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NUCLEAR
Scots lawyer in battle for Danish atomic crash victims
US blew up huge arsenal near Tikrit
Police raid recovers radioactive material
Czech uranium smugglers arrested
IRAN - Official warns U.S. against nuke censure
Iran warns against sanctions for atomic program
Iran warns of international crisis if N-issue referred to UN
Pakistan praises Iran's handling of nuke concerns
Europe, U.S. Seek Common Approach to Iran Atom Plans
The Iraqi scientist
U.S. to Propose Removal of NK Nuke Materials
North Korea Decries 'Hostile' U.S. Policy
U.S. Defense Secretary Holds Talks in South Korea
Radioactive Material Seized in Czech Sting Operation
Armageddon Back on the Table
Republicans Detail Aid For Energy Producers
Making sense of nuke waste: Anyone confused?
Investigation Clears Perle of Wrongdoing, Rumsfeld Says
America's Gamble: A Quick Exit Plan for Iraq
MILITARY
Bomb Kills U.S. Soldier in Afghanistan
Security Still Elusive in Afghanistan
Okinawa's Gov. Wants U.S. Troop Reduction
My husband died in vain
Queen rejects fortifications for Bush visit
'Shoot-to-kill' demand by US
AP Exclusive: Top Iraqi Scientist Flees
Iraqis Agree to Move Fast to Establish a Government
At Least 17 Dead as 2 U.S. Copters Collide Over Iraq
U.S. Copters Collide In Iraq, Killing 17
Rumsfeld: Iraq Pact Won't Alter Troop Plan
Istanbul Rocked by Car Bombs
CIA Finds No Evidence Hussein Sought to Arm Terrorists
U.N. Officials Are Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
Al Qaeda at Work in Iraq, Bush Tells BBC
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
9/11 Panel to Have Rare Glimpse of Presidential Briefings
Government Provides Details of Bioterror Sensors in Cities
ACTIVISTS
Nevadans Campaign To Defeat The Patriot Act
Bush Visit Spurs Protests Against U.S. in Europe
Activists Plan Fight for Marine Mammals
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Scots lawyer in battle for Danish atomic crash victims
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor
16 November 2003
UK Sunday Herald
http://ww1.sundayherald.com/38052
It was, recalls Jeffrey Carswell, an ordinary Sunday afternoon in Greenland. He was drinking with friends in the officers' mess, listening to a band, when the building shook.
He thought at first it was an earthquake. It wasn't until later he learned it was something far more sinister - something that would blight his life and those of hundreds of others.
An American B-52 bomber carrying four thermonuclear warheads had crashed seven miles from the military base at Thule in northwest Greenland where Cars well was working. The fire and explosion scattered plutonium, a deadly radio active poison, all over the area.
Cleaning up the mess with 1200 other Danish civ il ians, he unknowingly breathed, ate and drank the contamination for months afterwards. They broke ice, as they had always done, from around the crash site to chill their drinks.
In the 35 years since they have suffered lingering illnesses and cancers and their children have been born ret arded and deformed. "We've been through absolute hell," Carswell told the Sunday Herald. "Now it's time to hold people to account ."
He is hoping for justice in 10 days' time, in Brussels. On behalf of everyone who suffered from the consequences of the crash, he is due to appear before the petitions committee of the European parliament to urge the Danish government to come clean on the accident and grant adequate compensation.
He is represented by the campaigning Scottish lawyer Ian Anderson, who has fought a series of high-profile international cases on behalf of nuc lear victims.
"The Danish workers have suffered a gross outrage ," And erson said. "They are looking to the European parliament to redress a tragedy which Denmark and the US have been doing their best to ignore."
Carswell was born in Esbjerg, Denmark, in 1943. When he was 22 he got a job as a shipping clerk with the Danish Construction Company and went to work at the US military base at Thule in Greenland, a prov ince of Denmark.
Everything was relatively mundane until, at 4.39pm on Sunday, January 21, 1968, his world shook. A B-52 bomber beginning practice flights over Greenland with live nuclear warheads caught fire in the air and crashed. The crew ejec ted, one of them dying. "It had just been fuelled, so when it hit the ocean ice it was massive, absolutely massive," Carswell recounted. "There was a black streak across the white ice where it had crashed, skidded and exploded."
Some of the conventional explosives surrounding the plutonium core of the nuclear bombs are thought to have detonated. This did not cause a nuclear explosion, but it spread clouds of plutonium and other toxic dust for miles.
The US launched a major recovery and clean-up operation, but one of the four bombs was never found. Danish workers and US military personnel picked up the wreckage and packaged it for return to the US.
Carswell was responsible for checking that the debris was properly packed and labelled. On one occasion, he was taken to a top-secret building to help senior US officials deal with special drums loaded with fragments of nuclear weapons.
"It was the really hot stuff," he said. "I thought to myself at the time that I was probably the only non-American to have been so close to an American nuclear weapon." He worked at Thule until 1971, unconcerned about how it might affect his health. That didn't become a problem until 1984, by which time he was living and working in Australia.
He started to have severe chest, back and stomach pains and was diagnosed in 1987 as having stomach cancer and a pre-cancerous condition in his oesophagus. Parts of his stomach were surgically removed.
Complications kept arising, and in the past 16 years he has been back in hospital 40 times and has had major surgery on seven further occasions. The most recent was four weeks ago, when he suffered from internal bleed ing. "They didn't think I would live," he said.
Carswell didn't suspect his illness might be due to contamination from Thule until he heard that other workers from the base were having similar problems. Hundreds claim to have developed cancers, including a rare form of skin cancer, and other diseases.
In 1988, Carswell joined the Association of Irradiated Thule Workers, which was campaigning for compensation from the Danish government. He discovered that his former colleagues were also experiencing alleged genetic effects, including miscarriages and children born deformed and retarded.
Carswell is now the association's vice-president and his case will be heard on Nov ember 26. He is backed by his physician in Australia, Dr Graeme Edwards, who has submitted evidence that radi ation was a "possible direct cause" of his cancer.
So far the Danish government has not formally replied to his petition. On Friday, the consulate in Edinburgh, the embassy in London and the ministry of justice in Copenhagen were unable to respond to the Sunday Herald's inquiries.
For Carswell, now 60, the fight for justice may be to the death. "It is absolutely awful what people have gone through," he said. "I'm angry. I'm disgusted. I'm absolutely unimpressed by the morality of politicians."
-------- depleted uranium
US blew up huge arsenal near Tikrit
IRIB News
2003/11/16
http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=192525&n=32
Mazham, Iraq, Nov 16 - A huge cloud of smoke rose to the sky followed by an earth-shaking blast as US troops blew up thousands of warheads -- just a fraction of the weapons Iraq's ousted dictator Saddam Hussein once stockpiled and which now are often used in anti-coalition attacks.
"Our mission is to get rid of the stuff so it can't be used against us," said major Ron Zimmerman, operations commander of the 4th infantry division's 299 engineers battalion, which blew up the lethal weapons.
"You just cannot fathom how much ammunition there is in this country," said Zimmerman.
"If Saddam had spent one-tenth of what he spent on ammunition on the people, this place would be very different."
The spectacular explosion organized was fueled by 2,700 warheads, 2,500 rockets, 1,000 anti-tank shells and 2,400 depleted uranium rounds US troops piled up in a bunker near the village of Mazham, 190 kilometers (120 miles) north of Baghdad and 12 kilometers (seven miles) from Tikrit.
The ordnance was collected in the area around Tikrit, Saddam's hometown and a hotspot of anti-coalition activity, where the 4th ID has its Iraq headquarters.
-------- europe
CZECH REPUBLIC
Police raid recovers radioactive material
November 16, 2003
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene.htm
PRAGUE - Czech police arrested two Slovak nationals who attempted to sell nearly 7 pounds of radioactive material to undercover officers working a sting operation, officials said yesterday.
The potential uses of the substance remained unclear pending an investigation, but an expert said initial tests revealed two components that could possibly be used in a dirty bomb.
The suspects were arrested Friday in the Voronez Hotel in the city of Brno, 125 miles southeast of Prague, police spokeswoman Blanka Kosinova said in a statement.
----
Czech uranium smugglers arrested
November 16, 2003
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20031115-093930-9848r.htm
BRNO, Czech Republic, Nov. 15 -- Two Slovaks were arrested in the Czech Republic for trying to sell what appeared to be low-grade uranium, police revealed Saturday.
The men were arrested Friday during a sting operation at a hotel in Brno, police told the BBC.
The men were tricked into selling the material to a plainclothes police officer, then arrested as they counted their money in their hotel room, police said.
The head of the Czech Republic's nuclear safety authority said it was most likely low-grade uranium and could not have been used to produce nuclear weapons, the BBC said. Testing on the material, however, continued Saturday.
It was the largest seizure of radioactive material anywhere in the world in the last nine months, the BBC said.
Officials speculated the material may have come from Russia or another country in the former Soviet Union.
-------- iran
IRAN - Official warns U.S. against nuke censure
November 16, 2003
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene.htm
VIENNA, Austria - Iran's chief delegate to the U.N. atomic agency said yesterday 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.
----
Iran warns against sanctions for atomic program
Diplomats fear action by U.N. could backfire
November 16, 2003
Associated Press
http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/bal-te.iran16nov16,0,5705299.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines
VIENNA, Austria - Iran's chief delegate to the United Nations atomic agency said yesterday that the United States will fail in its attempt to take his country before the Security Council to face possible sanctions over suspected 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 that harsh actions against Tehran could backfire, leading it to renege on promises of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and could again draw the curtain on Iran's nuclear agenda.
The Bush administration wants Iran declared in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty at this 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 Thursday's meeting of the IAEA's board of governors, lists nuclear cover-ups, some over decades, and suggests that 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" that Tehran tried to make atomic bombs but said such efforts cannot be ruled out until Iran's previously covert activities are examined further.
But Iran says it has not violated the treaty, dismissing clandestine activities as "mistakes" it has 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 said, suggesting that the Americans will not have enough support at the 35-nation meeting Thursday 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.
Although 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 it stops short of declaring Iran in noncompliance, meaning the issue will not be kicked to the Security 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 before the board starts meeting Thursday.
Another diplomat familiar with the U.S. position said Washington hopes for 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. Although disappointed at the softer stance of the Western 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.
As they did 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 that 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 that it wants only 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.
----
Iran warns of international crisis if N-issue referred to UN
November 16 2003
Hi Pakistan
http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en45001&F_catID=&f_type=source
VIENNA: Iran warned on Thursday there would be an international crisis if the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) referred Tehran's controversial nuclear program to the United Nations Security Council.
Such a move by the UN's nuclear watchdog could "escalate the issue into an international crisis", said Iran's representative to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi. The IAEA's board of governors is to meet next week to consider whether Tehran is in compliance with the safeguards agreement of the international nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
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. The United States wants the IAEA board to decide at the November 20 meeting to refer Iran's case to UN Security Council, which could in turn impose punishing sanctions on the Islamic republic.
Salehi warned the IAEA against declaring Tehran in non-compliance with the NPT and referring the issue to the Security Council. "We will be facing unpredictable consequences. It will not be conducive to the peaceful resolution of the issue," he said.
