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NUCLEAR
AP: Iran Says Council Attempt Will Fail
U.S., West Europeans Differ on Iran Nukes
Condoleezza Rice - U.S. has no evidence Iraq hid WMDs in Syria
Israeli paranoia on Iran 'nukes'
Iran pleads case with Japan over nukes program
Two Arrested for Radioactive Sale Attempt
MILITARY
A Scary Afghan Road
Attacks in Afghanistan Are on the Rise
Rumsfeld, Japan Officials Discuss Security
Troop Issue Is Ignored as Rumsfeld Visits Tokyo
1,000 missiles seized as US hits rocket site
Iraqi farmers say US troops threaten to bomb their homes
Plan for Guerrilla Action May Have Predated War
U.S. Is Set to Return Power to Iraqis as Early as June
Iraqis Say U.S. to Cede Power by Summer
IAF raid in Syria included 'buzzing' of Assad palace
Palestinian Truce Broker to Return as Hopes Grow
Ex-Security Chiefs Turn on Sharon
NATO exercise won't include U.S.
Helicopters Crashed or Shot Down in Iraq
Pentagon Plans Iraq Channel
Pentagon Propaganda Machine Continues to Spin Lies
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
9/11 Panel: Free to Probe
CU-Springs, AFA join forces with Northcom
Air Marshals' Role Expanded
U.S. Provides a Peek At Air Sensor Program
New Canada Leader Rules Out U.S. Immigration Pact
Lawyers Restored for Moussaoui
Qaeda Pawn, U.S. Calls Him. Victim, He Calls Himself.
ENERGY AND OTHER
Energy secretary says power vulnerable to massive failure
Major Provisions in GOP Energy Draft
Energy Bill Would Impose Power Grid Rules
The New Energy Bill
Legislation Would Set Rules for Grid
Chinese Worry About Another SARS Outbreak
ACTIVISTS
American expatriates to lead the protests against Bush
Opposition to USA Patriot Act Swells
President of Georgia Pleads for Calm as Protests Grow
Georgians Take Protest Against Leader to the Regions
Georgian protesters warned of civil war
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- iran
AP: Iran Says Council Attempt Will Fail
November 15, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Agency-Iran.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3391727,00.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Iran's chief delegate to the U.N. atomic agency said Saturday the United States will fail in its attempt to take his country before the Security Council to face possible sanctions for suspect nuclear activities.
Ali Akbar Salehi told The Associated Press that any Security Council involvement ``could lead to consequences that none of us would like to witness.''
Diplomats fear harsh actions against Tehran could backfire, leading it to renege on promises of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and again draw the curtain on Iran's nuclear agenda.
The Bush administration wants Iran declared in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty at next week's IAEA board meeting, a move that would lead to U.N. Security Council involvement and possible sanctions.
Yet most members of the board advocate less drastic measures, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity -- and some added that Washington could back away from its stance.
An IAEA report has found Iran guilty of covering up past nuclear programs -- including enriching uranium and processing small amounts of plutonium -- that Washington says prove Tehran's intent to manufacture weapons.
The document, prepared for the Thursday meeting of the IAEA's board of governors, lists nuclear cover-ups, some over decades, and suggests they effectively represent violations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty through ``breaches'' of safeguards agreements that are part of that treaty.
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei's report found ``no evidence'' Tehran tried to make atomic bombs, but said such efforts cannot be ruled out until Iran's previously covert activities are further examined.
But Iran claims it has not violated the treaty, dismissing clandestine activities as ``mistakes'' it has now rectified by giving the agency what it says is a complete report of the past.
``I think the majority of the board members think that way, the overwhelming majority,'' Salehi told the AP, suggesting that the Americans will not have enough support at the 35-nation meeting to get the Security Council involved.
Diplomats who follow the agency also spoke of substantial opposition to a harsh response, with even key U.S. allies leaning toward a resolution that stops short of referring the issue to the Security Council.
While there is no doubt that Iran breached its safeguards agreements, there is fear that Iran could renege on recent moves to work with the agency if slapped too hard, one diplomat said.
``The majority view is that Iran did in fact violate the NPT, and the only question is what the next appropriate step should be,'' he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Another diplomat said a ``strongly worded'' draft resolution being drawn up by Britain, France and Germany demands that Iran continue acting on its stated intention to cooperate with the agency.
The draft could urge Tehran to clear up suspicions arising from past covert activities and open present programs to thorough IAEA control but stops short of declaring Iran in noncompliance, meaning the issue will not be kicked up to the Council, said the diplomat, who -- like the others -- demanded anonymity.
The diplomats emphasized that the draft could be withdrawn, merged with others or substantially changed even before the board starts meeting Thursday
Another diplomat familiar with the U.S. position said Washington still hopes for some kind of Security Council involvement but could settle for Council admonition of Iran that stops far short of sanctions threats.
Canada and Australia are believed to be close to the U.S. position, the diplomat said. While disappointed at the softer stance of the West Europeans, the Americans are willing to accept a compromise resolution ``as long as it moves things forward'' in reducing the perceived nuclear threat from Iran, he said.
``They're testing the water,'' one diplomat said of the U.S. stance. A senior diplomat said Washington is not eager to again antagonize the French and Germans less than a year after the rift over Iraq.
Like at the last board meeting in September, nonaligned and most Latin American countries oppose any move that would have Iran answering to the Security Council, the diplomats said.
In Tehran, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi suggested Americans aims were being frustrated.
``Given the Americans (have) lost the game in their claims over Iran's peaceful nuclear activities, their frustration and excuses to abuse the current situation is quite natural,'' the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Kharrazi as saying.
Within recent weeks, Iran has swung from belligerent denial of wrongdoing to acknowledging ``mistakes'' in not reporting honestly to the agency. While maintaining it only wants to generate nuclear power, it has delivered what it says is complete information about past suspect activities.
Last week, it also fulfilled promises made during a visit to Tehran last month by the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany by suspending uranium enrichment and formally agreeing to throw open its nuclear programs to thorough agency inspections -- both key IAEA demands.
On the Net:
IAEA, www.iaea.org
----
U.S., West Europeans Differ on Iran Nukes
Associated Press
Saturday November 15, 2003
By GEORGE JAHN
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3389051,00.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - As a key U.N. atomic agency meeting approaches, a rift is opening between the United States and Europe over about how far to go in condemning Iran's covert nuclear activities, diplomats said Friday.
Among draft resolutions being drawn up is one by Britain, France and Germany that one diplomat described as a ``strongly worded'' demand that Iran continue acting on its stated intention to cooperate with the agency. The United States is hoping for something tougher, such as involvement by the U.N. Security Council.
An International Atomic Energy Agency report leaves no question that Iran covered up past nuclear programs, including enriching uranium and processing small amounts of plutonium. Washington says the report proves Tehran's intent to manufacture weapons.
The document, prepared for a Nov. 20 meeting of the IAEA's board of governors, lists numerous nuclear cover-ups, some over decades, and says they effectively represent Iran's violations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by violating safeguards agreements that are part of that treaty.
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei's report found ``no evidence'' Tehran tried to make atomic bombs, but said such efforts cannot be ruled out until Iran's previously covert activities are further examined.
The U.S. administration wants Iran declared in violation of the treaty at next week's board meeting - a move that would lead to U.N. Security Council involvement and possible sanctions.
But diplomats who follow the agency told The Associated Press that there is substantial opposition to such a harsh response, with even key U.S. allies leaning toward a resolution that stops short of referring the issue to the Security Council. There is fear that Iran could renege on recent moves to work with the agency if slapped too hard, they said.
The British, French and German draft would urge Tehran to clear up suspicions arising from past covert activities and open current programs to thorough IAEA control. However, it stops short of declaring Iran in noncompliance, meaning the issue will not be kicked up to the Council, said one diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
He and others emphasized that the draft could be withdrawn, merged with others or substantially changed even before the board starts meeting Thursday
Another diplomat familiar with the U.S. position said Washington still hopes for some kind of Security Council involvement but would settle for Council admonition of Iran that stops far short of sanctions threats.
Canada and Australia are believed to be close to the U.S. position, the diplomat said. While disappointed at the softer stance of the West Europeans, the Americans are willing to accept a compromise resolution ``as long as it moves things forward'' in reducing the perceived nuclear threat from Iran, he said.
Within recent weeks, Iran has swung from belligerent denial of wrongdoing to acknowledging past ``mistakes'' in not reporting honestly to the agency. While still maintaining it only wants to generate nuclear power, it has delivered what it says is complete information about past suspect activities.
Last week, it also fulfilled promises made during a visit to Tehran last month by the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany by suspending uranium enrichment and formally agreeing to throw open its nuclear programs to thorough agency inspections - both key IAEA demands.
On the Net:
IAEA, www.iaea.org
-------- iraq / inspections
Condoleezza Rice - U.S. has no evidence Iraq hid WMDs in Syria
By Reuters
15/11/2003
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/360957.html
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said on Friday it had no evidence that any of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction had been hidden in neighboring Syria. In an interview with WTVT-TV in Tampa, Florida, White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice defended prewar intelligence on Iraq that Washington used to justify the invasion. Despite U.S. assertions that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological arms, none has been found.
"The American people can be certain that we went to war on solid information, on information that had been gathered over 12 years, on a history of use of weapons of mass destruction, and that we are finding confirmation that this was somebody who hid his activities from the United Nations and intended to continue those programs," Rice said.
A U.S. team hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was investigating multiple reports from Iraqis that banned weapons or weapons-related substances were moved across borders into Syria, Iran, and Jordan.
"I've seen reports, as everyone has," Rice said. But she added: "We don't have any evidence at this point that that's what happened."
Washington has accused Damascus of turning a blind eye to militants crossing into Iraq. Syria has long been on the U.S. State Department's list of states that support terrorism, and Washington accuses it of seeking weapons of mass destruction.
-------- israel
Israeli paranoia on Iran 'nukes'
November 15, 2003
WorldNetDaily.com
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35615
The Israelis failed to intimidate the Russians and the European Union with threats of what the Israelis would do if "appropriate actions" were not taken against the Iranian nuke program - a program the International Atomic Energy Agency says doesn't exist.
So, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz met this week with Secretary of State Powell, Vice President Cheney and National Security Adviser Rice, and afterwards held a press conference.
Quoth Shaul: "Concentrated efforts are needed to delay, to stop or to prevent the Iranian nuclear program. I hope that you understand what I said."
Do you understand?
If you don't, it may be because you're too young to remember what the Israelis did just over 20 years ago.
Iraq was soon to begin operating Osiraq - a French-supplied 40 megawatt research reactor.
Since almost 28 pounds of highly enriched uranium had also been supplied by France for use as reactor fuel, Osiraq and all related facilities and operations were made subject to IAEA safeguards.
Bear in mind that it would take at least 120 pounds of weapons-grade HEU to make even one gun-type [Hiroshima] nuke.
Nevertheless, the Israelis claimed to have learned from "sources of unquestioned reliability" that Iraq was producing nukes at the Osiraq site.
So, the Israelis persuaded the Iranians - who were at war with Iraq at the time - to bomb Osiraq,
But, the Iranian raid was only partially successful. So, on June 7, 1981, Israel launched its own pre-emptive strike, totally destroying Osiraq.
The entire civilized world was outraged.
The United Nations Security Council strongly condemned the military attack by Israel, which it considered to be "in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct." The attack was also "a serious threat to the entire safeguards regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the foundation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons."
