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NUCLEAR
China eyeing purchase of plutonium factory in Germany
Bolton: U.S. Will Block Iran on Nuke Tech
Nuclear Weapons Production in Iran
U.S. Issues New Warnings on Iran
Bolton: U.S. Will Block Iran on Nuke Tech
N. Korea Nuclear Talks May Be Delayed
Bush Signs Bill Allowing Study of New Generation of Nukes
Georgia losing funds that watchdog nuclear site
Group to argue against plutonium fuel testing
Lugar gets Heinz Award for anti-nuclear efforts
2 Candidates Criticize Bush on Security
MILITARY
Four new nations to join US-led non-proliferation scheme
Warlords Hand Over Weapons to Afghan Army
Amnesty Criticizes U.S. Military in Deaths of 2 Afghan Prisoners
Singapore Looks To Robot Soldiers For Future Defense Needs
South Koreans Recommend Troops for Iraq
Pentagon Puts Hold on Boeing Tanker Deal
Boeing CEO Quits Amid Criticism
World closes in on Colombian tribe
U.S. Soldier Killed by Bomb in Iraq
Battle Reveals New Iraqi Tactics
Council In Iraq Resisting Ayatollah
Self-Appointed Israeli and Palestinian Negotiators
Unofficial Peace Plan For Mideast Unveiled
Israelis Kill 3 Hamas Militants and a 9-Year-Old in Ramallah
Most NATO allies have pledged to keep troops in Iraq: Rumsfeld
NATO Weighs Wider Operations
Intelligence experts speak out against the war in a new documentary
Pentagon delays Boeing tanker contract
Rumsfeld wins dubious honour
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
High court to decide reach of U.S. agents
Court to Decide Whether Death Penalty Ruling Is Retroactive
U.S. to End Registration Program
U.S. Woman Gets 3 Years for Plot To Aid Taliban
Ex-Detainee Tells of Training at Afghan Camp
Pentagon: Terror Suspect Can See Lawyer
108 nations decline to pursue terrorists
ENERGY AND OTHER
EPA Urged to Adopt Renewables, Efficiency
Putin Aide Rules Out Russian Approval of Kyoto Protocol
World Bank Again Giving Large Loans to Indonesia
ACTIVISTS
South Korea calls riot police to defuse tension over nuclear waste dump
Medical Students Go Beyond Books to Learn About Activism
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- china
China eyeing purchase of plutonium factory in Germany
BERLIN (AFP)
Dec 02, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031202094544.9pf9t9a1.html
China has voiced interest in buying a German factory built to produce plutonium for power stations, German government sources said Tuesday, as Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder continued a visit to the country.
The sources, travelling with Schroeder, said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had expressed interest in the plant during his talks with Schroeder.
The chancellor promised to study the request, the sources added.
Schroeder flew Tuesday to southern and western China on the second leg of a three-day visit to China focused on boosting economic relations.
The plant at Hanau, western Germany, was constructed in 1991 by the German electronics group Siemens at a cost then of 700 million euros (837.3 million dollars), but never went into operation and still lies idle.
The factory, designed to produce fuel elements from plutonium, is estimated to be worth around 50 million euros today.
Its owner Siemens had previously offered to export the complete facility to Russia in mid-2001, but the plan sparked political concern and was eventually dropped.
Schroeder is on his fifth visit to China in as many years. He spoke Monday with Chinese President Hu Jintao as well as with Premier Wen.
-------- iran
Bolton: U.S. Will Block Iran on Nuke Tech
By BARRY SCHWEID
Associated Press
12/02/03
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3456390,00.html
WASHINGTON (AP) - Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said Tuesday the United States intends to prevent delivery of sensitive nuclear and ballistic missile technology to Iran ``from whatever source.''
``We are watching what Iran does very carefully,'' Bolton told an international security conference.
He said Iran was using economic incentives to persuade European countries not to take a tough stand on its nuclear weapons program.
But, Bolton said, the strategy no longer was working well, and the Europeans were resisting Iran's commercial overtures.
``The international community now needs to decide over time whether Iran has come clean on this program and how to react to the large number of serious violations which Iran has admitted,'' Bolton told the 34th annual conference of the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and the Fletcher School of International Security Studies Program.
Iran has ``mixed feelings'' about its obligations to the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, Bolton said. He cited Iran's announcement last Saturday that it had the right to enrich uranium to produce nuclear power and that its decision to suspend enrichment to allay suspicions of a weapons program was voluntary and temporary.
Hasan Rowhani, head of the powerful Supreme National Security Council, said in Tehran that Iran expected to eventually produce fuel for one or two power plants despite its agreement with the U.N. nuclear agency to suspend enrichment and open its nuclear program to extensive inspection.
Bolton said there should be no doubt that the U.N. agency is required to report any further Iranian violations to the U.N. Security Council. The United States could try to impose sanctions on Iran as punishment.
However, Bolton said, ``the real issue now is whether the Board of Governors (of the IAEA) will remain together in its insistence that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is illegitimate or whether Iranian efforts to split the board through economic incentives and aggressive propaganda will succeed.''
Like Iran, Bolton said that North Korea, Syria, Libya and Cuba are ``rogue states'' pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
He said the United States would seek diplomatic solutions whenever possible, but that America and its allies ``are also willing to deploy more robust techniques such as the interdiction and seizure of illicit goods.''
----
Nuclear Weapons Production in Iran
Dec. 2, 2003
Insight Magazine
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=567024
Iran has been diverting equipment from its nuclear power plants to its weapons program.
Get ready for another high-profile confrontation with Europe over a rogue state bent on developing weapons of mass destruction. As with Iraq, U.N. arms inspectors have made astonishing finds: undisclosed facilities producing nuclear-weapons material, secret supplier agreements to import banned equipment and officials who have engaged in a systematic effort at deception. This time, with Iran, France and its European partners demonstrated more skill in managing the rhythm of events to prevent escalation into crisis. But, despite their efforts, the crisis emerged on Nov. 20 when the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) met in Vienna to debate what to do about dramatic new revelations in Iran and that country's clandestine efforts to acquire the bomb.
Just two days before the fateful meeting - which failed to find Iran in "material breach" of its obligations as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) - Secretary of State Colin Powell met with European foreign ministers in Brussels but manifestly failed to win their support for more vigorous action on Iran. Powell warned that the European-backed resolution on Iran being massaged by the IAEA board was inadequate because it lacked "trigger mechanisms in the case of further Iranian intransigence or difficulty." State Department spokesman Richard Boucher added that the United States believes "we need to verify the promises and the information that Iran has put forward" and not just continue with business as usual.
Behind the diplomatic language lurked dramatic new events that could catapult Iran from a rogue state with nuclear aspirations to an imminent threat to the United States and its allies in the Middle East. Two things are key to preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear-weapon state, U.S. officials tell Insight: closing down existing but previously undisclosed nuclear plants in Iran and preventing Iran from gaining access to key materials and technologies that Europe and others continue to provide. Neither seems about to occur without vigorous U.S. action.
The emerging crisis with Iran began earlier this year when IAEA inspectors discovered two previously undeclared uranium-enrichment plants under construction at Natanz, a mountain town just north of Isfahan. A subsequent inspection turned up traces of highly enriched uranium (HEU), a sure sign of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. Elsewhere, IAEA inspectors discovered facilities the Iranians had tried to keep secret, where they admitted they were converting uranium ore so it could be enriched, and where they had extracted plutonium from spent fuel. Pressed by the IAEA, Iran also admitted that it was building a heavy-water production plant and a separate research reactor in Arak that could fabricate weapons-grade fuel. The IAEA suddenly realized that for 18 years Iran had been submitting false declarations about its nuclear activities.
The Natanz site is particularly worrisome because underground production facilities were being prepared to house some 50,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges which Iran has begun to manufacture locally. Once it goes operational, the Natanz plant could produce enough HEU for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons within a year.
To head off a crisis, the French, British and German foreign ministers traveled to Tehran for two days of talks in late October and claimed that Iran had pledged to "suspend" its clandestine nuclear programs, including the Natanz enrichment plant. In exchange, Europe agreed to continue trading with Iran [see sidebar] and offered to counter U.S. efforts to haul Iran before the U.N. Security Council for international sanctions. Iran's promises to behave, and Europe's willingness to believe it, left U.S. officials speechless.
Iran has "lied repeatedly" to the IAEA, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Steve Rademaker told an audience of U.S. nuclear-weapons experts at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on Nov. 14. For years Iran simply claimed that it never had conducted a program to enrich uranium or to reprocess spent fuel to extract plutonium. When U.N. inspectors found evidence that it had done both, Iran's leaders simply changed their story and "lied again," he said.
Despite having discovered previously undeclared facilities suspected of carrying out weapons-related work, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei concluded in a confidential report on Nov. 10 that the watchdog agency had found "no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities . . . were related to a nuclear-weapons program." That conclusion, Rademaker noted acidly, was "simply impossible to believe" and was "not supported by the IAEA's own report."
The United States believes that the "massive and covert Iranian effort" to develop a range of nuclear technologies - from uranium mines to milling plants to a heavy-water plant to a centrifuge-enrichment "cascade" to plutonium reprocessing - "makes sense only as part of a nuclear-weapons program," Rademaker added.
According to the IAEA report, the Iranians showed extraordinary contempt for the U.N. inspectors, apparently in the belief they would not be caught in their lies. When initially challenged in February, they claimed that their entire uranium-enrichment program was indigenous and used no foreign supplies. But when the inspectors found traces of HEU on centrifuge parts, the Iranians switched gears and said the parts were imported and must have been contaminated by the suppliers. Pressed to identify those suppliers, the Iranians replied that they had bought the equipment from "brokers."
Rademaker asks, "Is it plausible that Iran bought centrifuge components and didn't know where they bought them?"
Behind the scenes, the United States has been pressing members of the IAEA Board of Governors to "declare that Iran is not in compliance" with the NPT, officials said. The U.S. goal is to bring Iran before the U.N. Security Council, which then would have to debate whether to take punitive measures against Tehran. The unusual public criticism suggests that the administration is preparing for another high-profile standoff at the United Nations. But unlike the diplomatic confrontation over Iraq, this time it appears likely that Britain will not join the United States in urging vigorous international action against Iran.
"How many times has [British Foreign Minister] Jack Straw gone to Tehran recently?" one administration official told Insight. "We get the sense that the British feel they need to show their independence from us on this one." In fact, Straw accompanied his French and German counterparts to Tehran in October. At the conclusion of those talks the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, hailed Iran's decision to "come clean" on its previous nuclear-research programs and promised that Europe would assist Iran to acquire "peaceful" nuclear technologies in exchange.
That was the original bargain on which the 1968 nuclear treaty was based, but cheaters such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea have shown that it is a dangerously flawed arrangement. "Under the NPT's basic trade-off, Iran can acquire all the capabilities it needs to produce nuclear weapons materials and then later withdraw from the treaty and use the material in weapons," Rademaker said. "This risk will not be cured by Iran's acceptance of more-rigorous inspections by the IAEA."
A former chief U.N. arms inspector, Swedish ambassador Rolf Ekeus, urged the United States and other supplier nations to rethink the terms of the NPT. In comments at a Livermore conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" program, Ekeus said there was little justification to allow developing countries such as Iran to acquire enrichment technologies or to gain access to the nuclear-fuel cycle. As a condition for providing nuclear-power reactors, he said, supplier nations instead should guarantee supplies of reactor fuel and take back all nuclear waste, he said.
"The recent disclosures by Iran about its nuclear program clearly show that, in the past, Iran had concealed many aspects of its nuclear activities, with resultant breaches of its obligations to comply with the provisions of the Safeguards Agreement," IAEA Director General ElBaradei concluded in his report, which Insight has obtained. Nevertheless, he observed, "To date, there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities ... were related to a nuclear-weapons program."