He said Iran would not withdraw from the NPT but that there were steps Iran could take. "There are many things Iran can do. We have a lot of leverage," he said. He did not give details other than to say this could involve refusing to sing an agreement allowing more extensive, surprise IAEA inspections of suspect nuclear facilities.
Meanwhile, The IAEA rejected on Thursday US charges that a key report on Iran drew the wrong conclusion by saying there is no evidence the Islamic republic is trying to make atomic weapons.
"We stand by the report," IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told AFP about the 29-page-document that ElBaradei delivered to the 35-nation board of governors on Monday. Gwozdecky refused to comment further, saying the report was "a classified document and will be considered at next week's board meeting." The report accused Iranof covert nuclear activities over the past 20 years, including making plutonium and enriching uranium, but said there is as yet no evidence it is trying to build an atomic bomb, according to a copy obtained by AFP.
The United States wants Iran to be cited for its past failures to report certain nuclear activities and for the issue to be sent to the Security Council. John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said in Washington that the IAEA conclusions flew in the face of established facts. He stopped short of directly criticising ElBaradei.
"After extensive documentation of Iran's denials and deceptions over an 18-year period and a long litany of serious violations of Iran's commitments to the IAEA, the report nonetheless concluded that 'no evidence' had been found of an Iranian nuclear weapons program," he said.
"I must say that the report's assertion is simply impossible to believe," he said in a text released by the State Department on Wednesday. "The United States believes that the massive and covert Iranian effort to acquire sensitive nuclear capabilities make sense only as part of a nuclear weapons program," Bolton said.
While a United Nations commission on Thursday urged Iran to ratify without delay a 1996 treaty banning nuclear testing. President of the UN preparatory commission on the implementation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) Thomas Selzer said it would be a logical step as Iran appeared ready to heed other calls on its nuclear program. "Iran, which now appears ready to sign an additional protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), should ratify the CTBT. It is logical," he said.
----
Pakistan praises Iran's handling of nuke concerns
Pakistan Daily Times
November 16, 2003
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_15-11-2003_pg7_12
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's acting foreign secretary on Friday praised Iran's effort to settle accusations that it has engaged in a covert nuclear programme.
Tariq Usman Hyder discussed Iran's handling of concerns from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Islamabad with Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Gholam Ali Khoshru. Mr Khoshru detailed measures taken by Iran to resolve the outstanding issues with IAEA, hoping they would be resolved amicably within the context of the IAEA, Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement.
The IAEA recently released a report detailing two decades of covert Iranian nuclear activity. It said Iran was guilty of secret uranium enrichment and the production of small amounts of plutonium, which effectively violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. -AP
--------
Europe, U.S. Seek Common Approach to Iran Atom Plans
November 16, 2003
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-nuclear.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States and Europe are inching closer to a deal on a resolution that would criticize Iran's concealment of nuclear research which Washington says was linked to a weapons program, diplomats say.
On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors meets in Vienna to discuss an IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program, detailing 18 years of failures by Iran to inform the United Nations body of sensitive atomic activities such as uranium enrichment and plutonium production.
The United States, which says Iran's nuclear power program is a front to develop a bomb, is pushing the 35-nation board to pass a resolution declaring that Iran has not complied with its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treatyand report Tehran's breaches to the U.N. Security Council.
But France, Britain and Germany want to avoid a report to the Council, which would anger Tehran and could lead to the Council imposing economic sanctions. The Europeans are drafting an IAEA board resolution that chides Iran but avoids escalating the issue to U.N. headquarters in New York.
Washington does not have enough support to get a resolution through the board that would bring Iran before the Security Council -- its only allies appear to be Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- but both Europeans and Americans want a compromise that would at least let the board reach a consensus.
Diplomats told Reuters that France suggested noting Iran had violated the NPT, while the board would decide not to notify the Security Council and keep the issue at the IAEA in Vienna.
One Western diplomat who follows IAEA matters closely said the use of wording on ``non-compliance'' brought the proposal ``closer to U.S. thinking on the issue.''
The diplomat said there was another possible compromise -- notifying the Security Council of Iran's non-compliance ``purely for informational purposes,'' with no threat of sanctions.
``It's impossible to say how this will all play out,'' the diplomat said. ``It's too early to say what the board will do.''
Diplomats said they hoped the Franco-German-British draft would be tabled before Thursday's IAEA board meeting.
IRAN'S WARNING
Iran, which denies having a secret weapons program, said on Thursday any reference to Iran failing to comply with the NPT would be ``unacceptable'' and that reporting Iran to the Security Council would be a mistake with ``unpredictable consequences.''
``Things could very easily get out of control,'' Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, told Reuters.
Diplomats also said that the idea of a U.S.-European split on the Iran issue had been exaggerated, though they acknowledged that Europe and the United States disagreed on whether engagement or isolation was the best way of dealing with Iran.
On October 21, the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany succeeded in convincing Tehran to halt temporarily its uranium enrichment program and accept a tougher regime of short-notice IAEA inspections of its nuclear sites.
This was widely described as proof that Europe's policy of engagement with Iran was superior, but one non-U.S. diplomat said Washington's tough approach deserved much of the credit for forcing Iran to open up its program over the last year.
``Without the U.S. hard line, the international community would never have taken action'' after an Iranian opposition group said in August 2002 that Iran was hiding a uranium enrichment plant and other facilities from the IAEA, the diplomat said.
-------- iraq
The Iraqi scientist who headed Saddam Hussein's long-range missile program has fled to neighboring Iran
By Dafna Linzer,
Associated Press,
11/16/2003
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/320/world/The_Iraqi_scientist_who_headedP.shtml
The Iraqi scientist who headed Saddam Hussein's long-range missile program has fled to neighboring Iran, a country identified as a state sponsor of terrorism with a successful missile program and nuclear ambitions, U.S. officers involved in the weapons hunt told The Associated Press.
Dr. Modher Sadeq-Saba al-Tamimi's departure comes as top weapons makers from Saddam's deposed regime find themselves eight months out of work but with skills that could be lucrative to militaries or terrorist organizations in neighboring countries. U.S. officials have said some are already in Syria and Jordan.
Experts long feared the collapse of Saddam's rule could lead to the kind of scientific brain-drain the United States tried to prevent as the former Soviet Union collapsed. But the Bush administration had no plan for Iraqi scientists and instead officials suggested they could be tried for war crimes.
''There are a couple hundred Iraqis who are really good scientists, particularly in the missile area,'' said Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N. inspector now with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute in California. ''In the chemical and biological areas, their work wasn't state of the art but it was good enough to be of interest to other countries.''
Only now is the State Department exploring the possibility of a government-funded program to block a scientific exodus and prevent Iraqis from doing future research in weapons of mass destruction. Initial cost estimates for the program run about $16 million, according to a Nov. 3 draft proposal obtained by AP.
Two members of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency involved in questioning scientists in custody told AP the Iraqis continue to deny the existence of illicit weapons programs in Iraq. Dozens of Iraqi scientists have been questioned and less than 30 remain in custody. All of them, including senior members of Saddam's regime, have been subjected to lie-detector tests, which have come up clean on weapons questioning, the DIA officers said.
But U.S. scientists and weapons experts, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, said they're having trouble finding some Iraqi experts in Iraq and have no way of tracking ones they've met.
''They could leave Baghdad tomorrow and we'd never know,'' said one senior official involved in the hunt. ''Very few are obligated to tell us where they're going or what they're up to.''
U.N. inspectors spoke with Dr. Modher in Baghdad a week before the U.S.-led war began on March 20. Two U.S. weapons investigators say they believe he crossed the Iraq-Iran border on foot at least two months after U.S. forces took Baghdad.
His activities in Iran are unclear and may explain why his disappearance hasn't been publicly disclosed. The CIA declined to discuss its efforts with Iraqi scientists or identify individuals.
Thought to be in his mid-50's, the Czech-educated scientist specialized in missile engines. He met numerous times with U.N. inspectors during the 1990s and earlier this year when he argued that the Al-Samoud missile system under his command wasn't in violation of a U.N. range limit. The inspectors determined otherwise when tests showed it could fly more than 93 miles. They quickly began destroying the Iraqi stock, much to his frustration.
''Dr. Modher was declared by Iraq to have been one of the principal figures in their missile programs,'' said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the U.N. inspectors.
In the late 1980s, Modher headed up the Iraqi military's Project 1728, part of an effort to produce engines for longer-range missiles.
He was the protege and favored colleague of Iraqi Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel, Saddam's right-hand man and son-in-law who briefly defected to Jordan in 1995. There, Kamel told U.N. inspectors during interrogations about his work and Dr. Modher's efforts to build a missile powerful enough to strike most major European cities.
According to the interrogation transcripts, Kamel said Modher and a nuclear physicist named Mahdi Obeidi both took work and documents from their offices. U.N. inspectors investigated the claim but found nothing.
In July of this year, Obeidi gave the CIA a stack of papers and a piece of equipment that had been buried in his backyard for 12 years. In return, he has become the only Iraqi scientist allowed to move to the United States since the beginning of the U.S. occupation.
Other than Obeidi, who is living along the East Coast with his family, another scientist known to have left the country is Jaffar al-Jaffer who founded Iraq's nuclear program in the 1980s. He's in the United Arab Emirates, where U.S. troops are stationed, and has been questioned by U.S. and British intelligence officials.
But Jaffar, like a handful of senior scientists being held by U.S. forces in Iraq, hasn't provided any information on the whereabouts of suspected chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. While President Bush said he launched the war to disarm Iraq of its deadly arsenal, such weapons remain elusive.
David Kay, the chief weapons hunter, has said his teams so far have found new information on Iraqi missile systems. But a conversation with Modher could have cleared up unanswered questions about Iraq's true capabilities for delivering weapons of mass destruction.
Modher traveled to Germany in 1987 to buy high-tech equipment through H & H Metalform, a company whose senior officers were later tried in Germany and found guilty of violating the country's export control laws, U.N. inspectors said.
The equipment enabled Iraq to make components for Scud missiles similar to the ones they later fired at Israel and Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War.
When that conflict ended, Iraq faced U.N. sanctions forbidding it from purchasing any new weapons-making equipment.
But four years later, Modher was caught by U.N. inspectors when he inquired about Russian-made gyroscopes from a Palestinian middleman. At the time, Tariq Aziz, then Iraq's deputy prime minister, told U.N. inspectors Modher had acted on his own and would be punished for breaking sanctions. He allegedly spent 21/2 years in jail.
Kay told reporters in Washington last month that ''senior Iraqi officials, both military and scientific'' had moved to Jordan and Syria, ''both pre-conflict and some during the conflict, and some immediately after the conflict.''
He didn't mention Iran, although its long, shared border with Iraq has been an easy crossing point for militants and Shiite pilgrims headed to Iraqi shrines.
Jordanian and Syrian officials dismissed claims that wanted Iraqis are inside their countries and Kay has offered no names of those believed to have fled.
But signs of an exodus have led to a renewed push by nonproliferation experts and government officials to keep the scientists from wandering.
The 11-page State Department plan aimed at preventing Iraqi scientists from fleeing is entitled ''The Science Technology and Engineering Mentorship Initiative for Iraq.''
Such initiatives are critical but late, said Tucker of the Monterey Institute.
''This is something that should have been done immediately after the war ended,'' he said. ''The initial approach, which was to treat them as criminals and threaten them with prosecution only makes scientists want to leave or stay away.''
