said his client would plead not guilty to the charges, which carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
"This case isn't about terrorism," Mr. Andrews said. "It's about the handling, and in the government's view the mishandling, of classified information. There's a reasonable explanation for what occurred, but unfortunately I can't get into that yet."
Officials said a compact disc with 368 documents marked "secret" was found in Mr. Mehalba's bags at Logan.
The indictment charges that Mr. Mehalba had unauthorized control of the documents from May 2003 until his arrest. It also charges that he lied to the F.B.I. by denying knowledge of how the material came to be on the CD.
--------
Prison Interpreter Is Indicted
By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 13, 2003; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33651-2003Nov12.html
BOSTON, Nov. 12 -- Ahmed F. Mehalba, a civilian interpreter at the U.S. Navy prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on one count of mishandling sensitive information and two counts of making false statements to federal officials.
Mehalba, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was arrested in late September at Boston's Logan International Airport after a computer disc containing files marked "secret" was found in his luggage as he returned home from a trip to Egypt. A subsequent investigation turned up additional sensitive files on a personal computer that Mehalba had once owned. The content of those files has not been disclosed.
Mehalba is one of three people who had worked at the detention facility to be charged with security breaches. Ahmad I. Halabi, an Air Force senior airman who had served as an interpreter, was indicted last week on 20 counts that include espionage and aiding the enemy. And Army Capt. James Yee, a Muslim chaplain, is accused of trying to take home documents from the detention facility, which holds alleged al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
"Today's indictment demonstrates our commitment to prosecute those whose actions may compromise the security of the United States," Boston U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said.
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said in a statement that the Justice Department will continue to target those who mishandle "sensitive information important to the war on terrorism."
At the time of his arrest, Mehalba, 31, was returning home to the Boston area on a flight that had originated in Cairo, where he said he visited relatives. As an employee of Titan Corp., he had translated documents and helped with interrogations at the military prison, where 660 foreign nationals are held.
The indictment accuses Mehalba of having "unauthorized possession or control over documents relating to the national defense" and of falsely stating that he did not know how such files ended up on the discs he was carrying. He also lied when he said he had not been given a security briefing and, therefore, did not understand the meaning of the designation "secret," the indictment says.
Mehalba's lawyer, Michael Andrews, said his client will plead not guilty, adding that the charges "confirm our position all along that this case doesn't involve terrorism, and that he has not been accused of giving information to anyone or being part of any group."
An arraignment has not been scheduled.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Experts tell of fuel cells' future
November 13, 2003
By Christopher S. Brown
UPI Correspondent
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20031112-053512-3822r.htm
WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- In the face of stalled negotiations on a comprehensive energy bill, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., told a meeting of congressional staffers, industry leaders and Washington insiders Wednesday that passing the legislation was a key step in advancing research on hydrogen fuel cells and other alternative energy sources as viable alternatives to fossil fuels.
"I hope we at least get a bill that generates enthusiasm," said Dominici, chairman of the Senate Appropriation Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.
The energy bill has been delayed by negotiations among Senate Republicans on such issues as the future of coal, nuclear power and energy conservation. Democrats were angered by the fact that they have been shut out of negotiations, and Vice President Cheney was forced to broker an 11th hour deal to restart talks.
Critics have blasted the House bill, the basis for the Senate version, as a giveaway to industry, but some Democrats have expressed eagerness to get an energy bill passed.
"I think it's important that we develop a comprehensive energy policy," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. "We're going to do something bold and something big for this country."
Representatives from the Department of Energy, General Motors, Shell Hydrogen and ChevronTexaco briefed the assembled crowd on the long-term promise of hydrogen fuel cells to replace diesel and gasoline in automobiles and stationary generators.
President Bush has pledged $1.7 billion over the next five years to develop hydrogen power for automobiles through the FreedomCAR and Hydrogen Fuel Initiatives, pushing to prepare fuel cell and hydrogen combustion engines for mass-production and mainstream affordability within the next 15 years.
Environmental groups, however, have criticized the plan, demanding that the White House implement a time frame for Detroit to produce the next-generation vehicles.
Replacing a Clinton-era initiative to develop efficient diesel-fueled hybrid vehicles, the FreedomCAR proposal focuses on funding cooperative hydrogen fuel cell research programs with universities and the private sector. The key for business participation, industry representatives said, was the eventual promise of a return on the research and infrastructure investments.
As private industry would continue research and development, they would also be responsible for building the necessary infrastructure and producing high-efficiency vehicles that consumers would be excited to buy.
At the same time, government would be responsible for fostering market entry for the new vehicles, encouraging the investment in infrastructure, ensuring enforcement of uniform codes and educating the public about these new vehicles.
According to General Motors, the auto industry will be able to produce a cost-effective hydrogen car by 2010, but whether or not the market will support a hydrogen economy depends on several factors.
