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NUCLEAR
Pills Urged for People Near Nuke Plants
Activists want depleted-uranium munitions labeled
Are Iran's Nuclear Promises Believable?
Iran Still Hasn't Signed Nuke Agreement
ElBaradei Rejects Criticism of UN Iran Inspections
South Korea wants U.S. to back off on nukes
U.S, China Gap Could Delay N. Korea Talks
Breast Scanner Uses Nuclear Medicine to See Cancers Early
Australia says it will join US missile defense program
Australia to Join U.S. Missile-Defense System
Australia to Participate In U.S. Missile Shield
Transcript: U.S. OK'd 'Dirty War'
Put the Blame on Cheney for U.S. Mess in Iraq
MILITARY
Explosions occurs near U.S. Embassy in Kabul
Rumsfeld Meets Warlords in Afghanistan
A Brewing Constitutional Crisis
Liberia's Ex-Leader Is Put on Interpol's Most Wanted List
Ballistic Missile Launched in Kazakhstan
Rumsfeld Discusses Tighter Military Ties With Azerbaijan
LOCKHEED MARTIN DISPLAYS MISSILE DEFENSE RADAR
Northrop Grumman Wins Billion Dollar Missile Defense Program
Orbital Wins $400 Million In Missile Defense Contracts
Makers of Body Armor Boost Production to Combat Shortage
Boeing Lags in Building Spy Satellites
China's Military Warns Taiwan
U.S. Rejects Iraqi Plan to Hold Census by Summer
Iraqi Political Parties Will Form Militia to Work With American Forces
Bulgaria ready to negotiate about hosting EU bases, Parvanov says
General: Israelis Exaggerated Iraq Threat
Body Armor Saves Lives in Iraq
Air Force One: A New Account
The Bird Was Perfect But Not For Dinner
Hateful words a war crime
Court Convicts 3 in 1994 Genocide Across Rwanda
Journalists Sentenced In Rwanda Genocide
Killing of Witness Rattles Mexico's 'Dirty War' Probe
Pinochet Should Be Tried Again, Lawyers Say
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Mayor Agrees to Allow Panel to Examine Sept. 11 Records
Judges Hear U.S. Appeal in Terror Case
Compromise Hinted In Moussaoui Case
Court Rules On Aiding Terrorist Groups
Judge rules out death penalty for 9/11 defendant
Why we should fear the Matrix
Sudden Shift on Detainee
Decision to Allow Lawyer for 'Enemy Combatant' Is New Policy
Guantanamo Bay Detainee Is First to Be Given a Lawyer
Man Who Trained With Qaeda Gets 10-Year Sentence
Muslim Chaplain Thanks His Supporters
US Exporting 'Tools of Torture'
ENERGY AND OTHER
Wind: more jobs and power for same investment
E.P.A. Drafts New Rules for Emissions From Power Plants
ACTIVISTS
Venezuelan Protesters Clash With Police
Activists protest Hanford dump through initiative
Mexican Parents of GIs in Iraq: 'Bring Our Children Home'
Peace activists march against SDF dispatch in Hiroshima
Priest tells soldiers to disobey orders to go to Iraq
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Pills Urged for People Near Nuke Plants
December 4, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Pill.html
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-nuclear-pill,0,7684329.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Making potassium iodide pills available to people who live near nuclear power plants was endorsed Thursday by the National Research Council.
The pills can help protect the thyroid gland of people exposed to radiation, if taken promptly after a radioactive release occurs.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced in late 2001 it would provide the pills to states with nuclear plants on request, so they could have the material on hand if needed in an emergency.
Agency officials said Wednesday that has been done, and handling and distribution of the pills is up to the states.
The council report, requested by Congress, agreed that the pills could be effective if taken within a few hours of exposure to radiation. It said the pills should be made available to everyone age 40 or younger, especially children and pregnant and lactating women.
The pills work by flooding the thyroid with nonradioactive iodine, thus preventing it from absorbing radioactive iodine, which can cause damage.
But potassium iodide has just one use -- to prevent thyroid cancer by shielding the thyroid from radioactive iodine. It blocks no other type of radiation and protects no other body part.
Just as with any medication, overdoses of potassium iodide can be dangerous. Some people may experience allergic reactions, including nausea or rashes, from taking it.
The council is an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, an independent organization chartered by Congress to advise the government on science matters.
-------- depleted uranium
Activists want depleted-uranium munitions labeled
Military's exemption is challenged
By LARRY JOHNSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR
Thursday, December 4, 2003
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/150991_du04.html
Four activist groups, including one in Poulsbo, have launched a nationwide campaign to force the Pentagon to label shipments of depleted uranium munitions.
"The United States military does not want civilian populations to know how and when depleted uranium munitions are being shipped through their communities for fear of what the military calls 'unnecessary public concern about the radiation risks associated with DU munitions,' "according to Glen Milner, of the Ground Zero Center for Non-violent Action in Poulsbo.
Milner said that normally this type of shipment would be labeled with Department of Transportation "radioactive" and "explosive" signs. Branches of the military, however, have a special exemption, which allows them to ship DU munitions without the "radioactive" placard. The exemption, which must be renewed every few years, expires June 30.
Milner estimates that the military makes about 2,000 shipments of DU munitions annually to various facilities.
The Pentagon doesn't like to talk about the shipments, but Daniel Carlson, a spokesman for the Army Field Support Command, acknowledged that the Army alone sent about 195 shipments of DU munitions within the continental United States in the past 12 months. He said because of security concerns, such details as where the shipments came from and where they went could not be disclosed.
Milner said he hopes Ground Zero and the other groups in the campaign -- Traprock Peace Center in Massachusetts; the Military Toxics Project in Maine; and Nukewatch in Wisconsin -- can help bring about enough public pressure to force the government to decide not to renew the next application for exemption by the Military Traffic Management Command, a branch of the Department of Defense.
"By understanding the danger of shipping DU through our neighborhoods, we will better understand the damage done by firing DU in neighborhoods in other countries in our name," said Milner, who said he would like to see a ban on the use of all DU ammunition.
"Depleted uranium is an extremely toxic material and much more dangerous when shipped with an explosive propellant as is the case of DU munitions," he said.
The Pentagon has said there have been no known health problems associated with the munitions. At the same time, the military acknowledges the hazards in an Army training manual, which requires that anyone who comes within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection, and says that "contamination will make food and water unsafe."
Critics of DU say they fear it is responsible for a significant increase in cancer and birth defects in regions where the munitions have been used and say it is a prime suspect in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued thousands of Gulf War veterans.
Milner said a simple traffic accident could render DU shipments dangerous.
When DU burns it turns into highly toxic and extremely fine uranium dust that can be spread in the air, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and absorbed by plants and animals, becoming part of the food chain.
Once lodged in the soil, the munitions can pollute the environment and create up to a hundredfold increase in uranium levels in groundwater, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.
Milner also cited an incident where DU rounds were shipped to an unauthorized recipient; an incident he said could have been more easily remedied if the shipment had been clearly labeled.
In 2001, the Coast Guard received a shipment of DU in downtown Seattle. The Coast Guard, however, is not licensed to use DU munitions. Days later, when the mistake was noticed, the DU was handed over to the Navy, which took it to a storage facility at Port Hadlock.
"If an explosion or fire had occurred while the ammunition was stored in downtown Seattle, the spread of toxic and radioactive DU dust could have been disastrous," Milner said.
Through Freedom of Information Act requests, Milner has identified several other locations where the Navy stores DU: San Diego; Seal Beach, Calif.; Crane, Ind.; Indian Head, Md.; Colts Neck, N.J.; Hawthorne, Nev.; McAlister, Okla.; Charlestown, S.C.; Tooele, Utah; Dahlgreen, Va.; Norfolk, Va; Sewells Point, Va.; and Yorktown, Va.
In addition, there are 10 bulk-storage facilities for ammunition scattered across the United States -- each with a capacity for storing more than 11,000 tons of DU ammunition.
In the original 1986 request for an exemption to the Department of Transportation requirement of signs stating a shipment is "radioactive," obtained by Milner, the Defense Department said there are three reasons for transporting DU munitions without drawing public attention.
# "Marking the outside of the DU munitions containers as radioactive may create friction with foreign governments when foreign nations handle DU munitions during ship loading or unloading."
# "We do not want to generate unnecessary public concern about the radiation risks associated with DU munitions."
# By placing signs on trucks reading "radioactive" and "explosive" together it would "raise public concerns" that nuclear weapons were being shipped.
The document states further that there would be no increased risk to the public by not labeling the shipments radioactive, because "in the unlikely event of an accident or incident involving transportation of DU munitions, the DOD maintains Explosive Ordinance Disposal teams nationwide trained in the health hazards associated with DU munitions."
"These teams are capable of responding on short notice with protective equipment and radiation survey instruments," it said.
But Milner counters with this: "In case of a fire, first responders, the local police and firefighters, would have no idea the shipment contained radioactive material."
ON THE WEB
Ground Zero Center for Non-violent Action: www.gzcenter.org
Traprock Peace Center: www.traprockpeace.org
Military Toxics Project: www.miltoxproj.org
Nukewatch: www.nukewatch.com
U.S. Department of Defense: www.defenselink.mil/
P-I foreign desk editor Larry Johnson can be reached at 206-448-8035 or larryjohnson@seattlepi.com
-------- iran
Are Iran's Nuclear Promises Believable?
By Gary Fitleberg
12/05/03
American Daily
http://www.americandaily.com/item/3746
According to reliable sources, hard-line factions in Iran's totalitarian regime are determined to acquire at least the capability to develop atomic weapons. Analysts all agree this would be dangerous and destructive to Middle East regional stability.
An Iranian political analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity stated, "The [Iranian] regime will pursue getting the know-how. They'll stretch the letter of the agreements to the full extent possible."
The Revolutionary Guard and its military strategists are convinced Iran must develop a nuclear weapon. Only then will it assume its place as a major regional power. Iran will also be adequately able to defend an attack by America or Israel.
These were the comments of a policy advisor to a senior conservative cleric who made them on the condition on anonymity.
Analysts and diplomats in Iran, both foreign and Iranian, said they expected the regime to continue its covert nuclear weapons program while making a commitment to open its facilities to inspections.
Iran supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, as well as other senior officials, were opposed at the IAEA deadline for full disclosure and threatened to pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and also not to allow inspections.
Iran's cooperation with the IAEA has been influenced immensely from pressure by the international community.
Iran has pledged its cooperation recently. Iran's promises thus far are unbelievable based on its past record of concealment vs. disclosure. Iran did not disclose, for example, both uranium and plutonium, which it later admitted and claimed was contaminated from machinery purchased illegally on the "black market" in a blatant concealment.
The United States is pushing to refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council for a possible resolution for sanctions. The European-led faction on the board wants to give Iran more time to come clean.
Questions arise whether or not Iran intends to fully comply or disclose its true intentions regarding its nuclear program based on its past record of concealment. Iran's credibility is clearly in question.
We can not afford to be wrong regarding Iran's nuclear program. Concealment does not equal disclosure. Shall we believe Iran whatsoever? What is Iran trying to hide? Iran must come clean completely. Click here to send feedback to the author
Gary is a Political Analyst specializing in International Relations with emphasis on Middle East affairs. His articles have been published in numerous publications including La Prensa (Managua, Nicaragua equivalent to the L.A. Times), Pakistan Today, The Kashmir Telegraph, The Iranian and many more.
----
Iran Still Hasn't Signed Nuke Agreement
December 4, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Agency-Iran.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Despite mounting Western pressure and the implicit threat of sanctions, Iran still has not signed a key agreement to open its nuclear facilities to intrusive inspections, the U.N. atomic energy watchdog said Thursday.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he expected Iran to sign the accord ``shortly.'' But a Western diplomat suggested that Tehran was stalling, and said the United States and other countries were waiting impatiently ``for Iran to keep its promises and sign.''