And, of course, the Security Council was right. Israel was not a party to the NPT, but Iraq was. Furthermore, Iraq was in full compliance with its Safeguards Agreement. IAEA inspectors - on the scene, before and after the attack - insisted that the Iraqis did not then have a nuke program.
We now know that the Israeli "sources of unquestioned reliability" were wrong - and the IAEA was right - about Iraq nuke programs not only at the time the Israelis bombed Osiraq (1981), but also when Clinton bombed Baghdad (1998), and when Bush invaded Iraq (2003).
As for Iran - also a party to the NPT - here are excerpts from a paper written in the aftermath of the Gulf War by nuclear fuel-cycle expert David Albright:
U.S. officials say they have clear indications that Iran wants nuclear weapons. But so far, the U.S. government has failed to identify any clandestine facilities in Iran that might be part of a secret nuclear-weapons program.
U.S. officials say that many Iranian nuclear scientists who left after the Shah was overthrown are returning to the country. Some of them are interested in working on uranium enrichment, others on chemically reprocessing irradiated nuclear fuel to obtain plutonium - both potential routes to bomb material.
Iran has many "hot cells" usable for separating plutonium from irradiated fuel. These were provided by the United States in the 1960s, when it supplied a five-megawatt research reactor to Iran.
One official said Iran is working on laser uranium enrichment - a program also begun under the Shah. But this technology has not progressed far in the West, and the official said he was "not very concerned" about that aspect of Iran's research.
Iran has been under a virtual embargo on nuclear technology since the 1980s, when the United States urged Germany and France not to restart nuclear cooperation with Tehran until "satisfactory reassurances about Iran's nonproliferation credentials are forthcoming."
If Iran's new ambitions are really peaceful, some Western officials have said, they might end their embargo on power reactor technology - after Iran agrees to let the IAEA come in and take a good look around.
Well, Albright wrote that in 1992. Iran now has invited the IAEA to come take a good look around, and it is their confidential report on what they found - and didn't find - that is the cause of current Israeli sound and fury.
The IAEA didn't find any "indications" of an Iranian nuke program.
So, what do you think the odds are that the IAEA is wrong about Iran and that the Israelis are right - for a change?
Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.
-------- japan
Iran pleads case with Japan over nukes program
Saturday, November 15 , 2003
(AFP)
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=19708&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs
TOKYO, Nov14 -- Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi pleaded for Japan's cooperation in its attempt to head off a UN Security Council debate over its covert nuclear program, a Japanese government official said.
In separate meetings with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, Kharazi said Iran was willing to agree to a tougher 'additional protocols' inspection regime by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the official said.
"We have made this decision under fierce opposition domestically," Kharazi was quoted as telling Koizumi by the official.
"It was a problem that we did not report some (nuclear) activities, but they were not for military purposes," Kharazi said.
Iran's diplomatic plea came less than a week before the IAEA's board of governors is to meet to consider whether Tehran's nuclear program should be referred to the UN Security Council, which could impose punitive sanctions.
On November 20 the IAEA board will study a report from its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, that accuses Iran of covert nuclear activities over the past 20 years, including producing plutonium and enriching uranium.
But the report says there is as yet no evidence Tehran is trying to produce a nuclear bomb, according to a copy obtained by AFP.
"We ask for your cooperation at the November (IAEA) meeting, so it will be not referred to the US Security Council," Kharazi told Koizumi, according to the official.
He added activities were covered up to avoid punishment by the United Nations, the official said.
Koizumi praised Iran's efforts over the past month, which have included providing a full report on its nuclear activities and admitting to violations of nuclear safeguards agreements, and urged further work.
-------- terrorism
Two Arrested for Radioactive Sale Attempt
November 15, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Czech-Nuclear.html
PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) -- Undercover Czech officers arrested two Slovaks who tried to sell them nearly seven pounds of radioactive material in a sting operation, police said Saturday.
The potential uses of the substance remained unclear pending an investigation, with experts differing on whether it could possibly be used in a dirty bomb.
Police seized the suspects Friday in the Voronez hotel in the city of Brno, 125 miles southeast of Prague, police spokeswoman Blanka Kosinova said in a statement. The men were arrested as they counted the $700,000 they believed they had received for the sale.
Pavel Pittermann, a spokesman for the Czech nuclear safety office, said the first checks of four parcels containing the substance detected traces of thorium and uranium. While cautioning against jumping to conclusions, he said those two components could be used in a dirty bomb.
Later, Dana Drabova, the head of Pittermann's agency, told Czech Radio that the material likely came from somewhere in the former Soviet bloc but that she doubted it had direct weapons applications.
Still, there is worldwide concern that terrorists might attempt to used smuggled radioactive material to build and detonate a dirty bomb, which would use conventional explosives to spread radioactivity over a wide area. Such a bomb would typically be packed with strontium, cesium or some other highly radioactive isotope used in medicine and industry.
No such device has been used anywhere, but the al-Qaida network is reported to have been interested in such a terror weapon.
Pittermann said the content of the parcels will be thoroughly checked in the coming days at the Nuclear Research Institute in Rez, just north of Prague, and that results could be expected in the middle of the next week.
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said it was following up on the seizure.
The two suspects, from the eastern Slovak town of Presov, face up to 15 years in prison if tried on and convicted of illegal production and possession of radioactive material and a highly dangerous substance.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
OP-ED COLUMNIST
A Scary Afghan Road
November 15, 2003
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/opinion/15KRIS.html
Here's a foreign affairs quiz:
1. In the two years since the war in Afghanistan, opium production has:
(A) virtually been eliminated by Hamid Karzai's government and American forces.
(B) declined 30 percent, but eradication is not expected until 2008.
(C) soared 19-fold and become the major source of the world's heroin.
2. In Paktika and Zabul, two religiously conservative parts of Afghanistan, the number of children going to school:
(A) has quintupled, with most girls at least finishing third grade.
(B) has risen 40 percent, although few girls go to school.
(C) has plummeted as poor security has closed nearly all schools there.
The correct answer to both questions, alas, is (C).
With the White House finally acknowledging that the challenge in Iraq runs deeper than gloomy journalism, the talk of what to do next is sounding rather like Afghanistan. And that's alarming, because we have flubbed the peace in Afghanistan even more egregiously than in Iraq.
"There is a palpable risk that Afghanistan will again turn into a failed state, this time in the hands of drug cartels and narco-terrorists," Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, writes in a grim new report on Afghanistan.
I strongly supported President Bush's war in Afghanistan, and I was there in Kabul and saw firsthand the excitement and relief of ordinary Afghans, who were immensely grateful to the U.S. for freeing them (a crucial distinction between Iraq and Afghanistan, to anyone who covered both wars, is that you never saw the same adulation among Iraqis). Mr. Bush oversaw a smart war in Afghanistan, and two years ago the crisp mountain air there pullulated with hope - along with pleas for more security.
One day back then when I was thinking of driving to the southeast, six Afghans arrived from there - minus their noses. Taliban guerrillas had stopped their vehicle at gunpoint and chopped off their noses because they had trimmed their beards.
I stroked my chin, admired my own proboscis, and decided not to drive on that road.
Every foreign and local official said then that Afghanistan desperately needed security on roads like that one. But the Pentagon made the same misjudgment about Afghanistan that it did about Iraq: it fatally underestimated the importance of ensuring security. The big winner was the Taliban, which is now mounting a resurgence.
"Things are definitely deteriorating on the security front," notes Paul Barker, the Afghan country director for CARE International. Twelve aid workers have been killed in the last year and dozens injured. A year ago, there was, on average, one attack on aid workers per month; now such attacks average one per day.
In at least three districts in the southeast, there is no central government representation, and the Taliban has de facto control. In Paktika and Zabul, not only have most schools closed, but the conservative madrasas are regaining strength.
"We've operated in Afghanistan for about 15 years," said Nancy Lindborg of Mercy Corps, the American aid group, "and we've never had the insecurity that we have now." She noted that the Taliban used to accept aid agencies (grudgingly), but that the Taliban had turned decisively against all foreigners.
"Separate yourself from Jews and the Christian community," a recent open letter from the Taliban warned. It ordered Afghans to avoid music, funerals for aid workers and "un-Islamic education" - or face a "bad result."
The opium boom is one indication of the downward spiral. The Taliban banned opium production in 2000, so the 2001 crop was only 185 metric tons. The U.N. estimates that this year's crop was 3,600 tons, the second-largest in Afghan history. The crop is worth twice the Afghan government's annual budget, and much of the profit will support warlords and the Taliban.
An analyst in the U.S. intelligence community, who seeks to direct more attention to the way narco-trafficking is destabilizing the region, says that Afghanistan now accounts for 75 percent of the poppies grown for narcotics worldwide.
"The issue is not a high priority for the Bush administration," he said.
If Afghanistan is a White House model for Iraq, heaven help us.
--------
Attacks in Afghanistan Are on the Rise
Gen. Abizaid Calls Combat Situation 'Every Bit as Difficult' as in Iraq
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 15, 2003; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42606-2003Nov14.html
Two years after the Taliban regime fled Kabul in the face of U.S.-led coalition forces, Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the U.S. Central Command, has described daily combat operations in Afghanistan as "every bit as much and every bit as difficult as those that go on in Iraq."
As if to punctuate Abizaid's Thursday statement, a U.S. Special Forces soldier was killed yesterday when his vehicle hit a homemade bomb in eastern Afghanistan, while a Romanian soldier, part of the 11,500-person U.S.-led coalition force, died this week from wounds received in fighting in the south. In a northeastern province, a remote-controlled bomb exploded Thursday near a U.S. vehicle, killing four Afghans.
With most public attention focused on the growing insurgence in Iraq, Afghanistan is also heating up. In contrast to President Bush's Veterans Day declaration that "in Afghanistan we're helping to build a free and stable democracy as we continue to track down and destroy Taliban and al Qaeda forces," the U.S. intelligence community recently reported stepped-up activities by those forces.
In response, the Americans have mounted a six-day operation aimed at al Qaeda in the mountains along the Pakistani border. "We've taken casualties there," Abizaid said, adding: "We will continue to take casualties there, yet we take the fight to the enemy day after day." Since the United States first began operations in Afghanistan in October 2001, 35 Americans have died from hostile fire, 11 since August, according to the Associated Press.
NATO assumed control of a 5,000-person international stabilization force centered in the capital city of Kabul in August. NATO Secretary General George Robertson has said the Afghan stabilization has prevented NATO from getting involved in Iraq. Speaking Thursday on Fox News, he said: "We're trying to get it right to make sure that it works in the long term. . . . And before we take on any new obligation, like Iraq, I think we've got to get Afghanistan right."
Abizaid vowed that coalition forces "will continue to close with and destroy the enemy while reconstruction takes place [and] while the Afghan national government gradually expands its influence in a territory that is very, very difficult to control."
On Tuesday, the leader of a U.N. Security Council mission to Afghanistan reported that "terrorist activities, factional fighting and drug-related crime remained the major concern of Afghans today." Gunter Pleuger, the German envoy to the United Nations, said the mission found that in the southern provinces of Afghanistan "insecurity was greatly exacerbated by terrorist attacks from suspected Taliban, al Qaeda and supporters of renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar." Hekmatyar returned to Afghanistan from Iran after the U.S.-led coalition, in conjunction with the United Nations, placed Hamid Karzai in charge of the transitional government.
Warlords continue to fight for control of major sections of the country outside Kabul, the U.N. group found. Pleuger reported that Karzai and other officials said that "drug production and trafficking fed terrorism, criminality and corruption." Unchecked, he said, the situation "could lead to Afghanistan becoming a 'narco-state.' "
There has been progress, Pleuger noted. After two years of negotiations, an Afghan team has drafted a constitution that would establish an Islamic state with protections for other religions and a complicated legal system with religious and secular judges. It is to be voted on later this year.
