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NUCLEAR
Canada's bid to site EU thermonuclear reactor project in jeopardy
When 'David' Took On Goliath
Italy shelves plans for nuclear waste storage facility after protests
EU nears decision on candidate for huge thermonuclear project
Russia, Pakistan, China gave nukes
US accuses Iran of "brazen" tricks to hide nuclear program
US left in delicate position over Iran nuclear demands
Iran Seeks U.N. Assurance on Nuclear Arms Issue
U.S. Assails Iran for Nuke Program 'Lies'
U.S. Says Iran Wants Bomb, Helps Revise Resolution
Europeans, U.S. Still at Odds Over Iran Resolution
Israel threatens strikes on Iranian nuclear targets
Work on N. Korea Nuke Reactors Suspended
Expert: reactor freeze won't kill talks
U.S. and Allies Suspend North Korea Nuclear Plant
U.S. sparks UN nuclear flap
Energy Dept. Pressed on Ill Nuke Workers
Survey to Look for Volcanoes by Nuke Site
Nuclear Plant Near Toledo Subpoenaed
Patriot Act Expansion Moves Through Congress
MILITARY
US begins hypersonic weapons program
Air Force scrubs MOAB test because of a malfunction
Eurocopter to build helicopters in China
Rockets Hit Two Hotels and Ministry in Baghdad
Truck Bomb Kills 5 in a Pro-U.S. Kurdish Stronghold in Northern Iraq
Israel's help
Israeli officials brush off criticism from Bush
Israel Misinformed Journalists
Bombers Hit British Targets in Istanbul
Bush Says Pentagon's Plan to Reduce Forces
Mother of 7 Released From Army Duty
G.O.P. to Run an Ad for Bush on Terror Issue
MI6 ran 'dubious' Iraq campaign
Bush, Blair Say Iraq War Is Not Cause of Attacks
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Terrorism Panel Subpoenas Tapes From New York
9/11 Panel Issues Third Subpoena
Gen. Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack
White House Is Evacuated, but the Scene is Serene
Error Caused White House Alert
Contractors Complain of TSA Limits
Security Rules Require Truckers to File Cargo Data
U.S. Set to Revise How It Tracks Some Visitors
F.B.I. Used Killers as Informants, Report Says
FBI Shielded Informants From Murder Charges, Panel Finds
Terrorism Inc.
ENERGY AND OTHER
Senate Derails Energy Bill - For Now
Brazil's Environmentalists Crying Foul
ACTIVISTS
Anti-War Demonstrators Vent at Bush
National Congress of American Indians asks Senate to kill energy bill
Marchers in London Denounce Bush Visit
Demonstration Turns Violent at Trade Talks in Miami
Protesters, Police Clash in Miami Anti-Accord Demonstrations
A Popular Voice for Peaceful Change in Battle-Scarred Burundi
Bush Meets More Activists in Sedgefield
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- canada
Canada's bid to site EU thermonuclear reactor project in jeopardy: ITER Canada
MONTREAL (AFP)
Nov 20, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031120212250.e44ply6j.html
Canada's bid to site the European Union's vast International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project is in jeopardy because the government has not committed enough cash to its bid, ITER Canada's president warned Thursday.
ITER Canada president and chief executive officer Murray Stewart told AFP the Canadian government has no present "offer on the table" for the multi-billion euro (dollar) project, which is expected to rain a financial windfull on its final location.
"As of today, we do not have an offer on the table," Stewart said.
He said, unless there is an international delay in the project, there is a risk Canada's bid to site the reactor will fall by the wayside unless vital financing is forthcoming.
The French, Spanish and Japanese governments are also pitching for the EU award to site the ITER. Project partners, which include the EU, Japan, the United States, Canada, China, Russia and South Korea, are expected to announce their chosen site for the reactor at a Washington meeting December 19-20.
But Canada's government has yet to give a financial green light to its bid, and its application has been slowed due to political events as the country waits for prime-minster-in-waiting Paul Martin to takeover from still serving premier Jean Chretien on December 12.
The potential siting of the reactor, billed as the largest international science project since the space station, in Clarington in the Canadian province of Ontario would require an investment of some 2.3 billion dollars Canadian (1.75 million dollars US), according to ITER Canada.
Ontario's state government has pledged to stump up half of the costs, but Stewart said the federal government had yet to respond to a request to meet the other half of the financing.
"We have been in touch with everybody, including Paul Martin ... we have a serious problem," Stewart said.
"Unless there is a delay internationaly, we will not have an offer on the table," he said.
ITER Canada is a non-profit organization, formed in 1997 between nuclear industry representatives, universitities and different government departments, charged with promoting Canada's bid to locate the reactor.
The ITER project seeks to produce in some 30 years clean energy at the pre-industrial stage, notably from hydrogen, through controlled-reproduction of the kind of fusion that occurs in the sun and other stars.
-------- depleted uranium
When 'David' Took On Goliath - One Dying Worker Challenges The Corporate Giants
by Davey Garland
2003-11-21
UN Observer
http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=1205&blz=1
The East Devon - West Dorset coastline has a history of producing and harbouring various trouble makers, be it the pirates and wreckers that inhabited these shores, attacking and sinking trading vessels in the 18th Century, or those who supported disputed heirs to the British crown, such as the Duke of Monmouth, landing his ill-fated cause against James I in 1685.
Upon the shingled beach at Seaton, a new challenger, picks and rolls selected pebbles in his hands, as he gently tosses them into the morning breakers. This person goes by the name of Richard David, or Nibby to his friends. He is set to start in motion one of the most controversial and difficult civilian claims against an employer over direct "toxic kill" levels and radiological contamination, unprecedented, in that the main cause of the collapse in Nibby's health is claimed to be depleted uranium (DU).
In his tiny home, not far from the seafront, Nibby reflects upon the last 15 years of his life, the steady deterioration of his own health and the deaths of his former work mates, colleagues and friends. Nibby was an engineer and machinist between 1985 - 1995, working for an aerospace firm in Somerset, (UK), known world wide for producing and designing helicopters and other parts for the industry.
In the last few years he has discovered that DU was used at the worksite during the period 1966 - 1982, with possible DU oxides emanating from helicopter ballast floating around his area of operation. Nibby's own task was fine finishing metal components with a scouring pad which produced a fine, almost invisible dust, resembling talcum powder, that was inhaled in each breath or would settle upon the work place and employees' clothing. This metal, he now, accepts, was possibly uranium, combined with titanium to form a metal alloy.
Nibby's daily prescribed medication lies out in a coloured line on his dressing table, a pile of pills which includes pain killers, a steroid inhaler, medication for lowered potassium, and diuretic tablets. It was 1985 when he first noticed upper respiratory complications, although conventional doctors failed to acknowledge these health problems. Through an acupuncturist friend, he was warned that his liver was under duress. The ailment continued and in 1989, with Union representation, Nibby's employer sent him for a full medical examination - but again they found nothing. Strangely, the report of this visit was never sent on to his own general practitioner for comment.
On reflection, Nibby acknowledges that those years were filled with constant pain, plus a growing discolouration and change in his skin texture and feeling, especially in his fingers. This was another mystery area to press upon his family's mind. Nibby's body failed him in many ways and at times, his life could be termed an "existence" rather than the life of a husband, father and friend.
In 1990, a top specialist in London began a union sponsored investigation of respiratory problems. Nibby was not able to see the conclusions of this report until 1996. It did in fact show that long term bi-lateral inflammation had caused permanent scarring of his windpipe.
By that time, Nibby's health had deteriorated further, showing increased breathlessness and incapacity, with no amount of antibiotics or inhalers solving the problem. Joint pain and muscular spasms made it almost impossible for him to walk and x-rays showed that both lungs had been permanently scarred and shrunken. In the next two years, other anomalies occured, including chronic fatigue and various growing lumps upon his skull, adding further pain and distress. Heartache continued when he was eventually diagnosed with a rare kidney disorder called Gitlemans Syndrome.
Nibby reaches for another photograph, which was taken in the early 1980's of him riding a bike, his face full of colour and cheer. He then opens his hands to show himself now. For a man in his early 40's who never smoked, was a keen athlete and embraced life fully, these debilitating symptoms were - and are - a living nightmare.
The Legal Struggle
Nibby's attempts to legally challenge his employer began in 1993, when his union persuaded him to meet a lawyer - who bluntly told him that he didn't stand a chance and that there was nothing wrong with him.
Nibby has travelled through 3 legal phases of his case with the company since 1990, starting off with trying to prove a toxic environment. In 1996, he tried to acquire union legal assistance when his lung disease was confirmed but this was dropped in 1997, due to poor medical and legal advice.
Undefeated, Nibby borrowed 500 pounds to issue a high court writ himself, but even after gathering all of his evidence, no medical expert would touch his case. Fortunately, he was eventually able to find a solicitor to represent him, and an out of court settlement was reached. However, 3 weeks later, came the devastating news that the results of independent testing by the Uranium Medical Research Centre in Canada - run under the auspices of Professor Durakovic - showed undisputedly that his body was contaminated with depleted uranium.
Further testing in Berlin has shown chromosomal damage which could have only occurred through radiation exposure and - like many gulf veterans who similarly proved positive in these tests - is far more likely to double the risk of cancer.
He immediately set about putting in a legal bid but, by this time, any chance of legal aid had been phased out for personal injury claims and his lawyers, after initial support, suggested that he would not be able to substantiate his charges, as his previous employer would defend all allegations, "scaring any solicitor into submission." Before this episode, Nibby was never aware that he was working with uranium based metals, and certainly no one was ever told or given any safety and protective information. It is certainly the end of an "illusion" that DU is only a military concern and now points to the stark reality that this pernicious substance is present and a danger to the general public.
Although Nibby is trying to secure an outcome that will make his life easier, (he is presently unable to secure any benefits, and his wife is working all hours to make ends meet) he feels that this case is not about just him any more, but about all the victims, both civilians and veterans, who have been contaminated by DU.
He looks at the pictures of his work mates, most of whom are now dead or dying of lung cancer or heart problems, in their 40's and 50's. Even his managing director died of throat cancer, directly after retirement. He believes that - like himself - this work-force was exposed to radioactive and poisonous substances.
Having been a county councillor for some years, Nibby had access to various environmental health reports, and began to research the subject of depleted uranium contamination, on his own. In the last few years, Nibby has now established close contacts with many specialists and scientists who support and confirm that Nibby was indeed in contact with radiological substances. Like many others, he finds that his case is not unique and that many unsuspecting victims like him have been contaminated.
He quotes two examples: firstly in Britain, the many scrap metal industry workers who were not aware that they were handling metal contaminated with radioactive DU, and secondly, after the El Al plane - with a still unknown cargo - crashed in Amsterdam in 1992, over 800 families and many clean-up workers have reported similar symptoms to those of veterans and other civilian war victims. Hundreds of kilograms of DU counterweights in the plane burned in the crash, contaminating the neighbourhood with deadly uranium oxide smoke.
Nibby's constant condemnation of the aerospace industry, which still uses this heavy metal, has also opened the discussion as to how much uranium based metals are being used generally within civilian life. In the US, some advocates of recycling DU have hinted that such metals could be used in everyday house-hold products, with DU reportedly having been used, some years ago, in the dental industry and within the building industry. In the UK, this concern is already being realised by some union representatives - who wish not to be named -claiming that these metals have already proliferated into a vast array of various products, such as flywheels and clutches with, again, very few employees aware of the danger.
At the recent World Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg, Nibby spoke passionately of the need to expose this cover-up of the effects of uranium metals, be it in the workplace or on the battlefield, and that there is a concerted effort by the manufacturers, government and military to hide the facts from an ever-worried public.
It is evident that the nuclear industry, with its waste problems, is increasingly looking towards finding an outlet, be it overtly or covertly, and is able, if need be, to conceal the source and composition of the materials being used, even if they are of radioactive origin.
Nibby's position is just the tip of the iceberg and although he has had some union support, officials are still silent - possibly worried about the outcome and loss of jobs - if it is ever discovered that these metals are being constantly worked upon with no safety or health prevention measures put in place.
Can the international trade union and anti-globalisation movement be intransigent, if so many workers and an unsuspecting public are at risk from the proliferation of this toxic metal ?
Science says no amount of exposure to radiation is too small to cause damage. In the case of DU, which is an alpha emitter and so does its damage once it is ingested and inside the body, then the findings and case studies from Afghanistan, the Balkans, and Iraq, where DU and uranium weapons were used, fully illustrate that the long term prognosis is very bleak, indeed.
Use of depleted uranium in weapons is illegal, according to the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, beginning with its pronouncements in Resolutions in 1996 and 1997 and then, in reports prepared at its request, submitted and accepted in 1997, 2002 and 2003. In particular, the 2002 and 2003 reports (U.N. Docs. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2002/38 and E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/35 prepared by Chief Justice Yueng Sik Yuen, Supreme Court, Mauritius) clearly indicate that weapons with depleted uranium are necessarily indiscriminate (weapons of indiscriminate effect, or WIE) and cause superfluous and unnecessary suffering. This makes their use incompatible with existing rules of armed combat.
It is highly regrettable that neither the United States nor Britain fully acknowledges the lethality of DU weapons, although studies made in the U.S., years ago, attest to awareness of it.
There are increasing calls for a moratorium on the use of DU weapons, due to their inherent illegality - but no matter, if DU is vaporized in the heat of weapons or when metal is drilled or sanded in a factory, the physical effects are the same. Those exposed, due to ruthless use of DU weapons in war or from factories making use of it, have a right to full disclosure, the highest standard of medical care and, of course, compensation.
Back on Seaton beach, Nibby catches his breath but manages to smile optimistically. Staring out to sea, he knows that the next few months will be trying and tiring but already, people are beginning to work, both locally and internationally, to support his cause and to spread information about the use of DU and other radioactive weapons/substances. This time, when David goes to meet Goliath, there will be a large crowd behind him, each hoping to throw a stone that will break this deadly charade and finally expose the truth about this metal.
Davey Garland
For those who want to support this campaign or raise funds for the Nibby David DU Support Fund, please contact: nddusupportfund@b...
Davey Garland is co-ordinator of the Pandora DU Research Project and is working with an alliance of other anti-DU/nuclear groups, environmentalists, trade-unionists and veterans for a moratorium on all radioactive weapons. For more details contact: pduproject@y... and visit: http://www.pandoraproject.org .
Ed. Note: For a graphic display, please watch the following - but only if you feel you can bear some very disturbing images. Reality can be shocking. http://www.ericblumrich.com/pl_lo.html
-------- europe
Italy shelves plans for nuclear waste storage facility after protests
ROME (AFP)
Nov 20, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031120213737.1b9x8zoo.html
The Italian government said Thursday it had shelved a decree authorising the construction of a single storage site for all the country's radioactive nuclear waste following widespread protests.
"In the wake of the protests brought about by the choice of the site for a nuclear waste storage facility, the government is ready to modify its decision," the government said in a statement.
The decision will go on ice pending parliamentary discussions and the formation of a commission to consult with scientists and regional authorities on the choice of Scanzano Jonico, in the southern region of Basilicata, it said.
On the basis of these talks, either the choice of the site will be confirmed or a new site will be chosen.
"Once the choice on the site is made, construction work will start and will be finished in five or six years," the government said.
The Italian government has since January sought to consolidate its nuclear waste storage facilities in order to better protect against a possible terrorist attack.
It issued a decree last week naming a new site to be located in the rural village of Scanzano Jonico capable of storing around 60,000 cubic metres of second and third category nuclear waste.
Almost 55,000 cubic metres of highly radioactive nuclear waste and nearly 300 tonnes of spent fuel are currently stored at 19 sites throughout Italy.
----
EU nears decision on candidate for huge thermonuclear project
BRUSSELS (AFP)
Nov 21, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031121132311.b7nt57a5.html
The European Union hopes next week to decide on whether France or Spain will go forward as a candidate to host an ambitious project to replicate the Sun's nuclear fusion, officials said Friday.
Spain on Thursday informed the European Commission that it was doubling its contribution to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactorproject to 900 million euros (1.07 billion dollars).
But Brussels said the announcement would have no bearing when EU industry ministers meet next Thursday to decide if Vandellos in Spain or Cadarache in southern France will go forward as the EU's candidate to host ITER.
"We insist that there should be just one European candidate at the end of all this for ITER," Commission spokesman Reijo Kemppinen told reporters.
Canada and Japan are also pitching for the 4.5-billion-euro project, which will seek to replicate the kind of nuclear fusion seen in the Sun to deliver clean energy from hydrogen.
Project partners, which include the EU, Japan, the United States, Canada, China, Russia and South Korea, are expected to announce their chosen site for the reactor at a Washington meeting next month.
-------- iran
Russia, Pakistan, China gave nukes
November 21, 2003
By George Jahn
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031120-090525-4293r.htm
VIENNA, Austria - The U.N. atomic agency has identified Russia, China and Pakistan as among the probable suppliers of equipment that Iran used to conduct suspected nuclear programs with weapons potential, diplomats said yesterday.
The diplomats spoke to the Associated Press as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) weighed how harshly to censure Tehran for two decades of covert nuclear activities, which Iran says were aimed at peaceful purposes.
The IAEA's 35-nation board is debating the wording of a resolution that would satisfy both U.S. calls for strong condemnation of Iran's past cover-ups and European desires to keep Iran cooperating by focusing on its recent openness.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA director-general, said agency delegates were discussing a "quite strong" resolution. The talks, which broke off yesterday after less than two hours, are to continue today.
Although Iran has acknowledged nearly two decades of concealment, it recently has begun cooperating with the agency in response to international pressure. To that end, it has suspended uranium enrichment - an activity that had raised U.S. suspicions of a nuclear-weapons agenda.
Iran says it enriched uranium only to produce power. Although admitting that some of its enrichment equipment had traces of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium, it insists those traces inadvertently were imported on material it purchased abroad.
However, Tehran says it cannot identify the countries of origin because it bought the centrifuges and laser-enrichment equipment through third parties.
The Vienna-based IAEA must know where the equipment came from if it is to ascertain whether Iran is telling the truth about the source of trace uranium.
The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to say how the agency established the probable origin of the equipment.
Pakistan, suspected from the start, repeatedly has denied any involvement.
Russia likewise denied that it was a willing participant in providing enrichment technology to Iran for the purpose of a nuclear-weapons program.
----
US accuses Iran of "brazen" tricks to hide nuclear program
VIENNA (AFP)
Nov 21, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031121182107.2yc94d5w.html
The United States said Friday that Iran had made "brazen and systematic" breaches nuclear safeguards as it pressed its case before the UN nuclear watchdog agency for a tough judgement on Iran's secret nuclear program.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-nation board of governors separately approved a deal allowing for more intrusive inspections of Iranian nuclear sites and said it was now ready to be signed by Tehran.
The IAEA meeting was adjourned until Wednesday after the United States and Europe's big three -- Britain, France and Germany -- failed in two days of intense, closed-door negotiations to agree on a resolution in response to the watchdog's report detailing almost two decades of hidden Iranian nuclear activities.
The adjournment would give time for the issue to be discussed "by home governments in their capitals," a Western diplomat said.
The United States wants Iran to be declared in "non-compliance" with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a move that could see the issue put before the UN Security Council, which could slap sanctions on Iran.
But many countries, led by Britain, France and Germany, think that taking the issue to the Security Council could cause a backlash, prompting Tehran to cut off cooperation with the IAEA.
US Ambassador to the IAEA Ken Brill told the board that Iran could not be seen as "a state that tried in good faith to meet its obligations" under international nuclear non-proliferation agreements, according to a copy of his speech given to reporters.
"Iran's breaches of its obligations have been brazen and systematic and far from merely 'technical' ones," Brill said.
He said Iran's claim to have turned a new page in cooperation since October can not be taken at face value since "so much of what it has said in the past year about its nuclear program has turned out to be false."
Brill said the IAEA has damaged its credibility by concluding there was as yet no evidence that Iran had a nuclear program.
But IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei rejected the charge by saying that his agency had after all been right in the past when it said there was no evidence in Iraq of a nuclear weapons program.
The IAEA board is considering a report from ElBaradei that outlines 18 years of hidden suspect nuclear activities by Iran, including making small amounts of plutonium and enriched uranium.
ElBaradei said the IAEA has no "evidence," however, that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, with investigations continuing.
But Brill said there clearly was evidence but no "proof" and that ElBaradei's comment had been misinterpreted.
Iran has cooperated with the IAEA since October 21, when it struck a deal with Britain, France and Germany to agree to wider, snap inspections and suspend the enrichment or uranium, in return for promises that the IAEA would not bring it before the Security Council, diplomats said.
After the IAEA board approved the additional protocol that allows for snap inspections, agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said it was now "ready to be signed".
But Iran refused to set a date for signing the text on the new inspections regime until its sees what sort of a resolution the board is to pass on its non-proliferation violations.
Iran's ambassador to the IAEA Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters the protocol and the resolution were a "package" together.
The United States, however, "is looking for some pretty strong language and is willing to compromise only to a point," a Western diplomat said.
A key sticking point in the so-called Euro 3's draft resolution is its saying that if Iran continues to cooperate, the issue of its compliance should stay with the IAEA.
The text says that should ElBaradei "report that there have been further significant failures, the board of governors would meet immediately and decide upon measures to be taken," according to a copy shown to reporters.
A diplomat said this formulation, however, was not enough since the term "significant failures" was vague.
"A failure is a failure," the diplomat said, stressing that the resolution should also unambiguously say when the matter would go to the Security Council.