It is vital for industry that government adopt uniform codes and standards in a timely manner. The case must be made to the business community that the initial investment of infrastructure will be recouped, the GM representative said. The hydrogen technology must improve to the point where consumer expectations of traditional internal combustion engines can be exceeded by fuel cells, including expectations of style, handling and cost efficiency.
Most people who study the issue acknowledge that hydrogen could address such environmental concerns as local air quality and global climate change, and such political and economic concerns as petroleum dependence, but current research indicates that hydrogen fuel cells would have to carve out a significant market share to make any real difference.
According to the Energy Department's annual Energy Outlook report, if 30 million out of an estimated total of 285 million vehicles on the road in 2020 were high-efficiency, U.S. consumers would only use 1.1 percent less petroleum than current estimates project.
Similarly, if 140 million high-efficiency vehicles were operating in 2020, we would use 5.4 percent less fuel than current projections estimate.
But a tremendous capital expenditure would be necessary for hydrogen cars to gain widespread acceptance.
"We have to do something that benefits the environment," Rick Zalesky, vice president of ChevronTexaco Technology Ventures' hydrogen business unit, told the group, but added that it was important to justify the long-term funding of expensive research to his shareholders.
Filling stations would have to retrofit to accommodate the fuel cells. Because 60 percent of filling stations in the United States are small businesses, assurances would have to be made that hydrogen could be profitable to encourage owners to retrofit. Some estimate that the cost of retrofitting just 25 percent of American gas stations to sell hydrogen could reach nearly $20 billion.
A key problem with hydrogen is that it must be produced -- not mined or pumped. Manufacturing hydrogen requires energy, and the current manufacturing process often uses more energy than the resulting hydrogen can deliver. Also, the most efficient and cost-effective fuel for producing hydrogen with current technology is coal.
In the future, hydrogen could be produced with anything from nuclear power to solar or wind energy. Major technological developments would have to be made and the decision to commercialize fuel cell vehicles is several years off, but, says GM's Executive Director of Fuel Cell Activities J. Byron McCormick, "We're very bullish."
----
Boone firm helps work on solar-powered blimp
Iowa ThinFilm Technologies has been assisting Lockheed Martin on the airship for the U.S. military.
By DAVID ELBERT
Des Moines Register Business Editor
11/13/2003
http://www.dmregister.com/business/stories/c4780940/22748986.html
A Boone company that makes lightweight, flexible solar energy panels has been working with one of the nation's largest military contractors, Lockheed Martin, on an unmanned, high-altitude, solar-powered blimp for the U.S. military.
Iowa ThinFilm Technologies Inc. assisted Lockheed Martin on initial plans for the airship and hopes to be involved in further development of the blimps, said ThinFilm's Michael Coon.
Lockheed was awarded a $40 million Missile Defense Agency contract a month ago for the second phase of development of the giant blimps. At least two more development phases are planned before production of the blimps could begin, sometime after 2006.
The blimps are being designed to remain stationary over Earth for a month or more at a time. The blimps could become a key component of a future anti-missile defense system for the United States.
Iowa ThinFilm does not have a contract with Lockheed, but officials of the Boone company believe they have a leg up on competitors because the Iowa company was the first to mass-produce flexible solar panels. At least two other solar cell developers also have worked with Lockheed, and at this point it is not clear which company Lockheed will use to supply the panels for a prototype of the airship, said Cary Dell, a spokesman for the aerospace contractor.
Iowa ThinFilm has a new, more durable version of its flexible solar panels for use at high altitudes for commercial telecommunications and military purposes. The company's new PowerFilm "can reduce up to 90 percent the cost of photovoltaics for air and space power," the company said in a statement.
The telecommunications and defense industries have begun developing a new generation of high-tech blimps that are expected to cost a fraction of current communications satellites, Coon said. The long-endurance, high-altitude airships will be powered, in large part, by solar energy, he said.
Airships like the one Lockheed is developing for the Missile Defense Agency will only succeed as substitutes for satellites if they have lightweight power sources, according to aerospace industry publications. The airships will be aloft for extended periods, hovering over a stationary target, such as the U.S. border. During that time, the blimps need a power source capable of running complex communications and guidance equipment.
The development of lightweight solar panels makes that possible. Flexible panels can be fastened to the top of the airships, like a saddle.
The size of the airships - 500 feet long and 160 feet wide - provide the surface area needed to hold the volume of solar cells needed to power the equipment.
Until recently, though, the cost of solar cells has been a problem, Coon said. The material used now in solar panels in space costs about $2,000 for each watt of power, he said. ThinFilm's patented manufacturing process, which operates somewhat like a printing press, brings that cost down to about $20 per watt of power, Coon said.