Because Iran's nuclear facilities are buried and dispersed, former U.N. arms inspector David Albright estimates, they cannot readily be taken out through aerial bombing.
Kenneth R. Timmerman is a senior writer for Insight. His latest book, Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America, has just been published by Crown Forum.
For more on this story, read "Iran's European Partners." http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=567024
----
U.S. Issues New Warnings on Iran
December 2, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-usa.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Undersecretary of State John Bolton warned on Tuesday that the United States will act decisively to impede transfers of nuclear and missile technology to Iran and any further violations of Tehran's nuclear obligations will go before the U.N. Security Council.
At a security conference, Bolton also had strong words for other major powers, saying they face a test over whether they will remain united against Iran's ``illegitimate'' nuclear weapons program or succumb to the Islamic republic's ``economic incentives and aggressive propaganda.''
``For our part, the United States will continue its efforts to prevent the transfer of sensitive nuclear and ballistic missile technology to Iran, from whatever source, and will monitor the situation there with great care,'' said Bolton, the top administration official for nonproliferation issues.
Officials told Reuters later that Bolton's use of the phrase ``from whatever source'' was meant to send a message to Pakistan, Russia and China, all of whom have been accused of aiding Iran's nuclear ambitions.
He was speaking at a conference sponsored by the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis at Massachusetts' Tufts University.
Washington is involved in separate efforts to persuade both Iran and North Korea to abandon their nuclear weapons ambitions.
The United Nations' watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week condemned Iran for hiding sensitive nuclear research for as long as 18 years, and said any further serious breaches of nonproliferation obligations would not be tolerated.
Faced with concerted international pressure, Iran agreed to allow snap inspections of its nuclear sites and suspend uranium enrichment, which can be used to make fuel for bombs.
CONTROVERSIAL COMMENTS
But Hassan Rohani, secretary-general of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Sunday Iran has no intention of scrapping its uranium-enrichment program.
Bolton said Rohani's comments made clear Iran has ``mixed feelings'' about its IAEA obligations.
Privately, U.S. officials called Rohani's comments ``stunning.''
They said they raised doubts about an agreement between Iran and three European powers -- France, Britain and Germany -- that kept the IAEA from declaring Iran in noncompliance of its Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and sending the issue to the Security Council.
Russia is helping Iran build a nuclear reactor at the Bushehr power complex, but said it would drop those plans if the IAEA presented evidence that Iran was seeking to build nuclear weapons.
The other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- China, Russia, Britain and France -- in various combinations have resisted U.S. demands that the Iran and North Korea nuclear cases be brought before the council for action.
Bolton said this could have long-term implications by reducing the council's role, which would be ``truly unfortunate and ironic.''
He reaffirmed the U.S. view that Iran's activities, including enriching uranium with centrifuges and lasers and reprocessing plutonium, can only be an attempt to develop nuclear weapons, something Tehran denies.
The IAEA's Nov. 26 condemnation of Iran ``should leave no doubt that one more transgression by Iran will mean that the IAEA is obligated to report Iran's noncompliance to theSecurity Council and General Assembly,'' he said.
``The real issue now is whether the (IAEA) board of governors will remain together in its insistence that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is illegitimate or whether Iranian efforts to split the board through economic incentives and aggressive propaganda will succeed,'' he said.
--------
Bolton: U.S. Will Block Iran on Nuke Tech
December 2, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Iran-Nuclear.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said Tuesday the United States intends to prevent delivery of sensitive nuclear and ballistic missile technology to Iran ``from whatever source.''
``We are watching what Iran does very carefully,'' Bolton told an international security conference.
He said Iran was using economic incentives to persuade European countries not to take a tough stand on its nuclear weapons program.
But, Bolton said, the strategy no longer was working well, and the Europeans were resisting Iran's commercial overtures.
``The international community now needs to decide over time whether Iran has come clean on this program and how to react to the large number of serious violations which Iran has admitted,'' Bolton told the 34th annual conference of the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and the Fletcher School of International Security Studies Program.
Iran has ``mixed feelings'' about its obligations to the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, Bolton said. He cited Iran's announcement last Saturday that it had the right to enrich uranium to produce nuclear power and that its decision to suspend enrichment to allay suspicions of a weapons program was voluntary and temporary.
Hasan Rowhani, head of the powerful Supreme National Security Council, said in Tehran that Iran expected to eventually produce fuel for one or two power plants despite its agreement with the U.N. nuclear agency to suspend enrichment and open its nuclear program to extensive inspection.
Bolton said there should be no doubt that the U.N. agency is required to report any further Iranian violations to the U.N. Security Council. The United States could try to impose sanctions on Iran as punishment.
However, Bolton said, ``the real issue now is whether the Board of Governors (of the IAEA) will remain together in its insistence that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is illegitimate or whether Iranian efforts to split the board through economic incentives and aggressive propaganda will succeed.''
Like Iran, Bolton said that North Korea, Syria, Libya and Cuba are ``rogue states'' pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
He said the United States would seek diplomatic solutions whenever possible, but that America and its allies ``are also willing to deploy more robust techniques such as the interdiction and seizure of illicit goods.''
-------- korea
N. Korea Nuclear Talks May Be Delayed
December 2, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-North-Korea.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- North Korean demands and U.S. consultations with China, Japan and South Korea could delay resumption of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program until next year, a Bush administration official said Tuesday.
The talks had been expected to convene Dec. 17, after China's vice foreign minister, Wang Yi, meets with North Korean leaders.
Wang met last month in Washington with Secretary of State Colin Powell and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. An initial round of multiparty talks was held in Beijing in August.
Since then, North Korea has made demands for concessions to be extended simultaneously with a drawdown of its nuclear program instead of after it had been shut down, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
At the same time, the Bush administration is stepping up its consultations. A Chinese official held talks in Washington on Monday. South Korea's assistant foreign minister, Lee Soo-hyuck, will visit Washington Wednesday through Friday, and Mitoji Yabunaka, director of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, will hold talks Thursday through Saturday.
They also will meet together Thursday with James Kelly, an assistant secretary of state, to discuss preparations for the next round of talks, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said.
The U.S. aim is to be thoroughly prepared for holding the six-party talks as soon possible, another official said.
A Japanese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in Tokyo said the ministry had no comment on when the talks might be held. Speaking on condition of anonymity, she said the ministry has never officially said when it expected the next round to convene.
On Monday, North Korea rejected a major U.S. demand that it first renounce its nuclear program before receiving security guarantees from Washington.
North Korea said it would ``rather die'' than submit to conditions that amounted to slavery.
Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said Tuesday the United States wants to reconvene six-party talks quickly, and ``at those talks we hope to make tangible progress toward the goal of a nuclear-free North Korea.''
Spokesman Ereli said, ``We would like to get something done before the end of the year.''
In a speech at a conference of the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and the Fletcher School's International Security Program, Bolton said: ``We are prepared to provide a written document on security assistance to Pyongyang with other participants in the talks.''
He said, however, that the assurances would be provided only after North Korea's ``agreement and implementation'' on verification procedures that would assure that North Korea would not restart its nuclear program.
In response to a question, Bolton said North Korea and Iran could have new relationships with the United States if they would stop working to build a nuclear weapons armory.
The administration wants North Korea's nuclear weapons program to be dismantled.
In late August, China convened a groundbreaking meeting involving the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia. The talks ended inconclusively.
Last month, the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union tentatively decided to suspend work at Kumho, a remote village on North Korea's northeast coast where they had been building two light-water reactors to generate badly needed electricity for the impoverished state.
The countries say that halting the $4.6 billion project is inevitable because North Korea has violated a 1994 agreement by secretly building nuclear weapons.
North Korea responded by threatening to confiscate equipment for the two power plants until the United States paid a penalty for its decision to stop construction.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Bush Signs Bill Allowing Study of New Generation of Nukes
Tuesday, December 2, 2003
by the Agence France Presse
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1202-02.htm
US President George W. Bush has put his stamp of approval on a bill allocating millions of dollars for research into new types of nuclear weapons and for bolstering readiness at the Nevada nuclear test site.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Monday that Bush had signed the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act of 2004. The act contains funds for the Department of Energy and its nuclear programs.
The measure includes 7.5 million dollars to study the possibility of developing so-called "bunker-busting" nuclear bombs that officials say would enhance America's ability to destroy underground command and control centers and hidden arms depots.
US scientists are looking into the possibility of converting into bunker-busters two existing warheads - the B61 and the B83, according to Bush administration officials.
The B61 is a tactical thermonuclear gravity bomb that can be delivered by strategic as well as tactical aircraft -- from B-52 and B-2 bombers to F-16 fighter jets.
The B83 is designed for precision delivery from very low altitudes, most likely by B-2 stealth bombers, military experts said.
The main task facing the scientists now is finding how to harden the bombs' shells so they can survive penetration through layers of rock, steel and concrete before detonating, the experts said.
An additional six million dollars have been earmarked to study low-yield nuclear weapons some experts believe could be useful in high-precision strikes.
Both bunker-busters and low-yield nuclear weapons are seen by some experts as important tools for waging preventive wars against enemies that are secretly building arsenals of weapons of mass destruction.
According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, at least 10,000 bunkers currently exist in over 70 countries around the world.
More than 1,400 of them are used as strategic storage sites for weapons of mass destruction, concealed launch pads for ballistic missiles as well as leadership or top-echelon command and control posts, the DIA estimates.
The newly enacted bill also contains 24.9 million dollars to heighten readiness at the Nevada test site to enable it to conduct a nuclear test on 24- month's notice.
The administration had been insisting on an 18-month readiness window, down from the current 36 months.
But Congress chose earlier this month to tamp down the request in the face of vocal opposition from disarmament advocates, who have interpreted it as a sign of the administration's weakening determination to maintain a moratorium on nuclear tests.
Congress also displayed its ambivalence toward the program by pairing down practically every White House request or attaching caveats to it:
The 7.5 million dollars allocated for the bunker-buster study is only half of Bush's original request. And of the six million dollars earmarked for low-yield weapons, four million have been placed off limits until the government presents a detailed plan to cut the overall US nuclear stockpile.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said this obvious lack of congressional enthusiasm might help head off more dangerous proposals in the future.
"Further efforts by this or another administration to win necessary congressional approval for engineering, development, and testing of new or modified nuclear weapons will be vigorously opposed and must be defeated," Kimball said in a statement.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- georgia
Georgia losing funds that watchdog nuclear site
By Mary Landers landers@savannahnow.com 912-652-0337
Savannah Morning News
http://www.savannahnow.com/stories/120203/LOC_radiationwatch.shtml
Radiation doesn't respect state boundaries.
So even though the Savannah River Site nuclear facility sits on the South Carolina side of the river, Georgia officials worry about nuclear materials escaping the site.
Now they have further concerns about being able to detect such a leak.
Last month, Georgia Environmental Protection Division officials learned that the U.S. Department of Energy planned to quit funding its radiation monitoring program.
The program, which received about $1.9 million from DOE over the past three years, allows Georgia to monitor for radiation in the Savannah River at seven stations from Augusta to Savannah. It also funds radiation testing in milk, crops, soil, sediment and air. And it analyzes samples collected by the city of Savannah.
U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site. Stephen Berend/Savannah Morning News The river is a big concern, said James Setser, chief of the program coordination branch, Environmental Protection Division.
"The Savannah River is the only place we see significant detection of radiation in Georgia's environment," Setser said.
The detected radiation levels in the water and in fish don't violate health standards, Setser said.
For their part, DOE officials say the grant was never meant to go on forever.
The manager of the Savannah River Operations Office, Jeffrey M. Allison, wrote in a letter to Setser that "... DOE provided this financial assistance to support an appropriate share of startup costs for the new Georgia Environmental Protection Division office in Augusta. The Secretary's agreement in this regard does not extend beyond the current grant period."
