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NUCLEAR
France studies marine radioactivity after US nuclear submarine hits seabed
Hunt on for nuke waste
Nuclear physicist to give presentation on weapons at Franklin College
U.S., Europeans Agree on Iran Nuclear Resolution
U.S., Europeans Reach Deal on Iran Nukes
Diplomats: Iran Nuke Resolution Too Weak for U.S.
Japan eyes joint missile production with US: report
2nd Global Assembly in Nagasaki
Russia Expects N. Korea Nuke Talks About Dec 17, 19
Report: Japan Aims to Make Missile Shield
Winter won't slow missile defense work; deadline still end of 2004
Chernobyl fallout still contaminating food chain
Bush Signs Record $401.3 Billion Defense Bill
Democrats Demand Bush Pull TV Ad Attacking Critics of Iraq Policy
MILITARY
The Other Conflict Continues to Take a G.I. Toll
Soldiers Search Afghan Copter Wreckage
Five U.S. Soldiers Killed in Copter Crash Near Kabul
1-shot killer
Security Agency's Questions Rile Firms
Boeing Dismisses Finance Chief
Boeing Fires Execs for Unethical Conduct
Blair faces battle over EU defence
Brain injuries high among Iraq casualties
2 G.I.'s, Throats Slashed
Attack in N. Iraq Kills 2 Americans
Sharon Hints That Israel May Remove Some Settlers
Turkish Suspects Tied to Guerrillas
Georgian Leader Agrees to Resign, Ending Standoff
Long-range strike force
Pentagon Considers Creating Postwar Peacekeeping Forces
ENERGY AND OTHER
FACTBOX - Oil, Coal, Power Details of Energy Bill
Global hunger is increasing, report says
ACTIVISTS
GEORGIA - Thousands protest at Army school
Protesters at military school hit with patriotic music
Peaceful protest topples Georgia's president
Protest in Philippines Against Kidnappings
FBI 'collecting information' about antiwar protestors
Thousands march for peace in India's troubled Assam
Over the fence SOA
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
France studies marine radioactivity after US nuclear submarine hits seabed
AJACCIO, Corsica (AFP)
Nov 24, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031124135358.aeowphm9.html
French authorities are to release a study this week examining radioactivity levels in the Mediterranean Sea south of Corsica a month after a US nuclear submarine accidently ran into the seabed there.
Officials from the Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety Institute (IRSN) said the report was commissioned after officials on the French island expressed concern at potential environmental damage.
US military officials only revealed the accident November 12, three weeks after the nuclear-powered Los Angeles class sub ran aground in waters between Corsica and the Italian island of Sardinia on October 25.
The US Navy's submarine group based in Naples told AFP at the time that, though the vessel suffered damage to its rudder and scrapes along its bottom, there should be no environmental consequences.
"There was no danger from the submarine to anyone or to the environment. There was no effect on the (nuclear) propulsion system at all," a spokeswoman, Commander Kate Meuller, said.
She added that "there was no breach of the sub's watertight integrity."
Meuller did not confirm or deny that the submarine was carrying nuclear weapons.
The submarine's captain and commander were relieved of their command and six other crewmembers were charged with dereliction of duty over the incident.
-------- australia
Hunt on for nuke waste
Uranium 'unaccounted for' at plant
By Mark Dunn
November 24, 2003
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,7956907%255E662,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7956906%255E2,00.html
ALMOST 18kg of uranium, including 9.7kg of enriched uranium, was unable to be accounted for at the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor.
Missing uranium: Lucas Heights reactor The whereabouts of 62kg of radioactive thorium also remained a mystery after audits at the high-security Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation failed to pinpoint the material.
Australia's nuclear watchdog, the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office, has identified unaccounted-for batches of nuclear material on seven occasions during inspections at the reactor since 2000.
ASNO categorises the problem as MUF (material unaccounted for), and found:
# IN 2002-2003, 3.37kg of natural uranium, 0.01kg of depleted uranium and 1.01kg of thorium was unable to be accounted for.
# IN 2001-2002, 9.7kg of enriched uranium, 310g of U-235 isotope and 4.41kg of depleted uranium was unaccounted for.
# INVESTIGATORS were unable to account for 61.2kg of radioactive thorium, a material used in the nuclear fuel cycle, at ANSTO in 2001.
ASNO believes most of the material is unable to be found because of faulty records or failures in accounting for substances that were transferred from waste stocks to inventory storage.
ASNO and ANSTO both said there was no evidence nuclear material had been stolen or lost at the New South Wales site.
In 2000 ASNO asked Lucas Heights to improve its controls when a 0.34kg container of powdered natural uranium was "mislaid" and other records were inaccurate.
"ANSTO has undertaken to strengthen its accountancy and control system to prevent recurrence," ASNO reported.
Although investigations are continuing into some MUF issues, ASNO assistant secretary Andrew Leask said the International Atomic Energy Agency had found ANSTO complied with reporting conditions and safeguards.
"MUF, in its various forms, it doesn't necessarily indicate anything sinister," Mr Leask said.
He said nuclear plants worldwide experienced MUF and ASNO used those instances in Australia to improve accounting controls.
In its most recent annual report, ASNO said MUF discrepancies in 2002-03 were due in part to a major transfer of waste holdings from the previous year.
It blamed the 2001-2002 MUF problem, including the 9.7kg of enriched uranium, on a transfer of 500kg of enriched uranium from waste stock back onto safeguards inventory at the request of the IAEA.
The IAEA had ruled the material, which had been accumulating since 1974, should be kept under closer scrutiny until it was fully conditioned for final disposal.
"When this was done the aggregated total was found to differ from currently available data," ASNO said. "The material is active waste from isotope production stored in sealed tanks and so is difficult to measure accurately."
ANSTO spokesman Steven McIntosh said the 9.7kg of enriched uranium was not enriched enough to be suitable for a nuclear weapon and terrorists would need tens, if not hundreds, of tonnes of the types of radioactive material unaccounted for at Lucas Heights to build a "dirty" bomb.
-------- depleted uranium
Nuclear physicist to give presentation on weapons at Franklin College
November 24, 2003
Indianapolis Star
http://www.indystar.com/articles/4/095930-3204-009.html
Franklin -- Doug Rokke, a retired U.S. Army major, will present "The Scourge of Depleted-Uranium Weapons" at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the Franklin College Chapel.
Rokke is a nuclear physicist, past director of the U.S. Army depleted-uranium project and a Gulf War combat veteran. He will talk about the dangers of depleted-uranium weapons -- dangers he has seen firsthand in his Army career.
The Jefferson Proving Ground near Madison was a testing place for depleted-uranium weapons.
The event is free and open to the public.
-------- iran
U.S., Europeans Agree on Iran Nuclear Resolution
November 24, 2003
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - Washington struck a deal on Monday with France, Germany and Britain on a U.N. nuclear resolution that condemns Iran for hiding its atomic program in the past but encourages its new policy of honesty.
The compromise draft resolution of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors falls short of what Washington had originally hoped for -- to send Iran to the U.N. Security Council for breaches of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which could have led to economic sanctions.
``The resolution has been tabled,'' a Western diplomat told Reuters, adding that it would be discussed at Wednesday's IAEA Board of Governors meeting and would likely be acceptable to most of the 35 members of the board.
The latest draft, obtained in full by Reuters, calls for the IAEA's governing board to ``meet immediately to consider all options at its disposal'' if any further violations of Tehran's international non-proliferation obligations are uncovered.
U.S. negotiators had pushed the Europeans to strengthen the wording of what Washington calls a ``trigger mechanism'' to warn Iran that if it was guilty of any more violations it may be reported to the U.N. Security Council.
A senior State Department official said the agreed resolution made clear the board would consider reporting Iran to the Security Council in the event of further violations, but without stating that explicitly, which diplomats said made it acceptable to the Europeans and Tehran.
The official said it ``welcomes the promises (of transparency) from Iran but makes clear that their past failures and breaches requires them to live up to their promises.''
The wording of the trigger had been a sticking point for the United States, which accuses Iran of wanting to develop nuclear weapons. On Friday, the IAEA board adjourned to give the 35 board members time to work out a compromise on the text.
The French, British and Germans -- wanting to encourage Iran to continue with its stated policy of fully cooperating with the U.N. nuclear watchdog rather than merely punish it for past failures -- had tabled two previous resolutions that were rejected by U.S. negotiators as too weak.
The Western diplomat said agreement on the wording was reached in a phone call between Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
SHARP LANGUAGE
The draft has some sharp language on Iran's nuclear concealment. It ``strongly deplores Iran's past failures and breaches of its obligation to comply with...its Safeguards Agreement'' under the NPT.
Originally, Washington had pushed the board to pass a resolution that would declare Iran in ``non-compliance'' with the NPT and would report it to the Security Council. U.S. officials later dropped these demands when it realized there was little support on the board for their inclusion in the resolution.
The resolution follows an IAEA report that found Iran had 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.
The resolution notes ``with the gravest concern that Iran enriched uranium and separated plutonium in undeclared facilities, in the absence of IAEA safeguards.''
But it ``welcomes Iran's offer of active cooperation and openness and its positive response to the demands...in the (September 12 IAEA) resolution'' which gave Tehran until October 31 to come clean about the full extent of its nuclear program.
The resolution also ``welcomes Iran's decision to suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities and requests Iran to adhere to it.'' It called for IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei to submit a new report to the board in mid-February.
--------
U.S., Europeans Reach Deal on Iran Nukes
November 24, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Agency-Iran.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- U.S. and European negotiators agreed Monday on how to condemn Iran for hiding its nuclear programs while still encouraging it to cooperate with the U.N. atomic agency.
The proposed resolution was weaker than the United States had wanted. U.S. officials had hoped that Iran's past nuclear cover-ups would be enough for the U.N. Security Council to get involved. The council has the power to impose international sanctions. The draft avoids any direct mention of the Security Council, but warns the agency would use ``all options at its disposal'' -- an allusion to the council.
The draft broke days of deadlock at the International Atomic Energy Agency. It was formally submitted to the agency's board of governors, who are to resume a meeting on Wednesday, said diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity.
``We've reached agreement,'' said one of the diplomats. ``We're all set for Wednesday.''
The diplomats told The Associated Press that the draft included a ``trigger mechanism'' demanded by the United States in the form of a clause indirectly threatening Security Council action should Iran was found guilty of ``further significant failures'' -- new evidence of clandestine activities or failure to honor its new commitments to the IAEA.
``Should any further serious Iranian failures come to light, the board of governors would meet immediately to consider in light of the circumstances and the advice of the (IAEA) director general, all options at its disposal, in accordance with the IAEA statute and Iran's safeguard agreement,'' the clause stated, as read to the AP by a diplomat.
Last week, Washington had insisted it would hold out for at least a threat of Security Council action over 18 years of clandestine activities by Iran including uranium enrichment and plutonium processing. U.S. officials say those activities point to a nuclear weapons agenda.
France, Germany and Britain instead put forward a relatively softly worded draft resolution meant to focus on encouraging Iran to open its nuclear programs to stringent IAEA scrutiny. That was rejected by Washington, leading to a days-long impasse.
As the text of the draft was still developing earlier in the evening, Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's chief IAEA envoy, suggested his country was happy with a resolution that avoided direct mention of Security Council involvement should Iran backslide but refused to characterize developments as a ``victory'' over Washington.
``It's always natural that there are differences of views on matters of international importance,'' he told The Associated Press. ``What is important here is that a chance has been given for the power of logic to prevail.''
He said Iran would not have tolerated any direct mention of Security Council action -- and the implicit threat of sanctions -- in any resolution.
``Those are red lines that are not going to be crossed by anyone,'' he said, suggesting that Iran would have rethought its nuclear concessions, including opening its programs to intensive scrutiny and suspending uranium enrichment, had the resolution mentioned the Security Council.
A U.S. official who demanded anonymity said agreement was reached after days of negotiations between Washington, London, Berlin and Paris. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell talked with his British, German and French counterparts over modifications of the draft late into Monday.
The deep differences led Friday to an unprecedented clash between chief U.S. delegate Kenneth Brill and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, with Brill questioning ElBaradei's credibility and suggesting he played down evidence that Iran had tried to build nuclear weapons over the past 18 years.