----
Americans Chose More Energy Stars in 2002
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
November 13, 2003
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2003/2003-11-13-09.asp#anchor7
Energy Star products are a success, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said today, citing the growing popularity of compact fluorescent bulbs and energy efficient appliances to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Bush administration policy that a voluntary approach to environmental protection is better than a regulated approach.
Voluntary programs succeeded in reducing 43 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2002 - over 10 percent more than 2001, according to EPA's annual report on Energy Star and other programs issued today.
"This dramatically demonstrates the power of personal choice," said EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt. "From light bulbs to entire homes, people purchasing energy efficient products were able to protect the environment and save money."
Explaining that seven companies announced aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals in 2002, Leavitt said, "Our corporate partners, too, are demonstrating that helping the environment can help their bottom line."
Energy Star has developed partnerships with 1,250 manufacturers labeling more than 18,000 products in over 35 product categories, the latest EPA data shows. More than one billion Energy Star labeled products have been purchased to date.
With Energy Star, Americans saved more than $7 billion on their energy bills last year, the EPA reported, enough energy to power 15 million homes and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
More than 3,000 builder partners constructed over 110,000 Energy Star qualified homes to date, delivering financial savings for homeowners of more than $26 million annually.
Of the 15,000 buildings evaluated under the EPA's national energy performance rating system, 1,100 buildings earned the Energy Star in 2002.
The Green Power Partnership 2002 with more than 90 partners totaled more than 500,000 megawatt hours (Mwh) of green power purchase commitments - including 250,000 Mwh from new renewable generation. Green power is electricity that is generated from resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and low-impact hydro facilities.
The EPA report shows that partnership programs achieved reductions of non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases - methane, perfluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride - of more than 18 million metric tons of carbon equivalent in 2002.
Partner actions are projected to maintain methane emissions below 1990 levels through 2012. Partnership programs also prevented almost 150,000 tons of nitrogen oxide emissions, a reduction of 10,000 tons more than the previous year.
The 2002 annual report, "Change for the Better: Energy Star and Other Voluntary Programs," is online at: http://www.epa.gov/appdstar/annualreports/annualreports.htm
-------- energy
Proposed Energy Bill Favors Oil, Coal, and Nuclear Industries With Little Regard for Consumers and the Environment
From GRACE
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
A Statement by Alice Slater, President of GRACE
http://www.enn.com/direct/display-release.asp?objid=D1D1366D000000F8EFAFFCCF3C3BEA53
New York (NY), November 18, 2003 - The energy bill unveiled last Saturday is one of the most appalling attempts at energy legislation in a long time. Concocted by a restricted circle of Republicans working closely with industry decision-makers, the proposed bill shows little concern for consumers or the environment, lacks serious measures for clean, renewable sources of energy, and blatantly protects the interests of the corporate energy giants rewarding polluters at taxpayer expense. If Republicans are successful in steering the energy bill towards its traditional cronies, the coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear industries, they could lock the American economy into the old energy regime for most of the 21st century, with dire environmental and global security consequences.
The centerpiece of this atrocious energy bill is a multi-billion dollar package of tax breaks and incentives designed to slant the market in favor of the nuclear and fossil fuel industries, and away from meaningful reform through the development of safe, clean renewable alternatives. It is critical that we shift these billions in perverse taxpayer subsidies away from the business-as-usual players and move full speed ahead to develop further innovations in "green" technology.
If properly implemented, a shift to hydrogen fuel cells as a new source of power can be as significant and far-reaching in its impact on the American economy as coal was in the 19th century, freeing America from its dependence on foreign oil and its energy insecurity. In a cynical attempt to rig the market towards traditional beneficiaries, however, the current bill includes $2.1 billion to develop hydrogen from the self-same sources that are wreaking havoc on our environment, rather than making use of clean energy from the sun, the wind and the tides.
While President Bush is preparing to launch an International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy to share research and development on hydrogen-generated energy, he is cynically hijacking this promising technology by pushing a "black" hydrogen agenda, which bestows enormous favors on the energy giants to the detriment of the environment, ignoring the urgent national security need for energy independence and for a halt to the production of nuclear power plants that have been targeted by Al Qaeda, according to their own documents.
Current provisions of the bill also offer an inexcusably watered down version of the Renewable Energy Production Incentives (REPI) program for solar, wind, and geothermal energy, with meager and uncertain monetary incentives, barely reaching $5 million per year, providing little impetus for installing new capacity and unlikely to affect investments in renewable energy in any meaningful way. Mandating the implementation of existing solutions, such as increased fuel efficiency for cars, was simply left out of the Republican planning
In addition, in the attempt to revive the moribund and uneconomical nuclear industry, the energy bill will seriously jeopardize public health by exposing citizens to increasing amounts of nuclear waste and bigger shipments of radioactive waste through their communities, while providing new targets for terrorists.