On the Net:
U.N. Inspectors: http://www.unmovic.org
Kay Briefing: http://www.cia.org
-------- korea
U.S. to Propose Removal of NK Nuke Materials
by Choi Heup (pot@chosun.com),
November 16, 2003
Chosun Ilbo
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200311/200311160005.html
TOKYO - The United States will propose that North Korea remove nuclear-related material, such as processed plutonium or unprocessed nuclear fuel, and send it to Third World countries. The proposal is to be made in next month's second round of six-party talks and will be a top priority, Kyodo News and other Japanese media agencies have reported.
As North Korea has reactivated its nuclear activators, despite its promise to freeze its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon under the 1994 Agreed Framework, the United States is planning to propose moving nuclear-related materials from North Korea to Third World countries, in order to end the possibility of nuclear development, Japanese news agencies reported, quoting various sources in the U.S. government.
The materials to be removed will include plutonium, which had been detected before the 1994 agreement, and the handling of the materials will be most likely be done by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Japanese media said.
The United States is planning to present the specific details of the dismantling process in the next six-party talks, but to not demand the direct removal of the materials. The United States will bring up the issue following the third round of six-party talks, but as previous plans to remove nuclear fuel failed in the 1994 agreement, it is still unknown whether the North will agree, the Japanese media reported.
--------
North Korea Decries 'Hostile' U.S. Policy
November 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-Nuclear.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea said Sunday that it is willing to abandon nuclear development when the United States discontinues what it called a hostile policy and eliminates ``threats'' against the communist country, a South Korean news agency reported.
The vaguely worded remarks by an unnamed spokesman of North Korea's Foreign Ministry were carried by the communist state's official KCNA news agency, and were monitored by Seoul's Yonhap news agency.
``North Korea is willing to realistically abandon nuclear development at the phase when the U.S. hostile policy toward North Korea is removed and threats against North Korea is eliminated,'' the North Korean spokesman was quoted as saying.
The spokesman said the solution to the standoff over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs depended on whether the United States is willing to accept its demand for ``simultaneous actions.''
Pyongyang's demand include that Washington assured it would not attack Pyongyang, provide economic and humanitarian aid and open diplomatic ties. Pyongyang in turn would allow nuclear inspections, give up missiles exports and dismantle its nuclear weapons facilities.
North Korea's comments -- similar to those made earlier -- came hours ahead of the arrival of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is expected to discuss security issues including Iraq as well as North Korea.
Pyongyang has been accusing Washington of designating it as the next target of a pre-emptive attack, after labeling the communist country as part of an ``axis of evil'' along with Iran and Iraq. The North has been insisting for months that the United States sign a nonaggression treaty, which Washington rejected.
In a policy shift last month, North Korea said it would consider President Bush's offer of written security assurances from the United States and North Korea's neighbors.
The North also agreed last month ``in principle'' to return six-nation talks aimed at ending the nuclear crisis, speeding up diplomatic efforts to hold a new round of negotiations possibly within the year.
``We unvaryingly hold the position toward resolving the nuclear issue between North Korea and the United States peacefully through dialogue,'' the North Korean spokesman said.
Representatives of the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia held their first six-nation talks in Beijing in August. But the meeting ended without agreeing on when to meet again.
The nuclear crisis flared in October 2002, when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted running a secret nuclear program in violation of international agreements.
--------
U.S. Defense Secretary Holds Talks in South Korea
November 16, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-asia-rumsfeld.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met South Korean leaders Monday amid heavy police security at the start of a visit to discuss North Korea's nuclear program and the touchy issue of American troops in the South.
There was a heightened police presence on the streets of the capital, where thousands of protesters have massed in recent days to protest over Seoul government plans to send troops to Iraq in support of the U.S.-led military coalition there.
More protests were scheduled for Monday, when Seoul was expected to announce final details of the troop deployment. On October 18, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun announced plans to send troops, but deferred his decision on the type and number of forces. Washington has asked for 5,000 or more troops.
The decision would be made public after Rumsfeld held talks with South Korean Defense Minister Cho Young-kil, South Korean National Security Adviser Ra Jong-yil told reporters.
Senior military officials from the two allies opened their annual Security Consultative Meeting, with a news conference set for 12:15 a.m. EST. Rumsfeld was to meet Roh later in the day.
Before the defense talks, Rumsfeld visited Seoul's Korean War Museum. As a military brass band played ``America the Beautiful,'' demonstrators competed for his attention by shouting protest slogans through bullhorns.
Rumsfeld, winding up a trip to Japan and South Korea to discuss bilateral security and Pentagon plans to realign the U.S. military global ``footprint,'' has insisted there were no plans for a possible withdrawal of some of the 37,000 American troops stationed in South Korea.
A senior U.S defense official, asked about reports that Washington might pull out 10,000 to 12,000 from the country, said current talks were centered on the repositioning of U.S. troops.
``We are talking about the division of capabilities'' among U.S. and South Korean troops.
AWAY FROM THE BORDER
The official said South Korea's military was pressing to keep up to 1,000 American troops in Seoul as U.S. forces were moved southward away from the North Korean border and the capital area.
The Pentagon has stressed that any move to draw down those troops would keep forces poised to return and that it would be accompanied by other steps to actually increase deterrence on the peninsula.
The nuclear crisis with Communist North Korea erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials said Pyongyang had admitted to a clandestine atomic weapons program that violated its international non-proliferation commitments.
U.S. officials in Washington, meanwhile, say that a new round of six-way talks on ending North Korea's suspected nuclear arms program appears likely in December but that Pyongyang has yet to commit to any dates.
Those talks include the United States, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and North Korea. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly is visiting Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul this week to make arrangements for the expected talks.
Sunday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry reiterated its desire for a negotiated ``package solution'' to the crisis.
Pyongyang ``is ready to abandon in practice its nuclear program which the U.S. is concerned about at the phase where its hostile policy is fundamentally dropped and its threat to us removed in practice,'' said a ministry spokesman.
In Guam last week, Rumsfeld told U.S. troops at the Anderson Air Force Base that Washington strongly supported the six-way talks formula.
``Time will tell how successful that will be,'' Rumsfeld said, adding that Pyongyang was still a potentially dangerous adversary with a huge army, missiles and programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.
``Is it a threat? You bet,'' he said. ``Is it dangerous? Yes. It is a tragedy, that's what it is,'' Rumsfeld added, contrasting the North with democratic and prosperous South Korea.
He said starvation was such a problem in North Korea that standards had been lowered sharply for both height and weight for joining the military.
``People who are accepted in the military do not look like they are 17 or 18. They look like they are 14 or 15.''
-------- terrorism
Radioactive Material Seized in Czech Sting Operation
By Karel Janicek
Associated Press
Sunday, November 16, 2003; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46630-2003Nov15.html
PRAGUE, Nov. 15 -- Undercover Czech police 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, and experts disagreed on whether it could be used to make a so-called dirty bomb.
Police seized the suspects Friday in the Voronez Hotel in Brno, 125 miles southeast of Prague, Blanka Kosinova, a police spokeswoman, 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 tests 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 probably came from somewhere in the former Soviet bloc but that she doubted it had direct weapons applications.
Still, there is concern that terrorists might try to use 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 device of this type has been used anywhere, but the al Qaeda terrorist network is reported to have been interested in building such a weapon.
Pittermann said the contents of the parcels would be thoroughly checked at the Nuclear Research Institute in Rez, just north of Prague, and that results could be available by the middle of the next week.
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said it was reviewing the seizure.
The two suspects, from the eastern Slovak town of Presov, face up to 15 years in prison if convicted of illegal production and possession of radioactive material and a highly dangerous substance.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Armageddon Back on the Table
U.S. ratchets up debate on `usable' nuclear weapons Critics fear fallout from Bush cadre's pro-nuke strategy
by Olivia Ward
Sunday, November 16, 2003
by the Toronto Star
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1116-11.htm
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1068937808536&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724
Since nuclear bombs exploded on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the possibility of an atomic Armageddon has made the use of such cataclysmic weapons unthinkable.
But after the election of President George W. Bush, and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the word "nuclear" has been creeping back into the vocabulary of American policy, reaching for a respectability that until recently was thought gone for good.
Looking back over the 40 years of the Cold War we can be everlastingly grateful that the loonies on both sides were powerless. In 2003, however, they run the Pentagon, and preventive war the Bush doctrine is now official policy.
Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr Lobbying Congress for funds to research and develop new nuclear weapons, Bush has opened the back door to the doctrine of a "fightable" nuclear war, one in which the use of small or limited nuclear weapons would be possible or even desirable to defeat ruthless and unconventional enemies.
"Nuclear programs are a cornerstone of U.S. national security posture," said Congress' Armed Services Committee, which recently backed the allocation of $400 billion (all figures U.S.) for national defence in the coming year.
Both critics and supporters of developing "usable" nuclear weapons agree that the path from the laboratory to the launching pad is a long and difficult one.
But since the Bush administration presented its radical "Nuclear Posture Review" in March, 2002, pro-nuclear officials have been pushing steadily ahead toward developing weapons that will cross the line that separates conventional from unconventional warfare, threatening half a century of disarmament negotiations, treaties and taboos.
This month, the Senate endorsed an Energy and Water Appropriations Bill allocating $7.5 million to research on nuclear "bunker-buster" bombs and $10.8 million to plans for nuclear "pit" facilities to produce triggers for new nuclear bombs. Both sums were reduced from totals originally requested by Bush officials.
A final environmental study is being prepared to determine how and where the pits should be manufactured.
Crucial to the administration's hopes for developing a new generation of nukes was the repeal in May of a 1993 ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons those with a force of less than 5 kilotons, or 5,000 tonnes of TNT.
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, by comparison, was approximately 15 kilotons.
"A one-kiloton nuclear weapon detonated 20 to 50 feet underground would dig a crater the size of Ground Zero in New York and eject one million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the air," says California Senator Diane Feinstein, an opponent of usable nuclear weapons.
The development of any new nuclear arms would require testing. And as early as June, 2001, Bush also signalled that he might consider ending an 11-year moratorium on underground nuclear blasts.
He called for a scientific review of the Nevada test site that resulted in shortening the time it would take to restart nuclear test explosions from 36 months to no more than 18 months from the time an order to resume nuclear testing is given.
And although the Bush administration has so far made little progress in promoting the development of "mini nukes" that could be used against enemy forces, the influential Defence Science Board that advises the Pentagon has thrown its weight behind them.
In a leaked report, due to be tabled in the next few months, the board urges the development of lower-yield weapons that would have more battlefield "credibility" than the more powerful current nuclear bombs.
The rationale of the pro-nuclear supporters is clear: After Sept. 11, America is fighting an unpredictable enemy that must be attacked and eradicated by any possible means.
"As seen in Afghanistan, conventional weapons are not always able to destroy underground targets," said the Armed Services Committee, which backed the new nuclear policy.
"The United States may need nuclear earth penetrators (bunker-busters) to destroy underground facilities where rogue nations have stored chemical, biological or nuclear weapons."
Keith Payne, the Pentagon's civilian liaison with the U.S. Strategic Command, which plans how a nuclear war could be fought, has for a decade promoted the idea of usable nukes.