But conditions for a credible political process are not yet in place, he said. Pleuger said national reconciliation "requires greater focus, political parties need time to develop, national institutions must undergo reform and the power of factional leaders must be diminished."
Like Iraq's Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden, Taliban leader Mohammad Omar remains at large. And like them, the head of Afghanistan's ousted government apparently continues to try to rally support.
Reuters reported yesterday that one of its employees was given an audio cassette in the southern town of Spin Boldak. In the recording, a man claiming to be Omar calls on his former commanders to take up jihad again.
-------- asia
Rumsfeld, Japan Officials Discuss Security
November 15, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Rumsfeld-Asia.html
TOKYO (AP) -- In wide-ranging security talks, Japanese officials told Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Saturday they were confident their country would not be left vulnerable by any agreements between the United States and North Korea. They also indicated they would like to send troops to Iraq ``as soon as possible.''
Rumsfeld met with Japan's top defense official, Shigeru Ishiba, before heading to Okinawa, the southern island where a majority of the 47,000 Japan-based U.S. troops are stationed.
The Pentagon chief planned to press anew for the Japanese government to relent on a long-sought U.S. demand for fuller legal protections for American service members accused of crimes while serving in Japan.
Rumsfeld was to meet Sunday with the island's governor, Keiichi Inamine, and visit with U.S. troops, including Marines at Camp Foster, home of the 3rd Marine Division.
In Tokyo, Rumsfeld assured officials that North Korea would not be allowed to undermine Japan's security. He said the foundation of the U.S.-Japan defense relationship remains strong.
Some in Japan have expressed concern that if the United States made security guarantees to North Korea -- as the communist government is demanding in exchange for talks on its nuclear program, and as President Bush has suggested may happen -- it could leave Japan even more vulnerable.
Rumsfeld said it was premature to talk about security guarantees for North Korea.
``I can say this: The United States government is not going to make any arrangements with any other country -- that one or others -- that would in any way undermine our security agreement with Japan,'' he said.
At a joint news conference with Ishiba, head of Japan's Defense Agency, Rumsfeld also thanked the government for the billions of dollars in humanitarian aid it has pledged for Iraq's reconstruction. He gave no hint of disappointment at Japan's delay in sending security troops to Iraq.
Ishiba said the government is closely monitoring the situation in Iraq and is inclined to send troops.
``We would like to do it as soon as possible,'' he said.
A military fact-finding team left Tokyo for Iraq on Saturday to determine where and when it might be safe to send Japanese troops to help with reconstruction and other non-combat duties.
The mission came two days after Japanese government said it would delay long-discussed plans to send peacekeepers because of deteriorating security following a deadly suicide bombing in southern Iraq. Japanese media reported the mission had been hastily organized in a show of solidarity with Rumsfeld.
While the United States counts Japan among its strongest and most reliable allies, the presence of thousands of American troops on Japanese soil -- often in urban areas whose residents are disturbed by the noise -- is a source of friction.
Perhaps the toughest of those tensions is the question of whether to extend fuller legal protections to U.S. service members accused of crimes.
Legal protections are spelled out in a document called a Status of Forces Agreement, which forms the legal basis for the U.S. military presence -- temporary or permanent -- in dozens of countries.
The Bush administration wants to amend the forces agreement in Japan. At the heart of the dispute is a U.S. demand that during the period between a U.S. service member's arrest on suspicion of a crime and an indictment, a lawyer and an interpreter should be made available during any questioning.
The Japanese say this goes beyond the protections it offers its own citizens and therefore is not appropriate. Talks on this dispute broke off late last summer.
``It is certainly my hope that they will be re-established at some point in the period ahead,'' Rumsfeld said.
An American official involved in Rumsfeld's meeting said he presented it as an issue of urgency in talks not only with Ishiba but also Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, whom he met on Saturday.
The dispute is complicated by the fact that the U.S. government on a number of occasions has felt compelled to apologize publicly for crimes committed by U.S. troops. Most notable was the 1995 case of a 12-year-old Japanese school girl who was raped by three U.S. servicemen on Okinawa. That sparked some of the worst anti-American military demonstrations seen in Japan in decades.
The issue is further complicated by uncertainty in the Japanese government about what Rumsfeld's plan for rearranging the U.S. military presence worldwide will mean for the defense relationship for Tokyo.
Japan is the key to the U.S. defense strategy in Asia, along with South Korea, where there are about 37,000 American troops.
Japan is home to the U.S. Seventh Fleet, including the only aircraft carrier based permanently outside the United States, and the 374th Airlift Wing at Yokota Air Base north of Tokyo is the U.S. Air Force's only air transport group of its kind in the Far East.
In recent years Japan has faced new questions about its vulnerability to attack from North Korea, which has ballistic missiles that can reach Japanese soil, as well as an active nuclear weapons program.
That threat pushed the government to launch the country's first spy satellites and move ahead with plans for a U.S.-developed missile defense system. Both have been criticized by some in Japan as contrary to the spirit of its constitution, which forsook the right to make war.
Rumsfeld has declined to say publicly what -- if any -- basing changes he wants to make in Japan. The main focus of change for U.S. basing in Asia has been South Korea, where troop reductions are likely.
--------
Troop Issue Is Ignored as Rumsfeld Visits Tokyo
November 15, 2003
By THOM SHANKER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/international/asia/15RUMS.html
TOKYO, Nov. 14 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld held talks with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi here on Friday night, a 45-minute session that was noteworthy primarily for what was not mentioned: Tokyo's announcement this week that it had deferred its decision on whether to volunteer troops for Iraq.
Instead, American officials said, Mr. Rumsfeld focused on Japan's financial contributions to a stabilization effort in Iraq that would depend for its success, he said before the meeting, on the resolve of America and its allies to outlast the violent attacks by Saddam Hussein's loyalists.
For his part, Mr. Koizumi expressed his nation's continuing support for "the cause in Iraq," a senior Pentagon official said, and he also underscored the importance of helping the international community better understand the allied cause.
Mr. Rumsfeld, who went immediately to meet the prime minister on landing here from Guam, played down the political significance of the Japanese announcement issued on the eve of his arrival. "Countries ought to do that which they feel is appropriate for them," he said to correspondents traveling aboard his plane.
In advance of his meeting here with Mr. Koizumi and with Yasuo Fukuda, the chief cabinet secretary, Mr. Rumsfeld said the American-led alliance was not in danger of splintering, despite a series of setbacks that include the public reluctance of Japan and South Korea to send troops, and Turkey's decision not to commit any of its forces.
"Certainly, Japan has already been very helpful with respect to Iraq, in terms of their significant financial contribution," Mr. Rumsfeld said during his visit. The Japanese government has pledged $1.5 billion in grants for Iran during 2004, and has offered $3.5 billion in loans over the next three years.
Mr. Rumsfeld also said that while the United States government hoped to accelerate the transfer of authority to Iraqis, the American military was not rushing to withdraw.
"There is no decision to pull out early, indeed quite the contrary," he said. "We will stay there as long as necessary" to set the nation on the road to security and democracy.
Before his flight to Tokyo, Mr. Rumsfeld spent the day reviewing American military facilities on Guam, a sovereign United States territory in the Pacific whose strategic importance is being rediscovered by the armed services. Andersen Air Force Base is just four hours by air from North Korea and three hours from the Chinese mainland, according to Air Force officers. During the Vietnam War, the island served as a major staging point for B-52 bombing missions.
In the spring of this year, the Pentagon used its bases there to send a strong signal to North Korea as, in advance of the war, tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of aircraft and warships, including some forces usually held in reserve to deter North Korea, moved toward Iraq.
The Air Force temporarily deployed 12 B-1 bombers and a dozen B-52's to the forward air base in Guam in what Pentagon officials said was a carefully planned show of force meant to convince North Korea that the United States could still counter "any adventurism," even as the American military readied for war with Iraq.
Currently, no American combat planes are based on Guam, but as Mr. Rumsfeld toured the island by helicopter, it was easy to spot jet fighters, tankers, surveillance planes and even some Japanese F-4's parked along the runway for what officials said was a training exercise.
-------- iraq
1,000 missiles seized as US hits rocket site
By Jack Fairweather in Baghdad
15/11/2003
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/11/15/wirq15.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/11/15/ixnewstop.html
American forces struck at Iraqi insurgents outside Saddam Hussein's home town, Tikrit, yesterday, killing seven and destroying a rocket launch site in a helicopter attack, and uncovering a cache of more than 1,000 missiles.
The US military said an Apache attack helicopter led the assault after identifying the site as a threat to a nearby US base. Troops from the 4th Infantry Division moved in and discovered a flatbed lorry carrying 50 missiles. US Army engineers inspect the damaged Republican Guard compound
A further search revealed two bunkers holding almost 1,000 missiles used in multiple rocket launchers, said Lt Col Bill MacDonald of the 4th Infantry.
As explosions continued to rock Baghdad, US forces in the Iraqi capital who had intended to bring the might of the American military to bear on insurgents there did little more than damage an already condemned building.
A helicopter gunship pounded the former Republican Guard headquarters for half an hour late on Thursday night as part of Operation Iron Hammer, a new offensive that has so far used mortars, artillery and AC130 Spectre helicopter gunships to strike locations across the city.
In recent weeks rebel fighters have grown increasingly daring in their attacks on coalition forces but US commanders have vowed to more than match them.
A military spokesman said: "The Republican Guard palace was identified as a location used by the enemy to attack American forces. We neutralised the position."
But at the former Republican Guard headquarters yesterday soldiers on the ground and local residents were baffled. One officer said that although they came under regular attack, the building, already semi-derelict after being bombed during the war, was not the insurgents' headquarters.
"We never know where it comes from. The attackers just come and go from different neighbourhoods," said Lt John Smith of the 1st Cavalry regiment that has a base 200 yards away.
Any insurgents were given ample time to escape after US troops and Iraqi security guards alerted the neighbourhood to the attack by loudspeaker.
Neighbours said the building was mostly used by children playing during the day and was deserted at night. "No one comes here," said Ali Badan, a security man who guards it. "The Americans cannot kill the insurgents with big bombs. All they are doing is scaring local people."
The strike comes after the worst fortnight of violence in the country since the end of the war. Yesterday two US soldiers were killed and three wounded in a bomb attack on their convoy north of Baghdad. A third died in a bomb blast in the capital.
The senior US commander in the region, Gen John Abizaid, has said some 5,000 highly organised insurgents are active in Iraq. "Clearly I feel a sense of urgency. They're a despicable bunch of thugs that will be defeated," he said.
The Pentagon was reported yesterday to have decided to more than double the current 150 support staff at Central Command, Gen Abizaid's regional headquarters in Qatar.
But Operation Iron Hammer so far appears to have been more a show of firepower than a targeted campaign to eliminate the terrorists. A US soldier at the Republican Guard headquarters said: "It was target practice. But it's made me feel a lot better."
• The US national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said yesterday it was "likely" that British companies would be able to bid for big contracts in the reconstruction of Iraq.
The concession, which could be unveiled by President George W Bush when he visits Britain next week, follows criticism after British firms were prevented from bidding for the first round of lucrative primary contracts. These were granted to American companies, some with close links to the Bush administration.
----
Iraqi farmers say US troops threaten to bomb their homes
Saturday November 15, 2003
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/nov2003-daily/15-11-2003/world/w10.htm
ABU GHRAIB, Iraq: Surveying shrapnel from US mortars on their fields, Iraqi farmers said on Friday American troops threatened to bomb their homes if they failed to provide information on guerrillas.