----
US left in delicate position over Iran nuclear demands
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Nov 21, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031121210106.3l2yf19l.html
The US Department of State on Friday backed off demands to take Iran's nuclear program before the UN Security Council.
Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Washington hoped the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would "take firm action" in response to an IAEA report on Iran's suspect nuclear activities.
However, he refused to repeat a statement made on Thursday that Washington intended to take the matter before the Security Council.
"Our diplomatic discussions with (IAEA) board members are continuing" in Vienna, he said.
The United States wants the IAEA to declare Iran in non-compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. But it has failed to agree with Britain, France and Germany on a resolution in response to the report detailing almost two decades of hidden nuclear activities.
Ereli went too far in his statement during a State Department press briefing Thursday, a senior State Department official said privately.
The spokesman "might have been a little too forward leaning," the official said. "I'm not sure frankly, that referring it to the security council is something that we are insisting on in our negotiations."
Kenneth Brill, the US Ambassador to the IAEA has criticized Iran for backtracking on a pledge to accept wider inspections, after Tehran had promised full cooperation.
He said in Vienna, "Iran's breaches of its obligations have been brazen and systematic and far from merely 'technical' ones."
But the IAEA adjourned until Wednesday because of the failure to agree on a resolution.
Declaring Iran in "non-compliance" with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty could see the issue put before the UN Security Council, the only body which could slap sanctions on Iran.
But Britain, France and Germany fear an Iranian backlash that could lead Tehran to cut off cooperation with the IAEA.
----
Iran Seeks U.N. Assurance on Nuclear Arms Issue
November 21, 2003
New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/international/middleeast/21IRAN.html
VIENNA, Nov. 20 - An International Atomic Energy Agency debate about how to deal with the 18-year-long effort by Iran to conceal its nuclear programs got off to a sputtering start on Thursday, when the Iranian delegation said it would not commit itself to an accord that would open the nation to more intrusive inspections until an agreement is reached on how strongly the agency will condemn Iran for its past actions.
A meeting of the agency's board of governors was recessed after two hours.
The agency's director general, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, tried privately to persuade European nations to toughen the wording of a resolution under consideration by the the board to include specific references to Iran's nuclear "breaches" and a statement deploring its actions.
Iran has resisted those terms, and Germany, France, Britain and Russia have argued for a weakly worded resolution in the hope of encouraging Iranian leaders to open their program to further inspections.
The Bush administration has refused to give ground, saying that the agency's charter - and its future credibility - require it to report Iran's actions to the United Nations Security Council. That seemed highly unlikely, and Dr. ElBaradei repeated Thursday that there was "no evidence" that Iran had pursued a nuclear weapons program.
But American officials and outside experts say there is no other explanation for why a nation with abundant oil would spend millions of dollars on difficult, inefficient methods of enriching uranium at levels that could be useful for bomb-making.
The Bush administration is also pressing the board to include in its resolution a "trigger" that would result in penalties if Iran backed away from any new commitment.
"There is a new draft circulating that will make the United States happier, but not much happier," one diplomat here said.
-------
U.S. Assails Iran for Nuke Program 'Lies'
November 21, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Agency-Iran.html?pagewanted=all&position=
VIENNA, Austria (AP ) -- The United States voiced unprecedented criticism of the U.N. atomic agency chief Friday, suggesting he glossed over Iranian deceptions about its nuclear program, even as diplomats in Washington hinted at a compromise on whether the Iranian issue should be referred to the U.N. Security Council.
U.S. envoy Kenneth Brill attacked as ``questionable'' a report from International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei. That report said the agency had found ``no evidence'' of an Iranian nuclear program.
``Disingenuous,'' replied ElBaradei to Brill's criticism.
Despite the rhetoric, however, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli suggested the United States was backing away from its insistence that the IAEA board refer Iran's record on nuclear activities to the Security Council.
``We continue to work with our friends to make sure that the IAEA Board of Governors take fully into account what Dr. ElBaradei reported about Iran's nuclear program,'' he said in Washington.
Asked specifically if the United States still wants the Iran matter to be referred to the Security Council, Ereli said, ``I'm not going to negotiate a board of governor's resolution from the podium.''
But a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: ``I'm not sure, frankly, that referring it to the Security Council is something we are insisting on.''
On Thursday, Ereli had said the United States expects the board ``to meet its obligations under the IAEA statute to find that Iran has been in noncompliance with its safeguards agreement and to report that noncompliance to the UN Security Council.''
The exchange between Brill and ElBaradei, an Egyptian, reflected differences at the IAEA board meeting over whether to condemn Iran's past nuclear transgressions or focus on what major European nations say seems to be its newfound openness.
After two days of failure, the board adjourned until Wednesday in hopes of finding a compromise. IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the pause would allow for high-level talks in foreign capitals.
Addressing delegates, Brill criticized Iran for ``violations and lies'' by enriching uranium, processing small amounts of plutonium, and other activities that Washington says point to a weapons agenda.
``Iran systematically and deliberately deceived the IAEA and the international community about these issues for year after year after year,'' Brill said. The purpose, he said, was ``the pursuit of nuclear weapons.''
Such conduct ``constitutes noncompliance with its safeguards obligations,'' he said, in language that indirectly accused Iran of violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- an act that normally results in U.N. Security Council involvement.
Brill suggested a statement in ElBaradei's report was ``questionable'' in saying there was no ``evidence'' that Iran had tried to build nuclear weapons. Brill said the proper wording should have been that there was no ``proof.''
A combative ElBaradei dismissed the criticism.
``Frankly, I find it disingenuous that this word 'evidence' has suddenly become a matter of disbelief,'' he told board members, in comments made available to reporters.
Citing Black's Law Dictionary, ElBaradei, a lawyer, quoted entries from the book to plead his case that ``proof'' and ``evidence'' may be used interchangeably.
He suggested that in at least one instance -- the war in Iraq -- the IAEA's credibility was ``enhanced,'' and America's diminished, because there is still no sign of the nuclear weapons program that Washington accused Saddam Hussein of having.
``We reflect facts, as radar does, without partiality,'' ElBaradei said. ``We do not jump to conclusions or make leaps of faith. We have not said that we have come to the conclusion that the Iranian program is exclusively for peaceful purposes, because we still have work to do.''
In Washington, Ereli sought to smooth over the rift.
``There's no intention to impugn the credibility of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the fine work that Director ElBaradei has done in putting together what is an important report on Iran's nuclear program,'' Ereli said.
Earlier, Iran submitted a letter to the board agreeing to open its nuclear programs to pervasive spot inspections, giving up attempts to wait until it saw the text of the resolution and approved its language.
Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iran continued to insist it had the right to withdraw its pledge if the resolution made reference to Security Council involvement or contained other language it found unacceptable.
Such a move, however, would almost guarantee a strong resolution that might even meet U.S. wishes to have Iran declared in violation of safeguard agreements -- triggering possible Security Council involvement.
Asked what links there were between a soft resolution and his country's acceptance of wider inspections as well as its decision to suspend uranium enrichment -- both of which are board demands -- chief Iranian delegate Ali Akbar Salehi said: ``They all go together.''
He suggested the United States was isolated on the board.
``We think that the American delegation -- or the U.S. as a whole -- is sort of a hostage to its own accusations,'' Salehi said. ``And I think the majority of the board are looking forward to see that this ... is resolved peacefully.''
A diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said only a few countries -- Canada, Australia and Japan -- supported the U.S. position.
Salehi suggested that Germany, France and Britain -- the chief backers of a relatively soft resolution -- had pledged to keep the issue from going to the Security Council if Iran continued to cooperate with IAEA efforts to probe its nuclear past and present.
The European Union said it welcomed Iran's ``new attitude'' but warned that further ``significant breaches'' of IAEA agreements, ``or evidence of further concealment,'' would be met ``by an appropriate and immediate response from the international community'' -- shorthand for Security Council involvement.
ElBaradei has said he wants a strongly worded report that nonetheless stops short of asking for Security Council involvement.
On the Net:
IAEA Web site: www.iaea.org
--------
U.S. Says Iran Wants Bomb, Helps Revise Resolution
November 21, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran.html
VIENNA, Austria (Reuters) - The United States accused Iran Friday of secretly developing atomic weapons, but diplomats said Washington was willing to forego its demand to report Tehran to the U.N. Security Council for covering up nuclear research.
``So much of what (Iran) has said in the past year about its nuclear program has turned out to be false that there is no rational basis simply to assume the contrary now,'' said U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Kenneth Brill.
Iran's ``pursuit of nuclear weapons'' was clear, he added.
Washington says the credibility of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is at stake over Iran and has pushed the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) board to condemn Iran's two-decade cover-up of atomic research in the harshest possible terms in a resolution.
An IAEA report said Iran concealed a uranium enrichment program for 18 years and secretly reprocessed plutonium useable in weapons. It said there was ``no evidence'' of an arms program but the jury was still out as to whether one existed.
Brill told the IAEA Board of Governors the phrase ``no evidence'' was ``highly unfortunate'' in light of the revelations about Iran's cover-up and said the IAEA should have used the words ``no proof'' instead.
He said the wording used by the IAEA provoked ``expressions of disbelief that the institution charged with ... scrutinizing nuclear proliferation risks was dismissing important facts.''
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei lashed back, calling the U.S. statement ``disingenuous.''
After two-days of meetings in Vienna, the 35-member IAEA board adjourned until Wednesday to give diplomats time to consult with their capitals on the revision of resolution.
U.S. HELPS DRAFT NEW RESOLUTION
The United States has rejected as too weak two drafts of a French, British and German IAEA resolution that ``strongly deplores Iran's past breaches'' but stops short of sending Tehran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
Diplomats close to the negotiations said Washington would accept an indirect reference to Iran's NPT ``non-compliance'' and was willing to forgo an immediate report to the Council.
In exchange, the United States is backing a Japanese proposal to include a timetable in a revised resolution, which Washington will help London, Paris and Berlin draft.
Diplomats said the idea of a timetable setting dates by which certain specific goals should be achieved would keep the pressure on Iran to continue complying with U.N. inspectors.
Diplomats said it was unclear what exactly would be in the timetable, though it might include things like signing the NPT additional protocol allowing tougher IAEA inspections and complying with the protocol prior to its ratification by Iran.
Other European board members have joined Washington in refusing to back the first two French, German and British resolutions for being too weak in its condemnation of Iran's cover-up of key parts of its nuclear program.
The IAEA board also formally approved Iran's intention to sign the NPT additional protocol, although Tehran has said it will only sign the document if the board passes a resolution that leaves out the term ``non-compliance.''
(Additional reporting by Tehran bureau and Francois Murphy in Vienna).
--------
Europeans, U.S. Still at Odds Over Iran Resolution
November 21, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-nuclear-iran.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - European and U.S. diplomats were at loggerheads on Friday after late-night talks on a draft U.N. nuclear resolution that would condemn Iran for its 18-year concealment of research that could be used to make an atom bomb.
France, Britain and Germany spent much of Thursday revising a draft resolution in the hope of satisfying Washington's hard-liners, who want Iran declared in violation of international non-proliferation obligations. A final draft would be put to the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors.
Talks between the three European states and other IAEA board members continued late into the night in the hope of tabling a draft on Friday, but one diplomat close to the talks said it was unclear if the text would reach the board soon.
``It's not ready yet,'' a diplomat from a non-aligned country told Reuters. ``I don't know if it will be tabled today.''
Another Western diplomat told Reuters the three European powers were managing the drafting process. The United States, which accuses Iran of developing a secret atomic weapons program, has rejected two drafts so far for being too soft on the Islamic republic.
``There are instructions coming out of London based on talks between the Bush administration and the British,'' the diplomat said, referring to President Bush's state visit to Britain.
U.S. negotiators have agreed to forego an immediate report on Iran's breaches to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose economic sanctions, but they still insist that Iran be declared in ``non-compliance'' with international nuclear obligations.
In a new report on Iran, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Tehran had been guilty of numerous breaches of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), including the undeclared production of plutonium and enrichment of uranium.
In his report, ElBaradei said there was no evidence to date of a secret nuclear weapons program, but the jury was still out on whether Tehran's nuclear aims were entirely peaceful as it insists.
SECURITY COUNCIL
The United States also wants the resolution to include a ``trigger mechanism'' in the event of further breaches by Iran.
A trigger is in the revised draft -- a clause calling for the board to meet and decide on measures to be taken if further breaches are uncovered. ``Measures'' would mean reporting Iran to the Security Council.
In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters the United States was trying to exert the maximum influence on proceedings.
``They are looking for excuses to send Iran's case to the Security Council, but initiatives from us and the Europeans remove the excuses,'' he said.
But at the IAEA's headquarters in Vienna, it was not simply a case of the United States versus Europe.
One diplomat said the proposed resolution had a clause calling for an expansion of a Franco-German-British deal with Tehran into an agreement between Iran and the entire IAEA board, something that most board members found unacceptable.
Last month, the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany agreed to consider an exchange of technology with Iran if it accepted tougher, short-notice IAEA inspections and suspended its uranium enrichment program.
European diplomats outside the ``big three'' states have complained privately that London, Paris and Berlin appointed themselves the spokesmen for all 25 of the present and future EU members but do not represent the views of the entire bloc. (Additional reporting by Tehran bureau and Francois Murphy in Vienna).
-------- israel
Israel threatens strikes on Iranian nuclear targets
ROSS DUNN in JERUSALEM,
Sun 23 Nov 2003
Scotsman
http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1292472003
ISRAEL has warned that it is prepared to take unilateral military action against Iran if the international community fails to stop any development of nuclear weapons at the country's atomic energy facilities.
As the International Atomic Energy Agency prepares to meet again this week to discuss the situation in Iran, Israel has told Washington it is prepared to act alone and launch a strike similar to its attack on Iraq in 1981 when its air force bombed a nuclear reactor near Baghdad.
In an apparent attempt to increase pressure on the IAEA and United Nations to limit the development of Iran's nuclear facilities, Israel's defence minister Shaul Mofaz has made what sources have described as a warning of "unprecedented severity".
At the time of the Iraq attack, Israel defended its actions, claiming it had dealt a devastating blow to Saddam Hussein's goal of developing nuclear weapons. Israel views Iran in much the same way as it did Saddam's Iraq.
Mofaz set out his government's position last week during a visit to the United States stating that "under no circumstances would Israel be able to tolerate nuclear weapons in Iranian possession".
He said that in the course of the next year Iran's drive for nuclear weapons would "reach the point of no return".
Mofaz's warning has been reinforced by Meir Dagan, the head of Israel's secret services, Mossad, who claimed that the spectre of nuclear weaponry in Iran represented the greatest threat Israel had faced since the founding of the Jewish state in 1948.
Addressing Israel's foreign affairs and defence committee, he added that he thought Iranian nuclear capabilities would pose a threat not only to Israel but to Europe as well. He also said that the Iranians were developing ground-to-ground missiles with a range of thousands of kilometres.
Dagen dismissed Iran's claims that it had no plans to equip its missiles with atomic warheads. He said the reactor at Bashir in Iran was far too large to be used solely for generating electricity. He added that Iran was close to completing the building of a uranium enrichment facility and it would have the potential to produce 10 nuclear bombs a year. The European Union position has been lightweight until now
The Israeli warning follows recent statements by Iran to the IAEA claiming that it is temporarily suspending its uranium enrichment programme and insisting that its atomic energy programme is only for peaceful purposes.
But Israel rejected Iran's claims and took its case directly to the Vienna-based international watchdog where foreign affairs minister Silvan Shalom met with the director of the IAEA, Mohammed El Baradei. Shalom said the latest IAEA report "clearly indicated continuous Iranian violation over the past 20 years of its commitments to the international community regarding the nuclear issue and its programme to develop nuclear weapons".
During the meeting, Shalom called on the agency and the international community to act to guarantee that Iran abandons all of its efforts to enrich uranium.He argued that inspection of Iranian facilities should be rigorous and continuous and added that the issue should also be addressed by the UN Security Council.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon also weighed into the debate during talks last week with the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Rome. "I spoke at length with Berlusconi about the danger posed by Iran... It's the number one danger," he said. Sharon called on Italy to appeal to the rest of Europe to take a stronger stand against Iran.
"I hope that Italy keeps Iran in very close check, because it seems to me that the European Union position has been lightweight up until now," he said.
Sharon's concerns are shared by the United States. President George Bush said last week that the UN nuclear agency must hold Iran accountable under international non-proliferation agreements.
His appeal came amid divisions between the US and some European leaders over Iran's nuclear programme, in advance of the key meeting of the IAEA governing board in Vienna.
Bush administration officials maintain that Iran has not been completely forthcoming to European envoys about its nuclear programme.
But the US administration has given key European foreign ministers credit for going to Tehran last month and getting a commitment from the Iranians to, among other things, stop enriching uranium.
At the same time, Washington continues to insist that Iran has been hiding a nuclear weapons programme and is concerned that this week's IAEA board meeting will end without the matter being referred to the Security Council.
The issue was on the agenda at a recent State Department meeting between Secretary of State Colin Powell and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who made the trip to Tehran last month along with his British and French counterparts.
Then Powell took issue with an assertion by European Union chief diplomat Javier Solana that Iran has been "honest" in its dealings with the international community on its nuclear programme.
"I wouldn't have gone quite as far," Powell said. "The Iranians have provided us with a great deal of information. It confirms what the United States has been saying for some time, and which we believe, that the Iranian nuclear development programme was for more than just the production of power; that it had intent to produce a nuclear weapon. And I think that the information that has come forward establishes that," he said.
Fischer sounded a similar theme in his remarks in Washington, saying recent Iranian actions had been "quite positive" but that close scrutiny was needed.
"We are moving forward based on realism, and realism based on transparency. I think we are moving in the right direction. But we must go into the details now.
-------- korea
Work on N. Korea Nuke Reactors Suspended
November 21, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-North-Korea.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- The United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union decided Friday to suspend construction of two nuclear reactors in North Korea, which is suspected of secretly developing atomic weapons.
The four are members of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization executive board, which had been building the light-water reactors under a 1994 deal between the United States and North Korea. The reactors were meant to come online in 2007.
The suspension will be for one year, the board said in a statement from its New York headquarters, announcing a decision reached earlier this month.
However, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Thursday the U.S. position was that ``there's no future for the reactor project.''
The light-water reactors, difficult to adapt to nuclear weapons production, were meant to replace three North Korean reactors that are able to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
North Korea has said it is enriching uranium, which could be used in bombs. Most security analysts believe the communist nation has reprocessed enough plutonium from spent fuel rods to make at least two bombs and fear it may be stepping up weapons production.
The future of the $4.6 billion reactor project came into question when it became apparent a year ago that North Korea was violating a 1994 agreement to cease any nuclear weapons programs.
Japan said it hoped Friday's announcement would force North Korea to reconsider its nuclear ambitions, noting the KEDO board could decide to resume construction at any time so long as Pyongyang made clear it was abandoning its weapons program.
``We'd certainly hope to see a positive response from North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons development program in an irreversible, complete, and verifiable manner,'' said Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiro Okuyama.
Meanwhile, North Korea on Friday berated Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for calling its regime ``evil,'' and accused Washington of deception.
The statement came as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly wrapped up an Asian tour and left for Washington to further coordinate policy amid hopes for a second round of six-nation talks on the standoff over North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
``Recently the Bush administration is talking about offering a security guarantee for our country, but the slander by Rumsfeld, who leads the U.S. policy, shows that the 'security guarantee' is nothing more than a play aimed at deceiving us,'' KCNA, the North's official news agency, said in a commentary. The commentary was monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
This shows that it is only right ``for us to increase the nuclear deterrent force,'' KCNA said.
North Korea has accused Washington of planning a pre-emptive attack against it, after labeling the communist country part of an ``axis of evil'' along with Iran and Iraq.
On Friday, Kelly met his South Korean counterpart, Assistant Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck, for a second day in the South Korean capital, Seoul. They discussed security assurances for North Korea, one of Pyongyang's key conditions for abandoning its nuclear ambitions.
Kelly made a quick tour of Asia this week amid efforts to hold another round of the nuclear talks involving the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, China and Russia. He visited Tokyo and Beijing before coming to Seoul.
Diplomatic efforts to resume the six-nation conference gained speed last month after North Korea agreed ``in principle'' to return to the negotiating table. Pyongyang also dropped its demand for a nonaggression treaty with Washington, saying it would consider President Bush's offer for written security assurances from the United States and North Korea's neighbors.
The first six-nation conference in August ended without an agreement on when to meet again.
Upon arrival in South Korea on Wednesday, Kelly said it was uncertain whether a second round of six-nation talks will take place next month. South Korean officials have said the talks could be held Dec. 17-18.
----
Expert: reactor freeze won't kill talks
Nov. 22, 2003
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20031122-074118-5660r.htm
SEOUL, South Korea -- The U.S.-led consortium's decision to suspend its nuclear project in North Korea is not expected to halt mediation between North Korea and its neighbors.
Although the one-year suspension has clearly angered officials in Pyongyang, the North Koreans are expected to continue participating in the six-way nuclear forum, the Korea Herald reported Saturday.
Experts said the North recognized the need for negotiations to break the current impasse and the one-year suspension of the light-water nuclear reactor construction has long been expected.
The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization officially announced in New York on Friday that it would freeze the $4.6 billion project for one year due to North Korea's nuclear threat in violation of the 1994 Agreed Framework.
The decision came amid growing diplomatic engagement between the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia to reconvene their talks in December.