The dispute focused on a report by ElBaradei stating there was as yet ``no evidence'' of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
On the Net:
IAEA Web site: www.iaea.org.
----
Diplomats: Iran Nuke Resolution Too Weak for U.S.
November 24, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran-un.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - The deadlock over Iran's atomic program continued Monday as France, Germany and Britain circulated a new draft U.N. nuclear resolution on Iran's 18-year concealment of atomic research that is too weak for Washington.
The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency's35-member Board of Governors Friday adjourned talks until Wednesday, to give diplomats a chance to revise a resolution drafted by the three European states condemning Iran's concealment of atomic research which could be arms-related.
The new draft, obtained in full by Reuters, calls for the IAEA's governing board to ``meet immediately to consider all options at its disposal'' if any further violations of Tehran's international non-proliferation obligations are uncovered.
However, Western diplomats told Reuters U.S. negotiators want a much stronger ``trigger mechanism'' that warns Iran clearly that if it has any more atomic secrets it will be reported to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
``That's obviously not going to be acceptable to the Americans,'' a Western diplomat said, adding that this wording was the subject of continued talks ``at the highest levels'' in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin.
The wording of the trigger is one of the main sticking points for the United States, which accuses Iran of wanting The Bomb. The diplomat said it was unclear when the four capitals would have an acceptable new draft to submit to the board.
The Germans are worried that too strong a trigger could alienate the Iranians, who deny wanting nuclear weapons, and cause them to curtail cooperation with the U.N, diplomats said.
However, the draft has some sharp language. It ``strongly deplores Iran's past failures and breaches of its obligation to comply with ... its Safeguards Agreement'' under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Originally Washington had pushed the board to pass a resolution that would declare Iran in ``non-compliance'' with the NPT and would report it to the Security Council. However, U.S. officials dropped these demands to facilitate a compromise.
GRAVE CONCERN ABOUT PLUTONIUM SEPARATION
The resolution is responding to a recent IAEA report that said Iran had 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. The resolution notes ``with the gravest concern that Iran enriched uranium and separated plutonium in undeclared facilities, in the absence of IAEA safeguards.''
But it ``weclomes Iran's offer of active cooperation and openness and its positive response to the demands ... in the (September 12 IAEA) resolution'' which gave Tehran until October 31 to come clean about the full extent of its nuclear program.
U.S. officials were supposed to help write the third draft of the resolution. In the end, diplomats said Washington was not so actively involved in the writing but mostly gave suggestions to France, Germany and Britain for inclusion in the new draft.
The resolution also ``welcomes Iran's decision to suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities and requests Iran to adhere to it.'' It called for IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei to submit a new report to the board in mid-February.
An editorial in Iran's conservative newspaper Jomhuri-ye Eslami warned U.S. allies that they would be punished by Tehran.
``Our political an economic relations with countries like Japan, Australia and Canada must be reviewed after their full support was given to America in the IAEA,'' it said.
-------- japan
Japan eyes joint missile production with US: report
TOKYO (AFP)
Nov 24, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031124040210.7o8qdnrj.html
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-11/24/content_1194593.htm
Japan plans to jointly produce next-generation missiles with the United States in a bid to upgrade the country's competitiveness in defense-industry technology, a daily said Monday.
Tokyo and Washington have been studying the development of a ship-to-air missile capable of downing incoming ballistic missiles since 1999 and Japan's Defense Agency wants to make an advanced ship-to-air missile with the United States, the Asahi Shimbun said.
The agency is also seeking 134.1 billion yen (1.2 billion dollars) in the next fiscal year starting in April to buy a US missile system that would deploy an Aegis destroyer-based anti-missile Standard Missile 3 (SM3), the daily said.
With the United States, Japan hopes to produce a ship-to-air missile more advanced than the SM3, it said.
But the Asahi said the joint missile project could require a review of Japan's ban on exports of weapons.
In 1976, the government banned arms exports to all nations, but made an exception in 1983, following a request from Washington, to allow only "technology" exports to the United States.
If Japan and the United States launched joint missile production, Japanese manufacturers would very likely export their weapons products to the United States, an illegal move under the current policy, the daily said.
On Friday, former defense agency director-general Fumio Kyuma said Japan should review the export ban.
"At a minimum, I think we should allow the export of parts for weapons systems to our alliance partner, the United States," Kyuma was quoted by the Asahi as saying.
----
2nd Global Assembly in Nagasaki for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons- report
Dear all,
The 2nd Global Assembly in Nagasaki for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons was a great success, with 2500 participants at the opening Assembly on Nov. 22. This is a quick message to let you know the text of the "Nagasaki Appeal 2003" adopted by the Assembly. The schedule of the Assembly is found at the ollowing URL.
http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~gca.naga/english.htm
Hiromichi UMEBAYASHI, Dr. President,
Peace Depot International Coordinator,
PCDS (Pacific Campaign for Disarmament and Security)
3-3-1 Minowa-cho, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama, 223-0051 Japan
phone: 81-45-563-7941 fax: 81-45-563-9907
web: http://www.peacedepot.org e-mail: CXJ15621@n... (personal) office@p... (office)
--
Nagasaki Appeal 2003
In the first years of the 21st century the prospects of nuclear weapons proliferation and use have dramatically increased. As the last city to suffer a nuclear attack, Nagasaki is committed to reversing this dangerous trend and making progress towards a nuclear weapons-free world.
The 21st century began with a chain reaction of violence and retaliation. In September 2001 terrorist attacks took place in the United States. The Afghan war followed, and then the Iraq War began in March 2003 on the pretext that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration has reviewed its nuclear posture and promoted new policies for nuclear weapons use. Also, North Korea is conducting brinkmanship diplomacy using nuclear weapons development as a lever. We find that the intentions of various countries to give a new role to nuclear weapons will considerably hinder any progress towards their elimination.
In this context, we global citizens have gathered again in the A-bombed city of Nagasaki three years after the 1st Global Citizens' Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, in order to listen to the heartfelt pleas of Hibakusha and to be inspired by the enduring passion of the Nagasaki citizens' commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons.
After 58 years, many Hibakusha (suvivors of the A-bombing in 1945) continue to suffer from secondary illnesses caused by nuclear radiation, in addition to their initial physical injuries and emotional trauma wrought by the atomic bomb. Also, the second and third generation Hibakusha live in constant fear for their health.
While enduring these hardships, they have sustained their efforts to develop strategies and build a movement to realize the elimination of nuclear weapons. Hibakusha have not been passive victims. They have critically analyzed, exposed hidden intentions and harshly criticized, as follows, the arguments put forward by those in authority who justify the possession and development of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapon states have tried to obscure the true nature of nuclear weapons by hiding them within the phrase 'weapons of mass destruction. They argue that non-proliferation is a priority and reject nuclear disarmament.
Especially, the US has undertaken research to develop small nuclear weapons and 'bunker busters', and is preparing for the resumption of nuclear tests, using the pretext of the 'war against terrorism'. They imply that small nuclear weapons are merely extensions of conventional weapons, thus lowering the barrier to their use. Do they think that they now have free reign to do canything they want in the name of the so-called 'war against terrorism'?
This thinking will undoubtedly be imitated by other countries bringing with it the spread of nuclear weapons to even more countries. How can a country strengthen its own nuclear arsenal, while seeking to prevent nuclear proliferation by others? Moreover, where is the commitment by the nuclear weapon states to 'an unequivocal undertaking to the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals' adopted at the NPT (NonProlifeation Treaty) Review Conference in May 2000? The US has acted in bad faith, and has violated the spirit of this commitment by pursuing new nuclear weapons.
We global citizens strongly feel that all nuclear weapon states, declared and undeclared, and those countries that rely on the nuclear umbrella of others, should honestly and sincerely answer these direct questions from Hibakusha. Whatever justifications are offered by the nuclear weapon states, the weapons must be denounced as illegal and immoral by the people of the world.
After three days of intense discussions in Nagasaki, we found hope in the constant resolve of the Hibakusha and in the vigor of today's youth. As global citizens, we sincerely appeal to the people of the world to:
--Call for an end to the cycle of violence and retaliation; now is the time to delegitimize war.
--Ensure that nuclear war will be prevented, especially in the flashpoints of the Middle East, South Asia and Northeast Asia, including the Korean Peninsula.
--Establish nuclear weapon free zone or areas free of weapons of mass destruction as a contribution to the prevention of nuclear wars and further nuclear proliferation.
--Stop the trend towards the development of new types of nuclear weapons, policies for their use, missile defenses and weaponization of space.
--Support those raising their voices in protest across the world and especially in the United States.
--Continue building a large international citizen movement to abolish nuclear weapons in anticipation of the NPT Review Conference to be held in New York in 2005.
--Press governments to adopt concrete steps to achieve nuclear abolition so that the 2005 NPT Conference will be an epoch-making event.
We are greatly encouraged by the decision of the Mayors for Peace to initiate an 'Emergency Action Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons'. Its success depends on civic activities in cities all over the world. We urge citizens to cooperate with their mayors to forge strong international support for this campaign at the 2005 NPT Review Conference. In order to achieve this, international solidarity with Nuclear Free Local Authorities is vital.
We believe that Japan, as the only A-bombed nation, has a special role to play. We fear that a tendency among Japanese politicians to blindly accept nuclear weapons has increased. We must continue to listen to the urgent pleas of Hibakusha to end dependence on nuclear weapons and to exert credible leadership for nuclear abolition in the international community.
Finally, in anticipation of the 2005 NPT Review Conference and the 60th anniversary of the US atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, we call on itizens everywhere to work with their political leaders in national and local governments to create strong public support for banning nuclear weapons for all time.
24 November 2003, the 2nd Global Assembly in Nagasaki for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
-------- korea
Russia Expects N. Korea Nuke Talks About Dec 17, 19
November 24, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-russia.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia expects that fresh six-nation talks to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs will take place about Dec. 17 or Dec. 19, a senior Russian official said on Monday.
``Approximately 17th, 19th, but it would depend on how well the preparations would go,'' Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov told reporters.
Losyukov, one of the participants in an inconclusive round of talks in Beijing in August, was speaking after a meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, who led the U.S. delegation in Beijing.
The aim of the talks, also attended by China, Japan and the two Koreas, is to reach a deal which would prevent communist North Korea developing nuclear weapons, in exchange for assurances that the other countries will not attack.
The Yonhap News in South Korea reported on Sunday that South Korea also expects a new round to be held in Beijing from Dec. 17 to 19.
North Korea has shown a positive reaction to the plan, the report said, citing a high-ranking government official.
President Bush bracketed North Korea in an ``axis of evil'' with Iran and Iraq under former leader Saddam Hussein.
A crisis erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials said communist Pyongyang had privately admitted to pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program that violated North Korea's international agreements.
In an attempt to defuse tensions, Washington said last month it was willing to give Pyongyang unspecified security assurances in exchange for an end to the North's suspected weapons program.
Losyukov said Moscow favored security assurances. He added: ``Such assurances must be given in an appropriate form. But what would the form be, it depends on negotiations.''
-------- missile defense
Report: Japan Aims to Make Missile Shield
November 24, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-US-Missile-Defense.html
TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's military wants to help produce components of a next-generation missile shield it is studying with the United States, a move that could force a rethinking of this pacifist nation's long-standing ban on weapons exports, a newspaper reported Monday.
Japan has been conducting research into ballistic missile defense in conjunction with the United States since 1999, prompted by mounting concern about the threat posed by increasingly sophisticated North Korean warheads.
The two allies are working on a missile that could replace the Standard Missile-3, a ship-launched interceptor that is one of the key weapons systems in the U.S. ballistic missile shield commissioned a year ago by President Bush.
Japan's Defense Agency expects development of the new missile to be completed in several years and wants Japanese companies to help manufacture it to keep this nation on the cutting edge of defense technology, the nationally circulated Asahi newspaper reported, citing unnamed agency sources.
Having Japanese factories produce some parts of the missile would require a review of a 3-decade-old policy under which Japan banned weapons exports to all countries, the newspaper said. The 1976 ban was in line with this country's pacifist constitution, which renounces the use of force to resolve international disputes.