Seven farmers told Reuters that US soldiers, who are mounting a new crackdown against insurgents, have been pressuring them to help hunt down fighters.
"They came here and they told us to help them catch resistance fighters or their planes would destroy our homes and we would be arrested," said Ahmed Mohammad, 30. "I am a farmer, not a policeman. What can I do?" he said.
Ground and air units also struck locations near Abu Ghraib prison on the capital's western outskirts. Guerrillas often fire mortars at US troops guarding the sprawling prison. "They fire from everywhere. It used to be every night but now there are fewer strikes because we brought in 300 more soldiers here," said an American soldier.
Nearby farmers said they are paying the price for a conflict that shows no signs of abating.
Mahmoud Ahmed held pieces of shrapnel from eight US mortars, seething with anger over the US-led occupation. "They just threaten us. They are not looking for guerrillas they are just provoking Iraqis," he said.
Other farmers pointed to craters left in fields as mortars crashed, rocking the small community of 50. They said the US strategy of getting tougher with guerrillas said to be Saddam loyalists or foreign militants would only backfire.
"The Americans can never win against the resistance because all Iraqis want them out. How can you catch all Iraqis?" said Jassim Mahmoud.
----
INTELLIGENCE
Plan for Guerrilla Action May Have Predated War
November 15, 2003
By DOUGLAS JEHL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/international/middleeast/15INTE.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 - American intelligence agencies have found increasing evidence that the broad outlines of the guerrilla campaign being waged against American forces in Iraq were laid down before the war by the Iraqi Intelligence Service, government officials said Friday.
That view is based on interrogations of former senior Iraqi officials who are now in American custody and on documents found in Iraq, government officials said. They acknowledged that intelligence agencies had earlier underestimated the strength of the resistance and the degree to which it now appears to have reflected central planning and organization.
The conclusion that the insurgency may have been planned ahead of the war points to yet another failure to act on prewar intelligence, a prominent critic of the war effort said Friday.
"Most of the things that happened, such as the level of violence and the difficulty of getting various factions to cooperate, were known and predicted by foreign intelligence services before the war, but this information was systematically dismissed," said Senator Bob Graham of Florida, a Democrat who was among those briefed by Central Intelligence Agency officials on Thursday and who until January was the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Some government officials cautioned that the idea that the insurgency had been planned by elements of Saddam Hussein's government before the American invasion of Iraq remained only a leading theory. In public remarks on Thursday, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American commander in the Middle East, said the idea that Mr. Hussein planned the insurgency was "beyond my imagination."
But General Abizaid did not discount the idea that the insurgency was planned by others. Another top American general in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, was quoted in The Washington Post earlier this week as saying that the intensity and sophistication of the insurgency, including signs that it is drawing on caches of arms and money put in place before the war, had persuaded him that the guerrilla operations were planned.
"They were planning to go ahead and fight an insurgency, should Iraq fall," General Swannack said in an interview with The Post.
That deduction, government officials said on Friday, is also supported by increasingly credible intelligence, including accounts provided under interrogation by former members of Mr. Hussein's government. A Defense Department official said the new evidence had left no doubt there was "some centralized planning before the war for the plan that has been executed."
A Defense Department official and others who have been briefed on the latest intelligence reports said that the speed of the American advance into Iraq in March and April is believed to have temporarily overtaken whatever plans Iraqi forces had for beginning an insurgency.
The officials said they believed the Iraqi insurgents regrouped, formed effective cells and began carrying out an increasingly deadly guerrilla campaign with mortars , remotely detonated bombs and other attacks.
"The insurgency was centrally planned but decentrally controlled," a Defense Department official said, describing the plan as less a detailed campaign plan than "a concept of operations."
One of the government officials who expressed caution about that conclusion said intelligence analysts had not yet been able to establish the authenticity of at least one seized Iraqi document that has been seen by others as evidence of a planned insurgency.
The insurgency, which includes a guerrilla force that General Abizaid said numbers about 5,000 fighters, appears to consist of several strands, a defense intelligence official said. The most significant, made up of an array of Islamic extremists and groups loyal to the former Iraqi government, uses an umbrella name, the Return Party, a reference to its goal of seeking the restoration of Mr. Hussein to power.
Another faction, called Muhammad's Army, is believed by American intelligence to be composed primarily of former Baath Party officials, regular military officers and fighters from the Saddam Fedayeen, a militia force that was headed by Uday Hussein.
The Bush administration has sought to emphasize the role of foreign fighters as a factor in the resistance, but American military commanders, including General Abizaid, have said that it is loyalists to Mr. Hussein who pose the greatest danger to American troops and to stability in Iraq.
A senior United States official said the scorched-earth tactics adopted by some Iraqi soldiers and members of the Iraqi government as they fled advancing American troops appeared to have followed a script and may well have been a first stage in the insurgency. What is now being debated within intelligence agencies, that official said, is the degree to which the armed insurgency that has followed and gained strength in recent months has emerged on an ad hoc basis or has followed at least a broad blueprint.
"We believe that some of the looting and burning of documents was not happenstance; it was preplanned," the official said. "But how central the planning was, and the extent to which there was central strategy behind the effort, including hiding caches of weapons and money and developing a clear-cut battle plan, is a little more problematic."
--------
U.S. Is Set to Return Power to Iraqis as Early as June
November 15, 2003
By SUSAN SACHS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/international/middleeast/15IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 14 - The Bush administration has agreed to restore independence to Iraq as early as next June, apparently hoping the move will change the perception of the United States as an occupying power and curb the mounting attacks on American forces in the country, Iraqi and American officials said Friday.
On Saturday, the Iraqi Governing Council announced that the U.S.-led occupation administration will end by June, after a new transitional government is selected and takes sovereignty, according to The Associated Press.
The plan to accelerate the transfer of power was put forward by Iraqi leaders this week, and taken to Washington by L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator in Iraq. Late on Friday, officials said, a newly returned Mr. Bremer hastened to tell members of the Iraqi Governing Council's inner leadership circle that the White House had broadly accepted the plan.
Mr. Bremer is to meet with the full 24-member council on Saturday.
The agreement envisions giving Iraqis control over their own wealth and political affairs in advance of writing a constitution or holding national elections, while maintaining the presence of American and other foreign troops to assure stability, officials said.
"This is good for everyone," said Ahmad Chalabi, a council member who saw Mr. Bremer on Friday night. "We will have the U.S. forces here, but they will change from occupiers to a force that is here at the invitation of the Iraqi government."
The plan to give power to an Iraqi provisional government represents a sharp change in American policy, which had been focused on retaining control until a new constitution was adopted and elections held.
The switch occurred as American deaths have mounted rapidly, with 22 soldiers killed just this month when two helicopters were shot down. Three soldiers were killed and five were wounded in two roadside bombings Thursday and Friday. The increasing danger has prompted more questioning in Washington of the Bush administration's policy and planning for Iraq after Saddam Hussein was ousted in April.
Over the past month, it also became clear that the Iraqis in the Governing Council - the only native political authority, albeit unelected - were not willing to risk a public split over the process of drafting a constitution, which would inevitably open up a divisive debate over the future role of the Muslim clergy.
The deadlock demonstrated the new muscle of Iraq's majority Shiite Muslims, long oppressed by Saddam Hussein and his predecessors. They now hold a majority of seats on the Governing Council and insisted that it adhere to a ruling by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the leading Shiite authority in Iraq, saying that only an elected body should write a new constitution.
The Iraqis also faced a United Nations Security Council deadline of Dec. 15 to establish a timetable for a constitution and national elections to gain international recognition.
Their solution, as proposed to Mr. Bremer this week, was to demand sovereignty first and schedule elections later. Bush administration officials, who have said they wanted to turn over authority to Iraqis as soon as practicable, largely accepted the Iraqi plan, said an American official who traveled with Mr. Bremer.
Ayatollah Sistani, according to clerics close to him, supports the plan. Leaders of Iraq's Kurds, who dominate in the north, and of the minority Sunni Muslims predominant in the center said they also viewed it as a way to avoid a showdown that could alienate large sections of the Iraqi public and destabilize the country further.
"Of course we want a constitution, but it is not as much a priority as sovereignty," said Sheik Jalal Uldin al-Saghir, a Shiite cleric who defended the ayatollah's edict on the council's constitutional committee.
"I think we can have elections by the end of 2004," added Sheik Saghir, who announced Mr. Bremer's acceptance of the sovereignty plan in his sermon at Friday Prayers. "But, before that, we must go through a process of transferring authority and a transitional period."
Iraqi leaders have pressed for more control over security, demanding that American troops pull out of Iraqi cities and turn over policing and intelligence-gathering to Iraqis.
While there is no certainty that attacks on American forces will diminish after this happens, Iraqi leaders believe that they will. "The occupation itself is a source of insecurity," said Adel Abdel Mahdi, the Governing Council representative of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the main Shiite political party.
Whatever the final shape of the agreement reached between Mr. Bremer and the Governing Council, President Bush made it clear this week that he had no plans to withdraw the American military presence for some time - perhaps until Mr. Hussein is caught.
Mr. Bush told British reporters it was "inconceivable" that he would consider pulling all American troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan anytime soon. "We're not pulling out until the job is done. Period," he told the reporters, who saw him in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
"And that includes finding those two?" the reporters asked, referring to Mr. Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
"Yes, that's part of it," he said. "But an even bigger is a free and democratic society. That is the mission."
By defining the mission that way, Mr. Bush appeared to set a relatively high standard - that American troops, at some level, would be in Iraq and Afghanistan until there was an assurance of a stable democracy. But after sovereignty is returned to Iraq, one senior American official said, the United States forces would be in the country at the "invitation of the new government."
The Iraqi political leaders said they also planned to adopt a basic law setting out fundamental principles for the new Iraq, like equality for all sects and respect for human rights. The law, they said, would serve as the guide for their transitional government.
They said they would also expand the council's political base by forming a new legislative assembly of about 200 people, to be elected or designated in provincial meetings.
That assembly would appoint the provisional government, which would call for elections once a census is completed. Mr. Chalabi said he expected the process to take about 14 months, to be followed by a constitutional convention and then elections, possibly in 2006.
Iraqi political parties had proposed essentially the same plan for a legislative assembly and a transitional government in the weeks immediately following the fall of Baghdad and the ouster of the government of Mr. Hussein.
But Mr. Bremer and his British counterpart in the occupation administration rejected the proposal then, saying the Iraqis were not ready to assume political power. Instead, the Governing Council was created with limited powers to oversee government ministers and propose legislation to the occupation authority.
They have chafed under the restrictions ever since. The council meets only three days a week, and many of the political leaders who are members rarely attend.
Officials in the occupation authority have also expressed frustration with the present political setup, particularly the Governing Council's monthly rotating presidency. Mr. Bremer, administration officials said, will insist that the council provide him with a single Iraqi interlocutor to provide more consistency in his dealings with the Iraqi political body. It is not clear who, if anybody, on the council possesses the standing to assume such a role.
David E. Sanger, in Washington, contributed reporting for this article.
--------
Iraqis Say U.S. to Cede Power by Summer
Town Meetings to Set Process in Motion
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, November 15, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42778-2003Nov14?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Nov. 14 -- The Bush administration told leaders of Iraq's Governing Council on Friday that it intends to transfer sovereignty of Iraq by next summer to a provisional government selected by delegates chosen in town meetings across the country, officials of the U.S.-appointed council said.