More about SRS
The Savannah River Site, located near Barnwell, S.C., was constructed during the early 1950s to produce the basic materials used in making nuclear weapons, primarily tritium and plutonium-239.
SRS produced about 36 metric tons of plutonium from 1953 to 1988. After refinement, nuclear materials were shipped to other sites for final application. More recently the site has been used to treat nuclear and hazardous wastes left from the Cold War. The site is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy and operated by a team led by Westinghouse Savannah River Co. Jim Hardeman, manager of the environmental radiation program for the EPD, isn't buying this interpretation.
"That's absolute and total b.s.," he said.
DOE seemed interested in extending the program late last year. In November 2002, DOE staff asked Hardeman for budget estimates through 2006, he said.
SRS does little sampling in Georgia, Hardeman said. And he questions some of the sampling it does complete, such as the three air sampling locations in Georgia.
"The Highway 301 sample is in the absolute least frequent wind direction," he said. "Augusta is in one of the next least frequent."
The independence of the testing is a big issue, even if it's just one of perception.
"If all we had to rely on was SRS monitoring they'd be hard-pressed to demonstrate to the citizens of Georgia that there's no impact from SRS radiation," Hardeman said.
The current DOE grant ends Jan. 17, 2004. If new money doesn't come through, EPD officials expect to lose four field workers and be unable to pay the approximately $315,000 a year to Georgia Tech to analyze samples.
The state's funding woes make it unlikely that money for testing would come through from Georgia. His program has taken state budget cuts already, Hardeman said.
That worries Sara Barczak, safe energy director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, who points out that plans for SRS include building the next generation of nuclear reactor for use as an energy producer and teaching facility. The site is also being primed to dismantle nuclear weapons to create a substance called MOX or mixed oxide.
"I'm really concerned with the funding being reduced when SRS is ramping up to do more," Barczak said.
The city of Savannah does some radiation testing itself, without funding from DOE. It also sends samples to EPD for review.
Most of Savannah's drinking water comes not from the river but from underground in the Floridan Aquifer. Still, some drinking water comes from a tributary of the Savannah River.
High levels of radioactive material in the water caused a scare at least once before.
A mistake on Christmas Eve 1991 resulted in SRS spilling tritium into the Savannah River.
"There have been accidental releases," Setser said. "There's no guarantee there won't be more. The waste is still there. The radioactivity is still there."
-------- north carolina
Group to argue against plutonium fuel testing
In Brief
December 2, 2003
The Herald, Rock Hill SC
http://www.heraldonline.com/local/story/3097548p-2810412c.html
CHARLOTTE -- Representatives of the southeastern regional Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League will argue against plutonium fuel testing at Duke Energy's Catawba nuclear plant at a 9 a.m. hearing Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Charlotte.
The hearing will be conducted by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
The plutonium, used in nuclear weapons, would make up 5 percent of the mixed oxide fuel, or MOX, to be used by Duke Energy at the Catawba or McGuire nuclear power plants. If approved, Duke Energy would test the fuel in four of 193 assemblies used to run a reactor at the Catawba or McGuire plants. The plant will be selected before regular refueling in spring 2005.
An expert on the National Environmental Policy Act and the Atomic Energy Act will detail deficiencies in nuclear safety and public health protection in Duke Energy's proposal. A physicist who has evaluated the health and environmental risks of the plutonium testing program also will testify.
-------- us politics
Lugar gets Heinz Award for anti-nuclear efforts
By Dan McFeely dan.mcfeely@indystar.com
December 2, 2003
http://www.indystar.com/articles/4/098211-2934-009.html
Sen. Richard Lugar's long battle to rid the world of nuclear weapons has earned him a Heinz Award.
Lugar, R-Ind., and former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., created the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in 1991. They will share a Chairman's Medal for their work in dismantling thousands of Soviet nuclear warheads.
They join five other Americans being honored in Pittsburgh today with the 10th Heinz Awards, among the largest individual achievement prizes in the world.
The Nunn-Lugar program is credited with accelerating the dismantling of nuclear weapons. Since its inception, more than $3 billion has been spent deactivating more than 6,000 nuclear warheads and destroying 515 ballistic missiles, 441 ballistic missile silos, 115 bombers, 400 submarine-launched missiles, 408 submarine missile launchers and 27 strategic missile submarines.
In addition, more than 20,000 Russian scientists, formerly employed in weapons of mass destruction programs, are now pursuing peaceful research.
In 1996, the program was expanded to include weapons of mass destruction, focusing on chemical, biological and nuclear material in the former Soviet Union and the prevention of smuggling those materials out of the country.
Nunn serves as the head of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a charitable organization working to reduce the global threat from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
"Americans certainly need no reminder of the ominous threat posed by weapons of mass destruction," Lugar said in a prepared statement. "The Heinz Award is encouragement in our effort to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. Each year presents new legislative challenges, and I am pleased we succeeded this year in full funding of the program and, for the first time, authority to use the funds beyond the boundaries of the former Soviet Union."
Unlike the Chairman's Medal, each of the other Heinz Awards comes with a $250,000 check. Those winners are:
• Arts and Humanities: August Wilson, playwright, poet and theatrical producer.
• Environment: Peggy M. Shepard, environmental advocate, community leader and executive director of West Harlem Environmental Action.
• Human Condition: Robert N. Butler, M.D., gerontologist, psychiatrist, author and president/CEO of the International Longevity Center.
• Public Policy: Julius B. Richmond, M.D., pediatrician, researcher and professor emeritus, Harvard University.
• Technology, the Economy and Employment: Robert S. Langer, medical researcher, inventor and a professor of chemical and biomedical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Heinz Family Foundation, one of the Heinz Family Philanthropies, began as a charitable trust established by Sen. John Heinz in 1984. His widow, Teresa Heinz, created the Heinz Awards in 1993. The awards are the primary activity of the Foundation.
Call Star reporter Dan McFeely at 1-317-444-6230.
----
2 Candidates Criticize Bush on Security
December 2, 2003
New York Times
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/02/national/02CAMP.html
AMES, Iowa, Dec. 1 - Two rival Democrats attacked the Bush administration on domestic security issues on Monday, with Representative Richard A. Gephardt saying the president had failed to pay for crucial security initiatives and Senator John Kerry comparing the curtailing of civil liberties under the antiterrorism law to the repression of the Taliban government.
Mr. Kerry, whose stump speech includes a line promising an attorney general whose name is not John Ashcroft, delivered his first full-length broadside against Mr. Ashcroft and the law in a speech here.
Acknowledging that he had voted for the law after Sept. 11, 2001, despite seeing it as "not perfect," Mr. Kerry said the administration had "abused the spirit of national action" by using the act "in ways that were never intended and for reasons that have nothing to do with terrorism."
Mr. Kerry cited spying on political demonstrations; indefinite detentions of American citizens without cause; sneak-and-peek searches, in which investigators search homes and seize evidence without notifying people; and the secret retrieval of library and business records.
He told the story of a California man who, in a heated discussion at his gym, criticized Mr. Bush without threatening him and was soon visited by the F.B.I. "A country where you are visited by the authorities for thinking or voicing an unpopular idea smacks more of the Taliban than Thomas Jefferson," Mr. Kerry said. "Trading in our basic rights for the false facade of security is not worth it."
In Cedar Rapids, Mr. Gephardt called the president's decision to cut taxes in wartime "irresponsible, inexplicable and inexcusable." He said the Bush administration had failed to finance initiatives intended to support the F.B.I. and the Coast Guard and to improve security at nuclear plants, dams and reservoirs.
"None of these home front security measures are expendable," Mr. Gephardt said. "But this president abandoned them all for a tax cut for the wealthy."
-------- MILITARY
Four new nations to join US-led non-proliferation scheme
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Dec 02, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031202225431.7m405hmo.html
Four new countries are to join the original 11 backers of a US-led initiative to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by seizing such arms in transit, a senior State Department official said Tuesday.
John Bolton, the top US diplomat for arms control, said Canada, Denmark, Norway and Singapore would participate in the next meeting of countries involved in the so-called Proliferation Security Initiative.
Military and law enforcement experts from those countries will join officials from Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United States at that meeting which is set to be held in the United States later this month, he said.
Some 50 nations have expressed interest in joining the group which is examining ways to intercept nuclear, chemical and biological weapons on the high seas or in international airspace.
"As the PSI moves forward, we expect other countries will join in training exercises to enhance global capabilities to respond quickly when governments receive intelligence on proliferation shipments," Bolton said.
Since US President George W. Bush proposed the initiative earlier his year in Poland, PSI backers have held four military exercises simulating seizures of WMD from ships and aircraft.
Six others such exercised are planned at various locations up to next spring.
At the US-hosted meeting this month, the experts "will analyze their authorities against real world scenarios and examine any gaps in authorities that can be filled either through national legislation or policy or international action," Bolton said.
They will also be looking at ways to improve law enforcement and military cooperation and information sharing, he said.
-------- afghanistan
Warlords Hand Over Weapons to Afghan Army
Dec 2, 2003
By AMIR SHAH
Associated Press Writer
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AFGHAN_DISARMAMENT?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
GONDI VOLGA, Afghanistan (AP) -- Feuding warlords in northern Afghanistan handed over tanks and cannons to the fledgling national army Tuesday in a move greeted by war-weary residents as a chance for peace after more than two decades of fighting.
The region around the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif has been plagued by violence between two powerful factions who helped the United States drive the Taliban from power two years ago.
But after the latest burst of deadly fighting in October drew the ire of the central government, factional leaders agreed to a truce brokered by British peacekeepers that included the impounding of their big guns.
At Gondi Volga, a former Soviet military base some 19 miles east of Mazar-e-Sharif, officials inspected the first results of that month-old accord: dozens of tanks, cannons, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft batteries from the fighters of Atta Mohammed, lined up in a dusty field.
Gen. Ishaq Noori, leading a delegation from the Ministry of Defense in Kabul to the base Monday, said a similar compound to the west of Mazar was filled with heavy cannons and other weapons collected from Abdul Rashid Dostum, Mohammed's rival. A battalion of troops from the new U.S.-trained Afghan National Army was at each site to guard the weapons, Noori said.
"Everything is calm. There have been no negative reactions," he said. "This is very important for the national army and for security and peace in this province."
Taming regional warlords and helping their fighters disarm and return to civilian life is seen as crucial to extending the influence of President Hamid Karzai's weak central government and encouraging rebuilding in one of the world's poorest nations.
In the south Monday, an Afghan soldier fighting alongside U.S. forces was killed in a clash with guerillas, the U.S. military said Tuesday.
The U.S.-led patrol exchanged fire with unidentified rebels near an American base at Deh Rawood in Uruzgan province, said Maj. Richard Sater, a U.S. military spokesman.
No coalition soldiers were killed or injured in the clash, Sater told reporters at the U.S. military headquarters at Bagram, north of the capital Kabul.
Some 11,700 soldiers from the United States and other countries face stiffening resistance from suspected Taliban and al-Qaida guerillas, who regularly attack their patrols and bases as well as Afghan troops and officials.
In the U.N.-sponsored disarmament program, hundreds of soldiers have also handed in guns, rockets and tanks in Kunduz, another northern city, and at Gardez near the Pakistani border.
Eventually, the Ministry of Defense and its sponsors hope to disarm and decommission 100,000 Afghan militia members as it creates a new army and police force, though only 6,000 of the new troops are armed so far.
Mazar-e-Sharif residents said they wanted an end to warlord power.
"We have seen a lot of fighting here and we are fed up," said Zulgai, a 52-year-old taxi driver who uses only one name. "We want the United States and the United Nations to disarm the whole of the north and to provide the people with jobs."