Congress should consider the heavy consequences this bill is likely to bring to the environment and public health and vote against its provisions, promoting an energy plan that takes into account true environmental and consumer needs and that shifts the emphasis to sustainable, renewable sources of energy. Congress must reject this deal also on the basis that it was prepared through a unilateral and undemocratic process that left out so many major players among the nation's elected officials.
For more information, contact:
Laura Giannatempo Public Relations Director GRACE 215 Lexington Ave. Suite 1001 New York, NY 10016 lgiannatempo@gracelinks.org
-------- environment
World to Add 2.6 Billion People By 2050
NEW YORK, New York, (ENS)
November 13, 2003
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2003/2003-11-13-09.asp#anchor1
It took from the beginning of time until 1950 to put the first 2.5 billion people on the planet. Yet in the next 50 years, an increase that exceeds the total population of the world in 1950 will occur, according to public health scientist Dr. Joel Cohen, professor and head of the Laboratory of Populations at The Rockefeller University and Columbia University.
In a Viewpoint article in the November 14 issue of the journal "Science" Cohen says that by the year 2050, the Earth's present population of 6.3 billion is estimated to grow by 2.6 billion.
"There are some things we can reasonably know and other things we cannot know," Cohen says about population projections. "By examining population size and distribution, it is possible to get a feeling for possible challenges to our future well-being. It is possible to get a sense of the larger picture."
The world's population will be growing at a slower rate than it is today, especially in the richer, developed countries, but it will be larger by two to four billion people, Cohen said. The population will be more urban, especially in the underdeveloped countries, and it will be more elderly.
"I do not know whether we will inflict a doomsday on ourselves by warfare, disease or catastrophe. Our future depends on choices - on the choices we have made in the past and those we will make in the future," says Cohen. "We cannot continue the exceptional growth of this last half century without experiencing consequences."
The demographic projections that Cohen cites assume that fertility rates will continue to decline and that more effective preventions and treatments against HIV and AIDS will be implemented and major catastrophes such as biological warfare, severe climate change, or thermonuclear holocaust will not be inflicted on the human population and the planet.
These assumptions underlie the United Nations Population Division's urbanization forecasts and its online database, World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision.
Although it is not possible to predict how global demographics will affect families or international migration, Cohen points out that three factors set the stage for major changes in families: fertility falling to very low levels; increasing longevity; and changing mores of marriage, cohabitation and divorce.
In a population with one child per family, no children have siblings, Cohen explains. In the next generation, the children of those children have no cousins, aunts, or uncles.
If people are between ages 20 and 30 on the average when they have children and live to 80 years of age, they will have decades of life after their children have reached adulthood, and their children will have decades of life with elderly parents, Cohen also points out.
Cohen's article kicks off a four-week long series titled "The State of the Planet," which examines key issues of our planet's well-being. Cohen was asked to initiate the series because "population is people and people matter."
----
Companies to Pay New Jersey $17 Million for Toxic Cleanup
November 13, 2003
New York Times
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/nyregion/13JERS.html
JERSEY CITY, Nov. 12 - Three industrial companies have agreed to give the state $17 million to pay for environmental damage at hundreds of sites in northern New Jersey that were contaminated with the deadly chemical chromium, Gov. James E. McGreevey announced on Wednesday.
The legal agreement with the companies - Honeywell International, Tierra Solutions and PPG Industries - ends a 20-year legal battle between them and local communities where acres of land have been rendered unusable and groundwater has been tainted by chromium waste dumped from the 1890's to the 1950's.
Although the settlement provides only a fraction of the amount local officials had sought as compensation for the lost tax revenue and the cost of coping with the pollution, many environmentalists said they were heartened that the agreement would avoid further litigation and hasten the cleanup.
Mr. McGreevey went out of his way to congratulate the three corporations for agreeing to the settlement and warned other industrial companies that his attorney general was beginning an aggressive initiative to file civil lawsuits to recover damages from corporate polluters.
"We are holding corporate America responsible," the governor said. "This should send a message to corporate polluters that you can run, but you can't hide."
During its industrial heyday, North Jersey was home to at least three chemical plants that produced coatings for machine parts and created huge amounts of the byproduct hexavalent chromium, which can cause an assortment of health problems including lung and liver cancer. Some of the chromium-tainted material was pumped directly into the Hackensack River; and millions of tons of chromium-tainted earth was sold as landfill, and homes, businesses and even a drive-in theater were built on the sites, leaving Jersey City with some of the most polluted soil in the nation.
Last year, a federal judge ordered Honeywell to pay to clean up one 34-acre site, which will cost an estimated $400 million.
The payments in the settlement announced Wednesday will be in addition to that court-ordered cleanup, and will allow the communities to clean other polluted sites, create parks and wetlands and buy open space. One of the sites eligible for cleanup is a segment of Liberty State Park in Jersey City, where the governor and his advisers announced the settlement.