----
U.S. and Allies Suspend North Korea Nuclear Plant
November 21, 2003
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-reactors.html
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States and its key Asian and European allies said on Friday they were suspending a North Korean nuclear power project for one year, but stopped short of scrapping it as the Bush administration wanted.
The New York-based Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, or KEDO, said the suspension would start on Dec. 1. A decision to resume operations will be made within a year while five countries try to persuade communist Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons programs that have spooked the United States and nations in the region.
``KEDO is not leaving the place,'' A diplomatic source said. ``Hopefully you will have a diplomatic outcome in the talks ... and the organization may be involved in delivering what kind of energy assistance has been decided.''
KEDO was the international consortium established to run and manage a project that stemmed from the so-called Agreed Framework between the Clinton administration and Pyongyang.
North Korea agreed to freeze nuclear programs in return for two light-water nuclear reactors, which could not be used for weapons programs. The United States agreed to send fuel oil to meet North Korea's energy needs.
The deal began to break down when the United States said in October 2002 that the North Koreans had admitted working on a secret uranium enrichment project.
Relations remain tense between Washington and the insular, unpredictable state that President Bush bracketed as part of an ``axis of evil'' along with Iran and Iraq under former President Saddam Hussein.
U.S. DECLARES SATISFACTION
A State Department official said the United States was satisfied with Friday's multilateral decision, although it fell short of the Bush administration's position, which was to scrap the project.
KEDO, which includes the United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union, would maintain about 100 caretakers, most of them South Korean nationals, at the reactor site in Kumho on the eastern coast of North Korea, an official said.
``The executive board of KEDO, given that the conditions necessary for continuing the light water reactor project have not been met by the DPRK (North Korea), has decided to suspend the light water reactor project,'' KEDO said in its announcement, which was expected after intense pressure from Washington.
``The suspension process will require preservation and maintenance both on-site and off-site. KEDO continues to consult with the DPRK,'' the KEDO statement said.
Meanwhile, James Kelly, the top U.S. envoy on North Korea, ended a three-day visit to South Korea on Friday. He was returning to Washington to continue diplomatic efforts next week to arrange six-nation talks aimed at halting all of Pyongyang's nuclear programs.
Delegates from the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan met inconclusively in Beijing in August and were expected to meet again next month, but whether the parties would meet in December was uncertain.
-------- un
U.S. sparks UN nuclear flap
Associated Press,
Friday, Nov. 21, 2003
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031121.wnuke1121/BNStory/International/
Vienna - The United States voiced unprecedented criticism of the U.N. atomic agency chief Friday, suggesting he glossed over Iranian deceptions about its nuclear program, even as diplomats in Washington hinted at a compromise on whether the Iranian issue should be referred to the U.N. Security Council.
U.S. envoy Kenneth Brill attacked as "questionable" a report from International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei. That report said the agency had found "no evidence" of an Iranian nuclear program.
"Disingenuous," replied Dr. ElBaradei to Mr. Brill's criticism.
Despite the rhetoric, however, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli suggested the United States was backing away from its insistence that the IAEA board refer Iran's record on nuclear activities to the Security Council.
"We continue to work with our friends to make sure that the IAEA Board of Governors take fully into account what Dr. ElBaradei reported about Iran's nuclear program," he said in Washington.
Asked specifically if the United States still wants the Iran matter to be referred to the Security Council, Mr. Ereli said, "I'm not going to negotiate a board of governor's resolution from the podium."
But a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "I'm not sure, frankly, that referring it to the Security Council is something we are insisting on."
On Thursday, Mr. Ereli had said the United States expects the board "to meet its obligations under the IAEA statute to find that Iran has been in noncompliance with its safeguards agreement and to report that noncompliance to the UN Security Council."
The exchange between Mr. Brill and Dr. ElBaradei, an Egyptian, reflected differences at the IAEA board meeting over whether to condemn Iran's past nuclear transgressions or focus on what major European nations say seems to be its newfound openness.
After two days of failure, the board adjourned until Wednesday in hopes of finding a compromise. IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the pause would allow for high-level talks in foreign capitals.
Addressing delegates, Mr. Brill criticized Iran for "violations and lies" by enriching uranium, processing small amounts of plutonium, and other activities that Washington says point to a weapons agenda.
"Iran systematically and deliberately deceived the IAEA and the international community about these issues for year after year after year," Mr. Brill said. The purpose, he said, was "the pursuit of nuclear weapons."
Such conduct "constitutes noncompliance with its safeguards obligations," he said, in language that indirectly accused Iran of violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty - an act that normally results in U.N. Security Council involvement.
Mr. Brill suggested a statement in Dr. ElBaradei's report was "questionable" in saying there was no "evidence" that Iran had tried to build nuclear weapons. Mr. Brill said the proper wording should have been that there was no "proof."
A combative Dr. ElBaradei dismissed the criticism.
"Frankly, I find it disingenuous that this word 'evidence' has suddenly become a matter of disbelief," he told board members, in comments made available to reporters.
Citing Black's Law Dictionary, Dr. ElBaradei, a lawyer, quoted entries from the book to plead his case that "proof" and "evidence" may be used interchangeably.
He suggested that in at least one instance - the war in Iraq - the IAEA's credibility was "enhanced," and America's diminished, because there is still no sign of the nuclear weapons program that Washington accused Saddam Hussein of having.
"We reflect facts, as radar does, without partiality," Dr. ElBaradei said. "We do not jump to conclusions or make leaps of faith. We have not said that we have come to the conclusion that the Iranian program is exclusively for peaceful purposes, because we still have work to do."
In Washington, Mr. Ereli sought to smooth over the rift.
"There's no intention to impugn the credibility of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the fine work that Director ElBaradei has done in putting together what is an important report on Iran's nuclear program," Mr. Ereli said.
Earlier, Iran submitted a letter to the board agreeing to open its nuclear programs to pervasive spot inspections, giving up attempts to wait until it saw the text of the resolution and approved its language.
Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iran continued to insist it had the right to withdraw its pledge if the resolution made reference to Security Council involvement or contained other language it found unacceptable.
Such a move, however, would almost guarantee a strong resolution that might even meet U.S. wishes to have Iran declared in violation of safeguard agreements - triggering possible Security Council involvement.
Asked what links there were between a soft resolution and his country's acceptance of wider inspections as well as its decision to suspend uranium enrichment - both of which are board demands - chief Iranian delegate Ali Akbar Salehi said: "They all go together."
He suggested the United States was isolated on the board.
"We think that the American delegation - or the U.S. as a whole - is sort of a hostage to its own accusations," Mr. Salehi said. "And I think the majority of the board are looking forward to see that this ... is resolved peacefully."
A diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said only a few countries - Canada, Australia and Japan - supported the U.S. position.
Mr. Salehi suggested that Germany, France and Britain - the chief backers of a relatively soft resolution - had pledged to keep the issue from going to the Security Council if Iran continued to cooperate with IAEA efforts to probe its nuclear past and present.
The European Union said it welcomed Iran's "new attitude" but warned that further "significant breaches" of IAEA agreements, "or evidence of further concealment," would be met "by an appropriate and immediate response from the international community" - shorthand for Security Council involvement.
Dr. ElBaradei has said he wants a strongly worded report that nonetheless stops short of asking for Security Council involvement.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Energy Dept. Pressed on Ill Nuke Workers
November 21, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/health/AP-Sick-Workers.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senators complained Friday that the Energy Department is moving too slowly toward promised compensation to ill nuclear weapons workers. Agency officials responded that Congress doesn't provide the program enough money.
``It's a complete disaster,'' Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said about the compensation program in a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Congress established the program three years ago and put the Energy Department in charge of getting aid to government contract workers exposed to toxic substances while building the nation's bombs.
Reversing a decades-old policy, the department was told to help the workers file claims under state compensation systems and direct its contractors not to fight the claims.
Congressional auditors, however, found a seven-year backlog of unprocessed claims because the department is acting so slowly.
About 20,000 workers have filed for help. So far, the Energy Department has told a little more than 100 of them whether evidence shows their illness was caused by their jobs.
Energy Undersecretary Robert Card said Congress should give the agency more money if lawmakers want the program to move faster.
Congress approved $25 million for the program for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1. Card said another $30 million was necessary to clear the claims backlog.
Lawmakers were skeptical that money alone would fix the program's problems.
``I'm loathe to say you did a terrible job, so here's more money,'' said Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo.
Several senators said they would try to move the program to the Labor Department, which has more experience running compensation programs. Against Energy's opposition, efforts to do that failed this year.
Most of the claims are from people who worked at Energy Department facilities in nine states: Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington.
On the Net:
Energy Department program:
http://tis.eh.doe.gov/advocacy
-------- nevada
Survey to Look for Volcanoes by Nuke Site
November 21, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Yucca-Mountain-Volcanoes.html
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Aerial surveys will look for evidence of hidden volcanoes around the southern Nevada site tapped to be the nation's nuclear waste repository.
The field studies, expected in February around Yucca Mountain, will use aircraft equipped with magnetic-sensing instruments to find where workers should drill in search of evidence of volcanic activity, Energy Department geologist Eric Smistad said Thursday.
Opponents of the project say they fear dormant volcanoes could become active and spawn earthquakes that could rupture containers buried in the repository, possibly releasing lethal radioactivity.
``The question is, 'Are there indeed buried volcanoes?''' Smistad said after presentations to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste, which met in Las Vegas.
The studies were approved by the Energy Department even though previous scientific work found that extinct volcanoes and cinder cones near the mountain posed no credible threat to the government's plans for burying spent nuclear fuel and highly radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain.
New studies show that scientific work that was used to support recommending the site last year by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham was not finished, said Bob Loux, director of the state of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, which has fought for years against the Yucca Mountain dump.
-------- ohio
Nuclear Plant Near Toledo Subpoenaed
November 21, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-FirstEnergy-Subpoena.html
CLEVELAND (AP) -- A federal grand jury is seeking documents from FirstEnergy Corp. concerning its damaged nuclear plant along Lake Erie.
FirstEnergy said in a filing Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission that its FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. subsidiary recently received a grand jury subpoena, which calls for documents and records relating to the inspection and maintenance of the reactor vessel head at Davis-Besse.
The plant along Lake Erie near Toledo has been shut down since February 2002. A month later a leak was discovered that had allowed boric acid to eat nearly through the 6-inch-thick steel cap covering the plant's reactor vessel.
The documents and materials are to be presented to a grand jury of U.S. District Court for Northern Ohio.
James Matthew Cain, executive assistant U.S. attorney in Cleveland, said Friday he could neither confirm nor deny the existence of a grand jury investigation.
``We will comply with the subpoena and fully cooperate with the investigation,'' said FirstEnergy spokesman Todd Schneider.
FirstEnergy said in the filing that it was unable to predict the outcome of the investigation.
The company's nuclear operations also remain subject to civil enforcement action by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission related to Davis-Besse, which had the most extensive corrosion ever at a U.S. nuclear reactor. Discovery of the problem led to a nationwide review of all 69 similar plants.
The shutdown has cost FirstEnergy more than $500 million for repairs and the purchase of power from other sources, and the company still does not have federal approval to restart the plant.
Also Friday, Ohio officials said state utility regulators will vote next week whether to order FirstEnergy to upgrade equipment that was blamed for contributing to the nation's worst blackout.
A report by a task force of U.S. and Canadian energy officials released Wednesday pointed to the failure of a FirstEnergy computer system that monitors electricity flow in causing the Aug. 14 blackout, which affected 50 million people from Connecticut to Michigan.
The task force found that the blackout was triggered by the failure of three high-voltage lines belonging to FirstEnergy. That led to a series of transmission-line failures that knocked out more than 263 power plants across the Midwest, Northeast and Ontario, the report said.
Mark Durbin, a spokesman for FirstEnergy, said the company's SEC filing revealing the demand for Davis-Besse documents ``is a totally separate issue and is not related to the blackout.''
Headquartered in Akron, FirstEnergy has seven electric utility operating companies serving 4.3 million customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It has annual revenue of $12 billion.
On the Net:
FirstEnergy: http://www.mfirstenergycorp.com
-------- us politics
Patriot Act Expansion Moves Through Congress
by Jim Lobe
November 22, 2003
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lobe112203.html
Congress is poised to approve new legislation that amounts to the first substantive expansion of the controversial USA Patriot Act since it was approved just after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
Acting at the Bush administration's behest, a joint House-Senate conference committee has approved a provision in the 2004 Intelligence Authorization bill that will permit the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to demand records from a number of businesses - without the approval of a judge or grand jury - if it deems them relevant to a counter-terrorism investigation.
The measure would extend the FBI's power to seize records from banks and credit unions to securities dealers, currency exchanges, travel agencies, car dealers, post offices, casinos, pawnbrokers and any other business that, according to the government, has a "high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax or regulatory matters." Such seizures could be carried out with the approval of the judicial branch of government.
Until now only banks, credit unions, and similar financial institutions were obliged to turn over such records on the FBI's demand.
Shortly after the conference agreement was reached, the House of Representatives approved the underlying authorization bill by a margin of 263 to 163. The measure is expected to pass the Senate shortly.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said it was "disappointed" with the House's approval, but also expressed satisfaction that a number of lawmakers on both left and right decided to oppose the bill because they oppose the records provision, whose inclusion in the bill was discovered by staff aides only last week.
Particularly notable in Thursday's House vote was the defection by several conservative Republicans from the administration's fold.
"This PATRIOT Act expansion was the only controversial part of this legislation, and it prompted more than a third of the House, including 15 conservative Republicans, to change what is normally a cakewalk vote into something truly contested," said Timothy Edgar, ACLU Legislative Counsel.
"One need look no further than this vote to get an effective gauge of the PATRIOT Act's lack of popularity on Capitol Hill and among the American people," he said.
The USA PATRIOT Act - which gives unprecedented powers to the FBI and the federal government as a whole and was rammed through Congress at the administration's behest just six weeks after the 9/11 attacks - has evoked great controversy.
An unusual coalition of liberal, left, and right-wing groups is convinced that the law's expansion of the government's surveillance and investigatory powers threatens individual freedoms and privacy rights.
More than 200 local governments, including some of the country's largest cities, have approved resolutions upholding the full enjoyment of the rights guaranteed in the Constitution and urging a narrowing of the USA PATRIOT Act, while the Senate Judiciary Committee has been holding a series of critical hearings over the past month about the Act's impact.
Members of the Judiciary Committee, including Republican Larry Craig of Idaho and five Democratic senators, sent a letter to the conference committee earlier this week urging it strip the new provision from the intelligence bill so that it could be taken up by their Committee in public hearings. The provision has never been publicly debated.
"I'm concerned about this," Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, who tried unsuccessfully to limit the life of the new provision, told the New York Times. "The idea of expanding the powers of government gives everyone pause except the Republican leadership."
The government wants these powers in order to more effectively prosecute the "war on terrorism," although critics warn that, once given these powers, the FBI may use them in cases that are not relevant to terrorism in order to gather evidence against other targets of investigation.
Indeed, recent Senate hearings have covered incidents in which information about individuals was obtained by the FBI through the use of its counter-terrorism powers even though the investigations were directed against what the ACLU called "garden-variety criminals."
The provision not only permits the FBI to seize records from more kinds of businesses; it also forbids businesses from informing their clients about the seizures.
In that respect, it is comparable to a particularly controversial section of the PATRIOT Act permitting the FBI to seek an order for library records for an "investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities" and imposing a gag order on librarians, who are prohibited from telling anyone that the FBI demanded the records. Librarians and civil-liberties groups have sued the government to have that section declared unconstitutional.
"The more checks and balances against government abuse are eroded, the greater that abuse," said the ACLU's Edgar. "We're going to regret these initiatives down the road."
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms
US begins hypersonic weapons program
21 November 2003
New Scientist
by Celeste Biever
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994408
The US military has begun development of an ultra-high speed weapons system that would enable targets virtually anywhere on Earth to be hit within two hours of launch from the continental US.
Ten companies have been given grants by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Pentagon for six-month "system definition" studies. If the Pentagon likes the results, a three-year design and development phase will begin.
The ultimate aim, slated for around 2025, is a reusable Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV) that can take off from a conventional runway in the US and strike targets up to 16,700 kilometres (10,350 miles) away.
"There is a strategic military need to be able to strike potentially dangerous military targets that are far away and may only be accessible for a short period of time," explains Daniel Goure, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Washington DC.
Current cruise missiles travel relatively slowly, meaning a target may move before it arrives. One solution is to use military bases in foreign countries, but this brings political and logistical difficulties. A hypersonic weapons systems solves both problems.
However, experts describe the technical challenges posed by the program as "tough" and "challenging". Tearing through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds requires materials that can withstand the phenomenal temperatures produced by air resistance. Travelling above the atmosphere, in space, avoids this, but would require the creation of a new type of rocket-plane hybrid vehicle.
Twin track
The Pentagon has split the project into two tasks. The nearer-term task, aiming for 2010, is the development of a weapons delivery system and rocket to launch it. The Common Aero Vehicle would be an unpowered but manoeuvrable hypersonic craft capable of carrying about 500 kilograms of munitions over a range of 5500 km.
The CAV would be launched into space by the new rocket, before being guided down by GPS to its target. DARPA hopes the rocket could also be used for satellite launches and such a launcher will be unveiled on 4 December by California-based company Spacex, one of the grant recipients.
The CAV would be used in the longer-term HCV project. Several bomb-laden CAVs would be fitted inside the HCV to provide its firepower. But the HCV will be a much bigger technical challenge.
It will need to fly like an aeroplane, so that it can take off and land on a runway. But air-breathing aeroplane engines will not work above the atmosphere. Therefore a hybrid fuel system would be required, enabling a stored oxidiser to be supplied to the engines when the HCV is in space.
Star Wars
Similar hi-tech projects backed by the US military have not worked out well, for example the 1980's Star Wars program. But Goure is optimistic about the latest program, which is called Falcon: "I don't think there is any reason why we won't be able to do this very well."
But Livingston Holder, of Andrews Space in Seattle, a Falcon grant recipient, says it could be "tough". He says: "We can propel smaller objects at high velocity for short periods of time, but we can't yet cruise across the ocean."
There could also be problems with securing intelligence enabling a target 16,000 km away to be accurately identified. "It's going to be a challenge to be accurate at high speed, but it's not insurmountable," Goure told New Scientist.
----
Air Force scrubs MOAB test because of a malfunction
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Nov 20, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031120210740.0138ifp5.html
The US air force scrubbed a test in Florida Thursday of a 21,700-pound MOAB bomb, the largest conventional bomb in the US inventory, because of an electrical malfunction in the test equipment, a spokesman said.
"They hope to reschedule it soon but we don't have a firm date," said Jake Swenson, a spokesman for the Air Force Research Laboratory at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
The test would have been only the second of the MOAB, which was first tested March 11 and rushed into service for the war in Iraq. Several of the weapons were shipped to the Gulf region in April, a Pentagon official said at the time.
MOAB stands for Massive Ordnance Air Blast but the bomb is known informally as the "mother of all bombs."
It is similar to the 15,000 pound "daisy cutter," which was used to raze jungle for helicopter landing pads in Vietnam, to clear minefields in the first Gulf war and more recently to blow out caves in Afghanistan.
The test was supposed to check out the reliability of the bomb's components and to certify for use in an MC-130 Combat Talon 1 aircraft, which is used by special operations forces. The first test certified it for use on an MC-130 Combat Talon 2 aircraft.
The MOAB has a satellite guidance system and a tail kit to steer it to within about 13 meters (14 yards) of its target.
It is so big it has to be dragged out of the back of a C-130 cargo plane by a parachute.
-------- business
Eurocopter to build helicopters in China
SHANGHAI (AFP)
Nov 21, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031121054547.tsveyx5g.html
China's Hafei Aviation Industry on Friday inked a deal to build helicopters in the northeast of the country with France's Eurocopter and Singapore Technologies Aerospace.
Hafei, a listed subsidiary of military contractor China Aviation Industry Corp II, will produce EC120 helicopters, a product it already supplies parts for, the company said in a statement.
It provide no further details and company officials were not immediately available for comment.
Eurocopter, a wholly-owned subsidiary of European aerospace consortium EADS, which also makes Airbus planes, is taking a 61 percent stake in the venture, according to a report in the official China Daily.
Hafei will own a 24 percent share and Singapore Technologies Aerospace the remaining 15 percent of the new assembly line based in the northeastern city of Harbin set to make 20 helicopters a year, under the trade name HC120.
The Harbin Aviation Industry Group Corp. said the public security bureau in the city of Daqing will sign a letter of intent with Hafei Aviation and the China National Aero Technical Import and Export Corp. to buy two HC120 helicopters, with the first aircraft scheduled to be delivered in 2004.
China is expected to need about 1,800 helicopters, worth some 4.9 billion, by 2013, reports said.
-------- iraq
IN BAGHDAD
Rockets Hit Two Hotels and Ministry in Baghdad
November 21, 2003
By JOHN F. BURNS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/international/middleeast/21BAGH.html?hp
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 21 - The Palestine and Sheraton hotels in central Baghdad were hit by a volley of rockets at about 7:15 this morning. First indications were that there were no casualties among the large number of Americans and other Westerners who live in the Palestine Hotel, but a CNN report said at least two wounded people had been carried from the Sheraton Hotel after the attack.
Just before the attack on the hotels, two rockets were fired at the Oil Ministry, nearby. There were no reports of casualties in that attack.