Iran agreed last month to open suspect nuclear sites that until now have been off-limits, and to let IAEA inspectors conduct unannounced checks to ensure the country is not trying to develop atomic weaponry as alleged by Washington.
In a resolution last week that warned Tehran to stay in line with international efforts to make sure the country has no nuclear weapons ambitions, the Vienna-based IAEA's 35-nation board censured Iran for 18 years of secrecy.
Although the resolution did not confront Iran with a direct threat of U.N. sanctions -- a tougher approach that Washington had sought -- it warned Tehran that the IAEA would consider further action if ``further serious Iranian failures'' should be found.
The wording implicitly warned Iran that the agency could report it to the Security Council, which has the power to impose economic or diplomatic sanctions. It called on Tehran to ``promptly and unconditionally sign, ratify and fully implement'' the accord, but did not set a deadline.
The diplomat, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, did not say whether the United States or other countries were contemplating lodging a protest aimed at pressuring Iran to sign.
In a sign of possible disarray within the government over how to respond to the IAEA, Tehran's representative to the agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, told the AP on Thursday that he had been relieved of his duties. He did not elaborate.
Iran insists its atomic energy program is peaceful and geared only to producing electricity. Under international pressure, it agreed to sign the inspection agreement and to suspend its enrichment of uranium, which it says had been confined to non-weapons levels anyway.
ElBaradei told reporters the agency was developing a ``plan of action'' over the next few months on how to deal with Iran.
He said agency experts were now in the process of contacting companies that sold Iran centrifuges and other equipment that bore traces of highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium. Iran contends the equipment already was contaminated when it acquired it. ElBaradei declined to identify the companies or the countries involved.
``We still have a lot of work to do, and a lot of work is in progress,'' he said.
Although there has been evidence of suspect nuclear activity in Iran, ElBaradei characterized it as ``laboratory-scale involving small quantities'' and expressed confidence that his agency would uncover any significant effort to enrich uranium for weapons use.
``There will always be a centrifuge somewhere. But we can detect industrial-scale activities,'' he said. ``If a country moves from research and development to the industrial scale, it's highly unlikely that would go undetected.''
ElBaradei also said he hopes his inspectors will return soon to neighboring Iraq. He said he expected the Security Council to give the agency a fresh inspection mandate early next year.
The U.N. agency found no evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to revive his atomic weapons program before the war, but ``we still need to verify that Iraq does not have nuclear weapons of mass destruction,'' ElBaradei said.
On the Net:
IAEA, www.iaea.org
----
ElBaradei Rejects Criticism of UN Iran Inspections
December 4, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-nuclear-elbaradei.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Thursday rejected criticism of its failure to detect Iran's clandestine experiments to make enriched uranium and plutonium, saying they were practically undetectable.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), also said Iran had yet to sign a protocol accepting more intrusive snap inspections, though diplomats said it was too early to say whether Tehran was stalling.
Iran acknowledged to the IAEA in October that it hid a secret centrifuge uranium enrichment program from U.N. inspectors for nearly two decades.
ElBaradei said Iran's laboratory-scale experiments, which Washington said were further proof that Tehran has been secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons, were on too small a scale to be easily detected by his inspectors.
``People have been saying Iran has been cheating the agency, if you like, for 18 years,'' ElBaradei told reporters. ``Yes, Iran has been successful in doing research and laboratory activities and this we were not able to detect, and I don't think we will be able to detect in the future.
``But...if a country moves from research...to an industrial scale to develop weapons, I think the system, with all the technology that we have, makes it highly unlikely that this kind of program would go on undetected.''
The United States accuses Iran of using its nuclear power program as a front to build an atom bomb. Tehran denies this.
While the IAEA concluded in a recent report that it had seen ``no evidence'' Iran did have a covert weapons program, it said the jury was still out as to whether one existed.
ElBaradei said that no matter how thorough and intrusive inspections are, there are clear limits to what they can detect.
``There will always be easily concealable items -- one centrifuge or two centrifuges operating somewhere or a computer study,'' he said.
ELBARADEI CRITICIZES WASHINGTON
In a separate interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, ElBaradei said Washington was setting a bad example for would-be nuclear proliferators by research into so-called ``mini nukes.''
The United States, like Iran, is a signatory of the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). By signing the treaty as a nuclear power, Washington has pledged to gradually disarm.
``If you see Congress unblocking millions of dollars for research into mini nuclear bombs, one understands that far from aiming for nuclear disarmament, the United States seeks to improve its arsenal,'' he said in the interview to appear in the paper's Friday edition.
ElBaradei also said Iran had not yet told him when it would sign an NPT protocol permitting more intrusive, short-notice IAEA inspections but he expected it to sign soon, as promised.
Several non-U.S. diplomats told Reuters they did not consider the fact that Iran had not signed the NPT protocol as proof Tehran was stalling.
ElBaradei said the agency was in the process of contacting companies and individuals who had been involved with Iran's purchase of centrifuge components, which it said were contaminated with weapons-grade uranium.
Although he did not name names, diplomats and arms experts have said Pakistan was the likely origin of Iran's European-developed centrifuge designs and much of its hardware.
-------- korea
South Korea wants U.S. to back off on nukes
Associated Press
Thursday, Dec. 4, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-Nuclear.html
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031204.wkore1204/BNStory/International/
Seoul - South Korea said Thursday that the United States should ease off some of its demands against North Korea and help keep up momentum for six-nation talks on the isolated country's nuclear program.
South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said Washington should show greater understanding for South Korea's position in return for the South's willingness to send troops to Iraq in support of the United States, Seoul's top ally.
The South Korean government 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.
Officials from the United States, Japan and South Korea are to meet in Washington this week to hone their positions ahead of possible talks that would also include Russia, China and North Korea. Japan's top negotiator in the discussions, Mitoji Yabunaka, left Thursday for Washington.
While countries are shooting for a round of talks some time in mid-December, no date has been set and a U.S. official said Tuesday the talks may not happen until next year because of disagreements over North Korean demands. The U.S. official did not elaborate.
Mr. Jeong said Thursday that Seoul hopes its plans to send up to 3,000 troops to Iraq will help win co-operation from Washington.
"We will fully do our duty concerning South Korea-U.S. relations, so we wish that the United States would also co-operate to make progress in resolving the nuclear issue, which the Korean people feel insecure about," he said.
"North Korea should also not be too strong in making demands from the United States, but the United States should also somewhat ease its position on North Korea's demands to maintain momentum on talks and to seek a resolution quickly," he said, without being more specific.
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.
Mr. Jeong said Thursday that it is too early to tell if a second round of nuclear talks will happen this month. The first round of talks, held in Beijing in August, ended without much progress.
"China and South Korea are trying to co-ordinate the demands by the United States and North Korea," he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has rejected suggestions that the resumption of the talks has been delayed.
"It's impossible to postpone a meeting that has never been scheduled in the first place," Mr. Powell told reporters Wednesday in Morocco. "The important thing is that all parties remain committed to moving ahead with the six-party talks process."
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun pledged Wednesday to send troops to Iraq "without delay" after parliamentary approval, citing the importance of maintaining a strong alliance with the United States.
The nuclear standoff flared a year ago when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted running a secret nuclear program in violation of international agreements.
----
U.S, China Gap Could Delay N. Korea Talks
December 4, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-North-Korea.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- China's insistence that the United States give security assurances to North Korea once it renounces nuclear weapons could delay a second round of negotiations with Pyongyang, a Bush administration official said Thursday.
In the meantime, the administration is holding talks at the State Department with Japanese and South Korean delegations in an effort to reach a joint position. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the views of the three allies were fairly close. He also credited China with trying to make progress on the North Korean program.
The talks had been expected to convene Dec. 17. A State Department spokesman, Adam Ereli, said this week that the goal remained to hold talks before the end of the month. On Thursday, Ereli said the aim was talks ``in the near future.''
Since the first round of the six-party talks was held in August in Beijing, North Korea has made demands for concessions to be extended simultaneously with a drawdown of its nuclear program instead of after the program had been shut down.
The main concession would be a written statement by the Bush administration assuring North Korea's security.
China, which has taken the lead in informal discussions with North Korea, has proposed the United States extend the assurance after North Korea renounces nuclear weapons on the peninsula. The negotiations then would take up other issues, including an improvement in U.S. relations with the communist state, the official said.
China's insistence on a joint declaration outlining this sequence is the focus of the U.S. talks with South Korea and Japan that Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly is supervising. The declaration would be adopted at the end of the second round.
Kelly told reporters ``we are working to develop the kind of consensus on the six-party talks that can allow the talks to go forward.''
But, he said, officials have ``a way to go and we have no firm dates at this point.''
On Monday, North Korea rejected a U.S. demand that it first renounce its nuclear program before receiving security guarantees from Washington, saying it would ``rather die'' than submit to conditions that amounted to slavery.
Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said Tuesday the United States wanted 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.''
Bolton also said security assurances would be extended to North Korea only after its ``agreement and implementation'' of verification procedures that would assure that North Korea would not restart its nuclear program.
-------- medicine
Breast Scanner Uses Nuclear Medicine to See Cancers Early
DURHAM, North Carolina, (ENS)
December 4, 2003
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2003/2003-12-04-09.asp#anchor2
A new breast scanner designed to detect subtle changes in breast cells before a cancerous lump can be felt by hand or seen with X-ray mammography was debuted today at the 26th Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
The new camera developed by researchers at Duke University Medical Center has undergone extensive testing in artificial breasts and testing in women is set to begin this spring.
Such early detection should enable doctors to more successfully treat breast cancer before it has formed a tumor or spread to lymph nodes, said Martin Tornai, Ph.D., associate professor of radiology and biomedical engineering at Duke and developer of the device.
The camera uses nuclear medicine to pick up chemical changes to breast cells that signal the cells are becoming malignant, said Tornai.
The camera should be useful for detecting tumors in large or dense breasts, which are difficult to image using traditional mammography because X-rays often cannot penetrate them. "This technology could potentially be applied to screening women who are at high risk for breast cancer, particularly younger women who have denser breast tissue that X-ray mammography can't easily penetrate," he said.
And the geometry of the new device allows for imaging small breasts and the nearby chest wall. It can image the axillary lymph nodes to look for evidence of metastasis - which traditional mammography cannot do.
In addition, Tornai said the device could be useful to monitor the course of chemotherapy or radiation therapy in breast cancer patients because it could detect changes to the cancer cells.
"During and after chemotherapy, if you take an X-ray mammogram of the same cancerous tissue, it looks identical to its pre-treatment size," says Tornai. "But if you take a nuclear medicine image, the dead tissue doesn't take up the tracer, so you can see if the therapy is having an effect very early on, much sooner than waiting for tumor shrinkage."
The new device works without any breast compression, and women may not be required to remove their bras.
The key to the new scanner is that it detects changes in the behavior of cancer cells rather than structural changes, such as tumor masses, which take much longer to develop, said Tornai.
"Once you start seeing structural changes using mammography, that indicates the molecular process has been going on for awhile," he said. "If we can detect subtle changes in cells before a tumor has developed, we have a better chance of treating the abnormal cells in their earliest stages of malignancy."
To use the device, a cancer-specific radioactive tracer is injected into the patient's bloodstream. The tracer, called sestamibi, is preferentially absorbed by cancer cells because they have large numbers of mitochondria, the cells' powerhouses. Cancer cells have more mitochondria than normal cells because they are more metabolically active and require more energy to grow and spread.