--------
Amnesty Criticizes U.S. Military in Deaths of 2 Afghan Prisoners
December 2, 2003
By DAVID ROHDE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/02/international/asia/02AFGH.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 1 - A leading human rights group criticized the United States military on Monday for not disclosing the status of an investigation into the deaths of two prisoners at an American base in Afghanistan last year. Initial inquiries by military investigators deemed the deaths homicides that involved "blunt force injuries," according to the group.
American military officials did not respond to a request for comment on Monday night. In the past, they have said all prisoners held at the base in Bagram were treated humanely.
Dr. William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, criticized the military for failing to disclose the status or conclusions of the investigation. The group identified the two Afghan detainees as Mullah Habibullah, who was about 30 when he died Dec. 3, and Dilawar, 22, a taxi driver who died Dec. 10.
"When apparent homicides occur in secret prisons, and promised investigations saw no results," Dr. Schulz said, "the country's cherished values of humane treatment and respect for the law are dishonored." He accused the military of showing "a chilling disregard for the value of human life."
The homicide investigation into Mr. Dilawar's death was first disclosed by The New York Times in March 2003. Details of his death were not made public by the Army.
At the time of his death, military officials said he had coronary artery disease and had died of a heart attack. He was found collapsed in a cell shortly after being arrested near the perimeter of an American base in southeast Afghanistan.
In interviews last winter, two former prisoners, Abdul Jabar and Hakkim Shah, recalled seeing Mr. Dilawar in the Bagram detention center. They said conditions they were subjected to at the time included standing naked, hooded and shackled, being deprived of sleep for days at a time and being kept immobile for long periods.
Mr. Dilawar's relatives said they had received a death certificate from an American military officer in Kabul with the young man's body on Jan. 17, 2003. Mr. Dilawar's brother said he did not fully understand what the paper said.
The certificate, filled by an United States Army pathologist, said, "Decedent was found unresponsive in his cell while in custody." Under "mode of death," there were four squares listing "natural, accident, suicide, homicide." The square for homicide was marked with an X.
-------- arms
Singapore Looks To Robot Soldiers For Future Defense Needs
Dec 01, 2003
Singapore SpaceDaily
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/milspace-03zm.html
Learning from bees and ants, researchers at DSO National Laboratories (DSO) are figuring out how they can send a swarm of robots to the battlefield.
Starting with teaching two or three unmanned vehicles to work together, they are scaling up their work on artificial intelligence (AI) software to send a large group of robots towards the enemy.
Dr How Khee Yin, 44, head of the Centre for Decision Support at DSO, envisions the day when dozens of robots could be sent into harm's way 'in a swarm'.
He said: 'We're learning from bees and ants. How they work as a team. It's very much a growing area of research.'
By replacing soldiers with robots, these machines could save lives when sent on risky missions like gathering intelligence or destroying enemy forces with smart munitions.
'In the past, people have focused on single robots,' he said. But as communication technology improves, robots can be made to work together as a network.
'This presents the problem of how to develop AI software to get them to coordinate among themselves.
'This may seem simple but human beings are also not so good at coordinating themselves sometimes.'
Professor Lim Hock Once a weatherman, Professor Lim Hock, 55, never imagined his early work in meteorology would lead him to defence R&D work more than 20 years later.
But the two fields are not that unrelated.
He said: 'Meteorology is certainly an important environmental factor. Whatever big ship you have, whatever power you have is nothing compared with the fury of nature. If you do not work with it, you could be overwhelmed.
'So in effect I think for any operation...if you know the weather and you have a good capability in weather, you always have an advantage.'
Today, he works on giving Singapore an advantage of another kind.
As director of Temasek Laboratories at the National University of Singapore (NUS), Prof Lim and his team of 80 work on basic aspects of military technology like flight control and antenna design, which are vital in building a strong foundation for more complex defence science projects.
Such work is also important as it frees defence scientists at places like DSO for more ambitious work.
He said: 'In recent years, R&D requirements have gone up very much. Even with the manpower in DSO, it finds it difficult to put enough people to look ahead on basic issues for future requirements.
'Temasek Labs then takes on the complementary part of the work. We look at basic studies. We can try less certain ideas which may or may not work.'
Chemical Verification Lab, DSO A tightly guarded lab on Marina Hill, near Kent Ridge, is one of 15 places in the world approved by an international body to test for the presence of chemical agents or other nasty compounds.
DSO's Chemical Verification Laboratory earned this status in March this year.
It was designated as a verification lab by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an international body made up of countries seeking to eliminate the use of chemical weapons. To attain this, the team had to correctly identify mystery chemicals that could be among 300,000 possible chemicals.
Ms Sng Mui Tiang, 35, head of the chem-bio detection and verification programme, said: 'The designation is not forever. You need to participate in verification tests at least once a year to maintain that designation.
'If you do not do well, you will be out of the game. You will actually be suspended.'
Now, the DSO lab is being tasked to prepare similar samples to test the capabilities of more than 20 labs worldwide.
At home, Ms Sng's team will be on the front line in an emergency.
She said: 'We have no doubt that if an chemical incident occurs in Singapore, it will come to our laboratory for verification.'
-------- asia
South Koreans Recommend Troops for Iraq
December 2, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-SKorea-Iraq.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- A group of lawmakers recommended to parliament Tuesday that Seoul should send both combat and non-combat troops to Iraq despite a weekend attack that killed two South Korean workers there.
A 10-member National Assembly delegation, including lawmakers from the country's four major political parties, visited Iraq for nine days last month. Their fact-finding report said the north and south of Iraq were relatively safe but that any new South Korean unit should be armed well enough to provide its own security and command.
``We concluded that it is advisable to send a mixture of (combat and non-combat) troops so that our troops can restore security and help rebuild a designated area under their own independent command,'' the report said.
Last month, the government said it would send up to 3,000 troops to Iraq, besides the hundreds of South Korean military medics and engineers already operating there.
The delegation's report was submitted Tuesday to parliament, which must approve any overseas troop deployment.
The report said that if enough combat troops were sent along with engineers and medics, the South Korean contingent could be responsible for a specific region.
The delegation also urged South Koreans to ``overcome the national divide'' over sending troops.
``If South Korea actively helps the Iraqi people in an independent manner, it will help improve South Korean-Iraqi relations and in the long term will contribute to South Korea's national interest,'' it said.
President Roh Moo-hyun's decision was unpopular and a disappointment for his liberal supporters.
The leader came under extra pressure to alter the plans after unidentified gunmen shot and killed two South Korean workers and wounded two others on a road near Tikrit, north of Baghdad, on Sunday.
The government condemned the shootings as an ``intolerable'' terrorist attack but has stood by its decision to send troops. Yet to be decided, however, is whether the new troops will include combat forces, where in Iraq they might be sent, and when they will be deployed.
Roh has said it was important for South Korea to contribute troops to Iraq in order to gain U.S. support for peacefully resolving a prolonged crisis over communist North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
South Korea insists on a peaceful resolution to the nuclear dispute, and fears that Washington might resort to punitive steps such as economic sanctions against North Korea, a scenario that the South says would spike tensions and hurt its economy.
-------- business
Pentagon Puts Hold on Boeing Tanker Deal
December 2, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/02/politics/02WIRE-NEWS.html?hp
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has told Congress it will postpone any action on $18 billion contracts for 100 Boeing Co. 767 tankers until the deal is investigated following Boeing's firing of two officials for ethical violations, Defense Department officials said Tuesday.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told leaders of the Senate Armed Service Committee in a letter dated Dec. 1 that he was ordering a "pause in the execution" of the Air Force contracts to lease and buy the mid-air refueling tankers.
--------
Boeing CEO Quits Amid Criticism
Firm Shaken by Firings, Scrutiny by Pentagon
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 2, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26865-2003Dec1?language=printer
Boeing Co.'s chairman and chief executive, Philip M. Condit, who orchestrated the company's plunge into defense and space projects and presided during a series of alleged ethics violations, resigned yesterday amid mounting skepticism from Congress and the Pentagon.
Condit's departure follows last week's firing of Boeing's chief financial officer, Michael M. Sears, for what the company said was unethical conduct in the hiring of an Air Force procurement official this year. The official, who was dismissed from Boeing last week, had played a role in securing a controversial Air Force contract to lease and buy Boeing refueling tankers. Boeing also was slapped this year with an expensive ethics violation by the Pentagon for possessing proprietary Lockheed Martin Corp. documents during the bidding for a rocket launch contract.
"In the end, I concluded that the controversies and distractions of the past year were obscuring the great accomplishments and performance of this company," Condit, 62, said in a conference call with analysts. "My fear was we would get bogged down. I believe the best way for the company to stay on track is to step aside and bring in new leadership."
Harry Stonecipher, 67, a former Boeing president and chief operating officer, was named to replace Condit. Board member Lewis E. Platt, former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co., will serve as non-executive chairman.
Condit, who is not a target of any ethical investigations, has overseen a decline in Boeing's fortunes. Its stock price is virtually unchanged from the day he took over as chief executive in 1996, and the company has lost significant ground to European rival Airbus SAS, which this year for the first time will take the lead in worldwide sales of commercial aircraft.
Condit's sudden departure ends an intense seven-year period in which he sought to turn the aircraft maker into a defense and space giant. Condit moved the company's headquarters from Seattle to Chicago to soften its image as solely an aircraft manufacturer. During his tenure, the company embarked on an acquisition campaign, buying such large firms as McDonnell Douglas Corp., and aggressively pursued Pentagon contracts.
The diversification drive brought mixed results. Boeing spent more than $6 billion to secure a leading position in the burgeoning satellite market only to discover that it had overpaid and that satellite-based communications would not live up to the promise. Its purchase of McDonnell Douglas in 1997 was aimed in part at helping it win the competition for the Joint Strike Fighter, the largest military contract ever awarded, but it lost to Lockheed Martin.
Boeing did emerge as the unlikely winner of a contract valued at more than $15 billion to develop the Future Combat System, which is to link soldiers by satellite to ground command centers and pilots.
But aggressiveness also brought its share of troubles. In July the Air Force suspended Boeing's space unit from winning new contracts and stripped the company of $1 billion in other contracts after an Air Force probe revealed that Boeing employees had stolen proprietary Lockheed Martin documents. Then Sears was ousted for recruiting Darleen A. Druyun, the Air Force procurement official. The revelation prompted the Pentagon to review whether the recruitment influenced the $18 billion tanker contract.
"This is really the culmination of years of ambivalence by Boeing's board concerning Condit's effectiveness," said Loren Thompson, a defense industry analyst.
Condit offered his resignation a week and a half ago as the company grappled with how to respond to Sears's actions. The board decided before Thanksgiving to accept his resignation and spent the holiday weekend preparing the announcement. "My view was if in fact me stepping aside would help the company move forward, that was what I would do," Condit said.
Condit began his nearly 40-year career at Boeing as an aerodynamics engineer and became chief executive in 1996, earning a reputation for a soft-spoken style.
Stonecipher, known as a hard-charging, brash executive with a focus on the bottom line, joined Boeing in 1997 as part of the McDonnell Douglas acquisition. He served for five years as president and chief operating officer before retiring last year.
Stonecipher said that he does not plan any changes in the company's strategy but that he will pay close attention to the details.
"We think we have the right strategy. That strategy is balance between our commercial airplane business and defense business," Stonecipher said. "Our number one priority is to restore our reputation with that huge customer, called the U.S. government."
Among Stonecipher's initial tasks will be repairing Boeing's reputation. The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles is investigating whether any laws were broken when Boeing was found to be in possession of stolen Lockheed Martin documents. The Pentagon is looking into whether Sears's contact with Druyun tainted the tanker deal.