The size of the award, and the state's involvement, disappointed some local residents who have been fighting for decades for compensation from Honeywell. Gerry McCann, former mayor of Jersey City, said the state should pay to clean the park itself and give the $17 million to Jersey City residents who have had to contend with the pollution for decades.
"This settlement is nickels and dimes," Mr. McCann said. "In taxes alone, we lost $50 million, because there was so much land that was left useless. When you add the cost of the water pollution, and health problems, this is really nothing."
But Jeff Tittel, executive director of the Sierra Club's New Jersey chapter, said the administration had struck a reasonably good deal. Given the weakening of environmental laws by the New Jersey Legislature, and the legal stalling tactics that led a federal judge to chastise Honeywell, Mr. Tittel said, the state was wise to recover what it could rather than begin another round of tortuous litigation.
"Getting something is better than getting nothing," Mr. Tittel said. "This is only a quarter or a fifth of what the true cost should be. But I think it may cause enough of an ouch to the industrial polluters to make them think twice."
---------
GOP Seeking to Delay Environmental Bills
Senators Say They Are Balancing Industry Needs; Critics Worry About Air Quality
By Eric Pianin and Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 13, 2003; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34293-2003Nov12.html
Republican lawmakers are mounting their strongest bid since regaining control of the Senate in January to overturn or postpone an array of environmental provisions.
With Congress trying to wrap up major energy and spending bills, GOP leaders are pressing to postpone implementation of tough smog rules for communities, ease restrictions on some energy exploration and exempt deep-water naval activities from the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Last month, the Senate rejected a bill that would have begun controlling U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, which many scientists blame for rising temperatures on Earth. On a voice vote yesterday, the Senate approved a GOP amendment that effectively strips California and other states of their long-standing authority to exceed federal air quality standards for the vast majority of smaller off-road engines.
Republicans say their efforts would strike a balance between environmental concerns and the need to protect industry from excessive restrictions that discourage investment and kill jobs.
"The Republican Party is clearly applying common sense and balance as it relates to environmental rules and law," said Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho). "Environmental regulations far too often in the past . . . were promulgated in response to hysterical assertions by special-interest environmental organizations that have come to demagogue environmental issues."
There was little doubt the Republicans would reassess environmental policies after they recaptured control of the Senate and strengthened their hold on the House in last year's elections. Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.), a champion of environmental causes, was replaced by Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who recently dismissed warnings about global warming as "a hoax." But some critics say the GOP is going too far in removing what they consider vital public-health safeguards. Jeffords said in a recent letter to colleagues that major energy legislation now in a House-Senate conference "will endanger our nation's air and water, further jeopardize endangered species, and limit environmental review and public participation in energy projects to the benefit of special interests."
With Democrats able to offer only token resistance, Republicans have sprinkled environmental provisions into a series of bills either enacted or in final stages.
Yesterday, for example, the Senate approved an amendment to the fiscal 2004 veterans and housing spending bill that would prevent California from implementing tough air pollution standards for lawn mowers and other off-road equipment with engines of 50 horsepower or less. Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) sponsored the amendment at the urging of Briggs & Stratton Corp., the largest manufacturer of lawn mower engines, which operates two plants in Missouri that employ 2,000 workers.
The Milwaukee-based company has threatened to move its plants overseas to reduce labor costs if the California rule takes effect. Bond, citing a disputed study financed by Briggs & Stratton, said the California clean-air standard would lead to the loss of 22,000 manufacturing jobs in 23 states.
But Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and environmentalists warned that -- even with last-minute changes agreed to by Bond -- the amendment would dramatically rewrite clean air policy by denying several states their long-held authority to exceed Environmental Protection Agency air quality standards for small engines. Under Bond's amendment, the EPA would have to write a new air quality rule for small engines by Dec. 1, 2004.
As for environmental issues in other bills:
• An amendment to the defense authorization bill, given final congressional approval yesterday, exempts the Navy from federal protections of whales, dolphins and other ocean mammals if they get in the way of important military operations and maneuvers.
• Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) tacked onto the bill funding the Commerce Department several special environmental provisions. One would cut off federal funds for the identification and designation of sensitive marine areas, including cold-water coral beds.
• In the 2004 Interior Department spending bill, enacted last week, a 14-year moratorium on oil exploration in Alaska's Bristol Bay was dropped at Stevens's insistence. The same bill contains provisions easing commercial logging in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.
Environmentalists also oppose a provision in the pending energy bill that would enable some communities to postpone compliance with smog-reduction goals set by the Clean Air Act.
The provision, which was not in the original House and Senate versions, was added during subsequent negotiations at the behest of Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.). Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), the chief Senate negotiator, has accepted the provision.
Another provision in the energy bill could expedite oil, gas and coal exploration on Indian tribal lands, which until now had been subject to approval by the secretary of interior and a review under the National Environmental Policy Act. Construction activities related to oil and gas development would be exempt from stormwater pollution control requirements of the Clean Water Act.