Next, the camera obtains an image by picking up gamma rays - high energy photons or units of light - that are emitted by the radioactive atom attached to sestamibi. The gamma rays easily penetrate the tissue and can be detected non-invasively by a gamma ray camera.
"Nuclear imaging tracers like sestamibi show up in both pre-malignant and malignant breast cells as a little light bulb in the middle of a dim space," said Tornai. "You really want a tracer to home in on small bits of cancer that may otherwise be too small for other scanners to detect."
Gamma ray tracers such as sestamibi have a short half-life and are broken down quickly by the liver and excreted. Tornai says the amount of radiation exposure from a single diagnostic procedure is about the same as a year's exposure from the natural background radiation found in the environment.
Tornai is awaiting patent approval on the new device, including the combination device that overlays X-ray and nuclear medicine images.
-------- missile defense
Australia says it will join US missile defense program
CANBERRA (AFP)
Dec 04, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031204040812.yuiejvbs.html
Australia's conservative government announced Thursday that it would participate in the United States' controversial program to develop a missile defense shield.
"We think that with the proliferation of long-range missiles and trends towards proliferation of mass destruction warheads, it is a sensible decision for Australia to take," said Defense Minister Robert Hill.
"We have given that careful consideration and we think that we can play a part, obviously a small part in terms of the massive overall program," he said.
"This will be the start of obviously what will be a long program."
Hill said cooperation would primarily involve scientific research and most likely the area of radar sensors, since the US had shown considerable interest in Australia's over-the-horizon radar system known as the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN).
"They looked at our capabilities and were impressed with JORN and said that there was within the JORN system capabilities that could assist with missile defense," Hill said.
Australia could also could incorporate some of the developed technology into air warfare destroyers being built for the country's navy, he said.
But Hill said there were no current plans to host part of a ground-based missile defense system on Australian territory.
Australia under Prime Minister John Howard has been one of the staunchest foreign allies of US President George W. Bush and was the only country besides Britain to send forces into the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Bush's plan to develop a general missile defense shield led to the United States abandoning the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and has come under strong criticism at home and abroad.
Critics say the scheme is too costly, technically unfeasible and likely to spark a new global arms race.
But Bush has said he hopes to deploy a limited missile shield by 2004 that would include ground-based interceptor missiles stationed in the US.
Hill said Australia saw no immediate risk to its territory but was concerned the country might one day be threatened by long range missiles able to carry chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.
"If Australia is interested in at some time utilising the technologies that are becoming available to defeat incoming ballistic missiles, then it should be working within the program from an early date," he said.
"The American program is the program. It is a huge investment by the Americans. They will be starting to deploy their systems next year," he said.
"Basically what they have done is invite us to come within that tent. From that we believe that we will be better able to meet that threat in the future if it comes to pass. We are looking at long lead times."
----
Australia to Join U.S. Missile-Defense System
December 4, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/international/asia/04AUST.html
CANBERRA, Australia, Thursday, Dec. 4 - Australia has decided in principle to join an American-led missile defense system, strengthening military ties with Washington, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Thursday.
Stressing that the missile system was purely defensive and not offensive, Mr. Downer said the move would deter rogue states from acquiring ballistic missile technology.
"This is a strategic decision to put in a place a long-term measure to counter potential threats to Australia's security and its interests from ballistic missile proliferation," he told Parliament.
While he did not mention North Korea by name, the Communist state has a nuclear weapons program and has ballistic missiles capable of hitting Japan, a critical American ally.
The decision to join the American program could bring renewed accusations by some Asian neighbors that Australia is playing "deputy sheriff" for Washington in the Pacific.
Australia has also joined the United States' Joint Strike Fighter program to develop an advanced stealth fighter-bomber.
Mr. Downer, aware of regional sensitivities, said the conservative government had already briefed many countries in the region of its decision to join the missile program, which it has long supported. He said Australia would continue to keep its regional partners informed of its involvement.
Australia's defense minister, Robert Hill, said this could include expanded cooperation to detect missiles at the point of launch, acquiring ship-based or ground-based sensors, and research development.
Mr. Downer said joining the missile defense system would strengthen Australia's military ties to the United States.
"Our long and vigorous alliance with the United States benefits the security of both countries and will be strengthened by our participation in missile defense," he said.
The United States took its first steps toward setting up a missile defense last year when it withdrew from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile treaty that banned such systems.
The missile defense program is in its initial stages, but many defense experts viewed Australia as an essential component in a shield because of an American-Australian monitoring station at Pine Gap in the desert of central Australia.
----
Australia to Participate In U.S. Missile Shield
Associated Press
Thursday, December 4, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33553-2003Dec3.html
CANBERRA, Australia, Dec. 4 -- Australia has agreed to participate in a U.S. program to build a defensive missile shield, the government announced Thursday.
"We believe that taking part in the U.S. program will serve our strategic interest, help us defend Australia and allow us to make an important contribution to global and regional security," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said in a statement.
The Bush administration hopes to develop a shield against missiles, arguing that "rogue states" could soon have ballistic missiles that could reach the United States. It wants allies such as Britain and Australia to be involved, particularly for the stationing of satellite tracking facilities.
Critics say the technology is unreliable and that the undertaking could spark an arms race.
Australia has been one of Washington's staunchest allies, pledging troops to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.Downer said Australia's participation "will depend on many factors including our own strategic defense needs, regional considerations, industry capabilities and financial considerations."
Defense Minister Robert Hill said Australia would likely help in research and had no plans for a ground-based defense system.
-------- us politics
Transcript: U.S. OK'd 'Dirty War'
New evidence suggests that Henry Kissinger gave the Argentine military 'a green light' in its 1970s-80s campaign against leftists.
by Daniel A. Grech
Thursday, December 4, 2003
by the Miami Herald
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1204-01.htm
BUENOS AIRES - At the height of the Argentine military junta's bloody ''dirty war'' against leftists in the 1970s, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the Argentine foreign minister that ''we would like you to succeed,'' a newly declassified U.S. document reveals.
This document is a devastating indictment of Kissinger's policy toward Latin America. Kissinger actually encourages human-rights violations in full consciousness of what was going on.
The transcript of the meeting between Kissinger and Navy Adm. César Augusto Guzzetti in New York on Oct. 7, 1976, is the first documentary evidence that the Gerald Ford administration approved of the junta's harsh tactics, which led to the deaths or ''disappearance'' of some 30,000 people from 1975 to 1983.
The document is also certain to further complicate Kissinger's legacy, which has been questioned in recent years as new evidence has emerged on his connection to human-rights violations around the world -- including in Chile, Indonesia and Bangladesh.
Kissinger and several top deputies have repeatedly denied condoning human-rights abuses in Argentina.
DIPLOMATIC CABLES
Among the 4,667 U.S. documents declassified by the State Department last year were diplomatic cables showing that the Argentine military believed it had Kissinger's approval. The information was requested by the families of the junta's victims and human-rights groups.
A transcript of the 1976 Kissinger-Guzzetti meeting was declassified recently under a Freedom of Information Request by the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington. The document was made available to The Herald on Wednesday and will be presented at a conference on U.S.-Argentine relations during the dirty war today in Buenos Aires.
''Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed,'' Kissinger reassured Guzzetti in the seven-page transcript, marked SECRET. ``I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed, the better.''
`DEFINITIVE EVIDENCE'
''This is final, definitive evidence that Kissinger gave a green light to Argentine generals,'' said Carlos Osorio, director of the Argentina Documentation Project at the National Security Archive.
The Argentine military began its war against leftist guerrillas and suspected sympathizers in 1975, before taking power in a coup the following year. By the time of the conversation between Kissinger and Guzzetti, the machinery of murder and disappearances had received worldwide condemnation and the U.S. Congress was considering economic sanctions.
Guzzetti assured Kissinger that the ''struggle'' against ''terrorist organizations'' would be finished by the end of 1976. But a 1983 report by an Argentine truth commission showed that the killings accelerated in late 1976 and continued for two more years.
''This document is a devastating indictment of Kissinger's policy toward Latin America,'' said John Dinges, an assistant professor at Columbia Journalism School and author of The Condor Years, a book on military dictatorships in the Southern Cone due out in February. ``Kissinger actually encourages human-rights violations in full consciousness of what was going on.''
A VINDICATION
The transcript also vindicates the then-U.S. ambassador to Argentina, Robert Hill, who in late 1976 began pressing the Argentine military on human-rights issues but was told by Argentine officials that Washington was supporting them.
''Guzzetti went to the U.S. fully expecting to hear some strong, firm, direct warnings on his government's human rights practices,'' Hill wrote in a cable. ``Rather than that, he has returned in a state of jubilation.''
''All along they denied this,'' Dinges said. ``Now, finally, we have Kissinger's actual words giving the green light.''
----
Put the Blame on Cheney for U.S. Mess in Iraq
December 4, 2003,
Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-vpklu043569491dec04,0,88577.column?coll=ny-news-columnists
This isn't how Papa Bush and the handlers thought it would work out. Not when they put solid Dick Cheney in charge of the kid's government.
With all of his experience in government, from White House chief of staff to congressional leader to secretary of defense, Cheney was the one who would avoid the big mistakes, who would make up for Junior's lack of experience.
And yet President George W. Bush is going into his re-election year with one huge mess on his hands in Iraq. It isn't only that much of the world is bewildered if not downright scared at the administration's arrogant unilateralism; it's that a good segment of the American people have begun to question the president's judgment and credibility because of how Iraq was handled.
Cheney was supposed to prevent something like this from happening. He was supposed to protect the not so well prepared W. from the big mistakes. And yet, as more accounts of the maneuvering inside the administration are revealed, it is increasingly clear that it was Cheney who was the moving force behind the decision to fight a war of choice against Iraq.
What is particularly disturbing is how the administration misused intelligence information to make its case for war and failed to plan competently for the postwar period. Two recent articles, one by George Packer in The New Yorker and another by David Rieff in The New York Times Magazine, provide detailed, on-the-record accounts of how the Pentagon deliberately ignored almost all the expert advice coming from the State Department, the CIA and from almost anywhere else about what had to be done after the war.
There was plenty of information available about how difficult the postwar project would be, but the Pentagon planners, with utter disdain for anything coming from the State Department, ignored it. They believed that once Saddam Hussein and his top lieutenants were eliminated, the people of Iraq would greet the Americans with open arms. The State Department experts told them otherwise. Their information was trashed.
You could blame that on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his band of neoconservative warriors led by Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. But bitter conflict between State and Defense is common in every administration. It's the White House that is supposed to sort it out and make sure the president acts upon accurate information.
But Cheney turned out to be the leading neoconservative. According to one account, he told Bush in February of 2002 that he believed it was a mistake to have not eliminated Hussein during Bush I and that now was the time to do it. And he then drove the policy through to war. Cheney was put there to prevent Bush from being duped by those with axes to grind, yet the vice president turned out to be the chief ax grinder.
The same story is true on the run-up to the war. In the Dec. 4 edition of The New York Review of Books, Thomas Powers examines the administration's contention that Iraq posed an imminent threat. He particularly cites 29 claims made by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his very influential Feb. 5 speech to the United Nations and finds that so far not one has been shown to be the case. And Powell was more cautious than others.
The problem, Powers says, is that the White House exerted enormous pressure on the CIA to produce intelligence that coincided with its policy predilections. This is very dangerous, of course. And, given Bush's lack of background, it's easy to understand why he might not have understood how intelligence can be misused. It was Cheney, the seasoned, solid expert in national security matters, who was supposed to make certain the intelligence was straight, who was going to protect the president's credibility. But it turns out he was the one pushing for information to confirm his preconceived notions.