On Friday, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) called on Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to hold off approval of the tanker contract until the Pentagon inspector general completes an investigation of Druyun's conduct during the tanker negotiations. Boeing recently received a subpoena related to the inspector general's investigation.
The tankers are still needed and will probably survive the current controversy, Stonecipher said.
-------- colombia
World closes in on Colombian tribe
December 02, 2003
By Vanessa Arrington
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031201-082828-3035r.htm
BARRANCON, Colombia - Following traditions of hundreds of years, the Nukak-Maku Indians roamed the jungles of southeastern Colombia, hunting game with blowguns and gathering berries, as oblivious to the modern world as it was to them.
Then one day in 1988, the two worlds collided when a group of Nukak men ventured warily into a town carved out of the jungle. Townspeople stared in disbelief at the naked Nukak as the equally astonished Indians stared back.
That first encounter was peaceful. The Nukak men felt so trusting that they brought out their women and children, who had been waiting in the bush.
But the aftershocks are devastating Colombia's last nomadic tribe.
Cut down by diseases contracted from settlers, attracted to the conveniences of the modern world and living amidst a Colombian civil war, the Nukak culture is being driven along a path to extinction that more than 100 other Indian cultures across the Amazon region have walked.
Missionaries estimate at least 1,200 Nukak roamed the jungles in groups of 30 or so when that first contact was made in the town of Calamar. Fifteen years later, their tribal numbers have plunged to about 380 members, the Health Ministry says.
Anthropologists believe only a few dozen Nukak still live deep in the jungle, relatively untouched by civilization.
"At this rate, in a very short time there will be no more Nukak," said Humberto Ruiz, an anthropologist who has studied the tribe. "They will be a vague memory."
The Nukak are a branch of the Maku family of nomadic Indians who have lived in the northwestern Amazon River basin of modern-day Colombia, Peru and Brazil for thousands of years.
Contact with settlers brought influenza, for which the Nukak had no resistance, and pneumonia caused many deaths. At the same time, deforestation has removed their traditional hunting grounds and led to malnutrition.
Adding to the pressures, leftist rebels and outlawed right-wing militias have been battling in the Indians' homelands for control of coca, the base ingredient of cocaine. The leafy plant flourishes naturally in the region and provides the warring groups with huge revenue.
No Nukak has been reported killed, but the clashes have terrified the Indians and caused some to flee ancestral grounds.
One Nukak clan of 10 families left its camp near a settlers' village on the edge of their reservation last January because of the fighting. "We were afraid, afraid of the explosions," said Yeuna, the clan's leader.
The clan is now at a makeshift camp in a jungle clearing near the village of Barrancon, a half-hour boat ride up the river from San Jose del Guaviare, the provincial capital of Guaviare state.
Aid workers deliver rice, lentils and yucca every 15 days to the camp, where colorful hammocks swing from trees whose dense leaves filter the sun's burning rays. The food has led to stomach ailments because of the change from the Indians' traditional diet, but more critically it is increasing their dependence on the outside world.
Hugo Quijano, one of the aid workers, acknowledged the help is undermining Nukak culture but said it is needed because Yeuna's clan lacks the wide areas it needs for hunting and fishing.
"We are trying to limit our contact with them as much as possible, but the conditions of the area they are in make that difficult," Mr. Quijano said.
Yeuna's clan is gradually trading nomadic ways for a more sedentary existence. They are learning Spanish, wearing T-shirts and baseball caps, and drinking Coca-Cola.
Still, the clan maintains traditions. The women pluck their eyebrows and cut their hair very short. The men, who are lean and practically hairless, sometimes leave camp to fish or hunt monkeys.
During a recent visit by a reporter, Nukak children ignored a radio in the camp and became mesmerized by a woman of the clan as she broke into song in the Nukak's native language. More than half the 40 Indians in the camp are children.
There are no elders. They have all died. The oldest known living Nukak is estimated to be in her early 40s. Mr. Ruiz said the Nukak used to live into their 60s, but contact with outside diseases has taken a toll.
There is little consensus on how to preserve Nukak culture while still allowing those who want to integrate into modern society to do so.
"One cannot force a group to conserve itself, like an artifact in a museum," Mr. Ruiz said.
Assimilation appears to be unstoppable.
Most Nukak clans - like Yeuna's - are drifting closer to towns and cities, where life is easier than living hand-to-mouth in the jungle. The Indians are still susceptible to the flu, but access to health care means it is less likely to turn into pneumonia and kill them.
Once they leave the old ways behind, it's hard to go back.
Manuel Garcia grew up with his Nukak clan, but after both his parents died when he was 8, he was adopted by a settler in San Jose del Guaviare. After turning 18, he reconnected with a group of Nukak.
"I tried to live with them in the jungle, but I only lasted six months. I had to leave. I just didn't have the same toughness that they did," said Mr. Garcia, who is now a health worker and is helping Yeuna's clan.
Yeuna, sitting in a hammock and surrounded by his five children and his pregnant wife, said he wants to lead the clan to their ancestral lands.
"We want to go back," he said in broken Spanish. "But we are waiting for them to stop fighting."
-------- iraq
U.S. Soldier Killed by Bomb in Iraq
December 2, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-attack-death.html
BAHGDAD (Reuters) - An American soldier was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy south of the tense Iraqi town of Samarra Tuesday, the U.S. military said.
A spokeswoman said a convoy from the U.S. 4th Infantry Division was the target of the attack south of the town, where American troops say they killed 54 Iraqis in a bloody street battle at the weekend.
``A 4th ID convoy was attacked south of Samarra. One soldier died of his injuries,'' the spokeswoman said.
Samarra lies about 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1, 189 American soldiers have been killed in action.
--------
Battle Reveals New Iraqi Tactics
Troops Startled by Fighters' Unprecedented Coordination and Resolve
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 2, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26784-2003Dec1?language=printer
SAMARRA, Iraq, Dec. 1 -- Sgt. 1st Class Robert Hollis knew there was trouble even before the shooting started. As he stood guard in his M1-A1 Abrams tank outside a bank in this Sunni Muslim town, the usually busy streets suddenly emptied Sunday. Men hurried down back alleys, some running. Women dragged their children away from the positions of U.S. troops.
Then, through his scope, Hollis said he saw a man lift a rocket-propelled grenade launcher to his shoulder, aiming at him and his crew of three. What followed was perhaps the bloodiest engagement since the U.S. occupation of Iraq began in April.
A day later, questions persisted over essential facts of the fighting, which ebbed and flowed through much of Sunday and ended with a devastating defeat of the Iraqi guerrillas who had massed against the overwhelming power of U.S. forces. The U.S. military said Monday that as many as 54 fighters were killed. No American soldiers died. The city's hospital reported only eight dead, all of them civilians, although officials there acknowledged that the bodies of fighters might not have been brought there.
To many involved -- both Iraqis and U.S. soldiers -- the confrontation stood out as an exceptionally fierce battle after months of hit-and-run attacks. Witnesses described dozens of guerrillas in checkered head scarves brazenly roaming the streets in the heat of battle, U.S. soldiers firing randomly in crowded neighborhoods and civilian bystanders taking up arms against U.S. forces once the fight got underway.
For the military, the fight revealed a startling new reality about the fighters themselves -- unprecedented coordination and tactics and numbers yet unseen. Hollis says he saw a determination he did not expect from guerrillas best known for hitting, then running.
"I'm telling you these guys taking some of the shots knew they were going to die," said Hollis, a 17-year veteran and native of Pensacola, Fla. "But they still, under that fire, squeezed the trigger, even though they knew that was the last thing they were going to do. They were standing the ground and fighting, and our guys were standing the ground and fighting."
"Both sides are sending a message," he added.
Standing on a dirt berm inside his base near Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, he reflected on the fight. "A long one," he said. "It was a long one." Then he offered an explanation of the conflicting accounts and unanswered questions.
"Everybody saw a different picture," Hollis said.
Hollis and his fellow troops of the 4th Infantry Division entered Samarra at about 11 a.m. to deliver new Iraqi currency to two banks in the city. Col. Frederick Rudesheim, the brigade commander, said the force involved 100 soldiers, six tanks, four Bradley Fighting Vehicles and four Humvees. Along with them were two squads of military police and four squads of infantry.
Two convoys entered Samarra at opposite ends of the city. Soon afterward, a roadside bomb detonated near each, wounding three soldiers. The soldiers pressed on. But at both locations, ambushes were sprung. The U.S. forces were attacked with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars in fighting that Rudesheim said lasted two hours and 45 minutes. The attackers, the U.S. military said, were wearing garb they associated with fighters loyal to former president Saddam Hussein -- head scarves checkered in red or black and dark shirts and pants.
Capt. Andrew Deponai, a company commander, said he estimated that between 30 and 40 fighters were at each site.
"This was not done in a last-minute planning effort," said Rudesheim, who acknowledged that, despite the scale of the ambush, U.S. forces lacked any intelligence on what was afoot. "This was done in a concerted effort."
At the bank near the Imam Hadi shrine, a sacred destination for Shiite Muslim pilgrims, Abdel-Samad Ahmedi, a merchant, saw cars racing down the street, then heard gunfire. People ran indoors, he said, and shops were shuttered.
"We couldn't see where the shots came from, but we could hear them," he said. "We heard it everywhere in the city."
Down the street, Bassem Feisal was too late. The Iraqi, who is mentally disabled, stayed in the street outside a cafe, even after the shooting started, according to his brother Saad. Bassem was shot twice in the left arm, but survived a fusillade of gunfire that riddled a seven-story building near the bank with dozens of holes.
Saad stood Monday near a sedan crushed under a tank's treads. "This is the gift of Mr. Bush?" he asked, his shirt smeared with his brother's blood.
Hollis and other soldiers at both banks said gunfire came from all directions from men posted on rooftops and behind walls. In one engagement, U.S. military officials said about a dozen attackers were seen running out of a nearby mosque and firing. Throughout the battles, Rudesheim and others said, the fighters -- though outgunned -- showed a level of tactical sophistication. Divided into squads, they used orange-and-white taxis, BMWs and white Toyota pickups to reposition their fighters in back alleys as the battle unfolded. Guerrillas were posted at routes leading in and out of the city. Improvised mines were placed along the streets.
"They're going to hit you, and before you hit them, they're going to disappear. That's their MO," said Hollis, whose tank barrel is emblazoned with the word "Comanche." "In this case they hit us, and instead of disappearing, they stayed. Did you see those tanks? Do you know the amount of firepower on those tanks? Why would you even think of attacking something like that?"
At the Samarra General Hospital, the wounded started arriving in the early afternoon. A half-hour later, the area near the hospital came under fire. U.S. forces said they faced an ambush from there as they withdrew from the city. Doctors denied there was any fire from the hospital grounds.
The charred shells of four cars, their paint seared off, sat in the hospital parking lot. Nearby was the wreckage of a minibus that had carried Iranian pilgrims. Someone had scrawled on it in English, "No USA, Down USA." Doctors said one of the pilgrims, an elderly Iranian man, was killed after being shot in the head and chest.
Abid Toufiq, the director of the 150-bed hospital, said the wounded kept arriving in batches every 15 minutes or half-hour. In all, he said, the hospital treated 54 people, 10 of whom were in critical condition. It recorded eight dead, one of them a woman and two others under 18. The deluge was so severe inside the hospital that doctors inserted intravenous needles into patients as they lay on the floor.
"If you had seen the situation, you would have said, 'God help us, how can you work here?' " said Amar Jabbar, a doctor at the hospital.
Samarra, renowned for its spiraling mud-brick minaret that is one of Iraq's oldest, has long been a restive city in a region most inhospitable to U.S. forces. An American soldier was killed Monday in Habaniya, a town to the southwest of Samarra. Near the Samarra police station, a slogan reads, "We will blow up the house of anyone who works with the Americans." On the hospital, graffiti warned that there was no escape for those cooperating with U.S. forces.