The government agreed in 1983 allow the transfer of weapons-related ``technology'' to the United States, its main ally. But Japanese officials are reportedly concerned that the exception cannot be interpreted as legitimizing exports of parts of weapons systems.
Defense chief Shigeru Ishida recently told Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld the export ban constituted an ``obstacle'' to helping with the mass production of the next-generation missile interceptors, the newspaper said.
While conducting research into a next-generation missile shield, Japan's military has already decided to acquire two U.S.-designed weapons systems that are part of the U.S. ballistic missile shield scheduled to be operational by 2005.
The Defense Ministry said in August it was seeking more than a billion dollars in next year's budget to buy the SM-3 interceptor and the ground-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3. Deployment is reportedly slated for 2007.
----
Winter won't slow missile defense work; deadline still end of 2004
By Robert Howk
Alaska Journal of Commerce
Monday, November 24, 2003
http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/112403/loc_20031124021.shtml
Work is proceeding on time and on budget to get the basic elements of a national missile defense system operational in Alaska by the end of next year. And the top official in charge of the project said winter conditions will not slow down the effort.
John Toenes, deputy director of site activation in Alaska for the Pentagon's Ground-Based Midcourse Defense program, gave an update Nov. 13 during the annual convention of the Associated General Contractors of Alaska in Anchorage.
Most of the activity taking place this winter will be at Fort Greely near Delta Junction, where Fluor Inc. and its subcontractors have secured $218 million in contracts and handled $16 million worth of purchase orders so far.
As of late fall, Toenes said, work at the Army base has accounted for 1.5 million employee-hours, and most of those workers are local hires.
Of 593 people at the site, 550 are Alaska residents and 103 of those are from Delta, Toenes said. Five hundred twenty eight are craft workers, and 65 are staff and management positions, he added.
Crews now have nearly all of the new and re-modeled buildings at the base buttoned up against the elements, and this winter will see full-time work being done indoors on electrical, mechanical and other related systems.
"We're not going to see near the hardships on workers that we saw last winter," Toenes said.
The "to do" list includes up to $20 million to construct new electric power generating systems. The base power is now being primarily supplied by a high-voltage feeder line from Golden Valley Electric Association.
Other work on facility construction and security fencing is budgeted at up to $20 million for next year, while civil engineering, mechanical and electrical construction will account for up to $25 million more in contracts, Toenes said.
A major project slated for completion next summer is an upgrade of the main runway at the site, he said. That job will cost up to $35 million.
"Are you going to be using concrete or asphalt for that?" a contractor in the audience asked Toenes.
"We're still working that out," Toenes replied.
"When you know, can you call me at home? I sell concrete," the questioner responded.
Other key components of the GMD system in Alaska are located in the Aleutian Chain. At Eareckson Air Station on Shemya Island "the most powerful radar system of its type in the world" is almost complete, with about 200 workers still at the site. And more work will be done next year on Adak Island, where a sea-based floating radar unit will be stationed.
Toenes said he has no intention of missing a deadline issued last December by President Bush.
"We will have alert missiles by the end of 2004," he said.
-------- ukraine
Chernobyl fallout still contaminating food chain
From NuclearNo.com Russian web site: Zeitung,
19 November 2003
From: "Dennis F. Nester" <theroyprocess@cox.net>
http://nuclearno.com/text.asp?7219
The effects of the world`s worst nuclear accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine, are still being felt in Switzerland 17 years after the event.
Scientists have discovered a high concentration of radioactive caesium in wild boar, which are increasingly ending up on Swiss tables.
The Federal Health Office has announced that tests carried out across the country last year discovered traces of radioactive Caesium 137 released during the 1986 Chernobyl reactor disaster.
The highest levels were found in the southern canton of Ticino and eastern Switzerland.
"It is astonishing that the caesium concentration is pretty much at the same level as it was after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986," said Hansruedi Volkle of the health office.
The tests were ordered after the Ticino health authorities came across a wild boar with a level of caesium five times the accepted limit of 1,250 Becquerel (bq - the unit of radioactivity) per kilogramme during routine checks of meat.
Radioactive truffles Suspecting that the high level of radioactivity was coming from the truffles the boar ate, scientists of the Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research tested 20 specimens of the fungus across Switzerland.
Although the truffle in question - the deer truffle - is inedible for humans, boars eat it in large quantities. And in Switzerland boar meat is growing in popularity, meaning the radioactive caesium can be passed to humans.
But Volkle says that caesium is not normally retained by the human body.
"In humans caesium deposits in the muscles, but adults normally get rid of half of it within two to three months."
Volkle thinks that the fact that Switzerland saw a lot of rain in the days following the disaster in Ukraine made it easier for the isotope to spread than elsewhere.
"Because of the precipitation the caesium ended up in the food chain," he explained.
The tests showed that the concentration of the isotope is much lower in western Switzerland than in Ticino or eastern Switzerland.
In Malvaglia in canton Ticino, scientists found that one kilogramme of dried truffle contained 15,700bq compared with 2,800bq in Beatenberg in central Switzerland or 3,400bq in Montagny in canton Fribourg.
But Volkle says recent tests have proved that the caesium concentration in edible mushrooms is slowly decreasing.
Deep rooted During their testing scientists also established that the absorption of caesium depended on the depth of the ground.
"Truffles are able to absorb vast amounts of caesium," said mushroom expert Simon Egli.
Truffles grow on the top layer of the forest soil and the fact that their roots go down about ten centimetres makes it easier for them to absorb the isotope.
"Caesium levels in deer are normally much lower than in wild boar as stags and deer do not consume as many truffles as the boar and do not dig so deep," Hansruedi Volkle said.
The wild boar population has increased significantly in recent years with 6,000 animals killed last year compared with around 4,700 in 2001. Last year Switzerland imported 150 tonnes of boar meat from Australia, Italy and Austria.
Nuclear Digest:
http://nuclearno.com/text.asp?7093
MOX Recycling vs. Transmutation: The Roy Process -
http://nuclearno.com/text.asp?6115
-------- us politics
Bush Signs Record $401.3 Billion Defense Bill
November 24, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-bush-defense.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush signed into law on Monday a record $401.3 billion defense spending bill that gives soldiers an average 4 percent raise.
``America stands with the United States military,'' Bush said as he signed the legislation in a ceremony at the Pentagon.
The legislation, approved earlier this month by the U.S. Congress, clears the way for the Air Force to acquire 100 Boeing Co. refueling aircraft, expands veterans' benefits and allows research on new types of nuclear weapons.
It includes $9.1 billion for ballistic missile defense.
``We will do whatever it takes to keep our nation strong, to keep the peace and to keep the American people secure,'' Bush said.
Bush hailed U.S. forces serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, saying: ``You're standing for order and hope and democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. You're standing up for the security of all free nations, and for the advance of freedom.''
--------
Democrats Demand Bush Pull TV Ad Attacking Critics of Iraq Policy
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 24, 2003; Page A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8735-2003Nov23.html
DES MOINES, Nov. 23 -- Leading Democrats demanded Sunday that the Republican National Committee stop running a new television ad that defends President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq and charges that Bush's critics were attacking him "for attacking the terrorists."
Democratic anger at the commercial did not bring about any hiatus in the intraparty warfare among the candidates for the presidential nomination, however. On the eve of Monday's candidate debate here, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and former Vermont governor Howard Dean traded some of the toughest rhetoric in their rapidly escalating battle.
Gephardt accused Dean of cutting programs for the poor and disabled in Vermont. Dean accused Gephardt of producing "empty rhetoric" in Congress and siding with Bush on Iraq "at the expense of our country and our party."
Democrats have been fuming at the RNC ad, which is airing in Iowa to coincide with the Democratic debate. Senate Democratic leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) called it "repulsive and outrageous" and said Democrats oppose the way Bush has managed the situation in Iraq, not the war against terrorism. "It's wrong. It's erroneous, and I think that they ought to pull the ad," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) answered the RNC ad with one of his own, which will begin airing in Iowa on Monday, saying Americans are united in the war on terror. "The problem is, you [Bush] declared 'mission accomplished' when you had no plan to win the peace and handed out billions in contracts to contributors like Halliburton," an announcer says.
Dean used the RNC ad to raise money on the Internet for an ad of his own that attacks Bush's Iraq policies, while retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark said on CBS-TV's "Face the Nation" that the RNC ad implies that Bush's critics are "somehow aiding the enemy." He said the ad violates "the pledge the president made not to exploit 9/11 for political purposes."
The Gephardt-Dean exchanges helped set up Monday's Democratic debate. Campaigning in Iowa on Sunday, Gephardt charged that Dean not only sided with Republicans nationally in trying to slow the growth of Medicare in the mid-1990s but also repeatedly sought to cut Medicaid, education and other programs to balance his own state budget.
"Time after time, when faced with budget shortfalls, Howard Dean's first and only instinct was to cut," Gephardt said, according to a prepared text. "Cut education, cut prescription drug coverage, cut Medicaid funding, cut aid to the elderly, blind and disabled."
Dean responded with a statement that said: "As a Governor I worked hard to make the tough choices to deliver results. As a Member of Congress for nearly three decades Dick Gephardt has delivered empty rhetoric." Dean added: "Faced with the toughest decision of his career, whether to send the country to war in Iraq, Dick Gephardt took the easy way out at the expense of our country and our Party."
The Democratic debate has been disrupted by the Senate fight over legislation to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. All nine of the candidates were scheduled to be in Des Moines except Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.).
To allow Kerry and Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) to participate in the Iowa debate, organizers decided Sunday night to allow the two to participate by satellite from a Washington studio. Two onstage screens will show Kerry and Edwards alongside the six who will be there in person.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
The Other Conflict Continues to Take a G.I. Toll
November 24, 2003
By DAVID ROHDE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/24/international/asia/24AFGH.html?pagewanted=all&position=
LOZANO RIDGE, Afghanistan, Nov. 23 - As Sgt. First Class Vernon Story's column of Humvees climbed a desolate ridge a mile from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border here on Sunday morning, the sergeant got the feeling that someone was watching. The five unexploded land mines he and his men had found along this same ridge in a firefight with Taliban rebels here less than two months ago lingered in his mind.
"Hey, don't be driving down the tracks," Sergeant Story warned his driver.
Just after he spoke, the front of his Humvee abruptly lurched into the air as a mine or remote-controlled bomb detonated under the right front tire. It severed the lower left leg of a young soldier in the front passenger seat and tossed the 6,000-pound vehicle violently on its side. Sergeant Story, seven soldiers and four journalists traveling with them in the back of the vehicle were thrown to the ground.
Scrambling to his feet, his face cut, the sergeant cursed, suspected an ambush and ordered his men to fire at the surrounding hillsides.
No one shot back.
So went a typical engagement in the grinding conflict for the 10,000 American soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, overshadowed by the larger conflict in Iraq.
Casualties are not as high here, but fatal clashes with a shadowy enemy continue.
"It's aggravating," Sergeant Story, 34, said in his southern drawl, referring to guerrilla attacks that have killed five Americans and four Afghan soldiers along the border with Pakistan in the last eight weeks. "It's very frustrating."
The risks are by no means limited to ground forces. On Sunday at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, at least five American soldiers were killed when their helicopter crashed.
So far this year, 9 of the 10 American combat deaths have occurred in this area around Shkin, an isolated military base three miles from the Pakistan border.
Sunday morning's attack on Lozano Ridge, named after an American soldier killed here in April, was the latest in a series of strikes by pro-Taliban fighters who launch missiles, plant mines and mount fierce ambushes against American forces within miles of the Pakistan border, according to American military officials. After the engagements, the gunmen are often seen retreating toward Pakistan.
Lt. Col. Michael Howard, the commanding officer of two American bases along the border, said that Pakistan's government was trying to control the border, but that it was impossible to seal off such mountainous terrain.
"You've got a president who is committed; you've got a military who is committed," Colonel Howard said, referring to Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. "They've got a lot of challenges like everybody else."
The Americans here face their own challenges. Sergeant Story and his soldiers, stationed in Shkin, are fighting on some of the bleakest terrain on earth. It is a jarring existence that mixes the primitive and the modern, intense boredom and intense fear.