Yes, the buck stops with the president, but the more I learn about what happened behind the scenes the more I say put the blame on Cheney.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Explosions occurs near U.S. Embassy in Kabul
12/4/2003
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-12-04-kabul-blast_x.htm
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Suspected Islamic militants fired a rocket into a field next to the U.S. Embassy here Thursday, Afghan authorities said. The blast occurred less than two hours after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld left the Afghan capital.
There were no reports of injuries in the 6:15 p.m. explosion about 300 yards from the embassy compound, and 100 yards from the headquarters of international peacekeepers in Kabul.
Rumsfeld had earlier held talks with President Hamid Karzai at his palace elsewhere in the city. The defense secretary left about 4 p.m. to continue his tour of Central Asia.
"We are reviewing our security posture," a spokesman at the heavily fortified embassy said. He spoke on condition of anonymity and declined further comment.
The blast underlined the violence plaguing Afghanistan two years after a U.S.-led offensive swept the Taliban regime from power and heightened tension in Kabul ahead of a loya jirga, or grand council, next week to ratify a constitution.
Thursday's blast echoed around the city, drawing swarms of Afghan police and soldiers to an expanse of newly tilled field next to the U.S. Embassy compound.
Security officials walked the field with flashlights. One emerged from the darkness holding a piece of shrapnel he said was from a small rocket. Reporters were evicted before the impact site could be found.
Troops from the 5,700-strong International Security Assistance Force blocked roads around the U.S. compound.
Lt. Cmdr. Frank Coburn, a British ISAF spokesman, said a forensics team was sent to the site. He said he couldn't confirm witness accounts suggesting it was a rocket.
Matyullah Ramani, a senior Kabul police officer, said: "It was Taliban or (Gulbuddin) Hekmatyar" - a renegade commander allied with the Taliban. "They are trying to disrupt the loya jirga."
Karzai's administration has little control outside the capital because of attacks by pro-Taliban insurgents and fighting among provincial warlords.
Recently, attacks on aid workers and Afghan government staff have increased sharply in the south and the east, forcing relief agencies to reduce their work there.
Kabul has also been affected.
Five rockets rained down on the city on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, slightly injuring one Canadian civilian working at a peacekeepers' base.
On Nov. 22, an explosion in the garden of an upscale hotel in Kabul frequented by foreigners shattered windows, but caused no injuries.
--------
Rumsfeld Meets Warlords in Afghanistan
December 4, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-afghan-rumsfeld.html?hp
KABUL (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed suggestions on Thursday that Taliban rebels would disrupt Afghan elections next year, even as a guerrilla ambush killed a worker with a U.N.-backed project.
Rumsfeld, who met warlords in the north of the country to promote a disarmament drive, said NATO could eventually take on a wider role in post-war Afghanistan, the Western alliance's first mission outside Europe.
Asked at a news conference whether he was concerned that the resurgent Taliban guerrilla movement might delay the polls in the south and the east of the country, Rumsfeld replied:
``I can't imagine that there will be any type of delay from the standpoint of what you suggested in the south.''
``While there always may be incidents from time to time, the capabilities that exist and the role that can be played by both Afghan forces as well as coalition forces ought to be able to manage anything like that quite well,'' he said.
His comments were echoed by President Hamid Karzai, who vowed that militants -- ``the Taliban, terrorism, whoever they are'' -- would not be allowed to disrupt the vote due to be held in June.
However aid groups, the United Nations and others have grave doubts that the current level of security will be sufficient to ensure Afghanistan's first ever free polls will run smoothly.
On a visit to Afghanistan in May, Rumsfeld said U.S. forces had moved from major combat operations to stabilization and reconstruction, a statement that has come back to haunt him.
More than 400 people have been killed in clashes since August, the bloodiest period since the Taliban's overthrow in 2001. They have included local and foreign aid workers, U.S. troops, Afghan soldiers, officials and police, as well as many guerrillas.
On Thursday, an Afghan worker from a U.N.-sponsored program in a western province was killed in an ambush officials blamed on the Taliban. Eleven people were wounded, one seriously.
On Wednesday, two U.S. soldiers were wounded, one seriously, when a renegade policeman threw a grenade at a U.S. military vehicle in the southern city of Kandahar.
WARLORDS A WORRY
Concern about security are not limited to the Taliban insurgency but extend to provinces dominated by warlords officially loyal to the government but with their own agendas.
The reality of that situation was made clear when Rumsfeld started his one-day trip in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif to push a faltering drive aimed at disarming rival pro-government factions while building up a new national army.
He met ethnic Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is accused of dragging his feet on handing over heavy weapons and rival ethnic Tajik commander Ustad Atta Mohammad, whose forces have clashed repeatedly since helping the United States overthrow the Taliban.
On Wednesday, the defense ministry said Dostum had given up just three tanks, while Atta had surrendered 50. But Rumsfeld said both factions had begun the process, adding: ``We certainly acknowledged that and encouraged it.''
In Kabul, Rumsfeld met commanders of the 11,500-strong U.S.-led force pursuing Taliban and al Qaeda militants and a separately mandated NATO peacekeeping force, having called in Mazar on a British Provincial Reconstruction Team that has been trying to ease factional tension and push disarmament.
The United States and its allies see such teams as a way to boost security in the provinces, but aid groups say they are too small to provide protection for the polls and aid work, which has already been severely disrupted across much of the south.
Six PRTs have been set up and a U.S. official said the United States intended to put four or five more into the south and east where the battle against militants is fiercest.
Rumsfeld's visit follows talks with NATO defense ministers to discuss ways to boost security and plug embarrassing equipment gaps limiting the alliance's ability to expand its peacekeeping force from Kabul to provide a meaningful provincial presence.
-------
A Brewing Constitutional Crisis
Afghan Delegate Meetings Foreshadow Difficult Battles
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 4, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33289-2003Dec3.html
GARDEZ, Afghanistan -- More than 650 turbaned elders milled outside a U.N. voting tent Tuesday, clutching copies of a formal white document. Some fumbled with rarely worn spectacles as they peered at the tiny print; others frowned and jotted careful notes next to certain items.
There was no time for tea and gossip. The nation was preparing to debate and adopt a new constitution after 25 years of war and lawlessness, and the elders, gathered in a schoolyard to elect candidates for the upcoming constitutional assembly, already knew what they wanted from the charter.
"We want democracy, but only if it is according to Islamic law," asserted Nasrullah, 55, a farmer from Ghazni province, as a dozen men around him nodded vigorously. "In this document it is written that killing criminals is not allowed, but we need qisas to stop crime," he said, referring to the Islamic doctrine of eye-for-an-eye vengeance. "This is not the law of the Taliban. It is the law of God."
The gathered elders agreed, in principle, that women should be able to participate in the assembly, provided they wear proper Islamic head coverings. But the lone woman candidate was nowhere to be seen. She spent the day segregated in a classroom, cut off from all the discussion, and she said no one had given her a copy of the proposed constitution.
As more than 19,000 delegates gathered in eight cities this week to choose 500 members of the constitutional assembly, or loya jirga, the impassioned and often contradictory views of delegates foreshadowed a long, heated battle at the meeting, due to open Wednesday, and reflected the deep strains in a society pulled both toward a rural, religious past and a future as a modern nation.
The Afghan government, headed by President Hamid Karzai, presented a draft constitution to the public one month ago. Under the U.N.-mandated political process, it must be ratified by the loya jirga before presidential elections can be held next year, to be followed by parliamentary voting.
Officials said they tried to strike a balance between the demands of various political and religious groups, but the document drew criticism from conservative and progressive forces. Human rights groups said it failed to adequately protect women's rights, judicial independence and religious minorities, while student groups protested that it did not guarantee the right to free higher education.
Among the delegates and candidates from Ghazni and Parwan provinces, however, there was near-universal concern that the proposed constitution was too secular and modern, giving insufficient power to Islamic law and custom. Their comments suggested that the assembly could split deeply over the balance of political power and competing visions of modern and traditional Islam. In Kabul Stadium, where more than 500, mostly ethnic Tajik delegates from Parwan gathered inside a giant tent Monday, the mood was serious and attentive. Many delegates were veterans of guerrilla struggles against both communist and Taliban forces, and they appeared keenly appreciative of the historic chance to build a peaceful, politically modern nation.
And yet the dominant sentiment in the tent was one of belligerent opposition to the proposed system of a strong executive and weaker parliament, which delegates said failed to ensure the rights of ethnic minorities and northern Afghan "freedom fighters" like themselves. The original constitution proposed by a commission included a prime minister, but Karzai had the position removed.
"Our country's future is at stake here, and we do not want the blood of the martyrs to be wasted," said Mahmad Yacoub, 47. "We need a parliamentary system with a strong prime minister so the rights of the poor and the freedom fighters will not be abused. Just as we struggled against Russia, so we will struggle in the loya jirga."
The depth of ethnic feeling was also reflected in criticisms of other provisions -- that the national anthem be sung in Pashto, the Pashtun dialect, instead of Dari, the Tajik dialect, and that Mohammed Zahir Shah, 88, the former Afghan monarch, be named "father of the nation."
Delegates from less secure neighboring provinces are traveling to Gardez, a well-protected provincial capital 65 miles south of Kabul, all week to vote. On Tuesday delegates from Ghazni, a conservative ethnic Pashtun region, joked and posed excitedly for photographs, but they also expressed suspicion that the proposed constitution might erode their religious laws, ethnic rights and cultural traditions.
Mahmad Samander, a candidate and teacher from Ghazni, said he had read all 161 articles in the draft "very carefully" and had taken notes on dozens of items that he found contradictory to Islam. Like other delegates, he expressed concern at the references to international treaties, women's rights and permission for minority Shiite Muslims to be judged according to Shiite legal precepts.
"We want Islamic law, not international law. It is what so many of us fought and died for," he said, referring specifically to the Sunni strain of Islam, which is followed by 80 percent of Afghans. "If I am elected to the loya jirga, I will employ all my boldness as a former freedom fighter to eliminate or amend every un-Islamic item."
Yet despite professing such conservative views, Samander and other delegates from Ghazni and Parwan argued strongly for the right of all Afghans to attend state universities at no cost, saying otherwise only the "children of the rich" would learn. The current draft does not guarantee free higher education.
Afghan officials said the current draft reflects a moderate vision of Islam that is shared by most Afghans and will help the country's emergence into the modern world, but that some interest groups are trying to fuel Muslim concerns for their own political gain.
"The constitution says this is an Islamic country, but we must make sure we are talking about a modern Islam, one that is consistent with progress, with science, and with economic development," said Vice President Hedayat Amin Arsala in an interview in Kabul. "Some people want to use religion for political purposes, but constitutions cannot be made for groups or individuals. They are made for the entire nation."
Officials from the United Nations, which is supervising the loya jirga, said this week that the selection of voters and candidates has gone smoothly, despite fears of intimidation or abuse by ethnic militias or other groups. This week, delegates from all 32 provinces are selecting candidates by secret ballot. Separate special elections are being held for women, nomads, refugees and other minority groups, with a limited number of seats reserved for each.
In some rural provinces, though, few women have come forward as candidates and some have complained that officials discouraged them from participating. In Ghazni, the women's election had to be held twice, U.N. officials said, and in Paktika, a province with high poverty and illiteracy rates, only one woman candidate registered, so officials selected a second to fill the provincial quota.
On Tuesday, the sole female candidate to reach Gardez was Gulsum, 28, a health worker. She waited all day in the chilly classroom with her husband -- all women attending election events and the loya jirga itself must be escorted by a male relative, according to Afghan custom -- while the 600-plus male delegates mingled, chatted and ate lunch outside.
"In my district, none of the women knew anything about the loya jirga, including me, and none of us was given a chance to read the constitution," Gulsum said, huddled beneath a blanket but smiling gamely as she waited for the outcome of her district. "I want to serve my people and help other Afghan women participate in public life, because they have never had the chance before."