-------- genetics
Scientists Progress on Artificial Bugs
November 13, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Artificial-Bug.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scientists announced significant progress Thursday toward creating an artificial organism that one day may have uses ranging from pollution control to clean energy production.
Scientists using commercially available DNA took only two weeks to build from scratch an artificial virus with the identical genetic code of a simple virus already known to infect and kill bacterial cells.
The research at the Institute of Biological Energy Alternatives in Rockville, Md., was detailed in a paper to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and at a news conference by the Energy Department, which funded the three-year research effort.
While the project was based on widely known molecular biology principles, the breakthrough was in the short time -- days instead of months or years -- it took to construct the virus, said institute founder J. Craig Venter, one of the lead researchers.
Researchers previously synthesized the polio virus from enzymes that naturally occurred in cells, but that process took three years and produced viruses with defects.
The effort last summer by Venter and his colleagues took only two weeks from start to finish and created a viral DNA identical to the known genetic code, the researchers said.
The synthetic virus ``had the ability to infect and kill bacterial cells,'' the authors wrote in the paper. Even though the experiment involved a simple organism, the researchers suggested their work demonstrated the ability to quickly and accurately synthesize long segments of DNA that can serve as ``a stepping stone to manipulating more complex organisms.''
At a news conference, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham called the accomplishment ``an extraordinary and exciting development'' that will speed up ``our ability to develop biology-based solutions for some of our most pressing energy and environmental challenges.''
As a result of the scientists' progress, Abraham said it is now ``easier to imagine in the not-too-distance future a colony of specially designed microbes living within the emission-control system of a coal-fired plant, consuming its pollution and its carbon dioxide, or employing microbes to radically reduce water pollution or to reduce the toxic effects of radioactive water.''
But Venter, among the scientists who first produced a map of the complete human genetic code, said much research is needed to produce such a significantly larger artificial organism.
``It's an interim step. Now we have the enabling technology to take us to these next exciting frontiers,'' Venter said. For now, ``This is basic science at the most basic level with lots of unknowns.''
Still, he said, ``the ability to construct synthetic genomes may lead to extraordinary advances in our ability to engineer microorganisms for many vital energy and environmental purposes.''
Venter said all the research details would be included in the paper to be published in the scientific journal and that at this time, his company has no plans to file for any patents.
In addition to Venter, the lead scientists involved in the research were Hamilton Smith, the institute's science director who in 1978 shared a Nobel Prize for his genetic research; Clyde A. Hutchison of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Cynthia Pfannkoch of the institute.
On the Net:
Energy Department: www.doe.gov
Institute of Biological Energy Alternatives: www.bioenergyalts.org
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Study of Two Cholesterol Drugs Finds One Halts Heart Disease
November 13, 2003
By GINA KOLATA
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/science/13HEAR.html?pagewanted=all&position=
The first study to compare two powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs head-to-head in coronary artery disease finds that one appears to be superior.
In patients taking pravastatin, or Pravachol, made by Bristol-Myers Squibb, atherosclerosis worsened slowly over 18 months. But the disease was halted in those who took the highest dose of atorvastatin, or Lipitor, the drug made by Pfizer.
"We saw something extraordinary," said Dr. Steven Nissen, the cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic who directed the study of 502 patients.
"All statins are not alike," Dr. Nissen said, adding that with pravastatin, heart atherosclerosis will worsen, but with the highest dose of atorvastatin, that is unlikely.
At the study's start, the middle-aged, mostly male heart disease patients in the study had levels of low density lipoproteins, or L.D.L., of 150, on average. L.D.L. carries cholesterol to arteries. Atorvastatin lowered participants' L.D.L. levels to 79, while those taking pravastatin had an average level of 110.
After 18 months, the atorvastatin patients had no change in the plaque in their arteries. But plaque increased by 2.7 percent in pravastatin patients. The study did not assess patient outcomes like heart attacks and deaths, which would have required 8,000 patients and taken five or more years.
Pfizer sponsored the study, but Dr. Nissen, who prides himself on his independence from financial conflicts of interest, insisted that he control the study and its data analysis, and had the right by contract to publish the results whether positive or negative for Pfizer. He described the results yesterday at the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, Fla., and submitted a paper for publication.
"A lot of people thought all statins were the same," he said in a telephone interview.
If the two statins had turned out to be about equal, Pfizer might have lost in the multibillion-dollar statin market because pravastatin is nearing the end of its patent life and generic versions should be cheaper.
"Pfizer could have lost big time," Dr. Nissen said. When the results were in, and the company was waiting to hear what they were, "I never saw such nervousness," he said.
Dr. Gary Palmer, the vice president of Pfizer's cardiovascular medicine group in the United States, said the company was very excited. "For the first time, we've actually shown that you can impact the progress of this disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States," Dr. Palmer said.