Payne believes the lessons of the 1991 Gulf War included the discovery that Scud missiles might elude attack. In a 1999 paper on the future of American nuclear weapons, he wrote: "If the locations of dispersed mobile launchers cannot be determined with enough precision to permit pinpoint strikes, suspected deployment areas might be subjected to multiple nuclear strikes."
Other pro-nuclear theorists say a new generation of fightable nukes might have a deterrent effect on the kind of enemies America now faces: guerrilla groups and unpredictable terrorists.
"All we have left is nuclear use and pre-emption, so that something a little bigger, with a little more bite, does not emerge as the next threat against our security and values," says Barry Zellen, publisher of the electronic security bulletin, SecureFrontiers.com.
"Our willingness to go beyond deterrence to a more pro-active strategy of nuclear use might just end up achieving what we wanted in the beginning: successful deterrence of further aggression and terror against us, now and in the future."
Opponents of nuclear weapons fiercely disagree. They shudder at the thought of crossing the line between fighting a conventional and nuclear war, once considered unthinkable. And they argue that such a move would promote, rather than deter terrorism.
One of the most troubling aspects, critics say, is the "creeping respectability" of arms that have been considered beyond the pale of defence policy.
"It creates the image of `clean' nuclear weapons," says Brice Smith of the Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.
"We can use them without all the old Cold War anxieties about total destruction. A lot of psychology is involved here and it includes the very powerful idea of being able to defeat attempts to use chemical and biological weapons against us."
However, experts say, usable nukes would be far from environmentally safe. Bunker-busting bombs would explode close to the surface of their targets, spreading radioactivity through an explosion of dust and causing the death of tens of thousands of people if dropped on urban areas.
It is also likely, says Smith, that the explosions would spread deadly chemicals or bioagents, rather than destroying them.
And, critics argue, the political fallout from threatening to use, let alone using, such weapons would be dangerous to the United States and its Western allies.
Apart from inciting terrorism, such a policy would create deeper cynicism about Washington's disregard for international treaties on nuclear weapons, convincing countries like Iran and North Korea that Washington is applying double standards when it insists they halt efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists, which monitors nuclear peril worldwide, last year moved its Doomsday Clock forward two minutes, to seven minutes to midnight, citing the Bush administration's failure to change its Cold War nuclear-alert practices while authorizing its weapons labs to work on the design of new nuclear arms.
"Terrorist efforts to acquire and use nuclear and biological weapons present a great danger," concluded George Lopez, the Bulletin's board chairman.
"But the U.S. preference for the use of pre-emptive force rather than diplomacy could be equally dangerous."
Historian and Kennedy-era political adviser Arthur Schlesinger Jr., put it more flamboyantly.
"Looking back over the 40 years of the Cold War," he wrote in The New York Review Of Books, "we can be everlastingly grateful that the loonies on both sides were powerless. In 2003, however, they run the Pentagon, and preventive war the Bush doctrine is now official policy."
Those who follow the progress of the new nuclear doctrine say its resurgence signals the comeback of its backers, a pro-nuclear cadre that has for years urged a more aggressive approach to both domestic and military nuclear policy.
The cadre includes Vice-President Dick Cheney, who urged planning for nuclear strikes against Third World "enemy" countries as secretary of defence in the first Bush administration; Payne, who wrote a doctrine of fightable nuclear war; and Pentagon threat-reduction chief Stephen Younger, a director of the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory and one of the first scientists to promote the use of low-yield nuclear weapons.
With an influential group of lobbyists working closely with the White House, it appears highly likely that plans to produce a new generation of nuclear weapons would go forward if Bush wins a second term.
However, there is trepidation in the ranks of both Republican and Democratic parties about such a development.
Congress has so far made sure that funding is limited to the exploratory stages of the project and that millions rather than billions of dollars have been allocated
"By seeking to develop new nuclear weapons," says Senator Feinstein, "the United States sends the message that nuclear weapons have a future battlefield role and utility. That is the wrong direction and, in my view, will only cause America to be placed in greater jeopardy in the future."
The opposition is unlikely to weaken the pro-nuclear cadre's resolve, however.
"What you're seeing is a thoughtless strategy being pursued under cover of the war on terrorism, by people who always wanted to do this," says arms-control expert William Arkin of Johns Hopkins University's Institute of Advanced International Studies.
"Now, they're in a position to seize their chance."
Critics say a new arms race is on the horizon and they predict the effect on global security to be gloomy, as resentment escalates toward the United States for its double standard of developing nuclear weapons, while insisting that others desist.
In the United States, says Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, "there is a creeping respectability of nuclear weapons.
"What Bush has done is emphasize that there are not only bad weapons out there, but bad people with bad weapons.
"Then, the line becomes blurred, because he's implying that responsible states are entitled to possess and even use the same kinds of weapons.
"In fact, these are all weapons of mass terror, and we should never forget that."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Republicans Detail Aid For Energy Producers
By Peter Behr and Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 16, 2003; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46746-2003Nov15?language=printer
Republicans released major portions of their proposed energy legislation yesterday, including details about new assistance for the nuclear industry, deep-water oil and gas producers, and manufacturers of a controversial fuel additive.
The expected publication of the entire bill was held up by last-minute difficulties in completing a key section on tax breaks and subsidies, but Republican officials said they still plan to push for final House and Senate action on the bill by the middle of the week.
Since the deal between House and Senate Republicans was announced Friday, GOP lawmakers have stressed that the legislation would lead to the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs in energy development and in the construction of pipelines and power lines.
But Democrats and some environmental organizations said the new details provided yesterday confirmed their fears that the bill is tilted toward special interests, big energy companies, and the oil, gas and coal industries.
In the final drafting phase, sources said, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) insisted on adding a provision that over the next 10 years would provide $2 billion to energy companies and universities for new research and development on ultra deep-water oil exploration techniques and "unconventional" natural gas extraction.
Of that amount, $1.5 billion would be diverted to the program from federal oil and gas royalties and fees that are not subject to the annual congressional appropriations process. Another $500 million could be appropriated for the research to add to the money coming from royalties.
The provision does not specify which companies or universities would receive the funds, but sources said Gulf Coast institutions and oil and gas companies are in a strong position to benefit.
In a statement yesterday, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) cited the program as an example of the "extraordinary collection of special interest favors" in the bill.
Lawmakers from Gulf Coast states also led a successful push to secure funds for restoring eroded and damaged coastlines and adjacent wetlands. Federal royalty revenue would be used to finance the program.
GOP aides said Louisiana would be the main beneficiary, but states with offshore oil development, such as California and Alaska, would also benefit.
The package includes an authorization for $2 billion to help Gulf Coast refiners of the fuel additive MTBE phase out their production between now and 2012. Earlier drafts of the bill had proposed about $800 million.
MTBE, or methyl tertiary-butyl ether, has been used in communities with high levels of smog because it increases the combustion of harmful gasoline compounds. But despite its beneficial properties, many communities have filed lawsuits charging that MTBE has contaminated groundwater.
Under the terms of the energy bill, communities could no longer sue the manufacturers of MTBE for producing a defective product, although they could seek damages if the product entered the water supply through negligence or mishandling.
Republican negotiators set the effective date of the liability protection at Sept. 5, a move that could affect lawsuits filed New Hampshire, California, Connecticut and other states.
Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) charged yesterday that while the bill provided significant relief to MTBE producers, states and communities would have to spend as much as $29 billion to clean up local water supplies contaminated by the additive.
"The Republican energy bill provides the big energy companies with a political piņata of tax and regulatory subsidies, environmental rollbacks and other special favors for energy producing industries," he said.
Fulfilling a top priority of the Bush administration, the bill provides new subsidies for companies that build nuclear power plants using advanced designs. These production tax credits, estimated to cost about $115 million per year, would be limited to three to six new plants, congressional aides said.
GOP lawmakers said they hope the incentives will spark a revival in the construction of state-of-the-art nuclear power plants. No nuclear plant has been licensed since 1978, but advocates said the option is needed as a "clean" energy source for generating hydrogen for use in vehicles powered by fuel cells.
No energy company has yet applied for licenses to build new reactors, but several have begun the process of getting regulatory approval for the expansion of nuclear power production alongside existing plants.
GOP officials said yesterday that they were still calculating the total cost of the massive energy package.
Although the tax provisions are not complete, those alone could cost the federal Treasury between $22 billion and $24 billion by 2012.
Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group, has estimated that the tax breaks and the new spending authority together could cost at least $80 billion over that period.
-------- utah
Making sense of nuke waste: Anyone confused?
Sunday, November 16, 2003
N.S. Nokkentved
THE DAILY HERALD (Utah)
http://www.harktheherald.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=6458&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
It's not "just like" other radioactive waste that is being sent to Utah for disposal. But it's been called "similar."
It consists of processed tailings from uranium ore shipped from Africa to the United States decades ago for nuclear bomb-making.
But it's not the same as tailings from African ore that went to Blanding, Utah for disposal.
It's radioactive, but it's not regulated the same way as other radioactive material.
It's dangerous, but not in the same way nuclear waste already here is dangerous.
Confused? So are a lot of Utahns. But it's really not too difficult to understand the controversy surrounding the material being sought by Envirocare of Utah Inc. The company wants to become the final resting place for radioactive tailings now held in crumbling silos at a decomissioned government facility in Fernald, Ohio.
Utahns clearly have a stake in a matter that could have far-reaching effects on public health and safety.
Speaking to the Herald last week, Envirocare Senior Vice President Ken Alkema clarified a company advertisement published recently in Salt Lake newspapers that seemed to equate Fernald waste sent to International Uranium Corp. in Blanding with other, more troublesome Fernald waste that could be shipped to Utah for permanent storage at Envirocare's facility in Tooele County.
"It's not just like" the Blanding waste, Alkema said. But it is "similar."
It's a characterization that is getting considerable scrutiny.
Envirocare now houses some uranium mill tailings, mostly contaminated soils. Some of that is from Fernald. But recent proposed legislation would allow other tailings -- material that is 100 times more radioactive -- to be sent there for disposal. Envirocare could take it if it can get its federal license limits raised. An application is pending.
At issue is 1.4 million cubic feet of "high level uranium residue" now in Fernald silos -- the remains of ore from which desired uranium isotopes were removed during the height of the U.S. weapons program.
Waste currently awaiting disposal (and which Envirocare is in the running to receive) indeed originates from the same ore source as lower-end waste sent to southern Utah. But Blanding's portion contained only a little radium, the element now at the center of debate because of its possible ill effects -- and that of the cancer-inducing radon gas is produces -- on people and the environment.
Waste in the Fernald silos is unique because it comes from uranium ore that was uncommonly rich, said Dane Finerfrock, director of the state Division of Radiation Control. With sufficient exposure, even ordinary uranium mill tailings can make people sick in several ways -- by inhaling or ingesting dust particles, by direct exposure to its radiation or by breathing the radioactive radon gas it emits.
Radon gas is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the country and is often associated with basements of homes because it is heavy and will accumulate in enclosed areas.
"The real threat is radon gas, rather than direct radiation," Alkema said.
The health threat presented by radon emitted by the Fernald waste is one of the reasons it would be mixed in concrete and packaged in steel containers for shipment. If it ends up at Envirocare, the plan is to cover it with 20 feet of dirt and a clay radon barrier. Radon is only dangerous for those who inhale enough of it, Finerfrock said.
Still, over time that barrier may break down, workers may be exposed and the waste may get into the ground water and migrate into the Great Salt Lake, say Claire Geddes and Jason Groenewald of Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.