-------- africa
Liberia's Ex-Leader Is Put on Interpol's Most Wanted List
December 4, 2003
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/international/africa/04CND-TAYL.html
The international police organization Interpol issued a notice today for the arrest of the former president of Liberia, Charles G. Taylor, who has been indicted on war crimes charges by a special tribunal in Sierra Leone.
Interpol's "red notice" is not itself an arrest warrant. But it is based on the tribunal's indictment and takes the legal formality of such a request one step further because Interpol member countries can use the notice to decide whether it represents a valid request for a provisional arrest.
"The notice basically places someone on the world's most-wanted list," a spokeswoman for the tribunal, Allison Cooper, said by telephone from Freetown. "It is notice to the world's police that he is wanted for arrest in another country or jurisdiction."
The court, run jointly by the United Nations and the government of Sierra Leone, issued the indictment in March but unsealed it on June 4 after Mr. Taylor, bowing to pressure from the leaders of Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, announced that he would step down by the end of the year.
Mr. Taylor is charged with crimes against humanity in connection with accusations of his support for rebels in Sierra Leone. He was in Ghana at the time the indictment was made public and received asylum in Nigeria in August.
The Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has in the past rejected turning over Mr. Taylor to the tribunal in Sierra Leone, though he has said Mr. Taylor may respond to a summons from a legitimate court in Liberia, which at the moment has no functioning legal system.
Today, the Reuters news agency quoted a spokeswoman for the Nigerian president as saying Nigeria would not extradite Mr. Taylor on the war crimes charges.
"The president has said before that he will not be harassed about Taylor," the spokeswoman said. "The action that Nigeria will take will not lean toward handing over Taylor to Interpol. She added, We remain committed to keeping Taylor here on his own volition."
Some member countries treat red notices by Interpol as a request for information on the individual, while others use it to permit the wanted person to be arrested pending extradition formalities, according to an Interpol statement.
"We would hope it would increase the likelihood," Ms. Cooper said of the red notice. "But what will happen now depends on the Nigerian government and whether they will choose to enforce it."
"Nigeria is a signatory to the Interpol agreement," she continued. "The question has to go to the attorney general of Nigeria whether or not they want to act on it."
Mr. Taylor is the second serving national leader to be indicted on war crimes charges in the last decade. The first was Slobodan Milosevic, who was indicted by the tribunal in The Hague while he was president of Serbia.
Under a peace deal, Liberia has a transitional government. Its chairman, Gyude Bryant, has said he supports having Mr. Taylor face the Special Court for Sierra Leone. But he needs to muster support in the cabinet, which includes supporters of Mr. Taylor.
-------- asia
Ballistic Missile Launched in Kazakhstan
Fri Dec 5, 2003
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&ncid=732&e=10&u=/ap/20031205/ap_on_re_eu/russia_missile_test
MOSCOW - An intercontinental ballistic missile lifted off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday as part of a test to determine if it was still combat ready.
"The missile was launched to test whether all its parameters were in order and whether it was safe to use," the Russian Space Forces spokesman told The Associated Press.
The launch was carried out successfully. For test purposes, the missile did not carry warhead.
The RS-18 missile has a range of over 6,200 miles. It has been used since 1980 and was last tested a year ago.
----
Rumsfeld Discusses Tighter Military Ties With Azerbaijan
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 4, 2003; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33186-2003Dec3.html
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 3 -- Visiting this small, oil-producing country, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld expressed thanks Wednesday for its assistance in the war on terrorism and discussed deeper U.S. involvement, including help in intensifying Azeri patrols of the Caspian Sea and the possible use of Azeri bases for U.S. military operations.
The Pentagon leader dodged questions about October's disputed election of Azeri President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his ailing father, Heydar, amid evidence of voting irregularities cited by international observers and the U.S. State Department.
Greeting Aliyev at the start of a meeting in the presidential building, Rumsfeld congratulated him on the election victory. But asked at a news conference afterward about whether the vote met international standards for free and fair elections, he offered no opinion.
Instead, Rumsfeld focused on the growing strategic importance of Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic that has emerged as a key U.S. ally in a region between Iran and Russia that is of increasing concern to Pentagon authorities.
"The United States has a relationship with this country. We value it," Rumsfeld said, standing beside the Azeri defense minister, Col. Gen. Safar Abiyev. "And certainly we intend to continue that military-to-military relationship with the new administration."
In a speech last month, President Bush declared a U.S. commitment to the spread of democracy in the Middle East and the rest of the world, saying that the success of democratic government in Iraq would "send forth the news, from Damascus to Tehran, that freedom can be the future of every nation."
On quick visits to Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria on Tuesday and Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell voiced a similar message, calling on the countries to continue democratic reforms and respect human rights.
A predominantly Muslim nation of 8 million people, Azerbaijan was one of the first countries to offer the United States support after the Sept.11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to defense officials. It has allowed U.S. military planes to fly through its airspace for operations in Central Asia and the Middle East, and has sent small contingents of troops to serve in the U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In return, President Bush last year and again this year waived a ban on security assistance imposed on Azerbaijan a decade ago over a territorial dispute with Armenia. This has allowed about $3 million a year in military aid to flow to Baku to fund peacekeeping-training and education programs.
As a next step, Pentagon officials say they see Azerbaijan, which is on the west coast of the Caspian, enlarging its naval and reconnaissance forces to guard against trafficking in weapons and drugs and against potential transit by terrorists in the region.
The United States recently delivered a Coast Guard cutter to Azerbaijan as part of its assistance. Rumsfeld said that Air Force Gen. Charles F. Wald, the deputy commander of the U.S. European Command, was in Baku recently to discuss ways of broadening cooperation in maritime and other military missions.
Azerbaijan also factors significantly in Pentagon plans to shift away from the large, permanent facilities in Germany and other European countries, and instead rely on smaller, skeletal bases and other military arrangements, such as rights to use local bases temporarily, in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.
The subject came up in the talks here, but Rumsfeld said no specific proposals had been presented. Other defense officials said the possible options for Azerbaijan ranged from use of Azeri territory for occasional training of U.S. troops to the permanent stationing in the country of equipment and small numbers of American troops.
Abiyev said at the news conference that his country would be willing to consider any future U.S. proposal to base American troops in the country or allow access to bases for periodic use. He also said that he and Rumsfeld had discussed ensuring the security of a new oil pipeline across Azerbaijan to Turkey and the Black Sea that is due to start operating next year.
-------- business
LOCKHEED MARTIN DISPLAYS MISSILE DEFENSE RADAR
Thu, 04 Dec 2003
Middle East News Line
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2003/december/12_05_4.html
WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Lockheed Martin has unveiled its missile defense radar.
The U.S. company displayed the radar capabilities of the S-Band advanced radar [SBAR] for a delegation of U.S. Navy officials, legislators and international customers. The radar is meant to be installed on surface vessels and is meant to be a key element in the Aegis-based missile defense system.
Lockheed Martin already produces the SPY-1 phased array radar. The SPY-1 is the main sensor in the Aegis Weapon System, installed on 65 percent of the U.S. Navy's surface combatants, warships in Japan and Spain, and recently was selected for warships in Norway and Korea.
Executives said the SBAR is far superior to SPY-1 in terms of detection and range. The two elements have been regarded as key requirements in ballistic missile defense. A SBAR prototype was successfully demonstrated about six months ago.
----
Northrop Grumman Wins Billion Dollar Missile Defense Program
SpaceDaily
Dec 04, 2003
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/bmdo-03za.html
Los Angeles - The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) today awarded a Northrop Grumman and Raytheon team the Kinetic Energy Interceptors (KEI) contract, which is to provide the U.S. with the ability to destroy hostile missiles at their most vulnerable stage, the boost/ascent phase of flight.
Led by Northrop Grumman, the industry team will develop and test this critical boost phase element of the Agency's global layered missile defense system. The KEI contract is valued at more than $4 billion over eight years.
Ronald D. Sugar, Northrop Grumman's chairman, chief executive officer and president said, "We are proud of this contract win, which firmly establishes Northrop Grumman's position as a top-tier systems integrator for missile defense. We have assembled a team of the nation's leading missile defense companies who are committed to delivering a quality system on time, on budget and with mission success assured. KEI is critical to our country's overall defense and will also serve as a visible, deployable deterrent to those who would threaten us."
The award follows a $10 million, eight-month concept design effort during which two competing teams produced concepts for a KEI boost phase program. The Northrop Grumman/Raytheon team will now move forward with its design and begin managing the development and test phase, leading to planned deployment of this new land-based element in the 2010-2012 timeframe. KEI will complement the other boost, midcourse and terminal defense interceptor programs currently underway.
"The Northrop Grumman/Raytheon team's realistic approach will rely on existing, mature technologies to successfully deploy this portion of the Ballistic Missile Defense System," said Donald C. Winter, Northrop Grumman corporate vice president, Mission Systems sector president, and lead executive for missile defense. "The KEI program will provide a land-based capability that can be quickly and easily adapted to sea-based platforms."
"Raytheon is extremely honored to be part of the team that's been selected for this challenging and important program. Our KEI design involved the innovative use of proven systems, providing a new capability for the Missile Defense Agency with a minimum level of risk and cost," said Louise L. Francesconi, a Raytheon vice president and president of the company's Missile Systems business in Tucson, Ariz. "We look forward to working closely with our customers on the development and test phase and deploying this capability as quickly as possible."
KEI Design Northrop Grumman is leading the team and serving as systems integrator. Overall responsibilities include systems engineering, systems integration and test, command and control, battle management, communications, and launcher development. Raytheon is the principal subcontractor responsible for developing the kill vehicle, for integrating the interceptor and providing a significant portion of weapon system engineering.
The Northrop Grumman/Raytheon design includes a mobile land-based launcher built by Northrop Grumman and subcontractor SEI; a Raytheon-built interceptor that will be faster and more agile than any other interceptor to date; a HMMWV that will house the command and control battle management and communications system; and satellite receivers to process the signal that a hostile missile has been launched. The equipment is highly mobile and can be easily loaded onto a C-17 aircraft and transported worldwide.
Employment The program will be headquartered in Arlington, Va., with significant amounts of work performed at contractor sites throughout the country. These include Huntsville, Ala., Tucson, Ariz., Chandler, Ariz., Elkton, Md., St. Louis, Mo., Sunnyvale, Calif., and Naval Base Ventura County, Calif. The Northrop Grumman/Raytheon team will begin to increase its staff over the next several years, totaling 3000 employees across the entire team by 2007.
Key subcontractors to Northrop Grumman and Raytheon include Aerojet, Alliant Techsystems (ATK), Ball Aerospace, Booz Allen Hamilton, Davidson Technologies Inc., Information Extraction & Transport Inc., Orbital Sciences Corp. (Launch Systems Group), Oshkosh Truck Corp., Photon Research Associates Inc., Rockwell Collins, SAIC, Schafer Corp., SEI, and 3D Research Corporation.
----
Orbital Wins $400 Million In Missile Defense Contracts
SpaceDaily
Dec 04, 2003
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/bmdo-03zb.html
Dulles - Orbital Sciences Corporation reported Wednesday that it has been awarded a contract by a Northrop Grumman-led team to conduct booster vehicle design, development, test, and early-production for the Kinetic Energy Interceptors (KEI) missile defense program.
Raytheon Company will lead the team's interceptor-level system development, of which Orbital's booster vehicle is an integral part. Orbital's contract is valued at approximately $400 million from 2004 through 2010 and is projected to be staffed by approximately 300 Orbital employees during its peak activity period.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) today selected the Northrop Grumman-led team to be the prime contractor for the KEI program. The KEI program is intended to provide the United States with the ability to intercept and destroy hostile missiles during their boost and ascent phase, when the threat vehicle is most vulnerable.