The two 20-story hotels, on the east bank of the Tigris River, have long been regarded as potential targets for terrorist attacks.
The rockets hit simultaneously from opposite sides of the hotels, suggesting a degree of sophistication in the planning of the attack. The rockets that hit the Palestine Hotel, where this reporter was staying, struck on the 15th and 16th floors, where rooms are mostly occupied by reporters and Westerners working for companies involved in reconstruction efforts across Iraq.
At both hotels, there are a large number of American officials protected by uniformed American troops of the First Armored Division. American soldiers were quickly at the scene, clearing rooms and ushering guests down fire stairwells.
After Friday's strikes on the two floors of the Palestine Hotel hit by the rockets, guests milled about the corridors in their nightclothes, stepping over rubble and into air thick with soot and grime, as a loudspeaker urged then to go down stairwells to the ground. Guests in the room close to where the rockets struck - including this reporter, whose room was 50 feet away from one of the strikes - heard what appeared at first to be a single explosion, suggesting that the weapon used against the hotel might have been a multiple rocket launcher of the type used on Oct. 26 against the Rashid Hotel, base for many senior American military and intelligence officials. One person was killed in that attack.
The attack on Friday was potentially the most serious strike on a major target involving foreigners in Baghdad since the Oct. 27 suicide bombing of the International Committee of the Red Cross, one of a series of suicide bombings that day across the city that killed more than 25 people.
The pattern of several of the most serious attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq in recent months has appeared to have been aimed at driving as many Westerners out of the country as possible, isolating the American and British troops who carried the brunt of fighting in the war to topple Saddam Hussein, and making impossible the implementation of plans to spend billions of dollars on reconstruction here.
A voice purporting to be that of Mr. Hussein said in an audiotape released Sunday that those mounting the attacks on the Americans should also concentrate on ``foreign agents'' who were assisting in the occupation of Iraq, and that the defeat of ``the evil ones'' meaning the Americans was inevitable.
The strike on the Palestine Hotel was an eerie echo of an American tank shell that hit the hotel on April 7, two days before American forces overran Baghdad. The shell fired from a bridge across the Tigris to the north of the hotel also struck on the 15th floor, killing two men, a Ukrainian and a Spaniard, both television cameramen. A Pentagon investigation later cleared the tank unit of responsibility, saying the shell had been fired by a tank commander who did not know that the hotel used by almost all the foreign reporters in Baghdad.
--------
ATTACKS
Truck Bomb Kills 5 in a Pro-U.S. Kurdish Stronghold in Northern Iraq
November 21, 2003
By SUSAN SACHS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/international/middleeast/21IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 20 - A powerful truck bomb killed five people on Thursday near the offices of a pro-American Kurdish group in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, while the commander of American forces in Baghdad reported that a 12-day bombing campaign against suspected guerrilla bases had sharply reduced attacks on occupation troops.
The target of the Kirkuk bombing appeared to be the regional offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or P.U.K., a Kurdish political movement allied with the United States.
It was not clear whether the attack was a suicide bombing, as was the case last week when an explosives-laden truck crashed into an Italian police compound in Nasiriya, killing at least 32 people.
Jalal Talabani, the P.U.K. leader, who currently holds the rotating presidency of the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, was not in Kirkuk at the time.
The attack came three days after a recorded message, said to be from Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi leader, urged Iraqis to kill anyone cooperating with the American-led occupation forces. On Wednesday night, two Iraqis were killed and 11 others were wounded in a car bombing in Ramadi, northwest of Baghdad, near the offices of a local governing council.
Some of Mr. Talabani's aides blamed Ansar al-Islam, a militant Islamic group that has been linked to Al Qaeda, for the bombing in Kirkuk. American bombs destroyed the group's base in northern Iraq in March, but American forces have captured several suspected leaders of Ansar al-Islam in recent weeks.
Speaking in Baghdad on Thursday, Brig. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, commander of the First Armored Division, said the rash of suicide bomb attacks on Iraqi and foreign installations over the past three months might be the work of Islamic militants or "jihadists" hired by loyalists to Mr. Hussein.
While no definite link has been established, the general said, American investigators suspect that Mr. Hussein's agents may be recruiting non-Iraqis to drive explosive-filled cars "when they decide they're going to commit a sensational attack, one in which they're going to try to grab the headlines."
"Whether it's an alliance or simply a matter of convenience, we don't know," the general added.
A high-ranking Iraqi security official went further in an interview on Thursday, saying he believed that at least some of the attacks on Iraqi and foreign targets in Iraq were the work of Al Qaeda.
The official, Ibrahim Jannabi, is the director of intelligence in the newly reconstituted Interior Ministry in Baghdad. He said that, as the Bush administration has maintained, Mr. Hussein's intelligence service had developed contacts with the terrorist network in the past few years.
Al Qaeda and rogue officers of the former government may now be using those contacts to organize attacks against Western targets in Iraq, he said.
Mr. Jannabi also said that his investigators believed that the suicide bombing at the United Nations headquarters here in August was planned either by Al Qaeda or by former Iraqi intelligence agents with links to the terrorist group.
"We have informed the coalition that we found four groups involved in the U.N. bombing," Mr. Jannabi said. "None of the groups knew about the other but there was a single coordinator. I think the coordinator was Al Qaeda or those connected with Al Qaeda in Iraq, in other words, Saddam's intelligence service."
Over the past two weeks, American troops have shifted to a more aggressive strategy to quell a persistent insurgency across the central and northern parts of Iraq.
In the capital, General Dempsey said, the First Armored Division has disrupted three cells made up of loyalists to the former Iraqi government, capturing 104 people suspected of being insurgents, killing 14 and wounding 23.
He said the cells carried out some of the mortar, bomb and rocket attacks that have rattled Baghdad over the past two months. Since his forces shifted tactics and began using helicopter gunships and warplanes, General Dempsey said, the number of such attacks has dropped by about 70 percent.
In their offensive, he added, American troops destroyed buildings where they suspected that insurgents were making bombs or firing mortars shells. They also seized a cache of weapons, including 18 blocks of C-4 plastic explosives, two surface-to-air missiles and 522 artillery and mortar rounds.
"I want the enemy to know that, although I'm on his home turf, he is not going to use that to his advantage," General Dempsey said.
Concentrated offensives were also launched against suspected guerrilla targets in the area north and west of Baghdad, military officials said.
Troops from the 101st Airborne Division, supported by helicopters, detained 158 people suspected of conducting or aiding attacks and seized C-4 plastic explosives, the officials said.
U.N. to Announce Iraqi Plans Soon
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 20 - Secretary General Kofi Annan told reporters on Thursday that he planned to submit a report to the Security Council by the beginning of December detailing how he planned to continue United Nations operations in Iraq.
Earlier this month, citing the worsening security situation, Mr. Annan pulled all but about 40 foreign workers out of Iraq. American and British officials, while saying they are mindful of Mr. Annan's need to protect his staff, have been prodding him to accelerate his staff's return.
Mr. Annan also said he planned to appoint an envoy "fairly shortly" to oversee operations in Iraq. The envoy will be based in Jordan or Cyprus and will serve as the operational coordinator in the region, he said. Sometime later, he said, he would appoint a new special representative to Iraq, a post last held by Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed in a bombing in Baghdad on Aug. 19.
Until the security improves, Mr. Annan added, the United Nations will probably run operations in Iraq from outside the country with staff members shuttling across the border.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel's help
November 21, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm
Early in the war on terrorism, the Pentagon acquired from Israel special electronic equipment that can detonate roadside bombs from a safe distance.
The Pentagon is tight-lipped on what types of technologies it has sent to Iraq to counter the ever-present improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
But a source tells us the Israelis perfected a truck-mounted electronics suite that sends a radio pulse across a designated area to detonate any hidden IEDs. They have used it to explode bombs still attached to Palestinian suicide bombers. The system is not foolproof, however. The remote control device is sometimes on a frequency not covered by the pulse.
IEDs have killed scores of American soldiers in Iraq. Iraqi fighters hide them among debris or just underground along routes traveled by U.S. convoys. The Iraqis detonate the bombs by remote control, sometimes using cell phones.
In an interview last week with The Washington Times, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Israel has been willing to help. Typically, Israeli officials do not, on the record, discuss military assistance it gives America for fear of raising Arab ire.
"I believe every experience that the state of Israel has is open to the U.S." said Mr. Mofaz, the former military chief of Israeli Defense Forces.
----
Israeli officials brush off criticism from Bush
November 21, 2003
By Abraham Rabinovich
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031120-090512-1981r.htm
JERUSALEM - Israeli officials tried to put on a brave front yesterday after President Bush sharply criticized Israeli policies toward the Palestinians and the U.N. Security Council adopted the "road map" peace plan that failed to note Israeli conditions.
Mr. Bush's criticism of Israel, in a speech in London on Wednesday, was the bluntest since he took office. He called on Israel to freeze settlement construction, dismantle illegal settlements and "end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people."
Toughening the U.S. stance on a barrier Israel is building on the West Bank, Mr. Bush said Israel must not prejudice final peace negotiations "with the placement of walls and fences."
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose friendship with Mr. Bush has been a major political card for him, reacted mildly to the president's statement.
"Everyone knows that there are issues between Israel and the U.S. on which we don't agree, but that does not mean there is tension," he told reporters.
Vice Premier Ehud Olmert said the barrier, which Israel says is necessary to stop suicide bombers but which Palestinians see as land grab, would remain an option.
"Israel will always have the right to take unilateral steps for separation from the Palestinians through a fence or other means," Mr. Olmert told Israel Radio.
Israeli officials said they were resigned to the expectation that the United States would deduct the cost of parts of the barrier and of building Jewish settlements on occupied land from $9 billion in loan guarantees.
The U.N. Security Council vote on the road map Wednesday, initiated by Russia, was another unpleasant surprise for the Israeli leader. During a visit to Moscow earlier this month, Mr. Sharon had asked President Vladimir Putin not to seek a U.N. vote on the issue.
Israel wants no U.N. role in peacemaking, because it sees the world body as pro-Palestinian.
"Judgment regarding the plan's implementation will be in the hands of the United States," Mr. Sharon's office said in a statement. "Israel will not accept any other intervention in the implementation of the plan."
Israel had attached 14 conditions for accepting the road map drawn up earlier this year by the Quartet, comprising the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.
Meanwhile, efforts by Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia to achieve a cease-fire had gained momentum yesterday as Hamas officials indicated readiness to concur.
"Hamas is prepared to remove Israeli civilians from the cycle of violence on the condition that Israel guarantee that it will not harm Palestinian civilians," said Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin.
--------
Israel Misinformed Journalists
Military Prevaricated on Missiles Used in Attack in Gaza
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 21, 2003; Page A38
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1824-2003Nov20.html
JERUSALEM, Nov. 20 -- The Israeli military gave journalists incorrect information last month about a helicopter attack on a Gaza Strip refugee camp in which at least 10 Palestinians were killed and more than 55 injured, the military chief of staff said in a statement released late Wednesday.
Sources said the commander of the air force, Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, gave inaccurate information in an Oct. 21 briefing for Israeli military correspondents, apparently in an effort to avoid revealing details about Israeli operational techniques and equipment that could be useful to Palestinian militants. The information at issue centered on the types of missiles fired and military methods used in the engagement, according to the sources, who spoke on condition they not be identified.
Senior air force officials previously had said that the two missiles fired during the Oct. 20 nighttime attack at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza were so small they were incapable of causing a large number of casualties. They accused Palestinian witnesses and officials of lying and inflating the number of dead and injured.
The statement Wednesday, citing "security sensitivity," did not specify which part of the initial report on the operation was incorrect. In addition, Israeli journalists and lawmakers familiar with the facts of the case were prohibited by government censors from divulging the details of the false information.
According to Israeli media accounts Thursday, Halutz told Israeli reporters that the two missiles were Hellfires -- laser-guided missiles made in the United States -- when he knew they were not. In a separate briefing for foreign reporters, including one from The Washington Post, another air force official refused to identify the type of missiles that were fired.
The sources said the Israeli military now maintains that the missiles that were fired were not significantly more powerful or destructive than Hellfires and would not have caused more casualties.
But the issue has added to the controversy over the military and its tactics in responding to the Palestinian uprising.
The air force was sharply criticized in September, when 27 current and former pilots signed a public pledge to boycott missions over Palestinian civilian areas. Israeli news media have reported several other cases of pilots refusing to obey direct orders to drop bombs or fire missiles at Palestinian targets because of the potential for civilian casualties.
"The question is: Is the IDF allowed to lie -- not to stay silent, but to lie -- regarding the details of any operation to the press, and expect afterward that anybody will believe them?" said Nahum Barnea, a leading Israeli newspaper columnist, referring to the Israel Defense Forces. "We are living in 2003, and the truth doesn't matter anymore. It's not the censorship that's the problem. It's the lying, the coverup. It's a big scandal, and it's a big problem for the army and the people."
In a vaguely worded statement issued Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, the military chief of staff, said that when reporters were briefed in October, "it was not possible to give full details regarding the incident . . . due to field security and operational concerns, and in order not to compromise vital security details."
"Perhaps, due to the operational and security sensitivity of the matter at hand, we erred in the way we chose to define the operational means we used," the statement said. "It is important to stress that there was no intention to mislead."
Israeli military officials would not elaborate on the statement.
The incident in Nuseirat was one of five attacks launched on Oct. 20 against Palestinian targets in Gaza. In the attacks and related operations, at least 15 Palestinians were killed and more than 100 were injured, according to Palestinian hospital records.
The attack in Nuseirat was the most deadly. It began when Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian militants who were trying to sneak up to the border fence to plant a roadside bomb. An Israeli AH-64 Apache helicopter followed the car that had dropped off the militants. When the car reached Nuseirat, the helicopter fired two missiles at it.
Some Palestinian officials and witnesses said that after firing the first missile, the Israeli pilots waited for a crowd of rescuers to gather in the street before firing the second -- a charge denied by Israeli military officials.
The day after the attack, which drew wide international condemnation, Israeli military officials organized separate briefings for small groups of Israeli and foreign reporters to rebut the Palestinians' allegations regarding deaths and injuries. The officials showed a videotape of the attack shot by a remote-controlled drone. The tape, they said, showed no crowds in the street when the missiles struck.
In the foreign press briefing, officials said that the missiles used were only "a few" pounds and would not have caused collateral damage more than four or five yards from the point of impact. They said it was possible that the second missile might have hit explosives inside the car, magnifying the explosion's impact.
But in interviews conducted during the days following the attack, witnesses said many people were on the side of the street when the attack occurred but that trees and overhangs would have obscured them from an aerial view. Buildings as far as 30 yards from the car had deep shrapnel marks, and evidence suggested that the second missile fired missed the car and struck the pavement in front of it.
-------- mideast
Bombers Hit British Targets in Istanbul
At Least 27 Dead, Hundreds Hurt at Consulate, Bank
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 21, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1920-2003Nov20?language=printer
ISTANBUL, Nov. 20 -- Two truck bombs exploded minutes apart outside the British Consulate and a British bank Thursday morning, killing at least 27 people and injuring 450 in the second double bombing in the city in six days, Turkish authorities said.
The bomb blasts shocked a city that had just begun to recover from similar attacks on two synagogues last Saturday, prompting Turkish officials to put Istanbul security forces on their highest state of alert and to close the nation's stock exchange. The U.S. Consulate here was shut down for all but emergency services, and the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, the Turkish capital, warned Americans in Istanbul to drastically restrict their movements.
Turkish, British and U.S. officials said the coordinated bombings matched the patterns of al Qaeda-sponsored suicide attacks but conceded there was no concrete proof as to who was behind the attacks.
The first bomb was detonated outside the Turkish headquarters of London-based HSBC Bank in the upscale Levent commercial center, peeling off the front of the 20-story building, flattening automobiles and flinging body parts as far as two blocks away.
About five minutes later, witnesses said, a pickup truck with a catering company logo on its side rammed the front gate of the British Consulate in Taksim, Istanbul's most crowded business and shopping district, and exploded, digging a nine-foot-deep crater in the street and ripping apart storefronts for blocks.
British Consul General Roger Short, 58, who had just entered the building, was killed, according to British and Turkish officials. At both sites, most of the victims were pedestrians or shopkeepers and their customers, Turkish authorities said.
"The explosions that occurred today resembled completely the attacks launched five days ago," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, bearing a somber expression and deep circles under his eyes, said during a nationally televised news conference Thursday night.
Erdogan attempted to deflect accusations that his eight-month-old government had not reacted swiftly enough to security threats, saying: "We don't know when, what, where and how terrorism will hit the targets. Can you show me one country that sorted out the terrorism problem? No, there is not."
The latest attacks in this officially secular nation -- which has closer ties with the United States, Europe and Israel than any other Muslim country -- came on the same day that President Bush was meeting in London with his staunchest ally in the Iraq war, Prime Minister Tony Blair. Bush said the bombing showed "utter contempt for innocent life."
"Great Britain and America and other free nations are united today in our grief and united in our determination to fight and defeat this evil wherever it is found," he said.
"Once again we are reminded of the evil these terrorists pose to people everywhere and to our way of life," Blair said. "There must be no holding back, no compromise, no hesitation in confronting this menace."
Britain's foreign secretary, Jack Straw, who flew to Turkey Thursday night, said the attacks showed "all the hallmarks of international terrorism practiced by al Qaeda." Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said that "they appear to be . . . in the operational style of al Qaeda or al Qaeda operatives or affiliates." Turkish officials cited "international" links to the explosions and said they were cooperating with several foreign intelligence services to determine who orchestrated the attacks.
The semi-official Anatolia News Agency reported that it received a telephone call Thursday from a man who said al Qaeda and a Turkish militant group, the Islamic Great East Raiders Front, were asserting joint responsibility for the two bombings. The two groups said they had also carried out Saturday's attacks.
Turkish investigators have said the two synagogue bombers and at least one associate were from Bingol, an impoverished eastern province where domestic Islamic groups have been active. Turkish security forces killed 12 people Wednesday night in Bingol in an operation against alleged militants, an official of the Gendarme General Command told Anatolia.
Thursday's blasts occurred minutes before 11 a.m., when the streets near both targets were jammed with cars and sidewalks were teeming with pedestrians.
Phillip Rosenblatt, 38, of New York, said he ran from his nearby law office to the HSBC Bank building when he heard the explosion. "There was absolutely no glass left on the front of the building," Rosenblatt said. "I saw the parts of at least two bodies -- their torsos -- lying in front. People were in a panic. People were lying on the ground bleeding. I saw a young security guard carrying a submachine gun cursing in fear and anger."
HSBC, the fifth-largest private bank in Turkey, shut down its more than 150 branches across the country. Neighbors said its 20-story headquarters, in a relatively new upscale commercial center in the eastern part of the city, was heavily guarded by uniformed and armed security forces.
The assault on the British Consulate occurred in one of the city's most heavily policed districts -- historic Taksim, a congested area of foreign consulates, chic clothing boutiques, traditional open-air fish markets and scores of restaurants, both trendy and traditional. The British compound is surrounded by a high stone wall, but the U.S. government considered the area such a security risk that the U.S. Consulate there was closed last summer and moved to a fortified hilltop several miles away, above the Bosporus Strait.
Turkey's earthquake search and rescue teams helped pull survivors and bodies from the rubble at both of the attack scenes. At the Taksim First Aid Hospital, where officials said 160 victims were brought for treatment, hundreds of anxious Turks gathered to read the list of dead and injured posted outside. Blood covered the hospital's entrance hall, and patients spilled out of the emergency room into every ward, according to one nurse.
"I felt myself flying in the air, and then I hit the wall across the room," said Muradiye Demir, 38, who said she worked in a household-appliance store near the British Consulate. Her face was covered in cuts and stitches, her left hand a bloody pulp of flesh and glass splinters. "I don't know who did this. But I don't understand what our sin was to deserve something this bad."
The series of bombings, just as Turkey was dragging its economy out of the worst collapse in decades, could kill any hope of rebuilding the country's tourism industry, which was devastated after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
In the kind of wording usually reserved for the world's most dangerous countries, the U.S. Embassy in Ankara posted a message on its Web page Thursday that essentially warned Americans to stay off the streets of Istanbul.
"American citizens are advised to avoid Western-oriented businesses, religious institutions, shopping centers, restaurants, bars, etc.," the notice says. "Please contact your family in the U.S. to let them know that you are okay." The message states that although there "is no evidence of immediate threat" to the U.S. Consulate, Americans should stay away from the compound until further notice.
Britain's Foreign Office warned its citizens against "all but the most essential travel to Istanbul," and British Airways temporarily shut its offices here. Germany, home to 2 million Turkish immigrants, advised citizens to delay travel to Turkey. A soccer match between Turkish and Italian teams was canceled. And inside Turkey, two private universities canceled classes, as did the American High School in the coastal city of Izmir.
Staff researcher Yesim Borg contributed to this report.
-------- us
TROOPS
Bush Says Pentagon's Plan to Reduce Forces in Iraq Next Year Could Be Reconsidered
November 21, 2003
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and THOM SHANKER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/politics/21TROO.html
LONDON, Nov. 20 - President Bush said Thursday that he was open to rethinking the Pentagon's plan to reduce the size of the United States military force in Iraq next year.
Asked at a news conference with Prime Minister Tony Blair how it was possible for the United States and Britain to start bringing troops home next year when the security situation in Iraq is so unsettled, Mr. Bush challenged the premise of the question and said he would rely on his military commanders to judge how many troops to deal with conditions on the ground.