Groundwater beneath Envirocare is about 20 to 30 feet below the surface, very salty and moves toward the Great Salt Lake.
The possibility that radium could get into the groundwater and reachthe lake is a consideration in licensing a disposal facility, Finerfrock said. Requirements for the uranium tailings facility at Envirocare include groundwater monitoring wells. But "radium doesn't migrate easily in the environment," he said.
So how dangerous is this waste? Is it "hotter" than other waste at Envirocare?
Those questions are not easily answered because of arcane radioactive waste terminology. And complex government definitions and regulations add even more confusion.
The most radioactive wastes are not necessarily the most dangerous to human populations. What matters more are the routes of exposure -- inhalation, ingestion or external exposure -- and how quickly the radioactivity decays away to insignificant levels.
Some materials arehighly radioactive, but exist in a form that doesn't dissolve in water or crumble to dust. Other materials may be less radioactive but carry heightened danger because they dissolve easily or form dust particles that move in water or float on the air.
Waste disposal regulations take these differences into consideration.
Confusing matters, uranium tailings consist of materials found in nature, and they are regulated separately from man-made waste even though some of the man-made stuff -- like certain old reactor parts -- is considered low-level.
The Fernald waste silos contain the remnants of imported African uranium ores from which the uranium was extracted long ago for bomb production. What's left is mostly mineral residue laced with less useful elements such as radium, thorium and lead that were present in the original ore.
Uranium decays into water-soluble radium, which in turn decays into radon gas. Radon gas decays into lead after a few days.
While radium can be extremely dangerous in high concentrations, it is found in small amounts virtually everywhere in the environment -- in rocks, soils, water, plants and animals.
According the the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the greatest postential for human exposure to radium is through drinking water, which ordinarily contains minute amounts -- less than one picoCurie per liter. But higher levels are sometimes detected.
Likewise, radon gas is typically found in small amounts in the environment, with background levels in ambient air of between one-tenth and four-tenths of a picoCurie per liter.
Radon occurs naturally in Utah County. Health officials recommend home owners take corrective action when the level in the home reaches 4 picoCuries per liter of air.
At Fernald, each square-meter of waste now emits about 50,000 picoCuries per second. The EPA limit for such waste in a disposal facility is 20 picoCuries per square meter per second. Envirocare officials say their facility would hold any emissions into the atmosphere below 18 picoCuries per square meter.
Fernald waste would be mixed with four times its volume of concrete and poured into carbon-steel containers for shipping. Envirocare says the cementation and encasement would reduce the possibility of radon emissions during transporation. Of course, the assumption is that no accident will occur along the transportation route that would rupture the containers.
Envirocare's calculations for disposal assume that the containers will corrode and the concrete will crumble.
While it would not be the most radioactive waste currently accepted at Envirocare, material in the Fernald silos is about 25 times more radioactive than the current low-level contaminated soils housed at the Tooele County site. That's because the original material was 100 to 300 times richer than the uranium ore found in U.S. mines, and the castoff tailings, therefore, include a proportionally higher -- far higher -- concentration of radium and other radioactive elements than ordinary mill tailings.
A central question in moving Fernald waste to Envirocare of Utah, and housing it there permanently a few feet over the water table, is whether the material would substantially increase the potential for human exposure to either radium or radon gas.
The Fernald radium will continue to emit radon for more than 16,000 years. By comparison, the radioactivity in most of the waste now buried at Envirocare, some of which is "hotter" than the Fernald tailings, will decay to insignificant levels within 100 years.
The shallow-earth disposal cell contemplated at Envirocare is designed to reduce radon emissions at the surface to less than the EPA's prescribed limits, said Tye Rogers, radiation safety officer at Envirocare. The cell would be lined with clay to hold the gas underground long enough for it to decay to lead before reaching the atmosphere -- about 38 days, or 10 half-lives.
On a human scale, 16,000 years of radon emissions might as well be forever. This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.
-------- us politics
Investigation Clears Perle of Wrongdoing, Rumsfeld Says
Sunday, November 16, 2003
(Reuters)
http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=799385&tw=wn_wire_story
SEOUL - An investigation by the Defense Department's inspector general has cleared Pentagon adviser Richard Perle of any violation of conflict of interest laws in his private consulting business, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday.
Rumsfeld issued a statement to reporters traveling with him in South Korea saying that Inspector General Joseph Schmitz had cleared Perle after a six-month investigation.
Perle in March resigned as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a group of security experts and former government officials who advise the Pentagon, after a published report alleged that he might have attempted to use his government connections for personal financial gain as a private consultant.
"The inspector general's report confirms the integrity of the Defense Policy Board and Mr. Perle's participation," said Rumsfeld.
Perle, an architect of the Iraq war, remains as a member of the board, which is now headed by former Florida Republican Rep. Tillie Fowler.
Perle stepped down after facing allegations of a conflict of interest over his work as an adviser for the bankrupt telecommunications firm Global Crossing Ltd. .
He had agreed to help Global Crossing win U.S. approval to sell a 61.5 percent stake to Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. and Singapore Technologies Telemedia Pte.
The deal ran into problems with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The committee raised concerns that Global Crossing's network would be controlled by a company with strong ties to China. Hutchison is majority-owned by Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing.
The New York Times reported on Saturday that Perle was the focus of a new inquiry by Hollinger International, a media conglomerate where he serves as director. The inquiry is focusing on several transactions, including $2.5 million in payments made by the company into Trireme Partners, a venture capital company in which Perle is a managing partner, the newspaper said.
Rumsfeld said Schmitz found that Perle's activities "complied with statutory and regulatory standards that have been established for individuals who serve as special government employees."
"The inspector general determined that Mr. Perle's activities did not create ... an appearance of violating conflict of interest statutes or Defense Department ethics regulations," the secretary added.
Defense Department spokesman Larry Di Rita told reporters that Perle was expected to remain on the board.
----
NEWS ANALYSIS
America's Gamble: A Quick Exit Plan for Iraq
November 16, 2003
New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/international/middleeast/16ASSE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 - The announcement of a firm date to create an interim Iraqi government and end the formal American occupation - though not the American military presence - promises the Iraqis the sovereignty they have clamored for, and offers President Bush the political symbol he needed: the beginnings of an exit strategy that he can explain to American voters.
But the price of a speedy transfer of power, Mr. Bush's own top aides worry, may be a rapid loss of control - control over the drafting of a constitution, and over the effort to make democracy flower in a land where it had never been cultivated. Now that Mr. Bush himself has redefined America's mission in Iraq - from disarming Saddam Hussein to creating "a free and democratic society" that will be a model for the rest of the Middle East - any plan that grants Iraq its sovereignty before it adopts full-fledged democracy risks derailing that grander mission.
"It's a gamble, a huge gamble," one of the most senior architects of Mr. Bush's campaign to oust Saddam Hussein conceded this week, after two days of meetings with L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the American-led occupation authority. "But it's easy to overestimate the degree of control we have over events now," the official said, "and to underestimate how much we will retain."
If the plan succeeds, Mr. Bush could declare an end the formal American occupation of Iraq by early summer, just as the presidential campaign heads into its final and decisive stretch.
But American officials expect that tens of thousands of allied troops will remain at the new government's "invitation," and nobody can predict whether they will still face a violent and deadly insurgency, possibly targeting Iraqi security forces as well. That would make it harder for Mr. Bush to describe the transfer of power to a new government, and the drawing down of American troops, as an unqualified success.
Aside from its continuing military presence - the United States will continue to flex its financial muscle as it doles out $20 billion in rebuilding aid and oversees billions more in private investments in the country.
But the combination of an intensifying insurgency and rapidly eroding Iraqi support for the American occupation left President Bush few options but to loosen his grip over the nation that he had conquered and is now trying to rebuild.
So in the past week, an administration that is loath to admit any doubts about the wisdom of its judgments basically rewrote its strategy.
Administration officials have dismissed critics who suggest that the process might be driven by Mr. Bush's electoral needs, taking pains to portray the new approach as Iraqi-born, initiated by Iraqi leaders out of what Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, called a "clamor" for a faster turnover of power.
Yet until sometime in the past few weeks, Mr. Bremer argued internally that the Iraqis were not ready to assume full authority, and that turning it over before the basic outlines of Iraqi democracy were established would invite chaos, or worse.
During his abruptly scheduled meetings at the White House on Tuesday and Wednesday, Mr. Bremer delivered the news that the fractious Iraqi Governing Council was approaching rebellion over the plan to draft a constitution first and to transfer power only after national elections. It was an approach that was straightforward, logical, deeply rooted in the history of the occupations of Japan and Germany, and untenable on the streets of Baghdad.
"The initial idea was essentially a softer version of the MacArthur approach," one senior official said, referring to how Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who led the seven-year occupation of Japan, drafted the defeated nation's constitution with a pliant, American-installed government.
Mr. Bush's original plan was slightly less imperial than MacArthur's approach, calling for the Iraqis themselves to write the constitution. But all the hard questions - whether Iraq will be a secular state or an Islamic one, and how to protect the rights of minorities like the Kurds - would have been vetted closely by the Americans.
The new strategy creates a government before the constitution. It turns power over to Iraqi leaders before there are national elections, and perhaps before it is clear that an interim government formed from town meetings or provincial elections has established legitimacy.
The country would be operating under a basic legal framework - one expected to set out principles of human rights and equality for all religious sects - that would have to suffice until a constitution is written. A senior administration official said Saturday afternoon that so far, members of the Governing Council seemed attuned to "values that we hold in common and are very comfortable with." Yet, the rights of minority groups would not yet be constitutionally established. The question of federalism - the degree to which Baghdad's dictates would apply in the provinces of a stitched-together nation - would be unsettled. The relationship between Islamic law and national law would still be undefined.
Mr. Bush's aides insist that even after sovereignty passes to the provisional government, American influence will be strong. The United States military will have the heavy firepower. The $20 billion for reconstruction that Congress has approved will still be under American control, its flow directed to influencing events according to Washington's wishes. The administration will emphasize that American investors will demand independent courts, a secular government and political stability before risking billions reconstructing the Iraqi economy.
"We'll have more levers than you think, and maybe more than the Iraqis think," one senior White House official said this week.
But if there are lessons in the occupation so far, they boil down to this: It takes less planning to topple a dictator than to build a democracy. The invasion of Iraq was largely in the command of the invaders. The building of a democratic government, by definition, is in the hands of the new electorate and subject to the disruptions of the Baathists and foreign groups whose campaign of terror has seemed to gain strength each month.
Mr. Bush has insisted that it is "inconceivable" that American forces will leave until a stable democracy is established. The question, which no one in the White House will yet answer, is how he will know when that moment has come.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Bomb Kills U.S. Soldier in Afghanistan
November 16, 2003
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/international/asia/16AFGH.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov.15 - An American Special Operations soldier was killed Friday in northeastern Afghanistan when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, the United States military said Saturday.
A second soldier was wounded, although it was not clear whether the injury occurred in the same bombing, said Col. Rodney Davis, a spokesman at the Bagram air base.
The casualties were the first since hundreds of troops were deployed a week ago in the mountainous provinces of Kunar and Nuristan.
The soldier was killed near Asadabad, the capital of Kunar.
His name has not been released.