By day, they inhabit a world of brown earth, brown mud-brick houses and translucent blue skies. By night, temperatures drop below freezing, and bands of stars blaze across a sky unspoiled by man-made light.
Their battleground is a swath of dozens of miles of arid plateau, 7,000 feet above sea level in eastern Afghanistan, lined by hills and mountains to the east and west. They can patrol for days without incident, but then, without warning, be ambushed by gunmen on barren hillsides covered with boulders and bushes.
The soldiers relax only when inside their base, a bubble of Americana in a sea of Afghan dust. On Sunday night, a few hours after the mine explosion, Sergeant Story and other soldiers sat in a crude mud-brick mess hall watching the Dallas Cowboys-Carolina Panthers game via satellite on a widescreen television.
The soldiers eat burgers, fries and baked beans for dinner. They have been watching "Bulletproof Monk" and other Hollywood movies on a DVD player, over and over.
The desolate terrain here aids the Americans in some ways. Unlike urban Iraq, this part of Afghanistan affords few places for guerrillas mounting ambushes to hide.
But their effort is slowed by a problem also confounding American forces in Iraq - limited intelligence on the enemy. Military officials said villagers generally provided little information about pro-Taliban fighters, who threaten to kill those who collaborate with the Americans.
"They are all afraid for their lives to give us information about who is coming over the mountains," said Sgt. Katrina Presley, 24, from New Castle, Del., who helps run weekly meetings with local villagers.
Maj. Dennis Sullivan, the base commander, said the Taliban fighters were not making military headway. But aid groups and United Nation officials contend that Taliban guerrillas are now circumventing well-armed American forces and attacking soft targets, like aid workers and Afghan policemen. They say the attacks have slowed reconstruction projects in eastern and southern Afghanistan.
Villagers living around Shkin complain that they are not receiving enough aid. American military officials said two schools and a well were being built in the area with United Nations funds.
Despite the dangers, American soldiers said they were eager to come to Shkin. Sunday's explosion occurred while Sergeant Story was escorting a new group of soldiers who will be replacing his unit. Most interviewed expressed enthusiasm. Seen as the posting with the best chance to engage in combat in Afghanistan, soldiers said coming here allowed them to "do their job."
One young soldier called Shkin a "once in a lifetime" opportunity. Asked for what, he said "to kill."
But some soldiers who have served here for months admitted the experience had changed them. Sgt. Christopher McGurk, a 29-year-old native of Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, saw one of his soldiers, Pvt. First Class Evan O'Neill, 19, of Haverhill, Mass., die in battle on Sept. 29.
In an Oct. 25 battle, a wounded American slowly bled to death as Sergeant McGurk cared for him under fire. The son of a 28-year Army veteran, the sergeant feels that he has done his duty and is thinking of leaving the Army and becoming a New York City police officer. "Once you're involved in a situation like that," he said, "you realize it's for real."
Sergeant Story, a father of three, constantly jokes and refuses to discuss the personal risks.
"I can't answer that question," he said. "Never thought about it. Never. Never."
--------
Soldiers Search Afghan Copter Wreckage
November 24, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-Helicopter-Crash.html
BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) -- Soldiers on Monday combed through the wreckage of a transport helicopter carrying U.S. troops that crashed just north of the capital, killing five Americans and injuring seven.
The cause of Sunday's crash, about 7 miles east of Bagram Air Base, the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan, was not immediately known.
The MH-53 transport helicopter was on a mission connected to Operation Mountain Resolve, a large U.S. military sweep launched Nov. 7 in eastern Nuristan and Kunar provinces hunting for Taliban and al-Qaida militants, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Richard Sater said.
The wreckage of the helicopter was broken into three pieces, some of which had fallen into a mostly dry river bed north of Kabul. About 15 U.S. soldiers were guarding the site, searching through the wreckage.
The military said it was investigating the cause.
``I saw the helicopter crashing, breaking into pieces and catching fire,'' Maraj Jan, a local resident, said. Jan said he didn't see anything strike the aircraft, such as a missile, before the crash occurred around sunset.
A statement sent by e-mail from U.S. Central Command, in Tampa, Fla, on Sunday said: ``Early reports indicate seven service members were injured and at least five service members were killed'' in the crash.
The MH-53 transport helicopter is one of the military's biggest helicopters. Versions of the MH-53 are capable of carrying up to 55 passengers along with a crew of six. The military did not say how many soldiers were on the craft that crashed.
Bagram Air Base is home to most of the 11,600 coalition forces in Afghanistan. An additional 5,500 international peacekeepers patrol Kabul.
Also Sunday, a coalition vehicle struck a remote-controlled bomb while patrolling an area of Afghanistan near the Pakistani border, seriously wounding two American soldiers, including one who lost one of his legs.
Six journalists, two each from Fox television, CBS' ``60 Minutes II'' show and The New York Times were traveling in the convoy of coalition's 10th Mountain Division forces in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said in a statement issued at Bagram Air Base. The CBS and New York Times reporters were in the vehicle that was knocked over by the explosion, suffering minor injuries, the statement said.
The explosion occurred at about 1 p.m. in Shkin, Paktika province, about 135 miles south of Kabul, the Afghan capital. A coalition base also is located there.
The wounded soldiers were identified as Staff Sgt. Roy Mitchell, of Batesville, Ind., and Sgt. 1st Class Michael Eichner, of Stonington, Pa., officials at Fort Drum in New York state said.
Mitchell, 32, suffered burns to his face, neck and back, and had his left leg amputated. Eichner, 31, was wounded by shrapnel in his back and had a broken hand, the officials said. The soldiers were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment.
Some 35 Americans have died from hostile fire in Afghanistan since the October 2001 start of the Afghan war, according to the U.S. military. An American soldier taking part in the Mountain Resolve operation was killed Nov. 14 when his vehicle struck a land mine, and last month two CIA agents were killed in an ambush in the eastern Afghan border town of Shkin.
Eastern and southern Afghanistan have become hotbeds of attacks by pro-Taliban and pro-al-Qaida militants targeting coalition forces, U.N. workers and relief agencies.
On Friday, the violence hit Kabul when a rocket landed about 30 yards from the Intercontinental Hotel, shattering glass but causing no injuries. The hotel, a favorite among foreign visitors, is also near the site of an upcoming loya jirga, or grand council, set to ratify a new constitution in December.
A week ago, a French woman who worked with the U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees organization, Bettina Goislard, 29, was gunned down by suspected Taliban militants in the southern city of Ghazni. She became the first international aid worker to be killed in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime two years ago.
--------
Five U.S. Soldiers Killed in Copter Crash Near Kabul
Associated Press
Monday, November 24, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8833-2003Nov23.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 23 -- Five U.S. soldiers were killed and seven were injured when their helicopter crashed Sunday near U.S. military headquarters north of the Afghan capital, the U.S. Central Command said.
The soldiers were involved in an operation called Mountain Resolve, taking place in the east of the country, the military said.
"A U.S. military helicopter crashed today near Bagram," the military said in a statement sent by e-mail from Central Command headquarters in Tampa. "Early reports indicate seven service members were injured and at least five service members were killed."
It was not clear what caused the crash, and the military said it was investigating the incident.
Bagram air base, just north of the capital, houses most of the 11,600 coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Mountain Resolve began Nov. 7 in eastern Nuristan and Kunar provinces, but so far no major skirmishes with suspected Taliban and al Qaeda holdouts have taken place.
-------- arms
1-shot killer
This 5.56mm round has all the stopping power you need - but you can't use it. Here's why:
By John G. Roos
Army Times
November 24, 2003
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2426405.php
Ben Thomas and three colleagues were driving north out of Baghdad in an SUV on a clear mid-September morning, headed down a dirt road into a rural village, when gunmen in several surrounding buildings opened fire on them.
In a brief but intense firefight, Thomas hit one of the attackers with a single shot from his M4 carbine at a distance he estimates was 100 to 110 yards.
He hit the man in the buttocks, a wound that typically is not fatal. But this round appeared to kill the assailant instantly.
"It entered his butt and completely destroyed everything in the lower left section of his stomach ... everything was torn apart," Thomas said.
Thomas, a security consultant with a private company contracted by the government, recorded the first known enemy kill using a new - and controversial - bullet.
The bullet is so controversial that if Thomas, a former SEAL, had been on active duty, he would have been court-martialed for using it. The ammunition is "nonstandard" and hasn't passed the military's approval process.
"The way I explain what happened to people who weren't there is ... this stuff was like hitting somebody with a miniature explosive round," he said, even though the ammo does not have an explosive tip. "Nobody believed that this guy died from a butt shot."
The bullet Thomas fired was an armor-piercing, limited-penetration round manufactured by RBCD of San Antonio.
A new process
APLP ammo is manufactured using a so-called "blended-metal" process, said Stan Bulmer, president of sales and manufacturing for Le Mas Ltd. of Little Rock, Ark. Le Mas is the distributor of RBCD ammo.
Various bullet types made by RBCD are designed for different effects, Bulmer said.
The frangible APLP ammo will bore through steel and other hard targets but will not pass through a human torso, an eight-inch-thick block of artist's clay or even several layers of drywall. Instead of passing through a body, it shatters, creating "untreatable wounds."
Le Mas gave Thomas a small number of APLP rounds after he contacted the company.
After driving off their attackers, Thomas and his colleagues quickly searched the downed enemy fighter for items of intelligence value. They also took time to examine the wound.
"There's absolutely no comparison, whatever, none," to other wounds he has seen from 5.56mm ammo, Thomas said in a telephone interview while on home leave in Florida.
He said he feels qualified to assess a bullet's effects, having trained as a special-operations medic and having shot people with various types of ammo, including the standard-issue green tip and the Black Hills Mk 262, favored by spec-ops troops.
Thomas was the only member of the four-man group who had RBCD ammo. He said that after the group returned to base, they and other members of his group snatched up the remaining rounds.
"They were fighting over it," he said. "At the end of the day, each of us took five rounds. That's all we had left."
Congress wants tests
Last year's defense budget included $1.05 million for testing blended-metal bullets, Bulmer said. Fourteen months into the 24-month period during which those research and development-testing funds must be spent, the military has not purchased a single bullet from Le Mas.
Publicly, at least, military officials say RBCD ammo is no more effective than other types now in use and, under certain conditions, doesn't even perform as well. Those conclusions are derived from a series of tests conducted a few years ago in which RBCD ammo's effects were observed in ballistic gelatin, the standard means for testing bullets.
Naval Reserve Lt. Cmdr. Gary Roberts, a recognized ballistics expert and member of the International Wound Ballistics Association, conducted the gelatin tests in March 2002.
According to his findings, "Claims that RBCD bullet terminal performance can vary depending on target thickness, size or mass were not shown to have merit, as bullet performance remained consistent irrespective of gelatin block size."
Roberts found that in gelatin, a 9mm, 60-grain slug exhibited "tissue damage comparable to that of other nonexpanding 9mm bullets and is less than that of standard 9mm [jacketed hollow point] designs, since the RBCD bullet does not create as much tissue damage due to its smaller recovered diameter."
A .45-caliber bullet "offered average terminal performance in bare and denim-clad gelatin, similar to that noted with the 9mm bullet. ... The RBCD bullets do not appear to be a true frangible design, as significant mass is retained after striking a target."
Not surprisingly, Roberts' assessment remains a major impediment to getting RBCD ammo into military hands. Considering his standing in the ballistics community, his findings are accepted as gospel by many influential members of the special-operations community.
But Bulmer insists that tests in ballistic gelatin fail to demonstrate RBCD ammo's actual performance because the gelatin is chilled to 36 degrees. Their bullets seem to shatter most effectively only when they strike warmer targets, such as live tissue. Bulmer said tests using live animals clearly would show its effects. Despite his appeals for such testing, and the funds set aside by Congress to conduct new tests, the military refuses.
Bulmer said authority to spend the testing funds initially went to U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., which delegated testing responsibility to the Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Queries to the command confirmed that it was aware of the testing requirement but had not decided when, or if, the tests will be conducted.