Driven to revise its blueprint for Iraq's political transition because of intensifying attacks by insurgents, the administration's new plan abandons a process that would have required Iraqis to write and approve a constitution and hold national elections for a permanent government before the handover of power. Under the new strategy, sovereignty would first be given to a provisional government, which would oversee the writing of a constitution and the convening of elections for a permanent government.
But some council officials said the plan, which does not envisage any sort of national election until late 2004 or early 2005, could prove controversial among Iraqis. While there appears to be broad public support for a fast handover of sovereignty, there also is a strong desire among many Iraqis to choose their new leaders -- even interim ones -- through an election. It remains unclear whether town meetings, where participation likely would be restricted to people deemed to be community leaders, would be regarded as legitimate.
The plan would enable President Bush to end the formal occupation of Iraq before the 2004 election in the United States -- a key goal of the White House -- but would not end the American presence in Iraq. U.S. officials expect the provisional government to permit tens of thousands of American soldiers to remain in the country, along with hundreds of civilian reconstruction specialists.
The administration's plan was outlined by the U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, to the nine presidents of the Governing Council in a meeting Friday night in Baghdad, the council officials said. The officials said the plan received a positive response from the presidents, who have been calling on the administration to hand over power more quickly.
"There was strong support for it," said a senior official of the Iraqi National Congress, the political organization headed by Ahmed Chalabi, one of the nine presidents. "Everyone was happy with it."
U.S. officials in Baghdad would not comment publicly on the plan. Daniel Senor, a spokesman for the U.S.-led occupation authority, said Bremer returned to Baghdad from Washington Friday morning "with some ideas that he began discussing with members of the Governing Council." Bremer had left Baghdad on short notice for two days of discussions at the White House and the Pentagon about the situation in Iraq.
Senor said the occupation authority "looks forward to hearing the proposal the full Governing Council agrees upon once they have the opportunity to meet and discuss it."
The administration wants the new political blueprint to appear as if it were generated by the council and not by Bremer and the White House. Council officials said the presidents intend to discuss the new approach with the full 24-member council on Saturday at a meeting that Bremer might also attend. Assuming there is general agreement among the council members, the officials said the presidents would announce details of the plan in the following days.
"It will be pitched as probably some kind of joint agreement, but it will be what Bremer proposed," the Iraqi National Congress official said. The presidents, the official said, will "accept it with very few modifications."
Administration officials had expressed a preference for having the Governing Council agree on a way to quickly write a constitution, enabling a permanent government to be seated before the transfer of sovereignty. But the council has been unable to overcome differences on how the document should be written. Shiite Muslim members want the drafters of the constitution to be chosen in a national election, while Sunni Muslims and ethnic Kurds say town meetings would suffice. Shiites make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population.
The disagreement has led to paralysis on the council, fueling fears on Bremer's staff and in the White House that the transition would be prolonged. With attacks on U.S. forces averaging more than 30 a day, the administration has been keen to find a way to shorten the handover without appearing to cut and run.
Under the administration's plan, town meetings would be held early next year across Iraq to select delegates to a national convention. Participants in the meetings likely would be restricted to political, religious, tribal, academic and labor union leaders, as well as other influential figures. "The town hall meetings would be a selected group," one council official said.
That restriction prompted concern among some council members. "It will be difficult, in some places, to determine who will be the best people to attend such meetings," said one council member, Samir Shakir Mahmoud Sumaidy. "Selection is a process that is open to challenge."
Some council officials said the method of selection would be a focus of discussions over the coming days. But they said Bremer indicated that he would not support national elections to choose the delegates. Occupation officials are concerned that holding hasty national elections, to select either a provisional government or drafters of a constitution, could result in sabotage by forces loyal to former president Saddam Hussein and domination by religious extremists.
The delegates selected through the town meetings would convene by late spring to select the form and membership of a provisional government, which would assume sovereignty from the occupation authority and disband the Governing Council, council officials said. Before the provisional government was seated, the council would craft a basic legal framework that would remain in effect until a new constitution was written.
The provisional government would organize national elections in 12 to 18 months for delegates to a constitutional convention, the officials said. The resulting document would be put to a national referendum. If approved, elections for a permanent government outlined by the constitution would follow.
Adel Abdel-Mehdi, the director of the political bureau of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country's largest Shiite political party, said the proposal represents a reversal of the process originally outlined to grant sovereignty to Iraq. "Instead of starting with the constitutional process, it will come at the end of the road," he said. "We are reversing the whole process to meet the demands of all the parties."
One of those key demands was from Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most influential religious leader, who insisted in an edict this summer that any delegates to a constitutional convention be elected. Sistani has since shown almost no flexibility on the issue, and Shiite parties such as Abdel-Mehdi's were loath to oppose him.
Abdel-Mehdi said he met with Sistani on Thursday and the ayatollah broadly approved the compromise. "He blessed the whole process," Abdel-Mehdi said.
Abdel-Mehdi said sovereignty within six months would be much sooner than many parties expected. "This is a very good achievement, taking into the account the real situation in the country," he said. "This is a real achievement."
Correspondent Anthony Shadid in Baghdad and staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.
-------- israel / palestine
IAF raid in Syria included 'buzzing' of Assad palace
Saturday, November 15, 2003
By Haaretz Service
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/360941.html
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz on Thursday told the Washington Times that last month's Israel Air Force raid on a militant training camp close to Damascus included a low-level flight or "buzzing" close to one of Syrian President Bashar Assad's palaces.
In an interview published Friday on the paper's Web site, Mofaz said that the mission was designed to send Assad a message that "more punishing attacks would come unless Damascus stops sponsoring attacks on Israel from Syria-dominated Lebanon."
The raid came in the wake of a suicide bombing by a female terrorist from Islamic Jihad, who blew herself up in a crowded Haifa restaurant on a busy Saturday afternoon last month. The explosion killed 21 people, including several children and members of the same families.
Mofaz told the paper that intelligence showed that the attack was ordered by Islamic Jihad headquarters in Damascus. He added that he believed the attack made Assad understand that Israel would not tolerate such incidents.
"We know that Bashar Assad was very confused after this attack, and he was starting to understand we do not accept such events in Israel, especially when the order is coming from Damascus," Mofaz told the paper.
The defense minister also said that he had received intelligence that terrorist bases in Syria were involved in training some of the foreign militants who were moving into neighboring Iraq to engage in attacks on American troops stationed there.
"We do have information that Hezbollah members, Al-Qaida members and other terrorist groups from Syria are crossing into Iraq, and they are part of the resistance against the U.S. forces," he told the paper.
Mofaz, who is in the United States for talks with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell and other officials, told the Washington Times that Israel would not at present move to destroy Iran's nuclear reactor, as it did in Iraq in 1981, but would await the results of diplomatic efforts and inspections by the United Nations nuclear watchdog.
"It is too early speak about [other measures]," he said.
----
Palestinian Truce Broker to Return as Hopes Grow
November 15, 2003
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Egypt's intelligence chief, the main broker of a truce by Palestinian militants that collapsed in August, will return to the West Bank next week, President Yasser Arafat said Saturday.
News of Omar Suleiman's renewed role comes as hopes grow for a meeting between Israelis and Palestinians on a U.S.-backed ``road map'' -- for which a new truce is widely seen as crucial.
``He is coming with many ideas,'' Arafat told reporters at his battered headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah during low-key ceremonies to mark the 15th anniversary of a Palestinian declaration of independence.
Widely respected by Palestinian factions, Suleiman helped broker a truce by militants in June. It held for two months before collapsing under a slew of violence.
Arafat said Suleiman would be back Monday, but it was not immediately clear if he would meet the militant groups.
The Islamic group Hamas said Friday it was ready for talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie on suspending hostilities. Qurie wants a cease-fire with Israel rather than a one-sided truce.
The last truce broke down when Israel killed a Hamas official in a missile strike two days after a suicide bombing killed 23 people on a bus in Jerusalem.
The violence and the resignation of Qurie's predecessor in September put the road map on hold, but the Palestinian premier and Israeli leader Ariel Sharon plan to meet soon in a bid to revive it.
NO RUSH
Neither side, though, seems in a rush to hold talks without ensuring that they can claim progress toward peace afterwards.
A senior Israeli government source said that meant the Palestinians had to take ``concrete steps'' to ``fight terrorism,'' in accordance with the plan that charts moves toward creating a Palestinian state by 2005.
Unlike Arafat and his Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad militant group call for the destruction of the Jewish state. But Palestinian leaders fear a crackdown on militants could lead to civil war.
Three years into an uprising, Palestinians said they had little cause for joy on Saturday's holiday to mark the day on which Arafat declared independence from exile.
The economy in Palestinian-ruled areas has crumbled under the pressure of closures that the Israelis say are designed to stop militant attacks that have left hundreds dead in Israel.
Now, Palestinians fear their plight will worsen further with the construction of a barrier that cuts deep into land occupied by Israel during the 1967 war and which Israel says it needs to stop suicide bombers.
Palestinians say it is a new ``Berlin Wall'' which grabs territory they want to be part of a future independent state. They also fear the expansion of Jewish settlements.
``In a few years, there won't be land left to materialize the declaration of independence,'' Shawkat Harb, a 32-year-old taxi driver, said. ``The unremitting expansion of settlements on our land won't leave any land for us.''
--------
Ex-Security Chiefs Turn on Sharon
Government Policies 'Create Hatred,' Israeli Newspaper Is Told
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, November 15, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42821-2003Nov14?language=printer
JERUSALEM, Nov. 14 -- Four former chiefs of Israel's powerful domestic security service said in an interview published Friday that the government's actions and policies during the three-year-old Palestinian uprising have gravely damaged the country and its people.
The four, who variously headed the Shin Bet security agency from 1980 to 2000 under governments that spanned the political spectrum, said that Israel must end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, that the government should recognize that no peace agreement can be reached without the involvement of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, and that it must stop what one called the immoral treatment of Palestinians.
"We must once and for all admit that there is another side, that it has feelings and that it is suffering, and that we are behaving disgracefully," said Avraham Shalom, who headed the security service from 1980 until 1986. "Yes, there is no other word for it: disgracefully. . . . We have turned into a people of petty fighters using the wrong tools."
The statements to Israel's largest-circulation Hebrew-language daily newspaper, Yedioth Aharonoth, added to recent public criticism of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by Israeli political, military and civic leaders for his failure to stop terrorism or negotiate peace as the uprising enters its fourth year.
Members of the Sharon government said they would not comment directly on the statements.
"I don't want to add more fuel to this," said a senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "These, of all people, should have known this is the worst time to conduct public debate on these issues."
The official said creating the image that "Israel is falling apart at the seams" could prompt Palestinian organizations to "intensify terrorist activity."
The former security chiefs said they agreed to the two-hour interview -- the first time the four have ever sat down together -- out of "serious concern for the condition of the state of Israel," according to Carmi Gillon, who ran Shin Bet in 1995 and 1996.
Maj. Gen. Ami Ayalon, who headed the agency from 1996 until 2000 and is co-author of a peace petition signed by tens of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians, said: "We are taking sure and measured steps to a point where the state of Israel will no longer be a democracy and a home for the Jewish people."
Shin Bet is Israel's dominant domestic security and intelligence service, with primary responsibility for the country's anti-terrorism efforts. It often plans and directs armed forces operations that support its own activities, including raids into Palestinian towns and villages in search of alleged terrorists, assassinations of suspected militants and interrogation of suspects. The current Shin Bet chief, Avi Dichter, is one of Sharon's most trusted and influential advisers, according to administration officials.
The four former Shin Bet leaders said they recognized the contradictions between some of their actions as security chiefs and their opinions today.