Taliban and other anticoalition forces have been active in Kunar for months, often firing rockets at the American base near Asadabad. More recently militants have started laying remote-controlled mines or explosive devices on or beside the main roads.
Three Afghans were killed and four injured in Kunar when a mine exploded last week, Kabul Television said Wednesday.
Three American soldiers and two C.I.A. contractors were killed last month.
--------
Security Still Elusive in Afghanistan
Resurgent Taliban, Warlords Threaten Political Stability
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 16, 2003; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46637-2003Nov15?language=printer
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 15 -- Two years after Afghan and U.S.-led military forces routed the Islamic Taliban militia from Kabul, large sections of Afghan territory remain in the grip of local militias, while the southeast has become the target of violent attacks and political wooing by resurgent Taliban forces based along the Pakistani border.
But after months of hesitation, sporadic surgical strikes and debate over long-term strategies, both Afghan leaders and foreign military officials are now moving swiftly to take decisive action against both regional warlords and the revived Taliban movement.
In recent days, many international observers have warned that unless Afghanistan's security situation improves, progress toward economic recovery and political freedom -- including a national assembly to ratify a new constitution in December and presidential elections next year -- could be in jeopardy.
A delegation from the U.N. Security Council, after a recent visit here, reported that lack of security had "affected the entire Afghan peace process," seriously slowing reconstruction efforts and posing a "direct challenge" to the U.N.-sponsored agreement that laid out Afghanistan's political transition after the collapse of Taliban rule.
Afghan officials, meanwhile, expressed frustration at their limited ability to tackle an array of security problems -- from extortion and intimidation by local militia commanders, to the rapidly expanding opium trade, and car bombings and school burnings by regrouped Taliban forces seeking to sabotage the country's reconstruction.
"We have so many challenges, so little capacity and so few resources. We have terrorists, warlords, drug traffickers, failures by our own people. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and ask what I'm doing here," Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said. "The key to establishing security is to win people's trust, and the government needs to do a lot more."
Jalali said he was optimistic about several initiatives, particularly a plan to revamp military and civilian leadership in a cluster of northern provinces where violence erupted in October between two long-feuding militia leaders, Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum and Gen. Attah Mohammad. Both have agreed to the proposal but still retain their troops and weapons.
"I am sure this plan will succeed," Jalali said. "The people are strongly behind it, we have no other choice than to become a legitimate government, and I see more and more support from the international community for such reforms." If it fails, he added, "there is no need for me to be here any more. I don't want to be a figurehead."
Last month, the government also launched a U.N.-aided program to disarm tens of thousands of militiamen and retrain them for civilian life. So far about 1,200 fighters have been disarmed in Kunduz and Paktia provinces, but officials are not yet sure they can persuade militia commanders in more volatile regions to give up their weapons.
The biggest test will come in Kabul, where thousands of militia forces and heavy weapons remain despite a U.N. ban. Afghan military officials said a number of military units had been withdrawn from the city, but no official disarmament has taken place, and foreign military observers said some of the movement amounted to only a reconfiguring of forces.
The most serious threat to Afghanistan's prospects for peace and stability comes from the revived Taliban forces that retreated into Pakistan in late 2001. They have now regained strength and established footholds in a half-dozen provinces stretching 400 miles along the Pakistani border.
Since summer these forces have staged dozens of attacks, including the murder of four Afghan irrigation project workers in September, the kidnapping of a Turkish highway engineer last month and a car bombing this week at a U.N. office in Kandahar that injured two people.
"The situation is much more serious than a year ago," said Vikram Parekh, a Kabul-based analyst with the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit monitoring organization. "The cross-border infiltration is better financed, armed and equipped. This is not just hit-and-run. The Taliban's military leadership has been reconstituted, and in several provinces there is a more or less permanent presence of anti-government forces."
Until now, the official response has been piecemeal and plagued by problems. The government must contend with a rugged border area where guerrillas can easily melt away, alliances between Taliban leaders and fellow ethnic Pashtuns, limited government authority and manpower in rural areas, and lack of a coordinated strategy between international anti-terrorist aims and Afghan nation-building needs.
There are about 11,000 U.S. combat troops stationed here, and in the past three months they have staged several major combat operations in eastern Afghanistan. More than 300 anti-government fighters have been reported killed, but missile and rocket attacks have continued against coalition convoys and bases near the Pakistani border, and 13 coalition troops have died.
On Nov. 7, coalition troops launched Operation Mountain Resolve, a high-altitude offensive, in Konar and Nurestan provinces, adjacent hilly border regions that are believed to shelter a network of fighters loyal to the Taliban, al Qaeda and the renegade Afghan militia leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
In recent comments, U.S. military spokesmen have played down the terrorist threat, saying it is confined to small areas and that conditions nationwide are much better than they were at the end of Taliban rule, which collapsed when the militia fled Kabul on Nov. 13, 2001. "You are not hearing much about terrorism and anti-coalition activity in 80 percent of the country," Col. Rodney Davis told reporters here last week. "That is an improvement from two years ago."
Yet in addition to armed raids, U.S. military officials have recently decided to expand an experimental program of secure regional assistance outposts, known as Provincial Reconstruction Teams, into vulnerable provinces, including Ghazni, Khost and Kandahar. These outposts, already operating in four cities, provide economic aid, support for government initiatives and an armed presence.
Military sources said that while combat operations would continue against the Taliban and al Qaeda, the U.S. military's focus would soon shift toward providing long-term security to protect efforts to build stability. A new military command is expected to be set up in Kabul to coordinate this initiative.
NATO officials, in turn, have finally heeded Afghan President Hamid Karzai's repeated pleas to expand the foreign peacekeeping mission in Kabul. Last week, NATO officials also said they would establish quick deployment teams that could travel to trouble spots for limited assignments. So far, however, only Norway and Germany have volunteered troops for this effort.
"There are 1.4 million soldiers in NATO. Where are they? Why are so few countries stepping up to the plate?" asked Maj. Gen. Andrew Leslie, deputy commander of the 5,500 peacekeeping forces here. "The left hand has made the commitment, but the right hand is not ponying up."
Leslie said that the situation in southern Afghanistan "will keep getting worse if we don't do something about it" and that the provincial assistance teams were only a "temporary answer in the absence of a coherent vision" for how to bring security and stability to the country. "The status quo will only lead to failure," he said.
Other analysts suggested that the best way to combat Taliban influence was to pay more attention to local politics. While the Taliban has intimidated foreign charities and others through terrorist attacks, it has made deeper inroads by reviving old alliances and capitalizing on discontent.
In recent months, Karzai has taken a series of steps to replace ineffective military and civilian leaders in several provinces, notably Kandahar and Paktia. But experts said that in many southeastern districts, government offices and services are almost nonexistent, leaving a vacuum for anti-government forces to fill.
"In a lot of the south, the Taliban have been free to operate from Day One," Parekh said. In some districts, he said, local officials are in regular contact with Taliban leaders; in others there is only a "skeletal government structure," so people look to other groups for protection.
Jalali said the government had adopted a broad strategy for the provinces under a Taliban threat, including rehabilitating government offices, training police with help from the new foreign military teams, replacing more local officials, creating tribal self-defense groups and jump-starting the economy with an infusion of aid.
"I believe the best way to fight terrorism is to help people who feel deprived," Jalali said. In some areas, public offices are "huts with no one in them. Someone comes on a motorcycle, fires a few shots and people think the government has been attacked," he said. "We want them to see new buildings with Afghan flags flying on top."
-------- asia
Okinawa's Gov. Wants U.S. Troop Reduction
November 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Rumsfeld-Asia.html
NAHA, Okinawa (AP) -- Okinawa's governor pleaded with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Sunday to remove some of the 28,000 U.S. forces stationed on this Japanese island and ease the environmental impact of military facilities.
In a meeting at his offices, Gov. Keiichi Inamine told Rumsfeld he understood that on matters of defense he had to defer to the national government in Tokyo. But he urged Rumsfeld to accept that Okinawans bear too much of Japan's burden as hosts of Air Force, Navy, Army and Marine Corps bases.
``It has been 58 years'' since Japan surrendered to U.S. forces to end World War II, Inamine said through an interpreter, and the U.S. military presence has become an economic and social impediment.
Rumsfeld replied that he was not ready to make any decisions about changes on Okinawa because the Pentagon is studying its entire global network of bases, of which Okinawa is an important element. The Pentagon chief reminded Inamine that ``this part of the world has seen peace'' with U.S. forces present.
Separately, the American ambassador to Japan, Howard Baker, said during an appearance with Rumsfeld at Camp Foster in southern Okinawa that although Tokyo has balked at immediately sending troops to Iraq, he believes the government will go ahead with the plan ``probably still this year.''
Rumsfeld said he came to Okinawa to see the situation firsthand and to hear from U.S. commanders and island officials. After about 40 minutes of talks, which were open to the news media at the Okinawans' initiative, Rumsfeld made clear that he had heard enough and was ready to leave.
``We've listened,'' he said politely, but firmly. With that, Inamine made a final comment and the talks ended.
Rumsfeld then went South Korea, where he planned to meet with senior government officials in Seoul on Monday and with U.S. troops on Tuesday, wrapping up his first Asia tour since becoming defense secretary in 2001.
Dozens of riot police were at the entrance of the U.S. base in central Seoul where Rumsfeld arrived by helicopter Sunday evening, but there was no sign of protesters.
Although the U.S. force structure on Okinawa is included in the Pentagon's worldwide review, it appears unlikely that Washington will propose any substantial reduction of troops levels on the island.
Under a 1996 agreement, some training areas are being reduced or moved and bases are being consolidated. But Okinawa's location in the Pacific is almost ideal for the Marines and the Air Force.
As an Air Force official said Sunday in alluding to Okinawa's importance in the event of war on the Korean Peninsula, the flight time from Okinawa to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, is less than to Tokyo.
In the midst of Rumsfeld's trip, North Korea said Sunday it is willing to abandon nuclear development when the United States discontinues what it called a hostile policy and eliminates ``threats'' against the communist country, a South Korean news agency reported.
The Air Force has two F-15 fighter squadrons of 24 planes each based at Kadena, as well as an array of surveillance and intelligence-gathering aircraft such as the RC-135. The Navy flies EP-3 electronic surveillance planes from Kadena; the Marines have Harrier fighters and helicopters.
At his meeting with Rumsfeld, Inamine presented a written petition listing grievances against the U.S. military and spelling out the many changes his government would like to see made.
While saying he recognized that U.S. bases in Japan play a crucial role in maintaining peace in the Far East, Inamine's petition said, ``It is also the fact that Okinawa prefecture today still faces the immense and dense U.S. facilities'' that have been on the island since World War II.
The bases are an impediment to urban development and economic progress, he added.
Inamine urged an unspecified further reduction in the number of U.S. troops and bases on Okinawa, new measures to reduce aircraft noise and shifting Marine Corps training off Okinawa.
He also called for an end to the Navy's use of low-frequency sonar in the waters off the island, but Rumsfeld said U.S. scientific studies show the sonar has ``little if any impact on marine mammals.''
The predominant U.S. force on Okinawa is the Marine Corps, with about 17,700 personnel at numerous bases. The main unit is the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force, which includes the 3rd Marine Division. It led the sea-borne charge that liberated Guam from Japanese occupation in July 1944.