Bill Skipper, president and CEO of the American Business Development Group, is a lobbyist representing Le Mas on Capitol Hill. "When I heard of the ballistic characteristics of this ammo, as a retired military officer, I realized it has to stay in the good guys' hands," he said, adding that SOCom's reluctance to test it is "irresponsible."
"This is an issue of national security," he said.
Some supporters of RBCD ammunition suggest SOCom officials may be reluctant to test the ammo because it threatens "in-house" weapons and ammunition programs underway at the command.
Special-operations forces long have sought a more potent standard round than the 5.56mm, which lacks the punch needed during the long-distance engagements that frequently occur in Afghanistan and Iraq. In response, SOCom is working with weapons and ammunition manufacturers to develop a new round and new upper receivers for M4 and M16 rifles.
The command apparently has narrowed its search to a 6.8-by-43mm round.
Indication of industries' involvement in this effort was seen in October during the annual Association of the U.S. Army exhibition in Washington.
If Le Mas' 5.56mm APLP round delivers the performance SOCom is seeking in the new 6.8mm ammo - and Bulmer insists it does - the rationale and the potentially lucrative contracts for producing a new ammo type and modifying thousands of weapons used by special-operations forces would disappear.
Thomas said he isn't familiar with the reasons that might keep RBCD ammo from getting a realistic test within the military.
"The politics, that's above my pay grade," he said. "All I really care about is that I have the best-performing weapon, optics, communications, medical equipment, etc. I'm taking Le Mas ammo with me when I return to Iraq, and I've already promised lots of this ammo to my buddies who were there that day and to their friends."
When military officials in the United States got wind that Thomas had used the round, he quickly found himself in the midst of an online debate in which an unnamed officer, who mistakenly assumed Thomas was in the service, threatened him with a court martial for using the nonstandard ammo.
Although Thomas was impressed by RBCD ammo's performance, he feels it should not be the standard ammunition issued to all U.S. forces.
"The first thing I say when I talk to people about Le Mas' ammo is, make sure that 22-year-old infantrymen don't get a hold of this, because if they have an accident ... if they have a negligent discharge, that person is dead. It doesn't matter how much body armor you have on.
"This is purely for putting into bad guys. For general inventory, absolutely not. For special operations, I wouldn't carry anything else."
A video clip on RBCD ammo that was shot at the annual Armed Forces Journal Shootout at Blackwater is online at www.armedforcesjournal.com/bullets.
John G. Roos is editor of Armed Forces Journal.
-------- business
Security Agency's Questions Rile Firms
Contractor Hopefuls Say Applications Ask For Too Much Data
By Anitha Reddy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 24, 2003; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8667-2003Nov23?language=printer
Chris Barnes is paid to worry about nightmares. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Barnes, a lawyer for Boeing Co., fretted more than usual since the aerospace giant does all kinds of security work for the government, including installing machines that scan baggage for explosives at airports.
So he was relieved when Congress let the Homeland Security Department cap the liability of companies selling technologies to foil a terrorist attack, a benefit potentially worth tens of billions of dollars.
Now he is anxious again.
Look, he says, at question 13 on the application for companies seeking this legal protection: "Select the psychological impacts that may well arise from a serious terrorist attack against targets" Boeing's technologies are supposed to protect. The responses, complete with checkboxes, include "Regional/national drop in social activity . . . " and "Loss of something of irreplaceable symbolic or natural value."
"I'm not sure how a Boeing, Lockheed or Raytheon answers that question in any meaningful way," Barnes said.
A year after Congress and businesses agreed that few companies would risk selling vaccines or scanners that identify people by their irises without some kind of shield from big lawsuits, the new Homeland Security Department and government contractors are wrangling over how rigorous the application process should be.
Companies complain the agency is asking for too much confidential financial information and has not adequately explained how it plans to keep such data out of the hands of customers and competitors.
The agency says it has asked for just as much information as it needs to follow Congress's instructions and that the legal benefits are too great to be passed out lightly. The bars to litigation are so substantial that one lawyer for government contractors called the law, the Safety Act, "mini tort reform." Companies that qualify can only be sued in federal court and cannot be sued for damages beyond their insurance coverage. Nor can they be sued for punitive damages. Companies whose technologies meet an even higher standard cannot be sued at all unless it can be proved they lied in their application.
"We agree that they need information in order to do what they're trying to do," said Robert L. Nabors, a senior vice president for Electronic Data Systems Corp., which sells wireless technologies to help emergency workers find victims after disasters. "The question is only degree."
The department says it needs all this information because it must answer two major questions. The first is whether the technology would be sold by the company without the special legal protection. If not, and the technology is deemed useful, the agency must decide how much insurance it can reasonably require the company to buy without "distorting" the price of the technology.
Companies are trying to persuade the department to make do with less information, especially financial data, before it issues a set of final regulations early next year.
The department estimates the applications take an average of 108 hours to fill out; trade groups say the figure is closer to 1,000 hours. Companies should already be collecting the information the agency is seeking, such as revenue projections, said John Mitnick, a lawyer in the general counsel's office at Homeland Security. "It should be more of a matter of assembling the information to send to us rather than creating it from scratch," he said.
An online application site has been live since early October, but Homeland Security officials say they have received only a few completed applications. However, about 70 companies have registered on the Web site, the first step in the application process. Both the agency and trade groups say it is hard to estimate how many companies will seek the protection, but Homeland Security is prepared to handle about 1,000 applications a year.
Trade groups argue the applications could reach the tens of thousands because companies' exposure in the case of a terrorist attack could be unlimited and there is still a high demand for homeland security services.
Whatever their objections to the application process, executives and lawyers said companies simply cannot afford to pass up the protection.
"I don't think we have a choice," Barnes said. If terrorists attack, the victims are going to sue the deep pockets, he added. "We're a $56 billion deep pocket."
--------
Boeing Dismisses Finance Chief
November 24, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-arms-boeing.html
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Boeing Co. (BA.N) on Monday dismissed its chief financial officer for unethical conduct in the aerospace company's hiring of a senior Air Force procurement official.
The No. 2 U.S. military contractor said Chief Financial Officer Michael Sears violated company policies by talking to Darleen Druyun about future employment at Boeing while she was still acting in her government capacity as a procurement officer.
The company also fired Druyun, who served as an executive in Boeing's missile defense unit for less than a year.
It was another bleak day for Boeing, which has faced difficulties in nearly every one of its business units this year -- from weaker commercial jet deliveries to government investigations of military contracting procedures.
``Compelling evidence of this misconduct by Mr. Sears and Ms. Druyun came to light over the last two weeks,'' Boeing Chairman and CEO Phil Condit said in a statement.
Sears, who was a member of the four-person Office of the Chairman, worked closely with Condit at Boeing's Chicago headquarters. Sears was said to have greater influence and responsibility than the typical CFO.
His abrupt departure creates questions over whom may ultimately succeed Condit, who is 62.
Sears, 56, had been considered a prime contender for the CEO job upon Condit's retirement. Sears began his career at McDonnell Douglas in 1969 and was president of the company's aerospace business when it merged with Boeing in 1997.
Boeing named James Bell as acting CFO. He has been senior vice president of finance and corporate controller.
ACTION AND REACTION
One investor said the actions were welcome at a time of diminishing tolerance for corporate misdeeds.
``He (Condit) has got to get the confidence of investors back, and this is a good step,'' said John Murray of Delaware Investments.
Others said it raised additional troubling questions.
``These are the kinds of things you should have in place before the fact...One would have thought after the Raytheon matter that they would have been more concerned about these sorts of improprieties.'' said Tom Schatz, president of taxpayer watch group Citizens Against Government Waste.
In January, the General Accounting Office said Boeing improperly obtained and used data from Raytheon Co.during bidding for a key contract for the U.S. antimissile shield awarded in the late 1990s.
But Schatz gave Condit good marks for taking action.
``It is certainly difficult to fire your purported successor,'' he said.
The Air Force underscored the importance of ``scrupulous adherence to the letter and spirit'' of procurement rules, and said it was considering requesting an investigation.
``The Air Force deplores behavior that jeopardizes the integrity of government procurement activities,'' said Air Force spokeswoman Maj. Cheryl Law.
Boeing has been indefinitely suspended from bidding on lucrative military satellite launching contracts. Its controversial plan to lease the Air Force 100 air refueling tankers based on its 767 commercial jet platform has been hung up in Congress over concerns it would waste taxpayer money.
Druyun had been with Boeing's missile defense unit in Crystal City, Virginia, since January. Sears worked in Chicago. During her employment with Boeing, Druyun was not involved in the tanker negotiations, according to a company spokesman.
PENTAGON INVESTIGATION
In September, the Pentagon's inspector general said ``sufficient credible information exists'' to warrant a criminal investigation into improprieties in the Boeing tanker talks.
Defense officials said the investigations focused specifically on Druyun, and whether she improperly shared with Boeing some pricing data from Airbus, which is 80 percent owned by European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. (EAD.PA) and 20 percent by Britain's BAE Systems Plc (BA.L).
Boeing was sanctioned this year for illegally using a competitor's proprietary documents when it bid for the initial $2 billion Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle rocket contract.
Boeing shares closed 3 cents higher at $38.89 on the New York Stock Exchange.
--------
Boeing Fires Execs for Unethical Conduct
November 24, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Boeing-Executives.html
CHICAGO (AP) -- Boeing Co. unexpectedly fired its top financial executive on Monday for unethical conduct, saying he negotiated the hiring of a missile defense expert while she worked for the U.S. government and was in a position to influence Boeing contracts.
The former Air Force official, Darleen Druyun, was dismissed along with chief financial officer Mike Sears -- 10 months after she was hired as vice president and deputy general manager of Boeing's Missile Defense Systems unit.
The 56-year-old Sears had held top positions in each of Boeing's top businesses, commercial aircraft and defense, before being named to the financial post 3 1/2 years ago. He had been considered a top candidate to succeed 62-year-old Phil Condit as CEO.
The disclosure is another black eye for Boeing's booming defense-contract business, which had $1 billion in government rocket business stripped in July after the Air Force ruled that the company broke the law by using records from rival Lockheed Martin to help win contracts.
It also refocuses attention on the government's controversial multibillion-dollar plan to acquire 100 of its 767 planes for use as midair refueling tankers. The Pentagon's Office of the Inspector General has been looking into allegations Druyun acted improperly in giving Boeing financial information about a competing bid by Airbus.
Boeing said Sears was dismissed for violating company policies by communicating directly and indirectly with Druyun about future employment last year before she had disqualified herself from acting in her official government capacity on matters involving Boeing. It also said an internal review found recently that both attempted to conceal their misconduct.
``Compelling evidence of this misconduct by Mr. Sears and Ms. Druyun came to light over the last two weeks,'' Condit said, without elaborating.
The company continued to maintain it committed no wrongdoing during the leasing-plan process.
President Bush on Monday signed the defense authorization bill that included approval of a compromise tanker deal, lowering the initial $21 billion price by $3 billion to $5 billion. But the signing didn't end the debate over the plan, which U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and other critics have assailed as a sweetheart deal for Boeing.
The criticism escalated this fall when documents disclosed by the government revealed that Druyun, then the principal deputy assistant Air Force secretary for acquisition and management, told Boeing that Airbus had submitted a bid $5 million to $17 million less per plane than Boeing's offer. She joined Boeing nine months later.
Aerospace industry analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group said Boeing's leaders ``clearly needed a bold move in order to send a strong message to their biggest customer -- the U.S. government.''
The company said it has worked hard in recent months to strengthen its programs and policies in order to ensure an understanding that ethical breaches won't be tolerated. ``When we determine there have been violations of our standards, we will act swiftly to address them, just as we have today,'' Condit said.
Whether those efforts, coupled with Monday's ousters, will contribute to putting the controversy to rest depends on the outcome of the inquiry and on the response in Washington.
Asked about the firings Monday, McCain told reporters: ``I think it substantiates our reason for the inquiry and the concern I had about the way that this whole deal was concluded.''
The last investigation resulted in harsh punishment this year when the Pentagon took away seven military satellite launches that were to use Boeing rockets and indefinitely banned the company from bidding on future satellite-launching contracts.