"I said that we're going to bring our troops home starting next year?" Mr. Bush replied, in a tone that conveyed that he was committing himself to no such thing.
"We could have less troops in Iraq; we could have the same number of troops in Iraq; we could have more troops in Iraq," Mr. Bush said, adding that the number would be whatever is "necessary to secure Iraq."
His statement was in line with his previous statements that he would be guided by the military's judgment in deciding on troop levels in Iraq. But it appeared to suggest that he could still revisit the Pentagon's plan to reduce American troop levels to 105,000 by May from about 130,000 now. It also seemed to leave open the possibility that he could decide that troop levels would need to increase.
White House officials quickly sought to clarify Mr. Bush's statement, saying that nothing the president had heard from his military commanders would suggest the need to raise troop levels.
"The president simply emphasized that what we do is going to be very dependent on what's going on on the ground, and he listens to his commanders to tell him what's going on on the ground," said a senior administration official who was in London with Mr. Bush. "But, if anything, the discussions are in the other direction."
Pressed on the meaning of the president's words, the official said Mr. Bush, here on a state visit to a country that has more than 10,000 troops in Iraq, had given a "logical answer" to the question he was asked.
"But there is simply nothing to suggest that the number of American forces would need to increase," the official said.
After Mr. Bush's comments, Pentagon and military officials in Washington said no significant changes had been made to the troop rotation plan announced this month.
Even so, these officials said, one new concept under discussion was adding the equivalent of a brigade of marines to the force to be sent to Iraq next spring. If approved, that would push the number of Americans on the ground next year to about 108,000, still below current numbers.
But these officials noted that during the time of the troop rotation itself, the total of American soldiers in Iraq would sharply spike, since there would be an overlap when large numbers of fresh troops had arrived before significant numbers of others had departed.
Mr. Bush's words, and the White House's effort to explain them, underscored the array of military and political pressures facing the president over Iraq. He has pledged to finish the job of stabilizing Iraq. But he is heading into an election year with American casualties there mounting and polls showing diminished confidence in his handling of Iraq.
And despite taking steps to begin granting sovereignty to a transitional Iraqi government, he has yet to persuade any nations that do not already have troops in Iraq to make the kind of substantial military commitment that could help speed a reduction in American forces. Here in Britain, which Mr. Bush called "our closest friend" in a speech on Wednesday, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets on Thursday protesting the war.
Some Republicans in Congress, like Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have urged Mr. Bush to consider increasing rather than decreasing the number of American troops in Iraq to ensure that a hasty withdrawal does not lead to chaos or the establishment of an unfriendly government in Baghdad.
Mr. Bush said that beyond the judgments of his military commanders, the biggest factor in determining the level of American troops would be the speed with which Iraqi security forces could be trained and put to work.
"There's over 130,000 Iraqis now who have been trained, who are working for their own security," he said. "We know that they're willing to work for their own freedom. And the more people working for their own freedom, the more we can put that into our calculations as to troop levels."
--------
Mother of 7 Released From Army Duty
Associated Press
Friday, November 21, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1933-2003Nov20.html
FORT CARSON, Colo., Nov. 20 -- A soldier who stayed in the United States to care for her children rather than return to service in Iraq has been released from active duty, the Army said Thursday.
Spec. Simone Holcomb, whose last day is Nov. 29, will return to duty as a medic in the Colorado National Guard the next day.
Holcomb, 30, and her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Vaughn Holcomb, 40, were sent to Iraq in February. Family members were caring for their seven children, but the couple returned on leave in September to settle a custody dispute involving Vaughn Holcomb's ex-wife.
Simone Holcomb told a judge she would stay home with the children to resolve the dispute.
Her decision raised the possibility of criminal charges. Her commanders in Iraq also threatened to charge her with being absent without leave and give her a less-than-honorable discharge, which would have denied her benefits.
Lawyer Giorgio Ra'Shadd said Holcomb had wanted to be reassigned to Fort Carson to care for her children while fulfilling her active-duty commitment, which ends in April.
-------- propaganda wars
G.O.P. to Run an Ad for Bush on Terror Issue
November 21, 2003
New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/politics/campaigns/21REPU.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 - After months of sustained attacks against President Bush in Democratic primary debates and commercials, the Republican Party is responding this week with its first advertisement of the presidential race, portraying Mr. Bush as fighting terrorism while his potential challengers try to undermine him with their sniping.
The new commercial gives the first hint of the themes Mr. Bush's campaign is likely to press in its early days. It shows Mr. Bush, during the last State of the Union address, warning of continued threats to the nation: "Our war against terror is a contest of will, in which perseverance is power," he says after the screen flashes the words, "Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists."
By indirectly invoking the Sept. 11 attacks, the commercial plays to what White House officials have long contended is Mr. Bush's biggest political advantage: his initial handling of the aftermath of the attacks.
Republican Party officials said that television stations in Iowa were to begin broadcasting the commercial on Sunday, the day before a televised Democratic debate there. The commercial is to continue running through Tuesday and will also probably be broadcast in New Hampshire about the time of the next debate, which is scheduled to take place there two weeks later. The party said it was spending roughly $100,000 for the initial broadcast of the advertisement, which seemed intended for voters in the states with the first contests, as well as for the journalists who cover the race.
The Bush campaign has sought to keep a low profile and put off overt electioneering for as long as possible. But some Republicans are worried about Mr. Bush's popularity, and, officials acknowledge, some Bush supporters have pressed for a response to the avalanche of Democratic critiques of his performance in office, which have been extensively covered on television.
Still, the White House has sought to keep distance from this first commercial. It is not a product of the president's campaign committee, but was paid for and produced by the Republican National Committee.
The party has acted as a proxy for Mr. Bush while he tries to maintain the appearance of being above the political fray.
Bush campaign officials have been reluctant to discuss when they intend to broadcast their own commercials, but suggest they will come in mid-March, when they expect the Democrats to settle on their nominee.
Jim Dyke, the Republican National Committee's communications director, said the party did not believe that the Democrats' attacks were hurting Mr. Bush. Even so, he said, the time seemed right to provide a contrast to what Mr. Dyke called the negativism of the Democratic field - which he said had rallied around policies that are in sharp contrast with Mr. Bush's and, he argued, out of step with mainstream America.
"It's fine to say Iraq's wrong, Afghanistan's wrong," Mr. Dyke said. "But what we're talking about is the safety of the American people and who's putting forth the policies to address it."
Mr. Dyke added, "What we're going to start doing is point to the positive policies of this president and this party and present the sharp contrast in approach and also in tone."
The 30-second advertisement gives the first sampling of the powerful array of images Mr. Bush's campaign team will have at its disposal when it begins what is expected to be a formidable advertising campaign.
With somber strings playing in the background, the commercial flashes the words "Strong and Principled Leadership" before cutting to Mr. Bush standing before members of Congress. Intended to call out the Democrats for their opposition to Mr. Bush's military strategy of pre-emptively striking those who pose threats to the nation, the screen flashes "Some call for us to retreat, putting our national security in the hands of others," then urges viewers to tell Congress "to support the president's policy of pre-emptive self defense."
As the Democrats have seized on Mr. Bush's tenure as a rallying cry for the party's primary voters, some analysts and political scientists have questioned why Republicans have not responded more strongly.
According to the Wisconsin University Advertising Project, which has access to a computer system owned by a media research firm called TNS/CMAG that tracks political advertisements shown on television, many of the roughly $10 million worth of Democratic candidate and issue ads that have run so far have been either directly or indirectly critical of Mr. Bush.
A new commercial for Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts superimposes Mr. Bush's likeness over images of toxic clean-up crews and smog-spewing smokestacks while a narrator says the president "sided with polluters, not taxpayers," and "let corporate lobbyists rewrite our environmental laws."
In one ad, Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri says, "I want to stop George Bush and fight for America's middle class" after speaking with a man and woman who discuss financial problems.
It is unclear whether these commercials have hurt Mr. Bush much at this point. Democrats can point to poll numbers that show his support has fallen since the primary season began. For instance, the latest Los Angeles Times poll found a drop of 11 points in the number of people who said they believed the president had a clear notion of where he wanted to lead the country since March, falling to 45 percent from 56 percent.
"It is clear that the cumulative weight of it all has inflicted a fair amount of damage," Jim Mulhall, a communications strategist for the Democratic National Committee, said of the candidates' critiques. "The fact that the president is going on television a year out from the election is a reflection of nervousness on their part about his continued political deterioration."
He also said use of the State of the Union address ran the risk of reminding people of the disputed intelligence Mr. Bush relied on to claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa.
But in a recent memorandum to Republican Party and Bush campaign officials, Matthew Dowd, a chief Bush adviser, noted that several polls showed his approval rating as steady or moving slightly higher.
Still, some experts warned that the Republican Party would ignore the Democratic attacks at its own peril.
"Advertising matters when there's a one-sided flow of information," said Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin advertising project. "Clearly the R.N.C. and the Bush campaign were beginning to believe that the drum beat of Democratic advertising, in addition to the attention the Democrats were getting in the free media, created a one-sided drum beat against the president."
Compared with the last time a sitting president ran for re-election without a primary opponent, the Republicans are behind the advertising curve.
President Bill Clinton presented his first advertisements in June 1995, an extraordinarily early campaign that some of his strategists credited with having an important role in preparing the way for his re-election.
Bill Dal Col, a Republican consultant who ran Steve Forbes's primary campaigns in 1996 and 2000, argued that Mr. Clinton was a far weaker candidate then than Mr. Bush is now, and was under even greater political fire when he started his campaign.
Still, he said, the new Republican commercial was a smart bid to shape the Democratic debate from the sidelines. "In this case you balance the harsh attacks coming, but you also suck up resources they're raising and force them to spend money now," he said.
Darrell West, a political scientist at Brown University, called the commercial a "clever strategy."
"It gives Republicans one more means to defend the president," Mr. West said. "If they stay silent, the next six months are going to be filled with Bush bashing. It's never good to leave an information vacuum."
----
MI6 ran 'dubious' Iraq campaign
Mr Ritter has become a critic of the war on Iraq
Friday, 21 November, 2003
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3227506.stm
British intelligence ran a campaign designed to exaggerate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, a former US intelligence officer has claimed.
Former UN chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter said the disinformation drive in the late 1990s was designed to shift public opinion.
Mr Ritter has been a vocal critic of military action against Iraq since leaving the inspections team in 1998.
A spokesman for MI6 said the allegations were "unfounded".
He told reporters in the House of Commons that he was involved personally with Operation Mass Appeal between the summer of 1997 until August 1998 when he resigned from the UN.
Mr Ritter said the MI6 operation was designed to "shake up public opinion" by passing dubious intelligence on Iraq to the media.
The so-called "non-actionable intelligence" dealt with Saddam Hussein's alleged campaign to possess and conceal weapons of mass destruction. He said the intelligence was "single source data of dubious quality".
Mr Ritter claimed this was the first time the existence of Operation Mass Appeal had been revealed.
He urged MPs to hold a fresh inquiry in the use of intelligence in the run up to the war against Iraq.
He declined to give specific examples of disinformation but said he was prepared to reveal details before a public inquiry.
Dubious data
Mr Ritter said: "I was brought into the operation in 1997 because at the UN... I sat on a body of data which was not actionable, but was sufficiently sexy that if it could appear in the press could make Iraq look like in a bad way.
"I was approached by MI6 to provide that data, I met with the Mass Appeal operatives both in New York and London on several occasions. This data was provided and this data did find its way into the international media.
"It was intelligence data that dealt with Iraq's efforts to procure WMDs, with Iraq's efforts to conceal WMDs. It was all single source data of dubious quality, which lacked veracity.
"They took this information and peddled it off to the media, internationally and domestically, allowing inaccurate intelligence data, to appear on the front pages.
"The government, both here in the UK and the US, would feed off these media reports, continuing the perception that Iraq was a nation ruled by a leader with an addiction to WMDs."
A spokesman speaking on behalf of MI6 told BBC News Online: "The allegation that Ritter was using MI6 material is unfounded."
----
[Denial in the face of overwhelming evidence]
Bush, Blair Say Iraq War Is Not Cause of Attacks
By Dana Milbank and Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 21, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1827-2003Nov20?language=printer
LONDON, Nov. 20 -- President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared Thursday that the invasion of Iraq was not to blame for the recent wave of terrorist violence and that the bombs that devastated two British facilities in Turkey proved the need to press ahead with the military campaign.
"Our mission in Iraq is noble and it is necessary, and no act of thugs or killers will change our resolve or alter their fate," Bush said at a joint news conference with Blair, as tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered on the city's streets to protest the Iraq war. "We will finish the job we have begun."
The two leaders spoke hours after Britain was stunned by the news that two truck bombs aimed at British targets had killed at least 27 people in Istanbul. British civilian facilities had until now escaped being targeted in the terrorist attacks that have followed those of Sept. 11, 2001. Blair echoed Bush's remarks, calling for attacking terrorists "wherever and whenever we can."
Bush raised the possibility of increasing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. When a reporter mentioned the United States' announced plans to reduce troop levels, the president responded: "We could have less troops in Iraq, we could have the same number of troops in Iraq, we could have more troops in Iraq -- whatever is necessary to secure Iraq."
A top aide to Bush, who briefed reporters after the news conference on condition that she not be identified, said that Bush was not announcing a change in policy and that expectations remained that troop levels would be reduced. "There is simply nothing to suggest that the number of American forces would need to increase," the official said. "In fact, the conversations with the commanders have gone the other way."
Two weeks ago, the Pentagon announced plans to reduce U.S. forces from the current 132,000 to 105,000 by next May. The Pentagon has also said it plans to reduce forces to about 50,000 by mid-2005. Though it said those figures could change based on the security situation in Iraq, military experts have said it would be difficult to increase the U.S. troop levels in Iraq without calling up more reserves and National Guard units and extending rotations for a military that is already stretched thin.
Bush and Blair spoke as Britons absorbed the news of the attacks in Istanbul, which demolished the British Consulate, killing its top diplomat, and the local headquarters of the London-based HSBC Bank.
The two leaders appeared in an ornate room in the Foreign Office headquarters beneath a large pewter chandelier and behind lecterns with the royal motto "Honi soit qui mal y pense," or "Shame on him who thinks evil of it."
The issues they were scheduled to discuss -- trade, the treatment of terrorism suspects and cooperative efforts in Iraq -- became secondary to the latest attacks.
A few hours after the two leaders spoke, tens of thousands of antiwar demonstrators marched through central London in a spirited but peaceful procession to protest Bush's visit and their prime minister's support for him.
As the marchers passed Downing Street, where Blair's office is located, they blew whistles, pounded drums and screamed epithets. Officials said Bush had left the office 20 minutes earlier.
The procession, escorted by hundreds of police officers, then headed up to Trafalgar Square, where a papier-mâché statue of Bush, covered in gold foil and brandishing a missile, loomed over the crowd. Just before 5:30 p.m., as thousands were still streaming into the square, protesters pulled down the statue, in a mock reenactment of the toppling by U.S. forces of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad in April. Demonstrators burned at least one American flag.
"We're here to give Bush the push," Paul Mackney, general secretary of the British university and college labor union known as NATFHE, told the crowd. "We have rained on his parade." Police officials, who characterized the crowd as good-natured, estimated 70,000 people were in attendance. Organizers claimed twice that number. Many were still pouring in during the evening, after working hours.
At the news conference, Blair responded with pique when asked if the U.S.-British alliance in Iraq has invited terrorist attacks such as Thursday's. "What has caused the terrorist attack today in Turkey is not the president of the United States, is not the alliance between America and Britain," he said. "What is responsible for that terrorist attack is terrorism, are the terrorists."
Britain's foreign secretary, Jack Straw, responded earlier Thursday to critics who have questioned the effectiveness of the war in Iraq, saying he believed it had diminished the threat of terrorism. He also was critical of Bush's predecessor. "What people have got to remember is that September 11th happened in 2001 and not in 2003," Straw said. "It was planned under the presidency of Bill Clinton."
Bush, too, rejected the notion that the two governments' actions had increased violence. Pressed by a British journalist on why he is feared and hated by large numbers in Britain, he smiled and replied calmly: "I'd say freedom is beautiful." Leaning an elbow on his lectern, Bush said that "the prime minister and I have a solemn duty to protect our people. And that's exactly what I intend to do as the president of the United States: protect the people of my country."
Bush, who struck a defiant tone throughout the news conference, produced what appeared to be glances of surprise from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and the White House national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, when he rejected a question's premise that he planned to reduce troops in Iraq.
"I said that we're going to bring our troops home starting next year?" Bush asked with puzzlement. "What I said is that we'll match the security needs with the number of troops necessary to secure Iraq." After Blair answered the same question, Bush requested "a follow-up to the answer" to clarify his views and said that the U.S. troop levels would depend on the number of Iraqi troops that could be trained.
A reporter, noting that Bush has said that freedom is granted by the "Almighty," asked whether Muslims worship the same Almighty as Christians. Bush replied: "I do say that freedom is the Almighty's gift to every person. I also condition it by saying freedom is not America's gift to the world. It's much greater than that, of course. And I believe we worship the same God."
To underscore their message, the two leaders issued a summary of "Terrorist Casualties and Costs," showing that terrorism has killed as many as 4,000 people in five years and caused major losses to the world economy.
The leaders did not reach agreement on the treatment of British nationals being held as terrorism suspects in a U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Many Britons want the suspects returned home for trial. A top Bush official said the matter was discussed "rather briefly" without resolution in private meetings.
Bush also met privately Thursday at historic Westminster Abbey with families of seven British soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Terrorism Panel Subpoenas Tapes From New York
November 21, 2003
By PHILIP SHENON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/politics/21TERR.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 - The federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks announced on Thursday that it had issued a subpoena to New York City for a variety of police tapes and other material related to the attacks. The panel said the city's refusal to hand over the material had "significantly impeded the commission's investigation."
The 10-member commission said the subpoena required the city to turn over tapes and transcripts of emergency 911 calls made that day, as well as transcripts of hundreds of interviews of firefighters that were conducted after the attacks.
Aides to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said he intended to challenge the subpoena, raising the prospect of a lengthy court battle with the independent commission. A statement issued by City Hall said that the mayor was "dismayed" by the subpoena and that the city had offered to share material with the commission after it was edited to remove the "intensely emotional statements of people who lost their lives or whose lives were in jeopardy" on Sept. 11.
The subpoena was the third issued by the commission, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. But unlike the Bloomberg administration, the recipients of the earlier subpoenas - the Federal Aviation Administration and the Defense Department - have promised to comply with the subpoenas and turn over the documents and other material demanded.
In a statement on Thursday, the panel said "the city's failure to produce these important documents has significantly impeded the commission's investigation," adding that the initial request for the police tapes and other material was made four months ago. "Given its statutory deadline," it said, "the commission cannot wait any longer for these vital records." The commission must file a final report by May 2004. For much of the last two years, the Bloomberg administration has refused to release thousands of tapes, transcripts and other records about the city's emergency response on Sept. 11, on the grounds that they reveal deeply personal and private moments, including the final words of many victims at the World Trade Center. The New York Times has joined with other news organizations in demanding access to the records.
"It will take a court order to make the city violate the privacy of those we lost," the mayor's office said. "It also is puzzling why the commission is trying to distract the public by focusing on the city's response as opposed to the question we all want answered - how this savage terrorist attack was planned and executed without any warning."
The subpoena was announced as groups of victims' families stepped up their protests about an agreement announced last week between the commission and the White House for access to Oval Office daily intelligence briefings.
Advocates for the families said they were alarmed by the commission's disclosure on Thursday that only one of the 10 commissioners would have access to a wide range of the briefings, and that the only person from the commission with similar access would be its staff director, Philip Zelikow, who has close ties to Condoleezza Rice and other senior officials in the Bush administration.
The commission has previously rejected a request from victims' families to limit Mr. Zelikow's responsibilities sharply in light of potential conflict of interests involving the White House.
The families' advocates said the decision to have Mr. Zelikow be one of only two commission officials with wide access to the highly classified documents - the other is Jamie S. Gorelick, a Democratic commission member who was deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration - raised new questions about the investigation's impartiality.
Under the agreement with the White House, two other commission members - the chairman, Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, and his deputy, Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic member of the House from Indiana - will have more limited access to the documents.
Mr. Zelikow, who wrote a book with Ms. Rice in 1995, was on the Bush administration's transition team for the National Security Council and has acknowledged having contacts earlier this year with Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, about Mr. Zelikow's scholarly work at the University of Virginia.
"Phil Zelikow has a very large conflict of interest," said Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband, Ronald, was killed at the World Trade Center, and who is a spokeswoman for the Family Steering Committee, an umbrella group that represents several family organizations. "He is very close friends with Condi Rice, he was on the transition team, and some of these documents are going to pertain to that. It's very disturbing."
The family committee repeated its demand that all 10 commissioners have access to the intelligence briefings. By accepting the agreement, the group said, "the commission has seriously compromised its ability to conduct an independent, full, and unfettered investigation that will `go wherever the facts may lead.' "
Mr. Zelikow said in an interview that he frequently dealt in his scholarly work with prominent political figures, Republicans and Democrats alike, and that he had attempted to be even-handed in pursuing the commission's investigation. "I talk to a lot of people in both parties, including highly political people in the Democratic party," he said.
The agreement between the commission and the White House has also drawn criticism on Capitol Hill. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat who was a major sponsor of the bill creating the commission and who is running for president, said the Bush administration had placed "unreasonable restrictions" on the panel.