There was a drawing of a hand grenade near words of caution: "This is your destiny."
In the climate of resentment and frustration felt here, many Iraqis insisted they supported the guerrillas and accused U.S. forces of firing randomly as they withdrew.
"Everyone is with the resistance," said Safa Hamad Hassan, 22, whose cousin lay in a hospital bed with wounds to his abdomen from a tank round that landed near his house. "Saddam Hussein is finished. We are protecting our honor and our land."
Throughout the battle, Hassan said, as many as 40 armed guerrillas, all dressed in head scarves, ran openly through the streets of his neighborhood. They shouted at people to go indoors. It was their most public showing since the occupation began, and Hassan was one of the few in the town to admit even seeing them. He and others said civilians took up arms -- nearly every Iraqi man has a weapon -- and joined the fight as the battle dragged on during the day.
Some residents, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, criticized the guerrillas for bringing the fight inside the city. A leaflet, signed by the guerrillas, was reportedly hung recently on the city's shrine, listing those who had collaborated with U.S. forces and would be killed. More common were the sentiments at the Imam Shafai Mosque, near the hospital. Residents said the mosque was struck by a tank round at 5 p.m., killing a man and his son, whose blood still mixed with mud outside the mosque Monday.
"Even in worship, we're not safe from the Americans," said Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Qadir, an assistant at the mosque.
U.S. officials said they were unaware of the reported incident at the mosque and said troops had left the city an hour earlier.
At a briefing at the nearby base Monday, Rudesheim, the brigade commander, said he feared what he called the misinformation that would follow the attack. Military officials had contacted the local city council to explain what happened.
"We've been in this city for about five and a half months, and in that time we've made a lot of Iraqi friends," he said. "We're going to work as hard as we have over the past five and a half months to gain the respect of the Iraqi people."
Correspondent Alan Sipress in Baghdad contributed to this report.
--------
Council In Iraq Resisting Ayatollah
Majority Stays Behind U.S. Plan for Choosing Interim Government
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 2, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26715-2003Dec1?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Dec. 1 -- A majority of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council has decided to support an American plan to select a provisional government through regional caucuses despite objections from the country's most powerful Shiite Muslim cleric, according to several council members.
The council's stance, the result of intense lobbying over the past few days by the U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, could result in a dramatic showdown with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who has insisted that a provisional government be chosen through a national election. If the council persists in supporting the American plan, many in Iraq's Shiite majority, who regard the grand ayatollah as their supreme spiritual authority, may reject the provisional government as illegitimate.
"We are facing a very tense situation, perhaps the most tense since the end of the war," one of the council's Shiite members said. "None of us want a confrontation, but we have to realize we are traveling down a road that could lead to a very big confrontation."
Council members and officials with the U.S.-led occupation authority said they remained hopeful that Sistani's objections could be overcome with minor revisions to the plan and a more detailed explanation to him of the new transition process, which was crafted in part to address his earlier concerns about how a constitution should be written. But they expressed an unwillingness to bend on the issue of general elections, on the grounds that holding a national ballot would delay an agreed-upon handover of sovereignty, which is to take place no later than June 30.
"It will be impossible to have elections under the current circumstances," said Ghazi Yawar, a Sunni Muslim who represents one of the country's largest tribes on the council. "We all respect the point of view of Ayatollah Sistani, but there is a difference between what you wish for and what you can have."
Even the country's largest Shiite political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has sought to distance itself from Sistani's insistence on elections. "When we say 'Iraqis choose' or 'Iraqis elect,' this can take many meanings," said Adel Abdel-Mehdi, director of the party's political bureau. "There is no one way to do that."
The decision to stick with the U.S. plan was made informally among a majority of the council's 24 members after intense discussions over the weekend and on Monday, several council members and sources said. They said some Shiite members remained undecided because they were waiting for a clearer statement from Abdel-Mehdi's party, which has voiced reservations about the caucuses.
The initial moves of the council have pleased the Bush administration, which regards caucuses as the best -- and speediest -- way to select a provisional government. U.S. officials had worried that a call for elections by the council would have scuttled the transition plan, making it harder for President Bush to declare an end to the civil occupation before next year's presidential election.
"We're encouraged by the Governing Council's focus on implementing the agreement," a senior U.S. official in Baghdad said.
The council's apparent steadfastness stems from a desire among Sunni Arabs, Sunni Kurds and secular Shiites that an ayatollah not be given veto power over political decisions. "We cannot deny there is an attempt to set a precedent on Sistani's side and our side," one member said. "This is more than about elections. It's about whether we will allow one man to dictate the terms of our sovereignty."
The member said that "the most powerful political forces on the council" did not want such a result and had decided among themselves to confront the issue of religion in politics -- a thorny subject that was to be deferred until the drafting of a new constitution. "The big parties don't want to cross Sistani, but they want to make sure we don't have a system in place where the religious men have the final say."
Under the Bush administration's new transition plan, approved by the council on Nov. 15, caucuses would be held in Iraq's 18 provinces to choose representatives to serve on a transitional assembly, which would form a provisional government. Participants in the caucuses would have to be approved by 11 of 15 people on an organizing committee, which would be selected by the Governing Council and U.S.-appointed councils at the city and provincial levels.
Assuming the process stays on track and on schedule, the provisional government would assume sovereignty no later than June 30, at which time the Governing Council would be dissolved. After completion of a census and enactment of electoral laws, the provisional government would hold an election for a council to draft a new constitution. A second round of elections would be held by the end of 2005 for a full-fledged government as outlined in the constitution.
Bremer had originally wanted a constitution to be drafted -- either by appointees or people selected through caucuses -- before sovereignty was transferred. But his plan was foiled by Sistani, who issued a religious edict over the summer calling for the drafters to be elected. Although Bremer wanted to push forward with his arrangement, council members refused to support it out of fear of crossing Sistani.
Worried that the council might quake again in light of Sistani's most recent pronouncement about elections for the provisional government, Bremer and his staff hit the phones over the weekend and urged members to stay their course. "They were nervous," one source close to the council said of Bremer's team. "They went into high gear."
Some council members responded with political maneuvering of their own. Hoping to win a few concessions from the occupation authority for standing firm, they have renewed efforts to keep the council in existence after June 30, perhaps as a second legislative body or as a "sovereignty council" that would monitor the transfer of power.
U.S. officials have opposed keeping the council around after a provisional government is formed because of concern that the two bodies might squabble and that the entire process could lose legitimacy if an American-appointed council continued to hold power. But several council members, particularly those who do not lead large political parties, are concerned about their ability to be selected through the caucuses.
Some of them now want Bremer to guarantee members a role in the provisional government in exchange for their support of the caucuses.
Several members also want the council to play a greater role in selecting people for the caucuses. Under the Nov. 15 plan, the Governing Council would appoint only five of the 15 members on each of the 18 caucus organizing committees. The 10 others would be drawn from provincial and city councils.
But Governing Council members contend the provincial and local councils, several of which were formed by military commanders with minimal popular consultation, are not sufficiently representative and are rife with loyalists of former president Saddam Hussein. As a consequence, many members want either the Governing Council to have more seats on the organizing committees or the local councils to be dissolved and assembled from scratch.
Council leaders say they believe revamping the local councils or diminishing their role could affect Sistani's position. "He is concerned about the local councils," said a Shiite politician who recently met with Sistani. "If we could reform them, maybe even by holding some local elections, it might satisfy him."
To that end, the Governing Council set up a committee on Sunday intended to suggest ways to revise the selection process. U.S. officials said Bremer would be willing to consider minor modifications but that he remained opposed to giving the Governing Council a dominant role in choosing participants.
While the council attempts to make changes acceptable to both Bremer and Sistani, the occupation authority is wasting no time trying to sell the agreement directly to the Iraqi public in an attempt to win over the grand ayatollah's supporters. A nationwide "information operations" campaign slated to begin in the next few days will tout the new plan as good for Iraqis.
-------- israel / palestine
Self-Appointed Israeli and Palestinian Negotiators Offer a Plan for Middle East Peace
December 2, 2003
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/02/international/europe/02PEAC.html?pagewanted=all&position=
GENEVA, Dec. 1 - To prove that Middle East peacemaking is possible, self-appointed Israeli and Palestinian negotiators came together on Monday to celebrate a sweeping shadow agreement that would create a Palestinian state and resolve other contentious issues that have thwarted peace negotiators over the years.
The participants recognized the tentativeness of the document, which they called the Geneva Accord. But the air of unreality surrounding the event contrasted with the painfully real pleas from the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to their leaders to talk to each other once again about a permanent solution.
In a sense, the pact was as much a rebuke of the hard-line policies of the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, as it was a blueprint for a Middle East peace agreement. But it was welcomed as a good starting point for negotiations.
"The document is virtual, but all of us are real, and our heartbeats are real," Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli justice minister and head of the Israeli side, said in a speech to an audience that included more than 300 Israelis and Palestinians. "We are saying to the world: `Don't believe those who tell you that our conflict is unsolvable. Don't try to help us manage the conflict. Help us to end it.' "
His message of urgency was echoed in the words of his Palestinian partner, Yasir Abed Rabbo, a former information minister.
"Our critics say that officials should make such agreements, not representatives of civil society," Mr. Rabbo said. "We could not agree more. But what can we do if officials do not meet, if governments do not negotiate? We can't wait and watch as the future of our two nations slides deeper into catastrophe." [The full text of the Geneva Accord is available at www.nad-plo.org/cigeneva.php or www.heskem.org.il/Heskem_en.asp]
On the day they spoke, four Palestinians, including a young boy, were reported killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
There has been a virtual absence of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians since the start of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000. More than 2,200 Palestinians and more than 800 Israelis have died in the relentless violence.
Negotiated in secret for two and a half years, the 50-page document calls for a nonmilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza in return for peace with Israel. Palestinians would also receive the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and sovereignty (with full Jewish access) over Al Aksa mosque, one of the holiest sites for Muslims, and the Temple Mount, called the Noble Sanctuary by Muslims, and sacred to both Islam and Judaism.
The Israelis would keep settlements for about three quarters of the Jews in the West Bank (in return for an equivalent amount of land from Israel), including virtually all the new Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem built in the Arab part of the city. Palestinian refugees would receive compensation, but only a small minority, about 30,000, would be allowed to return to their homes in Israel.
Among those bearing witness on Monday were three Nobel Peace Prize winners, including former President Jimmy Carter; three American congressmen; and several former French ministers including Simone Veil, who survived a Nazi death camp.
"It is unlikely that we will ever see a more promising foundation for peace," Mr. Carter said in a speech. He added that while there will be inevitable changes to the document should the official peace effort begin anew, "The basic premises must remain intact."
Not even that star-studded roster could divert attention from the fact that the major actors in the Middle East were absent from the process and from the ceremonies on Monday.
The United States conspicuously was not among the governments sending a message of support, though a low-level representative was present on Monday and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell previously sent negotiators a letter of encouragement. Negotiators said they hoped to meet with Mr. Powell in Washington on Friday.
The Israeli government did not take part at all. Prime Minister Sharon has bitterly criticized the undertaking, at one point characterizing the Israeli role in it as subversive. Militant Palestinians also rejected the plan, calling its drafters traitors. In a statement read in his name, however, Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, called the accord "a brave initiative that opens the door to hope."
Lech Walesa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for leading the Solidarity movement in Poland, told the two sides, "I am going to be with you here in solidarity."
Nelson Mandela, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of South Africa, made a virtual appearance in a videotape shown on a vast screen. Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, President Jacques Chirac of France, King Mohammed VI of Morocco, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and former President Bill Clinton, among others, sent messages of support that were read aloud. Fifty-eight former world leaders have also signed a statement of support.