The Marines have been at the center of controversy here about crimes committed by U.S. troops. The U.S. government on a number of occasions has felt compelled to apologize publicly. 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 led to some of the worst anti-American military demonstrations seen in Japan in decades.
-------- britain
My husband died in vain
What one British widow will tell Mr Bush this week
By Severin Carrell in London and Andrew Buncombe in Washington
16 November 2003
Defense Link
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov2003/n11142003_200311143.html
President George Bush will be accused this week of lying about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in a face-to-face meeting with the families of British soldiers killed in the war, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
Mr Bush announced last week he was prepared to meet a small group of families of the British war dead. The names have not been officially revealed but two of the invited families have come forward to talk exclusively to the IoS, saying they will challenge the US President to explain why he went to war without a United Nations mandate and why no chemical and biological weapons have been found.
Lianne Seymour, whose husband, Commando Ian Seymour, was killed in a helicopter crash at the outbreak of the war, welcomed the chance to meet Mr Bush. But she dismissed his claim that the 53 Britons killed so far in Iraq had died in a good cause. She said: "Bush has been suggesting that he's going to put our minds at rest. He suggests our husbands' lives weren't lost in vain. However, I'm going to challenge him on it.
"They misled the guys going out there. You can't just do something wrong and hope you find a good reason for it later. That's why we have all the UN guidelines in the first place."
Another relative, Tony Maddison, whose stepson Marine Christopher Maddison was killed, allegedly by friendly fire, during a battle near Basra, said: "I'm beginning to feel Mr Blair has been a puppet, so I'm looking forward to meeting Bush, to ask: 'What are you doing to our Prime Minister? Look what he's doing to our country.'"
Mr Maddison and his wife, Julie, suspect that the spectre of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was raised to "frighten" the country into war, although they think it was right to topple Saddam. "We've gone to war for the wrong reasons," he said. "I'm still hoping that weapons of mass destruction will be discovered, but I'm beginning to think we were being lied to."
Details of Mr Bush's meeting with the families are being kept secret for security reasons, but it is expected to take place at the end of the week at an undisclosed location in London.
The three-day state visit this week will be met by an unprecedented security operation. About 5,000 police officers and 250 US secret service agents will guard the President and cover a series of protests being planned. The scale of the antipathy many Britons feel towards Mr Bush was revealed last night by a YouGov poll in which 60 per cent of those questioned branded him a threat to world peace.
In a significant about-turn, the police are expected to allow the largest march, on Thursday, to go past Downing Street and Parliament in a bid to avert violent clashes with hardline demonstrators.
Among the marchers will be the sister of Lieutenant Philip Green, a Royal Navy helicopter pilot killed in a crash in the Gulf. Juliet McGrory, whose father, Richard Green, has fiercely attacked the war, said: "Bush says my brother died for a 'noble cause', which, after the pain of recent months, I find an incredible statement. I don't understand how killing innocent civilians can possibly be described as a 'noble cause'. The trip is nothing more than a masquerade and a PR opportunity."
The state visit can hardly have come at a worse time for Mr Bush, with polls in the US showing that public confidence over his ability to deal with the problems in Iraq is falling. For the first time, more than 50 per cent have said they "disapprove" of the way he is handling the situation.
The trip threatens to be a PR disaster for the President and his officials have tried - apparently in vain - to ensure that is he kept as far away from demonstrators as possible.
Asked this week about the protesters he will encounter in the capital, Mr Bush said: "I don't expect everybody in the world to agree with the positions I've taken. I'm so pleased to be going to a country which says that people are allowed to express their minds. That's fantastic. Freedom is a beautiful thing."
Quite how his meeting the families of British servicemen killed in Iraq will be perceived at home is unclear: the President has not attended the funerals of any of the American troops killed. Nor has he visited any of the thousands of injured troops who have returned to the US.
----
Queen rejects fortifications for Bush visit
November 16, 2003
By Tim Walker
LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031115-114751-3194r.htm
LONDON - Queen Elizabeth II has rejected a request from President Bush's security advisers to bolster Buckingham Palace's structural defenses against a terrorist attack during his state visit to Britain this week.
Senior royal officials say the queen was not willing to countenance "bomb and airborne assault proofing" that would have involved substantial building work at her London home.
The Americans fear al Qaeda terrorists are planning an attack when the president and his wife, Laura, stay for three nights in the ground-floor Belgian Suite at the palace.
"They [the Americans] wanted blast- and bullet-proofed windows and curtains and some strengthening to the walls of the president's suite and other rooms at the palace where he would be spending time. The president's security men seem obsessed with the idea of an airborne attack on the palace," a royal official said.
"Her majesty takes the view that no amount of strengthening of windows and walls could protect the president in such an eventuality and that the work would cause disruption and involve discarding original fixtures and fittings."
The queen has also limited the number of American security staff who will be accommodated at the palace.
"Her majesty's view throughout was that since there are going to be 5,000 British police officers involved in the security operation for the president, it's not unreasonable to expect her guests to have some faith in their abilities."
Britain's security services have been placed on a higher level of alert for Mr. Bush's visit. The "severe general" alert, the second highest, follows information about plots by al Qaeda supporters from North Africa.
The Sunday Telegraph also learned that two suspected al Qaeda terrorists were stopped from entering Britain last week because it was feared they were plotting an assassination attempt on the president, using antiwar protests as a cover.
A senior intelligence official said: "We are aware of an al Qaeda plot and we know of at least two individuals who have been stopped from coming into the country during the last week. Another person is known to be in the country, but the situation is under control."
The queen will officially welcome the president in a unique ceremony on the forecourt of Buckingham Palace on Wednesday morning.
----
'Shoot-to-kill' demand by US
Martin Bright, home affairs editor
Sunday November 16, 2003
The Observer
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1086397,00.html
Home Secretary David Blunkett has refused to grant diplomatic immunity to armed American special agents and snipers travelling to Britain as part of President Bush's entourage this week.
In the case of the accidental shooting of a protester, the Americans in Bush's protection squad will face justice in a British court as would any other visitor, the Home Office has confirmed.
The issue of immunity is one of a series of extraordinary US demands turned down by Ministers and Downing Street during preparations for the Bush visit.
These included the closure of the Tube network, the use of US air force planes and helicopters and the shipping in of battlefield weaponry to use against rioters.
In return, the British authorities agreed numerous concessions, including the creation of a 'sterile zone' around the President with a series of road closures in central London and a security cordon keeping the public away from his cavalcade.
The White House initially demanded the closure of all Tube lines under parts of London to be visited during the trip. But British officials dismissed the idea that a suicide bomber could kill the President by blowing up a Tube train. Ministers are also believed to have dismissed suggestions that a 'sterile zone' around the President should be policed entirely by American special agents and military.
Demands for the US air force to patrol above London with fighter aircraft and Black Hawk helicopters have also been turned down.
The President's protection force will be armed - as Tony Blair's is when he travels abroad - and around 250 secret service agents will fly in with Bush, but operational control will remain with the Metropolitan Police. The Americans had also wanted to travel with a piece of military hardware called a 'mini-gun', which usually forms part of the mobile armoury in the presidential cavalcade. It is fired from a tank and can kill dozens of people. One manufacturer's description reads: 'Due to the small calibre of the round, the mini-gun can be used practically anywhere. This is especially helpful during peacekeeping deployments.'
Ministers have made clear to Washington that the firepower of the mini-gun will not be available during the state visit to Britain. In return, the Government has agreed to close off much of Whitehall during the visit - the usual practice in Britain is to use police outriders to close roads as the cavalcade passes to cause minimal disruption to traffic.
A Home Office spokeswoman said: 'Negotiations between here and the US have been perfectly amicable. If there have been requests, they have not posed any problems.'
An internal memo sent to Cabinet Office staff and leaked to the press this weekend urged staff to work from home if at possible during the presidential visit. Serious disruption would be caused by 'the President Bush vehicle entourage requesting cleared secured vehicle routes around London and the security cordons creating a sterile zone around him'.
Meanwhile, negotiations are continuing between police and demonstrators about the route of the march. Representatives of the Stop the War Coalition will meet police at Scotland Yard tomorrow to discuss whether protesters will be able to march through Parliament Square and Whitehall. Spokesman Andrew Burgin said he hoped for 'a good old-fashioned British compromise'.
martin.bright@observer.co.uk
-------- iran
AP Exclusive: Top Iraqi Scientist Flees
November 16, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-The-Scientists.html?pagewanted=all&position=
The Iraqi scientist who headed Saddam Hussein's long-range missile program has fled to neighboring Iran, a country identified as a state sponsor of terrorism with a successful missile program and nuclear ambitions, U.S. officers involved in the weapons hunt told The Associated Press.
Dr. Modher Sadeq-Saba al-Tamimi's departure comes as top weapons makers from Saddam's deposed regime find themselves eight months out of work but with skills that could be lucrative to militaries or terrorist organizations in neighboring countries. U.S. officials have said some are already in Syria and Jordan.
Experts long feared the collapse of Saddam's rule could lead to the kind of scientific brain-drain the United States tried to prevent as the former Soviet Union collapsed. But the Bush administration had no plan for Iraqi scientists and instead officials suggested they could be tried for war crimes.
``There are a couple hundred Iraqis who are really good scientists, particularly in the missile area,'' said Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N. inspector now with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute in California. ``In the chemical and biological areas, their work wasn't state of the art but it was good enough to be of interest to other countries.''
Only now is the State Department exploring the possibility of a government-funded program to block a scientific exodus and prevent Iraqis from doing future research in weapons of mass destruction. Initial cost estimates for the program run about $16 million, according to a Nov. 3 draft proposal obtained by AP.
Two members of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency involved in questioning scientists in custody told AP the Iraqis continue to deny the existence of illicit weapons programs in Iraq. Dozens of Iraqi scientists have been questioned and less than 30 remain in custody. All of them, including senior members of Saddam's regime, have been subjected to lie-detector tests, which have come up clean on weapons questioning, the DIA officers said.
But U.S. scientists and weapons experts, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, said they're having trouble finding some Iraqi experts in Iraq and have no way of tracking ones they've met.
``They could leave Baghdad tomorrow and we'd never know,'' said one senior official involved in the hunt. ``Very few are obligated to tell us where they're going or what they're up to.''
U.N. inspectors spoke with Dr. Modher in Baghdad a week before the U.S.-led war began on March 20. Two U.S. weapons investigators say they believe he crossed the Iraq-Iran border on foot at least two months after U.S. forces took Baghdad.
His activities in Iran are unclear and may explain why his disappearance hasn't been publicly disclosed. The CIA declined to discuss its efforts with Iraqi scientists or identify individuals.
Thought to be in his mid-50's, the Czech-educated scientist specialized in missile engines. He met numerous times with U.N. inspectors during the 1990s and earlier this year when he argued that the Al-Samoud missile system under his command wasn't in violation of a U.N. range limit. The inspectors determined otherwise when tests showed it could fly more than 93 miles. They quickly began destroying the Iraqi stock, much to his frustration.
``Dr. Modher was declared by Iraq to have been one of the principal figures in their missile programs,'' said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the U.N. inspectors.
In the late 1980s, Modher headed up the Iraqi military's Project 1728, part of an effort to produce engines for longer-range missiles.