"Why is it that everyone -- [Shin Bet] directors, chief of staff, former security personnel -- after a long service in security organizations become the advocates of reconciliation with the Palestinians? Because they were there." said Yaakov Perry, whose term as security chief between 1988 and 1995 covered the first Palestinian uprising, or intifada. "We know the material, the people in the field, and surprisingly, both sides."
The security chiefs denounced virtually every major military and political tactic of the Sharon administration, adding their voices to the dissent in Israel against the prime minister's handling of a conflict that has claimed the lives of more than 2,500 Palestinians and nearly 900 Israelis and foreigners.
In recent weeks, the country's top general has criticized Sharon's clampdown on Palestinians in the West Bank; active and reserve Air Force pilots have publicly declared the military's use of missiles and bombs to kill militants in civilian neighborhoods to be "immoral"; activists have initiated independent peace proposals; and opinion polls have indicated that faith in Sharon is plummeting.
Perry said the country is "going in the direction of decline, nearly a catastrophe" in almost every area -- economic, political, social and security. "If something doesn't happen here, we will continue to live by the sword, we will continue to wallow in the mud and we will continue to destroy ourselves," he said.
The four men said Israel should be prepared to initiate a peace process unilaterally rather than wait for the Palestinians to bring a halt to terrorism, which is Sharon's overriding prerequisite for negotiations.
"As of today, we are preoccupied with preventing terror," Gillon said. "Why? Because this is the condition for making political progress. And this is a mistake."
"You are wrong if you think that this is a mistake," interjected Shalom. "It is not a mistake. It is an excuse -- an excuse for doing nothing."
The group was particularly critical of Sharon's attempt to sideline Arafat and declare him "irrelevant" -- also a key tenet of President Bush's Middle East policy.
"It was the mother of all errors with regard to Arafat," said Shalom, who has worked as an international business consultant since leaving the government. "We cannot determine who will have the greatest influence over there. So let us look at the Palestinians' political map, and it is a fact that nothing can happen without Arafat."
Israel should "stop talking about a partner already and do what is good for us," said Perry, now a bank chairman and businessman. "What is good for us is to be able to protect ourselves in the most effective manner . . . to waste fewer troops on guarding hilltops and settlements and three goats and eight cowboys."
The former security chiefs said the Jewish settlements that have proliferated across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are among the greatest obstacles to peace. "Sharon has often talked about the fact that we will be required to make painful compromises," Perry said, "and there are no painful compromises except for evacuating settlements."
Several of the chiefs also condemned the 400-mile fence and barrier complex Israel is erecting around the heart of the West Bank. Sharon has said the fence is needed to stop terrorists from infiltrating Israel. However, its path veers deep into the West Bank in several places.
"It creates hatred, it expropriates land and annexes hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the state of Israel," Shalom said. "The result is that the fence achieves the exact opposite of what was intended."
Alluding to South Africa's former system of racial separation known as apartheid, he added: "The Palestinians are arguing, 'You wanted two states, and instead you are closing us up in a South African reality.' Therefore, the more we support the fence, they lose their dream and hope for an independent Palestinian state."
Ayalon, who is chairman of an irrigation systems company, said he considered much of Israeli policy in the Palestinian territories "immoral, some of it patently immoral."
"Terror is not thwarted with bombs or helicopters," said Shalom, who asked rhetorically: "Why does this increase terror? Because it is overt, because it carries an element of vindictiveness."
"The problem, as of today, is that the political agenda has become solely a security agenda," said Gillon, who has also served as an ambassador. "It only deals with the question of how to prevent the next terror attack, not the question of how it is at all possible to pull ourselves out of the mess that we are in today."
-------- nato
NATO exercise won't include U.S.
By Ward Sanderson,
Stars and Stripes European edition,
Saturday, November 15, 2003
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18717
For four hours on Thursday, the NATO alliance will show off its fledgling rapid reaction force in a brief flurry of exercises near Izmir, Turkey.
The idea of such a force - originally backed by the United States as a means of grappling with emergencies such as the Kosovo war - has split Americans who think NATO should command such a force and many Europeans who believe they are ready to run their own show.
The United States has attempted to keep the Europeans plugged into the alliance structure. But the European Union is also organizing its own emergency force, set to exist, at least on paper, by year's end.
The first NATO Response Force demonstration, dubbed Allied Response 03, will feature about 1,100 troops from 13 nations and include mock evacuations and naval embargo drills simulating a U.N.-mandated intervention. All told, alliance members have loaned about 9,000 troops to the new response force. About 300 of them are Americans. But America is the only nation with troops currently attached to the reaction force that is not participating in Thursday's demo.
On the surface, that sounds surprising, particularly given the import the United States has attached to the NATO vision.
However, a spokeswoman for the U.S. military in Europe said given the small number of troops attached to the group's first six-month rotation, the American absence from the demonstration is understandable.
"The U.S. participation, overall, is quite small compared with the other nations," said Capt. Sarah Kerwin, spokeswoman for the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany.
For example, Spain has assigned 2,200 troops to response duty compared with America's 300, but Denmark has just 100, the Czech Republic has 80, and Poland has just 20. All are sending troops to the demo in Turkey.
For its part, the alliance wants attention focused on the overall effort.
"We as NATO don't differentiate," said Lt. Col. Hartmut Beilmann, a German air force officer and alliance spokesman. "We keep it very broad and general, not to point a finger at whatever nation isn't participating in an exercise."
One analyst said the American absence from the demonstration is strategic.
"The Response Force is basically built to increase the pressure on Europeans to transform their militaries in the way the Americans are transforming theirs," said Otfried Nassauer, director of the Berlin Information-center for Transatlantic Security.
Nassauer said that the more Europeans are involved with the NATO emergency force, the fewer there are who are freed up for the EU-only counterpart.
"The nations will make all their contributions from one pool of forces," Nassauer said. So making the NATO force nearly U.S.-free, he believed, would actually forward U.S. interests. And the supreme allied commander is always an American, regardless.
"The purpose is to get as many Europeans in the force as possible," Nassauer said.
The composition is also not fixed. Nations and assets change every six months.
"The contributions will vary from one rotation to another," said Lt. Col. Petter Lindqvist, spokesman for Allied Forces Northern Europe in Brunssum, Netherlands.
Though small and short, the demo is important, Lindqvist said.
"It's actually the first time ever you will actually see NRF forces, NRF troops," he said. The exercise, too, will only offer a taste of eventual capabilities. "The full operations capability will not be known until 2006."
Though planned at a time when the Balkans and Caucasus region were the recent and current blazes, the new force is flexible in its reach. The upcoming demo's scenario takes place in a theoretical flash point "outside of NATO's area of responsibility."
In addition to the 300 troops, America's contribution to the first rotation includes a ship and an unspecified number of aircraft. One NATO official implied the complement was a Marine landing force, but a spokesman for the Marines was unaware of a specific role.
"We do not have any Marines that will be part of a response force as a dedicated force. However, we always stand by to augment," said Master Sgt. Phil Mehringer of Marine Corps Forces Europe.
However the Americans are involved, the debate over what headquarters would best command Europe's peacekeepers will likely continue. If Europe meets its deadline, its force will officially exist by the holiday season.
"The EU would like to see them as complementary, Washington would like to see them as being in competition," Nassauer said. "The debate about Europe doing more about defense and sharing more in the burden is always characterized as a Catch-22 situation."
-------- us
Helicopters Crashed or Shot Down in Iraq
November 15, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Helicopter-Glance.html
Helicopter crashes during the Iraq war and its aftermath:
-- Nov. 15, 2003: Two U.S. Black Hawks crash in the northern city of Mosul, killing 17 soldiers and injuring 5, with one unaccounted for. A U.S. soldier says he heard one helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, but a military spokesman says the cause has not been determined.
-- Nov. 7, 2003: A Black Hawk is downed near Tikrit, apparently by a rocket-propelled grenade. The attack kills all six on board -- four crew and two passengers from Department of the Army headquarters in Washington.
-- Nov. 2, 2003: A Chinook is shot down near Fallujah, killing 16 American soldiers and injuring 26. The military believes a SA-7 shoulder-fired missile slammed into one of the chopper's rear-mounted engines.
-- Oct. 25, 2003: A rocket-propelled grenade forces down a Black Hawk north of Baghdad, and five soldiers are injured.
-- June 12, 2003: An Apache is shot down in western Iraq, apparently by hostile fire. The attack helicopter's two crew members are not injured.
-- May 19, 2003: A Sea Knight crashes shortly after takeoff in the Shat al-Hillah Canal in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, killing four U.S. Marines. Another Marine drowns while trying to rescue them. The cause of the crash appears to be accidental.
-- May 9, 2003: A Black Hawk crashes near Samara, between Baghdad and Tikrit, killing three U.S. soldiers. Reports indicate the crash was an accident.
-- March 23, 2003: Apache helicopter is shot down by Iraqi forces. Its two crew members are held as prisoners for three weeks before they are released.
-- March 20, 2003: A Sea Knight crashes in Kuwait, about nine miles from the Iraq border, killing eight British troops and four U.S. Marines. The cause of the crash is under investigation, but no hostile fire was reported in the area.
-------- propaganda wars
Pentagon Plans Iraq Channel
Satellite Link Allows White House to Bypass TV Networks
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 15, 2003; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42547-2003Nov14.html
In an escalation of White House efforts to circumvent what President Bush calls the news media "filter," the Pentagon plans to launch a 24-hour satellite channel from Baghdad to make it easier for U.S. television stations to air government-authorized news about Iraq. The satellite link, dubbed "C-SPAN Baghdad" within the administration, is to go on the air in a week or two. It begins at a time when guerrilla violence in Iraq is increasing and the White House is revising and accelerating plans to transfer governing authority to Iraqis.
Administration officials assert that U.S. news organizations have emphasized violence and setbacks in occupied Iraq while playing down progress. The officials say the satellite capability is designed to help local stations interview U.S. authorities in Iraq and offer live coverage of military ceremonies and briefings relevant to their geographic areas.
The channel is the most aggressive yet of several administration efforts to bypass national news organizations, including a succession of interviews for local television stations with Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others.
One Republican strategist expressed skepticism about the project, saying it appeared to be an effort "to improve public opinion back home" before Bush's reelection campaign gets fully underway.
The officials said the channel will offer uncut coverage of government briefings and other events, and they plan to notify U.S. stations when an enlisted person, general, official or business from their area is participating. The project, they said, would have the effect of cutting the broadcast networks out of news transactions between the administration and affiliate stations.
"We want the stations to show not just the shocking picture but the whole picture," said a senior administration official who refused to be named. "Car bombs are news, but there's a journalistic responsibility to paint a more comprehensive picture."
White House communications director Dan Bartlett said a shortage of reliable satellite conduits from Iraq "often makes it difficult for people to follow briefings and the progress that's being made."
"The better technology will make it easier for reporters from news organizations, big or small, to cover the story as it unfolds," Bartlett said. "News organizations will still make the decision whether to use it or not. That's not control. It's access many reporters currently don't get because they are back in the United States."
The project is being headed by J. Dorrance Smith, who was assistant to the president for media affairs in George H.W. Bush's administration and advised the younger Bush on his Florida recount strategy in 2000. Smith was a longtime executive for ABC News, producing Olympics and political convention coverage and serving as executive producer of "This Week With David Brinkley" and "Nightline."
Smith has been working in Iraq since September as an adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority, headed by L. Paul Bremer. Officials said Smith's mission is to promote what the administration considers to be a more realistic picture of events.