The official host was the Swiss government, which underwrote the $542,000 event on Monday with substantial help from private donors. The official master of ceremonies was the actor Richard Dreyfuss.
"This shows what people who truly want peace on their own can do," said Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, a West Virginia Democrat of Lebanese ancestry who witnessed the White House ceremonies celebrating peace between Israel and Egypt in 1979 and the Israeli-Palestinian accord in 1993. "It's a shame when governments get in the way."
In an interview, Mr. Carter criticized both leaders in the region for not moving forward aggressively to make peace and the Bush administration for what he called its "bias" toward Israel. He speculated that history might have been different if he had been re-elected president in 1980.
"Had I been elected to a second term, with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a final solution," he said.
--------
Unofficial Peace Plan For Mideast Unveiled
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 2, 2003; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26642-2003Dec1.html
JERUSALEM, Dec. 1 -- An unofficial Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative was formally presented Monday in an upbeat ceremony in Geneva hours after the Israeli military launched one of its largest incursions in months inside the West Bank, killing four Palestinians.
The Geneva Accord, which tackles many of the most contentious issues dividing Israelis and Palestinians, was drafted by a group of Israelis and Palestinians frustrated by the failure of their governments to engage in peace efforts after more than three years of military conflict.
"It is unlikely that we shall ever see a better foundation for peace," former U.S. president Jimmy Carter told the packed Geneva convention hall, according to the Associated Press. "The people support it. Political leaders are the obstacle to peace."
The proposal, drafted by Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli justice minister and longtime peace negotiator, and Yasser Abed Rabbo, former Palestinian information minister, is opposed by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as well as some senior Palestinian officials and leaders of militant organizations.
While the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, did not endorse the proposal, he sent a message to the conference declaring it "a brave and courageous initiative . . . that opens the door to peace."
The plan would require the removal of most Jewish settlements from the Palestinian territories, divide Jerusalem into the capitals of both Israel and a Palestinian state, and mandate that most -- but not all -- Palestinians give up their claim to return to lands in Israel they left during and after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
Although the document has no official standing, its authors hope to create pressure on the elected leaders to engage in serious peace negotiations.
The ceremonial event was hosted by actor Richard Dreyfuss, and addressed by a cast of international figures including Carter and former Polish president Lech Walesa, with a video appearance by former South African president Nelson Mandela, the AP reported from Geneva.
The presentation of the proposal came just hours after nearly 100 Israeli armored jeeps and Humvees backed by combat helicopters launched an assault inside the West Bank city of Ramallah Monday, killing four Palestinians, including an 11-year-old boy, and demolishing two multistory buildings, according to Palestinian security officials.
An Israeli army spokesman said the 16-hour operation was aimed at dismantling the infrastructure of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, operating from Ramallah, which is the seat of the Palestinian government and abuts the northernmost boundaries of Jerusalem.
"This is an attack with a clear political message," Col. Sabri Tmezi, head of the Palestinian Preventative Security forces in Ramallah, said in a telephone interview.
Dore Gold, an adviser to Sharon, said the Ramallah operation was conducted because "the Palestinian Authority continues to not fulfill its responsibility to deal with these problems."
Israeli special forces and armored and infantry divisions arrested 29 Palestinians who a military spokesman said were connected to "terrorist activities." The troops then blew up two multistory apartment buildings. Muayed Omar Hadithi, 11, was among the four Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, according to Tmezi. He said two members of Hamas were also killed. A fourth body could not be identified because it was covered by the rubble of one of the destroyed buildings .
The Israeli military spokesman said the death of the child was "still under investigation," but added that the boy was among "those throwing stones and molotov cocktails in an area of firing."
--------
Israelis Kill 3 Hamas Militants and a 9-Year-Old in Ramallah
December 2, 2003
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/02/international/middleeast/02MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, Dec. 1 - Israeli troops shot and killed three Hamas militants and a young boy on Monday while arresting almost 30 suspects during house-to-house searches in the West Bank city of Ramallah, reports from Israelis and Palestinians said.
In a similar sweep on Tuesday, Palestinian security service officials said, an armed Palestinian was killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank town of Jenin, Agence France-Presse reported. The officials identified the man as Amjad Sadi, 28, and said he was a member of Al Aksa Martyr's Brigade, which is an offshoot of the Fatah movement of Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader.
While some Israeli and Palestinian politicians gathered in Geneva to sign an unofficial and much debated symbolic peace deal, an American diplomat, William J. Burns, wrapped up talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders here in the latest effort to restart the official Middle East peace plan. But there was still no word on a meeting between the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and his Palestinian counterpart, Ahmed Qurei.
The Israeli forces charged into Ramallah, just north of here, during the night. Their target was Hamas, the Islamic group that has carried out the largest number of suicide bombings against Israelis.
In one confrontation, troops ordered Palestinian residents out of a four-story apartment building in Al Amari, a refugee camp in the city, and then exchanged fire with two wanted Hamas men inside.
Soldiers killed the Hamas gunmen, and the army demolished the building, saying it contained an explosives lab. More than 50 people were left homeless, Palestinians said. In a similar confrontation at a house elsewhere in Ramallah, the Israelis flattened the building with a Hamas gunman inside, killing him, Israelis and Palestinians said.
Around midday, refugee camp residents threw stones and firebombs, and gunmen shot at soldiers, the Israeli Army said. The Israeli forces fired back, and Mazen Hamdan, a boy in the crowd, was hit in the head and later died of his wounds at the Ramallah hospital, Palestinian witnesses and doctors said. An Israeli military official acknowledged that soldiers had fired during the incident, but said he had no information on Palestinian casualties.
Israel sent dozens of armored vehicles into Ramallah, but told the Palestinian Authority that its operation would not take place near Mr. Arafat's badly damaged compound, where he has been confined for most of the past two years. The army said it had arrested 29 suspected Hamas militants before pulling out of the city on Monday afternoon.
Palestinians accused Israel of consistently carrying out raids at delicate moments to undermine potential political progress.
In another development, Israeli bulldozers have began construction on a new neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem, according to developers of the project, called Golden View.
Palestinians, who seek a future capital in East Jerusalem, called the move a violation of the Middle East peace plan.
-------- nato
Most NATO allies have pledged to keep troops in Iraq: Rumsfeld
BRUSSELS (AFP)
Dec 02, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031202142940.b1l1r3x6.html
Most if not all NATO allies with troops in Iraq have pledged to stay on there despite the high profile casualties suffered by some countries, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday.
Rumsfeld told reporters he had received strong allied support for the US-led mission in Iraq during a two day meeting here of NATO defense ministers, held against the backdrop of surging violence in Iraq.
"Most if not all have pledged to stay on and to work to sustain their contribution, and to not be dissuaded by the fact that there have been some high profile casualties that have been taken by some of the coalition countries," Rumsfeld said.
Seven Spaniards, two South Koreans, two Japanese and a Colombian were killed over the weekend as armed supporters of the former Iraqi regime intensified attacks on foreigners working with the US-led coalition.
Two weeks earlier, 19 Italians were killed in a truck bombing outside their base in the southern city of Nasiriyah.
Rumsfeld noted that 18 of 26 current and future members of NATO now have forces among the estimated 22,000 troops in two international divisions in Iraq, one led by Britain and the other by Poland and Spain.
Rumsfeld urged ministers here to consider a larger role for NATO in Iraq in the coming year.
Putting the Polish division under NATO command at some point was one possibility discussed here, a senior US official said Monday.
Rumsfeld also has suggested eventually bringing the 11,500-strong US-led coalition in Afghanistan under NATO command as it expands the mission of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force there.
But the killings in Iraq have had a dramatic impact on public opinion in countries that have either been strong supporters of the US coalition in Iraq or were contemplating providing troops.
In Madrid, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar prepared to address the parliament as the nation moured the deaths of the seven Spanish intelligence agents killed in an attack on their vehicle south of Baghdad.
Aznar was expected to reaffirm Spain's support for the Iraq mission amid opposition calls to bring home the 1,250-member Spanish contingent.
In Japan, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Japan should not be dissuaded from sending troops to Iraq by the killing of two of its diplomats in an ambush near Tikrit.
"If we wash our hands of it just because it is dangerous and there is no safe place there, it means that we are giving in to terrorists," Koizumi told a private seminar.
More than 80 percent of Japanese voters are either opposed to sending troops or want their deployment delayed until security in the war-torn country improves, according to a poll published on Monday in the major daily Mainichi Shimbun.
South Korea, which has said it is prepared to send 3,000 troops to Iraq, vowed Monday that it would not be deterred by an attack Sunday in which two South Korean contractors were killed and two others injured.
--------
NATO Weighs Wider Operations
Afghan, Iraq Missions Discussed as Defense Ministers Meet
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 2, 2003; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26645-2003Dec1.html
BRUSSELS, Dec. 1 -- NATO authorities raised the possibility Monday of taking over military operations in Afghanistan and assuming responsibility for a division of international troops in Iraq.
The ideas emerged during closed discussions between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other NATO defense ministers. "The United States is open to an expanded NATO role in both countries," Rumsfeld told reporters later at a news conference at NATO headquarters.
But Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials indicated that no formal proposals had been presented to the alliance, and NATO officials gave no sign of when they might be prepared to manage the wider missions. In fact, alliance members were struggling to meet existing commitments in Afghanistan.
In August, NATO took command of the 5,700-member International Security Assistance Force, which has been largely responsible for keeping the peace in Kabul. The United States leads a force of 11,500 troops, most of them American, focused on hunting down elements of the Taliban militia and al Qaeda terrorist network.
But providing the NATO force with troops and equipment has proved a strain, with U.S. and other alliance officials scrambling to find enough helicopters, intelligence personnel and other resources. The shortfall called into question NATO's plans to establish Provincial Reconstruction Teams, groups of soldiers providing security for aid workers and engaging in small development projects.
George Robertson, NATO's secretary general, warned at the outset of the two-day session that NATO "must stay the course in Afghanistan" or else "its problems will appear on all our doorsteps." By late afternoon, alliance authorities were reporting fresh pledges of troops and equipment from several members.
In the case of Iraq, 18 of NATO's 26 current or future members have troops in the country. But opposition, principally from France and Germany, has limited the alliance's role. So far, NATO has provided logistical support to help set up a Polish-led multinational division.
In his opening address, Robertson appealed for greater efforts to make alliance forces more "usable" against terrorism and other 21st-century threats. To that end, the alliance declared operational its first battalion of 500 to 700 troops dedicated to defending NATO forces against nuclear, biological or chemical attacks.
The ministers also agreed to cut NATOs peacekeeping force in Bosnia from 12,500 to 7,000, preparing the way for a likely transfer of control next year to a European Union force of soldiers and police.
As the meeting began, news of a plan by Britain, Germany and France to enhance the EU's ability to mount its own military operations threatened to trigger a new rift with the United States. Senior officials from the three European nations were widely reported to have reached agreement last week to give the EU its own military planning cell and insert a provision of mutual defense into the EU's first constitution, widely expected to be adopted next week.
U.S. officials complained privately that the moves violated terms of an accord signed by NATO and the EU last March, portraying the initiatives as a French-inspired drive to subvert NATO and curb U.S. influence.
-------- spies
Intelligence experts speak out against the war in a new documentary
Maureen Clare Murphy,
Electronic Iraq,
2 December 2003
http://electroniciraq.net/news/1225.shtml
"The Bush administration made up its mind to go to war [with Iraq] on September 11, 2001. From that time on you were dealing with rationalization and justification for the war; you weren't dealing with real causes for the war or real reasons for the war. There was never a clear and present danger, there was never an imminent threat," explains Mel Goodman, who served for 20 years as a CIA analyst, in the documentary Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War.