"The White House has insisted on a controlling role that is far more intrusive than anything I envisioned," Mr. Lieberman said.
--------
9/11 Panel Issues Third Subpoena
New York Told to Turn Over Tapes of Emergency Calls
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 21, 2003; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1696-2003Nov20.html
The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks announced that it had issued its third subpoena yesterday, even as family members and a Democratic commission member stepped up their criticism of a deal that places limits on access to White House intelligence briefings.
In a closed-door meeting Wednesday night, the commission voted to issue a subpoena to the city of New York for audiotapes and transcripts of emergency calls made on the day of the attacks, and for transcripts of interviews of firefighters conducted later. The commission said the materials are "critical to understanding the interaction between members of the public and the city on September 11, 2001."
"The city's failure to produce these important documents has significantly impeded the commission's investigation," the panel said in a statement. "Given its statutory deadline, the commission cannot wait any longer for these vital records."
The demand prompted an angry reaction from the office of New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Officials there said the city tried to reach an agreement with the commission that would allow the deletion of painful and personal statements from victims and their loved ones that are irrelevant to the commission's work.
"It will take a court order to make the city violate the privacy of those we lost and those who responded to that horrific event," Bloomberg's press secretary, Edward Skyler, said in a statement.
The commission has in recent weeks issued subpoenas to the Federal Aviation Administration and the Defense Department. Those agencies have indicated they would comply, but New York's vow to oppose the subpoena is another obstacle for the commission as it attempts to complete its work by a May 27 deadline.
The commission continued to come under fire yesterday for its decision last week to sign an agreement, rather than issue a subpoena, for access to classified intelligence reports known as the President's Daily Brief (PDB), which were seen by President Bush and President Bill Clinton before the attacks. The commission, which conducts many of its deliberations in secret, has refused to release a copy of the agreement but publicly confirmed more details of the pact yesterday.
A core group of PDBs will be reviewed by a four-person review team that was chosen Wednesday by the commission: Chairman Thomas Kean (R), Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton (D), member Jamie Gorelick (D) and staff director Philip Zelikow. That group will prepare a summary for other commissioners and staff that will be "subject to limited White House review before it is shared," according to a commission statement.
Gorelick and Zelikow will review several hundred other PDBs to determine if they "are demonstrably critical to the commission's mandate" and should be added to the broader review, the commission said. "Any transfer of articles to the core group will require White House agreement," the statement acknowledged.
Kean and others have defended the agreement as preferable to a court fight and have stressed that no other panel has been given access to the closely guarded PDBs. But many victim advocates and two Democratic commission members have condemned the deal and said the details released yesterday only hardened their opposition.
Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband, Ronald, was killed at the World Trade Center, raised objections to the role that will be played by Zelikow, who co-wrote a book with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and assisted in the Bush administration's transition. "This was supposed to be an independent commission, not a presidential commission," Breitweiser said.
-------- homeland security
Gen. Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack
John O. Edwards,
NewsMax.com
Friday, Nov. 21, 2003
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/11/20/185048.shtml
Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.
Franks, who successfully led the U.S. military operation to liberate Iraq, expressed his worries in an extensive interview he gave to the men's lifestyle magazine Cigar Aficionado.
In the magazine's December edition, the former commander of the military's Central Command warned that if terrorists succeeded in using a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) against the U.S. or one of our allies, it would likely have catastrophic consequences for our cherished republican form of government.
Discussing the hypothetical dangers posed to the U.S. in the wake of Sept. 11, Franks said that "the worst thing that could happen" is if terrorists acquire and then use a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy casualties.
If that happens, Franks said, "... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy."
Franks then offered "in a practical sense" what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack.
"It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world - it may be in the United States of America - that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important."
Franks didn't speculate about how soon such an event might take place.
Already, critics of the U.S. Patriot Act, rushed through Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, have argued that the law aims to curtail civil liberties and sets a dangerous precedent.
But Franks' scenario goes much further. He is the first high-ranking official to openly speculate that the Constitution could be scrapped in favor of a military form of government.
The usually camera-shy Franks retired from U.S. Central Command, known in Pentagon lingo as CentCom, in August 2003, after serving nearly four decades in the Army.
Franks earned three Purple Hearts for combat wounds and three Bronze Stars for valor. Known as a "soldier's general," Franks made his mark as a top commander during the U.S.'s successful Operation Desert Storm, which liberated Kuwait in 1991. He was in charge of CentCom when Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda attacked the United States on Sept. 11.
Franks said that within hours of the attacks, he was given orders to prepare to root out the Taliban in Afghanistan and to capture bin Laden.
Franks offered his assessment on a number of topics to Cigar Aficionado, including:
President Bush: "As I look at President Bush, I think he will ultimately be judged as a man of extremely high character. A very thoughtful man, not having been appraised properly by those who would say he's not very smart. I find the contrary. I think he's very, very bright. And I suspect that he'll be judged as a man who led this country through a crease in history effectively. Probably we'll think of him in years to come as an American hero."
On the motivation for the Iraq war: Contrary to claims that top Pentagon brass opposed the invasion of Iraq, Franks said he wholeheartedly agreed with the president's decision to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein.
"I, for one, begin with intent. ... There is no question that Saddam Hussein had intent to do harm to the Western alliance and to the United States of America. That intent is confirmed in a great many of his speeches, his commentary, the words that have come out of the Iraqi regime over the last dozen or so years. So we have intent.
"If we know for sure ... that a regime has intent to do harm to this country, and if we have something beyond a reasonable doubt that this particular regime may have the wherewithal with which to execute the intent, what are our actions and orders as leaders in this country?"
The Pentagon's deck of cards: Asked how the Pentagon decided to put its most-wanted Iraqis on a set of playing cards, Franks explained its genesis. He recalled that when his staff identified the most notorious Iraqis the U.S. wanted to capture, "it just turned out that the number happened to be about the same as a deck of cards. And so somebody said, 'Aha, this will be the ace of spades.'"
Capturing Saddam: Franks said he was not surprised that Saddam has not been captured or killed. But he says he will eventually be found, perhaps sooner than Osama bin laden.
"The capture or killing of Saddam Hussein will be a near term thing. And I won't say that'll be within 19 or 43 days. ... I believe it is inevitable."
Franks ended his interview with a less-than-optimistic note. "It's not in the history of civilization for peace ever to reign. Never has in the history of man. ... I doubt that we'll ever have a time when the world will actually be at peace."
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White House Is Evacuated, but the Scene is Serene
November 21, 2003
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/politics/21EVAC.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 - Was it a bird, a plane, a computer glitch? No one connected to the nation's air defense system claimed to know, but whatever it was, it briefly turned the White House upside down on Thursday.
About 9:20 a.m., staff members in the West Wing and schoolchildren on tours were suddenly ordered by the Secret Service to evacuate. The initial word was that radar had picked up a plane flying within five miles of restricted White House airspace.
In fact, it was nothing more than a false alarm. But somewhere, somehow, someone monitoring a computer screen saw something disturbing on a clear blue late fall morning in the nation's capital. Officials at the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, in Colorado Springs, would provide no other details, but they scrambled two F-16 fighter jets from the nearby Andrews Air Force Base to investigate.
The White House staff, meanwhile, clustered across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House near the historic townhouses of Jackson Place, a far more placid scene than the terrifying White House evacuation of Sept. 11, 2001.
This time, Tom Ridge, the domestic security secretary whose job was created after the Sept. 11 attacks, was seen leaving, too. Some staff members spotted Secret Service agents stationed near the door of the White House bombproof underground bunker, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, apparently waiting for Vice President Dick Cheney. President Bush was in London.
The evacuation turned out to be spotty. Staff members said an internal loudspeaker that was supposed to broadcast instructions in case of an emergency - put in place after Sept. 11 - never went off, and many found out about the evacuation by word of mouth. No one in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door, which is part of the White House complex, was evacuated at all.
In fact, at the same time that the cable television channels were broadcasting news of the evacuation, the executive mansion telephone operators, located in the Eisenhower Building, were still answering the phones.
By 9:30 a.m., the crisis was over and the Secret Service - which had been spotted in full anti-sniper gear on the roof of the White House - waved staff members back in to their desks.
Officials at Norad, the command center for the defense of American and Canadian airspace, would not speculate about what might have caused the problem. But William Shumann, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said that birds, weather or radar troubles could cause problems.
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Error Caused White House Alert
Radar Showed Plane in Restricted Airspace, Officials Say
By David A. Fahrenthold and Don Phillips
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 21, 2003; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2034-2003Nov20.html
The White House was evacuated and Vice President Cheney was moved briefly yesterday morning when an air-defense radar system erroneously showed a plane in restricted airspace, authorities said.
Fighter jets were scrambled to look for the plane, thought to be less than five miles from the White House, but they could not find it, authorities said. The alert ended after about 15 minutes, and Cheney and other White House staff returned safely to work.
Officials said the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which reported the radar contact about 9:20 a.m., was reviewing radar tapes to see if a flock of geese or some other phenomenon had produced a false target on their screens. The contact never showed up on radar screens run by the Federal Aviation Administration, officials said.
Lt. Col. Rob Garza, a NORAD spokesman, said that yesterday's response was appropriate. "There was a radar return," he said, "and any time there's a radar return of a possible airspace violation, our folks are going to respond."
Yesterday's incident came 10 days after another plane scare, in which Cheney and White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. were taken to a secure location when a private plane strayed into restricted airspace. F-16 fighter jets from Andrews Air Force Base escorted the plane out of the restricted area. Officials later interviewed the pilot, who was headed to Siler City, N.C., and found him to be no threat.
Flight rules have been tightened significantly since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in which hijackers crashed planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The White House was evacuated for a short while in June 2002, after a private Cessna plane flew into the restricted area. That incident was found to be a pilot's mistake.
President Bush was in London yesterday. But sources said Cheney was working in the West Wing when White House officials were alerted about the radar contact, which was spotted at an air defense facility in Rome, N.Y.
As the rest of the White House began evacuation procedures, Cheney was taken briefly to a secure location outside the White House complex and then returned quickly to his office, sources said.
Garza said jets from Andrews continued to patrol the area after failing to find the source of yesterday's radar contact. Experts say false contacts are not uncommon in some radar-tracking systems. In certain atmospheric conditions, radar can even pick up ships at sea or trucks passing near an airport.
Washington has two zones of restricted airspace. One, the D.C. Air Defense Identification Zone, is made up of overlapping circles extending 23 miles from the region's three major airports. The other, called the Washington, D.C., Flight Restricted Zone, is a circle that extends about 16 miles from the Washington Monument. It was in that area that the radar contact was seen yesterday, officials said.
Staff writers Mike Allen and Caryle Murphy contributed to this report.
--------
Contractors Complain of TSA Limits
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 21, 2003; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1818-2003Nov20.html
A pilot program to test the effectiveness of privately employed screeners at U.S. airports is yielding few security innovations or cost savings because of constraints imposed by the Transportation Security Administration, government investigators and private contractors said.
The program is aimed at determining whether employees of private security companies could screen passengers and luggage as well as or better than the federal workforce hired last year. But screening companies yesterday told the House Committee on Government Reform that they had little flexibility in operating security checkpoints and were prevented from adequately training their employees.
"We are frustrated," with the TSA, said John DeMell, president of FirstLine Transportation Security Inc. FirstLine employs 700 screeners at Kansas City International. "The private sector should be able to look for overlap and ways to save money."
The companies also said they were frustrated that the TSA denied their requests to train screeners to identify bombs and interview suspicious passengers, and to bring up to speed screener supervisors, who hadn't been trained by the TSA.
McNeil Technologies Inc. said it finally brought in law enforcement officers specializing in bomb detection to train its screeners in Rochester, N.Y., even though it wasn't sure that TSA headquarters had approved it.
TSA said it does not allow private companies to begin new security techniques without its approval because "we have an obligation to make sure all security procedures are well coordinated," said spokesman Brian Turmail.
Under a law passed after the terrorist attacks in 2001, airports will be able to return to private-sector airport screeners by November 2004 and some have already expressed an interest in doing so.
Five airports -- San Francisco International; Kansas City International; Greater Rochester International; Tupelo Regional Airport in Mississippi.; and Jackson Hole Airport in Wyoming -- participate in the TSA test program.
The TSA said it has hired BearingPoint Inc., a McLean consulting firm, to assess the performance of the private-sector and government security screeners. The report is due early next year.
Cathleen A. Berrick, director of the General Accounting Office's Homeland Security and Justice division, said she doubted that Bearing Point's work would be very useful. It is difficult to tell whether public or private screeners are better or worse than the staff employed before the terrorist attacks because the TSA has collected little information about screener performance, she said.
By August 2003, TSA had tested only 2 percent of its workforce, using covert teams to sneak simulated guns and explosives through checkpoints, and the results are not made public, the GAO said. "We think it's going to be challenging for the contractor to do an assessment because of the lack of data," Berrick said.
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Security Rules Require Truckers to File Cargo Data
By John Mintz and Don Phillips
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 21, 2003; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1697-2003Nov20.html
The Department of Homeland Security unveiled new anti-terrorism rules yesterday requiring trucking firms, air cargo companies and railway shippers to submit vast amounts of electronic data about their deliveries before they will be allowed to enter the United States.
Trucking industry executives said the new demands, which resemble rules imposed on maritime shipping companies last year, could gum up imports into the United States for the automobile industry and other sectors that operate on an efficient "just-in-time" delivery schedule. Previously many trucking companies communicated with the government via handwritten notes.
But Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who made the "advance manifest" rules public before an industry group yesterday, said they balance the need to thwart terrorists seeking to smuggle in weapons of mass destruction with U.S. industry's requirement for the rapid movement of goods.
"We could pass regulations that would so tightly constrict commerce that our economy would slow to a crawl," Ridge said. "That would be a terrorist's dream."
Railroads and ship lines are largely unaffected by the new rules because they already have the new procedures in place.
But the American Trucking Associations (ATA) said yesterday the new procedures are likely to cause confusion and delays on the Canadian and Mexican borders. One reason, ATA said, is that truck drivers commonly are in touch by radio with their companies' dispatchers, but probably not with the cargo brokers that will communicate with the Homeland Security Department.
Under the new rules, Homeland Security's Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) must receive the required data -- detailing what goods are being moved and the identities of shippers and receivers -- under varying schedules depending on the industry. For freight imported by rail, for example, the data must arrive at least two hours before the cargo arrives at the U.S. border.
The information is to be transmitted to a CBP data center in Northern Virginia called the National Targeting Center. Its 175 analysts will merge the information with other historical data about freight movement, along with data from law enforcement and intelligence agencies. A shipment seen as anomalous or prompting alarm will be stopped and inspected.
"They'll look for trends and red flags," Ridge said. The CBP -- a blend of former customs, immigration and agriculture inspectors -- also examines cargo randomly and uses X-ray and other machines to look for suspicious loads.
Officials are using incentives to persuade shippers, cargo brokers, importers and exporters to pre-certify themselves with Homeland Security, allowing officials to advise them on securing their facilities and screening employees. Under the new procedures, pre-certified trucking firms must transmit their data to Homeland Security 30 minutes before a load arrives at the border, while the deadline is one hour before arrival for uncertified truckers.
The new rules will apply to cargo arriving in the United States, as well as freight sent overseas, to help foreign governments track potential risks.
The rules are required by a trade law approved by Congress last year. For months numerous trade groups asked officials to ease various rules, and in some cases they agreed.
In a victory for package express carriers such as FedEx and United Parcel Service, officials decided that letters and "flat documents" of fewer than 16 ounces sent by air would be exempt from the full reporting rules. Providing data on each of the thousands of small letters and packages on each of their planes would have been onerous, officials agreed.
The new rules will go into effect in 15 days, but CBP Commissioner Robert Bonner, who is overseeing the program, said they will be phased in over a number of months to accommodate the complications involving each industry sector.
Bill Graves, the American Trucking Associations' president, said in a statement that he has "concerns" over truckers' ability to communicate quickly with CBP once their loads have been cleared for border crossing. "Motor carriers need a 'go' or 'no go' decision as soon as possible to prevent disruptions in the supply chain and to keep on schedule to satisfy the time-sensitive demands of our just-in-time manufacturing," Graves said.
He noted that 80 percent of U.S. trucking firms operate five or fewer trucks, and that most are unable to collate and transmit data electronically to government agencies.
-------- immigration / refugees / visas
U.S. Set to Revise How It Tracks Some Visitors
Muslims Have Protested Use of Registration
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 21, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1806-2003Nov20.html
The Department of Homeland Security is preparing to abandon a visitor-registration program that primarily affects Muslim men and caused widespread confusion and protests earlier this year after thousands of people who complied were arrested or ordered deported, according to several government officials.
The decision comes at the start of a second round of registration for men from 25 predominantly Muslim nations. Immigration lawyers and advocates have said the requirement to register again has been poorly publicized by the government and will put tens of thousands of visitors at risk for deportation proceedings. Critics also argue that the system has alienated law-abiding visitors while doing little to protect national security.
Government sources familiar with deliberations on the special registration system said a decision to end the program is likely and could be announced within days.
Homeland Security spokesman Bill Strassberger and other officials said a new border-control effort set to begin Jan. 5, the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program (U.S. VISIT), will play a similar role in monitoring visitors. The program will use photographs and fingerprints to log entries and exits at major U.S. airports and seaports.
"We are continuing to evaluate the effectiveness of the special registration program, to determine if it is meeting efficiency goals and national security needs," Strassberger said.
The program prompted protests in Muslim communities across the United States after it was implemented late last year, in part because the early rounds of registration resulted in hundreds of unexpected arrests. Many Muslims saw the effort as another attempt to single them out and remove them as part of the government crackdown that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
An unknown number of visitors refused to comply, risking arrest and deportation if they are discovered. Still others returned to their countries or sought asylum in Canada. The foreign minister of Pakistan warned that the program could provoke a backlash that would bolster the cause of Islamic extremists in that country.
Immigration officials said the government has an obligation to keep track of visitors to the United States and a right to remove those who have overstayed the terms of their visas or are otherwise out of status.
Nearly 14,000 foreign nationals who showed up to be fingerprinted and photographed for the registration were placed in deportation proceedings. Authorities also have said the effort resulted in the identification of dozens of criminals and seven people with possible ties to terrorism. More than 83,000 visitors were registered.
In addition to criticism from immigration advocates and Muslim groups, the program was the focus of debate within the Bush administration. The approach was implemented by Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and the Justice Department, which at the time oversaw the immigration service and border police. Immigration matters have since been transferred to the new Homeland Security Department, where many officials view the special registration program as ineffective and a waste of limited resources.
Immigration advocates said the registration program was poorly conceived and never should have been implemented. "The real question all along has been 'What is the purpose of this system?' " said Crystal Williams, liaison director for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "There has never been a clear answer to that. It looks like a trap. It's a game of gotcha, a real bait-and-switch."
A little-noticed part of the program requires that those who remain in the country a year later register again within 10 days of the anniversary of their first appointment. Immigration advocates said that few visitors who registered during the first round are aware of the requirement to register again, although Arab American groups have begun to publicize it. Lawyers complain that many registrants were not informed of the requirement when they first registered and that the Homeland Security Department has made little effort to publicize the rules since then.
"Most people, especially foreign visitors, don't read the Federal Register when they wake up in the morning," said David Leopold, an immigration lawyer in Cleveland. "People are being set up to fail. There is a complete failure to communicate information."
The American Civil Liberties Union complained in an Oct. 30 letter to immigration officials that "we are not aware of any meaningful efforts undertaken by the Department of Homeland Security to publicize these impending deadlines or any of the other requirements that may be applicable to persons who registered."
Strassberger and other immigration officials dispute many of those complaints, saying that all visitors received information when they registered about the need to sign up again a year later.
Now, he said, officials are examining whether another round of registration is necessary given the new measures about to be implemented at airports and seaports. That effort will also effectively replace a separate program that registered more than 90,000 immigrants over the past year at border checkpoints.
The program was set up with a series of rolling deadlines. The first registrations began Nov. 15, 2002, for visitors from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria -- countries that the State Department has designated sponsors of terrorism. Authorities said they do not know how many people from those countries have re-registered this year, noting that they have until Nov. 25 to do so but that many have probably left the country.
-------- police
F.B.I. Used Killers as Informants, Report Says
November 21, 2003
By FOX BUTTERFIELD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/national/21BULG.html
A report issued yesterday by the House Committee on Government Reform gave the fullest accounting to date of the F.B.I.'s use of murderers as informants in Boston for three decades and its protection of them even to the point of allowing innocent men to be sentenced to death.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation's policy "must be considered one of the greatest failures in the history of federal law enforcement" and had "disastrous consequences," the report said.
More than 20 people were killed by F.B.I. informants in Boston starting in 1965, often with the help of F.B.I. agents, it said, but no F.B.I. agent or official has ever been disciplined.
Separately, it said William M. Bulger, then the president of the University of Massachusetts, gave "inconsistent" testimony to the committee last June about whether the F.B.I. had contacted him in its search for his fugitive gangster brother, James Bulger, who is on the bureau's most wanted list. James Bulger, known as Whitey, headed an underworld gang in Boston and was one of the F.B.I.'s star informants before he fled in 1995 after being tipped off by a bureau agent to a secret indictment against him.
In his testimony in Washington, Mr. Bulger said the F.B.I. never asked him about his brother's whereabouts, though a retired agent later said he tried to speak to Mr. Bulger but was told that Mr. Bulger would not talk.