``This came at a very inopportune time, probably just about when they'd done all their mea culpas and all their investigations and everything else that was necessary to have the suspension lifted,'' said JSA Research analyst Paul Nisbet.
Sears was one of three people promoted to a newly created Office of the Chairman at Boeing last year. Along with Alan Mulally and Jim Albaugh, who head the commercial aircraft and defense businesses, respectively, he was mentioned as a prime candidate to someday rise to the top spot. Condit has signaled an interest in staying on until he reaches Boeing's normal retirement age of 65 in August 2006.
In a reflection of the suddenness of Sears' dismissal, it came as a publisher was distributing advance copies of his new book, ``Soaring Through Turbulence: A New Model for Managers Who Want to Succeed in a Changing Business World.''
The aerospace giant named James Bell acting chief financial officer. He had been serving as senior vice president of finance and corporate controller.
Boeing shares rose 3 cents to close at $38.89 on the New York Stock Exchange.
On the Net:
www.boeing.com
-------- europe
Blair faces battle over EU defence
By Toby Helm Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and George Jones
24/11/2003
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$L4BRXDDOYL2PRQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2003/11/24/weu24.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/11/24/ixnewstop.html
Tony Blair will come under pressure from France today to sign up to new European defence arrangements outside Nato, which could increase transatlantic tensions between the European Union and the United States.
Three days after bidding farewell to President George W Bush, Mr Blair will attempt to resolve a deepening dispute over Franco-German ambitions for an EU military operational command, which would exclude America.
President Jacques Chirac and Pierre Raffarin, the French prime minister, will attend a one-day summit in London in an attempt to get relations between the two countries back on track after disagreement over Iraq and the EU's common agricultural policy.
British officials say the rift over defence threatens to hold up agreement on the final text of the EU's new constitution next month, and are predicting that the private talks between Mr Blair and M Chirac will be anything but cordial. "There is a large gap between us," a British official said.
Mr Blair signed up to Franco-German defence ambitions at a Berlin summit with M Chirac and Gerhard Schroder, the German chancellor, in September, accepting the principle of an EU operational command separate from Nato and the idea of an EU defence vanguard - known as "structured co-operation".
The deal stunned Washington and prompted fears that Britain was turning its back on the Atlantic alliance in a radical change in defence strategy. The US ambassador to Nato, Nicholas Burns, called the proposals "the most significant threat to Nato's future".
Mr Blair is now searching for a compromise formula to bridge the ever-widening gap between America and Europe.
He is counting on the French to help play down the apparent threat to Nato and scale back the defence clauses in the draft European constitution.
The chief concern is an EU "mutual defence" in Article 40.7, which could lead to a step change in the EU's military role from peace-keeping to fully-fledged territorial defence.
Downing Street is insisting on the elimination of the key words, fearing that it will render Nato almost meaningless.
Mr Bush told The Telegraph earlier this month that Europe needed to take on more of a defence posture - and act independently if Nato did not want to take on the mission.
But he stressed that the European Defence Force should not undermine the vitality of the Nato mission. "And I trust Tony Blair to make the right decision there," he said.
M Chirac will receive a guard of honour at the Foreign Office before the talks with Mr Blair.
-------- iraq
Brain injuries high among Iraq casualties
By Spc. Chuck Wagner
Army News Service,
Nov. 24, 2003
http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/read.php?story_id_key=5445
WASHINGTON -- U.S. casualties in Iraq may be suffering a greater share of brain injuries than in previous wars, causing concern among military doctors.
Doctors with the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center say early casualty assessments suggest service members are returning with a wide range of brain injuries - from mild concussions to coma or death - in larger percentages than the military's rule of thumb.
This suspected rise in an injury notoriously debilitating to victims and hard for doctors to diagnose may result from the terrorists' explosive arsenal and vulnerabilities in current U.S. combat gear, according to experts.
"It's always been well known there are going to be brain injuries in combat," said Dr. Louis French, a neuropsychologist and assistant director for clinical services at the brain center. "About 20 percent is usually what's talked about. So far, what we've seen suggests a higher percentage."
Among 105 casualties assessed between June and October, doctors discovered about two-thirds, or 67 percent, to have brain injuries, according to Dr. Laurie Ryan, another neuropsychologist and the assistant director for research.
The center is pursuing several studies to statistically verify the trend.
The cause for the dramatic increase seems to be the changed nature of warfare in Iraq. The terrorists' weapons of choice are high explosives. Land mines, rocket propelled grenades and improvised bombs allow terrorists to skirt direct engagement with better trained and equipped soldiers, and can still inflict damage to soldiers whose torso, or in military jargon their "center mass", is protected against small arms ballistics.
"There's not as many gunshot wounds," French bluntly noted.
Ironically, a well-protected body has forced the enemy to attack the brain, the only organ still vulnerable to deadly attack.
Another leading cause of head injuries is vehicle accidents, said Ryan, followed by falls.
Although soldiers are wearing head protection, the Kevlar helmet may not be serving soldiers as a solid defense against modern warfare's growing threat - concussive impact.
"It's like a pan on your head, held on by shoestring webbing," said Sgt. Tyler Hall of the 14th Combat Engineers, Fort Lewis Washington. "The Kevlar is a crude system. When you take a hit, it rings your head like a bell."
"It's not designed to absorb impact," French concurred.
Hall has been treated in the center since August, when a convoy traveling near Tikrit came under attack. Terrorists rigged a 155 mm howitzer shell to detonate in the sand as the convoy drove past. The explosion blew through the vehicle's bed and tossed Hall. He landed face down. From the moment he was put on a Blackhawk helicopter until he awoke at Walter Reed a month later, Hall was in a coma caused by the blunt force against his head, despite wearing a Kevlar. He's undergone several surgeries to reconstruct the bones in his face and drain fluid from his brain.
Doctors are treating Hall for several injuries, but it's the head injury that repeatedly threatened to rob Hall of his life, and later the ability to appreciate that he still had a life.
"Day to day I'm getting better. A fog is finally off my eyes. It's frustrating, very frustrating. It's like fighting something you don't see, no one sees, but you can feel it," said Hall, who's improved under intense care at the center but still suffers headaches, nausea, and memory loss. "I still misplace things. I just want to be able to ride in a car again without getting sick."
French and Ryan said brain injuries add a new element of difficulty to casualty assessment, because the injuries are challenging to diagnose and difficult to differentiate from symptoms of other injuries, for instance the symptoms of psychological stress.
"A blow to the head is known to cause depression. Anyone who is returning from a situation in which they are being shot at is likely to experience emotional trauma that can cause depression. It's hard to draw a line between them," said French. "They share symptoms."
He admits brain injuries may be neglected, or even pushed aside as merely psychological.
"They are suffering just as much, but may not get the same support as someone who has an observable injury like a bullet wound or a broken leg," said French.
Brain injuries can exert themselves in physical, cognitive or emotional symptoms, and left untreated they can pose significant hurdles to recovery.
The center is seeking out possible brain injury casualties instead of waiting for referred patients. Doctors screen each new casualty list in search of those likely to have experienced concussive impact, like those in explosions, vehicle accidents or falls. Doctors arrange for personal interviews with high-risk service members. They've screened over 100 patients so far, and continue the effort with Walter Reed's approximately 10 daily arrivals, said Ryan.
The brain center on Walter Reed is the headquarters for eight different centers, including four veterans' affairs, three military and a civilian site. The center is congressionally funded. It works hand in hand, but independently with other medical facilities on Walter Reed.
The center's doctors also are involved in analyzing the newly developed Modular Integrated Communication Helmet (MICH) for its protection against impact-related injuries, said Ryan.
The MICH is currently fielded with Rangers, Special Forces, Navy SEALS, Air Force Special Operations, the Marine reconnaissance community, the FBI's Hostage Response Team, and a brigade at the 82nd Airborne Division, according to a MICH project officer.
The padded MICH is the only ballistic helmet used by Special Operations Command also authorized for use with motorcycles or other all-terrain vehicles, which the project says attests to improved impact protection. Lab testing showed a 40 percent improvement in impact protection over the Kevlar.
The jury is still out on whether the MICH can protect against the causes of brain injuries faced in Iraq, but there's at least one soldier voting in favor of dampening the blows landing on our troops' heads.
"The Kevlar physically moves and bounces on your head. It's heavy and you hear soldiers complaining about headaches a lot," said Hall, running his hand along the back of his head, still laced with metal sutures. "I'd like to see the Army find something better."
(Editor's note: Spc. Chuck Wagner writes for the Pentagram newspaper at Fort Myer, Va.)
----
2 G.I.'s, Throats Slashed, Found Dead After Rock-Throwing Attack on Car in Northern City
November 24, 2003
New York Times
By IAN FISHER and DEXTER FILKINS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/24/international/middleeast/24IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 23 - Three American soldiers were killed in Iraq on Sunday, including two whose throats were slashed after they came under attack in the northern city of Mosul with rocks and gunfire, a military official said.
In Baquba, a city north of Baghdad where at least five people were killed in a suicide bombing on Saturday, a soldier from the Fourth Infantry Division was killed Sunday by a roadside bomb, the American military reported. Two other soldiers were injured.
In Mosul, the soldiers' car crashed after they were attacked with rocks, the military official said, and it was uncertain if they were killed by the accident, the later gunfire or by knife wounds. Witnesses in Mosul - where attacks on American soldiers have risen in recent weeks - were quoted by news services as saying that crowds also pummeled the soldiers' bodies and looted their car.
At a briefing here in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark T. Kimmitt, confirmed the deaths of the two soldiers, from the 101st Airborne Division, but said he would release no details about the incident.
"It is our policy that we do not go into specific details on injuries sustained by soldiers," said General Kimmitt, who is the United States military's deputy director for operations in Iraq. He said there was a continuing investigation into the men's deaths and that he was "not going to get ghoulish about this."
The military official said one aspect of the investigation was why the soldiers were traveling alone and not in a convoy, which the official described as "standard operating procedure" for safety.
Officials also said two soldiers from the First Armored Division were killed and one injured in a traffic accident on Saturday. An M-1 Abrams tank struck their Humvee near Baghdad International Airport.
American authorities here said Sunday that they had suspended civilian flights after a DHL cargo plane was hit by two surface-to-air missiles on Saturday. Dan Senor, a spokesman for the United States provisional authority in Iraq, told reporters here that military flights would continue. The few civilian airlines that operate in Iraq include DHL and Royal Jordanian.
On Sunday, General Kimmitt confirmed that ground personnel saw two missiles hit the DHL A300 Airbus shortly after takeoff at the Baghdad International Airport, a major base for United States soldiers in Iraq. He said the missiles caused "extensive damage to the left wing" but that the plane landed safely. The three crew members were unhurt.
The military also reported that three American contractors were hurt in a bomb blast at the Northern Oil Company in Kirkuk, in northern Iraq.
In Mosul on Sunday, a senior Iraqi police official, Col. Abdul-Salam Qanbar, was shot dead as he walked to pray at a mosque with his young son, the military said.
The police chief in Latifiya, just south of Baghdad, was shot to death by attackers who fired on his car, wounding two other officers.
The Iraqi police have been frequent targets of attack: Twin suicide bombings on Saturday in Baquba and Khan Bani Saad, both north of Baghdad, killed at least 11 police officers, along with half a dozen civilians.
----
Attack in N. Iraq Kills 2 Americans
Crowds Reportedly Mutilate Soldiers' Bodies
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 24, 2003; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8411-2003Nov23.html
BAGHDAD, Nov. 23 -- Assailants killed two U.S. soldiers riding in a civilian car Sunday in the northern city of Mosul and, in a bloody scene, crowds then reportedly mutilated their bodies, trashed the vehicles and made off with the soldiers' belongings.
The daylight attack was the latest sign of unrest in Mosul, a predominantly Sunni Muslim city that had remained relatively quiet after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein's government in April. That lull was shattered by a string of attacks over the past month against U.S. soldiers and the assassinations of at least four officials cooperating with U.S. forces.
The 101st Airborne Division, which is responsible for an area of northern Iraq that includes Mosul, said the two men were shot while driving between garrisons. The U.S. military would not elaborate, saying it was against policy to divulge details of injuries.