The KEI program is moving forward as a critical element of MDA's multi-layered defense system. It is planned as a complementary system to the other boost- midcourse- and terminal- defense interceptor programs currently under development. It will provide a land-based capability that can be quickly and easily adapted to sea-based platforms.
Commenting on the KEI booster vehicle contract selection, Mr. David W. Thompson, Orbital's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, "Orbital is exceptionally proud to be a partner with Northrop Grumman and Raytheon on the KEI team. Together, we are advancing this national-priority program, which is at the forefront of the defense of our country."
"With the addition of the KEI boost vehicle program, Orbital's interceptor and target launch vehicles are now being used to help develop, test and deploy missile defense systems in each layer of MDA's architecture, including the boost, midcourse and terminal phases of the missile defense system," Mr. Thompson concluded.
The KEI program continues Orbital's rapid growth in the market for missile defense-related launch vehicle technology. Orbital is also the primary supplier of test and operational interceptor boosters for MDA's Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, which is scheduled to begin initial deployments in 2004.
Mr. Ronald J. Grabe, Orbital's Executive Vice President and General Manager of its Launch Systems Group, stated, "The KEI contract award is further recognition of Orbital's demonstrated expertise in booster vehicle design, development and production.
"Our work on the GMD program, together with the introduction of numerous new target vehicle configurations over the past several years, gives Orbital an unmatched level of recent and relevant missile experience that we bring to the KEI team."
Mr. Grabe added, "Orbital's long and distinguished track record of successful launches in support of missile defense programs is emblematic of our company's total commitment to mission success. With major roles on both the KEI and GMD boost vehicle programs, two of the country's highest priority missile defense initiatives, we have rededicated ourselves to total customer satisfaction and product reliability."
----
Makers of Body Armor Boost Production to Combat Shortage
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 4, 2003; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33185-2003Dec3.html
The Army's rush to overcome shortages of body armor and armored Humvees in Iraq is sparking a mini-boom for manufacturers of the equipment.
Body-armor manufacturers are increasing output to 25,000 vests a month from 3,300. An Ohio-based subsidiary of Armor Holdings Inc. -- the military's only maker of armored Humvees -- is ramping up to 24-hour production in an effort to turn out 220 vehicles a month within six months. It currently produces 80 a month.
The Army initially provided body armor only to infantry and combat troops. Now it wants to outfit everyone on the ground in Iraq.
In the past few months, Ceradyne Inc. of Costa Mesa, Calif., has spent $2 million to increase production of the ceramic plates used in vests to 14,000 a month from 9,000. Each vest contains at least two plates. The company has hired 120 workers and bought 16 new furnaces to fire the plates, said David P. Reed, vice president and general manager. The price of Ceradyne's common stock has soared 145 percent since June 2.
"We're investing for the long run," Reed said. "Body armor is here to stay for the military."
The Army has shifted hundreds of armored Humvees into Iraq and Afghanistan from other areas and has about 1,500 in those two countries. It aims to have 3,500 of the $150,000 armored vehicles there, though the time frame is uncertain, according to Army spokesmen.
"The evidence to date suggests that U.S. forces are not properly trained or equipped for guerrilla warfare on a long-term basis," said Loren B. Thompson, a defense industry analyst with the Lexington Institute. "That's illustrated not only by an absence of body armor and hardened vehicles but a shortage of people who can speak the local language."
Armor Holdings, which also provides armor for nonmilitary vehicles, has moved its commercial operations out of its main plant so all 140,000 square feet can be dedicated to armored Humvees. The company is bringing on 150 workers, a hiring drive that will expand its staff by nearly 50 percent. Armor hasn't operated at this pace since the military significantly accelerated orders during the war in the Balkans, said Robert F. Mecredy, president of the company's aerospace and defense group.
The company will probably produce 850 armored Humvees this year, an increase of 227 from last year, said Peter J. Barry, an analyst with investment bank Bear, Stearns & Co. Production is expected to grow to 2,265 in 2004. "It doesn't hurt that the pricing competition is negligible," Barry said.
Armor's common stock price is up about 82 percent since the beginning of June.
The military is also moving to add armor to traditional Humvees by tacking on lightweight interior insulation panels. The number of inquiries about the technology "has increased quite substantially" in recent months, said Brad Squires, chief technology officer of US Global Nanospace Inc., a Nevada company that developed the panels.
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Boeing Lags in Building Spy Satellites
December 4, 2003
By DOUGLAS JEHL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/business/04boeing.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - The Boeing Company is running more than a year behind schedule and billions of dollars over cost on a highly classified program to build the next generation of reconnaissance satellites, forcing the government to shift an estimated $4 billion from other spy programs, senior government officials said on Wednesday.
The Boeing project was initially set at about $6 billion, but the National Reconnaissance Office had to add substantially to that figure to address what auditors have described as large problems with the program, the officials said. Even so, the officials said, the reconnaissance office has had to scale back its expectations for the satellites' initial performance to well below what Boeing had promised.
Boeing is now under scrutiny for improprieties related to other Pentagon deals, including a $20 billion contract to provide aerial refueling tankers to the Air Force. The problems with the satellite program are not related to that deal, but Boeing's involvement in the spy satellite business is part of a broader effort by the company to increase its share of federal contracts, and the delays and cost overruns have become a further source of deep strain between the company and the government.
The fact that the satellite program is behind schedule and over budget has been well known within the intelligence community and the military industry, but the decision to shift large sums from other programs had not been reported. Still, the classified nature of the program has given Boeing a low profile in the matter; a report issued in September by the Pentagon's Defense Science Board portrayed the program as "significantly underfunded and technically flawed" but did not even mention Boeing by name.
But in interviews, senior government officials and private experts with detailed knowledge of the program said Boeing's poor performance on the contract had caused deep concern within the intelligence community about prospects for meeting a crucial need to put the new generation of spy satellites in place before the current group begins to deteriorate.
A spokesman for Boeing, Joseph Tedino, declined on Wednesday to comment in any detail on the company's involvement with the spy satellite project, citing its classified nature. "This program is not something we publicly comment on," Mr. Tedino said.
The reconnaissance office's decision in 1999 to grant the satellite contract to Boeing was itself a radical departure, in that Boeing's major competitor, now called Lockheed Martin, had always been the government's principal provider of reconnaissance satellites. The concept behind the planned new generation of satellites is also a departure, in that it is to rely on smaller, more numerous and cheaper satellites than the current group of about half a dozen large expensive satellites whose ability to cover the world is limited by their number.
Last July, Boeing was denied more than $1 billion in Pentagon orders after it was found in possession of proprietary documents from Lockheed Martin, but those documents were related to a 1998 competition to develop a rocket for military satellites rather than to the next-generation satellite program itself.
An audit of the Future Imagery Architecture project that was completed this summer by the Senate Intelligence Committee blamed both Boeing and the reconnaissance office for the project's problems, a Congressional official said. The official said that the flaws included "mismanagement and poor planning, along with a company entering an area they're not used to participating in, at a level of complexity they haven't been accustomed to."
In rare public remarks in September, when the report by the Defense Science Board, an independent advisory panel, was released, Peter B. Teets, the reconnaissance office's director, acknowledged that the spy satellite program, with Boeing as the principal contractor, had been "underfunded" and "underscoped." Still, Mr. Teets said, according to a transcript provided by the office on Wednesday, "This was a difficult situation, so it took some time, but we were able to bring to bear additional resources that I think have the F.I.A. program back on reasonable track now."
But other senior government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they thought there was still no more than a 50-50 chance that Boeing would meet its new scaled-back goal for launching the first of the new generation of satellites in 2006.
A similar view was voiced by several private experts on military technology, including John Pike of Globalsecurity.org in Alexandria, Va. "Boeing won the contract by proposing a price that was way below what the project will actually cost," Mr. Pike said. "I believe that more money has been added, but there is still some unease as to whether the true cost had been discerned."
A statement on Boeing's Web site describes the 1999 contract for the satellite program as representing "a key element of the N.R.O. space-based architecture" that "will provide the customer with a significant enhancement to America's critical intelligence capability over the next decade."
But by the time the Defense Science Board began its review in 2002, said A. Thomas Young, the panel's chairman, the panel identified "deficiencies which were quite extensive," recommended "massive" corrections and went so far as to question whether the program should be terminated. Ultimately, Mr. Young said in September, the program was judged too important to national security to be scrapped.
"Should the program continue or not?" Mr. Young said, addressing an issue that he said the panel had "wrestled a lot with." He spoke at a reporters' roundtable with Mr. Teets, according to the National Reconnaissance Office transcript. "Our belief was that it was critically important to the country, the program should be continued, could be corrected," he said. "The corrections would be massive, and we identified some of the things that we thought should be done in that regard."
The panel's report was drafted last May but not released until September, apparently to give the reconnaissance office time to respond to the criticism.
Lt. Gen. James Clapper, who heads the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, acknowledged at a breakfast with reporters in September that the government has had to lower its expectations for the next-generation satellite program.
-------- china
China's Military Warns Taiwan
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 4, 2003; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31525-2003Dec3.html
BEIJING, Dec. 3 -- China's military warned Taiwan that any decision to attack the island of 23 million would not be affected by concerns about China's economic development or that it might prompt a boycott of the 2008 Olympics.
A leading Chinese military strategist, writing in an influential magazine distributed here Wednesday, said also that China was not concerned that foreign investment might drop or that its development would be set back several years, its soldiers might die, its relations with third countries be affected or that people and property in the Asia-Pacific region would be damaged by a war.
"The Taiwan authorities say that because of the Olympics, we won't make a move," Maj. Gen. Peng Guangqian wrote in Outlook Weekly, published by the official New China News Agency. "But if you compare the Olympics and the sovereignty of our country's territory, sovereign territory will always take precedence. . . . The price for reunification will be paid if necessary. We're prepared, and we can pay it."
The military's warning is part of a coordinated campaign to counter recent steps by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian to push the island more rapidly along the road to permanent independence. Beijing has vowed to attack Taiwan if it declares independence.
While Taiwan has an independent government and army, for decades China and Taiwan have agreed that there is only one China. The disagreement was about which government, Beijing's or Taipei's, represented China.
But in recent months, Chen has vociferously rejected the "one China" principle, as it is called. And he had pushed the passage of a law to allow referendums to be called in Taiwan on such subjects as independence and mainland relations.
Last week, China warned Taiwan to expect a "strong reaction" if it adopted a referendum law without limits on what issues could be put to a vote, demanding in particular that referendums on the island's name, flag and the definition of its territory be prohibited.
A day later, Taiwan's parliament passed a law that would allow such referendums, but only under certain circumstances. Three-fourths of the legislature would need to approve a referendum to change Taiwan's constitution, and a majority would be needed to call a vote on a "major policy."
But, in a loophole currently being exploited by Chen, the law allows the president to call a "defensive" referendum on national security issues if Taiwan's sovereignty is threatened by outside forces. Until the Outlook article, it appeared that the restrictions would satisfy Beijing. But Chen has begun arguing in campaign speeches that he can call a "defensive" referendum at any time because Taiwan is under constant threat from China.
Chen's aides say the president will keep his promise not to propose a referendum on independence. But members of his party have suggested votes on whether China should dismantle its missiles or whether Beijing's proposed "one country, two systems" formula for reunification is suitable for Taiwan.
The United States, Taiwan's main diplomatic ally and arms supplier, also appears to be worried. "We would be opposed to any referenda that would change Taiwan's status or move toward independence," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Tuesday.
Taiwanese independence activists, including former president Lee Teng-hui, have argued that China would not dare attack Taiwan because it is worried about international reaction As a result, Lee has pushed for Taiwan to hold a referendum on its constitution in 2006 and declare independence in 2008 -- a program that Chen is believed to support.