The new channel was first reported by the New York Observer, which quoted Smith as saying that removing the network intermediaries would help prevent news conferences and other events from "getting chopped up in New York."
The administration officials said they will make the satellite coordinates of the transmissions widely available so that stations, government offices and conservative interest groups can pick up the coverage at will. The events also could be picked up by cable and broadcast networks.
Dave Busiek, news director of KCCI, the CBS affiliate in Des Moines, said local TV journalists will be "cautious about this new approach, particularly if there's a widespread feeling that the government is trying to go around the networks."
"Part of the argument is that those of us in local TV ask softball questions and aren't skilled enough to separate the real news from the pure spin," he said. "It's pretty insulting. That being said, if I could have a live interview with Ambassador Bremer, for instance, in my 6 o'clock newscast, that's a tempting possibility and I have no doubt it would be valuable for our viewers."
Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, said several local stations have aired stories about the bleak conditions being endured by military families, and she said administration officials might find themselves answering tough questions.
But many stations with large military bases in their areas cannot afford to send a reporter to Baghdad, she said, and would have "tremendous interest" in interviews with local people in the armed services.
The channel is starting amid changes in the administration's communications team. Tucker A. Eskew, director of the White House Office of Global Communications, told officials yesterday he will leave on Dec. 7. He plans to open a consulting firm and serve as a senior adviser to Bush's campaign.
Margaret Tutwiler, who was Bush's ambassador to Morocco, is awaiting Senate confirmation as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs; she is expected to start work this month. Sources said she plans to focus on the Middle East, beginning with an assessment of the audience the United States will try to reach and ways to measure the impact of programs.
----
Pentagon Propaganda Machine Continues to Spin Lies
Gerry J. Gilmore
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=1290
Department of Defense
Press Release
11/15/2003
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov2003/n11142003_200311143.html
November 14, 2003, Summary: The US Department of Defense won't stop telling lies. In the press release disguised as a news article shown below, nearly all of the lies told by President George Bush to start the US - Iraq War are re-told by Douglas Feith, a top aide to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Veterans, Congress, the press, and the people need to stand up and tell the military to stop the lies, threats, and unilateral attacks and instead tell the truth and begin working in an atmosphere of mutual trust and verification ...
Here is a DoD press release sent out on November 14, 2003. It repeats the phony reasons cited by President George Bush to attack Iraq. Here is an analysis of the DoD press release, with comments in brackets in blue. For a thorough review of all the lies the Bush told to start the war, please read, "The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq." http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/fivelies.html
-----Original Message-----
From: Press Service [mailto:afisnews_sender@DTIC.MIL]
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 2:30 PM
To: DEFENSE-PRESS-SERVICE-L@DTIC.MIL
Subject: Feith Defends U.S. Decision to Take Down Saddam
Feith Defends U.S. Decision to Take Down Saddam
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2003 - Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime presented a clear and present danger to the United States and to the world and had to be removed, DoD's top policy official told members of a think tank here Nov. 13.
[Here's the first lie: there is no evidence Iraq posed a "clear and present danger." After nearly eight months of occupation, there is no evidence of any banned weapons in Iraq, and there is no evidence of any links between Iraq and terror groups associated with attacks against the US.]
Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith [http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/feith_bio.html] defended the actions taken to remove Saddam, which occurred with the fall of Baghdad in early April.
Saddam's Iraq, Feith maintained, was a genuine world threat because of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, its refusal to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to do their jobs, Iraq's use of WMDs in the past and Saddam's ties with terrorist organizations.
[Again more lies: the United States ordered the UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq. Iraq may have used chemical weapons in 1988, when Donald Rumsfeld was providing hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid to Saddam Hussein.]
"The nexus of terrorist groups, state sponsors of terrorism, and WMD is the security nightmare of the 21st century," he pointed out. "It remains our focus."
[Here's where the US Department of Defense begins the fearmongering propaganda by presenting a "worst case scenario." The military hypes fear when there is no evidence to justify the threat.]
The Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Feith noted, proved that America was vulnerable. Consequently, he continued, the United States went on the offensive against global terrorists, first in Afghanistan and then Iraq.
[This is the big lie: Feith links the 9-11 attacks with terrorists, Afghanistan, and Iraq without providing supporting evidence. At this point, the Bush Administration is refusing to release details of Saudi Arabia's potential involvement. Since most of the alleged hijackers are Saudi, why isn't Saudi Arabia mentioned? In this case, the neo-conservatives in power used 9-11 as the false pretext to attack Iraq, a plan they developed in the 1990s.]
The possibility that terrorists, or states that sponsor terrorists, such as Iraq under Hussein, could acquire WMDs, Feith asserted, "is a compelling danger in the near term."
Therefore, he said, the United States and its allies cannot wait for complete, flawless intelligence before such threats become imminent. "We cannot expect to receive unambiguous warnings of, for example, a terrorist group's acquisition of biological weapons agents," Feith pointed out.
[Again, this is a new twist on the "mushroom cloud" as the "smoking gun." This type of language is nothing more than warmongering and hype to promote fear. Once some people are scared enough, then some are more willing to accept a violent action and the loss of liberty.]
Feith said Saddam's defeat has reduced the list of terrorist-sponsoring states with WMD programs by one. That list still includes Iran, Syria, Libya, and North Korea. "Iraq used to be in that category; it no longer is," he noted.
[At this time, Feith's claim of US military victory is premature. The US may have won the battle to invade Iraq, but the US may be losing the war to occupy and subjugate the Iraqi people and exploit their natural resources.]
Saddam's regime, Feith pointed out, "was a sadistic tyranny" that developed and used weapons of mass destruction, warred against its neighbors, and assisted terrorists "by providing them with safe harbor, funds, training and other help."
Under Saddam, Iraq refused to abide by several U.N. Security Council resolutions, Feith pointed out, and "undid the U.N. (WMD) inspection regime of the 1990s."
Saddam also bypassed economic sanctions imposed by the world community, Feith noted, and his military routinely shot at U.S. and coalition aircraft patrolling the northern and southern "no-fly" zones instituted at the end of the Gulf War.
"In sum, containment of Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a hollow hope," Feith pointed out, noting the best intelligence confirmed that Hussein "had chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing nuclear weapons."
[The Pentagon's lie is repeated. Although no banned weapons were found, the DoD press release claims "the best intelligence confirmed" Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.]
According to intelligence reports, Hussein could have had a nuclear weapon within a year, Feith maintained, if the dictator had pursued available technology that could be acquired outside of Iraq.
[The military uses another propaganda tactic of "what if, what if" to incite fear of nuclear war without providing a single piece of evidence. In America, we should not go to war based on information the government refuses to make public and hold up to objective review.]
Available intelligence illuminating Saddam's quest for WMDs was consistent, had been corroborated with other, foreign intelligence-gathering sources, and had been known for years, he pointed out.
It's true that stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons haven't yet turned up in Iraq, Feith acknowledged. However, David Kay's Iraq Survey Group http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html
he noted, "has obtained corroborative evidence of Saddam's nuclear, chemical and biological programs; covert laboratories; advanced missile programs; and Iraq's program - active right up until the start of the war - to conceal WMD-related developments from the U.N. inspectors."
[This is a very twisted claim that turns logic into a pretzel: The military says Iraq was attempting to conceal a weapons program even though no weapons program was found.]
In light of all of this, "it would have been risky in the extreme," Feith said, to have allowed Hussein to remain in power "for the indefinite future."
[The DoD press release ends with one final emotional pitch to heighten fear. The overall message of the press release is to hype fear by repeating the words "risk, risk, risk, and "what if, what if, what if." In this case, the military, by relying on emotion instead of fact and reason, has no credibility on the subject of Iraq because. Bush and the military lied too many times. Now the American people must demand thorough investigations and to hold those accountable for their intentional lies that started the US - Iraq War.]
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
9/11 Panel: Free to Probe
By Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton
Saturday, November 15, 2003
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43055-2003Nov14.html
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States has reached an agreement with the White House that will allow commissioners unprecedented access to materials from the president's daily intelligence briefs, the most sensitive documents the government produces.
For the first time ever, the president will allow individuals other than the most senior officials in the executive branch to see these documents. Access to the briefs will enable the commission to put speculation to rest.
The commission will be able to state authoritatively what information and threat warnings were provided to presidents Clinton and Bush. Access to these daily intelligence briefs will enable the commission to fulfill its mandate to prepare an authoritative report on the events of Sept. 11, 2001, for the American people. Two representatives from the commission will check the items responsive to our document request. Four representatives from the commission will constitute our review team to examine all items of critical interest in the Sept. 11 probe. Our review team will provide a complete report on the critical documents to all commissioners. The commission, in turn, will be able to use this highly classified information to inform the writing of its public report. So an assertion that all commissioners will not read every single document, while true, is misleading.
Even more misleading is an assertion that the White House is editing the material being made available to the commission. The commission requested a broad range of relevant intelligence. Hundreds of responsive articles have been produced. None of these relevant articles is being edited in any way. The commission will have access to everything -- we repeat, everything -- it asked to see.
The law that created the commission mandated an investigation of the facts and circumstances surrounding the terrorist attacks on the United States and the immediate response to those attacks. The commission therefore never asked to see other intelligence presented to the president on subjects that have nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks -- for example, items dealing with China, Kosovo, Colombia or hundreds of other topics.
The agreement before us gives the commission access to materials on which the executive's claim of executive privilege and state secrets is strong. If the commission had subpoenaed these documents, the White House would no doubt have fought the subpoena to avoid setting a damaging constitutional precedent.
In that case, the commission might have seen no documents and could have been tied up in the courts past its date of expiration. The choice before us is not unrestricted access versus conditional access; the choice is between access to fulfill our mandate and no access at all. Under this agreement, the commission has gained a degree of access to sensitive information unequaled in the history of the United States.
The agreement before us gives us the ability to fulfill our mandate, and it respects the integrity and independence of the commission. Some charge that this agreement "compromises" the commission's work. We obviously disagree.
Some have suggested that we have impinged too far on the prerogatives of the presidency; others say we have not gone far enough. The bottom line is that this agreement allows us to see everything we have requested.
The Sept. 11 attacks were an episode of surpassing public importance. The commission's statutory mandate is explicit. The president has said he supports the commission's work. With this unprecedented and constitutionally delicate agreement, he has followed through on that commitment. And amid the clamor, we can now do our job.
Thomas H. Kean is chairman and Lee H. Hamilton vice chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
-------- homeland security
CU-Springs, AFA join forces with Northcom
By LAURA B. MARTINEZ
THE COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE
November 16, 2003
http://www.gazette.com/display.php?sid=654762
U.S. Northern Command is taking a grassroots approach to keeping America more secure.
The Colorado Springs-based headquarters wants to find help close to home with accomplishing its mission - protecting the homeland from terrorists and coordinating responses to natural disasters.
The Air Force Academy and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs are being asked to assist the military with safeguarding vulnerable targets such as computer networks and power plants.
Army Col. Larry Klooster, deputy director of Northern Command, said CUSprings and the academy have the tools, techniques and researchers NorthCom needs.
Klooster was the guest speaker at Friday's CU-Springs 2003 Fall Security Research Poster Session, during which researchers made 33 poster presentations about ways to fight terrorism, computer hacking and other threats to the nation's security.
"I want to know what you have here, what kind of skills you see and what kind of research will help us in the future," Klooster said.
If researchers can come up with prototypes that will improve NorthCom's operations, Klooster said he will find funding for their development.
"I've never been in a position where I can't get money," he said.