"We're not going to get ghoulish about this," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military deputy director for operations in Iraq.
Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language satellite news network based in Dubai, reported that the men were stabbed while their vehicle was at a stop. But witnesses quoted by Western news agencies in Mosul, about 215 miles north of Baghdad, said they may have been shot, then stabbed before their throats were cut. They told the news agencies that residents descended on the vehicle after the attack, looting it of weapons and the soldiers' backpacks. Some witnesses reportedly said the crowd tried to set the vehicle on fire.
The soldiers' deaths came shortly after another U.S. soldier was killed and two were wounded by a roadside bomb in Baqubah, 30 miles northeast of Baghdad. Improvised mines have proved one of the deadliest weapons in the arsenal of the shadowy guerrillas, who since the start of the occupation have relentlessly sought to widen their campaign against occupation forces as well as civilians cooperating with them.
Kimmitt said Sunday that the crew of a DHL cargo plane, which made an emergency landing at Baghdad's airport Saturday, reported being hit by a weapon. He said the attack remains under investigation, but that ground personnel saw two missiles fired before the plane's wing caught fire. The three crew members were not hurt.
The attack marked the first time since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began in March that a civilian aircraft had been struck by surface-to-air missiles, which were used to bring down a CH-47 Chinook helicopter in a field west of Baghdad earlier this month, killing 16 soldiers. Rocket-propelled grenades have brought down two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters in Tikrit, another city in the Sunni Triangle -- home to many of the country's minority Sunni Muslims -- and the ancestral home of Saddam Hussein.
In the wake of Saturday's attack, the U.S. administration in Iraq requested that DHL and Royal Jordanian Airlines, the only commercial passenger carrier flying to Baghdad, suspend their flights, said Daniel Senor, a spokesman for the occupation authority.
November has been one of the bloodiest months since the guerrilla campaign began -- for U.S. soldiers, allied multinational troops and Iraqi security forces and civilians. The attack in Mosul came a day after suicide bombers detonated cars packed with explosives outside Baqubah's police headquarters and a police station in the nearby town of Bani Sad. U.S. officials said 17 Iraqis were killed in the bombings, most of them police officers. The Iraqi police are seen by the U.S. administration as key to restoring stability.
While the attacks have remained most intense in towns such as Baqubah in the Sunni Triangle, a region that long served as a pillar of Saddam Hussein's rule, attacks have mounted against Iraqis cooperating with U.S. officials elsewhere in the country.
Kimmitt said the Iraqi police chief in Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, and two officers were killed Sunday when the car in which they were riding was attacked by small-arms fire. On Saturday, in Mosul, assailants shot and killed an Iraqi police colonel, Abdul-Salam Qanbar, who was in charge of a force protecting oil installations. Since Oct. 29, gunmen in the city, long a center of Baath Party ideology and a traditional recruiting ground for the Iraqi military leadership, have killed a journalist critical of Islamic extremism, an English interpreter working at city hall and a judge investigating crimes committed under the deposed government.
Despite the surge in both the scope and ferocity of the attacks, Kimmitt dismissed any threat posed by the guerrillas, whom he described as occasionally clever but overall "a pretty poor group of insurgents."
"We have nothing at this point that causes us to be concerned," he said. "This is not an enemy that can defeat us militarily."
But he acknowledged in a briefing that the military was still trying to determine precisely who was leading the campaign, which has evolved from hit-and-run raids and attacks with rocket-propelled grenades to more sophisticated suicide bombings and surface-to-air missile strikes. The attacks have sent a shudder through a dispirited country that is increasingly anxious about the scale of the bloodshed.
"That's a puzzle that intelligence analysts continue to work on every day," Kimmitt said.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, the Iraqi Governing Council's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, announced the appointment Sunday of an Iraqi American woman and human rights activist as ambassador to the United States. Rend Rahim Francke, who led the U.S.-funded Iraq Foundation in Washington, will be charged with restoring relations severed in 1990 after Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait.
Born in Baghdad, she became a U.S. citizen in 1987 and has not lived as a full-time resident of Iraq since the 1970s.
-------- israel / palestine
Sharon Hints That Israel May Remove Some Settlers
November 24, 2003
By JAMES BENNET
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/24/international/middleeast/24MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, Nov. 23 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel has hinted that he will consider eventually evacuating civilians from some isolated settlements in the Gaza Strip, as he prepares to renew talks with the Palestinian leadership.
Palestinian officials and Western diplomats who have been briefed on the Israeli proposal say they expect Mr. Sharon to offer to remove civilians, while leaving soldiers in place to hold the land until a final deal is reached with the Palestinians.
Israeli officials declined on Sunday to discuss the specifics of the plan, saying that Mr. Sharon had made no final decisions.
Israeli newspapers reported Sunday that Mr. Sharon was preparing to act unilaterally by drawing a boundary with Palestinian territories and removing some settlements should talks fail on an American-sponsored peace initiative, called the "road map."
The disclosures come as Mr. Sharon is facing growing criticism at home, accused of undermining chances for peace by resisting concessions.
In recent days, Mr. Sharon has at times seemed defensive about the criticism. In outlining his negotiating proposal in general terms to Israel's largest daily, Yediot Aronot, he was quoted Sunday as saying, "I just wanted the Israeli public to know that its prime minister has not stopped thinking how to get out of the impasse with the Palestinians."
Mr. Sharon is an architect of the settlement movement, a credential his supporters think may give him the political strength to remove settlements and his detractors think will prevent him from ever doing so.
On Nov. 14, four former chiefs of Israel's Shin Bet security service joined together in harsh criticism of Mr. Sharon's policies, saying they endangered Israel by relying too heavily on military rather than diplomatic initiatives.
Mr. Sharon has often said he will not negotiate on substantive issues while violence continues, because to do so would be to reward terrorism. His critics say that approach has undermined Palestinian moderates.
Mr. Sharon's coalition is made up largely of right-wing parties committed to building settlements. The prime minister assured his cabinet on Sunday that he would submit for its approval any plan for unilateral steps in the West Bank and Gaza.
Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the far-right National Union Party, said, "The removal of existing settlement will force us to immediately leave the government."
The hints at a new Israeli posture are also coming as Mr. Sharon prepares for his first meeting with the new Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei. Mr. Sharon may be trying to put some pressure on his Palestinian counterpart by raising the possibility of a unilaterally drawn Israeli border should talks fail.
Mr. Qurei, a longtime Palestinian politician and negotiator, has known Mr. Sharon for years. One European diplomat familiar with the preparations for talks said the two men liked each other and shared a "symmetry of interests" that would advance negotiations.
He said both men were feeling pressure to end the stalemate, now that the Bush administration had largely retreated from a significant role in the peace negotiations.
The administration stepped back after previous talks collapsed in August. In early September, the first Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, resigned, saying Israel and Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, had undermined him.
Mr. Qurei is widely seen as a shrewder politician than Mr. Abbas. As Mr. Abbas did in June, Mr. Qurei is seeking now to arrange a unilateral cease-fire among militant Palestinian factions; but unlike Mr. Abbas, Palestinian officials say, Mr. Qurei is promising the factions that he will extract concrete concessions from Israel in exchange.
Palestinian officials are also expecting Mr. Sharon to promise to remove dozens of so-called settlement outposts, the clusters of trailers and tents erected on isolated West Bank hilltops. Their removal is required by the road map plan.
Israel removed a few of the outposts over the summer, but most of them have been rebuilt. Israel is continuing to expand established settlements, now home to 220,000 Jews.
Under the peace plan, the Palestinian leadership is required to begin breaking apart militant groups, a step it has not taken.
Israeli and Palestinian analysts said another source of pressure on Mr. Sharon is the Geneva Initiative, an unofficial peace deal intended as a blueprint for a final settlement that was drawn up by prominent, dovish Israelis and Palestinians. The initiative is scheduled to be signed by its drafters in Geneva on Dec. 1.
One Palestinian official said that Mr. Sharon wanted to schedule his talks with Mr. Qurei before the Dec. 1 event, but that Mr. Qurei had insisted on holding them afterward.
-------- mideast
Turkish Suspects Tied to Guerrillas
Government's Backing of Islamic Group Arouses Scrutiny After Blasts
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 24, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8922-2003Nov23?language=printer
BINGOL, Turkey, Nov. 23 -- The family of Gokhan Elaltuntas buried him in the dead of night, waiting until 2 a.m. Saturday to inter what bits remained of the soft-eyed young man after he detonated a truckload of fertilizer and petroleum outside an Istanbul synagogue seven days earlier.
"We want to cleanse our surname, because we don't want people to know us as terrorists," said his uncle, Rifat Elaltuntas.
Across town the mother of another suspected bomber, Azad Ekinci, moved out of the apartment where the family had lived for three decades. The family of Mesut Cabuk, whose passport was found in the wreckage outside a second synagogue, remained at home but indisposed. His mother tugged a smiling little boy -- the dead man's son -- through a door she then quietly closed on visiting reporters.
Of the four suspects named in the bombings that traumatized Istanbul, three hailed from this gritty mountain town about 1,000 miles away in Turkey's eastern mountains. Notably religious, each of the suspects bore the markers of Islamic militancy familiar in biographies of suicide bombers, including travel to Pakistan for "religious training."
But in Bingol, many people want answers, not from the shaken families of the accused, but from the government.
Until four years ago, Turkey, a Western-leaning, avowedly secular country, had tacitly encouraged Islamic extremism in this region, judging it a useful tool in a sometimes dirty war against Kurdish separatists. A brutal religious underground group known as Hezbollah received guns from government arsenals, according to official investigations, and several thousand killings widely attributed to the group were officially ignored.
Now, after four truck bombs in six days have made Turkey what President Bush called "a new front" in the war on terrorism, residents are raising fresh questions about the consequences of allowing extremism to flourish in the name of expediency. The three men from Bingol accused in the bombings had all been detained in their home town on suspicions of membership in Hezbollah, Turkish officials said. The Turkish underground organization has no relation to similarly named groups in Lebanon and elsewhere.
"People around here knew they were from the Hezbollah organization," said Yusuf Aydin, 65. "We are upset with the National Intelligence Organization for letting them travel abroad and do these things," he said, referring to Turkey's intelligence service.
Ridvan Kizgin, director of the Bingol office of the Turkish Human Rights Association, drew parallels between Turkey's experience with Hezbollah and the U.S. relationship with the anti-Soviet mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980s. "Now the American government can't do anything to stop them," said Kizgin, referring to the religious warriors funded by Osama bin Laden that the United States once regarded as useful allies. "Turkey is in the same position."
Al Qaeda has asserted responsibility for the Istanbul blasts, as have more obscure Turkish groups that are not believed to have the resources to carry out attacks on such a scale.
"We have some evidence which indicates there are religious motives behind this, but is this an al Qaeda conglomerate function, or is this some other terrorist organization? We are not sure at this point," the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Sunday in Istanbul.
In Bingol, officials emphasized their belief that even if the city of 70,000 provided the manpower, the plots were hatched elsewhere in Turkey, or "probably in foreign countries," said Huseyin Oner, a deputy governor of Bingol province. He said one of the three from Bingol -- he declined to say which -- had also traveled to Saudi Arabia.
"I don't think they relied on telephones or e-mail," Oner said. "They were speaking face to face in planning these events. Later they went to Istanbul to carry them out."
Still, the three knew one another here, in a city named for the fresh water that quenched the thirst of the forces of Kemal Ataturk, the military officer who transformed Turkey into a modern state devoted to emulating the West in the 1920s.
The young men from Bingol mixed the two worlds. They wore beards in a country that for years barred any facial hair beyond mustaches. When two of them returned from Pakistan, they had traded their jeans for shalwarkameez, loose-fitting, knee-length cotton shirts and baggy pants that denote male modesty.
But all three were fixtures at Internet cafes, two of which they or their families owned.
Elaltuntas, whose remains were buried at night, managed the Bingol Internet Merkezi Cafe on the city's busy main street. The two-story cafe, co-owned by his father and a brother of Ekinci's, shudders with the stuttering sound of machine guns of the point-of-view video games played by boys.
"He taught us so much about computers and games," said Musa Cetim, 17. "He spent all his free time here. . . . But he didn't say anything about religious things to us."