He was the protege and favored colleague of Iraqi Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel, Saddam's right-hand man and son-in-law who briefly defected to Jordan in 1995. There, Kamel told U.N. inspectors during interrogations about his work and Dr. Modher's efforts to build a missile powerful enough to strike most major European cities.
According to the interrogation transcripts, Kamel said Modher and a nuclear physicist named Mahdi Obeidi both took work and documents from their offices. U.N. inspectors investigated the claim but found nothing.
In July of this year, Obeidi gave the CIA a stack of papers and a piece of equipment that had been buried in his backyard for 12 years. In return, he has become the only Iraqi scientist allowed to move to the United States since the beginning of the U.S. occupation.
Other than Obeidi, who is living along the East Coast with his family, another scientist known to have left the country is Jaffar al-Jaffer who founded Iraq's nuclear program in the 1980s. He's in the United Arab Emirates, where U.S. troops are stationed, and has been questioned by U.S. and British intelligence officials.
But Jaffar, like a handful of senior scientists being held by U.S. forces in Iraq, hasn't provided any information on the whereabouts of suspected chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. While President Bush said he launched the war to disarm Iraq of its deadly arsenal, such weapons remain elusive.
David Kay, the chief weapons hunter, has said his teams so far have found new information on Iraqi missile systems. But a conversation with Modher could have cleared up unanswered questions about Iraq's true capabilities for delivering weapons of mass destruction.
Modher traveled to Germany in 1987 to buy high-tech equipment through H & H Metalform, a company whose senior officers were later tried in Germany and found guilty of violating the country's export control laws, U.N. inspectors said.
The equipment enabled Iraq to make components for Scud missiles similar to the ones they later fired at Israel and Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War.
When that conflict ended, Iraq faced U.N. sanctions forbidding it from purchasing any new weapons-making equipment.
But four years later, Modher was caught by U.N. inspectors when he inquired about Russian-made gyroscopes from a Palestinian middleman. At the time, Tariq Aziz, then Iraq's deputy prime minister, told U.N. inspectors Modher had acted on his own and would be punished for breaking sanctions. He allegedly spent 2 1/2 years in jail.
Kay told reporters in Washington last month that ``senior Iraqi officials, both military and scientific'' had moved to Jordan and Syria, ``both pre-conflict and some during the conflict, and some immediately after the conflict.''
He didn't mention Iran, although its long, shared border with Iraq has been an easy crossing point for militants and Shiite pilgrims headed to Iraqi shrines.
Jordanian and Syrian officials dismissed claims that wanted Iraqis are inside their countries and Kay has offered no names of those believed to have fled.
But signs of an exodus have led to a renewed push by nonproliferation experts and government officials to keep the scientists from wandering.
The 11-page State Department plan aimed at preventing Iraqi scientists from fleeing is entitled ``The Science Technology and Engineering Mentorship Initiative for Iraq.''
Such initiatives are critical but late, said Tucker of the Monterey Institute.
``This is something that should have been done immediately after the war ended,'' he said. ``The initial approach, which was to treat them as criminals and threaten them with prosecution only makes scientists want to leave or stay away.''
On the Net:
U.N. Inspectors: http://www.unmovic.org
Kay Briefing: http://www.cia.org
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Iraqis Agree to Move Fast to Establish a Government
November 16, 2003
By JOEL BRINKLEY and SUSAN SACHS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/international/middleeast/16IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Nov. 15 - Buoyed by an American promise of independence by June, Iraqi political leaders on Saturday pledged to quickly organize elections and build a democratic government on the ruins of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.
Their announcement, broadcast by satellite television stations across the Arab world, signaled the revival of Iraqi political life after 35 years of one-party rule and the start of a potentially divisive national debate over the shape of the new Iraq.
Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader who is this month's president of Iraq's interim governing council, said the council would soon broaden its membership and create a provisional government to replace the Iraqi Governing Council by the end of June 2004.
While American and other foreign troops are likely to remain for some time, he added, "the occupation shall end."
His declaration put a public stamp of approval on a deal worked out between the council members and L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator for Iraq, who had assured the Iraqis on Friday that the Bush administration would accelerate its transfer of power to meet Iraqi demands for sovereignty.
Mr. Talabani said the council would immediately begin work on establishing the basic parameters of an Iraqi government that would provide for the separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers, and would guarantee equality for Iraq's diverse religious and ethnic groups.
He said the principles would be incorporated in a "basic law" to be formulated by the end of February. That will start a process that returns control of the country to an Iraqi government in just over six months. After that, Mr. Talabani said, allied military forces would remain in Iraq only as "invited guests."
A transitional assembly will be selected in the coming months. Members are to include representatives of every geographical, religious and social group in the nation - meaning it could be quite large. That assembly is to elect the new provisional government in June.
The transition would end with a national election of a new government chosen by the general public at the end of 2005, based on rules set out in a constitution to be drafted between now and then.
The plan agreed to by Mr. Bremer and the Iraqis would transform the political process initially imposed by the countries that invaded Iraq and overthrew the Hussein government more than seven months ago.
They had been insisting that the Iraqi council first organize a constitutional convention, hold elections and only then assume control of the country, but changed tactics as American troops in Iraq this month suffered their worst casualties since major combat operations ended.
With elections on the horizon and a timetable established for creating a provisional government, Iraq's budding political parties should finally come into their own, said Kanan Makiya, an adviser to the council.
"The way the council was structured, it was just window dressing," he said. "Now, Iraqis will have a sense that they have a real and visible leadership here."
Appointed by Mr. Bremer in July, the council has largely been invisible to most Iraqis, who can see regular televised messages from Mr. Bremer but have seen little of the 24 members individually or as a group.
The American-led occupation, and the corresponding paralysis in the Governing Council, also weighed on the vast Iraqi public sector. Interim ministers have been named and many bureaucrats have returned to their offices. But the government has been rudderless, officials said, and unable to settle on a direction.
"We're in a rough patch until the constitution," said Ali Allawi, the interim trade minister and a former World Bank official who returned recently to Iraq after 30 years abroad. "The constitution has taken on a life of its own. It is the document that is supposed to resolve all these issues. But I think you'd have to have the wisdom of Solomon to come up with a solution."
The constitution is likely to become a battleground where the relative weight of the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish populations is determined.
Already some Sunni political leaders have expressed misgivings about calling elections. Although a minority of the population, Sunnis have long dominated the political elite of the country and were particularly favored over the Kurds and the brutally oppressed Shiite majority during the reign of Mr. Hussein.
"Elections, semielections, constitutional committees - all will work to their benefit," said Nasir Kamil al-Chadirchi, a Sunni council member.
"It's bad when someone tries to impose his opinion on others," he added, speaking earlier this week before the formal announcement of the sovereignty agreement. "Let's not have the majority impose its opinion on the minority."
Leading Shiite parties, have sought to allay any fears among their council colleagues and American officials that they want to create an Iranian-style Islamic state or a rigid theocracy like Saudi Arabia's.
"Iraq is moving toward a free market economy, so no laws can limit what anyone can do in the economic field," said Sheik Jalal Uldin al-Saghir, the representative of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. "But our program for the constitution is for it to respect the Islamic identity of the Iraqi people," he added. "No law should be passed that contradicts Islamic law in its broad principles."
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At Least 17 Dead as 2 U.S. Copters Collide Over Iraq
November 16, 2003
By DEXTER FILKINS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/international/middleeast/16COPT.html?hp
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 15 - Two American Black Hawk helicopters collided in midair and crashed Saturday evening in the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 17 of the American soldiers aboard and injuring 5 others, officials said. One other soldier was reported missing.
American officials said the collision occurred when one of the helicopters came under hostile fire from the ground and swerved upward to avoid it, driving its rotor into the second helicopter.
The Black Hawks, traveling after sunset, went down in a residential neighborhood on the western side of the city. It was unclear Saturday evening if there were any casualties among Iraqis living in the neighborhood where the crash occurred.
If initial estimates prove correct, the two Black Hawks that crashed Saturday would be the fourth and the fifth to be brought down as a result of hostile fire in the past three weeks.
With guerrilla war raging in the north, Iraq's civilian leaders promised in Baghdad to take full control of the country from their American occupiers in less than eight months and lay the foundations for a democratic state.
Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraqi's interim government, publicly affirmed Saturday the outlines of a deal struck Friday night between Iraq's interim leaders and the American civilian leadership here to transfer the powers of government, now in the hands of the Americans, to the Iraqi people.
Under the plan, town-hall style meetings in each of Iraq's 18 provinces would select a national assembly, which would then select the members of the transitional government. That new government, Mr. Talabani said, would probably contain an American-style separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers, as well as a guarantee of equality for all of Iraq's religious and ethnic groups.
The new Iraqi government would take over from the occupying forces by the end of June.
With Iraq's sovereignty restored, Mr. Talabani said, American soldiers would probably still remain in Iraqi but as invited guests, not as occupiers.
The keystones of a democratic Iraq - a new constitution and nationwide democratic elections - could be completed by the end of 2006, he said.
In a statement on Saturday, President Bush saluted the deal, calling it "an important step toward realizing the vision of Iraq as a democratic, pluralistic country." Reveling in the moment, Mr. Talabani said the agreement struck Friday would begin the revival of Iraqi political life after a quarter century of brutal and autocratic rule at the hands of Saddam Hussein.
"I am very happy and proud," Mr. Talabani said, his words broadcast across the Arab world. "The dream of the Iraqi people has been achieved today."
The deal affirmed Saturday was driven by a growing Iraqi impatience with the American occupation, and by an American recognition that its continuing hold on political power was becoming increasingly unpopular among ordinary Iraqis.
The growing number of American combat deaths here lent a sense of urgency to the negotiations. With anti-American feelings growing here, American officials are eager to dispel any notion that they intend to rule the place.
The helicopter crashes in Mosul lengthened the already grim roster of recent American deaths. The crashes on Saturday pushed the number of Americans killed in combat this month to more than 60.
In another incident on Saturday, one soldier from the First Armored Division was killed and two were wounded in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.
The attacks on American helicopters have been particularly damaging. Earlier this month, a Chinook helicopter ferrying soldiers bound for vacations was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, leaving 16 soldiers dead. On Nov. 7, a second helicopter, a Black Hawk, was shot down over Tikrit, presumably by a rocket-propelled grenade, as it approached its landing site. Six soldiers died in that attack.
In late October, another Black Hawk helicopter was shot down over Tikrit by a rocket-propelled grenade. No one was killed, but five soldiers were wounded.
After the recent downings, military officials said American helicopter pilots had been instructed to take additional measures to protect themselves from hostile fire.
It is not clear whether the Black Hawk that apparently came under fire on Saturday night was engaging in one of those maneuvers when it crashed into the second helicopter.
In the skies over Baghdad, the Black Hawks and Chinooks that used to lumber overhead and approach their landing sites at an easy pace now appear to move around at much higher speeds. They do not hover in one spot for very long. Both of the helicopters that went down on Saturday belonged to the 101st Airborne Division, an elite unit that specializes in assaulting enemy positions by ferrying in large number of troops through the air. American helicopters flying over Iraq typically fly in pairs, in part to protect one another.
Until recently, the area around Mosul, with its large ethnic Kurdish population, had been mostly peaceful. But in the past two months, American soldiers based in the city have been the targets of numerous attacks, resulting in a number of deaths and injuries. In November alone, at least 3 American soldiers have been killed there and more than 14 wounded.