One presentation, from Bob Camley, Zbigniew Celinski and Tom Christensen of CUSprings' Physics Department, shows the need for using small devices to see through fog, cloud and smoke.
The devices could improve cell phones and emergency communications.
A presentation from Maj. William Casebeer and Capt. Jake Bartolomei of the Engineering Department at the Air Force Academy showed the need to understand how and why terrorists gain recruits and allies and move around the United States.
Talking to researchers, Klooster spoke about the challenges NorthCom faces, such as exchanging information between agencies via computer programs without giving terrorists an opportunity to intercept private information.
NorthCom is trying to define at what level information should be classified and who should have access to it. The majority of the government works with unclassified information, he said.
"If you guys want to give us something that we can pass information through, classified or unclassified . . . that is a demand item . . . it's a big item that we need."
NorthCom is seeking a way in which standardized mapping and databases can be established for all to use to identify critical areas such as power plants and roadways, Klooster said.
Officials are looking for better sensors to detect bombs, bomb-making or biological materials.
"The terrorists are coming with much better explosives," he said. "As clever as you are, they are just as clever or more so."
Funding is what researcher Sudhanshu Semwal, of CUSprings' Department of Computer Science, needs to get his program up and running.
His presentation addressed cyberhacking and ways that could prevent personal and government databases from being invaded.
Part of his research involves using personal items such as a ring to gain access to computers.
He and his students have been working on the program for eight months.
David Schmidt, dean of the Graduate School Senior Faculty Associate for Research Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, said Friday's session highlighted the institution's research.
The session provided researchers with a chance to know what other researchers are doing.
"Much of this research is interdisciplinary, and with forums like this, the faculty and . . . departments can connect."
----
Air Marshals' Role Expanded
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 15, 2003; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42732-2003Nov14.html
The U.S. government's undercover air marshal program is playing a broader role in protecting the skies by working more closely with the FBI and responding to criminal activities aboard aircraft, director Tom Quinn said yesterday.
"It's not about taking a seat on an airplane every day," Quinn told a security conference in Herndon organized by the Air Line Pilots Association. "It's not just about the hijacking of the aircraft."
The air marshals' role was expanded after they were transferred from the Transportation Security Administration to the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The move allows the marshals to expand their role as "law enforcement officers," in a change from their previous function before the terrorist attacks as "civil aviation security specialists," Quinn said.
Quinn said the several thousand undercover air marshals who fly on commercial aircraft every day have become more involved in working with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. For example, he said air marshals joined FBI agents in retrieving evidence from a Southwest Airlines plane in Houston last month, after box cutters and other dangerous items were discovered on board. Other incidents have involved unruly passengers who assaulted flight crew members, he said. In the past, air marshals have focused primarily on thwarting terrorists and protecting the cockpit.
At least one air marshal is assigned to each of the 56 national field offices of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, Quinn said.
The agency will soon begin training all of the 5,500 customs and immigration law enforcement officers in air marshal tactics, so they could be deployed in a "surge" capacity when needed, Quinn said. The size of the air marshal service has fluctuated over the last several decades, depending on perceived threats. In the 1970s, the nation had 2,500 sky marshals, as they were called then, but the number had dropped to just 33 at the time of the terrorist attacks in 2001.
The service does not disclose publicly how many undercover marshals are flying, but at any given time they are aboard only a fraction of the nation's 26,000 daily flights.
The marshals' closer relationship with the FBI has experienced some bumps. Earlier this year, FBI agents and U.S. attorneys offices across the country complained about the apparent overlapping roles of air marshals and FBI agents assigned to investigations and incidents at airports, according to FBI documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The 2001 transportation security law gave air marshals a direct role in responding to crimes aboard aircraft, specifically hijackings. But the FBI, which has 400 agents assigned at least part time to airports across the country, has historically investigated crimes and suspicious activity at airports.
In January, an FBI memo to all divisions said air marshals sought to take a larger role in post-arrest activities such as seizing evidence and participating in legal proceedings. "These post-arrest protocols are contrary to the traditional investigative response and post-arrest processing by FBI agents," the memo said.
FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said air marshals "serve a valuable purpose because they are the front line of defense. The fact that they're physically present aboard the aircraft could help resolve some issues or at least they can address issues as they come up."
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U.S. Provides a Peek At Air Sensor Program
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 15, 2003; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42377-2003Nov14.html
Homeland defense officials yesterday partially lifted the cloak of secrecy surrounding a network of outdoor air-sampling sensors in 31 cities that is designed to warn officials within hours of any attempt by terrorists to release deadly microbes into the atmosphere.
By testing filters removed from the approximately 500 air intake sites in the cities -- which include Washington -- government scientists can determine whether an attack involving biological agents is underway and take emergency measures that could save tens of thousands of lives, officials said.
Because the sensors' filters must be transported to laboratories for computerized analysis that takes hours, however, the system would not be likely to save many of the people in the immediate area of a biological weapons attack, officials conceded. But it could allow officials to take steps to protect many others in the same city, they added.
"This warning will save lots and lots and lots of lives, but not all lives," said Parney Albright, the Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for science and technology.
Biological attacks ordinarily would not be detectable until days after they are launched, when symptoms first appear. Some pathogens, including anthrax, are not communicable, but others, such as smallpox, are highly contagious.
This sensor program, called Biowatch, is designed to detect a biological attack during the days-long incubation period so people can be evacuated and medicine and vaccines can be provided.
Department of Homeland Security officials continue to keep many details secret, including the number of sensors in the Washington area and each of the other cities, as well as their locations. Even the names of other cities in the program are confidential, they said, although officials in some places have publicized their presence.
Many of the biowarfare sensors are placed on preexisting air-sampling units set up by the Environmental Protection Agency. Yesterday, Homeland Security officials took reporters to one atmospheric testing unit near the Capitol, where they revealed details about the project's operations and equipment for the first time.
The sensor is housed in a metal box the size of a telephone booth, and it is checked several times a day by EPA contractor Wayne Robinson. Yesterday he opened the door with a key and removed two containers that receive air through pipes, one plastic and the other metal. He placed the containers in a plastic bag and drove them to a nondescript red-brick lab on a military base near Washington.
There, lab technicians removed small paper air filters from the containers and placed them in a computerized device that measured reactions occurring when certain chemicals were added. The technicians were looking for the telltale DNA signatures of each of the 10 or so pathogens of greatest concern.
If pathogens were detected, officials would scrutinize wind patterns in the area of the contaminated sensor and take action to protect people there.
A crude form of this $60 million-a-year program was first launched at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002 and in New York City. Then, earlier this year, as fears about terrorism rose with the approach of the Iraq war, Homeland Security, the EPA and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scrambled to implement the more refined Biowatch program.
It has had no "false positives," or cases of labs mistakenly concluding that pathogens were present.
But an unnecessary alarm was raised last month in Houston. Repeated lab tests detected the presence of tularemia, a deadly pathogen carried by rabbits. Soon, though, officials concluded there had been no attack.
Instead, the machinery had detected tiny amounts of tularemia naturally present in the atmosphere. Scientists had known tularemia is common in Texas but were not aware that it could be detected in the air. No one fell ill.
A similar program in postal sorting facilities has suffered frequent false positives, officials said, mostly because of faulty training of lab personnel. That was the cause of the false alarm for anthrax at a mail-sorting site in Anacostia on Nov. 5, they said.
Government scientists are rushing to develop more sophisticated equipment that automatically would provide an immediate warning of a biological attack, which could save the lives of many more people.
The Biowatch project differs from other programs to detect chemical attacks. Washington's Metro system and the San Francisco International Airport are experimenting with this kind of chemical sensor, and others are planned for Washington's MCI Center. The idea of these systems is to activate massive redirections of airflow to remove pathogens from crowds, officials said.
-------- immigration / refugees
New Canada Leader Rules Out U.S. Immigration Pact
November 15, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-canada-politics-usa.html
TORONTO (Reuters) - The man who will soon become Canada's new prime minister said on Saturday he wanted to improve strained relations with the United States but ruled out the idea of a joint immigration pact to help allay U.S. security concerns.
Paul Martin, elected leader of Canada's ruling Liberals Party on Friday, also declined to give a firm answer when asked whether Ottawa would sign up to a controversial proposed U.S. missile defense system.
Within the next few weeks Martin will take over as prime minister from Jean Chretien, whose ties with President Bush were cool from the start and deteriorated over Canada's decision not to take part in the war on Iraq.
Martin said he wanted to establish ``a strong understanding'' with Bush and acknowledged past strains, some of which he said had been caused by poor communication. Last year Chretien's press chief was forced to quit after calling Bush a moron.
``We have to be much more sophisticated in our dealings with the US,'' Martin told a news conference, saying he wanted Canada to liaise more with U.S. senators and members of Congress.
The United States is by far Canada's greatest export market and some in the business community fear that defying Washington could have devastating economic consequences. Martin said Canada would ultimately act in its own interests.
Some right-wing observers in Canada and the United States say Ottawa could help alleviate U.S. security concerns by coordinating its immigration policies with Washington.
Canada aims to accept around 300,000 immigrants a year -- some from nations where people have expressed hostility to the United States -- and critics say the country could become a staging ground for anti-U.S. militants.
NATIONAL SECURITY
``There is no doubt about the importance of national security. It's not simply an American issue, it's a Canadian issue as well, and we will exercise our responsibilities in that area,'' said Martin.
``I do not believe this extends to coordinating or harmonizing immigration policies. Immigration is incredibly important to this country ... It's a very rich part of our nation and it will remain fully within a Canadian decision-making capacity.''
The idea of a coordinated immigration policy has been complicated by the fate of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born immigrant to Canada who was deported to Damascus last year by U.S. agents. Ottawa is under pressure to reveal what role if any Canadian police played in the decision.
Another major U.S. concern is the possibility of so-called rogue nations attacking it with ballistic nuclear missiles. To counter this possibility Washington aims to put in place a defensive shield and is keen for Canada to take part.
The system would be run from the joint U.S.-Canadian air defense network headquarters in Colorado and Canada's military is keen for Ottawa to sign on. Canadian and U.S. officials are currently discussing what role if any Canada might play.
``Whether you agree with missile defense (or not)...the fact is, when you're talking about the defense of North America, Canada has to be at the table,'' said Martin when asked whether Canada would take part.
``We are responsible for protecting the northern half of North America and we will fulfill that responsibility.''
Critics say missile defense could trigger a new arms race with China and Russia.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Lawyers Restored for Moussaoui
By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 15, 2003; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41492-2003Nov14.html
A federal judge yesterday revoked Zacarias Moussaoui's right to represent himself, setting the case of the only person charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on a more traditional -- albeit less colorful -- legal course.
The order by U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in Alexandria came a week after she put Moussaoui on notice that he could no longer act as his own lawyer if he continued to file frivolous and insulting pleadings. He responded, Brinkema said, with two more pleadings that "include contemptuous language that would never be tolerated from an attorney, and which will no longer be tolerated from this defendant."
Brinkema then appointed Moussaoui's standby attorneys, whom he has insulted as "pigs" and worse, to officially represent him. He has 10 days to appeal the order.
The ruling ends a 17-month stream of blistering handwritten motions in which Moussaoui has taunted prosecutors and called Brinkema the "death judge" and a would-be Nazi SS officer. It also hands the case to a team of experienced lawyers and ensures that if the trial proceeds in criminal court, it will do so in a more orderly fashion.
Although defendants have a right to represent themselves, experts said it is unusual for a judge to revoke that right, especially before trial. Some lawyers said that Brinkema may have been trying to protect Moussaoui from the damage he was doing to his own case and