While critical of Mr. Bulger, the report stopped short of saying he had committed perjury.
And it said it there was insufficient evidence to find that Mr. Bulger, during his days as president of the Massachusetts Senate, used his influence to punish those who investigated his brother.
Mr. Bulger's lawyer, Thomas R. Kiley, said the committee's findings were "a total vindication on everything that matters" for Mr. Bulger.
The bureau, in a written statement, said, "While the F.B.I. recognizes there have been instances of misconduct by a few F.B.I. employees, it also recognizes the importance of human source information in terrorism, criminal and counter-intelligence investigations."
To avoid future problems, the statement said, "the F.B.I. has taken significant steps in recent years regarding the management and oversight of human sources of intelligence."
The F.B.I.'s policy of using murderers grew out of a belated effort by Director J. Edgar Hoover to go after the Mafia, which Mr. Hoover had earlier denied even existed, the report said. So in the early 1960's the bureau began recruiting underworld informers in its new campaign.
The report focuses heavily on one episode, the 1965 murder of Edward Deegan, a small-time hoodlum, who was killed by Jimmy Flemmi and Joseph Barboza, who had just been recruited by an F.B.I. agent in Boston, H. Paul Rico.
The F.B.I. knew the two men were the killers because it had been using an unauthorized wiretap at the headquarters of the New England Mafia in Providence, R.I., and had heard Mr. Flemmi ask the Mafia boss, Raymond Patriarca, for permission to kill Mr. Deegan. A few days later Mr. Deegan was shot to death.
The F.B.I. was so intent on protecting its new informants, the report said, that it passed up a chance to try Mr. Patriarca for his involvement in the killing. Instead, four men who had nothing to do with the killing were tried and convicted, with two sentenced to death and two to life in prison. Two of the men later died in prison, and two had their sentences commuted and were freed after serving 30 years behind bars.
Mr. Hoover was kept fully informed about this murder and the wrongful convictions, the report said.
--------
FBI Shielded Informants From Murder Charges, Panel Finds
Associated Press
Friday, November 21, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1689-2003Nov20.html
A House committee concluded yesterday that the FBI shielded from prosecution known killers and other criminals whom it used as informants to investigate organized crime in New England.
The scathing report also found that the FBI tried to impede the congressional investigation into the long-running scandal. "Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began a course of conduct in New England that must be considered one of the greatest failures in the history of federal law enforcement," the House Government Reform Committee report said. "The Justice Department made it very difficult for this Committee to conduct timely and effective oversight."
It went on to say that the panel's two-year investigation makes it clear "that the FBI must improve management of its informant programs to ensure that agents are not corrupted. The committee will examine the current FBI's management, security, and discipline to prevent similar events in the future."
The FBI said yesterday that it had taken significant steps to improve the use of informants. "While the FBI recognizes there have been instances of misconduct by a few FBI employees, it also recognizes the importance of human source information in terrorism, criminal and counterintelligence investigations," the agency said in a statement.
The committee also concluded there is not enough evidence to find that former University of Massachusetts president William M. Bulger used his political authority to punish those who investigated his brother, mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger, who is sought in connection with 21 homicides.
Whitey Bulger, a former FBI informant, fled in 1995 and is on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list.
William Bulger received immunity to testify in front of the committee earlier this year, and the report noted some inconsistencies between his testimony and others'.
The report is the latest development in a cascade of indictments and guilty pleas connected to the scandal over the FBI's relationship with its underworld informants.
While it broadly condemns the FBI's practices, the report focuses on one case -- the 1965 murder of Edward "Teddy" Deegan -- and law enforcement efforts to protect FBI informants Vincent "Jimmy the Bear" Flemmi and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi.
Stephen Flemmi recently pleaded guilty to racketeering charges involving 10 homicides.
-------- terrorism
Terrorism Inc.
Al Qaeda Franchises Brand of Violence to Groups Across World
By Douglas Farah and Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 21, 2003; Page A33
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1934-2003Nov20?language=printer
Leaders of the al Qaeda terrorist network have franchised their organization's brand of synchronized, devastating violence to homegrown terrorist groups across the world, posing a formidable new challenge to counterterrorism forces, according to intelligence analysts and experts in the United States, Europe and the Arab world.
The recent attacks in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya and Iraq show that the smaller organizations, most of whose leaders were trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, have fanned out, imbued with radical ideology and the means to create or revitalize local terrorist groups. They also are expanding the horizons of groups that had focused on regional issues.
With most of its senior leadership killed or captured and its financial structure under increasing scrutiny, Osama bin Laden's network, now run largely by midlevel operatives, relies increasingly on these groups to carry out the jihad, or holy war, against the United States and its allies. Al Qaeda has turned to inspiring and instigating such attacks.
One senior U.S. official said al Qaeda's children were "growing up and moving out into the world, loyal to their parents but no longer reliant on them."
Intelligence officials and analysts said the evolution posed new challenges to efforts to combat terror, because rather than facing a few defined, recognized targets, counterterror forces had to confront dozens of small groups that were much more difficult to trace and attack. And, they said, knocking out one small group does not have the same crippling effect as taking down a major leader of a large organization.
"The threat has moved beyond al Qaeda," said Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at the Singapore-based Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies. "While al Qaeda was the instigator of recent attacks, very few have actually been carried out by al Qaeda."
While two of the highest-profile attacks -- the May 12 and Nov. 9 suicide bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- appear to be the work of al Qaeda, few other recent strikes appear to be the direct work of that organization.
A new group, the Islamic Great East Raiders Front, took responsibility for Thursday's car bombing in Istanbul. Jemaah Islamiah, one of the more well-known al Qaeda affiliates, took responsibility for a suicide bombing Aug. 5 that killed 12 people at the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia. On June 5, a female suicide bomber killed at least 17 people in Chechnya. And within 48 hours of the May 12 attack in Riyadh, four other significant attacks were carried out by obscure groups in Pakistan, Morocco and the Philippines, killing scores of people.
A senior FBI official said the main link among the groups appears to be their shared experiences in the al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Approximately 20,000 people from 47 countries passed through the camps from the mid-1990s until the U.S-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, officials estimate. The camps served as sites to train and indoctrinate fighters, keys to building the future network as they returned to their homelands.
Gunaratna described the al Qaeda camps as "a terrorist Disneyland, where you could meet anyone from any Islamist group."
U.S. and European intelligence officials said the creation of terror franchises was in part the result of successes in capturing or killing al Qaeda's senior leadership and pressuring individuals and institutions that funded the movement.
Paul Pillar, a CIA analyst and terror expert, said that the growth in communication among terrorist groups was partly "a matter of the groups maturing" and partly because "we were able to hammer al Qaeda, which pushed the locus of activity elsewhere."
One of bin Laden's major contributions to the spread of terrorism, Pillar said, was "putting the anti-American perspective at the forefront. It has been so successful that it has thoroughly affected even these groups that are more regionally focused. . . . Anti-Americanism sells, particularly in the Middle East."
Another CIA official said, however, that "making an enemy of the United States is not a wise career move," and that the United States had prevented some groups from executing terrorist attacks through intimidation.
Most terrorism experts, including U.S. and European intelligence analysts, said they also were seeing new similarities in the groups' communication techniques and the use of explosives.
For example, officials said, al Qaeda members have taught individuals from other groups how to use the Internet to send messages and how to encrypt those communications to avoid detection. Bomb and chemical-making techniques have been passed around. Investigators have found the same kind of fuse being used on different continents.
"People noticed a flow of ideas," said one government terrorism expert. "One group will pioneer a certain kind of fuse and transfer it around."
The financial structure of terrorism also has shifted, officials said. "There is no pool of money now that everyone can draw on," said a senior U.S. official. "There is no longer a fairly knowable group of large donors or entities. Now, groups in Indonesia raise money there. Groups in Malaysia raise money there. There are many more targets, and much harder to find."
Many of the local groups, unable to draw on the web of organizations and donors that have supported al Qaeda, rely on petty crime, drug trafficking and extortion to pay the bills, intelligence officials said. Because the groups are hitting softer targets in attacks that require less sophistication to carry out, money is not a major obstacle, the officials said.
"You don't need a lot of money for most of what we are seeing now," one official said. "Many of these cells don't appear to be very well-funded, but what is more important than money is human capital. And human capital doesn't seem to be in short supply."
There is also growing concern over the possible role of al Qaeda-affiliated groups in the attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. In recent weeks, insurgent forces there have attacked several high-profile targets, including the U.N. headquarters, the Jordanian embassy and a compound occupied by Italian forces. U.S. officials have said that up to 2,000 fighters have entered Iraq to fight American troops.
"Al Qaeda is as much an ideology as a structure," said Magnus Ranstorp, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland. "Iraq is now the center of gravity, but I think they are seeking out soft targets and hitting from every flank imaginable by any means. This is an ongoing, raging war with all the gloves off."
Michael Pillsbury, a Pentagon terrorism consultant, argued that the evolution of the terrorist groups is analogous to a process of corporate merger and acquisition. At a terrorism conference earlier this year at St. Andrews College, Pillsbury said regionally focused terrorism groups with their own particular agendas join with al Qaeda to learn their operational techniques or benefit from their contacts, but are not subordinate to al Qaeda.
For example, he said, Jemaah Islamiah seeks to create a pan-Islamic state in Asia, an agenda that has little to do with driving U.S. forces out of Saudi Arabia or other goals of bin Laden's. "They like to get advice and equipment from al Qaeda but still have their own political agenda," Pillsbury argued.
The evolution of terror methods has prompted a debate within the intelligence community over the best tactics to pursue, knowledgeable officials said. One option would be to focus on destroying al Qaeda in an effort to wither the franchises. The other would be to devote almost equal attention to destroying the smaller, regional groups, a strategy Pillsbury said would be more politically sensitive and would require broader intelligence.
"If they can make an instrument of local groups, it will make up for the losses al Qaeda has suffered," said Margret Johannsen, a political scientist who studies terrorism at Hamburg University. "They won't need international financing, they won't need a base as in Afghanistan. [Al Qaeda becomes] an idea, a banner, and that is very dangerous."
Finn reported from Berlin. Staff writers Dana Priest and Dan Eggen and research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- energy
Senate Derails Energy Bill - For Now
By J.R. Pegg
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
November 21, 2003
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2003/2003-11-21-10.asp
Senate supporters of the energy bill suffered a setback today, as they failed to muster the 60 votes needed to end debate and force a vote on the controversial legislation. Majority Leader Bill Frist blasted opponents for blocking the legislation and vowed to try again, but critics say it is time the Republican leadership admitted defeat and abandoned the bill.
"We did the Senate a favor - this bill was going nowhere," said Senator Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. "It really does not help the Senate to prolong the inevitable. The inevitable is this bill is history."
Frist, who prior to the cloture vote warned colleagues that "this vote is the vote on the energy bill," changed his vote and his tune once defeat was acknowledged.
The Majority Leader switched his vote in order to retain the option of another vote on the legislation.
The final tally, which was 57 to 40, fell three votes short of forcing a final vote on the bill. Six Republicans and Independent Senator James Jeffords of Vermont joined Democrats to defeat the motion.
Thirteen Democrats sided with 44 Republicans in the attempt to end debate and force a vote.
The vote is blow to the Bush administration, which strongly supports the energy bill. The House passed the 1,200 energy bill earlier this week by a vote of 246 to 180.
Supporters of the legislation admitted that the vote reflected a deep divide over provisions concerning two gasoline additives - ethanol and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE).
The bill's mandated doubling of ethanol use attracted several Democrats from farm states, including Minority Leader Tom Daschle, who admitted that much of the bill was not worth supporting.
But the inclusion of a safe harbor provision protecting MTBE manufacturers from litigation and the $24 billion in tax subsidies proved too much for five Northeast Republican senators and Arizona Republican John McCain.
"On the whole, this just was not good for America," said Senator John Sununu, a New Hampshire Republican. "This is an energy bill that busted the budget."
Republicans Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Maine's Susan Collins and Olympia Snow, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island were joined by Arizona's John McCain in opposing the bill.
The MTBE provision was the "overriding reason for failure," Daschle said. "If this provision was not included, this bill would be passed by the Senate today and enacted into law."
The controversy over MTBE and the tax subsidies in the bill even prompted some Democrats with much to gain from the ethanol mandate to oppose the bill.
Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, stressed that he is a firm supporter of ethanol but said the energy bill is "fundamentally unfair and unjust."
The legislation undermines environmental protections, does not address fuel economy standards, and contains far too many giveaways to corporate interests, said Durbin, who added that every major environmental group in the United States opposes the bill.
"I am no babe in the woods ... I have an appetite for pork like every member in the Senate and the House," Durbin said. "But if giveaways turn out to be a substitute for energy policy, we have defrauded the American people."
The cost of the bill proved a key factor in generating opposition within the Senate. The bill contains some $24 billion in tax breaks - with more than two thirds earmarked for coal, oil, gas and nuclear industries - and the Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would cost some $30 billion over 1o years.
"Do not call yourself a fiscal conservative and vote for this bill," McCain told colleagues today.
McCain took in particular aim at the ethanol mandate, which doubles the use of the corn based fuel additive to five billion gallons a year.
"Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve our air quality," McCain said. "It is a product that would not exist if Congress did not create an artificial market for it."
Supporters of the bill warned farm state senators that they could ill afford to vote against the legislation because of the ethanol mandate.
"We have worked harder for the farmers of America than anyone in history," said Senator Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican and cochair of the conference committee that wrote the final bill. "The Democrats are leading a parade to kill the most important provision ever thought up for the farmers."
The ethanol provision within the energy bill "is the best thing for renewable fuels and ethanol that we have had in front of Congress in 25 years," added Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican. "We either pass this bill now or the good provisions in it for ethanol are lost forever."
And Daschle was not the only Democrat enticed by the ethanol mandate to support the bill - Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and North Dakota Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan were among the 13 Democrats who voted to end debate on the bill.
Daschle blamed "manipulations by the House leadership" for inserting controversial provisions, including the MTBE safe harbor rider, that were not in either the House or the Senate versions of the energy bill.
The MTBE provision "trumped the Republican party's own legislative strategy," said Daschle, who suggested that the provision be stripped from the conference report.
Daschle recommended that such a revised conference report be added to a massive omnibus spending bill set for consideration this weekend.
It is unclear where Frist and the Republican leadership go from here, as revising the conference report would require renewed negotiations with the House. But the Majority Leader told colleagues immediately after the vote that "this will not be the last vote that we have on this bill."
"We will keep voting until we pass it," Frist said. "We will have at least one more vote before we leave next week."
But Senate opponents of the bill have pledged to stand firm.
"This bill will not pass," McCain told reporters after the vote. "It will not bear scrutiny and that is why I am convinced they will not be able to buy the votes to get to 60."
-------- environment
Brazil's Environmentalists Crying Foul
November 21, 2003
By LARRY ROHTER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/international/americas/21BRAZ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BRASÍLIA - The environmental movement celebrated when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected Brazil's president in October last year. More than a year later, though, that relationship is in danger of falling apart, with environmentalists talking of betrayal.
On virtually every major issue - from Amazon deforestation and genetically modified food to nuclear power and squatter invasions of national parks - Mr. da Silva has turned his back on them, environmentalists say, in many cases abandoning campaign pledges.
The environmental movement "expected more" from Mr. da Silva, "not less," said Stephan Schwartzman of Environmental Defense, one of 500 groups that recently sent the president a letter expressing their disappointment. "This government still has an opportunity to make positive changes on the important questions, but it has to act now."
As the government sees it, such complaints are premature, as it searches for a way to spur development and work with both business leaders and environmentalists.
"The idea of an integrated policy is something new and has never been done before," Marina Silva, the environmental minister, said in an interview. "You can't expect to have a new paradigm fully in place after barely nine months in power."
Mr. da Silva has taken some steps to stem the erosion of his support. He postponed the paving of a major Amazon highway and supported a "bio-security plan" to control the growth and sale of genetically modified soybeans.
But the government's new multiyear development plan suggests that more disagreements lie ahead. The proposal contains money for many projects that environmental groups oppose, from dam construction and highway paving projects in the Amazon to reversing the course of the São Francisco River.
"This is the government's road map, and it is a sign that they are not going to change," Denise Hamu, director of the Brazilian branch of the World Wildlife Federation, said in an interview here.
The hottest spark to ignite the discontent that had simmered for months was Mr. da Silva's decision in September to approve the planting of genetically modified soybeans.
That was one of half a dozen policy differences that Congressman Fernando Gabeira cited when he announced that he would bolt from President da Silva's governing Workers' Party.
Mr. Gabeira was the Green Party's only representative in Congress for years before switching to the Workers' Party in August 2002. But he said he could no longer stand by as "the nucleus of power" surrounding Mr. da Silva systematically violated his campaign pledges.
"I always defended a Green-Red coalition in Brazil, supposing that the Red component would act like European Social Democrats," Mr. Gabeira said in an interview here. "But I have found that they act more like Eastern European Communist leaders."
He said he meant that they concentrated power in a small elite that "breaks with party policies without talking to its partners" and "leaves environmental devastation behind."
Marcio Santilli, director of the Socio-Environmental Institute here, one of Brazil's leading private environmental policy organizations, said that Mr. da Silva, a former labor leader, and his main advisers tended to "focus on relations between business and labor, with everything else seen as secondary."
"It is an old-fashioned vision," he said, "and they don't seem to realize how much it can damage the credibility of the government."
Mr. da Silva has tried to ingratiate himself with business groups by supporting the paving of highways in the Amazon, encouraging more agriculture there and resurrecting a regional development agency that the previous government had abolished for corruption and inefficiency.
"The Amazon is not untouchable," he said during a visit to the region in June.
Environmental groups say they do not oppose Amazon development. But they want the government to follow the model that the Workers' Party itself installed in Ms. Silva's home state of Acre, which emphasizes forest management and renewable resources, rather than indiscriminate cutting and cattle ranching.
However, to spur a lackluster economy, Mr. da Silva has embarked on a campaign to increase Brazil's food exports, which implies expanding the agricultural frontier. His proclaimed intent is to improve conditions for poor peasants, but environmentalists say that agribusiness is the primary beneficiary.
Environmentalist say they have also been disappointed by the government's reluctance to approve demarcation of Indian reservation borders, which often serve as buffers to predatory development in the Amazon.
One case in the northern Amazon state of Roraima has been especially criticized, with news media suggesting that the government has stalled in exchange for the political allegiance of the state governor, Francisco Flamarion Portela, who opposes additional reservations.
In addition, in early October Roberto Amaral, the minister of science and technology, announced that the country would begin enriching uranium and intended to become an exporter within a decade, immediately reviving debate about Brazil's nuclear energy program.
Some groups and editorial writers have even urged Ms. Silva, a former rubber tapper, to resign in protest. They say she is being used as window dressing, and has failed to make the government take environmental factors into account in its decision-making.
There is a growing feeling that "if someone with Marina Silva's charisma and history in the Workers' Party isn't capable of convincing the government to have a consistent environmental policy, then no one can," Mr. Santilli said.
Ms. Silva acknowledged in an interview that there was "a dispute between the environment and development within the government." But she said that even with the reverses she had suffered, she had succeeded in getting environmental issues debated publicly.
"Everyone knows that I would never remain as minister just to be some sort of a decorative piece," she said. After a 22-year struggle to reach power, she said, "I'm going to stay and continue fighting for what I believe in."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Anti-War Demonstrators Vent at Bush
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
Associated Press Writer
Nov 21, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH_PROTESTS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
LONDON (AP) -- Protesters came from every corner of Britain to vent their fury at President Bush, deriding him as everything from a terrorist to a pretzel-munching chimp.
But police and protesters agreed that Thursday's march through London, though laced with anger toward Bush and his major ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was generally a model of peaceful behavior. Police said between 100,000 and 110,000 people took part.
"We've had a very good-tempered march, and there have been no particular problems," said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Trotter, who oversaw the Metropolitan Police's deployment of more than 5,100 officers along the parade route to Trafalgar Square.
As night fell, police struggled to contain a few hundred demonstrators who broke away from the Trafalgar Square rally and darted down a nearby street. Officers linked arms surrounding the protesters and arrested several who refused to move off the road.
At least 67 people had been arrested so far during the president's visit for offenses including public disorder, drunkenness and writing graffiti, officials said.
The Stop the War Coalition, which organized the main demonstration and several other smaller protests since Bush's arrival on Tuesday, claimed their efforts had forced the president to restrict his movements around the British capital. They concluded their show of force by knocking over an effigy of Bush - mocking the toppling of Saddam Hussein statues by U.S. forces in Iraq.
"We occupied central London for the day and put George Bush under house arrest," said march leader Chris Nineham. "He came to London hoping for a big welcome. Well, only two people welcomed him: Tony Blair and the queen."
Bush and Blair said at a joint news conference they respected the protesters' rights, but suggested they were hypocritical.
"Freedom is beautiful," Bush said. "All I know is that people in Baghdad weren't allowed to do this until recent history."
The crowds included many students and critics of Israel. Many waved handwritten placards and banners with hostile messages for Bush that included the crudest of slurs.
"Choke on it, monkey-boy," said one placard that pictured a jug-eared Bush eating a pretzel. "Bush off to hell Zionist dog," demanded another.
As marchers chanting "George Bush, terrorist" made their way through a business district, a few scuffled with three Bush supporters holding U.S. flags and a sign saying "support America." Police quickly intervened and hustled the three counter-demonstrators into a nearby building.