In his article, Peng, who is a senior official in the strategy department of the Academy of Military Sciences, vowed an attack regardless of the costs. He said it was "schoolchildren's logic" to think that China's worries about staging the 2008 Olympics successfully would stop Beijing from invading Taiwan. "The Olympics are like adding flowers to a brocade, but if the brocade is ruined . . . what use is there adding any flowers?" he said.
"If the Taiwan splitists want to make a wager, if the international anti-China forces want to make a wager, then they inevitably will pay a heavy price," he added.
-------- iraq
U.S. Rejects Iraqi Plan to Hold Census by Summer
December 4, 2003
By JOEL BRINKLEY
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/international/middleeast/04CENS.html?hp
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 3 - Iraqi census officials devised a detailed plan to count the country's entire population next summer and prepare a voter roll that would open the way to national elections in September. But American officials say they rejected the idea, and the Iraqi Governing Council members say they never saw the plan to consider it.
The practicality of national elections is now the subject of intense debate among Iraqi and American officials, who are trying to move forward on a plan to give Iraqis sovereignty next summer. As the American occupation officials rejected the plan to compile a voter roll rapidly, they also argued to the Governing Council that the lack of a voter roll meant national elections were impractical.
The American plan for Iraqi sovereignty proposes instead a series of caucus-style, indirect elections.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric, is calling for national elections next June, not the indirect balloting specified in the American plan for turning over control of the country. But American officials, and some Iraqis say the nation is not ready for national elections, in part because the logistics are too daunting.
In October, Nuha Yousef, the census director, finished the plan for a quick census, which lays out the timetable in tabular form over several pages.
"After processing the data, the most important thing is the election roll, and that would be available Sept. 1," she said. Full results, she added, would come in December.
One American official acknowledged in an interview that American authorities had been aware of the quick census plan but rejected it.
Informed of the proposal this week, several members of the Governing Council who advocated a direct national ballot next June 30 said they were upset that they had not seen it. The Census Bureau said it had delivered the plan to the Governing Council on Nov. 1, but apparently it was lost in the bureaucracy.
"This could have changed things," said Dr. T. Hamid al-Bayati, a senior aide to Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Governing Council member who announced last week that Shiite religious leaders opposed the indirect elections. Perhaps, he and others suggested, some council members would have argued last month that the vote on self-government should be delayed until September when the voter roll became available.
Another council member who favors national elections said: "I am irate. There is no doubt the situation would be different now, if we had known about this."
Charles Healtly, a spokesman for the occupation authorities, said the Americans knew about the census proposal but decided against pursuing it.
"Rushing into a census in this time frame with the security environment that we have would not give the result that people want," he said. "A lot of preparation work needs to be done for elections, and there is concern not to rush the process."
Some Governing Council members say the Americans never told them about the census plan.
Some Iraqis have said they wonder why American officials called for caucus elections in June, in part because a census could not be completed in less than a year, while at the same time rejecting a plan to produce a census more quickly.
Louay Hagi, who oversees the Census Bureau in the Planning Ministry, said the proposal was not rushed. In an interview, he said his staff prepared a detailed timetable for a census that was stripped down from the 73 questions asked in the last census six years ago, to 12 basic demographic queries, enabling the work to be done much faster than the normal two-year time frame.
As it had in the past, the bureau would use 400,000 school teachers to visit every household in Iraq on one day, June 30, said Ms. Yousef, the census director. The plan would cost $75 million, Mr. Hagi said, in part to buy 2,500 computers.
"We sent the plan to the Governing Council on Nov. 1 and asked for an answer by Nov. 15," Mr. Hagi said. "We are still waiting for a response." He would not say to whom at the council the proposal was sent.
Adel Abdel Mahdi, who attends every Governing Council meeting on behalf of Mr. Hakim, the council member, said he had never heard about the census proposal and "was surprised" to learn of it.
A council member who does not favor elections, Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar, said, "This is bad," and continued: "You can't have something like this as a secret. It is not a weapon." But he said he did not think knowledge of the plan would have changed the debate last month.
As it turned out, on Nov. 15 the Governing Council announced it had agreed to the American plan for indirect elections to choose a "transitional assembly" in June, the first step in a progression to a new constitution and the election of a new Iraqi government by Dec. 31, 2005.
The debate now is over whether the selection of a transitional assembly next summer should be by caucus-style balloting or a direct national election. Although last week, Ayatollah Sistani declared that he would insist on a direct vote, his aides have since softened that view. In an interview, Mr. Bayati said Mr. Hakim, who is serving as president of the Governing Council this month, was "ready to compromise."
"We want a plan that will reflect the will of the Iraqi people," Mr. Bayati said, "and we could do that by using civic societies in every governorate - union leaders, judges, chiefs of tribes, religious figures and other well-known parties."
An American official said "that sounds essentially like what we have been proposing, but as always the devil is in the details," such as who would choose those people.
Last week the council established a nine-member committee to study the issue of how to choose the transitional assembly.
Mr. Hagi said the quick census was still possible, but that now the results might not be ready until the middle of September.
-------
Iraqi Political Parties Will Form Militia to Work With American Forces
December 4, 2003
By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/international/middleeast/04IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 3 - The American-led administration in Iraq has agreed with leaders of the country's top political parties to create a militia group made up of troops picked in equal numbers by the parties, party officials and members of the Iraqi Governing Council said Wednesday.
The militia's responsibilities will include the gathering of intelligence on guerrilla activities and possibly conducting house raids, the officials said. It will have 700 to 1,000 members, they said, and will be split into groups under the command or guidance of American soldiers.
"They will use this force for quick operations," said Nushirwan Mustafa, the deputy to Jalal Talabani, who represents the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan on the 25-member Governing Council. "Until now, there has been a vacuum of security. In June, sovereignty will be transferred from the Coalition Provisional Authority to an Iraqi government. They should start now to build some security groups to take responsibility and take over security in the country."
Mr. Mustafa's party would be one of seven contributing 100 soldiers each to the militia, he said. The seven parties are the ones recognized by allied forces as the major political groups opposed to Saddam Hussein's government around the time of the American-led invasion, he added. Besides Mr. Mustafa's party, they are the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Iraqi National Accord, the Iraqi National Congress, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Dawa Party and the Iraqi Communist Party.
Mr. Mustafa and officials of other parties said plans for the militia, details of which were first reported in The Washington Post on Wednesday, were still subject to change.
Dan Senor, an allied spokesman, declined to comment, saying that he would not talk about conversations between American officials and the Governing Council.
Iraqi political leaders from all factions have long argued that American soldiers were ill-equipped to gather intelligence on resistance fighters. The foreign administrators, though, were reluctant to form a large militia, the Iraqis said, mainly because of their distrust of the Iranian-trained Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. But the deteriorating security situation seems to have swung the opinion of the occupiers, Iraqi officials said.
The make-up of the militia has raised concerns among some Governing Council members. Ghazi Yawar, a council member who does not represent any political parties, said forming a militia of soldiers from different parties could lead to violent factionalism.
He added that the Governing Council was not consulted about this and that only council members representing the largest parties - ones that would contribute soldiers - took part in talks on the militia with Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior American commander in the Middle East.
"I am very outraged," he said. "How many people are running Iraq? I'm very upset. This can lead to warlords and civil war. Should I form my own militia? I can have 20,000 people or more here. But that is not what I want to do."
His understanding of the militia differed somewhat from Mr. Mustafa's. Mr. Yawar said only the five largest parties - rather than the seven largest - would contribute to the militia, with 160 to 200 people picked by each party. He said some of them had proposed replacing the council's Gurkha guards - elite Nepalese soldiers who serve with the British armed forces - with militiamen.
"I object," he said. "I want someone in a uniform."
Mr. Mustafa said the militia's soldiers would leave their party affiliations behind once they joined the new outfit. They would operate under the auspices of the Ministry of the Interior, he said, and be concentrated in the Baghdad area.
He added that the militia would serve as an interim force while the occupation authority trains the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, paramilitary troops that will be melded into a national army. What will happen to the militia after that is unclear, he said.
Military officials said on Wednesday that soldiers from the 173rd Airborne and Iraqi security forces had captured 23 people on Monday night believed to be paramilitary troops loyal to Saddam Hussein. The operation took place west of Tikrit, Mr. Hussein's hometown.
Though rumors swirled in Baghdad on Tuesday that the operation had found Izzat Ibrahim, a top aide to Mr. Hussein, military officials later said they had not captured Mr. Ibrahim.
Officials also said Wednesday that soldiers had detained Brig. Gen. Daham al-Mahemdi, who is suspected of directing attacks against allied forces in the town of Falluja.
Susan Sachs and Joel Brinkley in Baghdad contributed reporting for this article.
-------- nato
Bulgaria ready to negotiate about hosting EU bases, Parvanov says
04.12.2003
SOFIA (bnn)
http://www.bgnewsnet.com/story.asp?st=2078
Bulgaria is ready in principle to allow location of U.S. military bases on its territory but wants first to negotiate economic and defense aspects of such a move, President Georgi Parvanov said Thursday.
"Stationing of bases in Bulgaria is an issue that has to be concretely addressed, when our partners request to," Parvanov said. "Bulgaria has assumed and will continue to assume responsibilities to its partners from NATO."
"Whether these will be military practice grounds or bases and what will be the economic implications _ this is a matter of further discussions," he added.
Parvanov made his remarks at a joint news conference with Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who started a two-day visit to Bulgaria on Thursday.
Bulgaria is among seven east European countries that will join NATO next year.
U.S. naval attache in Bulgaria Capt. Christopher McDonald has said that an U.S. State and Defense Department delegation will come to Bulgaria next week for talks about permanent stationing of four squadrons of aircraft in the country.
U.S. military have earlier toured several Bulgarian air bases and army training grounds.
U.S. military have said Bulgaria has a strategic location for the defense of U.S. global interests after the Sept. 11 2001 attacks and the war in Iraq.
Bulgaria has temporarily contributed an airport for U.S. refueling aircraft engaged in U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
-------- spies
General: Israelis Exaggerated Iraq Threat
December 4, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Iraq-Intelligence.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli intelligence overplayed the threat posed by Iraq and reinforced the U.S. and British assessment that Saddam Hussein had large amounts of weapons of mass destruction, a retired Israeli general said Thursday.
The Israeli assessment may have been colored by politics, including a desire to see the Iraqi leader toppled, said Shlomo Brom, who was a senior Israeli military intelligence officer and is now a researcher with Israel's top strategic think tank.
Brom stopped short of accusing Israeli intelligence officials of intentionally misleading Britain and the United States.
His assertions could, however, undermine the reputation of the Israeli intelligence service, one of the most respected in the world.
The Israeli military declined comment, while other experts said Brom was exaggerating.
Although no weapons of mass destruction have been found, U.S. and British policy-makers are sticking by their contention that Saddam's regime possessed the weapons and threatened world peace. Public debate continues in both countries over the claims.
In an article in Strategic Assessment, a publication of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, Brom said weapons of mass destruction probably would not be found in significant quantities in Iraq.
He said Israeli intelligence overplayed the potential danger before the war. Based on intelligence warnings that a U.S.-led invasion could trigger an Iraqi missile attack on Israel, possibly with chemical or biological weapons, the Israeli military ordered citizens to update their gas mask kits. As the war began, the military told Israelis to prepare for an imminent attack and carry the masks with them everywhere.
Israelis largely ignored the order, and even Cabinet ministers were seen without the kits. In the end, Iraq did not fire missiles at Israel.
During the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam's forces fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel, and all had conventional warheads, causing considerable damage but few casualties.