But Julie Keenan, a spokeswoman for Bristol-Myers Squibb, noted that the study just looked at plaque, not at heart attacks or deaths.
"While these results are informative," Ms. Keenan said, "additional studies will be needed to assess whether different statins would cause disparate reductions in clinical outcomes."
Pravastatin has been shown to prevent heart attacks in people with high cholesterol levels, she added.
Shares of Pfizer rose 60 cents to $32.40 yesterday, and Bristol-Myers Squibb rose 52 cents to $25.50.
Cardiologists say the study addresses a question that plagues them: How low should cholesterol go? National guidelines call for lowering L.D.L. levels in heart disease patients to less than 100 milligrams per deciliter of blood. But, said Dr. Daniel Rader, a lipid researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, "one of the big issues is, `Is that enough?' " And, he added, "Where do you stop?"
And what about people with high cholesterol levels who have not had a heart attack or other manifestation of heart disease? Should they, too, go for maximum L.D.L. lowering? What if the only risk factor is a high level of L.D.L.? Current guidelines suggest less aggressive L.D.L. lowering for people at lower risk.
"There's a certain inconsistency," Dr. Rader said. "If you are trying to reduce risk, once you make decision to put someone on a drug, why not target the same level for everyone?"
Medical experts said national guidelines were unlikely to be changed until additional studies found that more aggressive cholesterol lowering resulted in a reduced risk of heart attacks and death.
The study assessed the progression of atherosclerosis using a tiny ultrasound camera that was threaded into coronary arteries, allowing researchers to look directly at the growth of plaque. Large studies are under way seeking to determine if more growth, as detected by the ultrasound camera, means more heart attacks and deaths, but many cardiologists predict that it does. "The probability is very high," said Dr. Bryan Brewer, chief of the molecular diseases branch at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
Researchers say they only recently came to understand how plaque in artery walls can kill. They used to think that the danger period was when the tumorlike plaque narrowed arteries. Now, said Dr. Peter Libby, the chief of cardiovascular medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, they realize that the danger occurs long before that.
At first, plaque grows from the inner wall of the artery out, Dr. Libby said, making the artery thicker but not narrower. Only at the very end of this process does the plaque start to grow inward, narrowing the artery. But most fatal heart attacks, Dr. Libby said, occur when one of the earlier-stage plaques pops open. Blood pours out, clots, obstructs the artery, and a heart attack ensues.
"The blood clot forms where the plaque opens," Dr. Libby said. "It's revolutionized the way we look at the disease." The idea of looking at heart disease by looking at the diameter of an artery, he added, "is like trying to learn about a doughnut by looking at the hole."
Dr. Brewer said, "You can get enormous changes in vessel wall pathology and little change in the lumen, the vessel diameter." That is why measuring the volume of plaque in artery walls can be so important to observing the progress of heart disease, he added.
But if the new study is correct, cardiologists and patients will be faced with difficult questions.
Pravastatin patients in the study whose L.D.L. levels fell below 100 still had plaque growth while atorvastatin patients with those L.D.L. levels did not.
Asked whether doctors should switch patients from pravastatin to atorvastatin on the basis of the findings, Dr. Nissen replied: "I am going to choose to not answer that question. I will let my colleagues look at our findings and make their own minds up. I have already interpreted the findings and changed some of my practices."
If atorvastatin is good, might more powerful drugs be even better?
A new drug, rosuvastatin, or Crestor, made by Astra Zeneca, can lower L.D.L. levels more than atorvastatin. When statins are combined with another type of drug, ezetimibe, or Zetia, made by Merck, the combination lowers L.D.L. even more. Why not go for the greatest lowering, if a person is at high risk?
"In fact, there's an opportunity to get very, very low," said Dr. Christie M. Ballantyne, a cardiologist at Baylor College of Medicine. "Can we be reducing L.D.L. by 50 percent routinely? The answer is yes. What we still don't know is, is it O.K.? What will that mean in terms of costs of drugs, side effects of drugs, prevention of heart attacks?"
"This study is a proof of concept," Dr. Ballantyne said. "As compared to cancer, we can stop this disease process in a fairly predictable way and prevent most heart attacks from ever happening."
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Cycle of War Is Spreading AIDS and Fear in Africa
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 13, 2003; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33661-2003Nov12?language=printer
BUKAVU, Congo -- The health care workers told the group of 30 teenage boys to put down their guns. They asked the boys to sit in a circle. They warned them against raping women. They showed them some unnerving photographs of young people withered and feverish from HIV-AIDS. And they told them if they were going to have sex that they should use a condom.
Then the lesson was over.
The workers with the aid group Population Services International, recounting the session held last summer, said they knew they didn't have a particularly attentive audience. They assumed many were HIV-positive.