Some demonstrators proffered overtly anti-American and anti-Jewish messages, such as upside-down U.S. flags covered in Nazi swastikas or Stars of David. The march's vanguard also featured a group of about 50 Americans living abroad. One of their banners read "Proud of my country, ashamed of my president."
"I just felt I had to protest against Bush's policies and not sit at home fuming," said Therese Munn, who before moving to London lived in Jersey City, N.J.
Munn said many of her American friends had lost jobs during the U.S. economic downturn or were struggling to pay medical bills. "I don't understand how Bush can justify spending billions extra on defense when these more basic needs of employment and medical care aren't being met," she said.
Many in the crowd said Thursday's bombings in Istanbul, Turkey, which killed more than two dozen people, strengthened their resolve to oppose U.S.-British policy in Iraq.
"There have been more and more bombings since the action in Iraq and more terrorism," said Mischa Gorris, a 37-year-old London lawyer. "You will never change the hearts and minds of terrorists by bombing them. This is what you will get."
--------
National Congress of American Indians asks Senate to kill energy bill
Friday, November 21, 2003
By Susan Montoya Bryan,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-11-21/s_10671.asp
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The nation's largest American Indian organization urged the Senate on Thursday to kill the massive energy bill under consideration, citing concerns such as tribal sovereignty, the environment, and health issues.
The National Congress of American Indians, which has been meeting here all week, planned to send a letter to Washington asking senators to vote against the measure.
The Republican-backed bill has come under heavy criticism by Indian leaders, who say it would eliminate the Department of Interior's trust responsibility to tribes and leave them vulnerable by waiving the federal government's liability in energy development.
The bill offers up to $22 million in loan guarantees and grants over 10 years to help tribes develop energy resources. But tribes opting for reduced government oversight would lose the ability to hold the department accountable for abuses and losses on energy projects.
Other tribal representatives said they had concerns ranging from storage of nuclear waste to huge methane coal developments that are polluting water and other resources on tribal land.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and other Republicans have set a parliamentary vote for Friday to end debate. That would force a final up-or-down decision on the bill, which breezed through the House on Tuesday.
FBI Director Robert Mueller also spoke at Thursday's meeting, telling tribal leaders that the federal government has a responsibility to work with Indian tribes to make the nation secure. Mueller said tribes along the United States' borders are concerned that terrorists - in addition to a stream of illegal immigrants - could use their sparsely populated lands to sneak into the country. Tribal lands make up hundreds of miles of the United States' borders with Canada and Mexico.
"While the FBI does not have primary responsibility for these border issues, we still have a responsibility to include tribes in our national counterterrorism efforts," Mueller said.
--------
PROTEST
Marchers in London Denounce Bush Visit
November 21, 2003
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/international/europe/21PROT.html
LONDON, Nov. 20 - Tens of thousands of demonstrators in Trafalgar Square cheered and whistled Thursday as a papier-mâché effigy of President Bush, painted gold to resemble the toppled statue of Saddam Hussein, was yanked to the ground at a peaceful rally.
Marching their way through the heart of the city as dusk settled over Big Ben, the protesters expressed their anger over Mr. Bush's state visit, his policy on Iraq and his close alliance with Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The protest, which the police say drew 70,000 and the organizers say attracted 200,000, was one of the biggest-ever midweek demonstrations in London. The police lined the streets along the march's route to ensure order, and they largely succeeded.
Mr. Bush, who is staying at Buckingham Palace and attended a state dinner on Wednesday night with Queen Elizabeth, is expected to return home on Friday.
Despite gray skies, traffic jams and the demands of the work day, a broad cross-section of people turned up for the march, organized by the Stop the War Coalition, which also mobilized a mass protest in February. Grandmothers with canes, parents with children in strollers, high school students, women in business suits, as well as button-bedecked antiwar demonstrators gathered elbow to elbow in Trafalgar Square to voice their disapproval of Mr. Bush and his administration's foreign policies.
The march was headed by a group of Americans, led by Ron Kovic, the Vietnam War veteran who was the inspiration for the movie "Born on the Fourth of July."
Protesters, many of whom said they had a long list of complaints against Mr. Bush, expressed particular disdain for his motives for war (oil and big business, they concluded) and noted the elusiveness of evidence of unconventional weapons in Iraq.
"I'm angry over all the lies and deceits that have been told by Blair and Bush over weapons of mass destruction," said Sally Sanderson, 52, a teacher and a first-time protester. "And I'm angry Bush came. I don't like our prime minister getting as close to Bush as he is."
A few protesters likened the state visit to "rubbing salt in the wound" of the people of Britain.
"But this is not an anti-American demonstration at all," Mrs. Sanderson hastened to add, as did many other protesters. "It is anti-Bush and anti-aggression."
In fact, a few protesters said they were simply doing what did not seem to them permissible in America these days.
"It feels as though people in America are not allowed to express themselves in the same way," said Mary Nockles, 23, an administrator for an arts company. "In America, it's a load of ticker tape and people paid to smile for the president. He shouldn't expect to be greeted here the way he usually is."
Mike Wayne, who attended the rally with his son Jake, 5, explained why he was demonstrating: "It's just the hypocrisy. They supported Saddam, and then when it no longer suited their interests, they got rid of him, and on spurious grounds."
But in light of the fact that Mr. Hussein was widely reviled by his own people, do most Iraqis really care about motive?
"They may not care about motive, whatever means necessary," Mr. Wayne said. "But what is happening today, the chaos, shows that it does matter."
News of Thursday's bombings in Istanbul - which killed more than two dozen people, including Britain's consul general, and wounded hundreds of others - appeared to galvanize the protesters' opposition to the continuing operation in Iraq.
If anything, many protesters said repeatedly, the war on Iraq created more instability in an already volatile region.
"Nothing could make terrorism more likely than this unprecedented attack on Iraq," said Margaret O'Shea, 70. "I think it makes it worse."
Some said they feared that it would be only a matter of time before terrorists struck in Britain. "I worry about it all the time, that Al Qaeda will target London," said Camilla Sanderson, 18, a student who attended the rally with her mother, adding that "I think about it when I'm going to school" on the subway.
Some protesters said they hoped this would be the last state visit for Mr. Bush. "It's absolutely disgusting, the thought of him being in Buckingham Palace," said Judith Thomas, 66, who sat with her cane. "The queen should have refused."
--------
Demonstration Turns Violent at Trade Talks in Miami
November 21, 2003
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/national/21TALK.html
MIAMI, Nov. 20 - Several dozen violent protesters clashed with the police just 200 yards from a trade ministers' meeting on Thursday as more than 10,000 demonstrators held a peaceful march to protest President Bush's push to create a free trade zone throughout the Americas.
The confrontation involved a group of several hundred demonstrators, including many self-styled anarchists and others who threw bottles, rocks and smoke bombs on Biscayne Boulevard, the main avenue in Miami. The police responded with pepper spray, rubber bullets and stun guns. After protesters set several trash fires, some 300 police officers in riot gear spread across the avenue and pushed slowly north, seeking to disperse them.
The clash came as trade ministers, meeting at the conference center of the Intercontinental Hotel, reached a partial accord that fell short of the framework for an agreement that would end tariffs among 34 nations in the Western Hemisphere. Protesters insisted that the agreement to set up a Free Trade Area of the Americas, known as the F.T.A.A., would reward corporations and hurt workers and the environment.
The protests on Thursday brought together many of the same groups that held a huge demonstration in Seattle in 1999 at a meeting of the World Trade Organization: union members, environmentalists, human rights groups, animal rights groups and trade activists. But the protests in Miami were considerably smaller, and organizers acknowledged that the city did not have the labor and environmental movement that Seattle had.
"I'm here to protest because I just see the F.T.A.A. causing a major loss of jobs for our people to countries that pay $1 an hour with no pension and no health care," said Dave Richards, a Teamster from Akron, Ohio. "I don't see it as a win-win. I see it as a lose-lose."
Administration officials say the free trade proposal would spur trade, lower prices for consumers, force producers to become more competitive and create more jobs in the United States and other countries in the hemisphere.
As in Seattle, the bulk of the protesters were peaceful and many of them derided the violence. Many chanted, "No Way, F.T.A.A.," and some held up huge papier-mâché puppets, including one of a giant Uncle Sam with a sign that read, "I Want You to Learn From Nafta. No More Rotten Trade Deals."
Many demonstrators said the police were too aggressive, too numerous and too intimidating. The police cordoned off many streets, and some residents said that when they approached to ask a question, some officers began to draw their guns.
Lt. Bill Schwartz, a spokesman for the Miami Police Department, said the police did an excellent job maintaining order, with some officials noting that there was not the broken windows and other property damage of the Seattle protests.
"Everything that we're doing is falling into place like a well-oiled machine," Lieutenant Schwartz said. "I believe we have been having success so far, which means minimal violence, because of the show of force. Folks who have been around here for a few days see that we are well trained and well manned."
The police blocked entry to an A.F.L.-C.I.O. rally at a waterfront amphitheater, saying it was too full. Labor organizers said thousands more could fit. The police also blocked access to a dozen portable bathrooms rented for the occasion. A.F.L.-C.I.O. officials estimated that 13,000 people were at that rally and 17,000 in the march downtown.
When the United Students Against Sweatshops held a rally at a downtown department store, asserting that it sold goods made in a Mexican sweatshop, 100 protesters were met by nearly 200 police officers, many carrying riot shields and clubs.
"It's overkill, there's too many of them," said Nicole Lee, a human-rights lawyer from Washington. "If there's violence, it will be because it was escalated by the police."
The police said 81 protesters were arrested on charges including assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest and burglary. Ten protesters and three police officers had minor injuries.
Thea Lee, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s top international economist, said she was caught as the police advanced on Biscayne Boulevard. She said the police continued shooting rubber bullets as protesters moved back.
"I've never seen anything like this show of force and the abuse of ordinary people," Ms. Lee said.
The organizers of the protest, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O., Friends of the Earth and the Citizens Trade Campaign, say they hope to persuade President Bush and Congress to drop the free trade plan. Protesters say a free trade area would make it harder for countries to regulate the environment and food safety and would encourage privatization of resources like water. One of their biggest fears is that the free-trade accord would imitate the North American Free Trade Agreement and not include labor, environmental and human rights in the main accord.
At the amphitheater rally, John J. Sweeney, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said: "What we need are new rules, rules that protect workers' rights and human rights, rules that protect the environment, rules that rein in the corporate grip on the global marketplace."
---------
Protesters, Police Clash in Miami Anti-Accord Demonstrations
Smaller Than Many Expected
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 21, 2003; Page E04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64905-2003Nov20.html
MIAMI, Nov. 20 -- Police in riot gear fired rubber bullets and canisters of chemical spray Thursday to disperse thousands of demonstrators gathered in the shadow of downtown skyscrapers to protest the proposed formation of a Western Hemisphere free-trade zone.
The brief, though fierce, clashes between police and protesters punctuated day-long demonstrations that were smaller and less violent than expected. Police estimated that 8,000 to 10,000 demonstrators gathered here, far fewer than the projections of weeks ago when the city girded for the arrival of between 20,000 and 100,000 demonstrators.
As the sky darkened, debris fires set by demonstrators smoldered in the closed lanes of normally traffic-clogged Biscayne Boulevard, blocks from the Intercontinental Hotel, where trade ministers debated over the Free Trade Area of the Americas behind temporary fencing that sealed off a great swath of Miami's bay-front business district.
The protests attracted anarchists and environmentalists, labor union members and folk music stars, teenagers and grandmothers. Dozens of people dressed as dolphins waded through the crowds alongside skinny guys carrying giant sunflowers and anarchists covering their faces with bandanas.
"We're making a stand for democracy against the corporations," said Diane Beeny, 46, an artist from Westfield, N.J.
Beeny spoke through a green mask topped with wobbly eyeballs dangling from long strings to represent her fears about the dangers of the genetically modified crops that she said the free-trade agreement would encourage. She wore a pin on her shoulder that read "Recall Bush for defects."
The demonstrations have had something of a comic patina from the beginning, and there is a sense among some here that the protest movement may have peaked with the rioting at the 1999 World Trade Organization talks in Seattle. The weekly Miami New Times published a survival guide for visiting anarchists with such advice as: "Bring your own patchouli -- it's tough to find here" and "Don't let the sunshine get you too happy."
The protesters were greeted by a massive show of force, more than 2,500 police officers culled from agencies throughout Florida. Helicopters hovered overhead and patrol boats cut frothy white wakes in the nearby shipping channel that was vacated earlier this week by cruise ships concerned about possible attacks.
Police said at least 74 demonstrators had been arrested by early evening, though the total was expected to rise.
The police guarding downtown walked in tight formation, tapping batons against their plastic shields as they moved demonstrators away from the fences that a few had tried to pull down using clamps and ropes.
The specter of encountering a phalanx of heavily armed police officers scared away many people, said Elizabeth Venable, 23, who took time off from her job as a lichen researcher at Arizona State University to come to Miami.
"There's a lot of mythology about these demonstrations," Venable said as she sat cross-legged in the middle of Biscayne Boulevard. "They're afraid of the police, of being tear-gassed and beaten."
Others, though, hurled themselves into the line of police, only to be beaten back by flailing batons and battered by thick rubber bullets that resemble hockey pucks. Proper riot gear was not limited to police officers. Demonstrators donned gas masks and helmets. When the police fired chemical canisters, protesters picked up the canisters and threw them right back at the police. Swarms of protesters carrying video recorders and cameras documented every move, images surely destined for Internet sites and brochures.
But even a passionate cause has its limits.
When Avril Wood-McGrath's friend ran up to suggest joining the dolphin procession, she wrinkled her nose.
"I don't want to be a dolphin," the 20-year-old Florida State University student said. "Those suits are too hot."
---------
A Popular Voice for Peaceful Change in Battle-Scarred Burundi
By Nora Boustany
Friday, November 21, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59201-2003Nov18.html
At another time, in a different place, Jeannine Nahigombeye, 30, a tall, striking woman with high cheekbones, a gleaming smile and a voice that carries, could have had a stellar career on stage or in film. In Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, where hacking people to death in the 1990s became as routine as skinning chickens, where neighborly betrayal is still a weeping wound, she had to opt for a role in real life.
The director of Radio Isanganiro, poised and pensive, remembers when home was a peaceful African nation. But in 1993, the country's first democratically elected president was assassinated. The next year, a plane carrying the new president and the president of neighboring Rwanda was shot down, sparking ethnic savagery and other violence in both countries. More than 300,000 people were killed in Burundi and 600,000 were displaced. About 800,000 were killed in Rwanda.
Nahigombeye, the daughter of an accountant at the Central Bank of Burundi and a schoolteacher, grew up in a family of eight children. On still afternoons, she and her older sisters often listened to the radio, fascinated by a thriller series titled "Anthology of Mysteries." She taped the program and replayed it time and again, play-acting along with the characters.
At 20, she began studying French literature at the University of Burundi and frequently appeared in drama productions. She graduated in 1996. In explaining why she chose journalism as a career, she said: "The fact of talking to people who are listening, registering what you say and do, was an interesting connection. In Africa, you cannot live from theater, but it was a way of communicating."
In the Great Lakes region of Africa, which includes Burundi, 85 percent of the people rely on radio for news and entertainment. In 1995, Search for Common Ground, a conflict resolution organization based in Washington, established Studio Ijambo, which means "wise words" in the Kirundi language. When the group advertised for female contributors to the independent radio studio, Nahigombeye joined.
An ethnically mixed staff of Hutus and Tutsis worked on programs to counter other stations' messages of hate. A drama series titled "Our Neighbors, Ourselves," about people who focused on what they had in common rather than on their differences, was so popular it stayed on for 600 episodes. Nahigombeye initiated programs on AIDS and on public opinion, in which she said she "accosted people on the streets," prompting them to express themselves on politics and social issues.
Last year, she and four colleagues set up their own independent radio station, Radio Isanganiro, which means "meeting place." The station is also sponsored by Search for Common Ground, and its motto is "Dialogue is better than shooting."
"In countries such as ours, with the legacies of dictatorships, poverty and war, you cannot bring about change except by using such an outlet. At the time of the news, everybody listens," Nahigombeye said. "We consider ourselves partners of the government. They may not be aware and they may think of us as a nuisance, but people take us seriously."
The crisis in Burundi is still present in people's lives despite negotiations that led to a transitional government and a plan for elections next year. Displaced families returning home often find their property devastated or strangers laying claim to it.
One of the radio programs is devoted to the resolution of land disputes, offering residents a platform to air their complaints, as well as interviews with judges who outline legal procedures and nonviolent methods for settling claims.
"Now residents set their watches to our programs. We are already witnessing change," Nahigombeye said. "Cyclists overtaken in traffic yell out: 'Don't you listen to the radio? Cyclists have rights!' Or you hear people warning: 'If you go on doing this, I will call the radio station.' "
The popularity of the programs has boosted the station's confidence in its editorial line. When judges and policemen violate rules, for example, they are often exposed. "We have judges explain the proper mode of operation," Nahigombeye said. "We also do a lot on domestic violence and educate women on their rights in case of separation. All this has encouraged people to speak out."
The challenge will be to inform the public about the unfolding political process, the meaning of the upcoming elections and how people can register and vote, she said.
In September, the government shut down the station after it broadcast a round-table discussion that included political party representatives and a rebel leader who was not yet part of negotiations. Other stations and newspapers boycotted government activities in retaliation, carrying stories only about the disruption in programming. After one week, the closure order was reversed.
"The pain of being in a violent country can be so great, you shut yourself off from your own humanity," Susan Collin Marks, executive vice president of Search for Common Ground, remarks in a documentary titled "Peace By Peace: Women on the Frontlines," which was filmed in Burundi, Afghanistan, Argentina, Bosnia and the United States. "Telling the story connects us and allows for healing to take place."
In the same documentary, which premiered here on Monday at the Freer Gallery of Art, Nahigombeye vows: "I will teach my own child that it is not ethnicity that matters, but what one carries in the heart."
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Bush Meets More Activists in Sedgefield
November 21, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Bush-Protests.html
SEDGEFIELD, England (AP) -- Even in usually tranquil small-town England, President Bush was confronted Friday by demonstrators opposed to his policies in Iraq.
Bush visited Prime Minister Tony Blair's home in Sedgefield after facing huge protests during his two days in London.
As the president's entourage arrived in the town of 5,000, several hundred protesters filled the village green. A couple hundred more bystanders lined the main street.
There were chants of ``Bush out,'' upside-down American flags, and posters labeling the president the world's ``No. 1 terrorist.''
One demonstrator held a sign saying, ``Welcome Mr. Bush. This lot do not speak for me.''
``I just think after seeing all the protesters yesterday that somebody should show the other side of the story,'' said Douglas Harris, 59, of nearby Billingham.
Police estimated about 110,000 protesters marched through London on Thursday.
In Sedgefield, which elected Blair its member of Parliament, police blocked the main street and checked the bags of everyone coming into the center of town. Some officers kept watch from the 15th-century tower of St. Edmund's church as Blair, Bush and their wives had lunch in the Dun Cow Inn pub with several dozen hand-picked constituents.
Michael Broadbent, a retired teacher from the town of Bishop Auckland, said Bush's policies ``cause us such a lot of anxiety. His policy towards Iraq is actually fueling terrorism.''
Bill Williams, 52, said he served in the first Gulf War in 1991 but opposed the war this year.
``I think this country's being led by Mr. Bush and I'm not happy about it,'' he said, adding: ``The Americans really do believe that everyone loves them and they're doing good. Unfortunately it's not so. They're wrapped up in themselves.''
Cliff Cowans, 70, he disapproved of Bush's visit and the Iraq war but was impressed by the president's speech in London on Wednesday. ``That was a class act ... the strength of character of the whole thing,'' Cowans said.
Protests in London flickered to an end Friday as about a hundred people gathered outside the U.S. Embassy to complain about the detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
``Today is a tragedy. Nobody is here,'' said Peter Day, a London retiree. ``It should be a serious demonstration.''
In the tiny village of Trimdon Colliery near Sedgefield, where the Bushes had tea at Blair's constituency home, a lone protester held a sign reading ``Gan yem Dubya'' -- local dialect for ``Go home.''
Others were more welcoming. Blair's next-door neighbors, Gary and Angela Forshaw, were delighted to have their picture taken with the president.
``It is good for him to come up here and not just see the highlights of London, but to be shown the real world where Tony lives,'' Gary Forshaw said.
A day earlier, protesters came from every corner of Britain to vent their fury at Bush, deriding him on their placards as everything from an empty-headed missile to a pretzel-munching chimp.
But police and protesters agreed that Thursday's massive march, though laced with anger toward Bush and his ally Blair, was a model of peaceful behavior.
``We've had a very good-tempered march, and there have been no particular problems,'' said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Trotter, who oversaw the Metropolitan Police's deployment of more than 5,100 officers along the parade route to Trafalgar Square.
During the president's three-day visit, police said they had arrested 77 people for a range of offenses including public disorder, drunkenness and writing graffiti.
The Stop the War Coalition, which organized the main demonstration and several other smaller protests, claimed their efforts had forced Bush to restrict his movements around the British capital.
They concluded their show of force by knocking over a 17-foot papier-mache statue of Bush, mocking the toppling of Saddam Hussein statues by U.S. forces in Iraq.
``We occupied central London for the day and put George Bush under house arrest,'' said the march's chief steward, Chris Nineham. ``He came to London hoping for a big welcome. Well, only two people welcomed him: Tony Blair and the queen.''
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