An earthquake on May 1 in Bingol killed 176 people and damaged many buildings, including the Internet cafe. In the five months the cafe was closed, Elaltuntas moved to Istanbul, saying he planned to open a computer store with a friend. The friend was Ekinci, who sold his share of another Internet cafe he owned with his brother. Elaltuntas' family insisted that he was no terrorist when he left.
"In four months they deceived Gokhan!" cried a female cousin, at the door of the family apartment where female mourners had come to pay their respects.
Azad Ekinci grew up oddly, according to relatives. He was only a year old when his father was killed in a political feud, shot dead by members of an ultranationalist party that then controlled Turkey. His mother responded to the trauma by trying to protect her sons from all risk. Azad and his brother were rarely allowed to leave their apartment, said Huseyin Sagdic, an uncle whose family of 11 lived one flight down.
Azad "had no friends," the uncle said. "He had no environment. If he were socialized, he wouldn't do such a thing."
From his sheltered upbringing in Bingol, Ekinci went to a university in Istanbul, a city of 12 million. Relatives said he dropped out after a year and returned home wearing a beard.
In Bingol, Ekinci began spending time with other young men who were serious about religion. One was Mesut Cabuk, who had grown up talking righteously about Islam.
"He would ask people, 'Why don't you pray? Why don't you follow religious practices?' " said Ibrahim Karaaslan, a classmate of Ekinci's through high school.
Karaaslan, an architect, said he thought Cabuk, who also lost his father at a young age, was "looking for love through religion." He also said Cabuk appeared to be "searching for an organization to put his religious thoughts into action."
In the early 1990s, when Cabuk left high school, Hezbollah was such an organization. Formed as an underground militant movement in the early 1980s, the group enjoyed virtual impunity in eastern Turkey because it directed its fire chiefly at the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK. The Islamic organization was officially banned, and after the PKK retreated in 1999, Turkish authorities began to aggressively pursue Hezbollah.
But when the war was at its peak, the Turkish government, which relied heavily on proxy forces to battle the PKK, at best turned a blind eye to Hezbollah, according to a parliamentary report and other independent investigations.
In Bingol, the group's reputation was so fierce that Cabuk appeared frightened when Karaaslan asked if he was a member. But in 1991, at age 18, Cabuk had found a community. Karaaslan said that Cabuk summoned him that year to a bookstore to meet "my friends." They all wore beards. Before them, Cabuk again challenged Karaaslan to live a strict Muslim life.
When the architect saw Cabuk last year, he and Ekinci were inseparable. They had spent two years together in Pakistan.
"They were religious before, but not like after Pakistan," Karaaslan said.
Elaltuntas moved to Istanbul first. Cabuk followed, and Ekinci left Bingol shortly before Ramadan, the holy month that ends this week. He had sold the Internet cafe he owned with his brother, but between them, their relatives say, none of the men had enough money to buy the four trucks that carried the explosives that killed 58 people and injured 750.
Two of the vehicles reportedly were purchased by the fourth suspect in the case, Feridun Ugurlu, a native of Eskisehir. The town, midway between Ankara and Istanbul, is hundreds of miles from Bingol. But Ugurlu had also studied in Pakistan. Turkish newspapers quoted a neighbor as saying that Arabic-speaking men were staying with him in the days before the first two bombs were detonated outside the synagogues. The remains and ID cards found in the wreckage pointed to Elaltuntas and Cabuk.
Five days later, the other two vehicles blew up outside the British Consulate and the HSBC Bank building. Officials suggested that they were driven by Ugurlu and Ekinci.
Earlier reports had indicated that they had fled the country.
"Azad said, 'I'm going to Istanbul because I'll go to work in a foreign country,' " recalled his uncle, Sagdic. "He said, 'I'm going to be a translator.' "
-------- russia / chechnya / georgia
Georgian Leader Agrees to Resign, Ending Standoff
November 24, 2003
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/24/international/europe/24GEOR.html?pagewanted=all&position=
TBILISI, Georgia, Nov. 23 - President Eduard A. Shevardnadze of Georgia, once acclaimed for his role in helping to end the cold war, resigned Sunday in the face of huge public protests over the corruption and economic collapse that have marked his nearly 12-year rule.
"I'm going home now," Mr. Shevardnadze told reporters on live television after a final meeting with opposition leaders, and the streets of the capital erupted in celebration.
Fireworks exploded overhead and the air was filled with cheers, whistling and the mad honking of car horns. People hugged, kissed and shouted into their cellphones. They waved flags and held small children over their heads.
"I see that this could not have ended bloodlessly, and I would have had to exercise my power," said Mr. Shevardnadze, 75, referring to his futile declaration of a state of emergency after he was forced by protesters to flee the Parliament building in this former Soviet republic on Saturday.
"I have never betrayed my country, and so it is better that the president resigns," said Mr. Shevardnadze, who was born to a rural family in the village of Mamati, on Georgia's Black Sea coast.
He gave a small, tight smile and a wave to reporters as he turned away, ending a career that reached its high point when, as the Soviet foreign minister, he watched the Berlin Wall come down.
Mr. Shevardnadze was a major figure on the world stage. As foreign minister under Mikhail S. Gorbachev, he helped improve relations with the West and bring the superpower confrontation to an end.
Both Russia and the United States have significant interests in Georgia, which is strategically located between the south of Russia and the Black Sea, and is on the route of an important oil pipeline now under construction.
Mikhail Saakashvili, the main opposition leader, said new parliamentary and presidential elections would be held and that there should be no retribution against Mr. Shevardnadze.
The parliamentary speaker, Nino Burdzhanadze, who is also an opposition leader, stepped in as acting president, as mandated by the Constitution. She said elections would be held within a statutory period of 45 days.
Like the other opposition leaders, she spoke with respect for Mr. Shevardnadze and said history might be a gentler judge than the ferocious crowds in the streets.
The third major opposition figure, Zhurab Zhvania, said, "Shevardnadze said firmly and categorically that he is not going to leave Tbilisi, and is prepared to offer his assistance to future Georgian authorities."
Mr. Saakashvili told reporters it would be a point of honor for the country to provide Mr. Shevardnadze and his family with "guarantees of absolute security."
"The important thing was that the military switched sides," Mr. Saakashvili told CNN, describing the turning point after a three-week standoff following parliamentary elections that have been widely condemned as fraudulent.
In the final days, some military units had joined the round-the-clock crowds that were massed in front of the Parliament building, and their commanders pledged their support to the opposition.
Mr. Shevardnadze was also put under pressure during the weekend in telephone calls - one from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and one, jointly, from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general.
Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov of Russia arrived here on Saturday and played a central role as an informal intermediary. On Sunday evening, he brokered what turned out to be a decisive meeting between Mr. Shevardnadze and the three main opposition figures.
Mr. Zhvania said that Mr. Shevardnadze had rejected the urging of some of his advisers to order a military assault on the protesters.
He said that Mr. Ivanov had proposed a compromise that would have allowed Mr. Shevardnadze to stay in office, but that the opposition leaders had persuaded the president that the huge, emotional crowds would not accept such an outcome.
"He took his decision in front of our eyes and I was really touched, very much, by how responsibly he was acting," Mr. Zhvania said. "It wasn't the gesture of an angry person but it was the gesture of a president who realized that he had failed, failed very badly."
Commenting on Mr. Shevardnadze's resignation, Mr. Gorbachev told the Interfax news agency: "He is not a coward and probably understood that the moment had come to make this step so that Georgia would not break up. I think he was right."
One year after Georgia became an independent nation in 1991, Mr. Shevardnadze stepped in to help end a period of turmoil and brought a measure of stability.
His tenure was a difficult one as he faced separatist rebellions in four provinces, lost control of the breakaway region of Abkhazia and survived three assassination attempts.
At the same time, he became increasingly unpopular as the Black Sea nation of nearly five million people sank deep into poverty, corruption and a collapse in government services. Georgia's problems became a worry for the United States, which is counting on the completion of a pipeline from the Caspian Sea through Georgia to Turkey as an alternate source of oil.
Partly because of the esteem in which Mr. Shevardnadze is held in Washington, his country became one of the leading recipients of American assistance, with $1 billion flowing in over 10 years. The United States has also helped train and equip Georgian Army, border and security personnel to strengthen their ability to combat terrorism.
The parliamentary elections, on Nov. 2, were seen as a first round in advance of a presidential election in 2005. After two terms in office, Mr. Shevardnadze would have been required to step down then.
But fury over the conduct of the election, which international observers condemned as fraudulent and blatantly manipulated, quickly escalated into demands for Mr. Shevardnadze's immediate resignation.
Mr. Saakashvili led the charge, staking out an uncompromising position on Mr. Shevardnadze's resignation. When Mr. Shevardnadze tried to convene the new Parliament on Saturday, it was Mr. Saakashvili who led protesters into the chamber, forcing the president to flee.
He appropriated for his movement the phrase of Czechoslovakia's peaceful overthrow of its Communist government, repeatedly calling it a "velvet revolution." On Sunday, he said he wanted to make his party's flag the national flag of Georgia.
On the other hand, when Ms. Burdzhanadze was asked whether she now planned to run for president, she said she had not decided.
"You know, it's not a very good idea to be a president of Georgia," she said. "Georgia is a country that has very serious problems. Ethnic problems. The problems with Chechnya nearby. Economic difficulties. A lot of very serious problems. So a person who will run for president should be very brave."
-------- us
Long-range strike force
From The Engineer,
24 November 2003,
in Home
http://www.e4engineering.com/item.asp?id=50635&type=news
The development of a hypersonic unmanned aircraft that can reach any target 10,000 miles from the US in just two hours is set to begin, following the selection of contractors by the US Department of Defence.
Project Falcon will develop a hypersonic cruise vehicle (HCV), as it is known, capable of launching from the US and firing weapons from high altitude almost anywhere in the world. It is expected to come into service in 2025.
In the interim the project will develop a hypersonic glider, which is hoped to be ready for deployment by 2010.
Last week, negotiations began with 12 firms, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, to agree definition studies for the project.
This work will involve the development of designs and cost objectives for the glider, or common aero vehicle, a small launch vehicle, which will propel the glider to its target, as well as an enhanced aero vehicle and the HCV.
The small launch vehicle will also be able to launch satellites into low Earth orbit.
The glider, or common aero vehicle, will have a payload capacity of one tonne and a range of 3,500 miles, while the enhanced common aero vehicle will be capable of a greater range and improved manoeuvrability.
It is likely that the small launch vehicle will be able to launch both these aircraft, which will be expendable.
The hypersonic cruise vehicle will be reusable, autonomous and take off from a conventional military runway to strike targets up to 10,500 miles away. It will be able to deliver bombs and cruise missiles weighing up to 5.4 tonnes to a chosen target.
Managed by the US Department of Defence's DARPA, the project also involves military partners (the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Air Force Space Command and its Missile Systems Centre). The firms in the phase one negotiations include Orbital Sciences, Space Exploration Technologies and Andrews Space.
----
Pentagon Considers Creating Postwar Peacekeeping Forces
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 24, 2003; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8731-2003Nov23?language=printer
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/24/1069522539567.html
The Pentagon has begun to look seriously at creating military forces that would be dedicated to peacekeeping and reconstruction after future conflicts, defense officials said.
The idea is to forge deployable brigades or whole divisions out of units of engineers, military police, civil affairs officers and other specialists critical to postwar operations.
The move marks a reversal for the Bush administration, which came into office strongly resistant to peacekeeping missions and intent on trying to get Europeans and other allies to shoulder more of that burden.
It also comes in the face of traditional U.S. Army opposition to the idea of establishing forces focused on peacekeeping. Army officials have argued that combat troops can be used for peacekeeping when necessary and that additional units with recovery-related skills can be cobbled onto combat divisions to meet postwar demands.
But in Iraq, U.S. forces have struggled to deal with insurgents and other postwar challenges, and help from other foreign countries has fallen far short of initial U.S. expectations. Facing widespread criticism for poor postwar planning, and concerned that peacekeeping may become more of a norm for the U.S. military, senior Pentagon officials are being driven to consider alternative ways of organizing troops for postwar operations.
"This mission is to