"It's hard to convince an unpaid fighter to wear a condom knowing they are going to go out and rape someone. It's hard to change that sort of mind-set," said Dieudonne Zirirane of the Bukavu-based aid group. "But this is war. What else can we do?"
The men from the Congolese Rally for Democracy, the country's largest rebel group, went back to their posts in the dense jungle, where they were fighting other rebel groups. And this fall, the reports kept coming in -- from hospitals, from church health clinics and from the tin-roof shacks of traditional healers. A great many women were being raped by fighters.
Of those who came to hospitals for treatment, about half were HIV-positive, health workers said. In rural areas, tests are unavailable, so by the time women fall ill with AIDS, most unknowingly have transmitted the disease to their husbands and babies. Before the war, about 5 percent of the population was infected with HIV. In the eastern parts of the country that have suffered the most during the fighting, 20 percent of the population is estimated to be infected, according to the U.N. AIDS program in Kinshasa and the government's Health Ministry.
In Africa, the cycle of war is spreading HIV. In countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo and Sudan, where war has been more common than peace in recent decades, HIV rates have ballooned during times of conflict.
In Liberia, less than 1 percent of the population suffered from HIV before war broke out in 1989; 10 years later, around 8 percent of the population was infected. After this summer's fighting, nearly 16 percent of the population had the virus, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Estimates of HIV among the military in Angola range between 40 percent and 60 percent, while 3 percent of the general population is infected, according to the U. N. AIDS program. In Zimbabwe, 50 percent of the military is HIV-positive, while 25 percent of the general population suffers from the virus. Eritrea's HIV rates also rose after its war with Ethiopia.
Levels are astronomical in the military for reasons other than rape. Prostitutes are often drawn to soldiers to make money in desperately poor war economies, and casual liaisons are common among soldiers away from home for lengthy periods, several reports have shown. Congo's war has been particularly conducive to the spread of AIDS. At times, more than five neighboring armies were drawn in. The fighters brought soaring rates of HIV along with their weapons. Nearly a quarter of Ugandan soldiers who invaded Congo 41/2 years ago and backed rebel proxy groups tested positive for HIV, another USAID study said.
The war is officially over, with a fragile peace plan and a transitional government in place under the leadership of Joseph Kabila. But in the eastern reaches of the country, pockets of fighting continue, along with kidnapping and rape.
"My body became cold after I was raped," said Fabina Malibilo, 21, who was suffering from pneumonia at a hospital in Kalima, in the heart of the eastern Congo. "My husband tried to take care of me, but later on he got sick, too."
Malibilo is a friendly, even magnanimous woman, considering what she has lived through. Seven rebels from the Mai Mai group kidnapped her in September and held her for three months. Today, she doesn't know if she has AIDS, although she suspects she does. Her doctors say quietly that they are sure she does. They won't tell her though, because they have no treatment, anyway.
"I know I am very sick," she said, softly twisting her braids as she breast-fed her baby. "I am feeling very tired. All I am thinking about is how to prepare for my baby when I am not alive."
To be HIV-positive in Africa is often a slow, hopeless struggle to stay alive through better nutrition and good treatment for other infections. Sometimes, for the lucky or the rich, there is access to the life-saving drugs that are widely available and affordable in the West.
But to contract HIV during war in Africa is tantamount to a death sentence.
"We have big illness here. But we only have rubbing alcohol to treat it," said Bisimwa Gaspard, a nurse at a fetid military hospital in Bukavu, where bullet-ridden metal tables served as beds. "We know it's spreading. To be very honest, it's very much out of control now."
A bucket of dirty water was being used to towel off the perspiring head of a patient who might have been suffering from AIDS. Gaspard shrugged and turned away. "What can we do? We don't even have AIDS tests," he said. The patient was too sick to be interviewed.
In eastern Congo, no residents had received the life-saving AIDS drugs until Doctors Without Borders, a French medical aid group, began treating 10 patients in Bukavu last month. Without a functioning government in the country, the organization was able to bring in low-cost generic drugs that many African governments have rejected. The initiative is the first time that an aid group has tried to give antiretroviral treatments in Congo, where the fighting has not stopped.
"Africans know how to die with AIDS," said Carlos Cordero, who is helping to run the program in Bukavu. "But they don't know how to live with it. This is a moment in history for eastern Congo. It's an incredible opportunity."
The group hopes to have 150 patients in treatment by January 2005. For the treatments to work, however, patients must show up for medicine and appointments. If there is fighting again, they should not flee, as many do when shots are fired, Cordero said.
In that case, they will face a tough choice: run from war and possibly die from AIDS, or stay and be treated and possibly die from war.
"It's a horrible choice," said Francois Mutela, who works in Bukavu with the Catholic Church in the program with Doctors Without Borders. "I think that about sums up our dilemma. But, right now, it's the best choice we have."
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