Brom told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that ``Israeli intelligence was a full partner with the United States and Britain in developing a false picture of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction capability.''
He said Israeli intelligence ``badly overestimated the Iraqi threat to Israel and reinforced the American and British belief that the weapons existed.''
Brom said the Israeli assessment may have been influenced by politics. ``Israel has no reason to regret the outcome of the war in Iraq,'' he wrote, noting Saddam was an implacable enemy.
Brom ended his 25-year military career in 1998. Career officers in Israel traditionally maintain close ties with military colleagues after their retirement.
Yossi Sarid, an opposition member of parliament, demanded an inquiry. ``If political factors interfere with intelligence assessments, heaven help us. That is the greatest danger,'' he told Israel Radio, adding that Israel's credibility could suffer.
``When we present dire information about Iran's arming itself with nuclear weapons, who's going to take us seriously? They can say, 'You exaggerated about Iraq, too,''' Sarid said.
Others argued Brom overstated the case.
Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said there was a failure by all Western intelligence agencies in assessing the Iraq threat, but ``to say that Israel is the prime mover in this is extremely farfetched.''
Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat research center at Bar-Illan University near Tel Aviv, rejected Brom's findings and accused him of trying to bolster Israeli doves who believe the country faces no credible external threats.
``Intelligence has to warn of the worst-case scenario,'' Inbar said. He also questioned Brom's conclusion that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ``They haven't found Saddam, either, but does that mean there was no Saddam Hussein?''
Stuart A. Cohen, a top American intelligence analyst, wrote last month that with all the evidence the U.S. government possessed, ``no reasonable person could have ... reached any conclusions or alternative views that were profoundly different from those that we reached.''
-------- us
Body Armor Saves Lives in Iraq
Pentagon Criticized for Undersupply of Protective Vests
By Vernon Loeb and Theola Labbé
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 4, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33341-2003Dec3?language=printer
BAGHDAD -- Pfc. Gregory Stovall felt the explosion on his face. He was standing in the turret of a Humvee, manning a machine gun, when the roadside bomb went off. At the time, he was guarding a convoy of trucks making a mail run.
In an instant, Stovall's face was perforated by shrapnel, the index finger on his right hand was gone, and the middle finger was hanging by a tendon. But the 22-year-old from Brooklyn remembers instinctively reaching for his chest and stomach -- "to make sure everything was there," he said.
It was, encased in a Kevlar vest reinforced by boron carbide ceramic plates that are so hard they can stop AK-47 rounds traveling 2,750 feet per second.
Thus, on the morning of Nov. 4, Stovall became the latest in a long line of soldiers serving in Iraq to be saved by the U.S. military's new Interceptor body armor.
This high-tech "system" -- the Kevlar vest and "small-arms protective inserts," which the troops call SAPI plates -- is dramatically reducing the kind of torso injuries that have killed soldiers on the battlefield in wars past.
Soldiers will not patrol without the armor -- if they can get it. But as of now, there is not enough to go around. Going into the war in Iraq, the Army decided to outfit only dismounted combat soldiers with the plated vests, which cost about $1,500 each. But when Iraqi insurgents began ambushing convoys and killing clerks as well as combat troops, controversy erupted.
Last month, Rep. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio) and 102 other House members wrote to Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, to demand hearings on why the Pentagon had been unable to provide all U.S. service members in Iraq with the latest body armor. In the letter, the lawmakers cited reports that soldiers' parents had been purchasing body armor with ceramic plates and sending it to their children in Iraq.
The demand came after Gen. John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command and commander of all military forces in Iraq, told a House Appropriations subcommittee in September that he could not "answer for the record why we started this war with protective vests that were in short supply."
With the armor, "it's the difference between being hit with a fist or with a knife," said Ben Gonzalez, chief of the emergency room at the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, the largest U.S. Army hospital in the country, which treats the majority of wounded soldiers.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, began investigating the Army's decision not to equip all troops deploying to Iraq with Interceptor body armor after learning that one of his students, reservist Richard Murphy, was in the country with a Vietnam-era flak jacket.
"There's been an overwhelming effort to get the military every possible resource," Turley said. "To have such an item denied to troops in Iraq was a terrible oversight." Since he began publicizing the lack of body armor, Turley said, he has been deluged with e-mails from people offering to donate body armor to U.S. troops.
Joe Werfelman, the father of Turley's student, said he was dismayed to learn that his son had been sent to Iraq in May without ceramic plates. "He called us frantically three or four times on this," Werfelman said in an interview. "We said, 'If the Army is not going to protect him, we've got to do it.' "
So Werfelman, of Scotia, Pa., found a New Jersey company that had the ceramic plates in stock, plunked down $660 for two plates and a carrying case, and sent them to his son. "As far as I know, he's still using the ones that we got him," he said. "Some units have the new plates and some units don't."
At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Nov. 19, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the committee's chairman, told acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee that the shortage of body armor in Iraq was "totally unacceptable."
"Now, where was the error -- and I say it's an error made in planning -- to send those troops to forward-deployed regions, and the conflict in Iraq, without adequate numbers of body armor?" Warner asked.
"Events since the end of major combat operations in Iraq have differed from our expectations and have combined to cause problems," Brownlee said.
Before approving the administration's $87 billion supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress added hundreds of millions of dollars for more body armor, armored Humvees, and other systems to protect soldiers from roadside bombs and ambushes.
Now, three manufacturers are working overtime to produce the 80,000 vests and 160,000 plates required to outfit everyone in Iraq by the end of the year. Assembly lines are producing 25,000 sets a month.
Commanders say the vests are changing the way soldiers think and act in combat. "I will tell you that the soldiers -- to include this one -- experience some degree of feeling a little indestructible, particularly in light of the fact that we have seen the equipment work," said Lt. Col. Henry Arnold, a battalion commander and combat veteran in the 101st Airborne Division in northern Iraq.
"It's a security blanket," Stovall said from his hospital bed, awaiting a medevac flight to Germany with his hand bandaged. "If only they had a glove, I might have my finger, but I'm thankful that I'm here."
The product of a five-year military research effort aimed at reducing the weight and cost of the plates while increasing their strength, the body armor made its combat debut last year in Afghanistan and was credited with saving more than a dozen lives during Operation Anaconda.
The camouflage Kevlar vest, which alone can stop rounds from a 9mm handgun, weighs 8.4 pounds, while each of the plates weighs 4 pounds. At 16.4 pounds, Interceptor body armor is a third lighter than the 25-pound flak jacket from the Vietnam era, but it provides far more protection.
Consider the case of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division.
During a foot patrol in Fallujah in late September, an Iraqi insurgent suddenly emerged from an alleyway and fired an AK-47 at Spec. John Fox from point-blank range. Fox was hit in the stomach as he returned fire, and the blast knocked him off his feet. The bullet hit the middle of three ammunition magazines hanging from the front of his Kevlar vest, igniting tracer rounds and setting off a smoke grenade. A thick gray plume poured from his vest where he lay.
His squad mates, having shot and killed the gunman, rushed to his side. "Am I bleeding? Am I bleeding?" they recalled Fox asking.
They checked and discovered he was unharmed. His body armor had protected him not only from the AK-47 round but also from his own exploding munitions.
"Fox must have been only 10, 15 meters from this guy," recalled Sgt. Roger Vasquez. "And this thing stopped the bullet."
A month later, two of those who had rushed to Fox's side, Spec. Sean Bargmann and Spec. Joseph Rodriguez, were on a mounted patrol in Fallujah, sitting atop a Humvee, when a powerful roadside bomb exploded just feet away.
"It felt like somebody took a Louisville Slugger to my head," Bargmann said.
Weeks after the attack, he and Rodriguez still bore the outlines of their armor: The tops of their heads, protected by their Kevlar helmets, and their torsos, protected by their body armor, were unscathed. But Bargmann had a deep cut right below the helmet line, and Rodriguez had three scars running down his right cheek and a scar above his left eye.
This often happens with body armor: Lives are saved, but faces, arms and legs are punctured and scarred. Doctors are treating serious wounds to the extremities that are creating large numbers of amputees -- soldiers who in earlier wars never would have made it off the battlefield.
Gonzalez, the doctor at the 28th Combat Support Hospital, is not complaining about the number of amputations. "The survival rate has increased significantly," he said. "In the past, you'd see head and chest and abdominal injuries. They would die even before they got to me."
Sgt. Gary Frisbee of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment remembers standing in the turret of a Humvee waiting to die. His vehicle was bringing up the rear during a routine three-vehicle patrol in Sadr City, Baghdad's vast Shiite slum, when hundreds of armed followers of the Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr opened fire on them with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades.
"I knew it was all over; it was just a matter of when," he recalled. "You're bracing yourself, because you're just waiting for the bullet to hit you. The volume of AK fire was unreal, from the roofs, in front of you, and behind you."
Two of 10 soldiers on the patrol were killed; four were wounded.
During the battle, Frisbee felt something hit the back of his Kevlar vest but kept on fighting. When the smoke finally cleared, he pulled out the back plate to see what had happened and found a bullet hole.
It had been, as he had thought, just a matter of time. He had been hit -- and saved by boron carbide.
-------- propaganda wars
Air Force One: A New Account
December 4, 2003
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/politics/04PLAN.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - The White House on Wednesday changed its account of a widely reported encounter between Air Force One and a British Airways jetliner during President Bush's secret trip to Baghdad last week.
Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, told reporters on the trip that the British Airways pilot had spotted the president's distinctive 747 in the air and radioed its pilot. But on Wednesday, Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said the conversation was between the British Airways pilot and the London control tower and had been overheard on Air Force One.
In Mr. Bartlett's original version, the British Airways pilot had radioed the president's plane, asking, "Did I just see Air Force One?" Mr. Bartlett said Air Force One's pilot radioed back, "Gulfstream Five," a smaller jet that would be all but impossible to mistake for a 747. After a longer pause, the British Airways pilot responded, "Oh."
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The Bird Was Perfect But Not For Dinner
In Iraq Picture, Bush Is Holding the Centerpiece
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 4, 2003; Page A33
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33090-2003Dec3.html
President Bush's Baghdad turkey was for looking, not for eating.
In the most widely published image from his Thanksgiving day trip to Baghdad, the beaming president is wearing an Army workout jacket and surrounded by soldiers as he cradles a huge platter laden with a golden-brown turkey.
The bird is so perfect it looks as if it came from a food magazine, with bunches of grapes and other trimmings completing a Norman Rockwell image that evokes bounty and security in one of the most dangerous parts of the world.
But as a small sign of the many ways the White House maximized the impact of the 21/2-hour stop at the Baghdad airport, administration officials said yesterday that Bush picked up a decoration, not a serving plate.
Officials said they did not know the turkey would be there or that Bush would pick it up. A contractor had roasted and primped the turkey to adorn the buffet line, while the 600 soldiers were served from cafeteria-style steam trays, the officials said. They said the bird was not placed there in anticipation of Bush's stealthy visit, and military sources said a trophy turkey is a standard feature of holiday chow lines.
The scene, which lasted just a few seconds, was not visible to a reporter who was there but was recorded by a pool photographer and described by officials yesterday in response to questions raised in Washington.
Bush's standing rose in a poll conducted immediately after the trip. Administration officials said the presidential stop provided a morale boost that troops in Iraq are still talking about, and helped reassure Iraqis about U.S. intentions.
Nevertheless, the foray has opened new credibility questions for a White House that has dealt with issues as small as who placed the "Mission Accomplished" banner aboard the aircraft carrier Bush used to proclaim the end of major combat operations in Iraq, and as major as assertions about Saddam Hussein's arsenal of unconventional weapons and his ability to threaten the United States.
The White House has updated its account of an airborne conversation in which a British Airways pilot wondered into his radio if he had jus