A slew of other former CIA officials, ambassadors, weapons inspectors, and high ranking governmental figures make similar statements about the illegality and sheer irrationality of the war in the hour-long documentary that has been promoted by the Internet-based lobby group MoveOn. The various interviewees dissect the "intelligence" put forth by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union speech, and the fuzzy photos used in Colin Powell's February speech to the UN, which is described by one former intelligence expert as a piece of "theater."
Washington Editor of The Nation magazine David Corn explains how former CIA deputy chief Richard Kerr told the few reporters who asked that the intelligence produced by the CIA and manipulated by the Bush administration was circumstantial. And Dr. David MacMichael, who worked 13 years as a CIA analyst, tells how the White House heavily influenced CIA reports to provide the language used to support going to war on Iraq.
Various intelligence experts interviewed in Uncovered state, quite frankly, that the Bush administration exploited Americans' fears after September 11 by using the mother of all trump cards - the fear of nuclear war. In between news segments of President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld telling reporters that Saddam Hussein has resumed the manufacturing of nuclear weapons, the former CIA officials debunk their statements, and explain that the intelligence community made it clear that the evidence was simply not there regarding the claims for Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program.
But it is made clear in the news clips included in the documentary how calculated the Bush administration's capitalization on America's fear of nuclear terrorism was during the buildup to the war on Iraq. Condoleezza Rice soberly says, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Bush and Rumsfeld make similar statements in press conferences, and seem amazed that anyone would even question their claims.
However, as Former Assistant Secretary to defense Philip Coyle explains, "A lot of people who supported the war on Iraq actually believed that Iraq had the capability to fire missiles that could reach the United States carrying payloads of nuclear or biological weapons. Iraq has never had the capability to do that, they didn't have it in the first Gulf War, they didn't have it in this war in Iraq, and they don't have any way of getting it in the future."
The interviewees also refute the neoconservative administration's claims regarding the supposed biological and chemical weapons believed to be in Hussein's possession. After a clip of President Bush solemnly stating that Iraq may potentially have enough sarin nerve gas to kill thousands of Americans, Former Chief Scientist of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Peter Zimmerman explains that Bush's case for the existence of Iraq's sarin was based on the knowledge that Iraq possessed sarin in 1990, but it was also known that that the sarin had only a shelf life of two months. Stating that the sarin wouldn't be safe to eat but would be completely ineffective as a nerve gas, Zimmerman says that there's "no way that the [Central Intelligence] Agency could not have known that."
Equally as dubious are the U.S. administration's claims that Iraq is a hotbed for al Qaeda terrorists, and the implication that Iraq was somehow involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Mel Goodman, the 20 year CIA analyst explains, "Iraq, and we have very good intelligence for this, was not in the picture of terrorism before we invaded it. Saddam Hussein and bin Laden were enemies. Bin Laden considered and said that Saddam Hussein was a socialist infidel. These were very different kinds of individuals competing for power in their own way, and Saddam Hussein made very sure that al Qaeda couldn't function in Iraq.'
"The ties with al Qaeda were just a scare tactic to exploit the trauma, the very real trauma, that the American people have felt since 9/11 and to associate that trauma with Iraq. As you know from the polls, most Americans believe that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and there was a very successful, very deliberate, and very unethical and immoral operation on the part of the PR people of this administration," states Ray McGovern, former Chairman for the National Intelligence estimate.
Former CIA Director of the Office of Regional and Political Analysis Bill Christison says, "That very first day on September 12, one day after September 11, the meeting that was held in the White House, in the situation room, led to Rumsfeld asking the question, 'Shouldn't we use this as an opportunity to do something about Iraq as well?'"
Also explored in the documentary are the sources for the various claims that were used to support the war on Iraq by Bush and Powell. Regarding weapons of mass destruction, John Brady Kiesling, former Political Counselor to the United States Embassy in Athens, says, "Unfortunately, every reliable source of our own was unable to find anything convincing, so we were dependent on the defectors provided by Mr. Chalabi at the Iraqi National Congress. It's fascinating to see that he's been providing intelligence for many years and every checkable piece of that information that has come to the public's notice has been proven to be false or at least self-serving in the extreme."
Interviewed is Former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq Joseph Wilson, whose CIA officer wife's name was leaked repeatedly to the press by the U.S. government earlier this year. Wilson states that his wife's name and career was tarnished in a deliberate "smear campaign" after Wilson probed the authenticity of now known to be forged Yellowcake Niger documents that were used by Vice President Cheney's office to "prove" that Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear weapons. Leaking his wife's name "was a very vengeful act against the ambassador," explains former White House Counsel to president Nixon John Dean. Milt Bearden, former CIA Station Chief in Pakistan, asks, "The question remains - who forged the documents and why?"
The interviewed intelligence experts and foreign relations scholars paint a bleak picture for the future of U.S. foreign relations and the war on terrorism. Former CIA Operative Robert Baer, who served in Iraq and Lebanon, and says he was "studiously ignored" during the build-up to war, explains, "If you attacked another country without justification, people are going to say, 'This isn't a war on terrorism. This is imperialism, this is colonialism.'"
"Having invaded Iraq, we are likely to make it a focus of terrorism. We are likely to produce what the president has said Iraq represents, namely the central battlefield for the war on terrorism. Why? Because we've sent a lot of Americans in a place where they're sitting ducks for people who think the only good American is a dead one," says Chas Freeman, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, a prediction confirmed by daily news reports of U.S. casualties in Iraq.
The documentary is a lucid expose on what can only be described as the total misinformation the U.S. administration fed the American public, as well as congress, in order the rally support for the war. But while watching the documentary, one can't help but wonder what the twenty-plus interviewees were doing to publicly disprove the neocons' claims. Certainly, Joseph Wilson tackled the Niger documents, and Baer said that he was studiously ignored, and surely other interviewees made efforts to stop the war. But this is a part of the story that Uncovered fails to provide.
However, the film will hopefully be seen by many, as it shows the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz administration for what it is - a deceptive bunch of neoconservatives who have not been truthful regarding the intelligence used to support a war that's killed thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of Americans for no justifiable reason. MoveOn is making great efforts to make sure people do see this documentary. It is using it as part of its fundraising campaign to defeat Bush in the 2004 U.S. presidential elections, and it has organized 2,000 "house parties" that will take place around the U.S. on December 7, during which the film will be screened.
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Pentagon delays Boeing tanker contract
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Dec 02, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031202213249.dz9uhvbl.html
The Pentagon has asked for a "pause" in a program to obtain 100 tanker aircraft from Boeing in the wake of revelations about the company's recruitment of an air force official, officials said Tuesday.
In a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said he has asked for a delay in the program as he seeks more information on any alleged improper negotiations between the Air Force and Boeing.
The letter cited last week's action by Boeing to sack chief financial officer Mike Sears for improperly recruiting a US Air Force official, Darleen Druyun, who played a key role in the program before leaving the military and joining Boeing.
"In light of the recent allegations and actions taken within the Boeing Company to remove Michael Sears and Darleen Druyun, I am ordering a pause in the execution of the contracts to lease and purchase tanker aircraft," Wolfowitz wrote in the Monday letter.
Asked about the delay, Boeing spokesman Doug Kennett declined to comment, saying, "We're deferring to our Air Force customer."
The announcement came a day after Boeing chairman and chief executive Phil Condit abruptly resigned in the latest fallout from a series of ethics scandals.
The announcement by the Pentagon, which is reviewing the 18 billion dollar deal with Boeing in light of recent revelations, is the latest development in a controversial deal originally designed as a lease of Boeing 767 tanker planes for refueling.
The lease was designed to let the US deploy new tankers sooner than an outright purchase, but at a higher cost. But opponents who attacked the lease for its overall cost ended up winning a fight over the terms and the contract now involves leasing only 20 aircraft and buying the remaining 80.
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Rumsfeld wins dubious honour
AFP
December 2, 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/02/1070127363330.html
With the overthrow of Saddam Hussein out of the way, US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld can round off 2003 by basking in the glory of winning this year's Foot in Mouth award.
His dubious achievement is courtesy of the Plain English Campaign, a British pressure group that lobbies for government, consumer and other public information to be presented in clear, straightforward language.
Judges felt Mr Rumsfeld was speaking as clear as mud when he uttered the following at a press briefing: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."
Mr Rumsfeld faced tough competition for his Foot in Mouth, including actor-turned-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said: "I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman."
The Foot in Mouth award is to be presented at a ceremony in London on Tuesday, along with seven Golden Bulls for corporate gobbledygook and laurels for good use of English by government, civil servants and the media.
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High court to decide reach of U.S. agents
December 02, 2003
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20031201-101823-2641r.htm
The Supreme Court said yesterday it would decide whether federal agents may sneak into foreign countries to arrest criminal suspects and bring them to the United States for trial, a case that tests the reach of the government's terrorism-fighting powers.
The Bush administration said covert kidnappings of suspects overseas are rare, but the government needs that authority.
A lower court ruling would block federal agents from bringing Osama bin Laden to the United States to face charges in the September 11 attacks, Solicitor General Theodore Olson said, and jeopardizes U.S. efforts "to apprehend individuals who may be abroad, plotting other illegal attacks" on the United States.
The high court yesterday also said it would clarify the impact of its ruling last year that juries, not a judge, must decide if a convicted killer lives or dies, and granted an exception to allow a California atheist who wants the words "under God" stripped from the Pledge of Allegiance to argue before the court next year.
Michael Newdow, a doctor and lawyer who is not a member of the Supreme Court Bar but wanted to argue the Pledge case himself, hasn't had his law license for the three years required to qualify for the Supreme Court Bar.
The justices are reviewing a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that found the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because of the reference to God. The high court stayed that ruling until it makes its decision.
In the covert kidnapping case, the justices will decide if a Mexican doctor charged but never convicted of aiding in the torture of a federal agent is entitled to damages from the U.S. government and Mexican nationals who arrested him, under several federal laws.
A sharply split 9th Circuit said that federal drug agents acted illegally when they ordered the 1985 kidnapping, upholding an award of $25,000 to the doctor. The court said that federal law allows lawsuits for suspected violations of international law or treaties.
The Supreme Court ruled earlier that his abduction did not violate an extradition treaty with Mexico. The Bush administration has asked the court to clarify whether federal officers can arrest someone in a foreign country if they have probable cause to suspect the person of a crime.
Mr. Olson, the administration's Supreme Court lawyer, said if the court allows lawsuits over arrests, people can sue America's allies "including those supporting this nation's fight against terrorism."
Attorneys for the physician, including American Civil Liberties Union lawyers, said the case has nothing to do with the war on terror and that Congress has not authorized the type of abduction-arrest used against the doctor.
"They portrayed it as a drug case 10 years ago. Suddenly they're deploying the arguments they can win with," one of the doctor's attorneys, George Washington University law professor Ralph Steinhardt, said yesterday. "It's a little hard to take an innocent man and make him the object lesson for the government's prosecutorial powers."
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SUPREME COURT ROUNDUP
Court to Decide Whether Death Penalty Ruling Is Retroactive
December 2, 2003
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/02/national/02SCOT.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 - The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether its decision that overturned the death penalty laws of five states 18 months ago should be applied retroactively. If the answer is yes, more than 100 death-row inmates in five states will be entitled to new sentencing hearings.
In Ring v. Arizona, decided in June 2002, the court held that juries rather than judges had to make the crucial factual determinations that separated convicted murderers eligible to be sentenced to death from those who were not. While juries in most states have the role of determining the existence of "aggravating factors," five states - Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Nebraska, in addition to Arizona - gave that role to judges.
Inmates in those states with cases still on appeal received new sentencing hearings, and the states have changed their laws to conform to the Ring decision. The question for the Supreme Court now is whether inmates who have exhausted their direct appeals in state courts can bring habeas corpus petitions in federal courts to challenge the constitutio